A Short History - Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything

By Bill Bryson

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

Unfortunately this sort of thing happens to me every now and then but not very often. The author of this work starts off with a premise that I can not accept and consequently I have no desire to continue reading the book. Even though the author apologizes for his lack of expertise in science and admits to be making the attempt to present science in a humorous and entertaining fashion, the error to me is so serious that I really don’t want to sift through any more of the author’s convoluted notions.
I didn’t get very far along either. I only managed to finish chapter one. On page two of the introduction the author states: “There needn’t actually be a universe at all. For the longest time there wasn’t. There were no atoms and no universe for them to float about in. There was nothing – nothing at all anywhere.”
This is a grossly unscientific statement. In fact, I would call it a theological statement. It is primarily a Christian theological statement. If the author had qualified this statement with a “there are those who believe” or something to the like, I might have gone along. But the author persists in this very unscientific notion.
I am sorry but I don’t believe in “nothing.” I consider nothing to be impossible. If there was ever a time that there was nothing, there would still be nothing today. The fact that there is something today establishes my point.
This is a philosophical argument that goes back to the days of Lucretius who also believed in the impossibility of nothing.
On page 4 the author continues: “This is a book about how it happened – in particular how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something.” Once again I must disagree. We didn’t go from being nothing to be being something … we went from being something to being something else possibly but no scientist can trace back the universe by any scientific method and return us to a time when there was “nothing.” It is impossible. It is religion to state such a phenomenon or state of impossibly … not science.
On page 10 the author continues: “…outside the singularity there is no where. When the universe begins to expand, it won’t be spreading out to fill a larger emptiness. The only space that exists is the space that it creates as it goes … The singularity has no “around” around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can’t even ask how long it has been there – whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn’t exist. There is no past for it to emerge from.
“And so from nothing our universe begins.”
Really? What happened to the “singularity”? Was it not something? And to say that time does not exist is to say that there were “events” that were not preceded or followed by other events. This is theological “speak” not science talk.
Now we have the author trying to establish “nothing” from something. This is total gobbledygook.
And he goes on: “…that introduced a measure of instability into the nothingness that was. It seems impossible that you could get something from nothing but the fact that once there was nothing and now there is a universe is evident proof that you can.”
The “fact” that there was once nothing? What fact? That the author has said so, makes it a fact? I don’t think so. The fact that there is now a universe is proof that there has always been something and that there has never been “nothing” not the reverse.
This is religion not science. If I want to read religion, I’ll order a Bible. I don’t need Bill Bryson teaching me the fundamentals of Christian Theology under the guise of presenting science ... or trying to be funny.
Sorry Bill but I’m not into wasting my time. I figure if you can make such a glaring affront to scientific inquiry in the first few pages how far into dumbville will I be forced to travel if I attempt to finish this joke? I have a sense of humor but I’m just not into totally stupid … just yet.
As it has so often been said by others much wiser than me, A house built on a weak foundation will not stand. There can be no weaker foundation in scientific thought than the mystical notion that “something” can come about from “nothing.” This is Alice in Wonderland and Tinkerbell. This is magic and voodoo. This is not science.
Philosophical definition of non-being or nothing: The state of no innate potential to be actualized, and no innate tendencies to actualize itself.
To state that something can come from nothing is simply a contradiction in terms. By definition it is logically impossible. And as far as has been determined from scientific inquiry – laws of conservation of matter and energy – the notion in impossible both actually and theoretically.
The goal behind this gobbledygook is obfuscation. It is the attempt to establish “creationism” into the big bang scientific theory notion and thus establish the religious platitude of God and Creator as being the mysterious source of the universe. Other than via “faith” and “revelation” there is still no way to postulate the notion of creation or a Creator.
The universe on the other hand is scientifically substantiated. It is; it always was; and it will always be as far as it can be determined and has been established scientifically. In relation to God and science, it is still as Mr. La Place once replied to the emperor Napoleon when asked why he had not mentioned God, the Creator in any of his many scientific books. “I have no need for that hypothesis,” replied the eminent scientist. And that remains to be the case today. When one steps out of the rational, reasonable, logical, and scientific, he steps into the never-never land of mythology, mysticism, fantasy, faith and religion. I have nothing against “faith” and religion but it has never mixed well with science. The two are better dealt with separately.

DuPont

The Hobo Philosopher

DuPont, Gunpowder and World War I

“Old Hickory” Tennessee

By Richard E. Noble

The DuPont family is an American saga but it’s the World War I gunpowder factory established in Tennessee that has caught my interest at the moment; but before we go there let’s briefly hit on the DuPonts.
As you have probably guessed the DuPonts were from France. The old man was a supporter of the American Revolution and democracy but when “revolution” hit France he and the wife and kids had to blow Dodge. They landed in the Colonies and settled in Delaware.
Papa DuPont had one boy who had a pretty good job in France before the hasty departure. E. I. DuPont was working with Lavoisier, known today as the Father of Chemistry, at the national arsenal making gunpowder for the French government. Lavoisier knew his stuff and E. I. DuPont learned all the details. Thomas Jefferson was actually the one who put the bug in DuPont’s ear about a gunpowder plant. And in 1802 E. I. DuPont started to manufacture black powder in Delaware. Lavosier who had been moonlighting as a government tax collector on the side got his head chopped off.
The gunpowder business had its ups and downs – not to mention an explosion every now and then but there was one industry that helped this business along considerably – war.
The War of 1812 was good for the DuPonts and then the Mexican War in 1842 moved things right along. The Civil War was just what the Doctor ordered and the Spanish American War put the frosting on the cake.
But by the time World War I came rolling along the gunpowder business is “exploding.” Gunpowder is being used everywhere; in mining, in bridge building in railroad construction – the gold rush and the 49ers didn’t hurt anything either. Then there was the Panama Canal and dams and whatever. By this time the DuPont gunpowder business didn’t really need World War I. But World War I needed the DuPonts.
When the European Allies had exhausted and pushed all their powder manufactures to capacity they came to the DuPonts. But the DuPonts had learned about the trials and tribulations of the warring business. War was good business but it also had its problems. There are two big problems with war; wars often start without much notice and they stop in the same manner. As a business you can’t afford to stock up for a possible future war and then stop production on a dime. Having steady business with consistent sales and a predictable growth rate is better than the boom and bust of a war economy. And by this time the DuPont civilian business was great – lots of money, good steady growth. The DuPonts were fat and happy.
So when the Allies came along and asked them to increase there plant and production by about ten to thirteen times – and do it now – the DuPonts were hesitant. The DuPonts told the Allies that they didn’t have the money to expand their facilities to about thirteen times their present capacity. Colonel Buckner, DuPont vice president, said; “We can produce the explosives you need and we think that we can produce them in time, but only if you assume the financial risks of an emergency expansion. You are asking us to build costly plants that will have value only as scrap when the war ends. You are asking us to contract, on your behalf, for raw materials that may not be needed next month, or even next week, and which may never reach the stage of finished goods. I repeat, it’s your war and the risks must be yours.”
The Allies had no choice. They started loading the DuPonts’ treasury up with money. They paid a fifty percent advance on powder and agreed to pay a price per pound that would cover the cost of building new plants.
DuPont then really started rolling. Engineering and construction employees went rapidly from 800 to 45,000 and then to 100,000; 8 million pounds of explosives went in one year to 200 million pounds and by the war’s end they were producing 893 million pounds of explosives. In the four years of war nearly 7 million was destroyed in accidental explosions and 347 men lost their lives.
But in 1917 the United States wants to get in on the action. The U.S. doesn’t have a single world scale munitions plant in the country. They contact DuPont. They want the DuPonts to build a plant that can produce 900,000 pounds of powder per day. The DuPonts really, really don’t need any more business. Colonel Buckner was at it again; “The Ordnance Department of the Army has already asked to reserve for the Army our entire unsold capacity, and we feel confident that the Allied Governments will require large additional quantities of powder ... How this large amount of powder is going to be supplied to the United States and their Allied Governments we do not know, unless all the Allied Governments confer upon the subject and determine upon a plan of procedure which will involve the construction of increased capacity.”
On Oct 3, 1917 the U.S government asked the DuPont Company to submit a proposal. Five days later the proposal was in the hands of Major-General William Crozier, Army Chief of Ordnance. The estimated construction costs were for 90 million and the operating costs for a twelve month period were approximately 180 million. This was the largest project the War Department had ever considered.
The government agreed to pay for the whole works. The plant would be in Tennessee and it would be called Old Hickory. But then Pierre DuPont received a telegram from Newton D. Baker, secretary of War, “Have just had presented to me the details of the proposed contract with regards to increased capacity for powder production. The matter is large, intricate and important. Do nothing until you hear further from me. Stay all action under the order until I can acquaint myself thoroughly with all features of the matter.”
Robert S. Brookings, a member of the War Board, had been looking over the contract and had decided that the DuPonts were making too much money on the deal. The DuPonts agreed to step aside. The War Board then appointed D.C Jackling of San Francisco to handle the operation. The first thing Mr. Jackling tried to do was hire the DuPonts’ chief engineer, Harry M. Pierce. Harry said; “You can’t do it that way, Mr. Jackling. You need an organization of trained men, not just one man.” He told Jackling that they had to hire the DuPont Company and their whole shebang or do it themselves. Jackling tried here and there and was then back at DuPont Company.
The DuPont Company then said that they would and could do the job but only if the government agreed to stay out! The government agreed.
In ten months they built Old Hickory from miles of vacant fields. It was a city of 30,000 people. It contained 3,867 buildings – homes restaurants, schools etc. During the ten month building period DuPont hired over 250,000 workers. They built seven and a half miles of single track railroad; they built a 540 foot suspension bridge and the whole works cost two and a half times the maximum rate of expenditure for any year on the Panama Canal – a total of 85 million.
When the war ended tens of thousands of employees had to be let go, whole factories were immediately shut down, wages cut, and economic unrest swamped the nation. All over the world investigations were opened by governments and newspapers into Arms profiteering. The bookstores were flooded with accusations against “The Merchants of Death.” DuPont and Old Hickory were not immune. A story in a Tennessee newspaper accused the DuPont Company of as much as $100,000,000 in fraud and overcharging of the government. An investigation ensued that went on for years. DuPont was finally cleared of any profiteering.
But that was not the end of it. There were those who thought that DuPont and others had been let off the hook by the unscrupulous politics of the time. Investigations into the Munitions Industry were reopened in 1934. The committee was headed by Senator Gerald P. Nye a Republican from North Dakota. It is interesting to note historically that one of the examiners on that committee was none other than Alger Hiss of future Cold War fame. The World War I veterans were one group who were very upset after learning about the enormous profits earned by munitions companies during World War I. The emphasis of the committee was on – How to take the profits out of War. Much of the New Deal’s ardor was prompted by resentment of the corporate greed that had preceded and in part precipitated the Depression,” says Mr. Hiss.
It is interesting to note that Alger Hiss was the Senate Committee’s examiner on the Nye committee. “... it was normal practice for an aviation salesman to use actual or potential purchases of warplanes by one South American country to impress upon its neighbors their need to make matching or superior purchases so as not to be faced with an arms “gap.” Use of the fear factor proved to be an effective way of bringing about spiraling military budgets. Bribery copiously supported the implanting of fear. The resulting picture was of American business stirring up tensions in an already unstable area and corrupting friendly governments in our hemisphere. One salesman’s letter complained of a U.S. Foreign Service officer as “fomenting peace.”
In the Committees vigorous attempt to regulate the arms and munitions industries one big question kept returning; “Who will regulate the regulators?”
The Committee turned it focus to the DuPont Company and the Old Hickory plant. “This factory (Old Hickory Plant) was paid for by the government on the basis of contracts that called for payment of the costs, plus a percentage of those costs as a fee to repay the company for its efforts. Contracts of this kind provided little incentive for keeping costs low – the higher the costs, the bigger the fee. The urgency of wartime need adds to the mood of prodigality and greed that seems always to accompany such contracts. These twin specters haunt all military procurement. The monopoly position of DuPont played a large part in its ability to demand huge amounts either as costs or as compensations. The company was, to be sure, not alone in its insistence on being paid what it wanted. The government had no alternative. At times the threat was clear: Pay what we demand, or we won’t produce. The Nye Committee likened this to a strike by capital, noting that, in wartime, strikes by labor were forbidden. The issue of wartime profiteering was the one that most concerned labor as well as veterans, who felt their contributions to the war effort had been inadequately reimbursed when compared with corporate profits.”
Alger Hiss did not make any friends on this job – including the DuPont brothers and Bernard Baruch – and it may serve to explain somewhat what happened to him in later years. But he continues: “Examination of the extensive records of the board (Nye Committee) including its voluminous minutes led the committee to discern that the general public’s impression of profiteering during World War I was correct.”
Hiss also states that the acclaimed Bernard Baruch and the War Board of which he was a member had not really done much to protect the interests of the “people” in supervising the actions of the arms and munitions industries. “Not long after Baruch’s appearance, the committee issued its report on wartime profiteering, emphasizing that the imperatives of wartime demand made control of profits impossible. In other words, Baruch’s efforts were ineffective in preventing “the strike of capital.” In the committee’s parlance, the only way to take the profit out of war was to avoid war ... Not surprising, therefore, the Nye Committee switched its main interest to ways to stay out of war.
“Pursuing this tract, the committee after some months, devoted its hearings to the huge American loans made to the Allied Powers before our entry into the First World War. These loans by J. P. Morgan and other bankers had enabled the Allies to purchase from us, armaments and other vital goods. In the committee’s view the loans gave the American bankers a vested interest in seeing the Allies emerge victorious and able to pay their debts, even if this required our entry into the war. And, they reasoned further, the huge, profitable trade with the Allies tilted our economy towards their side. The hearings on our economic ties to the Allies furthered the prompt passage of the Neutrality Act of 1935.”
Interestingly enough the FDR administration did take steps to curb the profits during World War II. FDR put enormous taxes onto the super wealthy and placed extreme excess war profit taxes onto the business community who would all benefit from the war.
These tactics did not prevent World War II nor did they stop greed and selfishness or profiteering but they certainly spread the wealth created from the war around a little more equitably.
These tactics during the war did not endear the rich and wealthy to the FDR administration – the DuPonts in particular. I read one account where it is alleged that the DuPonts actually fomented attempts on Roosevelt’s life along with a domestic revolution to overthrow the U.S. government.
So much for all of those who believe that the country was “united” during World War II.

Books used in this essay include: “DuPont – One Hundred and Forty Years” William S. Dutton; “Alger Hiss – Recollections of a Life” Alger Hiss; “The Rich and the Super Rich” Ferdinand Lundberg; “Great American Fortunes” Gustavus Myers; “Merchants of Death” H.C. Englelbrecht and F.C. Hanighen.

Michael Parenti

Dirty Truths

By Michael Parenti

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

I would call this book a Michael Parenti sampler. It provides one or two chapters on some aspect of Professor Parenti teachings and criticisms. From looking at the long list of books Michael Parenti has to offer one can find the particular topic that is of most concern to them in this volume and then order a more detailed, focused endeavor. Being especially interested in economics and history, my first choices will be along those lines. It is clear that the Professor knows his history, so I am looking forward to my next selection.
This is my second Michael Parenti book and I intend to read a good sampling if not all of his works. I have read reviews comparing Mr. Parenti to other radical writers and proffering the notion that he is simply more of the same. That is hardly accurate. I have read no one, living today, who I would put in Mr. Parenti’s category.
His writing style is very clear, understandable and direct. I have not yet asked, “I wonder what he meant by that?” Michael says what he has to say – rather fearlessly. I would say that his fearlessness is to a degree that I find not only refreshing but a little frightening. I am not frightened for myself by what Mr. Parenti has to say, I am frightened for Mr. Parenti. Knowing what I already know, I realize that speaking out as candidly as Mr. Paranti is inclined to do can be dangerous.
In the first chapter the Professor writes of a hidden Holocaust in the U.S.A.
“Conservatives are fond of telling us what a wonderful, happy, prosperous nation this is … To their ears the anguished cries of the dispossessed sound like the peevish whines of malcontents … but the Dirty Truth is that there exists a startling amount of hardship, abuse, affliction, illness, violence and pathology in this country.”
The Professor then goes on for the next seven pages with a list of statistical information to support his point. It is rather shocking and eye opening.
Lucky for the reader though, the author does have a sense of humor. I don’t like the term “dark humor.” I would describe him as more Jonathan Swift-like.
In this volume we also get a peek at the person and not just his ideas. In Struggles in Academe the reader gets a real insight into where Mr. Parenti is coming from. We learn about his involvement at the University of Illinois in the anti-Vietnam War struggles, and the consequent loss of his right to “practice education.” A very interesting tale.
I very much enjoyed his La Famiglia and The Blessings of Private Enterprise.
In La Famiglia he talks of his ethnic heritage. He gets very personal.
Being raised in an ethnic neighborhood and having many Italian friends, I had the inclination to copy the chapter and send it to some of my buddies. But once again, the Professor’s frankness might be too much Dirty Truth for my old buddies who are all of the Frank Sinatra “Maggio” inclination. For example: “The ordinary recruits in the Italian army had no desire to fight Il Duce’s battles. Rather they manifested a decided inclination to flee or surrender the moment they realized the other side was using live ammunition.” Oh my god, I can hear my buddies screaming now.
The Blessings of Private Enterprise is about his dad’s homemade Italian bread delivery business. Being a small businessman and small business manager, for most of my career, I could see and feel it all very clearly.
I’ve also watched some of the Professor’s videos available free on the Internet. I don’t see why the Professor doesn’t have his own national radio or TV show. He explains his disappointing experiences with the press and the media. But, nevertheless, he would certainly provide the counterpoint to folks like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. His command for factually supported liberal opinions would be challenging to any conservative opponents.
I remember when Bill Buckley had his TV show. Buckley, in those days, was also considered an extremist. He often challenged the most radical leftwing opponents. Some of the exchanges were classic. I think Mr. Parenti could provide the same honest dialogue but, of course, he would be coming from the other direction.
This was a great book Mr. Parenti. Keep up the fight and the best of luck to you.

Karl Marx - On Economics

The Hobo Philosopher

Karl Marx on Economics 1818-1883

Commentary

By Richard E. Noble

Karl Marx was not a positive step in the line of thinkers like Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Mill who were seeking positive solutions to what they saw around them. Marx said the system was corrupt, didn't work, and couldn't be fixed. He was an academic. He should have been a college professor. He was really a journalist, but his rhetoric was so inflammatory that he was put out of business wherever he went. Near the end of his life he stated that he was no Marxist. He really didn't seem to agree with anybody.
Engels, after Marx's death claimed that Marx's was not an Anarchist, but his own words in the Communist Manifesto state otherwise. He was in favor of revolution. He was in favor of the use of violence in that revolution. Although he predicted Communism as a natural evolution, he acknowledged the need of an interim totalitarian government of the wise and faithful to push things along until a condition where no state was necessary finally existed. I think truthfully, the man just liked to argue, and felt that he was intellectually superior to anyone else in the world. He got trapped in the political arguments of his day. That is always enough to drive anybody wacky. He wanted to be intelligent. He wanted to go down in history as a genius, like his idle Darwin, or like Isaac Newton or even Hegel. If he had been alive in the Russian heyday or even today in Communist China, he would not like it. He would be writing his criticisms of the conditions of the poor and underprivileged in those societies and calling their leadership a bunch of swine and parasitic excreta. They would throw his butt out, or kill him. He would have to escape once again to Jolly old England or the United States where he could babble and research to his heart's content, and maybe even get onto Hardball once and awhile.
He wrote a 2000 page book he entitled This Is Capitalism. In it he describes Capitalism, points out its flaws, and predicts its downfall. He is like the religious clerics of today who try to convince us that life on this planet is impossible. It couldn't have happened. But when you say that it obviously is, so it must have happened, they supply you with an even more preposterous explanation of how that came about.
I think Karl was not as smart as he thought he was. He saw moral injustice in the world, and suggested more of the same, or twice as much as before as a solution. As Adam Smith so wisely pointed out ... virtue, unlike vice is not tempered by the pangs and limits of moral conscience...
It is interesting to note that Karl Marx never worked in a factory. His compadre, Engels, was the wealthy son of a rich factory owner. Engels ended up living in wealth, happiness, and comfort from the legacy of his Capitalistic, private property, and inherited birthright. If it were not for the insanely immoral conditions of so many of the poor and hard working of that day, Marx and Engels would have been but a ripple in a sea of the illogical, misdirected rhetoric of every era and epoch.
Marx said that Malthus' theory was an insult to the integrity of Mankind. I agree. Marx’s mother is quoted as having said that she wished that her son had taken a greater interest in making Capitol, than in criticizing it. According to Engels, Marx discovered the historic significance of the “class struggle" and the "motion of Capitalism." I don't know about all of that, but he certainly discovered how to get people all pissed off.
Marx, for some strange reason, is always placed aside Adolf Hitler. There really isn’t much comparison. They were more opposite than they were similar.
Karl Marx’s sympathies were with the workingman. Adolf Hitler was an elitist who supported, and was supported by, capitalists.
Karl Marx was a family man. The story of his lifelong love affair and marriage with the daughter of a wealthy Prussian baron, Jenny von Westphalen, is a tale of devotion, loyalty and commitment that would bring even Ronnie and Nancy to tears. His children, the few who survived their poverty, loved him and wrote glowingly of their parents and their devotion.
Adolf was “strange.” He may have been a pervert. He may have murdered his half-niece, Geli Raubal, with whom he had a very weird relationship. He had a mistress, Eva Braun, who seemed to be about as nutty as he was. He had lots of strange male pals, Ernst Rohm, maybe the most notable. He may have killed Ernst, a best friend and staunch political ally, with his own hand.
Karl never killed anybody. Karl wanted to save mankind and devise a system that would make the world a better place. He thought Capitalism to be an exploitive curse on the poor workingman and the world. Where did he ever get such an idea?
Aldof wanted to murder everybody. Lucky for all of us he ended up murdering himself.
Actually Karl Marx was a rather nice man, somewhat argumentative, but very bright, studious and diligent in the pursuit of learning, understanding and spreading what he believed to be the truth. He left some major literary works, the most notable being Das Capital, that are still being debated and studied to this day.
Das Capital was basically a critical and very involved economic evaluation of the Capitalist system. It was Karl’s opinion that this system was immoral and corrupt but more important, self-destructive. Karl attempted to logically and economically prove that Capitalism would eventually collapse and destroy itself. Whether he was successful or not is still being debated.
Adolf Hitler was a murder and killer who believed in the slaughter of mankind and not its salvation. He was bigoted, prejudiced, and mean spirited. He left behind a book called, Mein Kampf, that is the bible of psychopathic hate and vitriol. In it he preaches the righteousness of evil and selfishness, the glory of war, and the necessity of genocide and mass murder. He is rarely referred to as a “nice man.”

Hooked On Books - Democracy for the Few

Democracy for the Few

By Michael Parenti

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

On page 295 of Democracy for the Few the author, Michael Parenti, political scientist and historian, states: “More than half a century ago the great sociologist Max Weber wrote: ‘The question is: How are freedom and democracy in the long run at all possible under the domination of highly developed capitalism.’ That question is still with us. And the answer suggested in this book is that freedom and democracy have at best a highly tenuous and marginal existence in capitalist society.
“In a democratic socialist social system the factories, mills, mines, offices, educational institutions, newspapers, hospitals, etc. will not be privately owned for private gain but will be controlled by and for their clients and workers. That is the goal towards which our efforts should be directed ... This commitment is, or should be, towards communal, collective and responsible decision making …”
Okeydokey! Now where have I read that before? I think it was in a book called Das Capital by some obscure writer whose name slips my mind at the moment.
But this does not bother me. The greatest champions for the rights of the working class in American history have come from the American Communist and Socialist Party. This fact has been credited by famous labor leaders from the AFL, CIO and documented by labor historians. It is an historical fact.
But regardless of the author’s conclusions, remedies and recommendations, I think this book is an invaluable read for anyone interested in the problems that face both capitalism and democracy.
This book was published in 1974 and the author’s analyses of the problems of our democratic system are as prevalent in today’s American democratic system as they were back in the 70s. Not much has changed. In fact, any changes that have taken place have only served to enhance Mr. Parenti’s analysis.
This same book could have the publication date 2010 and with a few name changes and an update here and there it would be on time and on the money. It is amazing to me how Mr. Parenti was able to achieve this. Few social critics have mastered this talent. Most political analyses become obsolete after months. Very few hang around for years and only the greatest for decades. The superstars are the ones we are still reading centuries later.
Democracy for the Few is packed with rather shocking facts and comparisons. For example on page 282 we have this interesting juxtaposition of random information: “… by the end of the 1960s upper income Americans were spending 2 billion a year on jewelry – more than was spent on housing for the poor – and no less than $3 billion on pleasure boating – half a billion more than what the fifty states spend on welfare. Over the years greater sums have been budgeted by the government for the development of the Navy’s submarine rescue vehicle than for occupational safety, public libraries and daycare centers combined.
“The total expenses of the entire legislative branch and the judiciary branch and all the regulatory commissions combined constitute a little more than one half of 1 percent of the Pentagon’s budget.”
This book is filled with such information.
As the title, Democracy for the Few, implies, we have a contradiction in terms with regards to our understanding of American democracy says Michael Parenti, college professor and educator. The gap between the democracy that most of us think we have and the democracy that is our national reality is Grand Canyon-like.
In light of the author’s detailed critical analysis can we seriously claim that we have a democracy – even a representative one, or a democratic republic for that matter?
The author points out every scam, every trick, and every deception. He explains why our democracy isn’t a democracy – with footnotes and easily understood facts and figures.
He tells us why our legislature isn’t working; how our executive and judicial branches have failed us; how our free press has turned news into propaganda; how our freedoms and constitutional rights have been undermined; how our legal system and our prisons have been diverted from the cause of true justice to protective institutions for the criminal wealthy; how our military has been twisted from defensive to aggressive – boarding on the fascist … Well, actually he doesn’t explain how the “system” has been diverted; he explains how it was designed that way from the very beginning. He shows us the Forefathers’ intentions and how our government of the rich, for the rich and by the rich has evolved according to plan.
Mr. Parenti does not think that “the system” can be tweaked. He sees our problems as endemic to our capitalist, corporate state. The old solution of switching corporate controlled Democrats for corporate controlled Republicans will not bring viable change nor will it institute true representative democracy.
This does seem to be the case, but Mr. Parenti, as with others who espouse his solution to these “endemic” problems, seems to be of the opinion that only the wealthy, elitist, current ruling class is capable of deceit and corruption. My question to Mr. Parenti would be, Are these problems endemic to capitalism and its ruling class or endemic to human nature. If capitalists, rich and poor alike, could be injected with a strong dose of the good old, Christian Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – could this not be a more apt and suitable solution? I would even support laws being enacted along the Golden Rule line of thinking. The Golden Rule solution may be naïve but I find it more acceptable than bombs, bullets and a blood stained revolution in the streets of the U.S.A. Revolutions don’t seem to be working all that well either. Look at what ours has wrought, Mr. Parenti – reed your own book!
Republicans and Democrats alike should read this book. I doubt that either group will enjoy it.
This book by itself could easily serve as the text for a two semester college graduate course in American Democratic Government.
Buy it. Read it and weep.

My Name's Tucker

Lawrence – My Hometown

My Name’s Tucker and I’m a mean Mother F…..

By Richard E. Noble

I was casually strolling down Center St. heading towards Nell’s Variety, when these three little squirts came running out from the yard next to Jack Sheehy’s house. One of the little buggars tossed a rock at me. “Hey watch it you little punk or I’ll come over there and teach the whole bunch of you squirts a lesson.”
The little kids were about 6 or 7 years of age and I was about 10 or 12.
“Oh yeah? My big brother and his gang will kill you, man.”
“Oh really? Well I have a gang too and anytime your big brother and his dumb gang wants a fight, tell them to come on down to Nell’s Variety. And tell them to pack a lunch because it will be an all day affair.”
“Oh yeah! My brother is Danny Tucker and he is a mean mother f----r.”
“Well tell your brother Danny Tucker the mean mother f---r that Rich Noble thinks that Danny Tucker is an all day sucker.”
The kids went running off and I continued on down the road to Nell’s. When I got there several of the guys were sitting on the steps of the tenement adjacent to the store. “Any of you guys know some punk by the name of Tucker, Danny Tucker?”
“Danny Tucker? Yeah I know him. He hangs around up at Perrault’s Diner,” said Jack Sheehy.
“No kidding?”
Perrault’s Diner was a bad place. A lot of bad guys hung out there. It was second only to Frank’s Diner on Lawrence St. for having the meanest bunch of pre-adult potential murders, killers, thieves, drug addicts and homicidal maniacs in town. The real bad guys hung out at these diners. These type diners were where bad younger guys auditioned for their future membership at adult bad places like the Brass Rail and Pinky’s. Of course, compared to us guys at Nell’s everybody was mean and dangerous.
“I think I just made a big mistake. Some little kid threw a rock at me and I yelled at him and he said he was going to get his big brother after me. He said his brother was Danny Tucker the mean mother f----r.”
“Oh God, you did make a big mistake. I think Danny Tucker just got out of the Pen for raping his mother and sister after he killed and ate a neighbor’s pet bulldog. He is about 30 years old for criss sake. He’s dangerous. I think he is a druggie too. You are in big trouble Nobes,” explained my buddy Willie, laughing all the while.
“Well, I’m afraid there are more than just me in trouble. I also told the little shit that if his big brother, Danny Tucker the mean mother f---r, and his gang were looking for a fight they ought to come down to Nell’s. I said my gang could whip his brother’s gang and that his brother and his buddies better pack a lunch because it would be an all day affair.”
“WHAT! You are KIDDING? You didn’t say that. Tell me you didn’t say that?” petitioned my buddy Willie ... now a bit more concerned.
“No that’s pretty much what I said. I also said that I thought that Danny Tucker the mean mother f----r was really Danny Tucker the all day sucker.”
“I think we had better get the hell out of here,” offered Ray Dolan.
“What are we going to do?” Willie yelled.
“Hide man. We better find a place to hide and quick.”
“I wouldn’t really worry about it,” said Jack Sheehy reaching rather nervously into his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes.
“Why not?” asked Willie.
“Because those guys are way too big for us. I mean those guys are all like a hundred years old man. They all drive cars. Some of them are married and have kids who have already been in and out of prison.”
“Really?”
“Really, if they came down here and beat up us little guys they would be the laughing stock of the whole city. I mean what kind of big tough guys beat up a bunch of little kids? They ain’t goin’ to bother us,” Jack assured as he lit his cigarette.
“Why the hell is your hand shaking like that then?” I asked.
“My hand ain’t shaken’,” Jack said. “Look, I’m as steady as a rock.” He held his hand out in front of him and it was wiggling like a leaf in the wind. This was worse than any of us could imagine. Jack was the toughest one of our bunch. He lifted my 110 pound barbell set right up over his head on the first try. If Jack was scared, we were dead meat.
Well, there we were, we had Joe Lewis after us – we couldn’t run and we couldn’t hide. What should we do? We sat on the steps at Nell’s thinking seriously and wringing our hands until it started to get dark and the streetlight came on.
All of a sudden a hotrod pulled up and screeched to a halt right in front of Alma Meter’s house across the street from Nell’s. There were two older teenagers in the front seat. “You guys better run. The gang from Perrault’s is all riled up and they are on their way down here to kick the crap out of you guys.” The car then peeled out from in front of Alma Meter’s and then skidded around the corner at Hampshire Street. We were barely off our butts when cars filled with the Perrault’s gangsters began skidding around every corner. They were coming to get us from every direction. We didn’t have a chance but we all ran anyway. We had no exit strategy – a few of us headed up Exchange St, a couple headed towards the Arlington Club and me and Willie ran down Exchange St. towards St. Rita’s school.
Halfway down Exchange St., there was a field on the right. At the back of the field there was a tall chainlink fence with barbed wire on the top. We had cut through that field and climbed that barbed wire fence a million times. We knew just how to do it. I was in the lead and Willie was about five or ten yards behind me. I leaped up the chainlink fence, placed one foot onto the barbed wire and then leaped clear to the ground. I scrambled to my feet and I was off and running.
I didn’t get ten yards before I heard my buddy Willie screaming. “Nobes, Nobes! Help me I’m stuck.”
I turned around and there was my little chum hanging upside-down. He leaped but didn’t clear the barbed wire. He got one of the rolled up cuffs on his blue jeans hooked onto a barb. Twenty million times we leaped this fence with no problem, now when it counts, my pal screws up.
To be quit honest, I was mighty scared. These guys from Perrault’s were big and mean. They would like nothing better than to bust a few arms and legs – maybe worse than that.
Willie is trying like hell to get his cuff loose but he can’t. He is trying to twist himself like a pretzel and climb back up the fence, but no luck.
I make a move to run back to the fence and get my buddy unhooked. I take no more than two steps and a Perrault’s Diner car screeches and skids to a halt out on the road at Exchange St.
“There’s two of the little bastards, let’s get ‘em.”
All the doors on the car fly open and about six of the Perrault gang start running towards us – knuckles and chains dragging.
Willie is still upside-down but he can see them coming. He twists his head and looks at me cockeyed. I can still see the desperate look in his upside-down eyeballs to this day. He was scared out of his wits. I looked at the Perrault’s guys coming through the field. I looked at Willie hanging there helplessly. And instantly, without the slightest hesitation, I decided to do the right thing – the only thing.
I turned and started running away from Willie for my life. But just as I got boogieing on down that road toward abandonment of “the Willie,” I heard him cry out. His wail reminded me of a cow being bludgeoned to death on the cement slab of a slaughter house floor. It was horrifying. I looked at him hanging there upside-down and I just started laughing.
“Stop laughing you butthead and get me off this fence,” he screamed, humorlessly.
I scurried back to the fence, grabbed Willie around the middle and heaved him up and down until I ripped his pant leg loose. The bad guys were right there. They were RIGHT THERE! Two of them made a running leap up the other side of the fence. Me and Willie were off and running for our lives.
I’m running and I’m scared to death but I can’t stop laughing. Willie is running next to me and he starts laughing because he is listening to me laugh. But we are both still running like crazy. I take a quick gander over my shoulder and there’s two of the Perrault guys hanging upside-down with their pant legs tangled in the barbed wire and the rest of them are still on the wrong side of the fence peeling their bananas and hooting, grunting and scratching under their armpits.
Willie and I stopped to catch our breath and then we got brave.
“You big dumb screw-ups. Don’t you even know how to get over a barbed wire fence? All you clowns should be back in jail where you belong; you’re too stupid to be free.”
“Yeah right! You’re a bunch of clowns and you’re all stupid. If brains were an elevator, you dopes couldn’t get out of the basement and …”
“We better get truckin’ before one of them boneheads gets loose.”
We were off and running for our lives once again. We cut through several yards and over a few garbage can sheds and eventually worked our way to safety. We stopped under a streetlight up on Arlington St.
“What the hell were you laughing at?” Willie panted while bent over and leaning on his thighs.
“I saw you hanging there upside-down and you looked so funny.”
“Yeah really!”
“But the funniest part was, here come the bad guys and I looked at you and I said to myself, ‘Screw him. When the Perrault guys get him they will all start beating him up and I can get enough time to get away.’”
“Nobes, that is not funny. That is not something to laugh about. You could have got me killed.”
“Yeah, but I would have got away.”
“Well, my God, you’re a good buddy.”
“What do you mean, I came back and got you didn’t I?”
“Yeah but you had to think about it.”
“I know. That’s what was so funny. I had to think about it.”
“Well, I hope you have thought about it enough this time so that if there is a next time you will know exactly what to do.”
“I have. I definitely know what to do next time. Next time you are going to be left hanging on the damn fence and I am going to get away clean. Did you see how close those guys were? Man, I almost got myself killed tryin’ to save your dumb butt. I must have been delirious or something.”
“You’re delirious all right, pal. Take it from me, delirious has nothing on you.”

Richard Edward Noble is a freelance writer and columnist. His local column, the Eastpointer, won the first place 2007 humor award from the Florida Press Association. He has published several books. All of his books can be viewed and purchased on Amazon. Contact him at richardedwardnoble@gtcom.net for bookstore discounts and volume sales.

Just Hangin' Out, Ma - Kennedy

Lawrence – My Hometown

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

A Memoir

By Richard E. Noble

The phone rang in our little kitchen. We lived in a tiny apartment in Lawrence, Massachusetts. I spent the first twenty seven years of my life there. It was a mill town with layer after layer of blue collar tenement houses. My mother rarely answered the phone. It was usually never for her but someone calling for one of us kids. We all rushed to her side, ready to grab the phone when she said for whom the call was actually intended. But we were all stopped short, as she hung onto the receiver and began to speak;

“Yes, I know who you are, Bobby. Yes, I know that it is your brother, John, who is running for president.”

“What the ...? Who are you talking to Ma?”

“She’s talking to Bobby; you know Johnny’s brother.” We all laughed, as she went on as if she were talking to one of our school chums.

“Yes, I realize that tomorrow is Election Day ... Oh yes, I certainly intend to vote for your brother. I understand ... Yes, I certainly will ... I will ... I will! I’m going to be there the first thing in the morning. I wish you and your brother the best of luck ... Oh, don’t you worry Bobby; you have my vote.”

Bobby Kennedy had called our house the night before his brother was elected President of the United States.

J.F.K was one of us.

An Irish Catholic, Massachusetts boy, was going for the presidency. This was as close to home as it could get; our little State, our maligned faith, our dumpy neighborhood, our blue collar apartment in the inner-city slum, and our telephone. It was unbelievable. My mother was talking to Bobby about the election; my mother who was probably the least political person that I have ever known. But, that next morning she donned her winter coat and hat and went prancing off with her pocketbook hanging on her arm. I ran out on the porch. I didn’t know whether to cheer, applaud or what. She looked like a miniature Eleanor Roosevelt parading down Chelmsford St. to the corner where they were all lined up at the voting station.

She had received her orders and was marching to her destiny which was to personally elect John F. Kennedy president. And she did it. It was the closest election of the twentieth century thus far.

Johnny won by slightly more than 100,000 votes. He was the youngest man yet to be elected president - the first Catholic president. And though I was just slightly too young to vote for him myself, he was my president also.

He was the president of all the young people. He was as sharp as a tack. He knew his ABC’s. He had all the answers. The press was no match for him. He was smarter than they were. He smiled, had a huge grin and told jokes about his dad and his wife and brothers and sisters. He was a big tease, just like an older brother, or your own dad. He was a hero during the war. I went to see the movie PT-109 at the local movie theater. I bought his book, Profiles in Courage. I still have a copy. It was a real book.

Profiles in Courage was no political biography book about how I was born in a log cabin. It was not about himself. It was about men in history who had acted courageously, even if it meant their political careers. John F. Kennedy was more than another pretty face.

Profiles in Courage was a book about ideals, about principles. It became a TV series. I can remember lying on the parlor floor with my head up against a hassock watching this week’s excerpt with the whole family. At the end of each episode there was somebody crediting John F. Kennedy, and some bit of his personal idealistic inspiration. If I’m not mistaken, he introduced the show, or signed it off – or something.

John F. Kennedy, the war hero, who had saved his buddies; the intellectual and Harvard graduate, the journalist, the TV show writer, the first Catholic president, the youngest elected president, the family man with a picture book wife and regular kids hiding under his desk at the White House, the little rich boy who had a feeling for the working stiff. John F. Kennedy, the man who was going to bring peace to the world at last.

By the time I got to Merrimack College everybody was enrolling in the Kennedy Army for Peace. They called it the Peace Corps. They say that it was really Hubert Humphrey’s idea, but it was Kennedy who pushed and promoted it. Every student that I talked to was joining the Peace Corps. They were all making me feel guilty and hypocritical. Finally we had a president who stopped the tradition of talking about peace while making war; a president who was going to turn it all upside-down. He was going to actively make peace and try to keep the war mongers talking. The whole world got his message and everybody was cheering – except the Russians and Fidel Castro.
Then suddenly it was eyeball to eyeball. The end of the world was on the horizon. But this was O.K. It was all for one and one for all. It was no pull-a-name-out-of-a-hat deal. If we were going to die, we were all going to die at once - BOOM! And who gives a damn. It was a relief. No more hiding under the desks, or looking for a designated bomb shelter, or storing up supplies in the cellar, or contemplating a slow death by some kind of horrid radiation poisoning. If the world really couldn’t be saved, then let’s end it, once and for all. We would prove T. S. Eliot wrong. The world wouldn’t end with a whimper but a BANG! We finally got this chicken-chicken stuff over with.

Khrushchev pushed, and Kennedy pushed back – the Cuban Missile Crisis.
When it was over Khrushchev had blinked. Russian ships were on the TV loading up their ships and heading home with their bombs and missiles. Kennedy had stood up to the bullies and they were tucking their missiles between their legs and heading back to their own school yard. If there was anybody who doubted Kennedy’s policy at that time, I don’t remember that they had time to voice their opinion. The missiles were there; we were on the brink of destruction, and then it was over. It was scary, but we all went through it together – holding our breath.

I have heard many say that Kennedy did it all wrong, we should have invaded Cuba and put Castro to rest. But information from the Russian Archives has since proved that Mr. Kennedy and his brother were more than correct. The Russians had tactical nuclear weapons on Cuban soil and submarines off the East Coast of the U.S. with orders to fire if the U.S. had attacked. And due to problems in the Russian communications system the order to retaliate had been given by Khrushchev and couldn’t have been changed in time to stay a holocaust. The East Coast of the United States from Washington D.C. to Tampa Florida would have been gone – along with a heck of a lot more. The incident scared the heck out of both Kennedy and Khrushchev and they consequently had the infamous hot lines installed.

But, Kennedy was a president to whom the presidency wasn’t the culmination of his life and career. He was too young. He was just starting. He was going to really be something special. He would write history or be a movie star, or teach at Harvard. The presidency was just a stop on his way to bigger and better things and everybody knew it.

I was in my college History class at Northern Essex Community College. It was a renovated Haverhill grammar school. It cost me one hundred and fifty bucks a semester. I had a 1946 Desoto, fluid drive that had to be jump-started every day. I parked it on a hill outside the school and everybody watched and laughed each day as, my buddies and I, all pushed it down the hill to get it rolling and then jumped in when I popped it to a start. It was bright yellow, and we called it the Banana Boat. A phrase made popular a few years earlier by Harry Belafonte. This new junior college and the state-wide junior college program was one of Kennedy’s new ideas. A kid of my social class, and my finances, and my academic background had very little hope of getting a college education.

A young office worker stepped into our classroom, unannounced, walked up to the teacher’s desk and handed him a piece of paper. The teacher read the note, silently.
Then he looked up at the class, and spoke:

“The president of the United States has just been shot in Dallas, Texas. The class is dismissed.”

A boy in the back of the class jumped up and started mumbling something about his tuition and that he was paying that teacher’s salary and he wanted the class to continue. The teacher repeated; “Class dismissed.” Then he turned and started gathering things up from his desk. The mouthy boy kept grumbling. He grumbled all the way down the corridor and out into the school yard. In a matter of seconds he had a crowd around him and was in a fist fight.

In the cellar of the grammar school we had a small make-shift cafeteria. It was just vending machines, a small bookstore and a couple of TV’s. We were glued to the TV’s. The girls were all in tears and sobbing. Their eyes were all wet and raw and their noses red from the constant use of tissues and table napkins.

My father had died suddenly and without warning a few years earlier. This assassination was the exact same experience all over again. Once again I was waiting for the doctors to announce that everything would be all right and that he would live, but just as with my dad, this wasn’t to be the case.

I was stunned in the same way as I had been with my dad when they announced that the president was dead. But, I was steeled to the concept of death now. I had no tears. I had no “whys.” Death has no explanation. The Nation would go on as it did after Lincoln, after Garrison, after McKinley. It would go on as it has after all the different presidents who had been killed or who had died in office. We had a system, and the system would go on; just as my life had gone on after my father’s death. Just as everyone’s life continues and goes on after the death of any loved one. You have no choice.

But a lot of dreams would now die and be forgotten.

At my father’s funeral, they kept saying that he was so young. And I thought, silently, does death have an age limit? Is anyone too young or not old enough to die? Hardly. Here was the hope of the world and he had just had his head blown off in Dallas, Texas.

Watching the funeral on the TV was tragic. Little John-John being prodded forward by his mother and saluting the coffin; the horse with no rider; the hauntingly slow, and penetrating cadence of the drums – a whole nation in mourning. The memories of those days never seem to die.

Maybe they’re not supposed to.

John F. Kennedy holds the unique distinction of being the only president to be assassinated more than once.

He was first assassinated on November 22, 1963 when he had his head blown off in Dallas, Texas. Since that initial assassination, John F. Kennedy has been slowly assassinated, day by day, by the written word in newspapers, periodicals, books, and documentary films in what seems to me to be an attempt to prove to us, the American people, that John F. Kennedy was such a terrible man that he really deserved to be killed in the first place.

I view this with the same attitude that I have learned to view rape. It doesn’t matter if she looks like a whore, acts like a whore, or even if she is a whore, no man has the right to take her without her voluntary consent.

John F. Kennedy, no matter what his character faults, did not deserve to be murdered. He may have been an S.O.B., but, as someone has said before me, he was our S.O.B. And if our government knows and has more information on what happened, it is time that we were informed and the information, at least, made available to our historians. I feel that I have a right to know the truth before I die. The time is here.

The suspects in the murder of J.F.K. include nearly everyone. The only prominent person or group not yet accused of the crime, I think, is the Pope.

Things we know: The Warren Commission Report was a blatant cover-up. The autopsy was fudged. There was more than one gunman. It now seems that there were so many bullets fired, one wonders how innocent by-standers weren’t hit – Oswald’s nest, the grassy knoll on the right; the grassy knoll on the left; somewhere from the front; somewhere from the back; from the sewers. Assassins seem to have been all over the place.

Shoplifters got better police protection than Oswald received walking up that ramp to his death at the hands of Jack Ruby. Who are they kidding! They had better security at the Lawrence police station, for god sakes.
To me, one thing does seem to be certain here. A whole bunch of prominent people have been lying on this matter. Why?

Americans have the right to know their own history. Open up all this secret stuff and, at least, let the academics in. Most everybody involved is probably dead by now. It won’t change anything, but it should be important to a people who keep making claim to be living in – the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Hitler and Conservatism

The Hobo Philosopher

Hitler and Conservatism

By Richard E. Noble

Making no apologies and accepting the notion that "Liberal" is to Communism and Socialism as "Conservatism" is to Nazism and Fascism, I took up the assignment of investigating and researching Adolf Hitler many years ago. I did so because I wanted to know where my country was heading - and how I could prepare. I did this casually - I never realized how quickly the transformation would be upon us.

I have read many people accusing the Bush administration and the modern rightwing conservative movement of Hitlerism. But how true is this accusation? I think that I have read and studied enough on the subject to write an objective and informed essay on such a comparison.

First, Adolf was an advocate for war. Adolf was pro-war. He was not a reluctant warrior. He was unabashedly in favor of conflict. He not only favored conflict as a method for solving political problems, but for changing social conditions. To put it very bluntly, from Adolf perspective war was not only good but absolutely necessary. It fulfilled God's demands for the eventual perfection of the species; it built character in the individual; it turned boys into men; it promoted national unity and patriotism; it expanded the values of courage, honor and country; it gained the respect of the other nations of the world.

Many philosophers, kings, conquerors and rulers before Adolf felt exactly the same way - along with many of America's famous leaders and generals.

I think that modern day Conservativism here in the United States speaks a slightly softer rhetoric but I would have to say that philosophically they are in agreement. They believe in war and conflict as a means of resolving "problems."

I think this is a bi-partisan policy. I think that both parties believe in war or aggression as a political tool. They disagree only on the technicalities - who, where and how - not whether we should or whether we shouldn't. And Like Adolf no one is concerned with whether it is ethically right or morally wrong. Politicians are already telling us that this will not be our last war either. No more are we fighting the war to end all wars. We are fighting this one as a learning experience and training ground for the next one.

I would say that Adolf was more of a purest in regard to war than modern day conservatives. He approved of war and violence first in an idealistic way. He believed that he could bring "peace" through war. Once he controlled the world - he could then insure peace to the citizens of the world - as the Romans had done. He accused Woodrow Wilson of espousing the very same doctrine. Woodrow was going to make the world safe for Democracy - if you will remember. I have read other people who have quoted Ronald Reagan as saying the very same thing - peace through war.

I feel that Adolf liked war in and of itself. He felt that it was morally, philosophically, and ethically righteous - the fact that it could be economically beneficial and stimulating to the industrial development and general prosperity of the nation was important to his cohorts but secondary to him.

I think that the modern conservative has those same priorities but in reverse. But whatever, the behavior turns out the same.

Secondly, Adolf believed in militarism. He wanted to turn his nation into an armed camp. His idea for his State was rather Platonic - a la Plato's Republic. The soldier would be held first and in the highest esteem. Everybody in the nation would eventually be a soldier in one shape or another. Pure Arian women would breed children for the Fatherland - children would be "little soldiers." Adolf established military youth groups - our Boy Scouts was an offshoot of this notion.

Adolf believed in a militarized State or nation. I would have to say that in the heart of every Conservative exists a similar notion. The idea of a draft or some sort of mandatory service to the State has not been mentioned too often recently. The "draft" has a rather turbulent history here in the United States and already those who oppose the idea are organizing. But if the conservative notion that all that is needed in Iraq and the world is more troops and victory (world peace) is at hand - I think that it could very easily be re-instated especially in a Republican dominated legislature.

But all through our nation the police state has been growing. We have a whole Central American country housed in our prisons today. No country in the world today has more people in their prisons than we do here in the land of the free. And the emphasis on rehabilitation and humane treatment is getting less and less. Americans want to punish criminals. We have prisons now in the United States that are housing prisoners in tents, providing inadequate health and dietary needs, promoting violence and indecency. The American people are agreeing to this on the grounds that a prisoner should not have better living and social conditions than the lowest of the law-abiding. So as the social conditions of the law-abiding drop due to unemployment and poor economic policy the conditions inside our prisons get worse and worse. One day soon we may be providing the setting for the re-make of the movie "The Midnight Express" or "The Gulag Archipelago."

Americans now believe that there are certain criminal types that are incorrigible and incurable and do not deserve a second chance. People who have drinking and drug problems and end up killing someone are held in the same regard as employees of Murder Inc. or thought of as similar to a perverted serial killer. Many people are serving life sentences in our prisons for multiple petty theft crimes - three strikes and you're out. In fact 80% of those in our prisons are there because of drug related crimes.

Adolf Hitler felt exactly the same but he carried his conservatives a step further. He felt that supporting incorrigible, anti-social individuals with taxpayer’s dollars was a waste of decent people's money. Eventually he turned his prisons into work camps and finally added incinerators to expedite the disposal and eradication of these type people. As time went on he expanded on the types to be considered incorrigible. Eventually the disposable included gypsies (homeless?), mentally ill, homosexual, radical, communist, various religious types, union organizers, prostitutes, the retarded, non-producers of all sorts - and of course you all know about the Jews.

Prisons under conservative regimes have been known to foster a tendency for people to "disappear." You will remember not too long ago in Argentina, mothers were holding pictures of their sons and daughters who "disappeared." Militarism and disappearing seem to go hand in hand.

We have recently been exposed to people "disappearing" here in the U.S - people who were citizens; people who had businesses or jobs; people who were professionals.

The Bush administration admitted to hiding people in foreign countries - of course these people were deemed to be international terrorists. But nevertheless the comparison to Hitlerism can not be avoided. Granted Hitler was a bad guy and our leaders are good guys. But when the behavior for the bad guys and the good guys is the same, how do us simple children know good from evil? Obviously we must make our white hats whiter and our black hats blacker.

In the future we will justifiably increase our police, our intelligence, and our "homeland" security guards all over America. I, like you, agree with all of this - but really do we have to call it "homeland" security. "Homeland" and "Fatherland" are just too heil Hitler-ish for me.

The Jews are building a wall along their northern border and we are building one along our southern border and the last report on Baghdad a wall is being planned there also. You know it didn't seem all that long ago that at least once a week I was seeing an old film clip of Ronald Reagan saying; "Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall." I haven't seen that clip for awhile lately. I don't mean to sound paranoid but is something happening here?

Militarism ... inordinate adulation for soldiers, huge military industrial complex expenditures; maximum moneys for bombs and bullets and minimal allocation for health and education. Extreme patriotism ...

In Nazi Germany, German soldiers would gather around a table of citizens in a restaurant; they would then start in singing the German national anthem. If the people at the table didn't join in they would interrupt their song long enough to pounce on the diners and beat the hell out of them.

I saw an American on the TV the other day. He was traveling around the country painting American flags on the roofs of buildings. He said that he didn't think that any country could have too much patriotism.

During the Nazi period in Germany the German people were willing to kill anybody and everybody in the name of the Fatherland. This may seem bold of me, but I think that is a little too much patriotism.

Osama bin Laden may not have a Country so I guess that we can not call what his followers feel patriotism. He claims to be fighting for the "Arab Nation" - wherever that is. But whatever it is that you would like to call this type of loyalty or devotion that gives people permission to kill and destroy anybody and everybody - I think that it is a little bit too much of something. You can call it whatever you like. It is really difficult to distinguish between the philosophy of Osama bin Laden and the philosophy of necessary "collateral damage." In fact, if I am not mistaken, these fundamentalists Arab terrorists use this Western tradition established so vividly at Dunkirk and Hiroshima as a basis for their reasoning. Adolf Hitler believed in all out war. Unfortunately all out war can go both ways. Today the Conservatives are debating the necessities of the Geneva Conventions - even torture - this point of view is fundamental Hitlerism.

Militarism ... I read any number of comparisons on this idea but the last one was the most dramatic, I thought. The author stated that the United States spends more on its military budget than all the rest of the world combined.

I don't want to sound like Andy Rooney here, but I think that's too much. Couldn't we at least cut back to half as much as the rest of the world combined? Yes we may have to invade fewer countries because we don't have the means - but let's share this responsibility with some of the other free and conscientious countries of the world.

I would also say if we are not a militaristic state - we are certainly spending enough to be one.

Third ... torture? Adolf believed in torture, but torture has been a fundamental of the established conservative order for as far back into history as you want to go.

After World War II Allen Dulles and cohorts incorporated Reinhard Gehlen and a host of other German Nazi war criminals into our intelligence network and eventually into our CIA. Today's conservatives believe in torture - as conservatives always have.

Reinhard Gehlen retired at the expense of American taxpayers. He lived a long and happy life as a part of U.S. intelligence - training our boys and girls in the CIA to torture and interrogate Nazi-style. To incorporate these types into our intelligence system was a conservative program - torture and American conservatism are nothing new. You can read the memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen in a book entitled "The Service" published by the World Publishing Company in 1972.

Of course we all know that Adolf had no problem with torturing people. I can honestly say that I would never have thought that I would see the day that a President of the United States of America would be making the case for this country's right to torture people - any people - on national TV. I may be naive but I thought that we were above such behavior. The Japs and the Nazis did that type shit - not America. But, argues Alan Dersherwitz - a man who claims to be a JEW of all peoples - torture in the name of saving lives is justifiable. This man is a famous "liberal" lawyer. I must say Alan, a Clarence Darrow you are not. A Francis Bacon you very well may be but a Clarence Darrow you certainly are not.

When we declare torture as legitimate practice for U.S. interrogators does not the conservative and the liberal sympathizer have to look into his Mein Kampf and take a deep breath? Please ... give me a break! (I steal the phrase from another modern day conservative propagandist.)

Hitler actually gave lectures to his troops, the goal of which was to immunize his soldiers to the necessity for brutality. Killing and brutalizing the enemy was good and necessary, Hitler explained. Jews for example were not to be considered as human beings. They were to be classified as parasites and vermin. They were plague carriers. Therefore no German soldier should feel any guilt in torturing or brutalizing any Jew - women, children and babies included.

As time went on this immunization was carried over to consider all enemies - internal and external. These people were all needless and unnecessary - consequently expendable. Adolf went so far as to tell his soldiers that they were doing the work of the Creator whose goal it was to eventually breed the perfect human species. So eliminating the imperfect was doing God's work on earth.

This is not too far off from the present conservative Evangelical notion that to bring on World War III and therefore precipitate the return of Jesus Christ and the destruction of all sinners is a good thing and a part of God's plan. In effect, rightwing Christian Evangelicalism is certainly the stepbrother to Nazism. And I seriously doubt if Jesus Christ would have anything to do with any of this business.

Unfortunately this did not work. It seems that many German soldiers were having mental breakdowns from being forced to kill or machine-gun too many innocent or unarmed people. Adolf then went into training super loyal, super patriot killer squads. These soldiers followed the invasion forces and then dealt with the mass exterminations after an area was occupied.

This was followed by new scientific techniques to more efficiently exterminate people with a minimal of German soldiers participating.

Hitler believed in "all out" war. The only rule of war was winning. If you win the war, you will write the history books and you will tell the world what happened. If you lose then clearly you were not God's chosen elect. If you lose then you were wrong. If you win then whatever you chose to do will be justified. The goal of a nation at war is then to concentrate solely on winning - no talk or actions to the contrary should be tolerated.

Hitler was even annoyed that the German press printed love letters from home from the wives and sweethearts of the men on the front lines during World War I. He accused them of a kind of treason through ignorance.

So we have Hitler and our conservative agenda ... 1) War is good; 2) Militarism and the expansion of the military are the policy; a) expand domestic security - police etc.; make prisons harsher; 3) torture is good. a) immunize the soldiers and the general public to cruelty, killing and the nobility of dying in battle for their Fatherland and later for the Fuehrer.

The Burning of the Reistag and 9-11.

The Reistag burnt down mysteriously. The Reistag was the Capital Building, the seat of the German Government. This horrified the German people. It was like the Pentagon had been bombed - can you imagine! A great symbol of the German society had been destroyed by some crazy "terrorists." This convinced the German people that their tolerance and understanding of radical groups had gotten out of hand. An internal crackdown was necessary. This led to the accepted establishment of a German police state and purges of Adolf personal and political enemies.

As it turned out Hitler himself may have authorized the burning of the Reistag for the very purpose that he had planned. Now he would have the support of the "masses" to eliminate all opposition; to arrest anyone he wanted; to remove restrictions on the police and enhance state control of the nation. And that is exactly what he did. Who would believe that anyone could be this cleaver or nefarious? But history is full of such examples - Nero, Caligula, to mention just a couple.

So far only a few extremists have accused the Bush administration of being complicit in the destruction of the Twin Towers but a recent poll indicated that 32% of Americans believe that the U.S. Government was somehow involved in the catastrophe of the Twin Towers for the sake of precipitating a war.

Could it be possible? Well, there is certainly more circumstantial evidence in associating the Bush family and the Conservative movement and the Republican Party with Arab Terrorist than there ever was in associating Franklin D. Roosevelt with Japan or the Axis powers. Yet at least four investigations were held investigating the Roosevelt administration during World War II. There were additional investigations after the war and accusations are still being made today by authors, writers and journalists.

I hesitate to even venture an opinion on such an inflammatory accusation but that the 9-11 event is being used to instill fear in the general public for the purpose of increasing state and police power is obvious. Not only is the state and police power being advanced but "rights" long regarded as unalienable by the American people are being abandoned - wiretapping, spying, unauthorized search and seizures, torture, the right to a fair trial and to be confronted by your accusers; the sanctity of one's home; to be informed of the charges and the evidence against you; denial of rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

The abandonment of the Bill of Rights as something only tolerable during times of peace is being proffered by the administration directly to the American people - and they are accepting it. This may be the most blatant attack on the fundamental principles on which this government was founded than ever before in the history of this nation.

Preemptive striking of an enemy.

Of course Adolf Hitler was a proponent of preemptive striking. He believed in out right aggression and defended this notion of the survival of the fittest in his book Mein Kampf. But even he was not as bold as the Bush administration and the modern rightwing conservatives.

Adolf provided the world excuses for his initial aggressions. He made up stories of German citizens being harassed or of territories really belonging to the German people in the first place. In one incident he actually took German prison inmates to a desired invasion site; dressed them in German military uniforms and then executed them and left their bodies at the site. He then put their pictures in the paper and told his people and the world of the terrible atrocity that had been perpetrated against the "Homeland" and the German people.

This administration simply announced their right to strike preemptively - and then did it. Even Adolf Hitler didn't have that kind of balls - at least until Poland anyway.

The American people were then told by several TV apologists that the U.S. had always had a preemptive strike policy and what the present administration had done was nothing new or unusual.

Preemptive striking prior to the present administration referred to our response to a possible nuclear attack. In other words if the U.S. detected that there were nuclear missiles on their way to our shore - we would launch a response before these missiles even landed. This would be termed preemptive because we would technically not have been attacked ... yet.

It did not mean that we could strike out at another nation because we were suspicious that they were planning an attack against us or because we thought that they would attack us if they had the capacity - and certainly not because of the opinion that the world would be a better place without "their kind."

In the Cold War with Russia we had a policy of mutual destruction - not a preemptive strike. What were we supposed to do; "Wait until we see a mushroom cloud?" Ah ... kind of. Yeah, that was the plan - wait until we saw the rockets coming anyway. In today's world we would say that would be too late - we should attack Russia immediately. We didn't do that and no one said it - at least not publicly.

An act of this nature (preemptive) has always been considered an act of aggression. It was in accordance with this notion of aggression - the one who strikes first is the aggressor - that we convicted the Nazi leadership at Nuremberg after World War II. In fact, it was at these Nuremberg trials that it was decided for the first time in all human history that he who strikes first would be considered the aggressor and that such an act of aggression would be a violation of international law.

It was the United States of America that paid for and orchestrated these trials at Nuremberg - supposedly to define for the world once and for all who is the guilty party in a war.

We and our allies executed many of the remaining German elite on the charge of initiating a war of aggression. It was decided by studying documents that the German leadership had planned, orchestrated and initiated a war of aggression and they were found guilty and executed.

When the Bush leadership says that they preemptively attacked another country and they were wrong and had acted on inadequate information, I find it very difficult to believe that the American judges at Nuremberg would have accepted any such excuse from Herman Georing or any of the other defendants back in 1946. But, we have always believed that a man is innocent until proven guilty in this country - but I don't know if that still counts in this 9-11 "new world." But are there grounds for prosecuting the present administration for starting a war of aggression under international law?

I would say if the present American leadership is ever brought to trial on this regard - things do look bad for the "good" guys. They certainly cannot deny that they initiated the attack. It has been plainly recorded in all the newspapers. But they may have one ace in the hole. From the way this war has been conducted it may be difficult for the prosecution to prove that this war had been "planned." The Germans were convicted for initiating and "planning" a war of aggression against Poland. Having no plan or a stupid plan may not be an excuse but it is worth a try.

Hitler also believed as a point of leadership that any decision was better than no decision. Even a wrong decision was better than vacillation or making no decision at all, according to Adolf.

I think that when Mr. Rumsfeld said; You go to war with the army that you have, not the army you wish you had - He was agreeing with Adolf's idea of any decision is better than no decision. And when we consider that we have no exit strategy; we don't have adequate forces; we didn't anticipate that the Iraqi people might not look at us as "liberators"; that we didn't anticipate a gorilla war once we got to Baghdad; that we could go it alone if we had to; that we might unite the terrorists; that disgruntled Arabs might then attack Israel; that Russia, China, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon and whoever might work against us if things didn't work quickly; that our boys didn't need armor under there vehicles; that Depleted Uranium could kill our soldiers as well as theirs; that maybe our young people would stop joining the military because they can't go to college if their dead; that we don't have the money to sustain a never ending war; that we can't afford to take care of all the injured and damaged who return home; that we would make our oil dependency problem even worse; that violence begets more violence ... you can continue, I'm tired.

On the other hand Adolf was an extreme nationalist. He believed in Germany for Germans. In fact, he believed in the whole world for Germans - eventually. He believed in good wages for German workers; he believed in full employment; he believed in health care and education for all Germans; he sponsored paid vacations and free holiday cruises for business and their employees; he didn't believe in homeless Germans; when Adolf substituted "foreigners" in his factories they didn't replace German workers at lower wages. They were prisoners or "undesirables" who were worked to death in order to make life easier for Germans. Adolf did not believe in birth control. On the contrary - he encouraged German motherhood and it mattered very little if the mother was married or not. If she was German she and her baby were paid and cared for by the state. He encouraged German businesses to work for the betterment of the German state and the German people. He hated "internationalism." He would not be a fan of the "Global Economy" - nor would he participate in any "Free Trade" agreement that undercut the Homeland. If trade didn't benefit Germany and the German people, he didn't do it.

Neither of our two political parties would be considered Hitler-like in any of the above ... sadly.

Adolf as we all know did not like the Jews. He considered the Jews to be an international pariah. Although he criticized the Jews for not having a homeland, he did not care much for the idea of Zionism. He considered a Jewish homeland to be nothing more than a pirate’s hideaway - a place where the Jews could hide their ill gotten gains.

I don't think that either of our political parties could be considered to be against Zionism or the nation State of Israel. Although I have just finished reading a book entitled, the Secret War Against the Jews, which attempts to make that very case. I suppose that the authors of this book might equate the current situation to be a roundabout venture by the U.S. to unite the entire Arab world against the Jews - which would have a certain amount of credibility. As far as I can see though the general opinion is the exact opposite. If anything, it may be that the American people are of the opinion that the U.S. government is too cozy with the state of Israel at the moment.

Adolf had a bitter hatred for the press. He not only censored the press but eventually he took over the press. It does seem that the Nazis invented the word propaganda. I interpret this word "propaganda" to be what is referred to today as "spin." Propaganda would also be the leaking of false information. It could also be the misdirection or falsification of information (intelligence). It could also be the suppression of true information. The controlling of the news, the press, and information in general was a foundation stone of Nazism.

Conservatives have always had this same animosity - especially during a war. The British conservatives went bonkers when William Howard Russell, the first war correspondent, started sending his dispatches from the Crimea in Russia, back to the British press. His version of the "Charge of the Light Brigade" was not nearly as romantic, patriotic or heroic as Rudyard Kipling's version. The British people were shocked at the ineptness of their military leadership and other facts of the war. Not only hadn't the British government sent any doctors or nurses, the soldiers didn't even have bandages. The whole war was a sad story of ineptitude and bad planning.

The Bush administration has been criticized as the least accessible and most antagonistic to the press, possibly in all of American history. That is a pretty rugged statement when we consider the Nixon administration. But it does seem to be true. The so called "embedded" press in these present invasions is credited with doing a horrid job of reporting; though they are getting great marks for "propaganda." Even with no pictures of blood or dead bodies, and no returning caskets of American soldiers the conservatives are still complaining that not enough "positive" images of the wars are being reported.

At home we are indulging every type of illegal search and seizure; every type of spying on civilians; confiscations of property, secret arrests; reporters being discharged, staged press conferences, phony questioners and questions, administration officials being fired or being forced to resign, and most recently the president’s appeal to the people to approve of torture as a necessary tool for interrogators.

To say the least the current administrations attitude and tactics towards the press could very easily be considered Hitler or Nazi-like.

Hitler did not put the rights of the individual or of religion ahead of the state. The rights of the State trumped all in Hitlerland. If the State made a law and you felt that this law was against your natural right as a human being or your faith in a Supreme Being - you lose. Order came first in Hitlerland.

In America this view is rapidly on the rise. People are once again challenging anyone's right to take the Fifth Amendment or to refuse a polygraph, or to allow their person or home to be searched, or to testify against themselves, or even the admissibility of a forced confession. I have been reading a good deal of American history in the last few years but I do not find that the American people have ever in the past acted this cowardly in the face of any danger. This may once again be a first for America.

So to re-cap our comparison of Hitler and conservatism: We have War - not merely necessary but good; militarism is the desired state policy; torture is necessary; slanted propaganda is "fair play"; Police state is desirable for security and order; freedom of the press is a ridiculous notion - censorship is mandatory; complete state control is even better; patriotism to the point of elitism and racism is the "way things should be"; 9-11 and the burning of the Reistag - suspicious to say the least; Prisons should be more brutal and fearful - rehabilitation of diseased, sick minds is a waste of taxpayers money; War reporting should be totally of a positive and patriotic nature; any decision is better than no decision.

Where Adolf differs from present day conservatives: Adolf favored "nationalism" and opposed "internationalism"; Adolf favored good jobs, good education and good health care for German workers. To Adolf the German people came first - to American conservatives the American people come last. Republicans have now adopted the old Tom Payne liberal adage - We are citizens of the world - to justify there lack of patriotism and concern for American workers and the American people in general.

Now let's continue. Adolf as I said hated the international minded. He considered "internationalism" synonymous with treason. In fact he placed it all as a part of the "International Jew Conspiracy.” He more than likely got this notion from that American hero Henry Ford. For those of you who may not be aware, Henry Ford was an avid antiSemite. He published a book in the 1920s entitled "the International Jew" which he had disseminated all over the world. But consequently Adolf was very strong on German domestic production. He supported the business community one hundred percent. Initially he didn't like the stock market, banking, or capitalism in general - but as time went on he came around. He had to, because as he rose in power it was these very capitalists who were buttering his bread. Adolf was a Capitalist - not a socialist.

Hitler loved entrepreneur-ship and individual wealth and control. He was very much in favor of the "One Great Man" idea. He did have one criticism of Big Business which I read about in William Manchester's "The Arms of Krupp." It seems that Mr. Krupp was not only manufacturing bombs and bullets for the domestic market but was also selling them to Germany's enemies or potential future enemies. Hitler actually considered such a practice treasonous.

Most Conservatives today consider this practice as simply good business or at the least unavoidable. But Hitler in his naiveté thought selling weapons and technology to the enemy to be unpatriotic. He supposedly tried to get Mr. Krupp to stop doing it. He went to talk with Mr. Krupp personally, claims Mr. Manchester. Krupp supposedly told Hitler that he would sell his weapons and technology to anyone he damn well pleased and if Mr. Hitler didn't like it, he (Mr. Krupp) would move his entire armament operation to Soviet Russia. We have almost no - and very possibly none - of our large corporations who are not international - usually receiving more of their profit and revenue from foreign investments.

Supposedly Hitler negotiated a compromise and convinced Mr. Krupp to only sell last year's "models" to the enemy and this year's models to Germany. This seems to be the present day U.S. policy but, of course, most of our defense contractors have already moved the bulk of their operations to foreign countries - labor cost being so much more reasonable. I have also read that this has been done for "strategic" reasons also - we don't want to have all our eggs in one basket, it is claimed.

So though the American people pay dearly for their arms and arm technology - most of the related job employment is being shipped overseas - Americans still get to be the soldiers though. Many Americans think this to be a benefit. I would personally rather have the armament jobs performed in this country by Americans and the soldiering farmed out to foreign countries - but that is just my opinion. I think that making the bullets is much safer and more lucrative than shooting them. But then again I was never much of a one for soldiering. It worked well for America in World War I and in World War II for that matter.

So Hitler liked and supported the business community much like our present day conservatives. The difference being Hitler supported the "national" defense by employing the workers and industrialists of his nation - not the international, Global economy - at least where he had the power to do so.

Hitler not only believed in "Peace through War"; he also believed in "Wealth through War." Hitler and his associates were salting themselves away a personal fortune. When reading about Hitler and his friends one seriously has to wonder if all their aggressive behavior was not a matter of their personal desire to amass wealth and fortune. This was once the goal of all great conquerors. It is said that even as late as Napoleon the promise to the soldiers was the opportunity for rape, pillage and plunder. Hitler and his friends were certainly in favor of pillage and plunder.

Form what one reads in the newspapers the present administration and friends could very well be of a similar mind set. We have Halliburton, Unical, Zapata oil, Blackwater and a host of "Privatization" war technologists who seem to be doing very well lately. In any case, the days for our presidents ending up bankrupt in their post presidential years seems to have died out with a few of the early forefathers.

U.S. Grant, a good Republican tried his best - but it seems with all his military wit, wisdom and courageousness, he still managed to go bankrupt. It seems that he had a good mind for war but not for business - very un-Republican of him - though his Republican friends did quite well.

Most people do not think of Adolf Hitler and God or religion but Adolf was certainly messianic. He was born a Roman Catholic. He mentions the Creator, the Prince of Peace, Divine Providence, and the Divine Plan in Mein Kampf. There is no doubt that he felt himself to be fulfilling The Creator's Divine Plan here on earth; he was fulfilling Nature; he was purifying the races; he was "inspired"; he heard "voices" and felt intuitive inspiration. He never claimed to be an atheist or an agnostic. Adolf was a believer and not a non-believer. I remember no reference in Mein Kampf to any particular religion - but Adolf was certainly a believer. He felt himself to be inspired and to be doing the work of the Creator. In this respect he is certainly in line with the present conservative leadership and the conservative movement. Admittedly Adolf believed in a very strange God - but so too or present day Conservatives.

Elitist vs. Populist

This is another one of those confusing areas. As I see it, Adolf preached an elitist philosophy that had a resounding appeal to all class levels of the German population. He was not a "populist" preaching "demagoguery" in any American politically comparative interpretation. He was not a man of, from and by the people. He was not "Mr. Citizen." He was not Harry Truman or William Jennings Bryan or even Huey Long as I see it. He was no Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was not for the common man. He was without doubt a "trickle down" kind of a guy. He appealed to all the various classes of the German people because the German people for the most part were all elitist who considered themselves to be superior to the rest of the human race - any German of the lowest rank was superior to the best of any other race or society.

In this respect the present administration and the present conservative movement is exactly the same. Certainly George W. Bush and the present conservative movement appeals to the same type and class of individuals as did Adolf Hitler. They think of themselves as superior, hard working, patriotic, pragmatic, unsympathetic, stern, disciplined, self-sufficient, self-made, persevering, members of the elect ruling class and deserving of all they have and everything they may stumble upon in the future. They are the ultimate in individualism. "There, but for the grace of God go I," is not a part of their understanding.

But as with Adolf Hitler they are "plain folk" who consider George W. to be a "regular" guy. The kind of a guy that they would like to sit around and drink beer with; he's the Mr. Malaprop of the presidency; he's the guy-next-door president; the common American supposedly feels one with George W. Clearly today’s American conservative is very much like the "regular guy" in Hitler's Germany.

This is the same type of popularism that Adolf had. It is just that no German citizen thought of himself as a "regular guy." Adolf spoke for the "regular" German. It is just that the "regular" German was elitist at heart. This is very much the same in the conservative movement of today in America. Conservatives today speak elitist, authoritarian, dogmatism in a very common every day manner.

Unionism

Adolf spoke out of both sides of his mouth when it came to the "working man" and unionism. The first group that he attacked when he got into power was the unions. He shut them down; he wrecked their offices and burnt their files and put their leaders in prison - or killed them on the spot. The present day conservative and the conservative movement have done much the same thing only in a much more sophisticated manner. The last stage of the American anti-labor movement took control immediately after the death of FDR. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bushwacked II - I don't think anyone can find any real labor heroes in that group. Even the Labor unions that survived into the second half of the 20th century were not workingman unions. The AFL was elitist. Samuel Gompers stood up more for the business community than he did for the working community. John L. Lewis of the CIO was a Republican - need any more be said. The Teamsters were gangsters and Mafioso. Labor unions in today's United States are either dead or dying. Public support for unions is nil to nothing. Everybody whether they are right or left, young or old have the same single phrase when it comes to unions in this country; "The Unions at one time were good but then they went sour and in today's world they aren't necessary." And I suppose that they won't be necessary until the middle class is in the dumpsters with the lower class; then we may see some turning around. As more and more Americans loose their good jobs and their retirement promises and their health care and insurance benefits we may then start to see some sort of a gradual return. But the business community has become a lot smarter and they certainly have not lost their ruthlessness - it will be extremely difficult for the union movement to ever rise again. It is going to take some creative imagination and some new ideas by those who are so inclined to help reverse this type of deterioration.

No unions were allowed in Germany after Adolf. Unions were built, controlled and organized by Jews according to Adolf. They were destroyed not because they were unions but because they were a part of the Jewish Conspiracy. Of course everyone that Adolf didn't like was a part of the Jewish Conspiracy.

Another fundamental of Hitlerism was the principle of the consolidation of your enemies.

Adolf as I just finished stating had very little respect for the common man - the masses. He felt that they were basically stupid and could not grasp a complicated enemy. He advised his Kampf that all of their enemies should be consolidated under one title. And all the problems of the society should be accredited to this one simple to understand group. Adolf chose as his symbol for everything evil and troublesome - The Jew. Adolf was truly unique in this regard. He had Jews everywhere. He had the hated rich Jew capitalist up in the window of his successful factory, cheering the Jew labor leader down in the factory yard who was inciting a strike. The Jewish capitalist didn't really care about all the money that he was losing because of the labor strike - because the main goal of the International Jew was to promote chaos and discord. The International Jew's main goal was to collapse and undermine the stability of all nations so that they could eventually rule the world.

The conservatives unfortunately do not have the International Jew these days - instead they have the Liberal. The American Liberal like the Hitler International Jew is all hated things under one simple heading. Liberals are traitors; liberals are cowards; liberals are social deviants who want to undermine the basic principles of the established society. Liberals hate God; they hate women, and liberal women hate men; liberals even hate themselves.

Just as Adolf was able to place every hated thing under the dog-tag of the Jew, so it is today the conservative has categorized the Liberal. Liberal is a bad word in today's American Society. Even Liberal's won't admit to being Liberal any more.

Amazingly, with the fall of Communism, Liberals have even become today’s Fascists. Once upon a time the Liberals were Communist and the Conservatives were Fascists. You would think that when the Communists collapsed the Liberal would have collapsed with it but no; the Conservatives went from Fascists to patriots and the Liberal went from Communist to Fascists. There should be absolutely no doubt who inherited Adolf's propaganda gene. But Adolf claimed to learn the techniques of propaganda from the capitalists warmongers; and I must admit the capitalist warmongers still maintain the edge in this field.

It should go without saying that Adolf believed in a "Secret Agenda." The general public had no need to know anything other than what Adolf thought was best for them. This notion is still basic conservative policy.

Adolf was not a fan of Thomas Jefferson in this respect. There was no amendment protecting the public's right to free speech in Nazi Germany.

Conservative's today certainly do not believe that an informed public is the best safeguard for a democratic society. They believe in secrecy - they believe that even the truth is not absolutely necessary, especially when half the truth would be sufficient and more acceptable to the "common people."

Adolf was a conservative and many of today's conservatives have great difficulty in distinguishing their philosophy from that of Adolf. Not too long ago we had David Duke running for something. Many of my Republicans friends and associates thought that he had many good points - although they didn't agree with his "basic racism."

Conservatism was not born of Fascism or Nazism - but Nazism and Fascism were born of conservatism. There is no doubt about that.