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.

The Hobo Philosopher

Aggression

Commentary

By Richard E. Noble

Is Man basically an aggressive hostile beast? In other words, is Man, at his heart, evil?
I was reading a modern day Chinese philosopher and in the first paragraph of his book, he states why he could not possibly be a Christian. He states that he could never be attracted to Christianity, because, at its base, it believes that Man is basically evil. He believed that Man, in his heart, is basically good.
I have since been reading a book by the famous psychologist Eric Fromm. It is a study in the roots of Man's basic aggression and hostility. Eric states the case that Man is not basically hostile, aggressive and thus evil. He makes the case that Man is, at his root, good, but has been conditioned to aggression, hostility and thus evil, by the customs, mores, traditions and indoctrination of hostile, aggressive societies.
This sounds interesting, until we ask ourselves the question, who, or what is Society? In which case, I think that any of us will have to admit, that Society is people. In which case, we then must interpret Eric as saying that people are basically loving and kind and thus good, but are turned away from their basic internal goodness by other (evil) people. So, people are basically good but what makes them bad are other people.
In Philosophy or Logic, I think that they call this, begging the question. Where did the 'Societies' (other people) learn to be evil in the first place?
If we look at the History of Mankind, I think that there can be no doubt that Man begins as a basic beast, killing out of necessity or possibly pleasure. There was never any need to butcher other animals. Man could have and has survived on fruit, vegetables and products derived from animals without killing them. But he chose not to.
Primitive Man is pictured as a beast, carrying a club. Man's History books, though here and there blotted with invention and discovery, are written in blood, murder, torture, slavery, gore and abuse. Society, and/or Civilization, has been, contrary to Eric's assertion, the domesticator of the basic, savage beast of mankind. Civilization stems from inductive learning. Century upon century, has taught Mankind, in general, that if you strike another man on the left cheek, and you do it often enough, those struck will eventually form an army of disgruntled, who will, if possible, disembowel you and your family. Man is basically an aggressive beast and it has taken centuries of head banging to bring about this compromise tendency towards peace and mutual respect that we call Civilization.
Why is Man basically a hostile, aggressive, cruel beast? I think that the answer is simple and obvious.
It is because Man, who is neither good nor bad, has been placed in a cruel, hostile, threatening environment, subject to death, disease, pain, and attack, with no exercise of his will or freedom of choice. His behavior is his instinctive reaction to the injustice of his position in this environment that we call 'life'. Man is an animal who finds himself entrapped in the cage of existence, with no escape. He knows not why. Civilization is the attempted adaptation of a thoughtful, cleaver, beast to an unexplainable and cruel environment. Man paces in his cage, and as long as he has food, and a reasonable amount of pleasure, he is capable of tolerating his entrapment ... but, not always.

The Hobo Philosopher

Commentary

The Poverty Tax

By Richard E. Noble
Today in America we are constantly told that the rich pay all the taxes and the poor pay nothing. In fact, the poor are collecting payments from the wealthy for the privilege of the choice they made to be poor. As I understand it the poor have chosen their poverty. If they didn't want to be poor they could have made better choices and not been poor.
Although I hope that most of you find this argument rather ridiculous, this is not a new or recent argument. This argument has an ancient, classical heritage. It goes back into Roman and Greek times when the elitist thinkers considered poverty and slavery to be the work of the gods. Later on the "One True Church" also announced and supported the notion that God had his chosen "elect" and the rest of us were meant to be used, abused and starved.
In my opinion overcoming this human tradition has been the main struggle of the majority of mankind since its origin. This concept never seems to die. It is constantly being revived. In today’s world it has even gotten worse, if that could be possible. In ancient times poverty and subservience was blamed on God or the gods but in today's world it is blamed on the individual. The poor themselves are responsible for their poverty. They have made all the wrong choices and are lacking in drive and ambition.
The wealthy and even the middle class are very upset with the poor. They are tired of helping the poor out and paying for their lack of effort. The rich and even middle class in this nation no longer want to pay their taxes or any taxes - if that can be made possible. If taxes must be paid they want the poor to pay more. They want the poor to bear their fair burden.
It is my opinion that the poor are in reality the highest taxed of all classes in this country. They pay taxes that the middle-off and the better-off don't even know about.
The poor pay the "dumb" tax.
Poor people are not often blessed with the highest intellects. Yes, there have been many poor people who were very intelligent, but the ranks of the poor are heavy with those who are the least blessed or gifted intellectually. It has always amazed me how the most gifted and brightest among us take such pride in competing and beating the least gifted in our society.
To have regular people competing against the poor for jobs and education is like having Olympic champions competing in the Special Olympics and taking the medals from those simple children.
In our society we are able to make the distinction between the "retarded" and the normal, but we make no gradations for differing degrees of normal. If a person is two points above the retarded level he is considered normal and expected to compete on the same level with those who register as genius. Because you are not blessed genetically you work for less than is necessary to provide for yourself and you live in poverty, squalor, or in some extreme cases under a bridge or in a sewer. In the not so distant past this was called "social injustice."
Because you were born smarter this means that you deserve the greatest rewards from our society and because you were born less smart this means that you deserve prison, poverty, or the gutter or sewer?
As an intelligent person shouldn't it be your moral obligation to try and assist and make those less blessed better off? How can it be considered praiseworthy for the best and brightest to use their natural skills and ability to exploit, dominate and enslave the less fortunate?
One only has to look around him in this world and read a few history books to see that using, exploiting and taking advantage of the poor and not well-born has been the case for century after century.
I would say the "dumb" tax is a pretty burdensome tax to inherit through no fault or choice of your own.
2) The poor pay the bad mom and dad tax.
It is also a sociological fact that a majority of the least accomplished parents are found in the poverty classes. There are bad parents in all classes but in the poorer classes bad parenting is more the rule than the exception. There is more abuse of all kinds in the ranks of the poor. I have no doubt that surveys or studies would find that more than ninety percent of prison populations are the products of abusive parenting.
3) The poor pay the education tax.
The poorest children get the poorest education. There is no doubt about this. They also receive the least encouragement from their parents. The poor are the least inspired and the least encouraged.
The poor very often see no advantage to education. Reading a book does not put bread onto a poor family's table. There usually has never been anyone in a poor family to achieve great things. The examples we see and read about are the exceptions not the rule.
4) The poor pay the prison tax.
No, they don't pay for the prison, they provide the population. Poor people fill the prisons all over the world. The rich and the better-off, even the middle-off make up a very small percentage of those that fill the jail cells around the world and also here in the United States. This is another historical and sociological fact. It is not simply a phenomenon of today - it has always been. The only thing that is different today is that those who are prone to obfuscate this fact use more sophisticated psychological techniques and propaganda rather than direct force and abuse.
If you add to this fact the long accepted sociological premise that poverty precipitates or creates crime and then add that poverty is a consequence of the social structure - unemployment, lack of education and vocational training, absence of living wages, income inequality and opportunity - then it seems that society creates crime. This was Clarence Darrow’s point of view.
5) The poor pay the slum tax.
Middle class and the better-off don't usually live in slums. Slums are for the poor. Slums clearly provide those individuals living there with an unhealthy environment - an unhealthy physical environment, mental environment, and social environment.
The better-off and middle-off ride through a nearby slum - and there is always one nearby - and ask one another; Why do those kind of people live like that? It seems that the better-off people think that the poor actually constructed the slums themselves. They never seem to realize that it is one of their "kind" who own these slums. It was one of their kind who originally built these slums. It was one of their kind who profited and made a fortune renting these dilapidated towers of squalor to those who could afford no better; or were not allowed to go elsewhere by economic constrictions. No group of poor ever got together and contracted Frank Lloyd Wright to design them a slum.
6) The poor pay the poor diet tax.
The poor person does not go into the meat market and say; Ah, what shall I have today? No he strolls about looking at the prices and he purchases the least expensive offering. If he hasn't the price for the least expensive offering, he turns and walks out and he goes without that evening. His family goes without. He may eat chicken necks for weeks, or gizzards and liver; or oat meal; or bread and dripping; or potatoes or nothing at all. He may only eat a piece of fruit on a rare occasion and vegetables on special occasions. If he does eat fruit and vegetables they are from a can and contain a lot of salt and no vitamins. His diet for the most part may be broth and bread or crackers. He may eat horse oats or cattle food, or grains that were designed for chickens and other barnyard animals. In the big cities he may eat out of garbage cans.
7) The poor pay the rotten teeth tax.
You can go back through the ages and you will see poor are identified by rotten teeth. A group of “Dentists without Borders” came to the U.S. recently. When interviewed after their free clinic was complete, they all had the same conclusion. If we judge by the condition of peoples’ teeth, America is a third world country.
In this society we hear a lot about “responsibility.” When is this society going to take responsibility for it inadequacies?
8) The poor pay the alcohol tax
The poor child is much more likely to have one or both of his parents to be alcoholics. If you have been raised in a family where alcohol abuse is prevalent, you know what a struggle this can be for the child. The child subject to this type home is not on a level playing field with all the lucky kids who come from non-alcoholic families. He gets a distorted picture of life, home and family. In the race for success he starts ten yards behind the starting line of children without this burden.
9) The poor pay the inflation tax.
Inflation doesn’t hurt everybody. As inflation rises, the investments of the wealthy rise. Business owners compensate and raise their prices disproportionately. They end up making money. But the poor pay through the nose. They are always the last to get a raise in pay. It seems that the American people would rather put a cap on minimum wage than on the multi-million dollar pay checks of corporate executives. Milton Freedmen has devised a famous economic theorem equating inflation with unemployment. In other words, we control inflation by putting poor people out of work. If the economy needs more adjustment we continue from the bottom up – not cutting pay from the top down. Inflation is a big tax on the poor and the elderly. Those who have excess can cut something or adjust their spending; those who have little end up starving and in the street.
10) The poor pay the depression tax.
When the economy slumps the poor are the first to go. Only 30% of those who apply for unemployment compensation ever collect.Unemployment is under reported. Many who lose their jobs never apply for unemployment checks; many rural areas don’t even have unemployment offices, many take jobs at reduced pay and others end up working part time – the under employed is a big factor. During the Great Depression they reported 20% unemployment, but when part time workers and under employed workers are added the percentage jumps to 40 to 50% unemployed.
11) The poor pay the drug addiction tax.
All of what applies to the child of with alcoholic family influences applies double to the child born to a drug addicted mother or father. As these kids grow older they fill our prisons. Statistics prove this to be a fact. Why does society chose to ignore it?
12) The poor pay the abuse tax.
Whether it is alcohol, drugs, mental illness, or pure meanness and sadism, children who have been abused are subject to great pressure. I have no doubt that once again if we study our prisons we will find abuse of one type or another to exist in the backgrounds of the vast majority of the inmates. Of those that maintain their integrity and manage to stay out of prison, their ability to compete normally and to succeed is hampered significantly.
13) The poor pay the war tax.
It is common knowledge that throughout history, the poor fight the wars. The rich promote and decide on the wars and the regular people fight them. The super-rich and the better-off have always been able to opt out or lay back. The middle class and lower make up the bulk of the society and consequently they make up the bulk of any countries armed services.
The poor on both sides of the war pay the price of the war in injuries and deaths. Non-combatant deaths and injuries always far exceed the death and injuries to the soldiers.
14) The poor pay the no-inheritance tax.
The parents of poor children have nothing to leave behind but their debts and bad attitudes. The millionaires may pay a tax on the wealth they leave behind but this is far less of a disadvantage than those who are left nothing behind.
15) The poor pay the immobile tax.
Most poor people see their neighborhood and that is it. They live and die in less than 100 square miles of where they were born. And the statistics judging their economic mobility is much the same. Most kids born into poverty will grow up to be poor themselves. Jumping from poor to working class or middle class is getting more and more difficult and less and less likely. Despite all the Horatio Alger stories, the facts and statistics are negative.
In conclusion, I feel that it is safe to say that what the wealthy pay in taxes is a pittance when compared to what the poor must pay to a society for their poverty. The rich only pay “money,” a portion of their wealth. The poor pay with their hearts, their souls, their minds, bodies and the lives of their children. It is time for a change, the politicians are saying. That is for sure.

Mass Casualties

By SPC Michael Anthony

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

Mass Casualties takes the reader for a tour of duty within the battle zone in Iraq. The author kept a journal of his tour and we get the week by week and at times, the day by day report. But we are not in the foxhole or behind an automatic weapon roaming around a rough mountainous terrain or busting down doors in some inner city stronghold. We are in the OR (operating room) or a barracks. We are experiencing the war from the inside out. We are getting a review of “our” side and our people.
We don’t see a lot of enemies or dead mangled bodies. Instead we are introduced to the nurses and doctors, the lab techs and the semi-skilled, militarily trained OR assistants like, the author, Michael Anthony and his cohorts.

But nevertheless the picture is not pleasant and certainly not heroic.

I’ll give a few quotes from the book:

“In the OR we only do three surgeries at a time because that’s the number of beds we have.”

“This is bullshit. I joined the Army to help people, not to be treated like shit.”

“CSM Ridge calls the meeting … but get this. He’s drunk at the meeting. No one is allowed to drink in this entire goddamned country and this guy is totaled. He says that if anyone files a complaint against the unit or specifically him, he’ll get them shipped to a frontline unit where they might not make it back”

“What an outfit: people in their thirties, married with children, all of them having affairs. One was a heroin addict; the other has slept with eleven men in the past three months. One guy tried to kill himself and another kidnapped a drug dealer. Alcoholics, chain smokers, compulsive gamblers ...”

“At the mention of that I laugh. I know it’s inappropriate, but sending a suicidal Satanist to a priest to make him feel better doesn’t seem to be the best thing to do.”

“The Army can’t order me to put something in my body.”
“Dude, the U.S. Army can do whatever they want to you. You signed a contract; you gave up your rights.”

“In Iraq and in our unit, it is the reverse (from past war situations). The men stayed home, and while the women are away they get pregnant.”

“I wish I could forget everything and go back to thinking that everyone in the military is an American hero. I wish I still had someone to look up to, although I know it’s impossible. None of it seems to make sense, and I can’t understand how people can do what they do.”

“Melatonin takes too long, and I have to take too many pills to fall asleep, other pills aren’t effective, Benadryl leaves me restless, and NyQuil leaves me drowsy the next day. The majority of our hospital is taking some type of sleep medication.”

The book paints an even worse picture than these few excerpts illustrate – alcoholics, the misuse of medications and drugs, inappropriate sex – straight up and perverted by officers and enlisted personal – inept, disgraceful leadership by officers and low level superiors. The book is full of threats, bullysm and illegal harassment even by the Uniform Code of Military Justice standards. The whole situation appears not only a joke and a farce but a disgraceful catastrophe that no young American youth should have to endure.

After reading this book, I have no doubt that the young soldiers watching the “don’t ask; don’t tell” debate here at home are spitting up with laughter. And granted, some of what the author sees is the product of the idealism of youth and he will continue to experience more of the same as he goes on in the civilian world. But come on … we must be able to do better than this.

Sadly this is a far cry from what we see and hear in the T.V. recruitment ads or out of the mouths of our military and political leaders.

This book should be mandatory reading for any young adult contemplating a career in the military – their parents also.

One Nation Divisable

The Eastpointer

One Nation - divisible!

By Richard E. Noble

An event took place in this century that represented one of the largest population movements in recorded history. It happened in India. For years (maybe decades or centuries) men like Mahatma Gandhi tried to unite the Muslim and the Hindu populations of India. But other of his countrymen claimed that this was impossible. They claimed that the Hindu and the Muslim populations were of different philosophies and maintained different customs and literature. These separatists advocated a partition.
They recommended that a portion of India, what is now known as Pakistan, become a separate Muslim state. On July 18, 1947 the arrangement was finalized and 14 to 20 million people found themselves in the wrong country. In consequence they packed their bags, loaded their families onto their carts or just walked east or west depending on whether they were Muslim or Hindu. Gandhi was shot to death by a fellow Hindu, Nathuram Godse, for his attempts to negotiate a compromise to the partition
I think it is time here in the United States for a similar partition. Our country is irreversibly divided by two uncompromising "religious" sects - the Republicans and the Democrats. Like all religions both the Republicans and the Democrats each have their dogmas, their traditions, their mythologies, and their unsubstantiated suspicions. All of which provide them with their uncompromising, and self-assured faith.
I have nothing against Republicans or Democrats but it is clear to me that they are incapable of ruling cooperatively. Neither group gets along entirely with their own members, but when placed against their opposition they become vicious and belligerent. It is only a matter of time before the slaughter begins.
Republicans and Democrats are of two totally different philosophies. They have different literature, different history books, different TV stations, and different and totally opposed solutions to every problem. It does not matter how big or how small the problem is the Democrats disagree with the Republicans and vise-versa.
Republicans write history books of The United States of America that do not even resemble the history books written by the Democrats. Their presentations of the daily news are totally different. If you watch the Republican news media you will have one view of what is happening and if you watch the Democratic news you will find the opposite. In the middle we have generic journalism and the generic news media. They do their best to be sensational, but non- educational.
On a personal and individual level, Republicans and Democrats do not communicate – even if they are members of the same family. If a brother or son is a Republican and you are a Democrat you talk about baseball, football or golf. Unless you are innately belligerent you do not talk politics. You might go so far as to tell your sibling or relative who you intend to vote for just to be annoying. Being annoying to one another is a part of the basic sibling rivalry or family tradition in the Hank Williams Jr. sense. Democrats speak openly only to other Democrats and Republicans do likewise. Both groups all speak out publicly hoping that there are some potential initiates out there who are neither Republican nor Democrats. This is considered missionary work or evangelizing. They are hoping to "baptize" the young, inexperienced, or uninformed and have them born anew via an epiphany. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are foolish enough to attempt to convert one another – they know better.
Republicans believe that Democrats are evil, pernicious, treasonous, and threatening to their security and their lives. The Democrats feel likewise about Republicans.
The two parties have not truly compromised on anything for decades. One of the two parties must be in complete control for anything to be accomplished. If the two parties are equally represented we have "gridlock." Gridlock is a recent term that means – nothing is accomplished. When something is accomplished within a period of gridlock, it is usually less than nothing.
What is even worse is the fact that whatever party does manage to gain control, the other party then seeks to undermine everything the party in power is attempting to accomplish.
When one party gains control and does manage to make some changes that are satisfactory to their principles, the opposition party regains control and then proceeds to dismantle all the gains made by their opponents. Consequently America is going nowhere and has been going nowhere for quite some time.
I suggest that the Republicans go west and the Democrats go east or vise-versa. Everybody can temporarily cash out of all their properties and possessions via a federal escrow program. When they get to their new promised land they can all cash in their vouchers and settle in. We will call ourselves East America and West America.
We were once upset when poor Germany had an East Germany and a West Germany that was divided by a wall, but we have obviously gotten over our aversion to dividing walls. I see no big problem today with an East and West America.
Can you imagine the joy, peace, happiness and contentment that you would experience if you lived in a neighborhood that was entirely made up of Democrats - or Republicans!

The Economics of Innocent Fraud

The Economics of Innocent Fraud

By John Kenneth Galbraith

Book Review

By Richard E. Noble

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