Lecture Notes:  08-30-05    

Betrayal V 

Brian Lamb interviewed George Bush (41) one last time, (one hopes), a few months ago.  It was only an hour long interview but it seemed, as with all Mr. Lamb’s interviews, to last much, much longer.  (Mr. Lamb learned his interviewing technique from years of taking depositions.  (But he never seemed to realize that though people have to sit through depositions, they do not have to endure Mr. Lamb’s interviews.  Where did you go to school?  What was your major? What was your grade point average?  Do you have any letters of recommendation from your professors?  Which ones?))    

However Vietnam did not come up for discussion until just a few minutes before the merciful end.  Mr. Bush put it out that he thought the second most important lesson of the Vietnam War, for America, was that when we go to war we should never stop short of victory.  And what was the most important lesson?, Mr. Lamb asked. 

When we go to war we should support the government, the troops and the war, Mr. Bush declaimed with resolute finality.

And it was indeed final for then Mr. Lamb brought the interview to an end, along with, one hopes, Mr. Lamb’s career as an interviewer.   

Here you have in a nutshell the absurdity, the full moronic nature of American public life. 

Isn’t that just the point?  What are we supposed to do if our ruling elites decide to administer a war, not trying to win, just administering it, year after year, grinding down the conscript army, simply to protect themselves?  Not protect themselves from the enemy! No,  not at all.  Just administering the war to protect themselves politically!

What if we had an elite so alienated from the people, pursuing its own interests after 20,000 of our young men were killed, and then continued on  to administer the war for political cover, so they could not be said to have “lost Vietnam,” as another 20,000 died?  And then still thinking only of itself, following out its own political logic heedless of the consequences which befall those “others,” the people, in the flyover territories, as another 20,000 of our brothers the conscripts were killed? 

Can you imagine such a bastard elite running a  nation?  Can you imagine an elite so removed, so alienated from its own country that it could go on year after year pursuing its own selfish  interests?  Can you imagine that? 

Can you imagine a duller, dumber, more mind numbing interviewer than Mr. Lamb?  Well, no.  But he typifies the American public discourse.

For Mr. Lamb did not ask George Bush (41)  what then should we do if our government were to fall into the hands of such a calloused elite, so indifferent to the people as our sons and brothers and fathers and uncles were sacrificed by the politicians in Washington? 

The whole point of the problem,  ‘What then should we do?’ is left unasked.  Un-thought even.   And this is absolutely typical of American public life, the George Bushes:   Things should be a certain way, and we should therefore act a certain way.

But what if the circumstances are not that way?  What if the assumptions are wrong?

‘Well, they should be.’ is the only answer the George Bushes have for us. 

And what makes America so devastatingly, so mind numbingly empty, is that we  have no one to ask such inconvenient questions for us.  (Yes. Good bye Mr. Lamb.)   

For example the current occupant of the Oval Office wants us to consider how to save the Social Security System.  We have previously described how the “system” is arranged: 

The top 20% of “recipients” have non Social Security incomes of over $75,000, control 50% of the national income, 60% of the financial assets, but all of this is not enough, we must add every month additional payments, which are taken from the wages of 3.3 workers, whose  “contributions” are taken from their  less than $35,000 (the national median) incomes, to buy the support of the elite 20%.

This transfer of income, from these lower class workers to these wealthy individuals we are told is the crowning achievement of the “New Deal.”  And if the unfairness of the “system” is pointed out, (assume the conversation is allowed to progress that far), if we strip away the lies about “contributions” and “trust funds” and “lock boxes,”  (just suppose the discussion is permitted to go that far),  we have it explained to us that we have to pay these rich people because if we did not transfer the incomes of these much poorer workers to these wealthy old bustards, then these rich people, the whole class of rich powerful people who control our country, would destroy the Social Security System.

We have been here before.  What land is this?  Vietnam.

In other words the argument will boil down to just this explanation, (assume a democracy in which open discussion is possible, (use your imagination)):  

This income transfer from the poor to the rich is a bribe paid to the elite.  It is a fee which we must pay to the elite so they will allow the Social Security System to continue.  For if the elite did not get its end it would destroy the Social Security System and no one, not even the 66% who would be in poverty without Social Security;  no one would get any assistance.

And if you are thinking no, no, our elite is not as cold hearted, as selfish, as cruel as this, then I say:   remember Vietnam.  The unexamined assumptions.  The unasked questions.  The elite pursuing its own interests at the expense of the people, or at least at the expense of the conscripts.   

(You can do such things with conscript armies.  Grind them down, throw them away, for the conscript is a kind of slave army.  (There is a difference.  One can be ground down and constantly refreshed.  One can be abused, sent on a fools mission for years, a decade. (But tell me, do you know how to command a professional army?  Ever done that before?  Or is your experience confined to slave armies?)))  

As a consequence of our success in arms in the Twentieth Century we created a global system of free trade.  And as a consequence of this free trade, (only made possible because of the People’s Navy),  American workers have increasingly come under competition.  (Victims of our success.)  First manufacturing labor came under pressure as the produce of the world began to spill into our ports.  And now as the process has continued more and more sectors have experienced this increasing competition. [Business Week  Outsourcing Innovation]  And many have complained about the dangers.  [Paul Craig Roberts]

But it is useless.  There is no discussion.  Nothing.

I had thought that some statistics speak for themselves.  3.3 workers for every  1 retiree.  What else need be said?  

But the discussion is brought to a quick end.  The Rush Limbaughs, as empty headed as can be imagined, pronouncing that “Social Security is not a welfare program” ends any possibility of honest discussion.  Yesterday he advocated the “savings accounts” as a replacement for Social Security which he decried as a “forced savings program.” 

In other words just backwards.  The proposed accounts are “forced savings.”  The state requires that you save the money.  It is forced on you.  The Social Security program is not now a savings program it is a welfare, income transfer, program.  (Not just a transfer to the poor but from young workers to the top 20% whose incomes are over $75,000 as just explained, for the hundredth time.)  Limbaugh does not know what he is talking about.  But like Mr. Lamb he is absolutely typical of American public discourse.

Statistics:

84% of Californians can not afford the median priced home in the state. 

10,000 applied for 400 jobs at Wal-Mart in Oakland.

$145,000 in debt for every citizen of the United States.

And what answers do we get? 

That when we go to war we should support the government.  That we should have “savings accounts” for Social Security, even though these will do nothing for the pending shortfall and the Democrats, in any case, are unwilling to discuss any reform.  The Marin Senators think savings is “risky”.

We are encourage to believe that open borders is the proper response to the 3 million (Time magazine) who cross our southern border.  (The number from other ports of entry is unknown.)

That exclusionary zoning is a necessity, even commendable.   That the national debt is  “just numbers on paper”, . . . That racial quotas are good.  That High School graduation standards should be the same for the 50% of students whose IQ is less than 100,  as they are for students with over 115 IQs who are less than 17% of the population.  That a ‘college education’ is the solution to America’s labor problem, which is a lie for only 17% can succeed in college no matter how hard they “apply” themselves.  That we can not “impose” a government, even a caretaker government during the transition for the writing of a new new “Iraqi” constitution.  That we can only hold suspects for 72 hours in Iraq as in Kansas.  That the 40 hour week is a “thing of the past.”   That we must bribe the rich to pay the old age pensions to the poor.     

As I say useless.  No explanation. No reason. 

What planet have I been living on?  I saw the pictures of the famines and wars.  I saw the photos of America in the Great Depression, of lynching, saw but thought what? 

That we were all of us committed to doing something? 

I’ll write about laser disks and then . . . kill myself.  I will explain why self paced instruction, choice, is so important in education.  Explain why “one size fits all” is wrong . . .

There is just this emptiness . . . they do not speak for themselves.  They are mute.  It is impossible to reach out across this void . . .

I see the thousands of visitors to this site and wonder that though many must no the truth about what has been done to me . . .  nothing . . . but how could I have thought otherwise?  Did I not see the piles of corpses?  Did I not see the proud man’s contempt?  I saw them spit on the others but thought?  Not me?

Is this all not the same?   There is no one.

Emptiness. 

Lecture Notes: 

     No Safety Net

I previously explained that I have a psychological “glitch,” a tendency to stay too long with things, situations, watching, waiting to see what happens, collecting data, analyzing, hypothesizing possible explanations. 

For example I stayed with Marlene for 19 years when arguably we should never have been together in the first place.

Or, for example, I went back to see Yvonne a second time, (a 2^nd time!), after she had conspired with her “friends” at KQED, had betrayed Marlene and me, had continued to lie to me for months afterwards,  how stupid is that, encouraging me to listen to Garrison Keillor’s program and his little messages . . .

And after the Red Comedian made his little witticism I continued, about my sister Susan and what . . .?  Something about Zen.  Zen?  Allan Watts lived in Marin . . . what could that mean?  Analyze, analyze,

Counselor:  (Anal.)

How is that?  Yvonne!  Please you are not allowed . . .

Counselor:  Oh,  . . . I forgot.

It is your parentheticals that caused all of this ----

Counselor:  Yes, yes it is all my fault.

I am too patient. 

You see I have to be very careful.  Mustn’t jump to conclusions  . . .

Being an insurance adjuster was very agreeable.  Collecting information, analyzing the data, preparing reports, offering considered judgments . . .  and I got to meet people.  And I met people under the most extraordinary  circumstances.  I would often check them into a motel ---

Counselor:   . . .

Ah, after their homes burned down, or something . . . or in the hospital . . .

I met people from all walks of life.  The doctor who had just rear ended someone----

Counselor:  See!

Please Yvonne.   People hit crossing the street.  Or people who had just hit someone crossing the street.  In Oakland.  At 2 am.  Drunk.

I met people all across the country . . . but I digress . . . so I thought to go to a Zen center in Marin where I thought Allan Watts may have visited, Green Gulch Farm.  After I went back to see Yvonne the second time after a year, one Sunday morning five different people came up to me and made some reference to something I had said to Yvonne.

I wrote a letter to Reb Anderson the Abbot.  Then a few days later attending a class at Green Gulch it occurred to me that the class was strangely quiet.  Reb Anderson entered the room and sat down, a moment of silent meditation, then looking around, commented:  “I sense some tension in the room . . .?”

Oh, no, I didn’t jump to any conclusions!  I never do!   Collected more data,  test the hypothesis.

In the letter I quoted Yvonne’s comment about Green Gulch during its period of “trouble.”  Mr. Baker the then “Abbot” had in Yvonne’s words been “fucking all his dominant females.”  Monkey consciousness.  I also pointed out the stories about Green Gulch as described in Zen in America.  For example, there was the story about Jerry Brown, then the Governor of California having drinking parties at Green Gulch and the “Head of Practice” being tasked to pick up the Mumm’s  champagne bottles that were strewn  about the place.

This was my thinking:  Some of the inmates of Green Gulch seemed to know what I had said to Yvonne, yet they were not willing to come forward.  Why?  I know, I’ll write to Reb Anderson, the Abbot, and see what happens.  Collect more data.  . . . Sounds like a good idea?

There was dead silence in the class.  Reb Anderson looked around.

This was before, years before, David Horowitz wrote his biography where he mentions the Bay Area and Green Gulch Farm, and describes  how Mr. Brown the “Abbot” “gave refuge” to Huey P. Newton and aided his flight to Cuba to avoid drug charges.  Horowitz reveals in Radical Son that Newton, in route to Green Gulch Farm, stopped on the Bay Bridge and dropped a revolver into the bay which he had just used to kill an 17 year old prostitute, the same gun which had earlier been used to kill a police officer.

In other words the Green Gulch Farm inmates gave “refuge” to a cop killer, who ‘ran’ prostitutes, and had recently killed one, just a few hours before, dropping the gun in the bay before joining them in his flight to Cuba; they also had sponsored Jerry’s drinking parties; they covered up Mr. Browns sexual troupe, his malfeasance, betrayal of the Dharma; and thus his betrayal was their betrayal for they kept silent, covered up, acquiesced in the abuse.  (Rule one of all cults:  never criticize the cult.)

And Reb Anderson looked around the stony silence of the room, left right, (he also has a photographic memory, (memorizes everyone’s name so he can call on any of the 50 or 100 students, by name)),  “ . . .  what’s going on . . .? . . .  is there some tension . . . ?”

Silence.

And Reb Anderson had himself made some references to what I had said to Yvonne; which I had made supposedly in private to her alone.  For example, months earlier two inmates had been talking to each other but in my presence, for me to hear (?), “I think it is so pathetic to have to pay someone to listen to you . . .”

Next I saw Yvonne I related their conversation and admitted the truth, it is pathetic isn’t it?

Then the next week Reb Anderson speaking to the group at Green Gulch commented that “every relationship costs something.”

I was very enthusiastic.  Ah!  We have a relationship, Yvonne and I!  A “relationship.”   

But this is what I mean.  I collect data.  I watch.  Don’t want to jump to conclusions.

Everyone was silent.  No one had anything to say. 

How could I have supposed that anyone would come forward?  The first time I visited Green Gulch I attended a “meeting” of the ‘Alan Watts Society’ with two Zen “priests” or a “priest” and his butt boy.  (see Lecture Notes: 07-06-05 Mill Valley  )  They were from the “Hartford Street Zen Center” in “the Castro” of San Francisco.

Because they are “Gay” they have a right to lie, organize harassment, torment, destroy another’s life.  Or if one is “radical” or if one has seen the “truth” or Dharma, or if one is a member of any other subject class, Jew, Woman, Black, or Green, Third World, any of the aggrieved, one has the privilege, permission, “right” to twist justice to his aims, his ego’s satisfaction.

Indeed, all you really have to do is get angry.  Consider for example the anger against AIDS and the demand that the scientific method of double blind experiments be abandoned and the “treatments” be given directly to those in need.  This policy, enacted in anger and frustration, has now been dropped.

Why?  Has the anger all gone?

Some day we will return to “contact tracing” for contagious diseases, or rather for AIDS, the only contagious disease we do not use contact tracing to fight.  Why the only disease?  Oh, righteous anger.

Next consider, dear reader, how many have died for want of a scientifically tested treatment, in want of contact tracing?  How many have you killed?  What?  Oh, you object to that pronoun?  Your silence does not make you complicit in those deaths either.  Oh.  How very lucky you are.  It seems you can never be held to account for anything.  How I envy you your rationalizations,  . . .  of course, I mean I envy your reasons!  Yes, yes of course.  Have it your way.

So yes I have this glitch.  I spent too much time collecting data, making sure, I didn’t want to accuse Yvonne wrongly.  Or Marlene.  Or any of you, sitting there in stony silence.

Then too I was mistaken from the first.  I thought this was just happening to me.  I imagined that there was some justice elsewhere.  That you were treating each other differently, possibly when I was out of the room. 

There was “refuge” for Huey P. Newton, who had, just hours before killed a 17 year old prostitute in Oakland, the place where I had helped people whose houses had just burned down or who had just been in a car accident, but there was no refuge for me.  Huey P. Newton was aided by the Zen Center, the cop killer was helped to escape justice, but not one person came forward to tell me what they knew about Yvonne or the others.

They let me know that they knew.  Not unlike so many in the media who have over the years let it be known that they knew about the burglary, the many times my employers were persuaded to let me go.  I concluded that at Green Gulch the motivation may have been to tell me that they thought it was ok, that they had considered it and did not think it wrong for Yvonne to betray me, or for Michael Weiner to burgle my notebook (see Stolen Notebook at the Moynihan). 

They had considered it all and they thought it was fine.  (And this may also have been my sister’s motivation.  The San Francisco painter wanted me to know she too thought it just.)  And the class at Green Gulch, the stony silence,  they too thought it just.

No one came forward.  And even then I hypothesized that it was still just me!  I conjectured that I was caught between the Leftists, like the friends of Huey P., on the one side and the Rush Limbaughs on the Right.  But this too has been shown to be false.  Null.   No, not just me.

This is the world.  There is no net. 

Lecture Notes:  Why did they jump?

Better to ask:  Why didn’t they jump sooner?  What kept them hanging on so long?

No doubt they had some story they were telling themselves.  The firemen will come.  A long ladder?  Helicopter. 

As I look back at my life there is an astonishing since of release.

Oh!  God!  It wasn’t just me . . . after all?

I too had a series of stories which served to explain the world for me.  All this must be because when I was nine years old my teacher told my mother that I am retarded.  This explained why the students made fun of me at school.  “You were held over?  Are you a retard?” 

And this also explained my brothers and sisters.  It explained everything.  The universal explanation.  I got my first pair of glasses when I was fourteen.  My brothers and sisters regarded this as a great embarrassment.  What’s wrong with him?  And my parents?  It must be me again, I let them down early on.

When things started going badly with Marlene, and though we had been together 19 years,  for years I thought, this must be because of me.  I assumed it was just me.

That is how life is for me.  What can you expect?  You are retarded!

Whenever things get difficult my mind always wonders back to my earliest memory of trouble.  ‘Your teacher says you are retarded.’  All life was judged against this fundamental fact.  This was the explanation for everything.

Of course, it is clear now that if the other children had not ridiculed me for being a year older they would have ridiculed me for something else.  My brothers and sisters would have been the same no matter what.

Marlene was following her own course quite independent of me.

It is as though the world had been veiled from me by my explanations.

I created  this constant excuse for it.  They appear harsh, cruel, obnoxious,  but it must be because I am retarded or something? 

Now the veil is drawn away.  This is how they really are.  It has nothing to do with me.

For example, I always felt that there must have been something in my letters which caused Yvonne to betray me, for the people at KQED to inveigle Yvonne to bring us down to their studio.  Something that I had written with which they disagreed.  Or the way I wrote?

It must be me.  Something I said.

NO, fool.  Nor the Last Letter neither.  Nothing.  Nothing I did, nothing I said caused these cretins to harasse me.

Whew, what a relief.

I simply attracted their attention.  One person heard something, said something to someone else.  They had no arguments.  There was no reason.  Nothing.  Word got around.  And then when I criticized Yvonne in the Last Letter it was not the criticism, it was just the additional attention which it had created.

One thing led to another and fifteen years later  . . .  Michael Weiner, Don Imus . . .

There is nothing that I did.  This is just how life is.  People are like that.

From the beginning to the end. 

Cruel. Stupid. Vulgar.

I had always thought of some explanation.  I always looked for some reason.  Something about me.  Something that I did.  The way I relate, or don’t, with people.  Searching for some clue to explain what is going on.  And if your own thought process is brought into doubt, as mine was at the age of nine, you always have to search yourself, double check what you are doing, what you are thinking. 

Watching yourself once, twice, even three times.  For how do you know that after you have double checked yourself you should not check again?  Remember you are retarded.   It must be me. Always searching for some reason, some story to explain what is happening.  Why are things going badly?  For it is when things are going badly that we search for explanations.  When things are going well we tend not to inquire very deeply into the causes.  Will except good fortune if only due to luck. 

Now I see the world for what it is;  without explanation or reason or theory.

Emptiness.  

But I will not strike out at the world.  I will demonstrate how not to strike out blindly, for how would you know when to stop?  When would you have done enough killing?  3,000 in the WTC?  Is that enough? 

This is one of the problems with the President’s “kill them over there so we do not have to fight them over here.”  If you have no strategic goal in mind, no professional military plan,  no aim other than just to “kill”, how will you know when you have  killed enough?

Killing people is not a very effective way to create social change.  (That is not what the military, war, is all about.)  Killing just confuses the dumb bastards even more than they are, makes them even more emotional, irrational,  moves them even further away from reason.  

I will kill just one person to show you that I have seen through the veil, this  is not me.  I have been singled out, Weiner followed me, obsessing on me,  harassed me for years, Imus, Mrs. Jack Swanson joined in, and thought they were tormenting someone.  What fun!  They thought I existed.

When Michael Krasney called me at the AAA Auto Club he thought I was on the other phone.  Ron Owens rejoiced in humiliating someone he thought was me.

And they have all been mistaken.  And all the rest looking on, adding their jibes, they thought they were taunting someone, or not, thought that they were letting someone be destroyed . . .

I will show you all that you have been confused.  There is nothing here.  Watch.

For years I was like you are now.  I thought that there was some reason or  explanation.  There is nothing. Watch.

Emptiness.  

Lecture Notes:  August

“Well . . . enjoy your failure . . .”  --- Armstrong and Getty, the morning morons on KNEW, 08-24-05

Statements like this sound homosexual to me.  Because snide, glib, superficial . . . feminine. 

Counselor: . . .

. . . Women are . . . said to be more verbal, to have greater “social skills”, greater range in their ability to deal with competing social demands, etc. (vain, susceptible to flattery). . .

And homosexuals are said to be more “female” for some of these very same reasons.

But the morning morons on KNEW are not homosexuals.  At least they do not trade on it if they are.  Ron Owens is another example whose snippy put downs have always made me think Queen.  Perhaps he will come “out of the closet” and leave his wife and daughters. 

That has become a pattern.  The “closet Queen” walks out when they become teenagers.  Become an Episcopal Bishop, the son joins the Taliban, or;  I’m confusing stories. 

I suppose that it is unfair to homosexuals. ??  Or not.  Some I think would appreciate their reputation for being able to “dish it” with the best of them.  But what does it say about our culture that heterosexuals now compete to “dish it”?

“Well . . . enjoy your failure . . .  Don’t you just hate those people who always have some excuse,  I’m failing but let me explain why . . . they have a whole explanation for how ‘the system’ is set against them . . .?  well . . .  enjoy your failure.”

It is like the weatherman on KSFO.  It is embarrassing to even  acknowledge them.  Which is why for years I tried to ignore them.  Even after the burglary.  I thought someone will come forward and give evidence.  You can not cover this up. 

Anyway what can you do?  The police are part of it.  They were following me for months after the burglary, referring to me as the “Colonial Motel Suspect.”  And as the years went by they escalated.  Michael Weiner, and Ron Owens used Scott “now he probably thinks that I work for the JDL” Bobro at Farmers.  Michael Krasney used Rose Guilbault, VP,  at the AAA Auto Club.  Mrs. Jack Swanson apparently knew the owners of CENCAL, and of course Don Imus had Frank Blaha at GAB Robins.   

But Armstrong and Getty  do not want to be left out the day I kill myself in front of the KQED building.  They will high five each other on air the next morning.    

Yesterday, Lee Rodgers was condemning the management of ABC’s WMAL  for  the firing of Michael Graham.  “I would never work there.”  Yet not four days before Mrs. Jack Swanson explained on the air that she would use her influence to have Christine Craft taken off the air.  (Using her influence.  Her husband the station manager.)  Why?  Craft had called her an “idiot.” 

You can get taken off KGO for telling the truth?  Mrs. Jack Swanson is an idiot.

What was Lee Rodgers’ point?  Was he not by implication asking ‘Who would work for KGO?’  He was expressing his contempt for the cowards, Rosie Allen, Ed Baxter, Gene Burns, Bernie Ward, etc. who knew about the burglary, the years of harassment, and said nothing out of fear of retaliation by management? 

Yes.  Lee Rodgers and Mrs. Jack Swanson are contemptuous of their cowering colleagues.  In other words Rodgers is a hypocrite. He enjoys the protection of Mr. Jack Swanson, even as Swanson keeps Rodgers’ colleagues in fear of their jobs.

Champions “free speech” for the hate filled Graham but does not want the truth spoken about Weiner, Mrs. Jack Swanson, Imus et al.

But we are passing hypocrisy. 

Michael Weiner, Lee Rodgers, Mrs. Jack Swanson will daily advocate nuclear genocide of the Moslem people, the destruction of whole cities.  Rush Limbaugh only asked why we were not considering “carpet bombing Iraqi cities.”  Mrs. Jack Swanson advocated “bombing them back into the stone age.”

And then they claim that the Moslems are violent.

Weiner advocated “random acts of violence” against Moslems.  Recommended that “random acts of violence” be perpetrated anonymously.  

And so it goes.  Is that not what was done to me?  Random acts of violence?   Anonymously?

But of course they were all indignation that Michael Graham  was dropped for his repeated assertion that all Moslems are terrorists, that “Islam is a terrorist organization”, failing to make any distinctions.  (We kill terrorists don’t we?)

Indignation about the loss of “free speech?”  Glorying in triumph over how these rich powerful people have used their influence for fifteen years to destroy me.  Glory?  For example in Michael Weiner’s twisted neurotic view it has been a fair fight.  How fair?  Well, come on, I am Gentile!  I am 6’2”.  A WASP!  Don’t you see that makes it fair.

Don’t you know what those Gentiles did to the Jewish people?  And I have blue eyes too.  Remember that?  Blue eyes!  A NAZI!  See?  And Mrs. Jack Swanson also thinks it has been fair.  Why I am a MAN!  She is just a weak struggling female.  She was raised a feminist.  Get EVEN!  Before she used her influence at CENCAL she had tried to get Rush Limbaugh taken off the air back in the 1980s.  And now Christine Craft. 

But of course Rush Limbaugh raised Mrs. Jack Swanson’s fist in a victory pose at a recent event.  He will go on for hours, three hours a day, putting it out, ‘Go on do your worst  liberals, you can never do anything to us, you know why? Because we are White Males and we can take anything you can dish out, go on do your worst.  Because we are stronger, better, smarter, than you, you can never hold us down, you know why because we are White Males.  That is right we will just work harder, faster, smarter than you and you will never be able to keep us down , you know why, because . . .’

Shut up Rush.  I am just begging you.  Please, just shut up.

There is something beyond hypocrisy.

Emptiness.

Lecture Notes:  Suicide Research

Suggestion for suicide research:  Correlation between cop suicide and corruption.   Cop suicides may be an indicator of corruption in their jurisdiction.  What do you do when the “good guys” are the bad guys?  Who do you report to?  Not everyone is a Frank Serpico.

In my case the President of the United States has taken notice of this web site.  Senators have taken notice, some Senators have even taken the side of my oppressors, (Hatch and McCain).  Senator Kerry repeatedly went on the Imus show during his campaign.  After I applied for a job with the new Governor of California, Mrs. Jack Swanson made a reference to my application.  Even the new Governor has someone on his staff who leaks to her.

So where do you go from there? 

This is why we should research police suicides.  They join to help, to do good, and then they discover what I have discovered, the utter degradation, corruption, of society.

They find that the world is Empty.  No truth or justice, just ego, greed, delusion, hate.

Where do you go from there?

Separated at birth?

Lecture Notes:  Popcorn

After Michael Weiner began reading from my stolen notebook, and then Mrs. Jack Swanson and Brian Wilson, and Ed Baxter, and the morning guys at KGO, Wigand and Dunbar, I wrote a note to Yvonne about the burglary.

At that time I didn’t appreciate how hopeless my position.  I had no chance.  This was January 2000.  I thought Yvonne would share the note and then as the burglary became public, people would talk, someone would come forward and Weiner would be arrested.  Justice would be done.

Now I understand that I am in another class.  It does not matter that everyone “knows” that Michael Weiner is a burglar.  The rich and powerful are protected.   Ordinary schlubs like me have no rights. But I came to realize all of this only later.

Then Garrison Keillor did a thing about popcorn on one of his broadcasts.  He had made many comments, references to my letters, and seemingly to Yvonne, (Yvonne had encouraged me to listen to Keillor’s broadcasts),   so I wondered if this  too was not a reference to the stolen notebook.  (see Yvonne’s story at the Stolen Notebook Archive at the Moynihan.)  So I included this question in my note to Yvonne:  why did Keillor reference popcorn in his broadcast?

A few days later Christine Craft on KGO coughed and apologized that she had choked on a piece of popcorn.  But, of course, she never came forward.

Recently she called Mrs. Jack Swanson an “idiot” and encouraged listeners to attend a counter counter protest, (Mrs. Jack Swanson was staging the counter protest,  (yes, I know, Northern California politics)).  Mrs. Jack Swanson immediately, as soon as her next turn at the microphone, went on the air and condemned Christine Craft for calling her an “idiot” and for encouraging protesters to the counter counter protest and further, she, Mrs. Jack Swanson, would speak to Mr. Jack Swanson, the station manager, and have Christine Craft taken off the air. 

And so it goes.  Other than that one reference to “popcorn” Christine Craft never came forward.  She must have known about the burglary from the other employees of KGO and Mrs. Jack Swanson and Brian Wilson had been talking about it the first Monday following that week Michael Weiner had first begun reading from the stolen notebook, which was less than 24 hours after the burglary.

Craft is an attorney.  An officer of the court.  And she has helped cover up a felony.

After Yvonne betrayed Marlene and me, after the Last Letter, I wanted nothing more to do with politics.  If your life could be destroyed, your privacy violated, complete strangers could organize themselves to oppress you, and for nothing, for writing some letters about laser disks in education, then I chose not to participate.

But that was not enough for Michael Weiner.  For years following the Last Letter in 1991, he was following, harassing me.  Making covert references.  Stalking me. I once caught him in Berkeley.  He had followed me from Marin.  Weiner is a lunatic.  But then Ron Owens and Michael Krasney joined in.  Then Imus.  Then Mrs. Jack Swanson. Then Imus again.  For years this went on, fifteen years.

Soon I will be dead.  I tried to get out after the Last Letter.  And then even after Weiner and Owens and Krasney, after years and years I tried to go on, to make a life.  Now and then I marvel at how optimistic I had been in 1992, trying to start a new life for myself after Marlene.  How did I have hope?  I have no idea.

And after I am dead no one will know about the time Christine Craft mentioned “popcorn” on the air.

Mrs. Jack Swanson will have Craft taken off the air. 

Weiner will harasse and oppress some other target.

People will say of me, ‘He had some kind of problem with Jews, didn’t he?  I hear he was anti Semitic.  And then there was something about the Bell Curve, wasn’t he a racist too . . . and then he complained he couldn’t find work . . .  well who would hire him?  He had a web site for Christ sake!  All he did was complain.  Oh, yeah, I know people like that!  Who would want to hire someone like that?’

And the unfairness is galling.

And the hypocrisy.

And the class system that protects my enemies.

And the hypocrisy.

I am grateful I can escape this human wasteland.   

Lecture Notes:   Lynch Mob

What’s the big deal?  Don Imus and Michael Weiner just call it street justice.

Ron Owens and Michael Krasney don’t have a problem with it.

Didn’t employees of KQED and KGO join in.  And others too, Scott Bobro of Farmers and Frank Blaha of GAB Robins?  The mob.

Is that Rosie Allen?  And Ed Baxter kicking?

And see over there?  That is Mrs. Jack Swanson pulling the hair?  What?  Oh, she calls that "caboossing."  You know from the rear.

No, there is no surprise here.

Oh, and look, Senators Hatch and McCain cheering the mob on.

What you thought the “good citizens” would come forward?

What are you . . .an idealist?  Haven’t you ever watched a mob kill someone before? 

Yes you have.  Kill him . . . kill him . . .

Lecture Notes:  08-19-05

The Ugly American

In other words Americans will just have to go on dying until we remake Baghdad into Phoenix.  Again McCain called for more troops.

What an ass.

At the center of the Middle East,  a region where political assassination, terror, civil war,  are more common than elections, America must go on fighting remaking an entire civilization by force of arms, until that glorious day when Mr. McCain can pick up his rental car at the Baghdad airport and motor into town.   He would suffer our young people to go on dying for this, his limited, idiotic vision:  the Phoenix Airport.

What an ass.

Yet no one challenged him.  He was a POW, did you know?  His every pronouncement is treated as if it were issued from his cell in the Hanoi Hilton.  Our great leader has spoken.  He suffered so much for us!  In prison so long!  And all for us!  Tortured.  For us!  We owe him so very, very, and very much!  Therefore every utterance, no matter how superficial, or incoherent, ridiculously absurd, is assented to because HE was a prisoner of war.

Recently Tom DeLay when asked if a Congressman, (Duke Cunningham),  who was discovered living on a government contractor’s yacht, the very same contractor who had recently purchased the Congressman’s home for $700,000 over the market price, might be in breach of “Congressional Ethics”, replied that the Congressman was a “hero,” as if this were proof, an answer, as if Mr. DeLay were making an argument, engaged in moral reasoning, instead of being merely another example of Emptiness.

There was a poem by a Russian dissident that went:  “Heroes, heroes, heroes,  heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes,  heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes,  heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes,  heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes,  heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes,  heroes, heroes, . . .” 

So the gadfly McCain is allowed to set the goal for America’s involvement in Iraq, to define “success,”  and there is nothing that can be done to challenge him.  For he is a hero.  He was a POW, did you know?  There is no reason.

We have a President who has said that he does not want to “impose” a government on Iraq, and instead negotiated  this weak political process, where the parliament must be disbanded if “The Constitution” is not approved, to be replaced by another, and another, in an empty desultory plan extending far out over the political horizon into a political wasteland.  The President will not even try and speak about the war, discuss the reasons for it, review the facts.  Even he has given up, appears to want to ‘distance’ himself.

And our young people in Iraq are abandoned.  Led by their Commander In Chief who refused to take responsibility for bringing the conflict to a resolution; BY OUR ACTS ALONE.  Says he did not want to “impose.”  Now the resolution to the conflict is entirely in the hands of the Iraqi parliament which is to be dissolved.  Possibly “The Constitution” will be approved, possibly it will not be approved.  No one knows.  Its fate is to be decided by “the voters” of any three of the 18 provinces.  

Did I say its fate?  Well, yes, and the fate of our young people.  Though I suppose better by them, whoever they are than by McCain.   And we have gadflies like McCain setting our goal as one of turning Baghdad into Phoenix.  And no one objects.  He was a POW, did you know?

And when I sit down on the sidewalk in front of the KQED building in a few days, to complete my protest, there will be before me this uniform blur of liars, fools, idiots.

Top to bottom.

Crawling around on the bottom the likes of Scott (“now he probably thinks that I work for the J.D.L.”) Bobro, or that  clerk at KellyFinancialServices.com who visited this site several times before calling me and asking about my “status.”  And above them the people who manipulated Scott Bobro, and Frank Blaha, and  Dean Sotos;   the Don Imus’ and Michael Weiners;  the rich and powerful.

And above them, at the top of the social pyramid of folly, George Bush and John McCain.

I had thought we were in this together.  All citizens of the Republic.  McCain’s grandfather and my grandfather had fought together.  We are both Republicans. 

And that McCain and Don Imus and I are all three of us “White males” and that because of this fact we are all supposed to be part of the same ‘club’ only adds a little irony to the farce.

A uniform blur of idiocy.  And that I have held out this long on hope, what is that but more idiocy?  I had believed in the goodness of ordinary people.  Then I had still thought that Senators, The President of the United States, they will not abide injustice!  A fool.  But I can not stand alone.  If Presidents and Senators will join in then how can anyone stand?

How can any of you stand?  If you will deny me justice how can you claim justice?  When the next bio-attack comes, and you are murdered in your millions, tens of millions, how will you demand justice, you who have lived so unjustly, rejoiced in your injustice, gloated and smirked in your “viciousness”?  (“Why do they hate us?”)

Marlene, Susan, and Yvonne.  Betrayal after betrayal. 

No I can not live without reason, without justice.  How can you?   

Yes, The Ugly American.   

Lecture Notes:   08-17-05

What is the measure of inflation?

You might suppose that there is an objective standard.  This is not true.  A generally recognized measure of inflation is one that is generally recognized.  This is why Economics is a tautology. 

Inflation is not a natural force.  It is what economists say it is.  The “measures” of inflation are meaningful only if they are meaningful to you. There is no objective standard. As an alternative, consider:  What would be a moral definition of  inflation?

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Surging energy costs drove U.S. consumer prices up in July at the sharpest rate in three months . . .

LONDON (Reuters) - Soaring petrol prices pushed inflation above its target in July to the highest level since comparable records began in 1997, dousing expectations of further interest rate cuts.

The Office for National Statistics said the consumer price index rose 0.1 percent on the month, taking the annual rate up to 2.3 percent   . . .  “July's UK consumer prices are significantly worse than expected and will no doubt dampen hopes of further near-term cuts in interest rates,” said Jonathan Loynes, chief UK economist at Capital Economics. (See News Exhibit Hall at the Moynihan )

In Secrets of the Temple, the Left author, William Greider claims that a little inflation is a good thing for the poor.  Possibly on the theory that borrowers are advantaged by inflation many might agree.  Yet this is mistaken.

It is true that the expansion of the money supply is a good sign, especially for the poor.  But the expansion of the money supply is not the same thing as inflation.

If money expands at the same rate that the people mutually promise to engage in further economic activity there is not inflation.  Inflation occurs when the money supply increases at a rate faster than do the mutual promises to engage in future economic activity.

These mutual promises are wealth.  The money symbolizes, represents, these mutual promises.  This is why the often heard complaint that the rich of the world are stealing the “wealth” of the people is mistaken, sense the wealth is the mutual promise. 

Lots of cash is just lots and lots of promises to participate in future economic activity.  These promises can not be stolen as they arise from our mutual interactions. The cash is merely a token of our promises, and everyone else’s promise to engage in further economic activity.  For the poor the problem is to create an environment in which this future agreement or planning can take place; establishing trust in the future, and in the tokens of these promises.

Though the promises can not be “stolen” they  can be watered down.  That is what inflation is, a devaluing, a falsity.  You say you are going to participate in future economic activity but not really.  In the future you will only participate in 90% of the activity you promised, 10% inflation, or 80%, 20% inflation.  This is our moral definition of inflation:  it is a fraud. The token of our promise are not to be honored.  It is a lie.

I suppose if you are not sure, how much to expand the money supply, it is better too error on the side of too many promises than too few, (i.e. more money than economic activity would justify), as the alternative, insufficient money, would prevent or starve economic activity.  Perhaps this is what Greider was thinking. (But why error?)  However, the important point is to see the distinction between money supply increasing and inflation increasing.

Money supply increases when you and I mutually promise to participate in future economic activity.  We promise and thereby create money.  Because we nationalized the banking system (Federal Reserve) we are mislead into thinking that the government increases the money supply.  They do officially, but only in response to us, our activity.

If they get ahead of us:  inflation.  If Ludwig von Mises had his way we would be using Bank of America dollars, and/or American Express dollars, Citi Bank dollars etc.  Contracts would specify the currency.  These institutions would create money, responding to us, our promises, (as backed by, secured by, their loan portfolios), increasing the money supply as required by our mutual promises.  In theory the nationalized  bank can follow along, estimating our activity, approximating the traditional banking practice.

In theory.  There is always the ownership problem.  Is Dr. Greenspan as  “efficient” as the bankers?  After all he does not have an ownership interest.  In other words what if Dr. Greenspan simply goes along with the oligarchy?  If it were his own money he might have a different view, but since it is the government . . .

Of course this is just what was argued in favor of nationalization of the currency:  That now the central banker will be inefficient!  That is, disinterested.

And that is the problem.  Without the historic, traditional, connection between the money supply and the economy, Ludwig von Mises argued, how will the central banker know what to do?  What if Dr. Greenspan goes along with the rich? (And as we have seen so many times here at New Ruskin, isn’t this the tendency?  To go along?  Even if some one is killed?)

For the rich a little inflation, as Mr. Greider argued, is a good thing.  Inflation might wipe out a small capitalist, like you or me, but for the rich better to keep things rolling, churning, deal after deal: ‘there will always be more economic activity tomorrow to bail us out!’ Or so they hope.  Irrational exuberance.

Isn’t this why we nationalized the central bank in the first place?  Because we feared that the rich would over supply themselves and us, the economy, with money, faster than the underlying economic activity, (the mutual promises)?  Inflation?

The best way to get people to agree to some scheme is to wave a fist full of cash at them.  Excess supply of money greases the wheels.  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  A sober banker may look to future profits but it is much faster to book the profits today instead of waiting for the promise of tomorrow.  Push, push, push for profit today and forget about tomorrow.

And so the bubble economy.  (Bubble means unsustainable.  Promises un-kept.)

So then too debt, and the deficits.  Yes, $8 trillion national debt; but what about your personal debt?  Saved for retirement have you?  Medical care?  Nursing homes are what, $4,000, $6,000 . . .  a month?  Got all that tucked away have you?  And that is if everything goes right.  What might go wrong? 

Not even movie stars can afford medical care after the policy runs out, as Christopher Reeve discovered.  Half of all bankruptcies are the result of medical problems and the bills and loss of income which follow. 

66% of Social Security recipients would be in poverty without the income transfer from young workers to the retired.  Insufficient money was saved to support them in retirement. What is this but a deficit?  Call it:  The middle class deficit. (Middle Class Inflation Index.)

“Just numbers on  paper.” (Peter Peterson, Running on Empty,  Foreign Affairs) That is what President Bush called the national debt.   

But you will not even put a number on this deficit.  Elizabeth Warren has put some numbers on it. (Two Income Trap)  But for the most part you will not even admit the question let alone but a number on it.

William Bennett spends his time patting America on the back ignoring these problems.  (This is not social policy discussion.  To participate one must  focus on what is wrong, how to fix it.  Ignoring Elizabeth Warren is the social policy equivalent of ignoring the Schiavo CAT scan. Then too, Rush Limbaugh will not even admit that Social Security is a welfare program and O’Reilly will never accept “income transfer,” (hissed in a deep Long Island sneer), but apparently has yet to learn how Social Security gets the money to issue the checks.)

So this is the political environment  in which Dr. Greenspan, the political banker must operate.  $8 trillion national debt?  Just numbers on paper.  Collapsing private and eventually public pensions.  Just numbers on paper?  Two incomes to support the family, and falling, where thirty years ago one income supported the family?  Just numbers on paper.    

Zero savings rate? 

Highest debt levels in history?

The bubble economy.  The elite profits today from the housing bubble as it profited yesterday from the dot com bubble.  Push, push, push.  Plunder?  Get what you can grab. Loot?

And all of this, what is it, but promises to engage in future economic activity, which will not be kept?  The money supply has lost its value?

Social Security?  These promises represent an increase in the Money Supply.  (We will pay you . . . in the future.)

Pensions?  National debt?

Debt of all kinds?

Promises, promises.

And if the promises can not be fulfilled?  What if people entered into a mutual promise and then later, when “the future”, arrived, it turned out that the promise was only to be 80% kept, or 50% honored?

What if the money does not buy the medical care?  Pay for the retirement?  What if you end up in the 66% who would fall into poverty without the (hold your ears O’Reilly) income transfer?

Or what if you are in the bottom 84% of Californians who can not afford to buy the median priced home?  (For example Economists do not include house price rises in “inflation” on the theory that the gains in “homeowner equity” balance out the ledger books for the increases.  (Now that is a happy thought! (Academics live their whole lives in such misty thoughts.))  But what about the renters?  Or the homeowners whose homes have not increased?  What is their “rate of inflation?”

(For example, at one time the Red state homeowner or renter could move to California or Massachusetts and purchase a home.  Now after several years of 20% increases in California and Massachusetts the homes have doubled or trebled.  Someone has a balanced ledger but many, most, do not.  There is here a loss of freedom, opportunity.  At one time the Red staters could move to California, and now they can not.  At one time their money was “backed” by the opportunity to buy a home, and now it is not, they can not buy a home.  The value of their money has gone down in value by this measure.   This loss of opportunity, what is it called?)

What if the promises are not kept?

This is what Economists call inflation.  Not keeping promises is called inflation.  It takes more and more money to buy the same things.  Yesterday we promised to engage in future economic activity but today when you come to the market, Surprise! 

For those of you who think money is like “gold” or some “thing” this is paradoxical.  But the mistake was made in thinking of money as some fixed thing.  It is a token of the promises you make.  The market is not fixed, static, it is ever changing, and it includes everything, the totality of all the relationships.  The value of money comes from this totality.  You can use it for anything, to participate as you like. 

The dollar represents not just gold, but houses, shoes, etc.  Everything is in the market, this network of relationships, promises.  Money is “backed” by the whole network, all of it.  And as you fail to meet your promises, as your society declines, when the bubble collapses, we can see that there was  inflation. 

Dr. Greenspan can not control inflation by himself.  His little national bank is only a tiny part of this vast economy. In any case he is part of this oligarchic elite.  The ones who think that debt is :“Just numbers on  paper.”

The ones who make policy for the day, or at most until the next election.  They have manipulated the money supply, the promises that they made.  That home you thought you could buy with your money, guess what, you have been “zoned out.”  You thought you could afford the school to educate your children,  “zoned out.”  That pension, that health policy, they will not buy what you were told they would buy.  They have failed to keep their promises.  They have defrauded you.

But none of this is called “inflation.”  It is not even measured by the Economists.  They will not even admit what they are doing ----  those who profit from one bubble or another while letting the likes of you and me die? 

I know.  This wont happen to you.  That is what I used to think.

Lecture Notes:  August

I have dreamt so many happy endings.   Yvonne places another peace sign of rocks on another tra

il for me.  I look up and there she is.  Smiling.

I turn a corner, my sister, she  embraces me.  She explains.  Only wanted to show me that Yvonne’s betrayal was not so wrong . . . had wanted me to see that she too had . . .  or something, some explanation.

Or the President arranges for me to go to Iraq.  Takes me up on my offer.  Sees now that my advise was right . . .  So many happy endings.  The insurance company that had wanted me to low ball the former mayor of Mill Valley now sees how wrong they were . . . apologizes . . .  thanks me for my sound advise . . . would I please come back to work?

There have been so many happy endings.  But now I have come to the end.

An unhappy ending.  But I am grateful that there is a way out.  What if there were no way out?  A nightmare!

My enemies have not changed.  Crazy neurotics.  Mrs. Jack Swanson was talking about “caboossing”, and her co-host, embarrassed for her, let it go.  Michael Weiner, crazed, ruminating over Gaza, denouncing the Prime Minister of Israel, the betrayal of the Jews!  Imus the degenerate . . . but then what is the point?  Everyone knows them for what they are.

How many times someone would make some reference and I would catch my breath, They know!  Oh, someone knows!   Hope. Hope.

So many happy endings that never were, never will be. 

I might have run away.  Changed my name.  Hid from them.  But there is something about my personality.  Some glitch.  When I was told at the age of nine that the teachers had determined that I was retarded, there was this aspect of my psychology, an ‘Ok, well, let’s see.’ 

And in the decades since I have watched myself, and the world.  ‘And you say I’m retarded?’  A kind of glitch.  A grim determination.  To persevere. To see.  Show me.  But it is  a kind of glitch or hang up.  My mind always circles back.  I am certain that it is something  wrong with me.

 For example I think about Marlene and how that was to be a happy ending, then I remember, Marlene was to be a happy ending because she proved that they had been wrong, ‘See, Marlene loves me! And you said I was retarded!’  You call it an affirmation.  I called her Marlene.  Another happy ending that was not to be.

Marlene, Yvonne, my sister, they have hurt me the most, because lost happy endings.  I watched them.  Waiting to see.  What? Hope. Hope.  But what can you do?  Yvonne bent her head down, and took a long breath, then looked up . . . “So, it is agreed . . . ?” 

I watch my enemies.  I always  watch.  They say I’m retarded.  Let’s see.  I have stayed put and watched them.  I could have done something else . . . but I always wait and see, watch.  Yes it is wrong with me.

The founder of Green Gulch said, “Sometimes, if you want to control people, the best way to control them is just to watch them.”  I read that line in college, thirty five years ago.  There was for me an immediate understanding, sympathy.

He died before I could meet him but I tried to see if there was anything left at Green Gulch.    I had imagined a happy ending there too.

Now all that is left for me is to watch myself at the end, in front of the KQED building.

I am grateful to be able to get away.  I am tired of waiting for a happy ending.

Tired of waiting and watching.  Tired of hope.