Last Will & Testament

Testament 06-02-05, 08-04-05

Introductory Note:

I did not write again after the Last Letter, (see The Last Letter Archive at the Moynihan Memorial Library), in which I protested KQED and its interference with my life, how they had used Yvonne to get at me.

Not in 1996 when the IRS asked for my assistance and then leaked my name, not after 1998 when Imus used his contact with Shotgun Tom Kelly’s brother at State Farm, not after the burglary in 1999 when Weiner, and Brian Wilson and Mrs. Jack Swanson, and the others at KGO read from my notebook, not in 2000 after Ron Owens used his contacts to harasse me at the health club or with the children’s clothing designer at Gymboree, or Michael Krasney used his influence with Rose Guilbault, (they both worked at KGO before Krasney was fired in 1993 and Bernie Ward got his chance, that was before she was made a vice president with AAA), to interfere with my employment at AAA, nor when Weiner (or was it Owens) used Scot Bobro to harasse me at Farmers in 2001, at no time did I try to persuade others about the wrongs done me.

(I did write some notes to Yvonne, (see Dear Yvonne Letters at the Moynihan), and I talked to her a few times, and that was enough for me, to talk to just her. I wrote no more to strangers in Washington. For I knew from my experience with the laser disk letters how dangerous it can be to involve oneself with the “public,” and I knew too that no one, not even as great a man as Senator Doctor Professor Moynihan will help, for no one helped me after I published the Last Letter. Everyone knew how I had been targeted by the people at KQED, how they reached out and interfered with my life, knew and did nothing. (And I have come to think that the Last Letter was the cause of all that followed. Just this: That I should have dared to complain. Who did I think I was?, my enemies demanded, “To criticize us?!” Then they set upon me.))

And again in 2002 when Mrs. Jack Swanson waged her campaign of harassment, first having me followed and using her radio show to let me know I was being watched, and then using her contacts with the owners of CENCAL Insurance to harasse me at work. (There are a lot of malicious people in this world but most do not have radio programs which they can use to taunt their victims.)

And even in 2003, after Imus at GAB Robins and all of that, when finally after over a decade of harassment I started this web site, even then I only made a few postings hoping that I would be left alone.

It was not until April 2004 that I began making regular postings here, only then did I realize that my situation was hopeless.

Long before I announced my intention to end my life here at this site, in what I call my “protest” it became clear to me that I was not going to be called back for employment by any of the agencies: not by Claim Net, or Insure Staff, or Placement Pros., or Kelly Financial Services, or Mengus (who now appears to have been involved with my enemies having placed me at AAA, CENCAL, Farmers, and AIMS about which I was suspicious but had no clear proof but now in retrospect suspicion seems justified), or anyone else.

I am completely alone. (It is often said that the Left maintains closer solidarity than the Right. However, just consider Mr. Foster. The one time he failed to protect Mrs. Billy Clinton from herself, the ‘travel office’ caper, she cut him off. Yet I do think it can at least be said that the Right makes less pretence of comradely good fellowship. (Recall Mr. Lowery, the young editor of National Review going around boasting that he had lied to me.) )

Now I want to describe one last thing: my understanding of this terrible confusion, this anarchy we call life. I want to review some themes of recent Lecture Notes and some stories from my personal life, both things far off on the horizon, and some things from the middle distance, and the some things in the foreground, and show who they all indicate the same thing: the utter absence of any order or reason in this world.

Emptiness

“There is not the slightest distinction between samsara and nirvana. The limit of the one is the limit of the other.” ---- The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, Nagarjuna

06-02-05, 08-06-05

“Smiles and lies”

--- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ah, now I get it! I told you that I am a little slow on the uptake. Betrayal! They pretended to reason when in fact they were only posturing in the mass media.

I could not figure out why the “Liars for Christ” (see Lecture Notes: 04-21-05) would ignore the CAT scan. If only as a debating technique you should not simply ignore an important piece of evidence. You have to say something about it. At least mention it! For example the “medical ethicist”, Wesley J. Smith, author of “The Culture of Death”, (and the husband of the columnist Debra Saunders), said that people who rely on the CAT scan for information on the condition of the patient Schiavo might be “red faced” if after the autopsy the patient Schiavo’s brain turns out not to be damaged.

Well yeah, ‘red faced’ I guess. But at least Wesley J. Smith, was trying to deal with the evidence. He did not just ignore it as did Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, etc.; Glenn Beck even denied that there was a CAT scan, saying: “Wouldn’t you at least want a CAT scan before you kill her?” (What a thoughtful man. But as long as he is allowed to park his fat ass behind the syndicated microphone his inanities will be heard across the nation; thoughtful or un-thoughtful.) Isn’t America great? And this is precisely what makes America great in Glenn Beck’s, and Sean Hannity’s, and Rush Limbaugh’s egomaniacal eyes. Not that we are free to engage in thoughtful discussion, but that they are allowed to control a national microphone. Power!

Yes power and money. Imagine how easy it is for them to delude themselves. They receive enormous amounts of money. And others, equally confused call them, write to them, “I completely agree . . .” they are told. And they do truly believe it. But it is not the thoughtfulness of the discussion which they prize but that they control it! This is America!; in their eyes. (see Lecture Notes: 03-26-05, Lecture Notes: 03-24-05, Hate Radio Talk Show Host’s Brain, Lecture Notes: 04-21-05, The End, (Prerequisite Lecture Notes: 04-16-05))

Now we know. We were not really debating. It only looked, sounded, like an intellectual discussion, with reasoning, examination of the facts, argumentation and persuasion. It was more of a carnival? Well, yes, but something more . . . something religious? Yes! Of course, a passion play. It was not really a discussion at all, it was a passion play, a display of religious devotion.

For example in the months since the media pageant where are the proposals to change the law? Where are the model statutes? In deed where have the ‘liars for Christ’ been as one patient after another has had their respirator turned off, or the feeding tube removed? Dr. Edel asked this question on his radio program about a patient in New York, a child with brain damage, disconnected and . . . ? Listen . . . ? No, not a word. Why?

The patient Schiavo was made a cause celeb, but no other? How can they just drop the issue? No proposals for change? The Governor of Florida, Bush, did jump into action ordering a criminal investigation of the husband for his alleged failure to immediately call for an ambulance . . . fifteen years ago. What should we think of Mr. Bush? Was he acting in good faith? Why did he wait until the day the patient Schiavo’s autopsy was released. (The autopsy confirmed what had been deduced from the CAT scan: brain death years before.)

And isn’t that politics today? Dishonesty? How do we know when anyone is acting in good faith? In economics we call it inflation. In our political economy everyone of us is capable of manufacturing a “position,” a “claim.” We can strike up a pose. Pretend a “grievance” or some “high moral purpose.” We can disconnect our father’s life support, as did Congressman Tom Delay, and then we can intervene in the case of the patient Schiavo pretending that we should never give up on any patient.

I ask again, where is the proposed statute which will solve the problem Mr. Delay claimed to have identified? He had the Congress pass a law allowing Federal Judicial Review for this one case, (Schiavo), but in the months since . . . nothing else has been proposed. Mr. Bush made his one desultory stab at instigating a “criminal investigation” during the same news cycle that the autopsy was reported but has since then fallen back into lethargy.

Now our friends on the Left will cross their arms across their chests and say “unhu”! They think the Right did this. And they have missed an important point. This is the emptiness I mentioned. Not the Right, all of us, humanity. People.

To think that Mr. Delay craftily manipulated the “Right to Life” crowd and deliberately mislead them; to think that the Republican Party regularly takes advantage of the “Right to Life” movement’s credulity, encouraging them to believe that abolition of abortion; or statutes making mandatory extraordinary measures to keep every last one of God’s creatures alive; or the outlawing of nucleic cell transfer, (cloning); that all of this is just one election away if only they will reach down into their hearts and wallets one more time . . . well, to think that all of this is done deliberately is scary.

But there is something even more scary. Emptiness. What if all of this is not crafty deliberate misdirection? What if Mr. Delay actually thinks he is on the side of the angels?

Or, and this is the real point what if this “inflation” in our political economy is inevitable? (This is why we need the free market. We need to keep an accurate record of what our comrades “really think.” Not just what they say they want but how they actually spend their money.)

What if all God’s children, Mr. Delay, yes, and everyone else is simply acting out one feeble idea after another; making up some rationalization or other when some glaring defect is made known to them, apologizing here, lost in blind ambition there, lost?

This is the Emptiness. There is no “Logic,” no “Reason” no “Philosophy” or “Religion” that guides you. You are floating, acting out one idea after the other as they come to you, working your mind the way a blind man works his cane, tapping, poking, trying to make sense of the echoes, lost in the darkness.

This is the Emptiness.

Don Imus used his influence to destroy my life, interfering with my employment at GAB Robins. Michael Weiner had my notebook less than 24 hours after it was burglarized from the Colonial Motel. My brother Thomas Joseph, (named after our illustrious grandfather), kept for himself the few dollars my father left me. And the countless others who knew about the burglary, the interference with my employment, the vandalism, the fifteen years of harassment, knew and did nothing, said nothing, kept their silence. And again, they had their reasons for not coming forward. They had their justifications. (Some reasoned that I had brought on all this myself. For example Barbara Simpson argued that I should not have kept a notebook in the first place. Then it could not have been burgled. (And see she is sincere. Your minds naturally accept these rationalizations. It is human nature. (“We did not know . . . yes we saw the black smoke coming from the chimneys but . . . but we did not know.”)))

You might think that these villains know their villainy. Know it from the inside as it were. They do not. Mrs. Jack Swanson boasts “Oh, I’m vicious.” You might think that this statement evidences some self-awareness, that she knows she is vicious. She does not. They all of them, like Mr. Delay, and Mr. Bush, have some justification, some excuse, some “reason.” Or like the hate radio types, they conclude that what is good for them is good for America. God bless us. They are lost.

And this is our state. This is what causes the “inflation” in our political economy. Looking at history you wonder how could they have been so mislead? What were they thinking? This is the explanation: Emptiness.

06-02-05, 08-07-05, 08-11-05

Emptiness Part III

It matters not Right or Left. For example, recently Jerry Springer and Al Franken have started bringing up John Kerry’s service record again, and maligning the Swift Boat Vets. Why? They have not had enough of it?

Because they can. Because they have radio microphones in front of them and they can say anything they want. The can repeat the vapid phrase “the discredited Swift Boat Vets” over and over, (as if they were the final arbiters of what is and is not creditable), because now they have the Power!

Al Franken can be for the war then against it. He can say he agrees with “progressive indexing” one week, (for the rate of increase in Social Security benefits), if it starts for those with “incomes over 40k”, and then the next week he can claim that the very idea is “pernicious.” (see Lecture Notes: 05-04-05) One week he can agree that we should not have to “bribe” the rich in order to have an old age pension for the bottom 60% who would be in poverty without assistance, and then the next week claim all such discussion is reactionary.

He can support the Second Gulf War then claim he did so only because he was “lied” to. Lied? As with O’Reilly the fact that arsenals of chemical and bio weapons were not found means he was “lied to” or as with O’Reilly, the war was wrong or a mistake. Franken has expressed similar disappointment with the absence of nuclear weapons. Yet before the war Saddam Hussein had admitted to making Chemical and Biological weapons, claiming that they had been destroyed. Before the war it had only been argued that Iraq was making contacts to buy “yellow cake,” a raw material for nuclear weapons, certainly not indicating a bomb program nearing completion.

These three weapons programs were the only reason Franken and O’Reilly thought we should go to war? Are they serious? Yes! Franken and O’Reilly, both Harvard educated, would judge the decision making that led to the war not based on what facts the decision makers had at that time but based on what facts were developed later.

Only after the war, after the inspections had been completed, they argued this absurd position: ‘Because after the war, upon inspection, the chemical weapons were not found, therefore we should have known and trusted Saddam Hussein before the war . . .’; an argument so obviously disingenuous as to require no refutation. But because they control the microphone their nonsense pours out and poisons the national discussion.

That a detailed report lists dozens of bio and chemical laboratories, and recounts interviews with scientists who have explained that they were paid to develop programs for bio and chemical warfare, (though they did so only in a limited manner), to say nothing of the truck loads of material moved to Syria prior to inspection, all of this counts for nothing.

In one classic example Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of the war, claimed that there was no evidence for the British Intelligence report that Iraq had sought contacts in Niger to purchase “yellow cake.” Only to have it revealed later that Mr. Wilson had in fact confirmed this report with a Niger government official, who said Iraq had sent a trade delegation to Niger.

(Previously Iraq had purchased 900 tons of yellow cake from Niger which was confiscated after the First Gulf War. (Bill Kristol claimed that the President used the word “recently” in his State of the Union Address, only in order to scare and panic the American people into going to war. Again Left or Right. Could it not be that the word “recently” was used to distinguish these contacts from the earlier ones in which yellow cake had been purchased? And, again, panic? Over an inquiry to purchase a raw material?))

Yet Franken continues to claim that the British Report was a lie not withstanding that Wilson, a man Franken has championed as a model of honesty, has confirmed that report. Yet his position is only slightly more ridiculous than that of John Kerry who famously supported the war before he was against it, calling it the “wrong war.” Yet Kerry had voted in favor of a resolution authorizing force.

In explanation of which he claimed that he did not know that Bush would “fuck it up” so badly. So which is it? Is his complaint that it is the “wrong war” or a poorly executed war? After a year of campaigning he never did clarify his views. Intentionally? For to do so, had he spoken clearly, he would have lost votes from one end of his party or the other.

Ah, control of the mass media! What a rush. Power! And is this not fascism? Is this not the very point I was making in The Last Letter, (see The Last Letter at the Moynihan): The mass manipulation of symbols for state control in bad faith.

And was that letter not why Michael Weiner and Ron Lowenstein had me followed and harassed me for over a decade? For example, on one occasion Michael Weiner gave a detailed account of standing outside my health club and describing the people he was watching inside. Then the very next day they had their homosexual friend follow me into the locker room at the health club. Then Ron Owens went on the radio to explain how to deal with homosexual harassment in the locker room.

On another occasion they burglarized my room at the Colonial Motel and then Michael Weiner started reading from the notebook the very next day, (see The Stolen Notebook at the Moynihan), and then the other employees of KGO started joking about it. And the employees of KQED also joined in, interfering with my life. They too followed me from AAA to Farmers, hectoring and harassing; Michael Krasney using his contacts to interfere with my employment . . .

And why? Because I had said in the Last Letter, 1991, that anyone can manipulate symbols in the mass media in order to gain state control, anyone can tell the big lie, anyone can be a fascist. (And more importantly for Michael Weiner, Ron Lowenstein, and Michael Krasney because by implication these arguments in the Last Letter could apply even to Jews who are in the mass media. Even Jews can become fascists.) They thought they were exempt from such criticism. Like spoiled children they cried: Not us!

Ron Owens appears to have been a “friend” of Yvonne’s, (she has appeared on his show), and so my criticism of her in the Last Letter, my criticism of her betrayal of her client, (me), was for him personal. Yet also for him, as with Michael Weiner, the fact that Yvonne is the daughter of survivors of the Holocaust was an important factor. (see MICHAEL WEINER HOLOCAUST DENIER, Lecture Notes: 07-10-2004, Lecture Notes: 08-12-04 Silence))

(After the burglary at the Colonial Motel, where my notebook was stolen, I wrote a note to Yvonne in which I called Michael Weiner a fascist. Then shortly there after, Professor Alan Dershowitz appeared on TV, saying that there had been many prominent Jews among the fascists in Italy prior to the war. ( I think he might have been referencing a recent book on the subject . . . but . . . I wondered. . . was he referring to the that letter also? (Yvonne had a habit of circulating my letters to her. ))) So not all Jews feel Jews must be exempt from all criticism? Indeed, why should we allow Michael Weiner and Ron Owens and Michael Krasney to hide behind “being Jewish?” Why allow them to speak for all Jews? Victor Frankel, himself a survivor of a NAZI death camp made the point that even the Holocaust itself can be used by fascists. Yes, not only can anyone be a fascist, but, also anything can be manipulated in the mass media in bad faith, even the Holocaust.)

But Michael Weiner, Ron Owens, Michael Krasney want to be exempt from criticism. They want to use their “Jewishness” to cover there fifteen years of harassment. They have waged a campaign of defamation against me. Simply making the charge of anti-Semitism is enough. Or simply saying, “He’s got a problem with Jews . . .” is enough. “With Jews?” This is how they hide: Weiner, Owens, Krasney. For them “the Jews” is a get out of jail card. If criticized by a gentile there is always ready recourse to the charge, the defamation, of "anti Semite." And if criticized by a fellow Jew then of course the critic must be a "self hating Jew." And notice how this draws the "intention" of the critic into focus bluring the criticism itself.

And there is no reasoning with them or the credulous bystanders. You might think they know that they have been wrong, or unreasonable . . . But you have not yet grasped the point: They have the Power! They can do and say whatever they like. And their individual psychology is that they are VICTIMs and that they alone see more clearly, are free from fault, etc. This is an unstoppable combination: power and delusion. This is the emptyness. Good faith or bad faith are not even the point anymore.

Consider Don Imus who must have heard of the Laser Disk letters when they were first sent to the Senate in the late 1980s, (see Math Project and New Ruskin College Project Archives at the Moynihan), and then took the trouble to track me to State Farm in 1998 and then to GAB Robins in 2003. And yet as with Ron Owens and Michael Weiner he feels justified. Some aspect of his psychology says to him, “Yes, this is good, you are right to harasse and vex and destroy this man.” Ten years. Fifteen years. No limit?

Next consider all the others who knew and went out of their way to comment on all of this: Chris Matthews, David Fineman, David Gregory, Jim Lehrer, Senator Hatch, Senator McCain, on and on (see Lecture Notes) they have appeared on Imus’ show and made references to this web site to let it be known that they are in the know, and by implication that they agree with Don Imus: it is “amusing” to use your influence to destroy another’s life. David Gregory actually joked with Imus in the morning and then later that very day at a press conference with the President demanded if the President would admit his! “mistakes.” (see Imus Protests April 2004)

There was no trace, no hint, that David Gregory had the slightest self awareness that he was wrong, morally bankrupt to support and encourage Don Imus. No trace because to this day David Gregory thinks Don Imus’ use of his power and influence to destroy another person is acceptable. Like Senator Hatch, who said to Imus, “I have heard what you do to some of your listeners,” all of these individuals think their conduct acceptable, even something to boast about, (as did David Lowery the editor of National Review).

And here today, eight months after the election, I say after the election, we still have Jerry Springer and Al Franken who have not had enough of Kerry’s war record and want to go over the facts again? NO, not the facts! They want to malign and defame the veterans again.

They do not want to go over the facts, have a review of the evidence, a reasoned discussion, they control the microphone, it is for them another display of their power, to show how they too can abuse others with impunity, they simply want to posture, to have it both ways . . .

And was this not the Vietnam War itself? Fighting the war . . . yes, but . . . not too much war please? The Vietnam War was a case of having it both ways.

The fellow officer who was on the boat with Kerry that night, December 2, 1968, --- I say was “on the boat” with Kerry, ---- says Kerry was not engaged with enemy forces. Kerry himself, writing in his journal, December 11, 1968, nine days after the incident, said, “A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky.”

(Purple Hearts are awarded for only those injuries sustained while engaged with the enemy. So therefore if as his fellow officer stated, and as Kerry here appears to confirm, they were not under fire, then his first Purple Heart was not justified, something he had been advised when he first made his request.)

Both Springer and Franken disparaged the Swift Boat Vets as a NAZI on air personality might tell lies about the Jews; knowing full well that the Jews would not have the opportunity to rebut the claims, argue against the charges, present evidence, reason, etc. Indeed why bring it up again? Because they can!

Their candidate twice requested a medal he was not entitled to receive and they continue to argue the matter even eight months after the election in perfect psychological equanimity because they really believe not withstanding the facts as set out in their candidate’s own hand. They really believe . . . this is the Emptiness. Not bad faith, (that which we attribute to others), no! They truly believe.

Don Imus, Michael Weiner Springer and Franken are beyond the reach of reason. There is no philosophy, no religion that will reach them. And what is more, this is humanity. Would that it was just these few . . . but I live on a planet where as I am destroyed by the likes of Imus and Weiner a crowed gathers round to jeer and ridicule . . . and they all feel perfectly comfortable with what they are doing, see nothing wrong with it, would be surprised if you asked them why they were not ashamed . . . might come after you if you were so rude.

I’m sure they have many rationalizations.

Springer and Franken know the power of mass media, the mass manipulation of symbols. They do not have to deal with the facts, reason, discuss the evidence, they can simply malign the character of the Swift Boat Vets and there will be no answer . . .

And what is this but fascism? Even if we allow that they are acting in good faith! This is the emptiness.

The officer who was with Kerry that night was a Lieutenant Junior Grade who later retired from the Navy at the rank of Admiral. When asked at the time if he would support Kerry’s claim for a Purple Heart, he said that he could not as they had not been engaged with the enemy that night. (http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document200408280010.asp )

Ironically it was only after Lanny Davis, on CNN’s Crossfire, questioned his credibility, that Rear Admiral William L. Schachte, Jr. (USNR), came forward to explain the facts publicly. (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40180 )

I say ironically because Springer, Franken, Davis, could have simply left the subject alone. Mr. Davis did not have to question Mr. Schachte’s credibility. Springer and Franken did not have to bring it all up again. Kerry himself could simply have said, ‘I had turned against the war, and there was this rule, that if you get three Purple Hearts you can leave, so I availed myself of this opportunity and returned home to try and help end America’s involvement with that war which I had come to see as mistaken.’

Not only does this approach avoid the controversies but it seems to be in accord with the facts and explains and connects Kerry’s subsequent acts seamlessly, i.e. the truth. (I previously made this point in a posting here at this site and John O’Neill appearing on TV a few days later made the comment that Kerry could have simply said he availed himself of this rule, “if he had no honor.”. . . coincidence . . . I’m sure . . . pretty sure . . .)

But Springer, Franken and Davis know the power of the big lie, the lie amplified by the power of the mass media and can prevent any reply.

Prevent? How prevent?

Well there are many other things that can be done. You could persuade the marriage counselor to betray her client for example. You could get the pill popping, trash talking, Scott Bobro to harasse your enemy while working at Farmers Insurance. You could get Michael Weiner to organize a burglary with the help of his friends at the ADL and the San Rafael Police Department and take the notebook and read it on the air. (see Intel Operations numbers 4,5&6) Give copies to the other employees at KGO and they too can read from it, make comments about it, harasse, vex, torment. (see Stolen Notebook: http://www.newruskincollege.com/moynihanmemoriallibrarynewruskincollegecom/id7.html )

Don’t stop there. The former Mrs. Dr. Dean Edel at AAA can help Michael Krasney harasse there. Mrs. Jack Swanson can report where your enemy has been seen and also use her contacts at CENCAL insurance to harasse there as well. Don Imus can use his contacts to harasse at State Farm and at GAB Robins. (And if you are thinking that this is a digression think again, for something very much like this was done to the Swift Boat Vet Gardner, also an insurance adjuster, (see Lecture Notes: 02-14-05 Trophy Hunters, The Heart of Darkness,(http://www.newruskincollege.com/id28.html ), when Gardner came forward and dared to disagree with Kerry, Springer, Franken, Davis, et al.

Truth? Reason? Fairness? What do you need of these things when you have such power as this: the mass media? The Power.

06-02-05,08-08-05,08-11-05

Emptiness Part IV

Passion Play: TE 194.5.4.4/1

For me the perfect symbol of the fascist is not the swastika, but the smirk. The smirk that says ‘I know what I just said is a lie as well as you, but so what? What can you do? I control the mass media and can say whatever I want . . . and you can not do anything about it . . .’

And do you not think that Davis, Springer, and Franken are smirking over what they have said about the Swift Boat Vets, and what they have done to Gardner? Didn’t you notice the smirk on Hannity’s face when he introduced Dr. Hammesfahr as the “Nobel Prize Nominee”, as did Glen Beck also and Sussman, (a local weatherman turned hate radio talker)? Could you not hear the smirk on Rush Limbaugh’s face when he reassured his listeners that Social Security is not a welfare program, “it is a Ponzi scheme.” (He had no larger point. He knows that his elderly listeners would be offended if told the truth. (What can you do?))

And do you not think that Michael Weiner, Ron Lowenstein, Michael Krasney, Mrs. Jack Swanson, and Don Imus are smirking about what they have done to me?

They control the mass media, the power . . . what can you do?

In the Last Letter I argued that if your definition of fascism included the way fascists make use of the state then your definition would do you no good. For if the fascist must first take control of the state for your definition to be satisfied it will be too late!

My definition was operational: how the fascist acts on the world. I pointed out at the time that the bad faith of the fascist is not determined by the state of mind of the fascist, who cares if Hitler was “sincere”, but rather my point was that the “bad faith” is what we, the observers, attribute to the actor.

Simple minded conservatives find this contingent definition unsatisfying. They want an “objective” definition, and objective difference, between the fascist and the other political actors. They worry that if the only difference is “subjective” then it is less meaningful. My point has always been that this subjective judgment is more significant because it depends on you.

“Our men are our walls” was the Spartan boast. We defend our city with our judgement. It is just because we say “bad faith”, just because we are here, now, making this judgment, that the “reality” is contingent on us, our act of judgment, which gives it importance. If it were “objective” then what of it? One might conclude: ‘I do not have to speak out against it, everyone will see, after all, it is objective.’ With my definition you do not have this out.

I say no. It all depends on you. I can not do this alone. Because we are contingent, floating in this moment of time, this is why your subjective judgment is so important.

I am set upon from all sides. I will conduct one last act, a protest. This I can do alone. But injustice, this I can not overcome by myself alone. If you do not first make the subjective judgment with me, that this is wrong, then I must die.

That is what was said in the Last Letter. Now what I am saying here in Emptiness is this: After fourteen years of silence, of standing alone, I see that there is no one left. There is no one to make this subjective judgment, the attribution of bad faith.

For example Don Imus not only was reading my GAB Robins email on his program but seemed to also be getting reports from Bo Dietl’s “surveillance technicians” as well. This was in 2003. Twelve years after the Last letter. He thought it was a good joke. Twelve years later and he still thought it a good joke.

Senator Hatch, appearing on the Imus show, also thought it a good joke saying, “I have heard what you do to some of your listeners.” I can not do this alone. There is no one left to say, bad faith.

In fact Don Imus yammered on so much that at one point Bo Dietl complained that Don Imus had blown his source by mentioning too much detail. (Then later, after many posts here at this web site about him, one day Imus sighed and said, “I deserve whatever happens to me . . .” But this is not quite right. If Deidre stays with him and he enjoys his mansions until his last dieing breath, he will not “deserve” that. God does not always intervene and punish the wicked, to say the least. (On second thought perhaps he does deserve Deidre. Perhaps there is justice?))

But the evil force which is at play among us, is not something out there, other, it is intermixed in you, in your every breath, in your ‘having it both ways.’ Not bad faith which is what we attribute to those with whom we disapprove, but good faith, this ready belief in ourselves, if not in any one individual act of ours, which we may be willing if forced, by a court of law for example, to admit was mistaken, even willfully wrong, then at least we can still insist in our good intentions overall, by which we excuse ourselves taking into account as we do our total life picture which we hold of ourselves.

Don Imus actually thinks that there is nothing wrong with what he has done. And Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he has done only confirms Imus in his false belief about himself. And the two support each other. Then radiating outward more are added until you have the entire society, a world of six billion, most living in appalling poverty, fresh water becoming more scarce, clouds of pollution hanging over their heads, . . .

And all of this results from this joke, Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he did to “some of your listeners.” The failure to attribute bad faith. Even rejoicing in good faith, in The Power. The city’s walls have fallen.

And this basic tendency to excuse, to embrace ourselves can be enhanced. Money for example can be used to create an environment supportive to the ego, and the egomaniacal life. Society too, may endorse this egotistical view of ones life. The real damage done by gender and racial quotas is not the misallocation of resources but is found in the damage done to reason and the reinforcement of the egotist’s view of himself. A whole culture of “diversity” has developed as invidious as it is insidious.

Who is more “diverse” than me, admittedly only a White male? The obnoxious theory encourages the various “schools of resentment”, as described by Dr. Alan Bloom. Simply being a Woman, Black, a Jew, a “farm worker’s daughter,” an immigrant from whatever country, legal or illegal, etc., confirms the egotist in his predilection to justify himself. One is more diverse than the others.

Rationalizations are always at hand. First, for example, they conspire with my employers to harasse me, then have me laid off, and drive me into poverty. Then say “See, he is poor. I told you he was no good.”

And some readers may not credit this, thinking ‘no, no one could be that . . .’ And this is the point. Mrs. Jack Swanson is that deluded. She thinks her conduct justified. Don Imus the day after I left GAB Robins, after months of harassment, said on the radio, “what is he going to do commit suicide?”

In fact those very villains who have worked with others to destroy my life have at various times stated on the radio that they do not believe one should simply give up and commit suicide. They want me to continue. “Don’t give up!” they shout, “You have got to keep trying.”

And again the point I am trying to make in Emptiness is that all of this is done in perfect sincerity. Ron Lowenstein, Michael Weiner, Michael Krasney, the Red Comedian, actually believe that “as Jews” they had a duty to harasse and destroy my life because I had “wronged” Yvonne, or because I had challenged their views.

And our liberal society encourages all of them in their hubristic self delusion. But not bad faith! Never them! They really believe that they are good people . . .

Connected with the notion of being “more diverse” is the idea of ones “good intentions.” Intentions are the focus, the justification, for all acts. For their acts will not be evaluated in rational, disinterested discussion, where the consequences are evaluated, but will rather be judged on the basis of who acted, how diverse they are, and what was their intention, not the consequences of their acts.

In the market economy such a labyrinth of rationalizations, such a personal focus on who is “diverse” or on their “intentions” is of no consequence.

For in the market these motivations, delusions, are not the subject of the economic transaction. The subjective notions are irrelevant. See that this situation is just the opposite of that which obtains in the political economy where, as I have just argued, just the failure to make these subjective decisions leads to catastrophe. In the market the issue is: Buy this, or that, at this or that price. End of discussion. No attribution of good faith is required.

In the political economy things are very different. And here again we have gained a nice vantage point to see how the simple minded conservatives are lead astray. How their very way of discussing these questions misdirects them from the reality of the situation into falsity. For the problem is not that the actors in the political economy are “lazy” or “stupid” or “greedy” as is often claimed by the simple minded. Indeed this focus on these personal qualities is exactly what is mistaken.

The solution is not to get more “diverse” actors with better “intentions” but to move as much of the economic activity out of the political sector as possible and into the private economy, if not directly then with vouchers and other substitutes, i.e. mediums of exchange, so as to eliminate these psychological rationalizations to the maximum extent possible.

For the problem of dishonesty, inflation, in the political economy is insoluble. People are people. Show them one political problem or another and they will refuse to acknowledge it exists; if forced to acknowledge it they will justify it; rationalizations come into play, as has been described, they will argue that your criticism is not “diverse” enough, or that you have some prejudice, that in any case their “intentions” in the program justify this aspect or the other, and so on in an unending stream, which if they are pressed will become increasingly emotional as they inflate the political process until the discussion can be change to something more interesting to their own interests. This dishonesty is fundamental to the political process. It is inescapable.

And this is why you live on a planet of six billion, in appalling poverty, without drinking water, polluted . . . etc. etc. (Recall that I originally wrote the Senate about the use of technology in education so we could educate the world’s billions. For this I have been set upon, and destroyed.)

The world’s poor are not poor due to theft as the Pope and other churchmen and Marxists claim. They are poor because of this misdirection. Because you misdirect most of your lives doing things like following me for fifteen years harassing and ruining. And then, like Senator Hatch, joking about it in the complete confidence that you are “good.” Because you would rather waste your time on your silly foolish selves, blocking every advance, laser disks, or nuclear power stations, blocking construction even of homes for your fellow citizens, foolish, selfish, . . . but all of which you immediately justify with a discussion of your “intentions” which are more “diverse” than mine and on and on . . . and then get “angry” and so the passion play continues.

Like your simian ancestors you cling to your branches chattering on and on, telling lies. What are your words, these puffs of air across your vocal cords, these sounds you make with your lungs casting air over your larynxes? So many grunts and screams, wild impossible sounds of agitation, assertions to power, some which attract the female of the species to mate with you, so as to secure for her offspring this ability to shout and lie.

And your history, what has it been but the regular harvest of your lies? In one interview one Swift Boat Vet was asked how it was possible that so many citations and reports could have been so inaccurate? The reply was that the Navy operated on trust and people like TE 194.5.4.4/1 took advantage of the Officer’s trust and the Navy’s reliance on the personal honor of Naval officers.

Had I been conducting the interview I should have asked if these controversies did not themselves cast a light on the Vietnam War? Was it not in fact a kind of make believe war, a fraud? How could any reasonable person have run the “Demilitarized Zone” from the ocean to the Laos frontier and with any honesty, with any honor, with one shred of integrity left, say, ‘Yeah, right, that is far enough, no need to go further, this is the sideline here, mark that with a chalk line, good, we will play on this side . . .’?

Of course, now, you can easily see this idea for the insanity that it was. Now you wonder ‘what were those people thinking?’ Now. But then there were all sorts of ideas, whole political-strategic theories, many reports, books, long speeches, thoughtful meditations, ingenious rationalizations by, TE 194.5.4.4/1, and by all the rest, the whole political establishment, the American elite.

And more, much more. Do you not suppose that some military officers knew the mistakes that were being made early on? Knew and did nothing? High ranking, politically connected officers who knew tens of thousands would die in utter futility? Men who retired to Tucson on pensions paid by a grateful nation? Admiral McCain for example? (The Joint Chiefs had a meeting to decide if they should resign in protest over the Vietnam War. (They decided not to resign. (Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert S. McNamara )))

At the other end there was the conscript army, made up of the lower and middle classes. And all of it, the whole American society came tumbling down into South East Asia, with its mass of rationalizations, good ‘intentions’, and unbridled egotism. One young Naval officer brought a movie camera to film his political commercials to which Hollywood special effects would later be added. (I am not making this up!) A mass of confusion, an anarchy of ideas, Emptiness . . .

And it is instructive to note what the Swift Boat Vets do not talk about. They do not spend much time talking about global strategy circa 1960. They do not talk about the Ho Chi Minh Trail; the political question “who lost Vietnam”; the “mission creep” as Washington administered the war. They confine themselves to their little area of the beach, of things about which they have personal knowledge. Is this because they were low ranking officers and enlisted men? No! Because this is how most people are most of the time.

We do not lift up our heads and make a global assessment of the entire human epoch! We do not say, ‘Right, now let’s make an honest appraisal of the entire situation.’ We find ourselves in a situation, we take it for granted most of the time, but in any event what can we do? We find ourselves in the Delta, there are certain rules of engagement, “ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.”

06-02-05, 08-09-05,08-12-05

Emptiness Part V

And you are thinking, ‘yes, the military!’ And you are wrong again. Not the military ---- Humanity. First of all we do not have the power, unless we are one of the few who actually have some office. (And see how easy it is for those upon whom some power has fallen, to mistake that, that accidental fact that they have been given some little bit of power, for a kind of absolute justification for all existence. “Isn’t America great!?” Subtext, because I have power, me, me, me, therefore . . .)

It is unrealistic to expect some soldier to change the entire geo-political thinking that has lead to the creation of his world, or even fully comprehend it, just as it would be unreasonable to expect, for example, that a mother or father should organize a school for their child and their community. In the case of education we could at least give vouchers to parents and allow them to select from a variety of schools, thus emulating the market. But it is utterly dishonest to tell the parent that they should “get involved” in the school board if they see some problem with the school. This is why markets are so important. In a market a consumer at least has a chance to find what they want, a parent, like an enlisted man three feet in mud in the Delta doesn’t even have a chance to “change things.” So this is why the Swift Boat Vets modestly confined themselves to what they knew.

How many times . . . a day are there similar examples? You “know”? You know it is wrong but you say nothing? (This is the power of the market over the political economy. You are not required to deliver fine speeches, all you need to do is meet the price and go on your way. (Now of course there is here a danger. For suppose that you “knew” about a crime? Perhaps even went along “knowing” that it was criminal? Think how rare it is for anyone to speak out against injustice, for most of the time we “know” but say nothing. After years of living in the market economy it is easy to fall into the habit, the way of living, taking what is yours and forgetting the rest: society, Humanity.))

For how rare is it that anyone is ever called to account. Not just the architects of America’s Vietnam strategy retired by a grateful nation, but everyone, in what ever direction you should choose to look. Mr. Bush (41) claimed to support vouchers for schools yet I was puzzled why such an uncompromising proposal was put forward by his Administration. It went down in certain defeat.

Then I realized that that was the idea. Mr. Bush did not really care about vouchers he only said he did. This is another example of the inflation in the political economy I mentioned earlier. Rather than putting forward a proposal to allow public voucher schools to be open to all, the Administration put forward a narrow mean proposal to give a few thousand dollars to pay for part of a private school tuition. Instead of introducing choice into the public system, (without huge tuitions), they deliberately put forward an extremely exclusionary plan. But how would you ever know? How would you ever prove it? In the American system responsibility is so diffuse, no government stands or falls on a public vote, as in parliamentary systems, it is easy to hide in plain sight, even in the Oval Office.

The President can blame the Congress and vice versa, States the Feds, Cities the States, and so on. Consider that the nations borders and ports of entry are essentially unguarded. Anyone responsible? Ironically Kennedy and McCain have proposed legalizing the 20 million Illegals but make no provisions for securing the borders or holding Illegals at the other ports of entry. I say ironically because another Kennedy and McCain led the nation into Vietnam where for “reasons of state” our troops were prohibited from securing those borders as well.

Everyone knew that enemy forces were coming down through Laos but the Kennedy and McCain of the day did not feel we would be justified in blocking that movement. And today we again have a Kennedy and a McCain setting our national policy on borders, thousands of miles away from Washington. In Southeast Asia the borders were to be “respected” and today, when setting policy on our own borders, they tell us that borders do not matter.

But see that neither those Kennedys and McCains then nor today’s version feel the slightest doubts about their policies. President Bush also agrees with them having a few days after his re-election repudiated his oath of office to uphold the law. In McCain’s case this is remarkable because the majority of the people of Arizona disagree with him. However, he has little to fear from the voters because near retirement, and because he was a POW. Did you know that?

Now see here again, how the social status, or respect for his service and the hardship experienced during his service in a POW prison encourages the egomaniacal psychology in a way not dissimilar to what was just discussed with racial and gender quotas and the cultivation of the egotism of “diversity” or simply having power. And so McCain’s psychology is such that reasons, facts, the preference of the majority of his own voters have no effect on him. See that little smirk? ‘What can you do? I have the power?’ he asks. What can we do?

And doesn’t McCain’s little smirk say something more? Does it not ask what is your suffering compared to mine? And where have we heard this before? Do you not think that TE 194.5.4.4/1 returned to America and let it be known that He! was a Vietnam Vet!? And indeed is this not the answer to my question that I asked just before? Why did Franken and Springer bring it up again? Is it not that they enjoy having their very own “war hero”? Even if they have to manufacture him?

Is it not useful to them to have a foil against the “neo-con chicken hawks”? (Chicken hawk is prison slang for a young man forced into homosexual prostitution by the prison gangs. (Just think of the mentality which would discuss American foreign policy using the language of prison gangs. (Think about that. ( And note that here again the focus is not on the policy but on the nature or condition of the opponent. Not an examination of the policy question but an attack on the speaker.))))

And if you are thinking that at least now they must realize how disgraceful they are, you are wrong again. They use prison slang to show how angry they are. For anger, descriptive emotional states, are used the same way all other descripters are used: “as a Gay,” “as a Jew,” “as a Woman,” "as a Vet", “as a (fill in the blank)”. That nothing logically follows from these statements or moods, these emotional states of anger, the outrage of the righteous, is not the point.

These descripters are useful in society for getting what one wants or at least as cover while one takes what one can get. “I am angry therefore I am right,” is a tool, and an instant justification. Recall that Laura Ingraham was “livid” with the court decision in the patient Schiavo’s case. That the statute by which the case was decided was the product of years of study and a bipartisan compromise in the Florida Legislature after open debate and due deliberation counted for less than the fact that this “Woman” claimed she was “livid.”

And again since then there has been no amendment proposed, no new evidence submitted, no model statute written, nothing. Nothing other than to continually denigrate everyone else as part of the “culture of death.” While the angry, livid, advocates of the “culture of life” never seem to be able to put their philosophy down in writing, seem incapable of coming up with a rule, a procedure to show us heathens how to live or at least how to decide the cases. Oh, but there is anger. No reason but much emotion.

And what else is emotive? Being a POW? A Vietnam Vet? And one regularly hears debates between Vets being won on the point, “I am a Combat Vet!” Careful much high emotion there. Don’t want anyone going postal on us. Women, Blacks, Jews all have well established rights to anger. I have noted recently Catholics (RC) making claims to the anger of the righteously aggrieved.

But then what would a passion play be without passion? We are floating on a sea of emotions, flooding reason. Manufactured emotionalism drives the inflation, the dishonesty, of our political economy. In his last speech from the floor of the Senate, Senator Moynihan commented that he feared “reason was but a poor foil to the irrational.” (see Congressional Record at the Moynihan) And he was right. If you are aggrieved you may say anything, Left or Right.

And this psychology, of moral superiority, of the veteran contemptuous of his fellow citizens, the Black who thinks White suffering is an oxymoron, of Women for men’s suffering, of Jew’s certainty that WASP’s are by comparison weak or inexperienced and have not known the depths of true suffering, all of it, is itself connected to the “diversity” myth; I say myth because unspoken, for it can never be articulated much less held up to scrutiny. There is a sense, no, a certainty, that one is more “diverse” just as there is certainty that one’s suffering is really something far, far, greater than anything you could possibly conceive, and yet all of this goes unexamined, it is gauche even to question it. Of course, foreign nationals are more “diverse” than us.

And for those of you who are uncertain about the need to control the borders and ports of entry just answer why you and Kennedy and McCain want people entering the country to be illegal? Why not welcome them? I have previously proposed raising the limit on immigration from Mexico to one million a year for the next 50 years. (It is currently set at 170k. (50 million would be half of Mexico’s expected population increase.))

Why, because no one will take responsibility! Because the political discourse is dishonest. Letting Illegals into the country is literally an example of inflation in the political economy; i.e. we are inflating the numbers of residents. See the dishonesty: You make them illegal because you are dishonest.

By not controlling the borders and ports of entry you avoid having to take responsibility. No need to reach an agreement on the number of immigrants to be added. (Then too the elite finds it advantageous to create a new category or class of resident in these United States. And the Illegals do not stand on their rights, (they haven’t any (that is a great advantage! (to a corrupt leadership))); and more benefits, they undercut the wages of the lower classes; and they can be violated, i.e. deported, without the bother of a trial. Yes, the elite appreciates these many advantages of their subterfuge, and again see how they make the dishonesty of the political process work for them. And to top it all they are more liberal because they support "diversity.")

And it is because of this dishonesty, this utter chaos of egotism and self delusion, of personalities unbounded, undirected by any philosophy or religion, which requires that everything which can be taken out of the hands of the government should be removed from the reach of the politicians. Not that politicians do not represent you, they do too well. There is not a single vanity, conceit, dishonest thought, you have ever had that is not represented in any of your legislatures. They are just like you.

Do you not think, for example, that many “knew” that if the accounts of the savings and loans were guaranteed to $100k per account (not per person) that huge waves of capital would flow into those institutions? (And see that the Democrat blames the Republicans, even though Mr. Carter raised the “insurance” on the accounts. Again a case of having it both ways. But what percent of the Americans even have a $100K to be insured in the first place? Yet the “party of the people” thought it a good idea to protect the capital of the rich in the name of the people . . . . yes, abandon reason and have it both ways. (Less than 3% of the losses of the savings and loans resulted from criminal misconduct. (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/SavingsandLoanCrisis.html )))

And the Republicans “deregulated” the Savings and Loans when Reagan arrived. Deregulate? So they abolished the unlimited “insurance”? No. So they required that the industry meet the same capital requirements as banks? No. Their loan portfolios had to meet the same standards as banks?, No! As much as 40% of the loans were commercial real estate. The Republicans would not have allowed the Savings and Loans to use accounting gimmicks, like “good will” to cover deficits and losses . . . would they? Yes, they did. And oh, yes, they knew what they were doing. (http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/s&l/)

And do you not think that today, for example, actuaries “know” that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is not actuarially sound? (http://www.actuary.org/pdf/pension/funding_single.pdf • 1134.1k) But the dishonesty of the political economy is such that we will continue to “guarantee” pensions which we “know” are not funded because some workers are on the “in” and the rest of us will pay for it; will pay for those who are on the “in.” The reporters upon whom you rely for the “facts”, are they on the “in”? Oh yes. Your leaders, the politicians, their pensions . . . well they are as “in” as you can get. Public employees have 105% retirement pensions. (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_24/b3937081.htm )

And do you not think that many “know” that exclusionary zoning has ruined our cities and burdened the people? And the very same “environmentalists” who decry the reliance on “fossil fuels” and the automobile are themselves the very same “community activists” who have blocked development in the city centers and forced out the middle class into the suburbs necessitating those commutes. (see Jane Jacobs, http://bss.sfsu.edu/pamuk/urban/biblio.html (Smart Growth: http://www.smartgrowth.org/library/articles.asp?art=188&res=1680 (The New Urbanism: http://www.newurbanism.org/pages/416429/index.htm )))

In the Bay Area the new Bay Bridge will be vulnerable to earthquake damage or even a “small car bomb” owing to its design. How many engineers “know” that building the world’s largest single tower self anchored bridge in an active seismic zone is a mistake but said nothing? (see Technical Correction #6) “World’s largest”? Doesn’t that alone tell you something? That means no one else has dared to do such a thing. Wonder why?

Yet the local media, SF Chronicle, San Jose Mercury, followed the lead of the CalTrans bureaucrats and continued to refer to the proposed span as a “single tower suspension” bridge. The whole issue being that it is not a suspension bridge but is in fact a self anchored bridge. But because they control the media they can lie. The reporters and editors “know” about the controversy they simply will not report it. What can you do about it they smirk?

Do you suppose the politicians who are responsible for this fiasco, “the world’s largest self anchored bridge”, will be held responsible when the architects of our Vietnam “experience” were not? That they will be held responsible when the politicians who have opened up our borders are not? Or the ones who “deregulated the Savings and Loans”? Or the guardians of the Pension Guarantee Corp.? Or the ones who have blocked development to the point that today 84% of Californians can not afford the medium priced home? (Is Housing Too Expensive? Blame the Government)

After all of this you suppose that now suddenly we will hold politicians responsible? Why would you think so? What possible justification for such a lunatic thought could there be? Can you not see that you are delusional? No one will ever be held responsible for anything. This is the Emptiness.

For example, currently the State of California has agreed to dig two tunnels on the coast highway for an estimated $200m (so we can project that the actual cost will be $1 billion using the CalTrans rule of 5, (all CalTrans estimates are understated by a factor of five.)) Given that the State does not allow development of the coast will the tunnels collect sufficient tolls to pay for their costs? It does not matter as no tolls will be collected. All tax payers will pay, even those who have been zoned out of the coastal regions including the urban Bay Area. Just because the people have been excluded doesn’t mean they should not have to pay!

These two tunnels will be constructed out on the scenic highway in a county, San Mateo, where the average home costs $1 million. In the middle of the Bay Area the Caldecott tunnels which serve millions of commuters, all be it with hour long backups twice daily, (from 6am to noon and from noon to 7pm), are in need of expansion, which would also cost $200 million according to CalTrans.

But this tunnel expansion is not even scheduled. Why? Because the millionaires out on the San Mateo coast have more political clout than the millions of commuters in the Bay Area. Because there is no market allocation of roads. Because society is controlled by a corrupt oligarchy. Because the Republic has been betrayed. Because we were fools ever to have believed in justice, honesty, . . . Because the political economy is a mass of lies, . . . do you not yet see? Because of Emptiness . . . And this is a Blue state!

But why specify Blue states:

USATODAY.com - Some highway bill pork becomes road kill ABC News: New Transportation Bill Full of Pork Road Bill Reflects The Power Of Pork After 2-Year Wait, Passage Comes Easily Highway bill criticized for special projects - US News - MSNBC.com $286 Billion Highway bill!

From what has already been said it also should come as no surprise that the know-nothing Republicans also oppose the privatization of roads, or even the market pricing of roads. They too think it fair that drivers in Fresno should have to pay the tax at the same rate as people in San Francisco even though the roads of San Francisco cost several times what the roads of Fresno cost. Even so called “conservatives”, like Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Barr, all most all, see nothing problematic in being for markets while at the same time supporting a government bureaucracy to build “free” ways.

And see how this government control of the roads has stifled competition and innovation just as the government monopoly in education has there also blocked new technology. We do not have electronics in our cars to create digital traffic control systems just as in our schools we have not pioneered computer assisted education. 43,000 people are killed every year, hundreds of thousand seriously wounded, on our roads and highways in part due to the utter absence of safety electronics in the cars, from traffic warning, to automated accident prevention, to traffic enforcement including ignition interlocks to block the intoxicated from even starting their cars.

See here that your ignorance, as in war, kills people. You are ignorant that in the 1970s simple one way transponders could have coordinated traffic, that in the 1980s the electronics could have allowed two way coordination, and that in the 1990s fully automatic digital systems could have integrated traffic controls over entire regions. You do not know these things because your roads have been in the hands of government bureaucrats. The dishonesty of the political economy has hidden these things from you.

And recall that the point is not that the bureaucrats are stupid or lazy as the simple minded conservatives have mislead you into thinking. These bureaucrats are just like you. Markets do not make people ‘smart.’ The innovation arises out of self interest, ownership. Schools do not use computer assisted instruction because they do not have to, they have the government’s money. Your money. The guys in the orange vests in the highway department do not have to bother with electronic systems because . . . because they are the government.

Why do conservatives oppose the market allocation of roads? Because of Emptiness. They are not principled. They move from one pleasing, ego gratifying idea to another, in no particular order. What is there but ego, and vanity, and delusion? They support “free markets” only as a justification for their own success; they glory that they have “won” the “competition.” However, when their own egos are not directly involved they fall back into the ready acceptance of the status quo. Is this not also a case of having it both ways? Is this not the same dishonesty we have seen everywhere we have looked?

This is the Emptiness. They do not care if you get killed in a head on collision to night. They do not care if your children do not get the instruction that they need. Who are you to them? All the market does is create the possibility that the demands of the consumers will find their suppliers. Potentially this also exists with government but just consider, what would you do to the school principal who wanted to develop a computer program? What if some CalTrans bureaucrat started talking about putting electronics in your car?

Why would they even want to take the chance? Just look what happened to me. Fifteen years of harassment and oppression for writing about laser disks! Why would anyone want to get involved in this dishonest malignant political process? Face such Emptiness?

Can you not see that that is always how it has been for all of history? See it now?

No?

I have confused you? I am not making any sense? Wild ramblings? (" . . . The suicide left a long and rambling note with a series of disconnected accusations about persons of high office and rank, wild theories of conspiracies, of people on the radio talking to him, secretly reading his email and even his notebook. There were claims that high government officials and the local police department were some how involved . . . ")

Just look at the facts:

The trees are alive.

There is no crime.

Universal love.

---- Septamus Smith,

---- Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

06-02-05, 08-09-05,08-19-05

Emptiness Part VI

In any given epoch, moment of time, there is an utter chaos and confusion of ideas. Each individual following his own confused ideas, yet, thinking no doubt that he is following some religion or philosophy, imagining that there is some system to his wild mental gyrations, unexamined prejudices, vainglory, perhaps even going to his grave in the quiet satisfaction that he has in the end “understood.” (Imagine the vanity of even daring to know.)

May this confusion be shown only later, after the evidence is sorted out, the facts carefully examined in centuries of disinterested discussion? But why only later? Perhaps because in the moment of time you will not allow yourselves to engage in disinterested discussion. Will not admit that your own thoughts and methods of analysis are twisted by greed or delusion or hate. Will see this only later. Will you see this later?

Will think, in the heat of the moment, that even the idea of being “disinterested”, the very word “disinterested”, is cold, heartless: ‘MY GOD HAVE YOU NO SOUL? YOU WANT US TO LOOK AT THE CAT SCAN? Don’t you understand that we are dealing with a woman’s life?! And you want us to look at a CAT scan? Are you inhuman?’

Or ‘“strategy?”, men are dying out there and you want to talk about strategy? Have you no heart, no soul? What care we for strategy, kill, kill, kill them over there so we do not have to fight them here. . . .’

Or, and now looking at the same question from the opposite side, ‘I voted for the war before I voted against it.’

(For example, I was singled out for attack because my letters to the Senate supported the First Gulf War. In San Francisco this is all it took to be marked out for attack and ruin. As Alan Watts noted, there is no one so militant as a pacifist, nor as imperious as an anti-imperialist. And in the Bay Area Women are encouraged to act out against men, Blacks Whites, Gays Straights, Latinos Anglos and peaceniks against “warmongers” and so on.)

That any of these people may be said to have been acting in good faith is irrelevant. We may decide to credit good faith, but the point I wish to make here in Emptiness is that even your attribution of good or bad faith is itself beside the point. Lost in your vanity and ego, the desire to ‘get along with others’, is more important than reason or logic. There is no reason.

Dodge responsibility. For example, being against the war spares the ego from having to accept responsibility for the dead. And yet a moments reflection should reveal that responsibility is not so easily avoided. This is not “your” society? And if awareness of your own culpability still eludes you, then consider how completion of the First Gulf War would have obviated the need for the Second.

(Fifteen years later, those who singled me out for attack, who betrayed me, can now see, that the consequence of leaving Saddam Hussein in power was the Second Gulf War. Do they now say, ‘Oh, sorry, I guess you were right?’; of course not. The mind has no dignity. (Mine included, if I could go on I would.))

There are whole other systems of rationalization that are brought into consciousness. Each sees according to his lights.

And the branches swayed in the warm wind heavy with the scent of the Indian Ocean before it was called “the Indian Ocean.” The sun rose above the morning fog and shown down through the triple canopy rainforests of East Africa where today there is only desert. Our ancestors, their tails wrapped around the swaying branches warmed themselves in the sunlight, and chattered to one another. And today we are still “alive and alert in the vanished forests of the world,” (Dr. E. O. Wilson). Still chattering to one another, still telling ourselves pleasing lies.

This was 60 million years ago. After the great crater in the Yucatan 100 miles across, 30 miles deep, was formed by a meteorite, 65 million years ago. 6o million years of chattering monkeys. (Technically not monkeys but the common ancestors of both humans and modern monkeys. (Dr. Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale))

What are your lies compared to this? What is your destruction of me compared to this? Deny the truth, go ahead, who cares? Don’t lift a finger. How very convenient for you that “a just society” seems to require nothing of you.

You have The Power! You can use technology so your chattering and screaming can be broadcast over an entire continent. Heard further, yes, but you are still the monkeys in the swaying trees, telling lies to one another.

And for all of history it has been the same. All of history is manipulated by your vanity and ego so that the story can be told with you always on the side of “the right” and “the just.” Slavery? Well of course you would have been against it. You would not have made some convenient rationalization! Are you quite sure?

Stood up to the NAZIs did you? (Funny thing is my grandfathers tried to warn the nation of the growing danger and I do not recall your grandfathers participating. Then my grandfathers stood in the minority. But now . . .)

In the story of the war which TE 194.5.4.4/1 told about Kerry, he was a hero valiantly crossing hundreds of yards of enemy fire to save a comrade, not the only skipper to take off down river when the mine went off, leaving his comrade behind, after he fell off due to the abrupt movement of that boat. Any officer might have written the report the way TE 194.5.4.4/1 wrote up the after action report, but none saw it that way, except one officer. (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39889 )

Springer and Franken brought it up again because they need a “war hero” not because they possess special knowledge of the events involved. It appeals to their vanity. Even as a war story it is not particularly interesting. But for them it is important, not for love of Kerry, but for love of themselves.

The entire Vietnam war can be seen as a series of false, or misconstrued reports, misunderstood, misapplied, misdirecting . . . a bureaucratized war which was administered only so that the politicians in Washington would not be accused by other politicians of having “lost Vietnam.”

In the end the politicians in Washington were not even interested in Vietnam the country, only Vietnam the political issue, did not care that a few miles further inland from the DMZ – Laos frontier whole armies were winding there way south. Did not know and did not care . . .

Sometimes one hears it said that the market is a cold uncaring thing and I suppose it is. Yet consider that it was government which had placed 500,000 men in Vietnam, 12% of that number killed, multiples of that number, (four times), of South East Asians were killed, and kept them there for a decade and the whole of the strategy can be summarized as not wanting to be accused of “losing Vietnam.”

A political cover. A pretense. A posturing. A having it both ways. And even now, the lies continue, and History is perverted to serve the ego’s need in the present.

The dishonesty continues today with Springer and Franken. The phrase “discredited Swift Boat Vets” repeated over and over because the Swift Boat Vets dared speak out against a powerful man, a leader of a political faction, who had himself, in the day, accused the vets of “war crimes”.

Springer and Franken thought that Kerry had a “right” to accuse the vets of “war crimes” but think it wrong now for the Swift Boat Vets to tell what they know, which was documented, even by Kerry’s own report.

Note that in the years since, for over thirty five years, the author, TE 194.5.4.4/1, has not come forward. Wonder why?

And if it is said who am I to judge Kerry, he was there I was not, yes, exactly, he was there I was not. I do not personally know if gunning your boat and racing off down the river is a good idea or not. But this is exactly my point. The Swift Boat Vets were there. It behooves us, those of us who were not there, to listen to them, respectfully.

Certainly it is wrong for Springer and Franken to malign them especially as it appears that Springer and Franken malign the Vets not because Springer and Franken have any personal knowledge or insight, some heretofore unspoken reverence for History, but only because Kerry is a member of the elite, to which Springer and Franken belong, and to their Party, their faction, and definitely unlike the middle and working class Swift Boat Vets.

Indeed why do Springer and Franken not also take the hint that no other skipper of a Swift Boat gunned their boats?

But then why is any of this an issue? Why are we not talking about Social Security, balancing the budget, building homes, educating the young?

Why are we being distracted again? History, far from being “settled” now, after having been scrutinized in “disinterested” discussion, becomes another tool of the “fat relentless ego” in its constant struggle for power.

One reason is that Kerry returned home to tell lies about Vietnam. It was not enough for him to simply report that we should leave Vietnam, he had to falsely charge he had witnessed war crimes, even participated in war crimes. And is this not another example of having it both ways? A war hero who committed war crimes? (No, a liar who lied about the war and his record.) What was Kerry protesting but himself: his own lying reports?

Then Springer and Franken complain about the Swift Boat Vet’s TV commercials! I admit that I do not feel this issue as intently as do the Swift Boat Vets. But then have you never noticed a vet wipe a tear from his eye while you looked coolly on? What? Did you think ‘what a cry baby”? Is that how you are? No, I never took Kerry’s charges of “war crimes” seriously, just consider the source, yet I respect the fact that the vets do take it seriously.

And which of us has the correct view? The vets or us in our cool disinterestedness?

And this is how it always has been and always will be. The subjective. See the same issue: Look at the Schiavo CAT scan? Or not? Ignore it?

Accuse the Swift Boat Vets of dishonesty and worse, while ignoring the testimony of the retired Admiral who was on the boat with Kerry and Kerry’s on contemporaneous journal entry nine days later?

Or say you are in favor of “progressive indexing,” (of the rate of INCREASE! of Social Security), before you say it is “pernicious”; why the very idea, the next week, as did Franken. Say we should not have to “bribe” the rich in order to have an old age pension then say the following week that we must pay the rich to keep it “universal” as did Franken.

There is no philosophy that can withstand these twisting demands of the ego. For example, Barbara Boxer the Marin Senator, opposed the Bush forced savings accounts because she said setting up savings accounts would be “too risky”. Just wrap your mind around that: savings is “too risky”. (Franken said he did not even understand what is meant by the words: “forced savings.” Does not understand the issue!)

There are many reasons to oppose Mr. Bush’s vague statements about Social Security reform: because he would create $3 trillion in added debt for a nation that has already fallen in to what just a generation ago would have been unimaginable debt; because the Bush accounts are “instead of” not in “addition to” Social Security; because they do not solve the short fall that Mr. Bush vaguely mentioned, (i.e. 2017 – 2047), when the burden of taxation must fall more and more heavily on the dwindling number of workers who must support the retirees; because Mr. Bush’s vague words never dealt with the fundamental unfairness of a system which draws out of the paychecks of ordinary workers, workers earning a mean average of $16 an hour, whose IQs are on average 100, and thereby forcing them to give their hard earned money to rich retirees, 20% of whom have incomes of over $75,000, whose IQs are above average, (who as a class control 50% of the national income, control over 60% of the financial wealth), and of whom many, most, perhaps 90% of whom, have voted as a class to block development even in our urban areas, forcing the middle and lower income far away by the use of exclusionary zoning, forcing them to long commutes on the highways, burning fossil fuels to get to homes whose mortgages have been raised higher and higher so that to day in California 84% can not afford the median priced home; they have blocked the exploration of oil and gas off our coasts; even blocked wind farms 12 miles from their seashore summer homes; blocked nuclear power for the last 30 years; have for no reason at all blocked progress at every turn, for example they have blocked the mass distribution of educational materials and distance learning to prevent the equitable sharing of knowledge among the people; blocked the entry into the professions with wildly ridiculous requirements such as the requirement that ordinary physicians be able to explain the atomic physics of disease and the molecular interactions of viruses with the membrane of individual cells, as a result our medical schools only can supply half, just 50%, of our new doctors each year, (Barbara Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling) thus draining off of the world the best doctors instead of sending out into the world our own doctors to help the world; blocked every attempt at reform that would lesson the control of the state over the ordinary affairs of the people, (for example, preventing the reform of the big city machines which control the payroll of city and state employees whose pay and pensions steadily rise further burdening the people, (BART train drivers earn $109k), the unfairness of which they try to conceal with claims of “progressive taxation” which is simply another of their lies by which they con the people into thinking that the cost of government can be shifted onto “the rich” instead of telling the people the truth that taxes are redistributed onto them through the price mechanism; or by maintaining state control of essential services such as our schools, or our highways and roads so that acting as a class they can use their power to direct roads to their real estate holdings to their private benefit, or directing state control over institutions and foundations whose tax free status, and state supported work, can be used to advance their interests in preference to the interests of the people; but none of this was mentioned or even hinted at by the Marin Senator Boxer. Why?

For reasons that George Orwell would have understood very well: After the revolution the revolutionary becomes the Tory (Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters). Every revolutionary is a Tory in waiting. The state now is victorious. And the supporters of the state are now the protectors of the status quo. The Democrats can not become reformers. They are what needs reforming. They must oppose reform or they will be swept away.

So, this is why the Marin Senator thinks savings accounts would be risky. The Marin Senator thinks it is safer for the people to be dependent on the state, and the state’s taxes on the wages of the workers, even though the ratio of worker to retiree, which was 16 to 1, and is now today 3 to 1, and will become 2 to 1, and will therefore force the workers to pay a larger and larger share to the very people whose mismanagement of the economy and selfishness have forced them into these reduced and dwindling circumstances. ( http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05133/504149.stm)

How can savings be called “risky” except by someone who is completely at a loss, utterly entangled in a twisted political ideology? Note that the national savings rate has declined from the lowest of any industrialized nation, at 4%, to the current level, 1.625% (as a percent on gross income for the last 12 quarters

(http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=120&FirstYear=2002&LastYear=2004&Freq=Qtr ))

By all accounts America needs more savings yet the Marin Senator thinks not. And if you think we should give her the benefit of the doubt and think only that she was trying to “preserve” the social commitment to the retirees who are dependent on Social Security, I would ask you why then did she not say these words which you want to put in her mouth?

For example why did she not say she supports individual accounts “in addition to” the regular pension? (as did U. S. Senator Doctor Professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Because, staying in her role in the passion play, she does not want to “give an inch.” This is not a debate. There are no reasoned arguments. She prefers to posture.

And yet she may be credited with “good faith.” And what does it matter? There is no way to reason, and even time will not allow us to adopt a disinterested view, for history is itself twisted and used to support the ego in its self centered view. There is no religion, no philosophy, no way for us to understand. This is Emptiness.

06-02-05, 08-09-05,08-20-05

Emptiness Part VII

Why did Senator Boxer not support a reduction in benefits for the wealthy Social Security “beneficiaries”? Why should ordinary workers, half of whom earn less than $35,000 a year, pay the Social Security of the top 20% whose income is in excess of $75,000? I thought the Marin Senator was on the side of the people? Why not redirect these funds from the rich back to the poor, depositing it into the savings accounts of the poor?

Because she is from Marin. She represents Marin. The rich. This is the Democrat party of today.

Do you think the Marin Senator has carefully evaluated the $109k paid to BART train drivers and reduced the Federal subsidy to mass transit for such union excesses? Of course not the Democrats are the mouthpieces for the unions. We are all of us forced to pay but the funds are doled out my the Democrat machine to the Democrat machine. (And do you suppose that the Republicans stay up nights worrying about this looting? In a word no. They do not care. Indeed they compete to loot for their states an equal share which their party machines can dole out.)

For example, has the Marin Senator carefully examined how Federal highway funds are used by states to subsidize their exclusionary zoning laws? Advocated limits on Federal funds for those who exclude the poor and middle class? Has she blocked Federal funds for cities like San Francisco that have used their zoning powers to down zone their cities? No, no, no.

Does the Marin Senator care that 12% of the wages of people earning less than $35k, (half the people), are being redirected to the top 20% who control 50% of the national income and 60% of the financial wealth? Again, I say, No. (Note too that the top 20% were “paid” back all of their “contributions” in the first few years of their retirement. All the money they now collect is pure profit.)

The Marin Senator does not care about fairness. The Democrat party has formed an alliance with the state and municipal employees to loot the public treasury. In San Francisco, for example, Mayor Brown added 4,000 employees bringing the budget to $5.2 billion. (San Francisco) But this is minor compared to the looting across the nation where the Democrats have systematically plundered the public treasury for votes: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, major public pension plans paid out $78.5 billion in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2000. By the comparable period in 2004, that had grown to $117.8 billion, a 50% climb in five years.” (Business Week: Public Pension Sink Hole) Just as we have seen with the national debt, when the Republican stopped slaving to balance the budget the Democrat knew no limit and so thus, $8 trillion in debt, about which Mr. Bush said, it is just “numbers on paper.” (Peter Peterson, Running on Empty, Foreign Affairs)

And see how one lie leads to the next. For the Marin Senator will claim that we have “progressive taxation” which at least adds some fairness to the American system. But of course the dynamics of the market redistributes all costs, raw materials, energy, insurance, and taxes by the price mechanism. Taxation is a burden on the people it can not be made progressive. To the extent prices can be raised to offset the taxes they will be raised. And who then actually pays the tax? The people! (This is why taxes should be kept as low as possible.)

And see here a perfect kind of example of Emptiness. The Right regularly assails us with their triumphalist sneers that “they” pay most of the taxes. ‘See all the income tax “we” pay!’ they cry, failing to see that the taxes follow the distribution of income, let alone seeing that this income results from the ever constant price rises by which the tax is transferred to the people. Yet this myopia is matched by the jubilant cries of “tax the rich” from the Left, Post Liberal, whose smarmy manipulation of the people is matched by their smarmy contempt for the people, for they, of course, fail to point out that as long as “the rich” are free to set their own prices, the attempts to soak, or only tax, them will fail.

Thus both parties compete to mislead the people, and the Emptiness is found in not their dishonesty, but in the even more devastating thought that they are indeed sincere. They actually are as lost as they appear. And we are left to wander around the competing factions, in the dark, hopeless.

The so called “progressive tax” falls not on those who can “afford to pay” but on those who can not raise their prices, (for whatever reason). The classic example of a high earner who can not raise his prices is the “B” list movie star. He is still a movie star and has a high income but knows that the opportunity to raise his price is declining, even the opportunity to get another picture deal is falling. Yet the tax remains high.

And in Ronald Reagan’s time the income tax was real, rising to 91% during the height of “New Deal” “progressive” mania, but still at 72% prior to the Reagan Revolution. And see how this tax applied only to “ordinary” income. Wealth could be protected in tax shelters, in cattle ranch operations, oil and gas, in a hundred schemes created by War Time Washington. The War Raw Material Board, the War Energy Board, etc. created thousands of ways to administer the economy with preference to wealth, old money, not those with increasing incomes. (Kennedy tried to remove these regulations but it was not until Reagan swept through that these taxes and tax shelters were finally removed 35 years after the war’s end. (How much of the “stagflation” of the 1970s was a result of the effects of this massive redirection of the economy by these tax shelters and “redistribution” schemes? The government’s direction of the economy is always to stagnate and diminish opportunity, because of the fundamental dishonesty of the passion play which misdirects all efforts. This is the Emptiness.))

And today income is taxed but wealth is not. Capital gains are taxed, taxed even as ordinary income, but wealth, “patient capital”, is not. And even the “death tax” is now slated for elimination, the only way to tax wealth, unless the deceased had taken the precaution of tucking his capital away into another labyrinth of schemes to avoid taxes.

And note here the dishonesty of the Republicans who decry the “death tax” on the accumulated capital, even though this capital has often been accumulated “tax free” without even the payment of the 15% of the long term capital gains tax. But the American system as should be seen by now is not much concerned with fairness. Both sides contend to get what loot they can pull from the passion play, and fairness is of no concern. That ordinary workers pay taxes all their lives on their meager earnings while millionaires pay not even the 15% capital gains tax is not even on the agenda to be examined.

Yet what is fair about a tax system, for example, that levies the same tax on journeyman plumbers both earning the union rate, if one is 50 and the other is 25? Same income but the first already has bought his home, raised his children, funded his retirement, etc. while the younger one must try to start his family in a country where exclusionary zoning has pushed housing out of the reach of ordinary earners, where college tuition has pulled ahead of inflation, where the “debt bubble” has ruined the currency and the possibility to save, etc.

For practical reasons of administration, the wealth tax need not start until the accumulated wealth has reached the $10 million range, but this simple example has been used so that it can be seen that the fairness of the proposal is that those who have more, more savings not just more income, should pay more, since it can be seen to be fair even for low incomes.

The same market forces that redirect all taxes will also redirect capital or wealth taxes. As long as there is a free market without wage and price controls this is unavoidable. However the unfairness of loading the entire burden on income can be lessoned. For it is just those individuals who are creating wealth, and earning high incomes, but who have not yet accumulated great wealth who are now being heavily and unfairly taxed. These productive members of the economy are just the people we want to encourage. By taxing only income and not wealth we discourage innovation and reward the status quo. And the wealth tax would tend to encourage the productive deployment of capital as the tax will be due whether the capital has been invested or squandered on conspicuous consumption.

Note that the same process of market reallocation will take place with a capital tax just as it does with the current income tax. Capital will leave the country to avoid the tax. Interest rates will rise to attract capital back. The interest will thus be added to the cost of borrowing capital and passed on to you and me in higher prices.

And if you are saying, ‘well, what was the point if we are just going to pay it anyway,’ you still have not understood the first lesson of economics: it is a system of voluntary associations of mutual assent. You can not “take” other people’s capital in our system unless you first establish wage and price controls, i.e. government coercion. Again, the only way to make this proposal “progressive” is not in the tax, not in the “taking,” but as always in the expenditure. For example if the money thus raised were to be put in savings accounts for the poorest workers it would become “progressive.”

These workers would still pay the tax in the form of higher prices but they would uniquely benefit. Everyone would pay the higher interest but the poorest workers would receive the benefit of the individual savings accounts: therefore progressive.

(For example paying for half of the cost on installing photovoltaic solar panels on the mansions of the rich, as does California, is not “progressive”. But see how one lie leads to the next. The ‘Progressives’ will answer that this payment from California to the rich is funded by the rich? ‘Do not the rich pay most of the taxes?’ they will ask, ‘Are we not simply giving back some of what they have “put in”?’ (And this is how most people go through most of their lives, utterly lost.) So the myth of “progressive taxation” encourages and justifies the oligarchy and the misdirection of the economy. Emptiness.)

Note that from an national economic perspective it does not matter if the capital is in the accounts of the rich or in the accounts of workers for their retirement in 40 or 50 years. The capital tax simply transfers the money, at first from the accounts of the rich to these newly created accounts for the poor, and then as the rich demand higher interest for their capital we all end up paying higher prices for this interest.

The point was to spare those with increasing incomes, the most productive of us, from having to collect all the taxes themselves by sharing this onerous burden with those who are already rich. The rich only act as tax collectors for the state, passing the taxes on in their products or services. (The word ‘capitalist’ comes from the Latin for the one who bids for the right to collect the taxes from the provinces. The winner would pay the Senate in Rome and then to the province to collect back his bid, plus whatever profit he could collect for himself. Pilot was the CEO of a capitalist syndicate.)

In the above example, the two plumbers have the same income, and therefore the same income tax, but their wealth is not the same, and therefore their “ability to pay” is not the same. But do not look to the Marin Senators for answers to this unfairness. Nor any other. The Marin Senators stand for unfairness, for wealth and privilege, for the status quo, for Marin, in preference to the people.

But see how the Marin Senator Boxer and Al Franken can have it both ways: Ah politics!

They will cash in those bonds in the filing cabinet in West Virginia! Just as Randi Rhodes, (who Drudge rightly describes as little better than a trained seal with a ball on her nose), says that the tax payer will not have to pay for the pensions that have fallen into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., because the “insurance” will pay. But who pays the insurance, Randi Rhodes? (http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_3430985,00.html)

(Drudge’s anger stemmed from Randi Rhodes’ advocacy of criminal trials for journalists who “lie.” (She describes her job, herself, as “filling dead air.”) Yet in the absence of any system of ethics or morality, any shared sense of right and wrong, what alternative is there to the courts and even criminal prosecution? Her logic is that without honor, honesty, all we have left is the courts. This is the logic of Emptiness.)

For example, the airline pilots, who complain that, before they drove their airline into bankruptcy, they had a $90k pension and now they will receive only $35k from their fellow taxpayers, do they have a reputation for concern about the welfare of their fellow workers? Citizens? I think not. I think airline pilots have a reputation for looking out for themselves. Egotistical pricks. And I think their fellows in the ----

Counselor: And you are not?

. . . And I think their fellows in the union ---

Counselor: Your Mr. Bush, The President, isn’t he a pilot?

. . . yes, . . .And I think their fellows in the union ----

Counselor: And your Mr. Rumsfeld? He too is a pilot?

. . . yes, . . . thank you Yvonne.

Counselor: You are welcome.

And I think their fellows in the union movement know this. I think the whole nation knows this. But see how not withstanding this fact, this ‘knowledge’, the pilots are still able to play the role of the righteous who are wronged by the powerful.

(Recall that it was the pilots association that blocked the attempt to strengthen the bulkhead and cockpit door to prevent would be terrorists and hijackers from gaining access to the cockpit and flying the airplane into an office block. The president of the pilots association shouted down the other speaker, shouting “our lives are on the line.” And what of the lives of the people of the World Trade Center, how did their lives figure into the president of the pilot’s association thinking? Their lives did not figure into his thinking. But do you not think this past president of the pilot’s union enjoys his retirement in Tucson? )

Yet in their selfishness and shortsightedness the Pilot’s Union is in no way exceptional. The American labor movement, unlike its European counterpart, was not concerned with “social justice” but with getting as much as possible for its union members, and therefore maximizing their union dues. They followed this “selfish” policy even to their own ruin.

For example German unions have ridden down declining industries by agreeing to work rules and givebacks to allow the firms to continue, prolonging their jobs and the usefulness of the sunken capital, where the American unions have simply driven their firms into bankruptcy. A large part of the union movement’s decline in America has been due to the closing of firms, whole industry groups, rather than allowing a compromise to extend the industry’s life.

Health care is an example of how American unions failed to use public policy and follow the example of the European unions. The American unions did obtain health care for “their” members and shortsightedly abandoned the rest of society. It does not follow that a ‘nationalized’ system need have been the only possibility, yet even so the French, Swedish, German health systems rival and surpass the American system in many respects. Nor is it clear that the American system, with its heavy government regulation and huge insurance bureaucracies even deserves to still be regarded as “private.”

Yet the American labor movement’s abandonment of the “uninsured” and now “underinsured” (with the advent of “limited” policies) has created a skewed payment structure where the cost of the policies rises due to the combination of shrinking consumer volume and the increase in moral hazard.

What if the American health system had been expansive, generous, instead of selfish? For example emergency trauma care is something everyone can agree on, yet the emergency rooms are often unpaid for the emergency care provided. Why? For though it would be a simple matter to divide up the cost of treating the injured by charging the causes of trauma care, e. g. cars, stairs, machinery, bathtubs, even this, something which is actuarially direct and simple to administer eludes us. Why? Because the contending parties refuse to work on their common interest, even as here, where all can agree any of us might be struck down. And one reason for this disunity is that the American labor movement asks, ‘what care we for those other fellows? They are not “members of our union,”’ each staying in his role in the passion play. See that the selfishness arises out of the Emptiness.

In a similar manner other groups of patients could be identified and a cost system developed. For example children do not represent a moral hazard. Underwriters cheer every time one of the little patients has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a doctor’s office. Those are the kind of “risks” underwriters want. And there can be no claim that the babe in swaddling clothes failed to “plan” or take “responsibility” or is trying to “live off of others.” Yet again, medical coverage for patient’s under 18 eludes the best thinkers of our day. Why? Selfishness.

Then too patient’s with congenital defects discovered in their youth can not be said to have shown a lack of prudence. Nor can patients whose policies have paid out their limits. In auto insurance the “uninsurable” can be placed or “assigned” with private insurance companies who provide the insurance coverage paid for under the assigned risk program sharing the costs, fairly. Fairly? If that is important to you. (Or do you prefer to stick these patients with some unsuspecting insurance company? Is that it? Still trying to ‘get over on the man?’ Still trying to soak the rich?) Similarly patients diagnosed with cancer in childhood might still be covered for unrelated medical claims with the “assigned risk” program paying for the detected cancer claim.

With the removal of each of these groups from “private insurance” the cost of the health premium goes down and the number of consumers who can afford the policy goes up, thus is the cost shared with a wider and wider pool of healthy individuals. Yet this happy situation has not developed in America, not because it is beyond our abilities, but because of shortsightedness, meanness, the selfishness of our leaders, in the union movement, in the insurance industry, and politics.

Yet see how the pilots, not withstanding this history of selfishness, ignoring the needs of their fellow citizens, having it both ways, playing their role in the passion play, they are all indignation and moral outrage that, after having driven their airline into bankruptcy, (United is employee owned the unions having forced an ownership position with their prior strikes), as have the steelworkers their steel plants, and as the autoworkers are doing to their auto plants, the tax payers will only pay 30% of their pension! Those selfish tax payers! The passion play’s audience’s appreciation of the pilot’s acting of their role of the ‘wronged’ is in no way diminished by the knowledge that the pilots are themselves the authors of their own misfortunes.

Have you not considered why the airline unions, (and GM’s unions, and Ford’s unions for that matter), did not secure their pensions and medical benefits? How secure? Well, . . . with money. Why not? Because there was no money left. The union movement now represents only 7% of the private workforce because they can only strike, hold for ransom, firms with large capital investments. (Ford has one metal stamping machine which cost $200 million.) Even if the airplanes sit on the ground the payments are still due. Leverage.

The only industries that can be struck are the ones with large capital investments. (Though interestingly silicon chip factories, Intel has plants that cost billions, have not been the targets of labor unions.) Thus held hostage the managements have agreed to terms that have mortgaged the future earnings as current accounts were all committed to wages and other costs. But in the passion play version of this industrial history it is the wicked corporations that have “cheated” the workers not the unions that have picked the pockets of these vulnerable highly capitalized firms and, of course, the public sector where the Democrat eagerly seeks to hand over the tax dollars, for the union’s support, a relationship reminiscent of certain kinds of bacteria floating in stagnant ponds, you know, scum.

Democrats, in good faith, see nothing wrong with this, having it both ways. They stand for every one in every thing never having to say no to anyone. Consider that it was only after the Republican gave up on balancing the budget, and (also having it both ways), started telling us the “deficits don’t matter,” under Reagan in the 1980s, that the debt bubble began to grow. Today we have two parties telling us that “deficits don’t matter.” Two parties having it both ways. (And I guess the national debt does not matter . . . if you die before it comes due. (Leave it for someone else. (The greater fool: your grand children. (Now who is the suicide?))))

Just as Franken can be for “progressive indexing” before he is against it, or for the war in Iraq before he turned against it, (after we were already there), and just as Kerry voted for the funding bill before he voted against it, American politics can be said to be the art of having it both ways. It is not really a discussion, it is a passion play.

For expressing such views I have been harassed and oppressed for these last fifteen years. In 1991 I thought that if only people could see the unfairness, if they could only attribute “bad faith” to my enemies, then justice might be done.

But now I see that it was hopeless from the beginning. There is no way, no religion, no philosophy, to move you. Some may attribute “bad faith,” yet even if they do it may have nothing to do with reason or justice. It would be mere chance or randomness.

Indeed my very act of writing the Last Letter in 1991 itself spurred on my enemies. I am left alone in a vast wilderness. Emptiness.

06-02-05
Emptiness Part IX

The consequences can be seen anywhere one chooses to look:

‘Even the retirement community of Palm Beach is home to more children than is San Francisco.” (http://www.americandaily.com/article/7909 )

But San Francisco is a major city in an urban area of nine million people. It is itself a city of nearly a million. How can it be that the retirement community of Palm Beach has more children?

“The minimum household income needed to purchase a median-priced home at $495,400 in California in March was $115,910, based on an average effective mortgage interest rate of 5.81 percent and assuming a 20 percent down payment. The minimum household income needed to purchase a median-priced home was up from $97,290 in March 2004, when the median price of a home was $428,060 and the prevailing interest rate was 5.48 percent. The minimum household income needed to purchase a median-priced home at $195,000 in the U.S. last month was $45,620.” (http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2005/05/02/daily39.html )

The problem with the “objective” world view is that those lost in this delusion tend to take the world as a given, at face value. ‘Well that is just the way it is.’ As noted earlier we do not often look up and make an independent assessment. Home prices are higher in the Bay Area what can we do?

After three decades of down zoning, exclusionary zoning, of “Left wing” no growth, even anti growth, there is not much that can be done.

But we can think.

For example at the average income in California of $35,019 , (http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/SQPINewsRelease.htm ), how much home could you buy? Using the same standard as in the above article the answer is : $149,717.

So how much home will that buy? At a cost of construction of $83.00 a square foot you could buy a typical American sized home at 1,800sf ((factory) some factory homes are in the high end because of governmental zoning restrictions have blocked the economies of scale (http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2005/05/31/PrefabHome/)); or at $149, 1,000sf home (large scale conventional), at $249, 600sf of living space (one off conventional), and at $499, 300 sf, an ordinary apartment in Hong Kong or Tokyo (urban low rise class A).

But not in San Francisco for it is illegal to build apartments of 300 square feet in San Francisco. I believe the liberal Democrat dominated government recently outlawed units of 600 square feet as well. (The issue being somewhat moot owing to the difficulty of building any residential housing due to the deliberate use, misuse, of state power. (For example, across the bay in Emeryville the developer of an apartment tower approved by the City of Emeryville was sued by UC professors who live in the Berkeley hills because their “views” would be, not blocked, the hills are several miles away, but merely “altered.” And recently another large development in the South Bay has been blocked.)

Land cost is not the reason for the scarcity of housing in the Bay Area as a recent Harvard study has shown. (see paper no. 1948. Edward L. Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability :( http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2002papers/2002list.html ) )

As illustrated above even an ordinary worker could afford to pay $499 a square foot for a small apartment if the City of San Francisco had not made such an apartment illegal. With a construction cost of $150 a square foot the 300sf apartment would only cost $45,000 leaving $104,717 to pay for the cost of land. In other words if the poor, or here even an average citizen, were allowed to buy they could afford to live in San Francisco if the “liberal” Democrats would permit it: literally permit it.

Contrast this with an average cost of $500 a square foot for a 100sf prison cell costing $50,000.

But our liberal establishment will not permit the construction of 300sf apartments. And see how they cower behind the “market” or the “economy” or blame the Republicans, or anyone. They need not take responsibility for what they have done to the people they will never be called to account. (And they will destroy anyone who attempts to speak out. (Me for instance.))

After I first put a post on this site mentioning the ban on 300sf apartments in San Francisco, Glenn Beck, commenting on a SF Chronicle picture of a fat homeless man watching TV in a camper, said only fat retarded people would live in “300 square foot apartments.” (I estimated the camper as having no more than 70 square feet including the sink and chemical toilet.) And what is that but another example of the Republicans having it both ways. Beck and Hannity ridiculing the “man on the street” while claiming to be sunny optimists. Limbaugh claiming to be on the side of the common folk while isolating himself in his limousines and golf courses. They claim to be on the side of the common man but have you ever heard them condemn the zoning codes?

They will have three hour shows devoted to nothing but condemning taxes, income taxes, upper income taxes, (taxes which as we have explained they do not actually pay but rather transfer to the advertisers of their programs), but not once have they complained about the manipulation of housing in America. Bill O’Reilly bitterly complains about taxes, and after one post here about housing market manipulation, he asked “Do I owe you a home?” Apparently he failed to see the difference between letting a man buy a home and giving him a home.

And this after I helpfully explained to Mr. O’Reilly that he should, the next time he negotiates his contract, have a tax clause inserted in the contract so that if there should be a tax increase during the contract period his payment would go up by a corresponding rate to offset the tax.

Perhaps he has had this “tax hold harmless” clause inserted in his contract but he continues to whine about his taxes, apparently impervious to reason. But then as already noted Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck claim to be on the side of free markets but have had nothing to say about government monopolies in roads, government manipulation of housing by exclusionary zoning, the use of Social Security to pay the top 20% out of the wages of the common worker, etc. etc. For them “free enterprise” means lower income taxes --- period. “Free enterprise” for the poor, socialism for the rich. And what is this but having it both ways?

Republican should examine themselves and consider why self described “vicious” people like Michael Weiner, Mrs. Jack Swanson, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and O’Reilly are attracted to the Republican party?

Truth? Reason? Fairness? What do you need of these things when you have such power as this: the mass media?

The unavailability of housing in the Bay Area, Boston, New York, Chicago, is not due to the failure of the market but is due to the manipulation of the market by rich powerful people, who have used the political machines and municipal employee unions to their own benefit at the cost of the welfare of the people.

And the Republicans? Have you ever heard a Republican even mention zoning? How was it that the South Bronx, so close to Manhattan, became a wasteland of empty blocks? Crime causes poverty. (George Gilder, Wealth and Poverty) In San Francisco while blocking other development the University of California has for the last 20 years been patiently and secretly buying up downtown city blocks for a new campus. (For American universities refuse to follow the European example of mixing their urban universities in and among commercial and residential areas. (This is another example of how zoning is used to make our cities sterile, “single use,” deserts, as Jane Jacobs has pointed out.))

As a result the University of California and the City of San Francisco deliberately carried out a policy of suppressing real estate prices in the area where the university was actively acquiring land. Why not just use eminent domain to acquire the land? Because this would have required the direct use of state power and would have exposed the liberal establishment to criticism by land owners who did not want to sell. Again note the subterfuge. ‘Why it is not us who is keeping all these city blocks vacant and unusable, why, . . . it is the . . . market,’ (and those Republicans).

So for several decades the people of San Francisco were forced to live in a city in which their own government and the University of California, and the powerful people who control the Government and the University acted to deliberately depress an important quarter of the city’s downtown area, so that this elite could carry out its policies in secret. But is this not symbolic of ‘liberal’ governance? Why do they treat the people this way?

To be continued . . . John Garamendi