Pridger vs. the New World Order

HELP! WHERE ARE THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS NOW?

We know they're out there. They've stopped many timber operations on national forest lands on behalf of the spotted owl and other endangered species. They've put plenty of cattlemen out of business, and forced many more to downsize, to protect streams from the ravages of grazing cattle. But they have apparently fallen down on the job when it came to stopping the literal rape and pillage of some of our same vast BLM managed lands by energy companies.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), was pretty responsive to the environmentalists when it came to coming down hard on a few western ranchers. They even went the extra mile to round up and slaughter "unauthorized" cattle herds grazing on lands they were mandated to "protect." But the worst cases of overgrazing on public lands didn't do near as much damage as is being done by energy companies now given license to extract oil and natural gas from BLM managed lands. In fact there is no comparison. Cattle were at least as kind to the land as large bison herds once were, and cattlemen had a vested interest in protecting the land for themselves and future generations. But ranchers have a very small political voice. The environmental lobbyists have a loud voice, and the BLM didn't mind crushing a few ranchers -- in fact, it seemed to take a regal pride in doing so.

Now some of our most pristine Rocky Mountain wild lands are becoming ugly industrial parks with a frenzy of road building, oil and gas drilling, pipeline construction, and pumping and storage tank facilities popping up like weeds, permanently destroying both the aesthetics and wildlife habitat of vast regions that were until recently pristine natural areas of sweeping natural grandeur. The resultant environmental degradation is irreversible.

With the global War on Terror, the war in Iraq, and continuing increases in our domestic levels of energy consumption, and the recent wake-up call with the soaring price of gasoline, the strategic vulnerability caused by our continued and increasing dependence on foreign sources of energy has finally hit home -- again. The administration is using national defense as an excuse, and emergency powers to increase development of domestic energy production. The BLM has quietly switched from being a steward of and for the preservation and protection of natural lands to being an active agent of commercial energy production interests, just as the Forest Service became an agent of large corporate timber companies. The transition came with such dispatch that development got in the first massive blows and efforts to save the western public land is now going to be a game of catch up with little or any hope of stopping or reversing the destruction that has already been accomplished and is currently ongoing at break-neck speed.

The question is whether it is worth it. National security advocates, of course, say "Yes!" Environmentalists, conservationists, nature lovers, hunters, and cattlemen who are being deprived of the use of the surface of these energy lands say "No!" Unfortunately, during times of war and national emergency, national security concerns tend to get the upper hand. Energy is Homeland Security business!

The proposition of moving toward energy independence has become important all of a sudden. Yet our vulnerable position had became apparent way back in 1973 with the famous Arab oil embargo. That was over three decades ago! At the time, it became clear that we needed to develop alternative sources of energy. More specifically, we needed to develop "renewable" energy technologies.

We got off to a false start in that direction. For a while it appeared that alternative, renewable, energy development and production was going to be somewhat of a "democratic" affair which empowered enterprising individuals and a whole new array of energy companies.

The problem was that the major oil companies were not all that eager to see renewable energy technologies and sources come into use unless they were able to first establish a monopoly on those technologies and sources. They soon brought global oil prices down again, and the government soon fell back into lock-step with the global energy giants. The energy monopolies continued to reign and thrive, and we became even more dependent on foreign oil imports. Global energy brokerage and trade, in addition to exploration and production, became a new gold mine for the energy giants. Everybody was happy except those few who continued to keep their eyes on the ball. Few in Washington bothered keeping their eye on the ball. Wall Street "prosperity" fixated and satisfied them, and free trade globalism, and international interdependence, became the national priority. Thirty years passed. The "new international economic order" came upon us and thrived.

Then September 11th, 2001 happened. It had been a beautifully clear day in New York, and the Twin Tower symbols of the new international economic order stood tall, proud, and seemingly invulnerable, over the city skyline. Then, out of the blue, came trouble -- as if the handwriting hadn't been on the wall for three decades and more. Now the government once again perceives a clear and present danger, and the only option on the table to quickly develop energy capacity is to call upon the global energy giants to begin exploiting the traditional energy resources known to underlie our public lands with a speedy vengeance. In times of war and national emergency, even the voice of the Sierra Club is little more significant than that of a few ranchers.

This, of course, is the result of dependence not only on foreign oil resources, but the giant oil corporations and knee-jerk national energy policy. The knee jerks only in times of national emergency. At all other times it's global business as usual, tapping the energy resources and labor markets of "others elsewhere." The fact is, having a coherent long-term national energy policy that focuses on energy independence, is (or would be), totally out of keeping with the kind of globalism our trusty mis-representatives in Washington have been carefully nurturing for almost half a century. Being energy independent would be extremely "protectionist" -- it would be like wanting to be industrially and economically independent. It would be like saying we wanted to produce our own apparel and shoes again like we once did. It would be counter to free trade policy and WTO rules. It would even seem to discount the tragic symbolism of the fallen World Trade Center Twin Towers.

We are not only energy dependent on foreign oil producers, we're dependent on foreign sources for 95% of the clothing we wear, and 100% depended on foreign sources for our cherished TV's, VCRs, DVDs, etc., and a frighteningly large percentage of just about everything we need for basic survival, not to mention "the good life." While we believe American agriculture feeds the world, we depend on foreign oil to operate our increasingly foreign-made tractors and farm machinery, and a scary percentage of what we actually eat. What's more, we depend on foreign ships to get about 95% of our consumer goods and food products to our seaports and markets. The cranes that unload those ships in our own ports are built by others, elsewhere, as well.

Energy dependence is only a fraction of the problem. But we will focus on that to the exclusion of our dependence on foreign sources for just about everything we need. What good is oil if we don't have clothes or food? If the United States was cut off from its foreign trade today, we'd not only be forced to park the SUV, but go unclothed, under-fed, and under-entertained, as well. This is one hell of a situation for the world's only remaining superpower to be in -- especially when we have the resources and labor force to become an almost completely independent nation. Independence, after all, was what the Revolutionary War was all about.

THE CULTURE WARS

Pridger isn't the only one who has noted, with lasting regret and dismay, Hollywood's (and thus the nation's pop culture), three or four decade infatuation with the "F" word. The following is from a recent issue of Gary North's "The Daily Reckoning" newsletter.

'Our friend Frank Holmes sends this little note: "Whatever reason Hollywood has for its love affair with the "f" word, it is decidedly not about the money," writes Dan Ferris. "Since the year 2000, Hollywood has turned out five times as many R-rated films as it has films rated G or PG or PG-13. No less than 2,146 films released since 2000 received R-ratings, compared with 137 films rated G and 252 films rated PG.

'"Is it a case of simple supply and demand at work? Apparently not. Of the top 20 moneymaking films of all time, not a single one is rated R, and of the top 50, only five are rated R - with the other 45 rated G or PG.

'"It's all about the art, man. The "f" word is "bad," which, of course is good... only you're not supposed to be good... you're supposed to be bad... not that being bad is good, or being good bad... "'

END OF QUOTES

PG-13 movies and network TV programming are bad enough these days. They often contain most of the more benign cuss words and "modest vulgarities" of yore plus plenty of semi-explicit sex scenes. Many of the most popular network TV programs are resplendent with "bleeped" out dialog, but all the kids know what's being bleeped out. The typical R-rated movie will have the "F" word injected into the script at least once somewhere, no matter how unnecessary or even out of context it may be. And blood, gore, and violence is often carried to a truly exaggerated level in the name of "realism."

No, it isn't all about money, it's apparently required for cultural reasons -- the indoctrination of youth. R-rated movies are made to draw young impressionable viewers, and it is in such movies that our young people learn to become comfortable with "adult" things (so-called adult language and adult conduct), like using the "F" word in the most casual manner at every opportunity. In the same movies, our youth learn about sex in graphic detail just shy of actual explicitly pornography. The "F" word even appears these days in the subscripts of foreign language movies! "Educational" or docudramas often even have it. Oliver Stone's JFK movie even had to have it. After all, it was intended to be educational. The "F" word has become even more American than mom's apple pie. A movie without the "F" word is considered almost corny. Imagine a "realistic" movie about war with the G.I.s swearing oaths such as just "damn!" or "hell!" or "son-of-a-bitch!" even "G-- D---n!" Imagine the Terminator just saying "Damn you!" It just wouldn't fly. It isn't "adult" enough. No, it's got to be obscene and have explicit sexual connotations in order to lend real linguistic realism of latter day Americana. Profuse reference to things urinal or fecal are also deemed adult. Street language has gone mainstream since the early 1960's and has even infected the parliamentary system.

Use of the "F" word in print and other public media had been considered so taboo and rare prior to our Civil Rights era that dictionaries did not even list it, and hadn't since dictionaries had been printed. The 1971 Oxford English Dictionary, the definitive authority on the English language, still didn't list it. Nor did Merriam Webster, Funk and Wagnall's, or the American Heritage Dictionary. The 1987 Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, "respectfully dedicated to Her Majesty the Queen, by her gracious permission," lists the word together with many of its derivatives and history of usage with this notation, "For centuries, and still by the great majority, regarded as a taboo-word; until recent times not often recorded in print but frequent in coarse speech." "The coarsest equivalent of Damn." The word began to appear spelled out in print circa 1965, the year after Civil Rights, and has since become more than just common. Soon thereafter it began appearing in major Hollywood productions. In the 1993 edition of "The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" no qualifiers were mentioned -- the word apparently having become so commonly accepted. The British have embraced it too, abandoning their former "bloody" this or "bloody" that for the new American standard of "F" this or "F" that and "MF" this and "MF" that. This has been considered social and cultural progress by those who seem to count in the modern era.

1964 is significant because it was the year of major Civil Rights legislation. It was also about the time our immigration laws were being turned inside out to appease minorities. But Pridger isn't implying that the debasement of our culture is the fault of African Americans or any other racial minority. Not at all. Blacks have been used as pawns in the game like the rest of us. The idea of Civil Rights was to upgrade the Black condition in our nation, not debase the society. Truly progressive blacks would have much preferred that their race had been pointed onto the high road rather than the low road that society as a whole has been conducted down. It was not the design of Martin Luther King to bring white society down to a lower common denominator. At least Pridger (who is not exactly a member of the MLK fan club), gives him that much credit. (However, destruction of American society, and western culture, was undoubtedly the design of some of MLK's communist friends whose hands he unavoidably or inadvertently strengthened).

Martin Luther King hoped to upgrade the economic and political condition of his race while making character, rather than the color of skin, the matter that counted most. The idea of integration in housing and education was to permit the black man to climb up to the white establishment standard, not to bring down white community as actually happened. No, cultural decline was not the plan of MLK. Our cultural debasement has been a product of whites in both high and low places, rather than blacks in unfortunate circumstances. (Unfortunately, and despite the foregoing, the black leadership has consistently had its eye on the wrong ball.) The white counter-culture movement was far more significant to the debasement of our culture than the establishment aftermath of the black Civil Rights movement. The movement, of course, was driven, or at least encouraged, by the same leftist forces that drove the Civil Rights movement from behind the scenes. The Vietnam War didn't help either, as war protestors lent their support to the "peaceniks" of the counter-culture, not to mention thousands of angry young veterans embittered by their experience both in Vietnam and upon returning home.

The major cracks in the culture (and particularly "pop" culture), go back to the "beatnik" era and the advent of the rock-in-roll revolution. Elvis, the King himself, was a significant part of the opening salvos of the assault on the culture. During the mid and late 50's, rock-in-roll, and especially Elvis, were correctly seen by the older generation to be as dangerous to the morals of youth and cultural fiber of the nation as many of us see rap music today. The beatniks stimulated intellectuals to begin to openly attack the establishment, and the recording companies learned that there was a lucrative white market for "black" rhythm and blues, especially if white artists could be found to perform it. The "new" music was exciting and very seductive. It reconnected us with something primeval in human nature -- something that modern civilization and western "culture" had been devoted to distancing itself from for at least two thousand years. Ironically, today we look back at Elvis Presley not only as a cultural icon, but a symbol of simpler and more wholesome times. He is even commemorated on a new quarter minted in his honor on the 25th anniversary of his death. The "25th Anniversary Tennessee Quarter" is the first U.S. coin to honor a recording star. Though many of us, including Pridger, liked Elvis and early rock-in-roll, this "official" recognition on a genuine United States coin is very symbolic of how we have come to accept both a debased culture and coinage as the national norm, and how a culture can be totally overturned in a generation or two.

Pridger admits that he was seduced too, and was very much a product of the 50's in which he grew up. As a teenager, he identified with the articulated anti-establishment feelings of the "beat generation." And though Pridger was never a "hippy," one of his aunts nonetheless once saw fit to describe him as "The first hippy." By the time the flower children were settled in San Francisco, however, Pridger had already found his niche in the establishment (as sort of what he considered a mercenary in the "establishment"), by going off to sea -- first as a navy sailor and then as a merchant mariner. This was circa early 1960s, and Pridger, having shortsightedly rejected the option of further formal education, had "sentenced himself" to three years in the navy in hopes of getting off of what appeared to be a hopeless dead-end street. Another decade would pass before Pridger became fully aware of the political world in which he had become both a pawn and victim and began to reassess the way he viewed the world around him. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Experience teaches a fine school, but a fool will learn by no other." Pridger's education, such as it is, would come by slow degrees in that school taylored by nature to the needs of fools. He had, however, enjoyed one major early advantage. That advantage was in the form of a well read father who had tutored him in an appreciation for reading, the value of good literature, the views of the major philosophers, general skepticism, broad interests and intellectual horizons, and non-establishment thought.
Of course, along with the white counter-cultural movement, there was a much more significant and powerful movement going on in the influential white "progressive-left" academia, in which "language slumming" and and cultural denigration of the nation became a fetish that continues to this day. It's purpose, supposedly, was to sink all boats, and re-float them on a different standard. The debasement of educational standards has, of course, became a key ingredient to cultural decline. The almost all white Supreme Court itself has done much more than its rightful share in the process of debasing the national culture -- including, among other things, the official repudiation of the sanctity of human life in the womb. To his credit, Clarence Thomas, as a lone black conservative member of the Court, has dragged his feet a little from time to time -- but to little avail.

It wasn't a coincidence, nor accidental, that the debasement of our national culture and standards of common decency roughly coincided with the final debasement of the national currency. Silver coinage was replaced by copper-nickel circa 1964 -- the year of the major "Civil Rights" legislation. The gold window was slammed shut in 1973, releasing the American dollar from it's last pitiful vestige of claim to being anything close to honest money. This opened a literal flood-gate, facilitating a reorientation of our national economy toward being a credit and deficit driven economy. By this time "freedom of expression" had became a civil right regardless of any traditional notions of common decency, and white youth had begun to become comfortable with the coarsest Black vernacular. It made no difference that the majority of the people were outraged by these developments, yet it became an unforgivable sin to in the least insult a minority person. Commercial interests jointed in the debauchery of the culture too. Outrage against the majority establishment sells -- thus major establishment corporations have joined in the commercial selling frenzy, marketing sleaze and outrage for profit to confused and rebellious youth -- always catering to the lowest cultural stratas. The Civil Rights "upgrade" turned into a dive toward a lowest common cultural denominator.

Two generations have grown to adulthood since the sixties. Cultural and monetary debasement opened the door to the wholesale debasement of society and the economy at large. Consumer and public debt have grown apace since the same era. Since then the dollar has continued to lose its value, while society at large has progressively lost its values. Today we have a materialistic and hedonistic national society, a ten cent dollar, functionally illiterate high school graduates, and a society in which pornography has become an accepted and significant industry, the products of which permeate the nation. Significantly, now that all that has been accomplished, God is being removed from the national identity as quickly as the ACLU and an assortment of federal judges can facilitate it. Hollywood has helped reinvent American culture, and homosexuals have become politically powerful enough to debase the institution of holy matrimony -- making an unholy mockery of marriage.

The left and the right, Democrats and Republicans, have played co-equal roles in bringing us to our present impasse. They comprise the left and right hand of big government. Thus, there is no hope in a change of administrations. The Democratic party stands for social and economic debasement of the nation, and the Republicans stand for the same thing in slightly different form. They operate as a good cop, bad cop, team. Surprise, so-called "conservatives" increasingly produce social debasement too, in the form of "get tough on this or that" and the resultant vast American Gulag this has engendered. The right has also pushed corporate hegemony, and license for corporations to betray the national purpose. The left "frees up" the economically disadvantaged and the right incarcerates the results of that "freedom," more aptly termed licentiousness. The emerging police state is very much a bipartisan creature. In other words, the very political machinery upon which we depend to sustain "freedom and liberty, and the American way" has itself been hopelessly debased. It simply no longer works as it was intended. Our present leadership is largely the products of the post 1960's era, and it seems national compass has been irrevocably and hopelessly lost.

These things aren't exactly new, of course. It has all happened before. No doubt, it was considered "social progress" in ancient times just as advocates of gay marriage and debt-based "wealth-creation" do today. But when any great nation or empire of the past reached that point where it mocked its religion and founding principles, and descended into a state of hedonism and debased currency, its ultimate fate was effectively sealed. The ruins of ancient Greece and Rome are still there for all to see, along with the vestiges of other great civilizations. Things tend to happen a lot faster these days than they did in ancient times. Two centuries have been predicted to circumscribe the natural life span of nations purporting to be democracies. Debased morals and debased money go hand in hand and are certain to eventually produce social and economic disaster.

Disaster is actually already upon us -- both cultural and economic. As for the new-found status of the black man in America, entertainer Bill Cosby recently had some poignant things to say to his fellow blacks. In short, if they continue to chose to gravitate to the gutter, that's where they will continue to be. But too many whites have been infected by the same cultural disease as the blacks to whom Cosby addressed his remarks, and these generally become the ones who shape our destiny.

The highly disproportionate percentage of blacks occupying our prison system is not a sign of progress in the condition of blacks in America. The high death toll caused by black on black crime causes the death toll of lynching of blacks by whites in a former era to pall by comparison. The Crips and Bloods street gangs alone have accounted for hundreds, if not thousands, of more black homicides than a hundred years of Jim Crow era lynchings might have produced. Though blatant racial injustice reigned during that former time, at least black on white rapes and homicides were held in check thereby, and black society at large aspired to higher ideals. People, both white and black, were much safer then, and racial relations were actually better then than they are now by many significant measures. And black society and culture was much richer in many ways then than it is now, and the two parent household was still the norm. This is not to excuse an unjust system, of course. Its merely to point out that when the time came to correct things, we blew it and merely changed to another form of injustice -- once which allowed and even encouraged cultural decline and the resultant lawlessness with a whole array of unintended consequences. In all probability, the percentage of innocent blacks who were lynched during our blatantly discriminatory era wasn't all that different than the percentage of innocent whites and blacks who have been (and continue to be), wrongfully convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, or executed, under our present justice system. This still remains to be fixed, but we have made society so untenable that fixes are now more illusive than ever, except through ever-tougher brands of government authoritarianism and police state tactics.
Today black on white crime far exceeds white on black crime, though the "establishment media" continues to prefer to dwell on white injustices and the relatively few "hate crimes" committed by whites against blacks, not to mention a subtle form of continuing institutionalized racial injustice against both blacks and whites. Many blacks have gone the extra mile to repudiate the traditional American culture that black Civil Rights activists once aspired to. The large movement toward adopting Islam is ample evidence of this. Islam has been adopted by many blacks, at least in part, because they wanted to opt out of Anglo-American culture and adopt a religion that is generally hostile to western values in general, and the "American Creed" in particular. Still, the black rapper has the right to "freedom of expression" using the most vulgar language imaginable, outraging not only whites but his own race by making the black man a sinister, hateful, and dangerous figure. Major recording labels, in the name of profit, have also gone the extra mile to make sure this antisocial message and "art-form" has become exceedingly popular. And this self-inflicted image, amply assisted by the white corporate establishment, has defined the new black racial stereotype.

Hatred is born of fear, and the new predominate black stereotype (unlike most of the racial stereotypes of a former era -- which have become exceedingly politically incorrect), is a scary and threatening figure. Pridger points all this out only to show that the black race has been used by the very same forces or processes that have generally reshaped not only American culture but the American economy. The ideologies, forces, and people behind these "divide and conquer" tactics and changes are not black. They are generally lily white in everything but motivation and spirit. Some of the motivations have been blatantly criminal, some simply ill-conceived and applied good intentions, and some of it merely the profit motive.

SPEAKING OF JUSTICE: Martha Steward has received her justice. Five months in a federal slammer followed by five months of some sort of "house arrest" and two years of probation, and a $30,000.00 fine, for some petty white lies about what was otherwise determined to be a non-crime. Regardless of one's feeling about Ms. Steward, this is a demonstration of a broken sense of what justice ought to be in the "land of the free and home of the brave." Still, she got off relatively easily. Many thousands of our federal and state inmates are doing much longer sentences after being convicted on even more petty charges -- like growing, possessing, or smoking pot. And there are the political prisoners like American Talaban, John Walker Lynne, who is doing twenty years for making a few unpopular values judgments and being caught on the wrong side of battle lines in far off Afghanistan. He committed no real crime by any civilized standards -- except, perhaps, some thought crimes. If ours was a Christian system of justice, both Martha Steward and John Walker Lynne would simply have been lectured, forgiven, and released. Some people in our present presidential administration have been caught lying or stretching the true outlandishly in order to make their own case for war. War, of course, is serious very business. It's more serious even that smoking a joint or fibbing to prosecutors trying to "make" a case. The death toll has been significant and continues to rise, and the associated costs are nothing short of astronomical. The actual short and long term collateral damage both at home and abroad is incalculable. Yet nobody has been brought before a court of law yet in the matter, nor is such an eventuality likely.

THE CULTURAL WARS

Wouldn't you know that it would take the Vice President of the still supposedly conservative Republican party -- the party of the religious right -- to introduce the "F" word onto the Senate floor. It certainly wasn't a Freudian slip, and Chaney's response to criticism was anything but apologetic. Dick Chaney not only brought sleazy language to the legislative forum, but said, "I felt better after I said it," and publicly allowed that it, "...badly needed to be said." Badly needed to be said? The "F" word on the floor of the nation's highest deliberative body?

Perhaps Chaney was sufficiently provoked to use the strongest of language. At least this has been offered in Chaney's defense by at least one "Conservative Christian" talk show host. "There are times when there is no substitute for such words," the line goes. Besides, the defense continues, the exchange was a "private" exchange, not intended for the public ear. But the exchange, obviously, wasn't private (not nearly as private, for example, as the damning expletives captured on the infamous "Nixon Tapes"), it immediately made national news. Pridger would hope that we have not become so linguistically challenged that even the highest officials of the land (who are hopefully also among the most articulate personages our educational system is capable of producing), have become dependent on obscenities and expletives to adequately express themselves.

Will Chaney be censured for this incredibly crass breach of etiquette? Probably not. More than likely his offensive language will be heralded as a new and refreshing birth of freedom on the Senate floor. Maybe torture in Iraqi prisons don't fly well with the American people yet, but obscene and vulgar language -- and especially the "F" word -- have become much more American than apple pie. Movie stars and rappers set national language standards these days -- even (apparently) in the hallowed halls of Congress. (How far we have come since president Reagan briefly attempted to lead the nation away from sleaze! [Now we even have the Terminator in the Statehouse once occupied by Reagan.])

Days before Chaney's remark, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, of Utah, referred to a proposal to subpoena memos on prisoner interrogation as a "dumb-ass" idea. (This has been pointed up by Democrats (or the media), as another recent example of "conservative" Republican language sleaze.) Is Congress really going the way of the entertainment and sports industries? Has the Republican party consciously decided to abandon traditional standards of common decency in language in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the voters? Have the obscenity advocates won another round of the Cultural War?

Of course, democrats will use Chaney's remark to point up Republican political and cultural hypocrisy. Democrats are perhaps a little less hypocritical -- sleazy, debased language (in the guise of freedom of expression), is a hallmark of the "progressive left" which the Democratic party has come to represent. Even Christian fundamentalist Democratic president Jimmy Carter chose a major pornographic magazine to publish a major interview in which he humbly admitted to "lusting in his mind." Obviously, Carter wanted to reach a "larger audience," and he knew just where to go.

DO THESE THINGS MAKE SENSE?

THANK THE SUPREME COURT! AMEN!: The Supreme Court has kindly given God a temporary reprieve (Monday, the 14th of June), at least as far as the legality of honorable mention in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is concerned. The high court didn't rule thus out of any particular convictions on the matter, however. In fact, the court, in all its regal splendor, appears to have a definite anti-God bias (undoubtedly because it doesn't like the idea of recognizing any Law above its own jurisdiction). It seems to have let the mention of God in the Pledge slide merely because the atheist who brought the case before the court on behalf of his ten year old daughter only has custody of her for a mere ten days a month -- not enough to legitimize his authority to represent her in such an important case. Another, unstated, reason may be because "God and country right or wrong" is the key to a lot of good old-fashioned American patriotic support for our current war in Iraq. The court didn't want to deal with it in a serious manner at this time. It's simply a bad time to officially repudiate God when the administration is invoking His divine guidance in prosecuting our various sundry military adventures.

Ironically, the legitimacy of the Constitution itself, which even the Supreme Court and ACLU acknowledge as the uncontested Supreme Law of the Land, is predicated upon the binding legitimacy and continuing validity of the Declaration of Independence. Without that, the Constitution becomes a dead letter, and the case could be made in any court of law that the Constitution is null and void and we, the American people, are technically still subjects of the British Crown.

The men who adopted and signed the Declaration of Independence on behalf of the people of the several colonies, invoked the Divine Guidance of "Nature's God" -- proclaiming that men had a God-given right to declare independence from the mother country and establish a new government. The Declaration further states that the people were endowed by their Creator with the "unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." God is referenced four times in the Declaration, and was clearly understood to be the Authority "Under which" the nation was born. Upon this document rests the validity of all subsequent bodies of law under which the nation operates -- the first and foremost of which, of course, being the Constitution itself.

If this is not a nation "Under God," and if the existence of God is to be denied official recognition in the public forum, and expunged from further association with the nation, then the Declaration of Independence has effectively been declared null and void, and both the Declaration and Constitution "exposed" as fraudulent documents. Furthermore, it would effectively establish that there is no such thing as "God-given rights." Do you suppose the high powered legal minds that sit on the various levels of the federal court system, Supreme Court, and churn at the ACLU, have overlooked the legal ramifications of this small detail? Pridger doesn't think so -- but Pridger is just a conspiracy theorist.

Acknowledging a Higher Law tends to diminish the stature of Supreme Court justices, and limit the potential authority of government itself. Official acknowledgment of God effectively constitutes an untouchable additional "separation of powers," severely limiting, for example, the government's "right" to take away or license the rights and liberties presently guaranteed to the people by the Constitution (based, as it is, on the Higher Authority invoked by the Declaration of Independence).

PRIDGER'S ARROGANCE: Such speculation may sound a little arrogant, coming, as it does, from an ignorant hillbilly. But Pridger can't help himself, and offers his unseemly opinions in all modesty and humility. (There's little pretension in Pridger's claim to be a "One man think bucket" and "hip pocket philosopher.") Things just don't seem right in America these days in his view. But don't take his word for anything -- just look around! And look around again, for the political landscape is changing quickly!

The natural metabolism of government, as our wise founders fully realized and sought to forestall, is to grow ever-larger, and more and more powerful and authoritarian. Finally, left to its own devices, government would usurp the high position our founders reserved to God alone. Ah! If government itself could become the official replacement for God -- the nearest thing to a heavenly father the people can look to -- like, say, a very Big Brother. Pridger doesn't think this is a good idea. Nor does he believe it an oversight on the part of our rulers (whoever they may really be) -- but rather a case of fully informed self-interest, with tyranny knowingly on the wing! But who cares in this day and age when we can get everything we need at Wal-Mart and the vast majority of Americans are still over-fed, over-entertained, and under-educated in every important field?

If the people don't take care to keep their government under the thumb of God and a Higher Law, then they will eventually awaken to find themselves under the tyrannical thumb of an unlimited, omnipotent, government. Perhaps we're already there. Ironically, however, today the administration seems to think it is doing God's will in the world, even as the courts attempt to banish the word from the Pledge and national identity. Soon, however, our rulers will no longer even require lip service to being "Under God." In the guise of building an impenetrable brick and mortar wall of separation between church and state, we will have come under the jurisdiction of a new de facto state religion -- with government itself as G.O.D. (Government Omnipotent and Deified!).

GOD AND COUNTRY AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY: In spite of the separation of church and state, the United States was founded a Christian nation -- by virtue of the religion of the founders. That Christian identity had nothing to do with fundamentalism, religious dogma, or any formally organized church. It had everything to do with our national standards of morals and ethics -- our behavior as a nation and a people -- and what became the "American Creed," a culture that most Americans shared. The Christian notions of brotherly love, tolerance and understanding, and a liberal degree of righteous at the foundation of the justice system, were earmarks of that national creed. We were a nation and government (the very first such government in the history of mankind), that aspired to be an example of a nation that followed the Golden Rule in both domestic and foreign policy.

Of course, we never got it completely right, and our national transgressions have been many, but the founding intentions were nonetheless apparent for all to see. But increasing numbers of people no longer want to hear any of this. They declare that America was never intended to be a Christian nation, and that the First Amendment of the Constitution proves it. We are told that official acknowledgement of the existence of God and a national Christian identity are tantamount to the establishment of an official state religion, and thus discriminatory and unconstitutional. Prayer and mention of God in the public arena are acutely offensive to some people -- and we must consider the sensitivities of all such minorities. We hear repeatedly that Christianity stands for narrow-mindedness, bigotry, and intolerance -- that Christians are endemically and hopelessly anti-Semitic, and have been throughout their history (look at the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Inquisition, etc.) -- we are continually reminded that Nazi Germany was a nation steeped in its Christian identity and look what it did.

As John Fonte writes in his book review of Samuel P. Huntington's "Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity" (National Review, May 31, 2004), "...since the 1960's, powerful forces among American elites have launched a sustained effort -- one that is, 'quite possibly, without precedent in human history' -- to 'deconstruct' American national identity. This 'deconstruction coalition' operates like the 'imperial and colonial' regimes of old, which promoted subnational identities in order to 'enhance the government's ability to divide and conquer.' Besides support for the subnational, the 'denationalized elites' embrace the transnational -- and denigrate affection for and loyalty to the American nation." Huntington also quotes the president of the University of Pennsylvania, that it is 'repugnant' for American students to learn that they are 'above all citizens of the United States' (as opposed to having 'primary allegiance' to democratic humanism')."

It's particularly good to hear this concern from somebody with Samuel Huntington's literary and academic credentials (Harvard), for they place him squarely among the nation's elite. Reviewer, John Fonte, called him, "perhaps America's foremost political scientist." It's heartening to know that there is a loyal, highly respected (and un-denationalized member of the elite), in opposition to those elite powers who have been trying (all too successfully), to deconstruct America's national identity. Having authored the famous Foreign Affairs article, "The Clash of Civilizations," which gave us timely warning as to the theater of our present wars, Huntington's book is bound to be read by an wide cross-section of the people that matter.

As for Pridger's own Christian identity, he'll have to admit that he isn't exactly a pious example of Christian fundamentalism. He's a born sinner and habitually strays from the straight and narrow. He drinks, plays cards and pool, and has been known (at least during his younger days), to mess around with loose women. In fact, fundamentalists would probably consider Pridger an outright heathen. He's never been assaulted with holy water or baptized in any sort of cleansing brine. None of his sins have ever been washed away -- they continue to stick like glue and trouble his conscience from time to time. He hasn't been born again, nor does he expect to be during this lifetime. He hasn't seen the inside of a church more than a dozen times in half a century, and then only for the unavoidable wedding or funeral service. He neither worships nor prays to God for special favors (except in times of serious person peril). Still, Pridger tries to be Christian in the manner in which he relates to his fellow beings and would wish that his country were truly a Christian nation.

Pridger believes that if this were a Christian nation, in the sense that the founders undoubtedly intended, the death toll in the various wars during the twentieth century would have been lowered by the tens of millions, and there would have been no 9/11 attack, and no war in Iraq today. There would never have been any reason for Moslems or anybody else to consider us the Great Satan. We are tragically swapping the remnants of our Christian identity for a regression to open advocacy of the Judaic Law of the Old Testament, while (ironically), at the same time moving toward official repudiation of even the existence of God.

GOD FOR ATHEISTS -- REPENT!: Atheists and agnostics seem to have trouble with the very notion of God. The word itself tends to stick in their craw and cause either mirth or embarrassment. Public prayer and the faith of others is sometimes considered downright repugnant. Yet where would freedom and liberty be without the notion that we have God-given unalienable rights? If our rights are not God-given, then how do we come by them? By the leave and pleasure of the almighty Government? Perhaps, but to meekly accept such a proposition, as many federal court justices and lawyers at the ACLU would have us do, is a dangerous thing indeed!

Like Voltaire, Pridger believes that if there were no God, we'd have to invent Him -- for without acknowledgement of a Higher Power and Higher Law, we're all the subjects of government capriciousness. In the final analysis, governments tend to descend toward raw power, and if that power becomes absolute, its inevitable companion is absolute corruption and despotism. If government isn't held to be "under God" (and rigorously kept subject to that notion by the people), then it has free reign to consider itself "over and above everything" -- a Utopia for tyrants.

But, of course, there is a God. The Atheist or agnostic may not be able to live with the Christian notion of a "personal, caring, God" but they ought to at least consider adopting Plato's or Socrates' definition: "God is Truth, and light his shadow," or Pridger's own "God is the Universal Living Truth" (Church of the Universal Living Truth -- C.U.L.T., Pridger's own church) Even most atheists believe in truth -- at least to the extent that they believe it to be true. Atheists can, of course, believe in "nature" and natural laws, i.e., the laws of physics, etc., but what are these but mere statutes of God's Law? Disbelievers would perhaps refer to the self-evident "Universal Intelligence" simply as "nature," but what is this but a matter of simple, but important, semantics? For the sake of freedom and liberty, and the protection of our God-given rights, let's keep government both "under God," and subservient to "We the People."

CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP: With the increasingly micro-regulated status of the corporate citizen (those still lucky enough to be employed in corporate America), combined with all nature of "get tough on this or that kind of behavior laws" in both federal and state justice systems, and the increasingly draconian security regulations coming down from the Department of Homeland Security in the name of national security and the War on Terror, a totally new culture is being imposed upon the American people. It is called a "Culture of Compliance." A culture of compliance is being demanded of us not only by state and federal regulatory and police authorities, but by international regulations emanating from the various regulatory agencies of the United Nations as well. This culture of compliance is supposedly "voluntary," thus not evidence of tyranny on the march. But it is voluntary like filing and paying federal income taxes is voluntary. Once you comply (and you're told that you must, regardless of its "voluntary" nature), you are stuck. In other words, tyranny is here and growing like a cancer, but the government calls it freedom and democracy. This is hardly the culture of freedom and liberty we once took for granted in what was once billed as the "land of the free and home of the brave."

To quote Ezra Pound, "With the falsification of the word everything else is betrayed." (E.P., "Impact") Orwell called it Newspeak or Doublespeak. Pridger wouldn't be a bit surprised to see the Defense Department renamed the "Ministry of Peace."

STATES WITH MONEY TO BURN

SOME STATES HAVE MONEY TO BURN: While some states suffer from large deficits, others apparently have money to burn. Oklahoma seems to be such a state. It has recently spent about $10 million in an attempt to gain the right to execute already convicted Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols. This is a classic case of how a man can "legally" (yet contrary to the very spirit of the United States Constitution), be subjected to double or triple jeopardy. Multiple charges for the same crime, and trial for the same crimes in multiple jurisdictions, are the gimmicks used. If one jurisdiction fails to convict, another one takes over. If no jurisdiction manages to convict on criminal charges, civil charges are often used to convict those found "innocent" -- usually for the monetary gain of the parties the alleged crimes aggrieved.

In this case, Nichols had already been successfully tried and convicted on federal charges, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. But the state of Oklahoma (which seems to tend toward Old Testament justice), still wanted him dead, either as a further act of official vengeance and revenge, or to save the taxpayer the million or so dollars it might cost to maintain him for life. But the federal sentence would surely have taken precedence over that of the state. Since when does the fed defer to the states in such matters these days? Presumably, if the state had got its death penalty wish, it would have had to wait for Nichols to complete his life sentence before putting him to death. Surely the federal government wouldn't have allowed the state to execute him before he served his federal sentence. That would have been like letting him completely off on the federal conviction. On the other hand, the federal government might just make an exception in this case, since it probably wants Nichols dead too.

The state trial ended in Nichol's conviction on 161 counts of murder, but the jury couldn't make up its mind about putting him to death -- after all, Nichols didn't really kill all those people, he had only indirectly conspired with Timothy McVeigh, who did. Besides that, he has worn out four Bibles through "prayer and research" since being in imprisoned, and is said to have seen the light of true Christianity. Before that he had apparently been an Old Testament Christian -- seeking eye for an eye vengeance for the federal attack on the Branch Dividians, and its resulting holocaust. There would have been no justice in executing Nichols anyway -- it would have been like simply setting him free to go happily off to a higher reward. In any case, God works his wonders in mysterious ways -- maybe Nichols will have time to work as an insider helping to reform the federal prison system which has literally become an American Gulag.

BUSH'S RESPONSE TO 9/11

Pridger is pretty critical of the Bush administration's handling of the 9/11 crises and the resultant war on terrorism, not to mention our completely wrong-headed war in Iraq. But the 9/11 Commission is accusing the administration of a "chaotic 9/11 response" in the immediate wake of the September 11th disaster. Chaos is difficult to avoid at such times. Pridger wonders what the 9/11 Commission's response might have been, had it only been conceived and impaneled in time to act.

Actually, Pridger is of the opinion that the administration's response to 9/11 was anything but chaotic. From all historical appearances, such an attack had been expected (even hoped for), for a long time before 9/11 -- and the response, including the war with Iraq, planned well in advance (but apparently not quite planned well enough). The administration was probably ready for such an event, but had had no idea just how spectacularly successful, graphic, and deadly, the attack would be. That's the way things tended to look from Pridger's perspective. They looked that way before 9/11, on 9/11, and they have continued to look that way ever since 9/11. Of course, that doesn't make it true. But Pridger wasn't the first or only one to suspect that the formula for "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" had finally been successfully attained.

The 9/11 commission has firmly rejected Bush's claim of "firm" links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. In the mean time, Bush continues to insist that such links existed, or must have existed -- or at least there must have been some sort of contact between them at some point. Well, maybe so, and the commission itself seems to confirm it in spite of its rejection of the finer points of the argument. The commission has found that Osama bin Laden did at one point ask Saddam for help and Saddam failed to respond. That was a firm link wasn't it? On the other hand, our own firm (CIA) links to Osama bin Laden are a matter of historical record -- in fact one can almost put a "APPA" (American Product Produced Abroad), stamp on bin Laden. (We always subsidize the foreign competition, whether in trade or war.) Come to think of it, we had some pretty firm links with Saddam Hussein's regime too, before Saddam was baited into invading Kuwait! After we're done with Iraq, maybe we need to attack ourselves.

ATTACKING OURSELVES: Attack ourselves? We're already doing that -- and the attack is already well advanced. Aren't the USA Patriot Acts and the Office of Homeland Security, with their many costly spin offs, really de facto attacks on the rights, civil liberties, and pocket books, of the people of the United States under the color of national security? War is deception, you know, and false colors always make a fine ruse. Could a small rag-tag bunch of Islamic fanatics and terrorists really do the damage we see being done to our nation and the global community? No, we are doing it to ourselves. The dozen or so 9/11 terrorists inflicted a terrible wound and psychological blow to the nation, but it was nothing compared to what we have since been doing to ourselves. We are repudiating our national character and becoming a paranoid and authoritarian police state. National paranoia has been invoked to defeat the enemy. Once again, I quote Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us!"

When the American Revolution was in the offing, Patrick Henry galvanized the nation-to-be with his famous speech which ended with, "... As for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Today our war cry is "Give us safety and security at any price!" And our armed forces are out supposedly fighting for freedom and liberty under that banner. But are we preserving freedom and liberty here and elsewhere? Are we getting safety and security -- or are we just being had?

These Islamic terrorists are really learning how to discomfit us Americans and disrupt our comfort level. Americans abhor beheadings. It's one thing to have our service men and women shot and blown up by the dozens fighting for freedom and democracy in far-off Iraq and Afghanistan (that's bad enough!), but it's quite another to see American civilian captives beheaded simply for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The beheading of captives hasn't been all that great a problem during most of our passed military adventures. We had imagined that civilization had more or less left that kind of grisly barbarism in the distant past. It's against the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, and generally frowned upon by contemporary sensitivities in almost every modern civilized nation. But beheading is back with a literal vengeance! We haven't seen so many since the French quit using the guillotine. (At least I assume they've stopped using it. Ironically, that frightful instrument had been developed as a more humane and civilized means of execution than other traditional methods.)

President Bush stands accused of lying to the American people with regard to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda. So far, almost a thousand American service people have died, and no telling how many Iraqis, as a result -- and two Americans have been beheaded. President Clinton was accused of lying about his affair with a White House intern and was impeached in the House and almost kicked out of office as the result. He embarrassed the nation, and did considerable damage to the prestige of the office of the presidency -- and the whole affair cost the nation plenty in terms of money. Neither president has yet been threatened with any jail time. Bush is still riding high as Commander-in-chief, and Clinton (wearing his House impeachment as a badge of honor), seems destined to become a best selling author. Meanwhile, Martha Steward, who told some petty lies to cover up what was finally adjudged not to be a prosecutable crime in the first place, stands convicted on four serious felony counts with a possible 20 year prison sentence threatening. And nobody died or even lost any serious money as a result of Martha's transgressions.

JUSTICE: The great and growing American Gulag now holds an astounding two million plus prisoners. Prisons, and the "justice system" are two of our few major growth industries. Still, out prisons are overcrowded with people who have done petty things and been sentenced to draconian terms behind bars. Serious criminals often have to be turned loose so pot smokers and shop-lifters, convicted under "get tough on crime mandatory minimum sentence" laws (often without possibility of parole), can be held their full term. Often the term is twenty years or even life for relatively minor crimes. Such sentences clearly amount to very cruel and unusual punishment -- though they have become quite common and thus usual.

Pridger reaped the benefits of this asinine justice policy a couple years back. He was mugged and robbed at knife-point by a man and woman team down in Texas. To add insult to injury, having escaped the mugging with his whole hide in tact, and having summoned the police, Pridger was threatened with arrest on a MWUI charge (mugged while under the influence of alcohol). The only way out of it was to drop the complaint against the muggers and let the cops go on their merry way. Pridger later recognized the male mugger on the "Texas Ten Most Wanted" web site. The culprit was wanted for a mere parole violation. Otherwise, he was just a convicted murderer. In other words, he had been let out of prison to make room for more pot smokers, shop-lifters, and Martha Stewarts.

SALUTE TO FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN

President Reagan, who passed away on Saturday, June 5th, 2004 will undoubtedly be remembered as the most universally liked president in the history of the republic. Even most of his political enemies begrudgingly admired him. Additionally, much to the chagrin of Democrats and liberals, his presidential legacy will be that he defeated international communism and won the Cold War -- giving the nation and the world its first clear-cut prospects for lasting international peace since the beginning of the Cold War.

Democrats and liberals painted Reagan as a dangerous rightwing war hawk. When he pointedly referred to the Soviet Union as "the evil empire," critics cringed at the thought of the war Reagan was almost certain to provoke. Those liberals believed the Soviet super-state was so politically, economically, and militarily superior that the only safe policy with regard to it was their "better red than dead" plea. The alternative to an eventual capitulation to the Soviet super-state, they were sure, was MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction).

Present Secretary of State, Colin Powell (who had been Reagan's National Security Advisor), speaking on the Reagan legacy on CNN shortly after his death said, "The president always believed that the Soviet people deserved a better system than the system they had. And he was going to make it happen not by war, but by peace, by showing the power of democracy."

Pridger can envision president Bush, who probably considers himself as an ideological descendent of Reagan (note his "axis of evil" take off), privately cornering Secretary Powell after he learned of the above statement and sheepishly inquiring in conspiratorial tones, "Do you think we've blown it?"

Of course, Bush blew it when he first hooked up with the "Project for a New American Century" people and brought them to power in his administration (i.e., Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, et. al.). PNAC deals in Pax Americana, empire building, and naked military aggression by the United States against other nations in order to make the world safe for multi-national corporations. The Reagan administration had also been packed and commandeered by internationalists with hegemonic plans for American capital interests, starting with VP George Bush, Sr. Whatever the high intents and purposes of PNAC, and globalism in general (the hegemony of capital), the goals are inconsistent with American Constitutional government, and totally negate any presumption of rule by "consent of the governed."

Our self-righteous talk about "Democracy," and spreading it to the rest of the world, is just that -- talk. There has been little evidence of democracy in the United States in recent decades. Our democracy is a facade and little else. It is invoked (in the form of the law of markets), only to lower cultural and educational standards. Our representatives have ceased to either defend the Constitution they are sworn to uphold or represent the will of the majority of the people. On the few occasions where democratic or republican principles have asserted themselves, the Supreme Court has consistently over-ruled them -- thus the will of the majority is thwarted and democratic republicanism permanently compromised.

While the Reagan administration was effectively high-jacked (as are all presidential administrations, at least in Pridger's view), Reagan's values, moral character, and conservative patriotic message never failed to come to the fore and shine through with a positive radiance.

Perhaps Reagan's main failing (which he shares with most presidents as well as almost everybody else), was a lack of understanding of basic economics. Like many conservatives who were caught off guard, he embraced the free international market economics of Milton Friedman (or a Keynesian-Friedmanism), and the grandiose plans of other contemporary "experts" (i.e., the captain's of international business and the nation's mature fortunes), who saw great profit potential in the "new international economic order." Reagan himself introduced this phrase into the national policy lexicon as one of the high goals of his administration. Pridger is fairly certain Reagan believed in the potion he was selling, and believed it was good.

Pridger has criticized many of the things that transpired under the Reagan administration. But no president can be perfect. Regardless of the criticism, Pridger considers Reagan, the man, the best presidential material that has occupied the White House in living memory. It is highly unlikely than another of his caliber will ascend to the presidency any time soon. They just don't seem to make them like that any more. At least it is unlikely that such a man will ever again be allowed to become the standard bearer of either major political party. Both truly enlightened liberalism and genuine conservative philosophy seem to have been purged from the leadership of both parties. The classic liberal and the true conservative no longer have a significant place in either political party. As for third parties -- they have been marginalized out of any semblance of significance in the national political landscape.

Reagan can perhaps be excused for his lack of understanding of economics. Nobody else seems to understand the basics nowadays either -- least of all the professional economists who advise presidents. The dismal science is now geared toward proving that wealth creation is facilitated solely through the agencies of credit infusion, interest collection, and foreign trade -- and that wealth, thus created, flows from the top down. (Some of it, hopefully, trickling all the way down to labor and the great unwashed masses.) Thus Reagan's "supply side, trickle down economics" policy -- which was tailor-made to mesh with the new international economic order. Back when economists were a little more firmly grounded in reality, they knew that "all new wealth comes from the soil." When this is realized, wealth (compliments of nature with the helping hand of labor), can be made to flow upward and outward in great abundance, expanding as it multiplies itself throughout the economy.

Meanwhile the nation's literary presidential legacy-makers cleave to the standard of of Bill Clinton, and are doing all they can to make Clinton's "My Life" an all time best seller for a former president. As our nation's first X-rated president, who brought shame to the Oval Office and embarrassment to the nation in great abundance, Clinton remains the political darling of trendy contemporary American "pop" culture. To be fair, however, Clinton did have a few partially redeeming political qualities. They got him in deep trouble for a while, and this is little noted or appreciated. He was just barely able to make things right in time by a timely renewal of bombing in Iraq. Otherwise, the press probably would have made sure his impeachment stuck.