Haymarket Riot of 1886

Striking America

By Richard E. Noble

What happened in Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886 and the eighteen month controversy that followed, should be as commonly known to the general American public as the witch trials in Salem and the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s.
August Spies, Albert Parsons, Sam Fielden, Adolf Fischer, George Engel, Michael Schwab, Louis Lingg, and Oscar Neebe were all arrested and charged with murder. The prosecution charged them with being involved in a conspiracy to incite a riot which culminated in the death of seven policemen and several citizens. On November 11, 1887 Spies, Engel, Fischer and Parsons were hung. Governor Oglesby had commuted the sentences of Schwab and Fielden to life imprisonment via their personal request and public apology. Those who were executed said that they were innocent of all charges and would not accept less than liberty and exoneration. Louis Lingg committed suicide. Oscar Neebe was given fifteen years. The men were all found guilty, based not on any direct evidence but on previous writings and public statements and comments. In effect, seven men were sentenced to death for speaking and writing their opinions and ideas in and unpleasant and admittedly aggressive and belligerent manner. They were avowed and admitted anarchists. An anarchist believed in the organized overthrow of what they considered to be a “classist” society and world. Like our Revolutionary forefathers before them, they did not eliminate violence as one of the possible tools which could be used in this theoretical revolution.
It has been accepted and confirmed in all the history books that I have read thus far, that the trial of these men was a farce. It was totally corrupted and illegal. The jury was hand picked, summoned by a special bailiff instead of by random selection. Witnesses for the prosecution were bribed, bought or willingly lied under oath. Witnesses for the defense were intimidated, threatened, offered bribes, even kidnapped and hidden away until the completion of the trial. Police officers falsified their testimony. Only three of the defendants could even be proved to have been at the assembly. Furthermore, the riot was not a riot until 180 trained, riot squad, armed policemen disobeyed direct orders from the mayor and proceeded to inflame and incite the crowd.
Chicago had been a “hot” town for labor riots and social discontent for over a decade. Before the Haymarket Square Riot at the McCormick Harvester Company, there had been a lockout. McCormick had called in the police, brought in Pinks (Pinkertons), hired scabs, strike breakers and agitators.
Discharged workers and locked out union members gathered outside of the plant a few days later for a protest rally. Mr. McCormick decided to call the local police under Captain John Bonfield, a substantiated and demonstrated violent union opponent, to come out and supervise the affair. At the same time McCormick decided to close down his plant for the afternoon, and announce a new, shorter, eight hour day to his recently hired scab employees. The men outside were fired and replaced by these scabs because they had petitioned Mister McCormick for just such an eight hour day a few days before. When the scabs, the pinks, and McCormick’s hired thugs exited the gates to the plant, violence erupted. A half dozen, unarmed strikers were killed and several others were injured and maimed in the melee. It is interesting to note that Mr. McCormick was not arrested at this point for being a part of a conspiracy to incite a riot which ended in the death of several human beings - which was the traditional practice for union leaders involved in similar social disasters.
In response to this provocation and slaughter, the union wrote up and dispensed pamphlets calling for another rally - this time at Haymarket Square. Its members were advised to come prepared for violence.
Mayor Carter H. Harrison attended the meeting to monitor any problems. Later that evening as rain began to fall, and anticipating no trouble, he left. At the trial, he subsequently testified that everything was peaceful. Even the radical speakers he felt to be non-threatening - their speeches “tame.” The speakers were concerned with union recruitment, and potential future benefits. No one was being encouraged to riot or engage in violence. He stopped by the police station and told Captain Bonfield to dismiss the riot squad, no action was necessary. Bonfield disregarded the mayor’s orders and sent 180 riot squad policemen over to the area with orders to dismiss the crowd of trouble makers.
The relatively small crowd was already dissipating due to the weather and the late hour. The riot squad proceeded to the speaker’s podium and began their unwarranted, unnecessary and un-called for dismissing tactics when a bomb was exploded within their ranks. A Sergeant M. J. Degan was killed instantly, and six other officers were seriously injured and died later in the hospital. The Union was, of course, blamed for this act of individual violence - even though it was well known that management had a long record of sabotage, violence, and even tossing bombs. Management violence, since substantiated historically, was a common tool used to discredit and turn public opinion against union activism. But, in this instance, though unproved, and unsubstantiated, the Union was advanced as the culprit. None of the indicted defendants could be traced to the bombing. The actual bomber was never discovered. The trial garnered publicity from all over the country and around the world. America was divided. Teddy Roosevelt expressed in a personal letter that he wished that he and some of his boys with their rifles could get to these radical troublemakers. Samuel Gompers, not a supporter of union violence, condemned the strike but asked for the release of the accused. All over the world advocates for both sides were speaking out on the controversy.
No one doubted that a meeting had taken place. But the right to engage in lawful assembly was guaranteed by the Constitution, as the right of a free people. No one doubted that a bomb had been thrown. No one doubted that seven policemen were now dead because of it. But a good many doubted that the men currently under indictment were responsible. Nearly everyone who knew the facts agreed that there was no evidence to convict these particular men of any crime. Any nut cake could have thrown the bomb, non union or pro-union; management, strike breaker, hired thug or Pinkerton. But the business community and an outraged general public wanted somebody hung. They wanted somebody hung as an example that this type of behavior could not be condoned in the United States of America. This was not Mother Russia, violent land of the Czars. This was not Paris or Berlin. This was America, the land of opportunity, the nation of immigrants. This was the land of the free and the home of the brave. This was the country that people escaped to, not escaped from. The German, Polish, ungrateful, new-comer, immigrant bomb-throwing radicals needed to be taught a lesson. Not here ... not in this country could such behavior be tolerated.
The convicted men were inspirational and courageous at their trial and the subsequent hanging. Spies gave a speech at the trial that would have made Patrick Henry, Tom Paine and John Adams sit up and take notice. In it, he invoked the spirits of Socrates, Jesus Christ, Giordano Bruno, Huss and Galileo. He quoted Venetian Doge Faberi ... “My defense is your accusation; the cause of my alleged crime your history.”* He condemned the State’s contemplated murder of eight men whose only crime had been to speak the truth. He named names; he accused his accusers. He exposed their lies, their bribes and their misrepresentations.
Albert Parsons had initially escaped, but nevertheless turned himself in, knowing that he would be murdered, or executed. He did so because he would not let his courageous and falsely accused friends stand alone. Oscar Neebe, who was only sentenced to fifteen years, requested the court to hang him also. He would rather be a dead martyr than an innocent man condemned to prison. Fischer said; “I was tried in this room for murder and convicted of anarchy ... this verdict is a death-blow against free speech, free press and free thought ...”*
A new petition for clemency was brought to Governor John Peter Altgeld in 1893. On June 26, 1893 Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab were given an absolute pardon. The Governor explained his reasons in writing.
He stated that the jury had been selected inappropriately. Instead of the names being drawn from a hat, across class structures, a special bailiff had been appointed, Henry L. Ryce. Mister Ryce had stated his prejudices against the defendants openly. Ryce boasted that these men would be hung. Otis S. Favor, a potential juror and friend to Mister Ryce, filed a voluntary, unsolicited affidavit stating the truth and fact of Mister Ryce’s unabashed and vocal prejudices against the defendants. Ryce had told potential jurors that it was his intention to provide a continuous supply of prejudiced jurors to use up the defense’s challenges and guarantee a panel of jurors prone to convict. The defence appealed to the court when they realized that all the potential jurors were hand picked for their prejudice and non-labor status in the community. The judge denied the appeal. The jurors own answers to pretrial questioning provided witness to the fact that they were incompetent due to their personal prejudice.
Next, Governor Altgeld pointed out that the defendants had not been proven guilty of the crime charged in the indictment. They had been charged with the murder of patrolman Mathias Degan. Many of the defendants were not even present at the scene of the murder. No evidence was brought against the defendants proving any involvement in the crime. The defendants were convicted on their previous published anarchist’s literature. In some of this literature revolution and or violence was approved or advocated. Governor Altgeld further stated that if violence was the cause of Patrolman Degan’s death it was the uncalled for violence of Captain Bonfield who had his men attack a group of peaceful citizens who had assembled in a vacant lot to discuss their options. Captain Bonfield attacked this group on May 1. The union men not only dispersed as requested; they began running for their lives. Bonfield’s men shot a number of these men in the back as they ran. Four were killed and several were injured. If men could be convicted of murder for writing about violence, certainly men who created violence and openly precipitated hatred and revenge in the hearts of the innocent, could be convicted with much greater justification.
Captain Ebersold, Chicago chief of police at the time of the Haymarket Riot, further condemned the actions of others in the police establishment of inciting the riot and seeking to cause more and additional trouble even after the bomb had been thrown on the fourth of May. A Captain Schaak, Ebersold claimed, wanted to plant more bombs and stimulate more violence. His motivation being notoriety, personal ambition and fame.
Neebe, said Altgeld, shouldn’t even have been put in jail in the first place. Even the prosecution admitted, at the trial and in front of the jury, that they had insufficient evidence to convict Neebe. And on top of all of this, said Altgeld, the judge himself, was prejudiced. He allowed inadmissible evidence and testimony for the prosecution while denying necessary and pertinent information from the defense. Even the judge’s remarks were picked up on by the prosecution and used to sway the jury.*
The story of these men is a story of heroic proportions. In a time of flagrant social, injustice, they stood up with their lives. These men were true American heroes fighting for the rights and the dignity of their fellow men within the American structure. These are the men that have earned their fellow working men much of what every working man thinks, today, to be his birthright. The hanging of these men stands as a dishonor to our system. Of course, it was not the first such dishonor, and it would not be the last.*

* “The Annals of America, Vol. 11, page 117, August Spies: Address at the Haymarket Trial.
* “The Rise of Industrial America”, Page Smith.
*The Annals of America Vol. 11, pp. 438-444. John Peter Altgeld: Reasons for Pardoning the Haymarket Rioters.
*Works used in this essay include; “Roughneck”, Peter Carlson; “The History of American Labor”, Joseph G. Rayback; “The Annals of America Vol.11, 1884-1894; “Recent American History”, Lester Shippee; “The Rise Of Industrial America”, Page Smith.

Locked In the Cabinet

"Locked in the Cabinet"

By Robert B. Reich

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

For those of you who may not be into politics Robert Reich was the Secretary of Labor in the first Clinton administration. This book is written in the "Dear Diary" type of format - which is not my favorite style. But nevertheless I really enjoyed reading it.
Mr. Reich is considered Liberal or Left and I would say after reading this book that the assumption is correct. I suppose that fact automatically stops a good many readers from going forward with a book of this type. But this book is a good deal more than a political exercise; it's a story - and it is very well thought and composed. I could visualize this book as a movie - an update on Jimmy Stuart and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
"Locked in the Cabinet" is real, personal, family, exciting, funny, lovable and though I hate to use the term ... cute. Whether you are Right or Left I think if you read this book, you would agree that Mr. Reich in a man who has his heart and his priorities in the appropriate positions.
Mr. Reich is a family man and a "dad" and all through the book the reader gets that message loud and clear. Finally in the last chapter after Mr. Clinton gets re-elected, Mr. Reich reluctantly turns in his resignation on the grounds that his family needs him more than the U.S. Government. His kids are growing; his wife isn't really interested in politics and he has already missed some very important growing up years with his two boys who are now both teenagers; one at the edge of puberty and the other now tumbling on the borders of manhood. The youngest is now twelve and the oldest is 16.
I agree with his decision - the country will always be there floundering along and no matter how important to the cause we each think that we are there will be another who thinks he is just as necessary right behind us. I am not a believer in the "one man can save the world" theory - though certainly one man in the right position can do a lot of damage. This has been proven time and again throughout history. What takes a thousand years to build and a billion efforts by a zillion people can all be destroyed by one man put in the wrong place.
Mr. Reich's two boys are very lucky to have a dad like him.
Without getting into all the boring details, I was surprised to find out that I do not agree with some of what Mr. Reich has to say on the politics of the management/labor dispute. My disagreements are not with the principles of Mr. Reich philosophy but in some of the methodology. Much of what Mr. Reich has to say is certainly reasonable and logical but I am pragmatist enough to know that it just ain't going to happen. But nevertheless Mr. Reich has a slew of great ideas that are possible and that I had never thought about. So that was good.
Mr. Reich has a beautiful simplicity about what he has to say and what he suggests. You don't have to be Albert Einstein to understand what he is suggesting or where he is coming from. He is an excellent spokesman for his side of the story. And he breaks the issues down so that the reader can clearly distinguish one choice from the other. He makes the issues clear.
If you are a Political buff you will find all types of insider personality profiles. He is very outspoken and blunt. He doesn't seem to be the least bit afraid of making enemies - he might be naive but he has been around long enough that we all know that he should know better. But then he says it anyway.
What I really liked about this book is that it is not just politics - it is a literary effort also. It is a story; it's a novel; it has a beginning, a middle and an end. It's good. It's easy reading. It is insightful, thoughtful and emotional.
There is nothing that is said or explained in the book that I felt was "over my head". Mr. Reich talks to me and you in this book as if we are his old buddies and we are sitting right there in his living room. One of us has asked after popping open a beer; Well, Bobby, what really happened while you were up there in Washington anyway? And our old buddy Bobby tells us the whole story just as if none of the people he tells us about are ever going to know what he said. It is kind of funny. I've read a lot of political books and there arn't many like this one.
Another interesting point to me is that Mr. Reich has such a battle accomplishing what I understand to be very little and yet he is not frustrated or ready to plant bombs in the White House. Of course he is used to doing things in a "little" way. He actually enjoyed the challenge and it seems would be willing to return for another beating tomorrow. He is kind of like a miniature version of Rocky. "Dahh Clare! Clare!" I can hear him screaming to his wife back home in Cambridge, Mass, as he titters on the ropes of the Washington political prize fight area - his face all bloody and both eyes swollen. He has the right attitude to be one of "them". I think he could do another good job up there. I hope to see him at it once again now that his kids are older and probably off on there own. Good luck President Robert B. Reich. Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. How about Secretary of State Robert B. Reich or Vice President ... whatever.

Wash Your Hands

The Eastpointer

Wash Your Hands

By Richard E. Noble

I had been in the restaurant business or been working in some type of food service for most of my life. I have been involved in food from the field to the dining room table; I picked it, I packed it, I processed it, I delivered it, I prepared it, I cooked it, I served it, I sold it - you name it, I did it. But here I was at the Florida Food Service Health and Sanitation Training Program. The State of Florida and several other like-minded States had come to the conclusion that a restaurant was not a healthy place to eat - primarily because of people like me and many others who worked in these unhealthy establishments. Not necessarily because we were dirty, unwholesome, slovenly, derelict, illegal, diseased, unhealthy or had been living under a bridge or sleeping in someone’s hedges, but because we were lacking in food handling knowledge. I for one considered this to be a definite step in the proper direction.
There was a very nice man conducting the lecture. He looked normal. He spoke ... normal. He seemed like the kind of a person that you might have living right next door. He was dressed nicely. He was wearing a tie and a suit jacket. He spoke well and had lots of funny little stories about the restaurant business and preparing and eating food. But it soon became obvious that he considered a restaurant equivalent to a toxic dumpsite. By the time that this man had finished his lecture I realized that operating “a healthy” restaurant was an impossibility.
Raw Chicken, for example, should really not be touched. If you must touch it, it should be boiled first. If for some insane reason, you touched a piece of raw chicken before you boiled it, unfortunately, you must now be boiled. If you do not boil yourself within a reasonable time after touching a piece of raw chicken, you will probably die. Even worse than that, you may be the cause of some innocent person’s death - possibly even a small child or a dog or a cat.
Hamburger? Hamburger is a very scary material. How and why people ever started using hamburger as a food product is a study for historians and anthropologists. Hamburger needs its own building. If you make a hamburger patty and then touch a piece of raw chicken, you could spontaneous combust. The man showed a slide program of people who instantly exploded while standing in front of a twenty thousand dollar stainless steel sink.
Any utensils that are used in processing any raw meat product must be destroyed after using or sent to Nevada to be buried miles under the ground. And the people living in Nevada must never be told that these utensils are buried in their state otherwise it could cause a panic.
Any and all raw meat products are extremely dangerous but cooked meat products aren’t much better. Chicken salad, tuna salad, shrimp salad etc. should be eaten simultaneously with their preparation - or sooner. If you must let a shrimp salad or chicken salad sit in a refrigerator before serving - it should be blast frozen first.
Mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and other condiments are perfectly safe as long as they are kept in hermetically sealed unopened containers or air tight packaging. If for any reason you must open any of these type containers or packages they should be immediately discarded - or buried in Nevada. Once again, please don’t tell any of the people in Nevada about any of this stuff.
Heating things in a restaurant is extremely problematic. Anything heated by an open flame or by convection or convention should reach an internal temperature of 642 degrees Fahrenheit or higher and then should be thrown away before serving.
If you must “hold” something that has been heated for any length of time you should wear heavy Teflon gloves or have an assistant do it – preferably an illegal immigrant.
You should have no unhealthy people working in your restaurant - that includes hunchbacks, midgets, and the cross-eyed.
If you would like to know more about the do’s and don’ts of the restaurant business, you can get a free 9,253 page booklet from the Department of Agriculture and Consumer services. If you live in Florida ask for Jerry. If you live anywhere else in the United States ask for Bob - if Bob isn’t there ask for Evon.
After the instruction course ended, I had to go to the men’s room - the instructor had the same problem and was at the bathroom door just ahead of me.
He took a clean handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wrapped it around the bathroom doorknob. Upon entering the facility he went over to the sink turned on the hot water and washed his hands. He closed the lever that operated the water at the sink with his elbow. After stepping up to a urinal and doing his business he returned to the sink once again and repeated the original procedure. He pressed the button on the hand dryer with his elbow, then once again opened the door with his handkerchief and exited the bathroom.
After listening to this man for three hours and watching his men’s room procedure, I had one thought that wouldn’t go away; how did this man have sex?
Wow, being privy to a visual of that would be a real study in modern day sanitation and human ingenuity. I can only imagine – but I will try not to.

Richard E. Noble is a Freelance Writer and has been a resident of Eastpoint for around thirty years. He has authored two books: “A Summer with Charlie” which is currently listed on Amazon.com and “Hobo-ing America” which should be listed on Amazon in the not too distant future. Most recently he completed his first novel “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother” which will be published soon.

The Economics of Innocent Fraud

By John Kenneth Galbraith

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

In the introduction to this book Mr. Galbraith attempts to explain the title Innocent Fraud.
"What prevails in real life is not the reality but the current fashion and the pecuniary interest ..." The innocent fraud is the public acceptance of "conventional wisdom."
"When capitalism, the historic reference, ceased to be acceptable, the system was renamed. The new term was benign but without meaning."
The new phrase to replace the word capitalism was "the Market System." This is the first example of innocent fraud.
Mr. Galbraith explains that the word capitalism had been sullied. The communist and the socialist had given the term a negative implication. By their definition the term capitalism meant "price, cost exploitation." The word had also been defamed by the people who were famous for being capitalist - like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Duke, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Gould, Fisk etc. Then the "Merchants of Death" exposure and scandal after World War I added more insult to the injury. This was followed by the Great Depression which many interpreted as the total failure of capitalism.
The powers-that-be tried to replace the negative term capitalism with "Free Enterprise" and "Social Democracy" but neither filled the bill. Finally, according to Professor Galbraith the meaningless and benign phrase, The Market System, came into vogue. Markets, the author explains, are not peculiar to a capitalist system. Markets have been around since coinage came into existence supposedly in Lydia in the eighth century B.C. and have been integral to every type of economic system since - including communism and socialism.
The fraud with regards to this terminology is the implication that no individual or capitalist or company is possessive of power in the Market System - the amorphous Market System rules.
Mr. Galbraith suggests that "the Corporate System" would be a truer and more accurate explanation of the prevailing economic system in the U.S. today.
The second fraud is the notion that the Market System is governed by consumer demand. "Belief in a market economy in which the consumer is sovereign is one of our most pervasive forms of fraud." Galbraith suggests that consumer demand is more managed and contrived than independent.
Gross Domestic product is the next fraud. "The more than minimal fraud is in measuring social progress all but exclusively by the volume of producer-influenced production, the increase in the GDP ... Good performance is measured by the production of material objects and services. Not education or literature or the arts but the production of automobiles, including SUVs: Here is the modern measure of economic and therewith social achievement."
Work is next on the fraud hit list. "The word work embraces equally those for whom it is exhausting, boring, disagreeable and those for whom it is a clear pleasure with no sense of the obligatory ... Those who most enjoy work - and this should be emphasized - are all but universally the best paid. Those who least need compensation for their effort, could best survive without it, are paid the most ... While idleness is good for the leisure class in the United States and all advanced countries, it is commonly condemned for the poor."
The next fraud challenges the notion that the term bureaucracy applies to government solely and that shareholders and founders or owners are the ultimate authority ruling corporations. "No one should be in doubt: Shareholders - owners - and their alleged directors in any sizable enterprise are fully subordinate to the management. Though the impression of owner authority is offered, it does not, in fact, exist. An accepted fraud ... Reference to corporate management compensation as something set by stockholders or their directors is a bogus article of faith - compensation (is) set by management for itself." And the author points out that management's compensation to itself "can be munificent."
"Corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards that can verge on larceny. This is wholly evident. On frequent recent occasions, it has been referred to as the corporate scandal."
The public sector vs. the private sector is, in the author's opinion, also in the innocent fraud category. "The accepted distinction between the public and the private sectors has no meaning when seriously viewed. Rhetoric, not reality. A large, vital and expanding part of what is called the public sector is for all practical effect in the private sector ... Close to half of the total of the United States government's discretionary expenditure (outlay not mandated for a particular use, such as Social Security or service of the public debt) was used for military purposes - for defense ... A large part was for weapons procurement or for weapons innovation and development."
"The Military Industrial Complex: Explicit was the takeover of public weapons policy by the defense industry ... The intrusion into what is called the public sector by the ostensibly private sector has become a commonplace."
The author goes on to point out that defense and weapons development are motivating forces in foreign policy. "For some years there has also been recognized corporate control of the Treasury - business firms moving ever closer to actual combat; corporations now provide stand-ins for active soldiers; some firms are helping to conduct training exercise (and) contract as military recruiters and instructors in R.O.T.C.
"So the reality. In war command as in peace, the private becomes the public sector."
The next fraud deals with predicting the future performance of the economy. (Unfortunately there is a rather glaring misprint in this chapter.)
"The fraud begins with a controlling fact, inescapably evident but all but universally ignored. It is that the future economic performance of the economy, the passage from good times to recession or depression and back, cannot be foretold."
The inference of this last statement is that the future of the performance of the economy can be foretold, but the remainder of the text that follows illustrates how charlatans sell their so called predictions to everyone's eventual dismay.
The paragraph continues as follows: "There are more than ample predictions but no firm knowledge. All contend with a diverse combination of uncertain government action, unknown corporate and individual behavior and, in the larger world, with peace or war."
So I think Mr. Galbraith's innocent fraud is the notion that the future performance of the economy can be foretold.
And the following chapter begins with, "I come now to our most prestigious form of fraud, our most elegant escape from reality. As sufficiently noted, the modern economic system is unpredictable in its movement from good times to bad and then eventually from bad to good ... here is our most cherished and, on examination, most evident form of fraud ... The false and favorable reputation of the Federal Reserve has a strong foundation."
Mr. Galbraith explains that the notion that the Federal Reserve can control the economy by manipulating the interest rate is not true and has been confirmed historically. "Business firms borrow when they can make money and not because interest rates are low ... Recovery comes, but not in any way, from Federal Reserve Action. Housing improves as mortgage rates decline. Interest rates are a detail when sales are bad. Firms do not borrow and expand output that cannot be sold ... Since 1913, when the Federal Reserve came fully into existence, it has had a record against inflation and notably against recession of deep and unrelieved inconsequence ... The fact will remain: When times are good, higher interest rates do not slow business investment. They do not much matter; the larger prospect for profit is what counts. And in recession or depression, the controlling factor is the poor earnings prospect ... the defining forces will be the consumer spending and industry investment ... the belief that anything as complex, as diverse and by its nature personally as important as money can be guided by well-discussed but painless decisions emanating from a pleasant, unobtrusive building in the nation's capital belongs not to the real world but to that of hope and imagination."
The next fraud is that corporations are innocent, blameless and amorphous. Corporations are powerful and need to be regulated. "There is no question but that corporate influence extends to the regulators ... Needed is independent, honest, professionally competent regulation - again, a difficult thing to achieve in a world of corporate dominance. This last must be recognized and countered. There is no alternative to effective supervision. Management behavior can also be improved by thoughtful contemplation of the wholly real possibility of less than agreeable incarceration."
Next the author points out the connection between the military industrial complex, its merging of the private sector and the public sector and its influence on foreign policy and consequently our war efforts.
"The greatest military misadventure in American History until Iraq was the war in Vietnam."
During the Vietnam War, which the author did not support, he points out: "During all this time the military establishment in Washington was in support of the war. This indeed, was assumed. It was occupationally appropriate that both the armed services and the weapons industries should accept and endorse hostilities."
The author also points out the failure of bombing during World War II and that it was ineffective in halting German War production. "In Germany the strategic bombing, that of industry, transportation and cities was gravely disappointing ... fighter aircraft production actually increased in early 1944 after major bombing. In the cities the random cruelty and death inflicted from the sky had no appreciable effect on the war production of the war.
"These findings were vigorously resisted by the Allied armed services, especially, needless to say, the air command, even though they were the work of the most capable and relevant scholars of the United States and Britain and were supported by German industry officials and impeccable German statistics ... All our conclusions were cast aside - this, as said, the response of the air command and its public and academic allies. The latter united to arrest my appointment to a Harvard professorship and succeeded in doing so for a year."
The final chapter is entitled "The Last Word".
"One thing, I trust, has emerged in this book: That is the now dominant role of the corporation and the corporate management in the modern economy." The author then points out that the corporation along with its merging with the Military Industrial Complex and the dissolving of the distinction between public and private sector has led to "adverse social flaws".
"One, as just observed, is the way the corporate power has shaped the public purpose to its own ability and need. It ordains that social success is more automobiles, more television sets, more diverse apparel, a greater volume of all other consumer goods. Also more and more weaponry ... Wars are, one can not doubt, a major modern threat to civilized existence, and corporate commitment to weapons procurement and use nurtures and supports this threat. It accords legitimacy and even heroic virtue to devastation and death."
The author goes on to admonish tax relief to the wealthy and corporate management as without economic merit. "A recession calls for a reliable flow of purchasing power, especially for the needful, who will spend. Here there is assured effect, but it is resisted as unserviceable compassion ... There can be pecuniary reward, most often tax relief, for the socially influential. In the absence of need, it may not be spent. The needful are denied the money they will surely spend; the affluent are accorded the income they will almost certainly save."
The author's final word is on the Iraq war. "As I write the United States and Britain are in the bitter aftermath of a war in Iraq. We are accepting programmed death for the young and random slaughter for men and women of all ages ... Civilized life, as it is called, is a great white tower celebrating human achievements, but at the top there is permanently a large black cloud. Human progress dominated by unimaginable cruelty and death.
"I leave the reader with the sadly relevant fact: Civilization has made great strides over the centuries in science, health care, the arts and most, if not all, economic well-being. But also it has given a privileged position to the development of weapons and the threat and reality of war. Mass slaughter has become the ultimate civilized achievement.
"The facts of war are inescapable - death and random cruelty, suspension of civilized values, a disordered aftermath. Thus the human condition and prospect as now supremely evident. The economic and social problems here described, as also mass poverty and starvation, can, with thought and action, be addressed. So they have already been. War remains the decisive human failure."

Hobbes (1588-1679 A.D.)

Philosophers

By Richard E. Noble

If John Milton can be considered press agent or propagandist for Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Hobbes was his counterpart for the King. Hobbes wrote something called the Leviathan in which he defended the Kings right to rule, not by Divine Right but by reason or logic. Of course, it was his version of reason or logic that he used. He said that aggression and war were the normal state for the natural man, but man was also possessive of reason and intelligence and by applying these qualities he could establish peace. Peace, according to Hobbes, could be established, by keeping ones mouth shut, and doing what you are told ... shut up, and obey the King. Hobbes was a friend of Francis Bacon, and as Bacon defended the King’s right to torture, Hobbes defended the king’s right to slaughter. Hobbes it seems felt that anything was worth arguing over but nothing was worth fighting over. When it looked to Hobbes that the present Head of State would very shortly find his head in a bucket, Hobbes filed for conscientious objector status. In his application he stated that if the Sovereign could no longer protect his subjects then the subject (he, in particular) had no obligation to try and protect the sovereign. He beat a hasty path for France; there was no Canada at the time. While in France he revised his political philosophy, slightly. Yes, everyone should shut up and obey the king, but if the king's head was now in a bucket, everyone should shut up and obey whoever it was who put the king’s head into the bucket. This got him a free pass back to England. But then the plague along with a fire in London naturally convinced the people of England that God was P.O.ed and that they should purge their nation of witches and atheists. They demanded that The Leviathan be reexamined as an atheistic tract. Hobbes once again had his Reeboks on, and was ready to make, if not a dash, a shuffle (he was old now) for the border. But his buddy the King stepped in and said; Why don't you guys read another book, and I'll tell Tommy to shut up. Everyone agreed.
During his life Tommy wrote lots of stuff and was always in some kind of a debate with somebody. He argued endlessly with this one guy named Bramhall on the subject of Free Will. John Bramhall was a religious Bishop. He believed strongly in Free Will because without it where would God get the right to put all of his enemies into Hell. Tommy said that humans had the freedom to conform to the dictates of their nature, and nothing more.
Tommy didn't like the pope either, and he felt that the pope was certainly okay, but when push came to shove the pope should shut up and do what the king tells him.
Tommy also didn't like war. He said that war was stupid on practical grounds. Not only was it a waste of poor peoples lives, but, it was a waste of money and was not good for the economy. Obviously Tommy didn't have any shares in the local sword factory.
I don't really think that Thomas Hobbes is a guy that I can take too seriously. I'll put him on the reading list but he has a long, long line of folks ahead of him. He's ahead of Rush Limbaugh but below Ayn Rand and Madalyn O'Hair.

David Ricardo 1772-1823

Economics

By Richard E. Noble

David Ricardo was born wealthy. His father was in the stock market, and David ended up making a fortune as a stock broker himself. By his early forties he was financially well off and decided on a political career. He got himself elected to Parliament and remained working there until his health quit him. He then retired and ended up dying at the age of fifty one.
Ricardo and Malthus were buddies throughout their lives. They were buddies but yet they conducted this long and intense public, intellectual debate.
Malthus associated with the people of the day who were being blamed for all the poverty and squalor surrounding them. He said that it wasn't the rich and the wealthy that were causing all of the problems of society by their greed and selfishness. It was Mother Nature, along with the basic passion and stupidity of mankind in general, who kept making babies in a disproportionate number to their capacity to feed them.
Ricardo, like Malthus, championed the class of his association and dumped on everybody else. He claimed that it was the poor, hard working enterprising class that was getting beat up by everybody else. The super-wealthy land owners were ripping everybody off. They were overcharging on their rents. The farmers were then overcharging for their grain, which raised the price of bread to the poor, which caused the poor to seek higher wages, and they, (the rich land owner, the inherited wealth Class) made money no matter what happened while the hard working entrepreneur got squeezed from both the top and the bottom. The poor didn't really matter. When they didn't have money they starved, and when they got some money they just drank it away and put themselves back into a state of starvation by making more babies.
Malthus dumped on the poor. Ricardo agreed with Malthus with regards the poor, but saw the rich land owners as a serious problem. Ricardo, though he didn't realize it, was really sowing the seed for Marxism and the future class struggle. Malthus blamed, in effect, God and Mother Nature, the basic human condition and innate ignorance of the poor. Ricardo accepted the basic ignorance of the poor and blamed "other people".
Ricardo challenged the "Corn Laws", which were tariffs protecting the wealthy land owners by basically enforcing higher domestic prices for their produce. Ricardo, it seems to me, was really somewhat uncompassionate and not all that understanding. He expressed pity for the poor, but basically considered them to be fairly incorrigible. They were more or less an inevitable consequence of the Human dilemma. And of the super wealthy, land owner class, who for the most part had inherited their wealth, he had little good to say. As far as I can see, he saw them all as non-productive, unimaginative, greedy politically active, manipulators who sabotaged the system by squeezing all the hard earned money out of the enterprising class while they just sat around on their fat butts.
The world would have been better off embracing Malthus’ bigotry. His thesis at least implied in a left-handed manner production increases, coupled with population control. Ricardo started throwing stones, blaming others (rich and wealthy) and making accusations. The truth is good to know, but it doesn't always solve the problem. Malthus defended the wealthy. Ricardo defended the middle class. The poor were still waiting for their champion.

The Eastpointer

It’s an “Upside-down” World

By Richard E. Noble

There is a new concept floating around out there in the world of economics. It’s called the “upside-down” people.
If you went down to the new car dealership to trade in that old clunker that you bought four years ago and you found out that you still owe more money on that secondhand car than the car’s current estimated value - you are one of the upside-down people.
If you have a home that you have been making payments on for the last ten or fifteen years and you are trying to sell it but you have found out that you still owe more on the house than you can sell it for - you are one of the “upside-down” people.
These were the only two upside-down situations that I read about but I find that there are many others that I have noticed myself.
For example, you decide that you want to participate in the American dream and you open up your own little business. You will learn very quickly that you had better have some Workman’s Compensation insurance for Billy, Bob, Susan and Arthur, your employees, in case they get injured or hurt on the job; you will also find that you need accident insurance for your customers just in case one of your customers trips over one of your employees, sprains her ankle and damages her expensive Oprah designer high-heels. But if you or your mate - the owners of this business - trip over one of your customers who then falls on top of an employee of yours, more than likely you (or your spouse) will be the only ones who aren’t covered because you can’t afford the personal owner’s coverage. I don’t know but, I think that is slightly “upside-down”.
Now let’s say that you are a patriotic young boy or girl and you want to do your part for your Country in this time of stress - so you join a branch of the armed services. Now I realize that the pay and salaries for servicemen are much better than they have ever been in the history of this country but if you get a job working for a civilian outfit that has now become a part of the “privatization” of the “new war” concept; you can make considerably more money than any soldier - possibly more than many of the officers and maybe even more than some of the generals. And, I have been told, it is all tax free. Now believe me I am not aspiring or applying for either of the above mentioned positions and I hate to sound like Andy Rooney here but doesn’t that seem somewhat “upside-down”?
Now here’s another one; you decide that you want to become a doctor. A doctor has always been a respected profession in this country. But in the last few decades I have noticed what appears to me to be a new class of “blue-collar” doctors. These people went to college; they studied hard; they put in their internship and whatever but in order to accomplish this dream they are now nine million dollars in debt from college loans. And not only that, they no longer hang out their shingle or open their practice - they work as an employee for some business school manager or economics major who doesn’t even know how to take his own blood pressure. This seems rather upside down to me.
To continue with this college loan business, I know young people who finally graduated from college at an age where the young people of my generation would have been married for about eleven years and had three kids. They now have a job where they make three times the highest pay that I have ever had in my life. But they still can’t meet their expenses and pay off their college loans. Some of their loans have actually increased since they graduated from college because of accumulated interest due to unpaid principal. I have been saying for years that the only hope for a young girl in this situation is to find a doctor to marry. But she better find an old fashioned white collar, professional doctor and not one of these blue collar doctors like the ones mentioned above.
And now we come to the biggest upside-down in American history. We have something like three million active duty soldiers. I would guess that we have close to that number in our “privatized” military service. We have thirty million retired military. We have tens of millions of workers employed in military procurement and military defense industries here and abroad. If we add up all of our citizens involved in Military in one capacity or another, the percentage would be shocking to most Americans.
If the concept of war would somehow disappear from the human horizon tomorrow, we here in the United States would have to continue producing and manufacturing weapons for another decade or two - even if we just throw them away as opposed to “donating” them abroad - because not to do so would result in a massive economic depression. The economic ship of state, along with the Military Industrial Complex, simply can’t be stopped or turned around that quickly. That really sounds upside down to me.

Richard E. Noble is a Freelance Writer and has been a resident of Eastpoint for around thirty years. He has authored two books: “A Summer with Charlie” which is currently listed on Amazon.com and “Hobo-ing America” which should be listed on Amazon in the not too distant future. Most recently he completed his first novel “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother” which will be published soon.

Bloggin' Be My Life

Andrew Jackson (president from 1828-1836)

Historical Essay

By Richard E. Noble

Andrew Jackson is a Charles Dickens' novel. A young boy at the time of the American Revolution, he still manages to get involved in the fighting and nearly killed. His eldest brother gets killed and he, thirteen, and his sixteen year old brother get captured. He refuses to polish the boots of a British officer and the officer puts the saber to both he and his brother. They are then marched, without treatment for their wounds, forty miles to prison. His brother dies from complications from his saber wounds and Andrew is only saved by his mother's nursing and his strong constitution. Shortly thereafter his Mother dies and he is now an orphan.
At seventeen or eighteen he somehow gets interested in the law; gets his law degree and by twenty one, has his own practice in Tennessee. He then gets involved with the extremely attractive Rachel Robards. She is married but separated from her husband, a very jealous and violent man. After insult and threat, Andrew challenges the man to a duel. The man knowing Andrew's reputation declines the opportunity. In one account, Andrew follows the man for miles on foot to town, brandishing a knife and challenging Mr. Robards to fight like a man. The man ignores him, and Andrew eventually marries Rachel.
He joins the militia, gets elected to the House of Representatives and then to the U.S. Senate. He then gets involved in fighting Indians. He hates Indians and has little respect for them throughout his life. He considers them an inferior race. He chases them all, by gun and later by legislation, west of the Mississippi. In his Farewell Address he compliments himself and praises his ridding the nation of the Indians as one of the greatest accomplishments of his life and his administration.
In 1815 (you know the song) he beats the bloody British at the town New Orleans. The British lose thousands and he but a handful. He is a hero even though the battle took place a month after a peace treaty had been signed at Ghent, in Europe.
The franchise is extended to non-propertied males in some states and Jackson finally gets elected president in 1828, after loosing a very close and controversial election in 1824 to J.Q. Adams. He is now the most popular man in America, rivaling the legacy of even George Washington.
He is not only elected by the "common" man, but considers himself to be a common man, and is considered by his better off opponents as all too "common". At his inauguration the White House is nearly wrecked. His all too common friends trash the place, drinking and brawling and the American aristocrats see in this the sad, future collapse of democracy.
His eight years as president are rugged. He takes on everybody. If anybody should have had a sign on his desk saying, THE BUCK STOPS HERE, it should have been Andrew Jackson. He fights the States on Nullification; the legislature and business community on tariffs; and the entire federal banking system on the perils of monopoly, and paper money.
Reading the little that I now have on Andrew Jackson leaves me thirsting for more. This was a complicated, passionate man and is today ranked with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln in importance.

Petunia

Commentary

And this little piggy went to the market

By Richard E. Noble

Have you ever butchered and slaughtered a pig? You haven’t? Oh boy are you missing some real fun! This is an experience in life that you really shouldn’t miss. But lucky for you, I am here to tell you all about it. No, no, you don’t have to thank me, I’m getting paid to do this - not very much - but I am getting paid.
Many, many years ago, I worked as a butcher in a wholesale meat packing house. There was a co-worker there who was Portuguese. He had taken his little daughter to a fair and she discovered a little baby pig. The daughter pestered and pestered my friend Tony to buy this pig for her - so he did.
For months and months, businesses that we delivered meat to saved Tony stuff to feed his pig. He had built a little house for the pig out in the backyard and his daughter fed the little pig every morning and after school when she got home. She had a million pictures of her and her little pig she had named Petunia.
Well Petunia got bigger and bigger until one day Tony announced that he was having a celebration this coming Sunday and Petunia was going to be the guest of honor. There would be free beer and lots of food.
Tony had stopped feeding Petunia 48 hours before the fateful Sunday arrived. Petunia was most definitely aware that something foreboding was in her future.
We went out back to invite Petunia up to the garage to join in the festivities. She was cowering in a corner of her tiny house. Somehow we got Petunia out of her house and up to the garage - but she was not very happy about this whole situation.
If you have never heard a pig scream bloody murder you don’t really know what terror sounds like. Oh my god, that poor pig! I can still see the look in its eyes. Talk about fear; talk about betrayal. And all the while there’s this little girl grabbing onto this poor pig around the neck and hugging and kissing it. She was balling her eyes out and wailing almost as loudly as Petunia - but not quite.
We finally got Petunia up onto a butcher’s block inside the garage. I had a hold of one of her front legs. I can still feel the power and strength of the poor living thing. She was kicking for her life. It seemed like she knew what we were up to, but how could she? Instinct, I suppose. It is probably something that is imbedded in her genetic code. She knew darn well that it was now or never for her and she was screaming and kicking for her life.
We finally got her spread eagled on the block and Tony then got some ropes tied to her back legs. The ropes were then hooked up to an overhead chain-fall that was tied to a rafter in the garage.
I thought that Tony was going to haul Petunia up by the heels and then slit her throat or maybe shoot her behind the ear with a 22. But Petunia would not be so lucky. It seems that a part of the Old Portuguese tradition was bleeding the pig. The pig had to be “stuck”. So Tony got this poker but before he could get to sticking the pig, his little girl broke loose once again and had attached herself around Petunia’s neck. Oh my, was that little girl in misery.
Tony seemed to have compassion for his daughter but he just motioned to his wife and some of the Old Portuguese women who were there for the “celebration”. They finally got the child subdued and Tony went up to the front of the pig. He put his poker right under Petunia chinny chin chin and shoved it into her chest and then into her heart.
When he pulled the poker out, blood came squirting out in an inch thick steady stream. A little old lady with an apron covering her front and a bandana around her head rushed up with a big porcelain dishpan and caught the blood stream while a bunch of other guys hoisted Petunia up into the air by her back legs. She was still screaming - screaming like a stuck pig.
I don’t know how long Petunia continued screaming while dangling there from the chain fall but it seemed like forever.
When she finally stopped screaming Tony went over and slit her down the middle and all her guts came tumbling out in a sack.
The old women then came running over and began pulling out the intestines and cutting away the heart and grabbing other vital entrails.
They took the intestines over to a table and began cleaning the poop out of them - they were going to be cleaned and soaked and then stuffed with some ground Petunia to make homemade sausage. The blood in the porcelain pan was used in the process to make some sort of blood sausage.
It was all going to be ready that evening and we could all hang around and eat some if we wanted to.
Strangely enough I didn’t have much appetite - and certainly not for blood sausage.
A number of years later I was working with this guy who ate cheese sandwiches everyday for lunch. When I asked him what was up with all the cheese, he said; “Well, I’m one of those weirdoes who thinks that animals have the right to live too.”
“Really,” I said. “You mean you don’t think that anybody should eat any meat?”
“Well, I don’t really care if other people eat meat but if they do, I think that they should have to kill it themselves.”
“Wow,” I said. “If they ever make that the law, Wisconsin would be the new capital of the United States and wine and cheese tasting parties would take on a whole new popularity.”
He smiled.
I wondered if he had ever been to a “pig sticking” party.

Richard E. Noble is a Freelance Writer and has been a resident of Eastpoint for around thirty years. He has authored two books: “A Summer with Charlie” which is currently listed on Amazon.com and “Hobo-ing America” which should be listed on Amazon in the not too distant future. Most recently he completed his first novel “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother” which will be published soon.

Mein Kampf

Chapter 13 Part II

By Richard E. Noble
One remark attributed to Adolf near his end, was that if the German people were unfit to win in their world struggle, then they deserved to be destroyed. If Adolf was nothing else, he was consistent.
But how does Adolf differ from the Christian? Certainly Christians don't believe in killing the 'unfit'. No, maybe not the 'unfit', but Christians have burnt the 'unholy' at the stake. Christians have gone off on Holy Crusades to slaughter the unfaithful. The unfaithful being those unfit to enter into the kingdom of God. Christians were also very much prone in their past to murder heretics; a heretic being a semi-unfit, but not totally unfit. So was Adolf a Christian or not? But we can't pick on just Christians. All religious beliefs at one time or another have had similar destructive goals. Those that were bent on peace and love were cut out of existence, just as Adolf claims has been necessary for the greater to survive.
But was Adolf a Christian? Well, so far, we have seen no mention in his narrative of original sin, baptism, the virgin birth, Jesus Christ and the redemption, and so forth. So certainly, dogmatically, Adolf was no Christian.
But philosophically he is certainly walking in the territory of the faithful of all major religions. And historically he seems to be prancing right in their footsteps.
Was Adolf a philosopher?
The basic philosophical questions are; Who am I; Where did I come from; Why am I here; Where am I going?
Adolf's answers: Who am I?
I am the product of Mother Nature, the rational embodiment of God's will. I am a son of Germania, a descendent of the conquering Aryan race.
Where did I come from?
I came about through the Natural processes of evolution, a process which is directed through the hand of God (Mother Nature).
Why am I here?
I am here specifically to reproduce my kind, the Aryan, and eventually bring about the 'perfect' species of mankind.
Where am I going? My future lies in conquering the world and leading it through “proper” values and direction to the eventual establishment of the perfect human species.
But really he has no answer to this questioner. And other than describing a process, he has no answer to where he/we came from. But then again, who does?
So far Adolf hasn't dealt with the origins of the species. Not how the species developed, but where it originally came from. Nor is he concerned with the origins of the Cosmos; nor does he seem to be concerned with what might happen to an individual after his death. He is for the most part pragmatic, psychological, political and historical.
He has a plan, though. His plan is to depopulate the world and repopulate it with his chosen people, and the Jews are first on the list for extermination, or replacement. I don't see here a deeply philosophical man, nor do I see a theologian. For the most part Adolf seems to be a man bent on revenge. The world gave to him World War I and he intends to pay back, not in kind, but in double and triple. His logic I would not say is original and creative but of a copy-cat mentality, combative, tit for tat. He is “the little opposite Adolf”. Whatever is good is bad, and whatever is bad is good.
Were Hegel or Nietzsche philosophers, or social psychologists? Does Hegel's Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis have any real significance at all? What has been the historical Antithesis to Adolf and his historical re-affirmation of the legitimacy and inevitability of war? And if there has ever been an antithesis to the philosophy of War, what is the resulting synthesis? If the antithesis of Feudalism was Capitalism, and the antithesis of Capitalism was Communism what is the resulting synthesis of these counter actions? Socialism? Capitalism plus Communism = Socialism?
Feudalism was at it basis, government by the rich and the powerful. Capitalism is basically control of the government by the rich and the powerful. And Socialism, I would say, results basically in the same circumstance.
And what is the antithesis of the control of the state by the rich and the powerful. The Communists say that they have the system that is the antithesis of the rule by the rich and the powerful. But as was inevitable the Russian revolution resulted in the conquest of the most powerful, and once in power the powerful made themselves the wealthiest. So once again we have the rule by the richest and most powerful.
In our system we say that we are ruled by 'the people' through a system we call democracy; a government of, by, and for the people. The people exercise this power through their franchise in their right to vote. But less than fifty percent of eligible voters ever register to vote. And of those who are registered to vote, less than fifty percent actually go to the poles and vote. So less than twenty five percent of the people actually vote for the leadership of our government, and up to nearly fifty percent of them vote for the looser.
Even fewer people than this actually participate in the political parties who determine the political candidates that we vote for. The results of all this seems to be that the rich and the powerful control the political parties. The rich and the powerful select the candidates that will be placed on the election blocks. And the result is that we have a country that is eventually ruled by the rich and the powerful.
Then periodically we have what we call 'revolutions'. In a revolution the discontented, unite against the established, and if successful, overthrow the rich and the powerful who formed the majority. They, of course, immediately become the 'powerful', and without question, after usually a very shot time they proceed to make themselves rich. And so once again we have the rule of the rich and powerful re-established. If this is an accurate description of the historical situation, then where does this Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis of Mister Hegel come in? What I see in history is a continuing reoccurring phenomenon. I see no synthesis of anything. I see the world socially just as it has always been, but unlike Adolf I do not say that we should resign ourselves to it. I think that we should struggle to improve on it or correct this re-occurring chain of events. And we should do this by recognizing the beast in ourselves and others and doing our best to keep it subdued, not as Adolf advises, indulged.
A destruction or lapse in one generation of mankind could set the whole human race back centuries. All that we call Civilization has been achieved one generation at a time, and has migrated from society to society. Destroy its books; kill off a generation of the most educated or make their knowledge a secret and any society can be reduced to the primitive in a matter of years.
What would be the antithesis of this re-occurring phenomenon of an emerging class of rich and powerful? Or, should I say what would be the correction for this ever re-occurring chain of events? We could eliminate the possibility of anyone becoming rich and powerful, or eliminate the possibility of anyone becoming discontented. And isn't this exactly what all of the great thinkers and religious leaders of the past have tried to do?
Jesus Christ told the rich to give up their wealth, and relinquish their power and come and follow him in his work of pacifying the poor and discontented. Confucius said and tried to accomplish much the same thing. Mahatma Gandhi was more or less a repeat of the teachings and attitudes of Jesus Christ. The Hindus try to free themselves by entering into a state of Nirvana, which involves eliminating all of the 'trappings' (wealth, power, desire) of the world and immersing themselves in a meditation which involves a total concentration on 'nothing'.
I would hope to be more realistic. In India they eliminated the 'class struggle' by creating permanent class structures from which no one could escape no matter what the social circumstances. And isn't this simply a way of eliminating the discontented? Marx would have the world evolve into a state eventually ruled by one class, the proletariat, who would all work contentedly, side by side, without position or rank, pursuing the betterment of one another. Christianity directs us not to become overly involved in the worldly things of today because one day we will all find contentment and happiness in Heaven (thus, pacifying the discontented).
Adolf's basic notion is to eliminate the discontented. He intends to do this by exterminating them - killing them. In America our goal is not to eliminate the class of the rich and the wealthy but to rotate or make membership in this class possible to all classes. This one possibility seems to make the U.S. the first choice of destination of what seems to be all the fleeing populations of the world.
"... the Aryan ... renounces representing his personal opinion and his interests and sacrifices both in favor of a majority of people. Only by way of the general community is his share returned to him ... This disposition now, which causes the individual's ego to step back in the face of the preservation of the community, is really the first prerequisite for any truly human culture..."
Adolf has allowed his ego to step back in the face of the preservation of the community?
A truly 'human' culture and what kind of a culture is this? Human in Adolf's mind is obviously synonymous with killing, murder, and extermination. To be human in the estimation of the most of us is to be humane. To look upon 'the other' as one's self. To do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is not Adolf's definition of the word human.
To be human to Adolf is to be predatory, and dominant. To be human is to seek to rule. To be human is to place your faith, trust, and unquestioning loyalty in the wisdom and leadership of the most dominant. What is interesting here is that the most dominant gains his position as leader through the principle of the survival of the fittest. In order to attain this position he has the right to use whatever human means he has available to him. And with a little background on the rise to power of Adolf, we know that this license to dominate includes almost any rouse devisable.
Adolf cheated, stole, lied, and murdered his friends, his countrymen and his enemies; anyone who was in opposition to his leadership. So, understanding this principle of human leadership, anyone at any time could replace Adolf by using whatever tactic, murder for example, and then become the new ruler of Germany for as long as he could sustain his supremacy without being murdered himself.
What is confusing to me in this policy of kill or be killed is where do we then establish this secondary principle of loyalty to the Fuhrer; or loyalty to anybody for that matter?
If the way to gain power is to seize power, then it would seem to me that any State would be in constant turmoil. Logically the concept of loyalty should have no place in this scheme of things. Fear should be the second principle. In other words, if I gain power by murder, and I then make this method of gaining power a legitimate principle of nature and a guide to the understanding of the natural processes of cultural development then what should be good for me should be equally justified for my opponent. How do I reasonably then say to my opponents that now that I have gained power you should be loyal to me? Where do we find the basis for such a concept as loyalty, in a philosophy of the survival of the fittest?
The founding principle here is kill or be killed. The only logical secondary principle of a philosophy of the survival of the fittest would seem to me to be ... now all of you will obey my leadership or I will kill you also (fear). Where does this notion of love (loyalty) fit into this logic of hate?
Capitalism; one should pursue his individual ego, and his personal goals and thereby benefit his community residually. Some, like Ayn Rand, claim that these personal goals should be pursued even to the point of selfishness and even to the extent of the apparent injury to other individuals within the community. I would imagine that Ayn would draw a line somewhere. I wouldn't imagine that Ayn would recommend that one should pursue his or hers personal ego to the point of criminal behavior, or to the point of rape, pillage and plunder, but I don't know. I am not completely educated into the complete thinking, if there is such a thing, of Ayn Rand.
Communism; From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. This seems very humanitarian and altruistic, but there is something missing in this statement. Who determines the ability that should be given, and who determines the need that should be satisfied? The missing ingredient in the above statement is the State. We could maybe rewrite it thusly; The State should demand from each according to his ability, and the State should give to each according to his need. From what I observe of Communist countries this seems to be an accurate re-write. Now the question is how do we determine the State, and how do we determine its needs? This is the question, who, how, and what becomes the State?
In our system we have a democratic-republican form of State evolution. We elect representatives from our two party system. These elected officials form the county, state and federal representatives of the people who then form the governing body that we call our State.
In Communist Russia, as I understand it, they had a one party system. The representatives of their eventual State are selected from this single party. The selections are made from within this single party and not from the general public, as far as I know. I am also not aware of how these selections are accomplished, whether by election, or some sort of appointment.
In Adolf's system, the ruling State is to be determined in a kind of king-of-the-mountain fashion. He who has the ability and strength of will to seize the power in whatever fashion will have the right to reign, and he and his appointees will become the ruling body, the State. But it seems that suddenly after this king-of-the-mountain approach to Statehood, we abandon the every man for himself, dog eat dog ritual and we find this notion of loyalty and sacrifice to the dominant. And why should the mass of people be loyal and sacrificing to some brute who has just forcibly taken over the State, or established a State?
The answer: In order to form a truly human culture.
I guess what I need here is what in Adolf's mind constitutes a truly human culture, or just a plain old culture for that matter. I would have to guess that what constitutes a Culture according to Adolf, would have to be a 'Race', or some interpretation along racial lines.
So by hook or by crook Adolf (or somebody) becomes the ruler of the Adolf Race of peoples. As the now ruler of this Race, the peoples of this Race should now devote themselves loyally, and sacrificially to the Adolf racial cause. And in so doing they will eventually become the Race that will fulfill its destiny and rule over all of the races of the world. And will eventually replace all of the Races of the world, as the one true, superior Race.
This is very much in keeping with religious inclinations. There is one true leader (god) and only those who believe and are loyal to this particular leader (god) will be a part of the one true, ruling and eternally surviving State (church).
How did this man ever get any world support for this idea? I can see how he got local German support, but world support would then have to come under the heading of Aryan. I suppose Italy was considered Aryan, being the descendants of the Romans, but what explanation is there for the Japanese, and for that matter the French, Spanish and the Portuguese. He has pretty much said that these were all bastardized, corrupted Cultures. The only other Aryan Cultures as far as I can determine from the bible according to Adolf is the United States, England, and Great Britain.
It is interesting, Rudolf Hess escaped Germany, flew to England, supposedly with some sort of plan. I have yet to hear what that plan was, but could it have been similar to the plan of General Rommel and his cohorts? Rommel's plan was to capture Hitler, try him before a civilian court, imprison him, and then join with the allies in the war against Russia. But the Allies weren't at war with Russia ... were they??
We go back to our original notion. What was World War II all about? Was it a battle against Fascism, or Nazism, or were we really engaged in a struggle against the Communist anti-capitalist? Capitalist; a post World War I communist definition = Arms merchants, industrialists, bankers and businessmen who profit and promote war. Were these the people behind Adolf Hitler? We know for sure that Adolf had the support of these types of people inside Germany. What about elsewhere?
It is recorded and I have read it in several different historical accounts that when Hitler conspired with Stalin, the Warsaw Pact, which resulted in an invasion of Poland by the Russians and the Germans three days later, Joseph P. Kennedy, then ambassador to England, called President Roosevelt and announced amidst tears and sobs something to this effect "We've been tricked; we've been tricked. It's the end of the world! It's the end of the world!"
Who was tricked? And were they tricked by Hitler or Stalin? As far as I know we (our government) supposedly had no deals with either of these people. But what do I know? I know that Joe Kennedy was an isolationist. An isolationist could be anything from a pacifist, to a German Nazi, Bunt Hall, card member. Henry Ford, one of the richest and most powerful men in America, was a rabid anti-Semite and according to James Pool, Who Financed Hitler. Thomas Edison may have been Henry Ford’s mentor.
Charles Lindbergh was a well known German sympathizer. James D. Mooney president of General Motors, was also a known anti-Semite and sympathetic to German fascism. The Rockefeller banking system was involved with Swiss banking system dealing in laundering Jewish booty after the war, and possible conspiracy with Germany during the war. Montagu Norman was head of the bank of England and sympathetic to Germany to the point of returning money shipped to him by the country of Czechoslovakia after they were invaded by the Nazis. Allen Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles were I. G. Farben's prewar lawyers in the United States. The Dulles brothers law firm and associates, Sullivan and Cromwell, were involved in handling pro-German lawsuits in the United States. And the list is growing daily as I read. The point being; Who was the real enemy of the United States in World War II ... Germany or Russia?
Also interesting to note that after World War II we had a purge of Communists in The United States under the leadership of Senator Joe McCarthy who was supported in this objective by the then young and aspiring Republican Richard M. Nixon. What bothers me about this purging of communists in our government, was that there was no simultaneous purging of Nazis. After all, the Russian Communists were our allies during the war and truly they suffered the greatest loses. So why were we hunting Communist and not Nazis? Certainly the Nazi philosophy was more vile and criminal in its outlook than the Communist. Not only has there never been any purge of Nazis here in the United States, but we even incorporated Nazis into our O.S.S, (which was to evolve into our present day C.I.A.) and into our Military, and into the ranks of our research scientists. And these vicious haters of the democratic way immediately complied, without any seeming resistance. Not a one of them bit any cyanide tablet, in an attempt to escape enslavement in Democratic America, home of their enemy and conqueror. And after the war, instead of executing all of the Nazi leadership remaining alive in homeland Germany, as suggested by all of the Allies, even General Eisenhower and Winston Churchill, President Truman initiated the now famous Trial at Nuremburg, where not one Industrialist (Arms merchant, etc) was executed. In fact Gustav Krupp wasn't even brought to trail at this famous international hearing and though later brought up under a lesser tribunal, received a modest penalty, and then went on to become the richest man in the world organizing munitions plants for countries all over the world. We even went so far as to outlaw the Communist party in the U.S. (home of free speech, and government of the people, by the people and for the people), but yet even today we allow Nazis to have public exhibitions, and we even protect their rights to march through Jewish neighborhoods and speak to crowds about their exterminationist philosophy. I don't get it, do you?

Espionage and Sedition

Striking America

By Richard E. Noble

First came the Selective Service Act with its traditional opposition, then the Espionage Act, and then the Sedition act. From the radical Labor point of view, World War I was a Capitalist endeavor. The War had been started to quell The Revolution. What Revolution? The Revolution that was taking place around the world; the Revolution that was going to do away with Capitalism and the Capitalist, with the factory owners and their slaves. The assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand was just an excuse. To quell the Revolution, was the goal.
How, exactly, the “People” were going to take the world back from the millionaire, monopoly, trust Capitalists who had highjacked it was a matter of opinion. The world, like the Newtonian universe, was now being guided by unalterable laws. Supply and demand was sufficient to dictate the life or death of men, women, and children. The Anarchists had their view of this Revolution. The Syndacalists had a view, the Communists had a view, and the Socialists had a view. It was somewhat like the Biblical story of Armageddon. It was going to happen. It had been foretold by the prophets - the economic prophets, the democratic evolutionary prophets. Its truths were being accepted by the poor and the laboring classes all over the world. The days of the rich and powerful were numbered. The “Robber Barons” were through. There would be a new evaluation of the worth of labor. The day of reckoning was inevitable, if not predictable as to where or when.
The Russians had walked off the battlefield of World War I, and were now engaged at home in the “true” war - the war for the liberation of the common man. In the U.S. a Civil War had freed the black slaves, but now the white wage slaves wanted their freedom also. The wage slaves had been fighting ardently for decades. Jay Gould, industrial baron, had suggested that the best way to end this labor revolution was to pit half the workers of America against the other half and then let them kill one another. Woodrow Wilson found the perfect means of fulfilling Mister Gould’s dream. He had Congress declare war on Germany.
No American war had ever been by the unanimous consent of the people. World War I was the most contested war in American history. The country was very quickly divided once again into patriots and rebels, into loyalists and traitors. The traitors, according to the Espionage and Sedition Acts, were those who opposed the war in any way shape or form. We had seen this type of legislation under the presidency of John Adams. Many were imprisoned for simply speaking their mind under the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson rescinded these Acts and freed the Adams’ critics from their cells.
Now we had Woodrow Wilson, a supposed “liberal”. We also had Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, a religious man, a man of peace ... a Quaker. Palmer and his predecessor began indulging in mass arrests. With the aid of the F.B.I., Palmer actually conducted raids all over the country - sometimes arresting thousands at a time. If you were between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, you could be stopped on the street and required to show to the authorities your Selective Service exemption card or papers. If you could produce no such authorized rejection you would be arrested. You would be held in jail or prison until it could be proved that you were not a “draft dodger”. If you could not show proof, you were inducted into the military service and quickly shipped over to Europe to help the cause of old Black Jack Pershing.
It was decided by the Supreme Court that once a war began your rights as citizens, guaranteed as unalienable under the Constitution, were temporarily suspended. It was further decided by the Supreme Court (Arver v U.S.) that Conscription, the Draft, was not slavery or involuntary servitude under Article I ... "the Congress shall have the power to raise and support armies."
One might be so bold as to ask what Congress’s right to “raise and support an army” had to do with arresting free men in the streets and impounding their lives. One might be glad that the southern pre-Civil War legislators didn’t get the Constitution to state their economic ... right to plant and raise cotton. We would undoubtedly still be living with slavery today. As the State is granted the power to usurp individual freedom in order to procure "slaves" for its armies of war, the plantation owner could restrict freedom and procure slaves for it "right" to grow cotton. Since when can our God-given rights be suspended for any reason? They can’t – unless we give them up.
Freedom is not something that is granted by the Constitution or the Parliament or the Politburo. Freedom as pointed out in our Declaration of Independence is a prerequisite of "birth". It comes with the territory ... if you want it and have the ability to hold onto it.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness ..." Freedom comes with birth via a Creator, if you believe in such a thing. But Creator or no Creator, our forefathers felt that freedom was "self-evident". It didn't need a proposition. It didn't have to be proved. Freedom was an obvious fact of life. But even then as today in this country there are those who would deny this "truth". There were and are those who did not and do not understand the content of their own declaration.
The chief targets of the Espionage and Sedition Acts were the labor unions and the Socialist reformers, in general the dissident population.
The Wilson government and Mister Palmer began shutting down Socialist newspapers all over America. The first Amendment and free speech no longer applied. We were at war for God’s sake! If any newspaper wrote anything against the war, against Conscription, against President Wilson, the entire newspaper could be fined, imprisoned or both. And many had just such a fate.
The American Socialist Party, which had drawn millions of votes in previous elections, had elected Senators, Congressmen and Governors was now the party of traitors. Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist presidential candidate was arrested for speaking out against the War, convicted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to ten years in prison.
The Industrial Workers of the World, the I.W.W. would be the biggest single group to be attacked under these laws. It became a crime to simply be a member of this rather large and influential labor union. I.W.W. members were arrested by the busload and train carful. Around the country, I.W.W. members were arrested by the thousands. The United States of America v. William D. Haywood et al is a dramatic example of the circumstances existing at that time.
The entire I.W.W. organization was indicted ... "the indictment portrayed the I.W.W. as a violent, treasonous conspiracy to sabotage the war effort, seize control of industry, and overthrow the United States Government by unlawful, tortuous and forcible means and methods, involving threats, assaults, injuries, intimidations, and murder..."
There were five felony counts to the indictment. The first count charged that the Wobblies conspired to "hinder, delay and prevent by force" the execution of the declaration of war.
The second count charged the defendants with "conspiracy to injure, intimidate and oppress" those citizens who supplied war materials to the government.
The third count charged that the Wobblies conspired to hinder registration for the draft.
The forth count alleged that the defendants conspired to cause "insubordination, refusal of duty and disloyalty" in the United States Army.
And the fifth count charged that the Wobblies had conspired to violate the postal laws by using the mails to further the other four conspiracies.*
Though these charges were serious, evidence supporting these charges was lacking in credibility. The entire case for the prosecution consisted of nothing more than written statements and propaganda put out by the I.W.W. The "overt" acts charged against the I.W.W. were all literary. In fact these overt acts included two telegrams written by Big Bill Haywood protesting the Bisbee deportations.
The Bisbee deportations were investigated by the office of the president and these investigations were supportive of the opinions expressed by Big Bill Haywood in his telegrams to the President. The anti-draft and pre-war negative literature of the I.W.W. was included in the indictment. Even the preamble of the union itself was included as an overt act in the indictment.
The prosecution had 57 packing crates containing 25,000 copies of I.W.W. literature in evidence. There were over four hundred Wobblies arrested. The lawyer for the defense was George Vanderveer. Clarence Darrow would not come to his old friend's defense on this one. Clarence had put his passivism aside and was now in favor of the war.
The presiding judge was Kenesaw Mountain Landis. A decidedly biased man who personally felt that any man that was against the war should be stood up against a wall and shot. In 1917 he had sentenced over one hundred draft resisters to long prison terms. He announced that America was a nation of cowards. The very fact that a draft was necessary indicated to Judge Landis that Americans were cowards. If they weren't cowards they would already be in Europe fighting.
One might wonder why Judge Landis wasn't already there, himself.
It was April Fools Day, 1919 when over one hundred I.W.W. defendants were marched over to the Chicago court house. The prosecutor pointed out to the jury that free speech gave anyone the right to advocate breaking the law. The defense pointed out that the Declaration of Independence was just the type of free speech that the prosecution would like to outlaw.
The I.W.W.'s preamble stated that the working class and the employing class had nothing in common. This was considered incendiary and inflammatory, not to mention against the law. The Sedition Law stated that there would be no writing allowed that might turn the opinions of the public against the government.
The I.W.W. was obviously against the war. They were against war in general. They had made this position known long before war had been declared. No evidence of any nature, written or otherwise was brought forward indicating that they had ever acted on any of these ideas or theories. If patriotism means waving the flag while profiteering or believing that war is the best means of settling disputes then we are not patriots, declared the defense. Vanderveer closed his argument with an idea that has been revived recently. "What would Jesus have done?" was his question to the jury. Would Jesus have called these men traitors or men of peace?
Yes, the I.W.W. in some areas had gone out on strike after war was declared, but so had the A.F. L. and many, many others. These were not strikes in opposition to the war but legitimate labor disputes. They were in opposition to bed bugs and housing for workers built over pig pens, and women workers being forced to sleep in doorways in Mexico City and men being forced to sleep on floors in Rockefeller-owned coal camps. These strikes were about abusive child labor, and migrants sleeping in haystacks and vigilantes beating up workers, forcing them from their homes, if they had one, and dumping them out in the desert or elsewhere as happened in Brisbee.
Yes, there were strikes but they were sporadic and random. None was nation-wide or affecting any industry in particular. Witness after witness was brought to the stand proclaiming the uprightness of individual Wobblies and socially decent acts performed by the organization as a whole. The charges were ridiculous. There was no evidence. The defense had made their case so thoroughly that they actually decided that no closing statement to the jury was necessary. Vandeveer simply appealed to the jury to act as good Christians and to ask themselves ... what Jesus would have done ... if He were in their place.
The jury returned in less than an hour with over forty thousand pages of transcript to ponder, with over 400 cases against 101 men to consider. Their verdict was that all the men were guilty on all four charges made against them in the indictment - Jesus lost once again.
Judge Kenasw Mountain Landis stated. "When the country is at peace, it is the legal right of free speech to oppose going to war and to oppose even preparation for war. But once war is declared, this right ceases." The judge handed out the harshest sentences possible. Ninety-five men were given prison terms amounting to 807 years and fines of more than $2,400,000. Big Bill Haywood was given twenty years at Leavenworth.*

*"Roughneck" The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood, by Peter Carlson.
*Works used in this essay include: "Roughneck", The Life and Time of Big Bill Haywood, by Peter Carlson; "Recent American History by Lester B. Shippee; "The American Pageant" by Thomas A. Bailey; "A History of American Labor" by Joseph G. Rayback; "Verdicts Out of Court" Clarence Darrow, edited by Arthur and Lila Weinberg; "The Annals of America vol. 14.; "Labor Problems in American Industry" by Carroll R. Daugherty; "Fighting Faiths" by Richard Polenberg; "The Americans" A social History of the United States 1587-1914 by J.C.Furnas.

Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Artist

Commentary, Humor

By Richard E. Noble

I was raised a good sex-fearing Roman Catholic by Nuns who had the decency to tape their breasts flat to their chests, wear ankle high paratrooper boots, and at least four heavy woolen, toe length dresses, even in the summer time.
The first time that I looked at a reproduction of what Michelangelo had done to the Sistine Chapel at the Pope's house in Rome, I was aghast. I couldn't believe my eyes. This was almost as shocking to me as the first time that I ever saw a condom! This guy had covered the whole thing with naked titties and little peckers. I mean titties and peckers everywhere! I was speechless. And some Pope had paid him to do this. I decided to investigate this whole thing.
Back somewhere in the late fourteen or early fifteen hundreds Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo, who had his nose broke by a guy named Torrigiano (This fact is mentioned in every account that I have yet read. So, I thought I'd tell you all about it, too.) to paint the Sistine Chapel. "Commissioned", in Pope talk means ... do it, or become an eunuch. Michelangelo was kind of a cry baby and the first thing that he starts whining about is the fact that he doesn't know how to paint. He tells the Pope that he is not a painter but a sculptor, and that he has never painted anything in his life and how about a nice tomb or a statue or something like that. The Pope gets "upset." This Pope was always getting upset. At one point Mikie had to drop his chisel and pallet and run for the hills. But the Pope finally gets over it, comes forward with some cash and re-commissions Mikie.
Well Mikie agrees to do the job as long as he gets cash up front and he isn't disturbed. The Pope agrees. So Mikie locks himself in the Chapel for a couple of years and allows nobody to see what he is doing, other than one paint bearer who agrees to work for minimum wage, and keep his mouth shut.
So Michelangelo, covers all of the walls within the Sistine Chapel with tiny little peckers and titties. Peckers and titties everywhere, man. You have got to see this thing! The Pope comes in, finally, looks at all the peckers and titties everywhere, and says ... "Hummm, I better get some of the Junior Popes to look at this." A contingent of junior Popes look at this graffiti and a few decades or a century or so later they decide to hire another guy to paint little veils and fig leaves over all of the tiny peckers and titties, (and about time, I might add!). And today the Sistine Chapel has been restored, AND WITHOUT THE VEILS AND LITTLE FIG LEAVES, ONCE AGAIN!!
I am totally fed up with all of this. Every time I think of Sister Agnes kneeling in that Chapel with her breasts dutifully taped flat to her chest, sweating her little butt off, trying to say the rosary, surrounded by a plethora of tiny little peckers, even little cherubs with naked little peckers poking out everywhere, staring her in the face, I AM OUTRAGED!! I SAY, ERASE THE SISTINE CHAPEL ... ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!