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Times are getting pretty tough in this country when people like Pridger (who considers the ACLU a major enemy in the culture war), begin to recommend supporting that august organization.

Pridger actually likes much of what the ACLU does and stands for. If it didn't devote so much of its effort and money promoting tolerance of such things as obscenity and pornography and intolerance of such things as the Ten Commandments, Pridger might send in his $25 and become a card-carrying member. But, since it does, how could a self-respecting Christian, or even a secular advocate of common decency, lend it any support?

Send the ACLU $25 dollars, and chances are at least ten of it will go to bullying people who want to display a copy of the Commandments, and another ten will go toward insuring the right to display pornography, use the "f" word in public places, and supporting gay marriage. That leaves five dollars with which to fight real injustice.

But times are tough. The Bush administration, as a war president, under cover of the War on Terror, is literally making mince meat out of our already badly shredded Constitution. And the Republican "Yes man, praise the Lord!" congress is not only letting him get away with it, but endorsing his every dictatorial initiative.

Since the voters (most of whom are eager to have security at any cost), are pretty much deluded and impotent, only outfits like the ACLU are willing and able to take a bold stand against the encroachment of federal executive tyranny.

     "Guantanamo, torture of prisoners of war, warrantless wiretapping, illegal collection of personal phone records... Had enough?
     "Americans have lived through five years of an unprecedented abuse of presidential power. If you believe as we do that in America no one is above the law, not even the President, take action.
     "Demand that Congress fulfill its obligation to provide the checks and balances that are at the very heart of our democracy. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the administration and lobbying Congress to restore constitutional limits on presidential power. And, we've won some major victories. Join us. Or, do you and to live through two more years of George Bush shredding the Constitution?"

The ACLU does have Pridger's support on these matters, but to join up and send money would be to also support such things as abortion on demand, gay marriage, and a host of other things Pridger finds repugnant or indefensible. And it would also amount to supporting their favorite pastime of negating the will of the majority with regard to morals and common decency issues, or such minor liberties as posting of the Ten Commandments or praying in schools.

But for the briefest moment, Pridger actually felt inclined to send in his $25. Things are really getting bad when that happens. If the ACLU didn't spend so much of its money playing the role of spoiler on behalf of a few Atheists, agnostics, active-Anti-Christians, alternative life-stylists, and other cranks, they might be considered one of our best hopes of restoring constitutional government.

As it is, the ACLU is only a small degree short of successfully proving that the Constitution it alleges to defend is a fraudulent document – based, as it is, on the the Declaration of Independence and its notion that our rights are God given. This is a notion that the ACLU refutes.

While many are presently focused in on illegal immigration from Mexico, we tend to forget that when it comes to generating new immigration to this country, war is second only to a porous two thousand mile common border with a Third World country.

War inevitably displaces thousands and thousands of people, and a large percentage of those people always find their way to our shores – especially when the war is "our baby." War is an engine of mass migration.

Immigrants from the Middle East in general, and Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, are bound to be arriving on a steady basis, and the process will continue to gather steam. Each political or otherwise displaced refugee arriving with his family, as in the case of Mexican immigrants, is a ticket for many times more future immigrants. That's simply one of the facts of life when it come to war.

Every war since the Civil War has changed the complexion of the nation by at least a small degree. And the process is perpetually cumulative.

Of course the advocates of continued immigration claim that it contributes positively to our multi-racial, multi-cultural diversity – something they proclaim one of our fundamental, and growing, strengths as a nation. Anybody who suggests that anything approaching homogeneity are considered hopelessly provincial, if not totally xenophobic and racist.

Meanwhile, the long recognized problem of overpopulation continues to be ignored as a rationale for limiting new immigrant to this nation. The fact that many of the nations from which immigrants are arriving already have major problems with overpopulation seems to be sufficient cause for allowing the same problem to develop here.

This nation is already overpopulated, especially the urban areas where most immigrants tent to congregate, settle, and multiply. The scary thing is that while our population continues to grow, "real" wealth production in this nation is declining and we're becoming more and more dependent on the production of others elsewhere to provide for our growing population. This is abundantly evident in our balance of payments and trade deficits.

Ironically, much of the production that we have come to depend on to sustain our  "American way of life" is coming from places that already have serious wealth distribution and overpopulation problems of their own, and contribute to our immigration problem.

Nations that cannot feed their own people are exporting food to the United States – just as starving Ethiopia continued to be a food exporting nation even as we sent them massive amounts of free grain to feed their starving people.

Scarier still, is the fact that we are already joining the club of nations that are unable to feed themselves. America, as breadbasket of the world is quickly, and all too quietly, becoming history. The value of our food imports will at some point in the not too distant future surpass the value of our food exports, and we'll begin to have serious food trade deficits in addition to balance of payments and general trade deficits.

This ought to be properly perceived as a serious national security problem. An America that cannot feed itself nor produce its own necessary consumer goods, cannot be considered a safe and secure nation, no matter how strong our military, or how big our stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction happen to be – and no matter how many billions of dollars fund our Department of Homeland Security.

The multiple trillions that we use to fund our superpower capabilities, homeland security apparatus, and stock the nation's stores with foreign merchandise, not to mention our wars and nation building elsewhere, could be put to much better use rebuilding our productive industries and reestablishing a productive and diverse agrarian population able to feed the nation.

Funding a resurgence of American production, both in factories and on our farmlands, would make much more sense than doing what we are doing today. To fund American production would be to rebuild the American middle class, and save Social Security, while insuring national security.

Today we borrow money to fund everything imaginable except a productive, prosperous, and secure America. And we end up in debt to everybody but ourselves, and dependent on everybody but American workers and American farmers.

John Q. Pridger

Sunday, 29 October, 2006

Universal suffrage is one of the wonderful things of a full blown democracy, such as the one we've finally managed to squeeze out of our representative republic. One man, one vote. Women too, of course.

When the republic was young, there were some qualifications required to possess the coveted voting franchise. First and foremost, one had to be a free, white, male, and over twenty-one. Land ownership and literacy were also criteria for some time. But that was back in the stone age.

Naturally, voting qualifications are largely a state matter. The U.S. Constitution doesn't specifically guarantee the right to vote at all. Thus it was that southern states were tardy in delivering the franchise to Black Americas when many other states allowed Blacks to vote – provided they could read the ballot.

The last major barriers to the voting franchise were removed as the result of the Civil Rights struggle almost a half a century ago. After that, irresponsible youth was enfranchised – mainly in order to make it possible for a few young radical campus activists to vote.

There were still some problems, however. So, to make sure these democratic breakthroughs had a significant impact in terms of numbers, literacy requirements were finally banned, so every numbskull in the nation is now fully enfranchised.

Fortunately, not many of us actually vote. Not the Pridger considers himself a numbskull, but he hardly feels qualified to compete with those who diligently do their homework before trooping off to the polls. Pridger's self-imposed disenfranchisement permits him to take pride in never having been responsible for electing bad politicians. But Pridger is not a "do as I do" kind of a guy. He's more of a "do not do as I do" sort. As a minority of one, Pridger is perfectly willing to let the majority rule without any of his own feet dragging. By all means, do your homework and get out and vote! If everybody was like Pridger, there would be no need for government at all. The down side is that everybody would probably have to work for a living.

Today everybody who is a citizen and at least 18 years of age, and can make it to the polls, can cast a vote in all elections. The system works remarkably well. Naturally, nobody gets to vote on anything of importance. That prerogative remains the excusive domain of the representatives that voters manage to elect. Since one representative is about as good as another under our system, it matters little who gets elected, or by what caliber of electorate.

The overwhelming majority of representatives who are elected by this system are well heeled stakeholders in the system, so everybody's material interests are served. Our elected mis-representatives are generally of higher than average intelligence and education. Most are ambitious and eager to succeed, remain in office, and increase their fortunes. Most are lawyers, which, by definition, are well trained, and often very talented, salesmen and women.

But there is still a lingering problem of racial discrimination lurking within the system that is presently coming to the fore in Florida. This, of course, is the fact that convicted felons are deprived of the voting franchise. It wouldn't be all that much of a concern, except that a disproportionate percentage of them happen to be black – thus perceptive African-Americans have perceived that felon disenfranchisement constitutes a sneaky for of racial discrimination.

So there is now a push on in Florida to correct this – and the effort is bound to spread as people begin to awaken to the injustice of denying the vote to felons.

It has been correctly pointed out that character is not a requisite of the voting franchise. If character mattered, a frightening percentage the population would be disenfranchised. It has also been correctly pointed out that had felons been able to vote in the 2000 presidential elections, Al Gore would probably have been elected president rather than George Bush.

In other words, the felon vote is pretty critical to our national well being. Chances are this will be constructively addressed at some time in the future, and our democracy will have become complete.

Oh, you can be sure there are howls of outraged protest going up over the prospect of enfranchising felons. Many are saying they don't want murderers and rapists to be able to cancel the votes of Sunday school teachers and law students. But this is clearly just thinly veiled racism. And, really, what's the difference between a felon canceling out the vote of a political Einstein, and an eighteen year-old punk anarchist doing the same thing?

Pridger feels that we might as well let ex-cons vote. After all, there are undoubtedly a few good ex-cons, including those who were framed or railroaded into prison for the crimes of others. Some are just pot smokers that happened to got caught with too much hash. Some are even our best and brightest, who just happened to be too weak to resist temptation. Even murderers and rapists can be rehabilitated, and some of them are downright brilliant.

Sex offenders are the only ones that we have to worry about. But, what the heck, if they are registered there should be no problem. There's no sexual preference tests to the voting franchise, and there are undoubtedly a lot more perverts that have never been arrested and convicted than those who have.

Democracy is a system whereby the vote of the most ignorant, retarded, mean, perverse, individual counts exactly as much as that of the wisest and most enlightened individual on the planet. If the Jesus Christ and old Satan themselves were walking the earth clothed in mortal skins, Satan would cancel out Christ's vote every time. What's more Satan would undoubtedly have many more voting friends than Christ.

If Christ were to run for office against Satan, the latter would undoubtedly draw the overwhelming majority of the vote whether or not his true identity were known. Most Christians, of course, would probably recognize Christ as an imposter and vote for Satan in hopes he might be the anti-Christ and his election facilitate the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

In the final analysis extending the voting franchise to convicted felons would probably make absolutely no material difference in the outcome of elections or in terms of national policy. And, if we ever elect a convicted felon to high office, at least he will have earned his wings before being elected rather than in office.

The Republicans have proven they are just as corrupt as Democrats and can spend the taxpayers' money even faster than Democrats – and they do it while cutting taxes and exporting good jobs. And, as for war, they've proudly commandeered the "War Party" handle.

In the classic The Art of Warfare, Sun Tzu Wu said, "All war is based on deception.". He meant deceiving the enemy, of course. But under our system, the enemy is usually not deceived. However, the people must be deceived in order to make the war possible. This is necessary in a "warfare state", such as our own, the first enemy to be overcome is the people!

As for being the party of Christian values, the Republican Party, under born again George Bush II, has done more violent damage to the nation's image, and the image of Christianity itself, than any number of hedonistic administrations. He's allied the nation with anti-Christians in wars against other non-Christians and done too many un-Christian things to count. Not the least of his transgressions has been causing the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. And, amazingly, he has brought Inquisitional methods (torture), back into "legitimacy."

This is what the nation got for electing a "family values" or "Christian values" party and administration. An electorate totally made up of convicted felons could not have elected any worse.  

In a democracy with universal franchise, the overwhelming majority of votes are cast by people without the slightest notion of what the candidates' really stand for behind their electioneering rhetoric. (Of course, we have no way of knowing whether or not a president Gore would have been sucked into a war on terror and fooled into attacking Iraq. Pridger would like to think he wouldn't, but, then again, he's a Democrat.)

These are the wonders of democracy. And that's why two hundred years has been given as the normal life-span of a democracy.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent for of government. Is can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury – with the result that democracy collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship." Alexander Tytler, some 200 years ago.

Friday, 27 October, 2006

The humiliation of it's failure to perform a final solution on Hezbollah, and its forced retreat from Lebanon, aren't the only setback Israel is facing. It seems that virulent anti-Semitism is on the rise right here in the States where the Israeli and Zionist influence continue to ride high, and it's coming from a peculiar quarter – that old, all too familiar, bugaboo, the radical left.

Pridger doesn't get around much, on the Internet or anywhere else, so it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of news tends to pass him by. But one of those strange emails that find their way to his inbox recently prompted him to visit http://www.zombietime.com.

Zombietime seems to be a clearing house for anti-war, anti-Israeli, and anti-Zionist photographs. At least it features a lot of photographs of recent anti-Israeli demonstrations. Yet, in spite of this, it also seems to be a decidedly pro-Israeli, pro-Zionist site – exposing what kind of people are protesting against our war in Iraq, our president, and our best ally Israel. And the photographs are plenty troubling. And the site features some major news media photographs of the destruction in Lebanon which had purportedly been doctored, prior to release, to make Israel look even more barbaric in Lebanon than it actually was.

Of course, Pridger isn't a great fan or supporter of Israel or Zionism, and he'd very much like to see the Palestinians get justice – not of the bloody variety, but the truly just variety. But he'd also like to see the Israelis resolve all their problems on a positive basis, too, even though that continues to seem an impossibility. In any case, Pridger has enough sympathy for the Israeli people to be outraged at the particular kind of protests, and protesters, that are depicted in the photographs on the Zombietime site.

When Berkeley, the American far left, gays, and the generalized freakish "obscenity establishment" begin demonstrating against something, one can't help but begin to have a little sympathy for the target of their particularly virulent, hateful, form of wrath. When it comes to demonstrating shear down and dirty hatefulness, the radical left puts the radical right to shame by multiple shades. 

The demonstrators aren't doing the Palestinians or Islam any favors either, even though they are apparently taking up their cause. Islam would (or should), be embarrassed and outraged to have such champions. But we live in a topsy-turvy world, and Pridger supposes they must consider any condemnation of Israel and Zionism in any form as a good development.

Traditionally, the "left" in general has been supportive of Israel, but it is becoming apparent that the left is turning on the Zionists – and at least some of the radical left has turned on them with a vengeance. To Pridger, this is a somewhat perplexing development, for the left has never had much in common with the World of Islam. We are indeed living in and increasingly befuddling, and befuddled, world.

Had it been the radical right demonstrating against Israel and Zionism, the media would have been outraged, and condemnation would have been such that it would have been headline news for weeks after each such demonstration. But, since it was the left, we didn't hear or see too much of it on our evening news. Could the establishment media still be a little biased toward the left even when it tends to become a little critical of Israel? No doubt there is confusion and a battle of priorities going on in some media boardrooms.

Wednesday, 25 October, 2006

WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THE "GOOD GUYS?"

"There is a government in Cuba that imprisons people for years without charge or trial. Unfortunately, it's ours."

That, along with a "Close Guantanamo Now! ... Shut down the Abuses... Close the Torture Chambers... End the Denial of Human Rights" appeal, was the main topic of a recent Amnesty International U.S.A., mailing appealing for contributions.

Not too many years ago we used to think of flagrant government human rights abuses as something that only happens elsewhere, at the hands of communist and other dictatorial governments. Some of us actually thought of Amnesty International as an outfit that stood for "American values" when it came to human rights and the treatment of political prisoners. Nobody would have ever believed the United States would become the focus of serious human rights concerns of the nature we are now seeing.

We, and our government, were always supposed to play the role of the good guys. That's the way the government was caste by the founders. What a difference a few years make.

It's pretty ironic that with that evil communist dictator down in Cuba possibly on his way out, the major international human rights concern on that island nation for the past few years has nothing to do with Castro's Cuba. The problem is at our own naval base in Guantanamo Bay! 

And, if Pridger isn't mistaking, we have become the only nation in the world to officially, formally, and outspokenly, advocate torture and imprisonment without charges or limits. This is quite an about face from the days when our government was always pointing its finger at others singing "Thou shalt not..." hymns.

Of course, we've never quite had a perfect criminal justice system, but we at least inherited the ideology of justice from our founders. And even when our system failed, we at least gave lip-service to high moral and ethical standards, and usually tried to make the system work. We certainly lectured the rest of the world enough on such matters.

Not long ago we refused to trade with China because of its human rights record. Now we are lucky that China trades with us in spite of ours.

A few short years ago, when organizations like Amnesty International started targeting our government and our system, the complaint was usually such things as the growing multitudes in our prisons and large ratio of minorities in them – matters perceived to be caused by institutionalized discrimination or overly harsh laws and prison sentence terms with such things as "three strikes and you're out." The allegation was never institutionalized "torture" or imprisonment for indefinite periods without charges.

Once, when people were railroaded into jail in this country (and it has been all too common an occurrence), they at least got the benefit of going through the legal hopper. Even if they got framed, they at least also got council and their day in court.

Of course, there are still probably many other places are worse than us – but we never before officially went out of our way to become a flagrant human rights abusing nation by national policy. We, in fact, were supposed to be the international champion of human rights and justice under the law – just laws.

But the arrogance of power has led us to believe we can break the rules we insist others have to play by. After all, we've been attacked, and national security is involved. 

Because a bunch of radical Islamic terrorists have stricken us, the land of the free and home of the brave now presents a totally different face to the world. All in the name of national security, of course. Our leaders never flag in their "good intentions." As our trusty leader said in the wake of 9/11, "The world has changed," and we've changed more than anything else.

The administration can now do about anything it wants to "suspected terrorists," including defining what constitutes terrorism and who is a suspect. Today's definition may change in the future. It already reaches into the realm of "thought crime" and grabbing suspects before an alleged intended crime has been committed. And this is extraordinarily dangerous territory, especially when all evidence, including the criteria used to assess it, can be classified as secret.

At what point will such things as calling for "taking our nation back" or "throwing the rascals out" going to be reclassified as a terrorist activity? We probably won't know until "patriots" and other political activists start getting nabbed and disappear into the Gulag.

Such a thing may seem a little far fetched now, but then again, so was officially sanctioned torture and secret prisons only a year or so ago.

The new powers that our trusty mis-representatives in Congress have recently given the president pave the way to unlimited potential abuse of power, and continued erosion of the "justice" in the justice system. And this new "mentality" will undoubtedly filter right down to the local levels of government as they are woven into the federal fabric and mindset of the Department of Homeland Security.

Pridger figures that all of us can ultimately all look to the very same standards of justice that our government is willing to accord the most lowly "enemy combatant" – who was, after all, fighting for a cause he believed in.

At best, our new approach to justice sets one standard of justice for "us" and another for a certain class of "them." What is this but a new variety of legalized discrimination?

Our government has already shown what it is willing to do to today's favored definition of an "enemy combatant" or "terrorist". The question is, should terrorists be considered human too? Should "human rights" apply to all humans or just to those humans that choose the "right path" as that path is defined by somebody in the White House?

Shame on the president! And shame on Congress!

Wednesday, 18 October, 2006

THE EMAIL BAG

It's obvious the smart money and sma't people are in the stock market these days. That grand national crap game is attracting a widening array of players. It appears even illiterates are getting on board. Take the following email for example:

hi Belinda i hope this is your mailbox.
I was like to see you the other day. I hope you was excited about New York.
So much so much happening all the time, lots of great opportunities. 
And speaking of opportunities, the deal I was speaking you about yesterday involves a company known as Tex-Homa (TXHE).
It's already lift up, but the big information isn't even 
out yet, so there's still time. I have got this shares already and made
2000. I recommend you to do the same today.

Hope this helps you out. I'll see you this weekend.
Yours Belinda ----

The email reproduced above is one of two identical emails that Pridger received today. There are probably a score or more that didn't make it through the spam filter and into his inbox. The emails were addressed to different email addresses and were supposedly to and from two separate people. In the one above, Belinda was supposedly writing to Belinda, to give her an stock tip. The other one was from Donny to Donny. One wonders whether they are a team – or whether Belinda meant to write to Donny and Donny meant to write to Belinda. In any case, they had exactly the same thing to say, word for word.

In all probability, the same email has been sent to thousands, if not millions, of recipients by a numerous diverse of individuals like Donny and Belinda. Obviously, the original author of the email was about as literate as the average Zambian second grader, and those who are passing it on, as their own "hot" stock tip, aren't any better equipped to communicate in the written medium than the originator.

Obviously, there had to be some reason this stock is being promoted, if only by illiterates. So Pridger checked a couple of stock exchange web sites to see how Texhoma Energy, Inc., is doing. It's apparently a real company with stock being traded on Wall Street, if not a real energy company. It's of the penny stock variety (literally), and its history and volume of trade indicated that it's not yet quite a heavy hitter, to say the least. But a small number of investors are making and loosing money on it as the company struggles for survival in hopes of being the next big investor bonanza.

Of course, Pridger is about as illiterate on the wonderful world of online stock trading as Belinda and Donny are of the English language. So, this isn't a "no buy" alert. After all, if you can get 10,000 shares of stock for a mere $100.00, and a surge of ten thousand Internet investors push the price up to two cents a share, you've doubled your money. Of course, it's then time to bail out and take your profits.

From Pridger's perspective it works like this. Here's a penny stock. (1) Buy a bunch of shares. (2) Then flood a few million email inboxes with the tip that this stock is about to take off. (3) Sell as soon as the stock takes its initial expected jump.

These email stock tips are obviously intended to appear that you received them by quite by mistake – that they were intended for a close friend the sender wanted to help out with the "hot tip."

It is then hoped that thousands who accidentally got the tip will jump in and buy. The promoters of the scam know about how long to wait before taking their profits – before the buy cycle generated by their spam campaign ends.

The new investors may be pleased to see their investment start going up sharply. Naturally, they think it wise to hand on a little longer – it may go a lot higher. But before they are able to take their profits, the stock falls to less than what they paid.

Naturally, most of them lose out. And that's what the scam is about, "making a living" by getting other peoples' money. It's an old and honored technique, but now it is no longer an activity confined to the financial elite. The scam has gone egalitarian and democratic. There's undoubtedly a whole class of computer users who say, "Everybody's doin' it."

This same thing can be done over and over with the same stock or a multitude of different stocks. And this must be the way a lot of the new pass time of on-line trading now works. And, of course, this is why a lot of us have been receiving a lot of strange stock tips from a lot of unknown well wishers.

The companies that the stock represents may be legitimate, but their stocks, and the stock exchange itself, are being used by a new breed of sham "investors." They aren't really investors as much as simply "traders" who have figured out an easy way to stack the trading deck in their favor. There are probably tens of thousands of "sharpies" people doing this. Obviously, it's become so wide-spread and easy that there are also a lot of not-so-sharp people doing it too. And it's probably considered totally legitimate.

In Pridger's opinion, the sharp people ought to be doing something a little more constructive. The not so sharp people should be out shining shoes, scrubbing floors, or picking oranges, lettuce, and tomatoes – so we wouldn't need so many illegal aliens to do those jobs. But, in this society, if money is being made, they are doing what's right.

These are our "knowledge workers" – doing what has replaced "production" and "services." Maybe it is better than dealing drugs on the street corner. And it's probably a whole lot safer.

THE AMISH -- A SAVING REMNANT

The tragic school shooting brought the Amish community to the brief attention of the TV viewing public. Few would give the Amish a whole lot of thought otherwise. To most people, the Amish are an odd, backward, fundamentalist religious sect that insists on being out of touch with the material splendors of modernity as the rest of us enjoy it. As far as most people are concerned, other than serving as a peculiar human "museum" and tourist attraction, the Amish are irrelevant.

But Pridger holds that they are anything but irrelevant. In fact, the Amish may be the most important sector of the entire population. Not only do they live their religion in a way that no other religious community does, they actually still know how to live without all the trappings that have enslaved most of us. They are truly at least a potential "saving remnant" of mankind, and we direly need about a hundred million more of them in the United States. Not a hundred million more people, of course, but a hundred million converts to the Amish life-style.

According to some, global warming threatens the continued existence of mankind on Earth. Some of the most advanced scientific minds are now working on how to avert what they are calling the inevitable catastrophic results of man's over dependence on fossil fuels. Some are even looking to even more catastrophic events, with the hope that space travel will save a remnant of humanity by facilitating the colonization of some distant planet near a hopefully not too distant star. But the global warning scenario is bad enough.

If global warming is caused by human activity, we're headed in exactly the wrong direction – and there seems to be no workable remedy. Globalism is exponentially increasing the very activities that are being blamed for global warming.

Of course, if about a third of the population lived like the Amish, global warming wouldn't be a concern at all. But we've got more immediate potentially catastrophic troubles ahead than global warming.

For example, what if the global economy crashes? What would we do if the air went out of the Wall Street bubble? If Wal-Mart collapsed, where would we get our stuff? And where would we get our food should all the supermarket shelves went bare?

There are many scenarios that could lead to catastrophic economic collapse. A major war in the Far East could trigger such an event. A war over North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, or with China over Taiwan, would do it.

Most of us would be clueless as to what to do to survive. We no longer know how, or have the ability, to feed or clothe ourselves. We can hardly imagine the hardships of living without electricity, indoor plumbing, or without movies or video games.

In the event that we are ever forced to go any distance back toward basics, the Amish could provide a wonderful example and have a lot they could teach us. They know how to live without all our materialistic wing dings, toys, and egos. They know how to feed and clothe themselves without depending on big corporations to deliver them to super stores from distant lands and shores. They know how to live rich, productive, lives without all the cake and circuses that the rest of us depend on. They won't be devastated when the lights go out.

What if the Middle East finally blew up in a big way? What if gas went to $50.00 per gallon, or if there was no fuel to drive the cars, SUVs, trucks, tractors, combines, planes, and ships that we have come to depend on?

Now is the time to start learning some lessons from the Amish. Once a mega-catastrophe brings our economic house of cards down, it will be a little too late.

The Amish may have a hard time surviving a major economic collapse and crises too. If hungry hoards of desperate people begin radiating out from the major metropolitan areas in search of food, those who have it will be hard pressed to survive the onslaught.

Any major industrialized nation with vast rich agricultural lands, such as we have, should take care to maintain policy that would insure that such lands are well populated with productive, self-reliant, family farmers who can continue to produce food even if the lights go out.  

John Q. Pridger

Sunday, 15 October, 2006

SPEAKING OF CNN NEWS...

LOU DOBBS SURVIVES!

Miraculously, and inexplicably, Lou Dobbs continues to survive and thrive as perhaps the only establishment news media personality to doggedly tell things as he sees them and ask pertinent questions. He continues to fearlessly and eloquently take on the immigration issue, free trade, globalism, and the export of American jobs, as if he has some exclusive license to be honest and outspoken on such subjects.

Pridger mentioned this peculiar phenomena a couple of years back when he first became aware of Mr. Dobb's nightly broadcast. The discovery had Pridger scratching his head a little. What's happening? he wondered. A truth-teller, who actually tells the public what's going on? Not only that, he dares the establishment policy makers to turn around and do what's right! That's almost unheard of in major media news anchors!

He was breaking the establishment media's traditional news reporting mold then, and he's still doing it today. He now appropriately characterizes what is going on as a, "War on the Middle Class," which is the title of his most recent book.

Naturally, he is routinely lambasted as a xenophobic by the left and an economic Neanderthal by the corporate right, but he nonetheless must have a sufficient following for CNN to keep him on. And, in spite of his bold "New World Order incorrect" reporting, he seems to have the respect of some powerful people, as well as ready access to some of them on his show. Hopefully, he is having an impact that will eventually start producing some sort of results, if not a general awakening as to what has been going on, and continues to go on.

If you aren't familiar with Lou Dobbs, check him out at:

http://www.loudobbs.com

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/

PROTECTING THE MIDDLE CLASS

Pridger isn't sure whether Lou Dobbs has had to gall to come straight out and called for a return to trade protectionism. Perhaps that would be a little too bold and might throw him out of the saddle. But he often calls for "fair trade."

Of course, the only way to have fair trade between a dollar a day nation and a ten dollar an hour nation is for the latter to impose corrective tariffs at the water's edge. That's what trade protectionism does. Protectionist trade policy is the only way to both protect the middle class and rekindle American production.

Protectionism is the only sure-fire means of insuring Homeland Security. After all, if we do not protect our own economic assets, including the working people, pretty soon others will be exploiting them.

Protectionism has been under a concerted attack by the powers that pull the stings of our Washington policy makers for several decades. Commercial interests – that is, the mercantile class – have been hostile to protectionism since the founding of the republic. Naturally, they have always wanted free trade. On the other hand, manufacturing interests have traditionally been in favor of trade protectionism.

Since both of these classes represent a great deal of money, both have always had strong leverage on Washington policy makers. We have always had powerful interests calling for both free trade and protectionism. But policy was always heavily weighted toward trade protectionism until New World Order times. And rightly so. After all, protectionism was clearly what enabled the nation to become an industrial giant, and domestic production was not only the key to national economic independence, but also the key to the broad-based prosperity for a growing productive middle class.

Because of wise trade policy, combined with our wonderful productive potential, labor (both farmers and industrial labor), became a new "middle class" for the first time in the history of mankind. And the rest of the working classes prospered to varying degrees on the coat-tails of the productive working classes.

Protectionism did not hurt mercantile interests, of course, it merely meant that most of their business was done in American produced or manufactured goods and merchandise. Protectionism prevented large mercantilists from being able to profit (more than they deserved), by undercutting American labor by purchasing their merchandise from low wage countries.

When the New World Order began to take shape about half a century ago, an interesting thing happened. The corporate right, which had traditionally been in favor of protectionism, joined the ideological left, which has always been hostile to big business.

The left, in its hostility to big business, started crying out against such things as "corporate welfare" and other policies that favored American businesses. It perceived that trade protectionism was a form of government subsidy for big manufacturing corporations.

Their reasoning was that if protectionism was to protect American manufacturers and corporate big boys, it had to be bad for the people. They were correct enough to make a convincing case before the court of the uninformed, but they were still dead wrong in their overall thinking. Good jobs for the people also depended on protectionist trade policy.

Libertarians weighed in, too, in their belief that all government interference in business was counterproductive, limiting freedom and liberty. They called for unfettered free trade, so the market alone would be able to determine costs and prices on an international scale. The idea was, of course, that protectionism limited freedom of choice in the marketplace, causing Americans to pay higher prices than if businesses were completely free to buy wherever production was cheapest.

Of course, it made little sense to subsidize large profitable industries, but there was some rhyme to the reasoning (i.e., it allowed government to control then to a great degree, not to mention facilitating sufficient graft and corruption to satisfy the needs of many bottomless pockets). But at least those pre-New World Order subsidies usually tended to purchased a little national loyalty – that is, to keep the plants at home employing American workers.

Now, of course, after the fallout of anti-corporate welfare and subsidies agitation has settled, we have the worst of both worlds. Our government still subsidizes some of the largest, most profitable industries – but (among other things), it has paid them to move their plants overseas to develop foreign economies and foreign markets. And it continues to subsidize industries that have become about as "American" as a Chinese "Special Economic Zone."

What the leftist ideologues failed to realize was that they were playing right into the hands of international capitalists who had a plan for a New World Order which was totally different from their own Utopian vision. Big capital interests were about to join the left in calling for an end of protectionist policies and an unlikely, and unacknowledged, alliance was formed.

So, before anybody fully realized what was going on, both the left and the right were on the same track to bring about "the" New World Order that has since unfolded to the detriment of the middle class and America's future economic viability. And "fast track" has very much been a bi-partisan road to the new international economic order.

The result has been called the "global plantation" for good reason. What was once a world commercially dominated by colonial powers employing peasants to labor on plantations, has become a world dominated by large corporations employment peasants to labor in mechanized, often high tech, factories. And, as time goes on, the American work force will wake up to the fact that it too is now counted among the global peasantry. 

The left unwittingly betrayed and undercut their own industrial proletariat in an unholy alliance with capital which was maneuvering for license to betray the American worker. Ironically, though the left always focuses on ideology, and the right on profits, they came together as the perfect team to remake America and the world.

What the intellectual left, in all its ideological intelligence, failed to see, was that trade protectionism, and many government subsidies to American industries, not only protected American business from the full brunt of foreign competition, but also protected American labor from having to compete with near slave labor in international trade.

That is, either they failed to see it or they just didn't care. The left always feels the pain of "others elsewhere" and hopes to "lift them up." To them, lifting up two billion poverty stricken people at the expense of the American middle class, was a small price for the American middle class to pay.

Of course, we must realize that the liberal left, just like the conservative right, is comprised of mutually exclusive forces. The genesis of the liberal left has two main components. That represented by the "old wealth" of the eastern liberal establishment in this country, and the forces that have grown out of the socialist and Marxist movements. These forces more or less combined on issues of social reform, welfare, and multiculturalism, etc., though they may have differed on such things as Vietnam and containment of the Soviet Union.

The conservative right has been politically dominated by big business interests. And these forces are natural enemies of true conservatives (as Pridger defines them), except in the sense that they both believed that government should butt out of their lives. True conservatives believe in limited government and getting the government off our "our" backs – the backs of the people. But the capitalists wanted government off of the back of big business – at least those willing and able to facilitate a New World Order of free trade and runaway flag production.

The right is not wholly comprised of friends of international capital, of course. And during the Reagan era, the "conservative" right became divided – essentially between individual nationalists and corporate internationalists. The corporate internationalists were those who saw the world as their potential market and an unlimited source of profit. The nationalists are those who were devoted to preserving or "conserving" what was best for this country and and the American people.

This latter sort of conservative has become a small fraction of the so-called conservative right. It is now derisively called Neanderthal... pardon me, "paleo" conservatism – guys who believe we once had a pretty successful nation and ought to have preserved it. 

The liberal left is internationalist by ideological definition. There is little or no nationalism or national loyalty to speak of there. It may pay nominal allegiance to the flag, but its political vision is essentially universal.

The New World Order left is full of ideological "do-gooders" while the New World Order right is full of corporate "do-gooders" for profit. Between the two we have an unstoppable team of do-gooders that are ruining the nation with their good deeds.

Both have joined to deliver up the New World Order George H. W. Bush said was the culmination of (to paraphrase) "the long held universal aspirations of mankind." But the reality is anything but.

Today, many conservatives remain totally confused, and really don't know where they ought to fit in. Too many have put their lot in with what have become known as neo-conservatives, which are much more internationalist and interventionist than nationalist.

Because both the establishment right and left are now internationalist, the very words "nationalism" and "protectionism" have become tainted and radicalized. They have taken on the ring of "McCarthyism" "Patriotism" too, except when a war situation arises that requires many warm bodies to rally to the cause.

"Nationalism" has been given the stigma of being "aggressive" and dangerous. But that's merely the spin of anti-nationalists – internationalists. And it turns out that internationalists are the real aggressive and dangerous interventionists.

There is such a thing as constructively conservative nationalism. Such a nationalist, in a nation as richly endowed as our own, realizes that we have everything we need to take care of ourselves and leave the rest of the world alone. This, of course, doesn't mean that we cannot be generous as a nation. But we've got to take care of ourselves, and look to our own interests (here at home – not elsewhere), before presuming to take care of others. And we don't take care of others by bombing, invading, killing, or otherwise playing the role of global Boss Hogg.

"Patriotism" would be impossible without at least a modicum of nationalistic feeling. Nationalism is a requisite for national loyalty. Yet loyalty to a concept of national economic independence – which is a fundamental ingredient of national security – is still considered anachronistic.

Trade protectionism is strictly a nationalist policy. It means protecting the national marketplace (tending the store), on behalf of the owner operators. It's purpose is to protect the nation – its economic borders, its agriculture, its industries, its mom and pop businesses, its workers, and promote national economic independence and national security.

All internationalists are for free trade, and free trade is detrimental to all of the above. It ought to be obvious by now, but not enough people see it.

Gas prices are beginning to awaken people to the fact that we really should be fuel and energy independent after all. Ironically, almost everybody now seems to agree that being hostage to foreign oil is obviously not a good idea. But the very same thing applies to almost everything else. We also need to wake up to the fact that being food dependent, clothing dependent, and consumer goods dependent, are not very good ideas either.

Free trade has not resulted in cheaper consumer goods. It's just that the costs don't show up at the Wal-Mart checkout counter. They show up in our trade and balance of payments deficits, and our skyrocketing national debt – with interest payments due from everybody on April 15th of every year.

Free trade has not resulted in more prosperity for Americans. As Lou Dobbs points out, it amounts to a war on the middle class. Millions upon millions of good jobs have disappeared over the decades of expanding free trade. Other jobs have been created to replace them, of course, but the new jobs are two or three breadwinner per family jobs, and they are not wealth creation jobs. They are service jobs – and financial service jobs that shuffle wealth but do not create it.

Today most of what passes for America's material wealth is created by others elsewhere. Money is super-abundant, but it all represents debt. The stock market, which used to represent somewhat of a bellwether of corporate wealth and health, is now super-inflated. Such measures as GDP have become meaningless.

Another thing about trade tariffs that seems to be forgotten these days is that tariffs were once the primary source for government revenue. During our long, so-called, "isolationist" and "protectionist" era, government essentially lived off of our trade with the rest of the world rather than off of the working classes. Tariffs and duties were the national government's life blood. Today the government lives on the taxation of incomes and consumption, and increasingly on credit – both of which are anathema to republican government as well as the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

Before the free trade New World Order era, this nation always carried on a robust trade with the rest of the world. That trade not only supported the government, but it also turned a large profit to the American economy. Today, under free trade, our trade costs us dearly. In spite of its unprecedented volume, it not only dose not support the government, it turns an ever-increasing deficit rather than profit.

And, we've become more dependent on nations like China than we ever were to the mother country or Europe during our colonial era and the early years of the republic. In this post 9/11 period, when "Homeland Security" has become a major concern, you'd thing that someone would wake up and realize that there can be no national security without national economic independence.

John Q. Pridger

Wednesday, 11 October, 2006

THE LEGACY OF COLONIALISM
"AFRICA'S TRAGEDY, OUR SHAME"

We hear a lot about the negative legacies of colonialism these days, but very little about the positive legacies. But one would be hard pressed to imagine what the world would be like today had colonialism never existed. Take the late British Empire for example. One wonders what language we'd be speaking had it never existed.

We can be fairly certain that we would not have come to known the material advantages of modernity as we know them now. Had the feudal states of Europe been somehow confined to their own borders, what would they be like today? Perhaps they would still be feudal.

Would Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, South Asia, the Western hemisphere, and Oceania be as they were before European discovery, conquest, and centuries of colonial "exploitation"? Would Western Europe have progressed into the nuclear and computer era as the world has now?

One thing we know for certain is that neither the United States nor any New World nation would exist as they do today. North and South America would still be vast arenas of scattered tribes and even more scattered semi-advanced civilizations or empires. Africa likewise.

The subject is interesting, but Pridger won't speculate on it here. But let's look at the legacy of empire in Africa – more specifically sub-Sahara Africa.

Of course, the European colonial powers were not the first to colonize sub-Sahara Africa. Arab states had established trading centers and trade, including the slave trade, long before the first Western European nations established their first beach-heads.

But when the Europeans finally came, they came in a much bigger way, and eventually conquered and parceled out the entire continent – including the North African Arab states – many of which had much older, and well advanced civilizations of their own.

CNN's Anderson Cooper's 360 news program is doing an extensive series on "The Killing Fields of Africa," adding the subtitle "Africa's Tragedy, Our Shame." It showcases Africa as administered by Africans. The killing fields right now are in southern Sudan and the Congo. But that's just the present killing fields. Many nations in Africa have been through the killing fields or remain killing fields. And almost every nation in Africa is either an economic basket case or worse.

Yet, Africa is an extraordinarily rich continent south of the Sahara. South Africa remains the single economic crown jewel of the continent, though its fortunes have been in precipitous decline since "enlightened" majority rule has been instituted.

Of course, almost all of Africa's problems are assigned to the "legacy of colonialism." That's the only politically correct explanation for the many problems Africans are now experiencing.

From Pridger's perspective, however, the closest Africa ever came to a golden age was during the colonial period. It was during the era of colonial domination that progress, and anything like European style civilization, first visited the African continent.

True, colonialism was not nearly as much about uplifting the natives as it was about exploiting them and their lands. But there were many positive results. Intertribal warfare was largely brought under control, and such practices as cannibalism and human sacrifice were almost completely stamped out. The land became productive, even if most of the production was for the benefit of the colonial mother country.

The period of colonial conquest and often harsh colonial administration, though often bloody, never produced anything like the fratricidal blood baths that now plague the continent on a steady basis.

When African nations gained their independence, they had at least a few modern cities and pretty good commercial, transportation, and agricultural infrastructures. And most were able to amply feed themselves, if only through traditional tribal herding, subsistence farming, or even hunting and gathering. And most of them had productive economies and commercial trade, though mostly of an exploitive nature.

True enough, they were not ready for independence when independence finally came, and this can be blamed at least partly on the colonial powers.

But now, half a century of independence later, they are still not ready for independence and self government. Even those who have managed to refrain from various forms of murderous self-destruction, have deteriorated to shams of independence. Almost nowhere have African nations "prospered" commensurate with the wealth of their natural environment.

And what independence most Africans once possessed at the result of their own tribal cultures and traditions (a great deal of which was carefully protected and preserved under the colonial administrations), have just about been destroyed by their own inept and bloody governments.

Liberia, the oldest independent nation in sub-Sahara Africa (which was ruled by Blacks from its inception), has gone from tyranny to slaughter to revolution and more tyranny and slaughter. In it's almost two hundred years of history, it has never successfully learned to be a self-ruling nation.

Rhodesia and South Africa were once the crown jewels of the continent, because they remained white ruled after the colonial powers bowed out. They were the only successful independent nations in Black Africa to enjoy anything close to true nationhood and and economic prosperity. That, of course, has changed. Rhodesia was the first to fall, and is now a total basket case, and South Africa, now under majority rule, is in precipitous decline.

As the saying goes, tourists once went to Rhodesia to see the ancient ruins of Zimbabwe. Now, if they go to Zimbabwe, they are confronted with the tattered ruins of the once prosperous Rhodesia.

South Africa survives on the social and economic capital that white South Africans had built – this, only because there remains a sizable white minority that has not yet been totally disenfranchised, along with many large and profitable corporations. The white Afrikaans have been in South Africa long enough, are numerous enough, and so well entrenched that they are acknowledged (begrudgingly, enough), as a bona-fide "African" tribe in their own right. And its survival is the only reason the nation has continued to function as well as it has, in spite of majority rule. But it is working less and less well.

Almost everywhere one goes in Africa, the ruins of the colonial era are evident. Pridger was in Mombasa and Nairobi, Kenya in the early 1960's when independence was just getting started. And he's been back several times since, to several of the major port cities of various nations. Invariably, it is evident that progress stopped when the colonial powers departed, and decay (and often much worse), has ran rampant ever since.

In almost every case, almost all new modern construction (if there is any) is confined to lavish government buildings and housing or tourist facilities. Some have grandiose construction projects going on – almost all compliments of foreign aid, foreign credit, and foreign contractors.

Many other (in fact, most), undeveloped nations have also experienced long periods of colonial rule under the various European colonial powers, but nowhere has independence and self-determination proven as unremittingly disastrous as in Africa.

The main reason is that they had civilizations of their own long before being invaded by the colonial powers.

Now, we in the West (the former colonial powers, plus the United States), are supposed to do something about Africa's plight – what Anderson Cooper calls, "Africa's Tragedy and our Shame." But what can really be done? And why not put at least some of the shame on Africans themselves?

There's no solution to this tragedy and shame short of literally reestablishing colonial rule – the legacy of which, of course, under politically correct thinking, is supposedly a great part of reason the present tragedy is "our" shame in the first place.

Many African nations have become totally unmanageable – and the natives are now armed with AK-47s and other modern weaponry rather than spears and bows and arrows – with government armed forces being just as deadly and dangerous as rebellious armies and bands of renegades. All that can be done is to send in UN peace keepers, food, medicine, and more and more money. But none of this has been effective in the past. And, of course, real solutions are so politically incorrect that they can't even get near the table.

Today, most African nations are in dire need of another bout of British, French, Dutch, and German re-colonialization and paternal administration. But that isn't about to happen. Since "colonialism" remains the scapegoat for all the ills now visiting the continent, the very word is loaded with riot, rebellion, and resistance. To broach such an idea would be so extraordinarily politically incorrect that liberals everywhere would be outraged, and riots and more genocide would probably result all over Africa (if not in Western cities).

Of course, no sensible former colonial power wants to go back into Africa. They've been there, done that – and no matter how successful they were in Africa during their colonial experience, they've now washed their hands of it. Each and every nation in need of salvation would have to be re-conquered through bloody warfare. And now that we know that Africans are the intellectual equals of white men (if not their intellectual and cultural superiors), ruling in Africa would become many times more difficult than it was before this enlightenment befell us.

John Q. Pridger

Monday, 9 October, 2006

NORTH KOREA AS A NUCLEAR POWER

Well, as everybody expected, North Korea is a nuclear power, and proved it yesterday with an underground test.

In spite of all the fatherly rhetoric from the Bush administration, warning North Korea not to do this or not to do that, it almost seems as if the Bush Administration has wanted North Korea to go ahead with its nuclear program. By refusing the negotiate or talk to North Korea directly, and give guarantees that we would not strike or invade, it had both the excuse and provocation it needed (if not actually intended prompting), to move ahead as it said it would in such case.

Bush wouldn't talk to North Korea because it's one of the infamous Axis of Evil – a rogue state. Little doubt that Iran will become a nuclear power too. Meanwhile, we're totally bogged down in Iraq, where we've eradicated Saddam Hussein's totally non-existent nuclear arms program.

The administration insisted on resolving the problem through the Six Party Talks. But only one of those six parties was actually threatening preemptive military action against North Korea. And it was this threat that influenced North Korea more than any amount of talk the other five parties might engage in.

By developing nuclear weapons, North Korea now has not only upped the stakes, but gained an invaluable bargaining chip.

Nobody should be surprised that North Korea and Iran feel they are as deserving of nuclear weapons as Israel, India, and Pakistan. Israel became a nuclear power without so much as a peep of protest from the United States. It was done on the sly, undoubtedly with our full knowledge, if not approval.

Israel's nuclear program goes way back to the 1960 era. Actually president Kennedy apparently did protest in the beginning, but not for very long. Kennedy somehow managed to get somebody's ire up and was soon assassinated. Once Kennedy was out of the picture, Israel seems to have experienced no further impediments to its nuclear program, and its secret activities proceeded without any protest or acknowledgement from Uncle Sam.

India and Pakistan developed their nuclear capability on the sly too. They figured they needed nuclear weapons because they are always on the brink of war with one another, and each knew that the other was developing nuclear capabilities. We protested rather meekly within the nuclear non-proliferation framework. When it became a done deal, however, we accepted it – after all, it was a done deal. What could we do?

Our administration is now trying the be "firm" with North Korea and Iran on the nuclear issue. We keep saying to them, "Thou shalt not develop or possess nuclear weapons. Period!" Now that it's a "done deal" in North Korea, we'll have to wait and see what develops from a "done deal" that "is unacceptable" and "won't be allowed."

It should be interesting. If it's already a "done deal," what can we do? We can wring our hands and talk about it – and make a lot of threats. But are we willing to start a nuclear war over it? That would seem somewhat counterproductive. After all, the whole point is suppose to be to prevent nuclear war.

Ironically, unlike Israel, India, and Pakistan, Iran and North Korea are not developing their nuclear capabilities on the sly. They've been doing it right out in the open, above board. This may prove to be the single most unforgivable sin of all. Israel, Pakistan, and India carefully hide their nuclear programs from the world, and Uncle Sam and the American press (who undoubtedly must have known), were careful not to make an issue of them.

Obviously, the world is becoming a much more dangerous place. Not only because states like Israel, India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea are now nuclear powers, but because we say that Iran and North Korea "cannot be allowed to be nuclear powers no matter what", and that we intend to "do something" about it (even if it is wrong), if they insist on being nuclear powers.

Fortunately, the first words out of President Bush's mouth in response to North Korea's nuclear test could not quite be construed as war ultimatum. (Thank goodness we're bogged down building democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan!) He's putting the monkey on the back of the United Nations instead, bouncing the ball back into the court of the Six Powers talkers. Of course, the United Nations is about as effective at dealing with such things as the Sierra Club would be if Bush had appointed it to the task.

North Korea has a much stronger position than anyone in the administration is likely to admit. Being occupied militarily elsewhere is a relatively minor problem. We're severely hamstrung by our own suicidal, and long on-going, economic and trade policies.

Because of this, war on the Korean peninsula is almost unthinkable. We've got far too many of our economic eggs in the East Asian basket. Such a war would undoubtedly close down much of our trade in the region – something the American economy could not tolerate. Wal-Mart and Wall Street might collapse.

SPEAKING OF ROGUE STATES...

There is a growing international consensus that the United States of America has itself become the mother of all rogue states – and a contender for global empire.

Combining our New World Order and more recent preemptive war policy, it's easy to see why many would see things that way. But let's pretend that the United States is the world's most enlightened nation and rightly the superpower global policeman and duly elected supervisor of the world.

How is it that North Korea became a rogue state in the first place? What was the Korean War all about? And what was World War Two supposed to have been all about?

Well, we're all familiar with the fact that World War Two was about defending democracy, national self-determination, and (or course), that it was the second world war to "end all wars."

We also know that we won the Second World War. But what did we win? It took a while for all the dust to settle, but in the end the United States won absolutely nothing – except for the glory of being victorious. It won great victories over Fascism, Nazism, and Japanese imperialism, of course, but that's about all. Our post-war prosperity is often considered our reward for fighting the forces of evil, but though our prosperity continues, it is now largely through the good offices of foreign creditors. We squandered all of the economic capital we gained from the war, and have gone from a largely economically independent nation to a nation that is precariously dependent upon the economic house of cards we have aggressively created.

Except in the manufactured war propaganda, however, neither Fascist Italy nor Nazi Germany were a clear and present dangers to the United States of America. Nor was Imperial Japan until FDR provoked it sufficiently by giving it ultimatums concerning its imperial activities in Asia.

More than anything else, if we were fighting for anything at all, it was to save the British Empire – or perhaps a vision of an Anglo-American empire. A read of Carol Quigley's The Anglo-American Establishment, and Tragedy and Hope might help clarify what we were actually fighting for.

Yet, we seem not to have been fighting for that either. We started doing a lot of talking about freedom, independence, and self-determination – and a lot of countries under the colonial yoke began to imagine themselves fighting for future national independence.

With our help, Great Britain lost its empire as the result of the war. So Great Britain clearly did not win anything – it lost the largest colonial empire in the history of mankind. Of the Big Three allies, only the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics gained – and it gained big time. It's empire and military power were vastly extended. Halve of Europe came under the Soviet yoke. We propelled the Soviet Union into superpower status. Soon we lost China to communism, too, along with North Korea and North Vietnam.

In effect, we literally lost half of the world in World War Two – and gained only the glory of victory against our enemies (all of whom had been friends before the war and would be friends again after the war). And we gained a much bigger, more threatening, enemy than we'd ever had before. An "Iron Curtain" came down between east and west, and a Cold War ensued and continued for half a century.

We battled communism around the world in both covert and hot wars. We fought to a stalemate in Korea, and we fought until we finally gave up in Vietnam. We lost Cuba to communism, and Latin America became a low-grade battleground as peasants saw more promise in communism than in peonage to American corporate imperialism.

The Korean War stalemate continued even as the USSR crumbled and communist China and Vietnam went commercial – and continues to this day. North Korea remained immune to the changes that have since taken place in the former USSR, China, and Vietnam. It has remained recalcitrant in the face of the political changes around it – true to its totally bankrupt communist ideology as an economic basket case.

Continuously threatened on its southern border by the South Korean and American armies that remain poised there, North Korea's only national preoccupation has been to build and maintain one of the region's largest and strongest military establishments. Even its nuclear program is strictly defensive in nature, for it is definitely a threatened nation – with all of the most dire threats coming from the United States on the other side of the world.

Isolated in a changed world, North Korea is a garrison state determined to survive on its own terms – both a Cold War hold-out and a moldering fruit, and one of the many lingering unintended consequences of our World War Two victories.

John Q. Pridger  

Thurday, 5 October, 2006

TRAGEDY IN PENNSYLVANIA SCANDAL IN THE HOUSE 

The recent murderous attack on the Amish schoolhouse was so tragic and senseless that it defies explanation. What a needless, wanton, tragedy!

What kind of a man would do such a thing? Why didn't this suicidal maniac go after Al Qaeda or Wal-Mart? Why innocent Amish girls?

Such things are becoming entirely too common in our society – and there are plenty reasons for this. For one thing, the media tends to focus the nation's entire attention on such events for entirely too long, and "Whatever the major media dwells on, tends to increase," (as media executives are well aware). 

Another is that many American males, through decades of debased entertainment and declining morals, have gained a Terminator mentality, and go through life as frustrated Terminators. Too timid to go after the crooks, they play out their fantasy on little girls.

It will also be interesting to learn what kind of psychotic drugs the perpetrator was taking to alleviate whatever "conditions" he may have been suffering from. Chances are, he had been dutifully taking something.

ON TO THE CONGRESSIONAL STORM

What kind of a man would manage to get himself in the position of congressman Mark Foley? His actions were just as senseless and inexplicable as the Amish school attacker. In him we apparently have a frustrated closet homosexual with a passion for young male congressional pages.

Could Foley have actually imagined that there is any "privacy" left in this nation – especially on telephones and electronic mail – that his "private" emails were ultimately nothing less than broadcasts to the world? Could a congressman be that "innocent" minded?

Though not tragic in terms of innocent lives lost and families bereaved, it is tragic in the sense that it reflects what seems to be a new reality in this nation. We've got some real stinkers representing us in Congress – and most of them fly false colors (in addition to perjuring themselves at their Oath taking ceremony).

One wonders what kind of drugs Foley might be on. Naturally, the media (always much more sympathetic to liberal Democrats), is having a field day. The fallout is spreading like ripples on a pond, threatening to destroy the Republicans' chances to retain control of Congress during the up-coming elections. And, so far, it seems Foley's "crimes" were not even of an illegal variety. He's guilty of perfectly legal indecencies.

The Supreme Court has gone out of it's way to make sure that such indecencies, vulgarity, profanity, and pornography are deemed constitutionally protected freedom of expression. If the Congressman didn't rape somebody or get too intimate with an under-age boy, he's merely an pristine example of contemporary Americana.

Yet the Republican party is in danger of losing a significant slice of the "moral majority" vote over Foley's exercise of his constitutional rights. But what alternative does the moral majority have? Democrats?

To give Congressman Foley a little slack, however, there is the possibility of a converse irony. Maybe Congressman Foley was a brilliant man and a fine representative? What if he was the perfect man for the job, but for the singular weakness that brought him down? What if all the hoopla has brought down a great man over a small, harmless, character flaw? The media is great at making mountains out of mole hills, and keeping good men out of public office.

Of course, Foley is in good company. What kind of a man could manage to philander his way from the Arkansas state house to Washington where the "bimbos" (attackers and victims alike), finally caught up with him? This man, of course, was a Democrat. A hands-on affair with a White House intern, which the media finally managed to publicize in all its lurid detail, caused the nation considerable embarrassment. Allegations of an earlier rape (not to mention numerous sundry extramarital affairs, which were known before his nomination), hardly phased anybody at all.

The media's persecution of Clinton was strangely transient. Once he got to bombing Iraq, all his problems went away.

By the same token, what kind of a man would wantonly lie to the American public in order to get the nation into an aggressive preemptive war with a non-belligerent, non-threatening, nation half way around the world?

What kind of a man would attack the writ of habeas corpus, considered "the great guaranty of personal liberty"? What kind of a man would attempt to outguess all prospective enemies (individuals as well as nations), and propose "bringing them to justice" through unjust means?

Obviously, in this day and time, it would be one who was able to find his way to apex of political power – the presidency of the United States of America!

Democrat, Republican – what a choice we have in November! If Pridger were to go to the polls, his only choice would be to vote against all Democrats and Republicans by voting for third party candidates. There's another advantage to voting third party. You can be 100% certain that the candidate you vote for won't win. But it's easier not to vote a all.

TO VOTE OR NOT TO VOTE. THAT IS THE QUESTION...

Why not stay home on election day? Our beloved elections, like democracy itself, are a farce. Ask President Clinton's acknowledged mentor, Professor Carroll Quigley (Georgetown University professor, and author of Tragedy and Hope and the Anglo-American Establishment). He'd probably tell you (as Charles Walters, of Acres U.S.A. has recently written), that politics is the "art of people control," and that people should be allowed to vote as long as it means little or nothing. "Let them vote as long as we (the sub-rosa government), choose the candidates." "If they vote, they gain self esteem, become docile, and accept the rhetoric of self-sacrifice as a matter of patriotism, regardless of the absurdities... Divide them equally under labels that mean nothing because they are the same. Give them the illusion that they are participating in the decision that affect their destinies." (Acres U.S.A. "Newsletter" column, October 2006 issue).

And directly quoting Quigley from Tragedy and Hope on the modern development of the two party system and what they ought to be in Quigley's eyes (and what they have, in fact, become):

"The national parties and their presidential candidates, with the Eastern establishment assiduously fostering the process behind the scenes, moved closer together and nearly met in the center with almost identical candidates and platforms. Both relied on meaningless war cries and slogans, often going back to the Civil War. The argument that the two parties should represent opponents' ideals and policies, one perhaps to the right, one to the left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaires and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical."

Walters continues: "A change of faces soothes the voters. The winner in each contest will realize the same goals. There you have the difference between Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43... Bush 41 embraced the going 'one world' mantra of Wendell Wilkie, Clinton waged preemptive war as an engine of credit, and Bush 43 hankered after the plaudits that go with being a 'War President'."

Professor Quigley's works carry a considerable amount of weight. He's not a conspiracy buff by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he occupies an honored seat among the grand conspirators themselves. Naturally, he doesn't characterize them as conspirators, but rather the benefactors of mankind. And as a historian for the Council on Foreign Relations, he knew pretty much what was going on.

The Council for Foreign Relations was not very happy with Tragedy and Hope, and tried to suppress its publication. Quigley persevered and published it anyway, because he wanted the facts to be known to history. The New World Order, in any case, had already been crowned with success, and he was perhaps the most qualified to chronicle its evolution.

In Tragedy and Hope, Quigley apparently did for scholars and academics what Eustace Mullins did for the unwashed masses in The World Order, Our Secret Rulers. Of course, there is a great treasure trove of conspiracy theory literature available to us besides Mullin's work. But these are all the work of fellow outsiders. Academia and book reviewers routinely ridicule, discredit, and condemn them as the works of "paranoid conspiracy theorists." But Quigley, an insider's insider with impeccable credentials, confirms perhaps the lion's of the serious conspiracy theory literature.

WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE PESKY ENEMY COMBATANTS?

It should be remembered that this nation won its freedom through the good offices of "illegal combatants." To our English rulers, the American revolutionaries were "enemy combatants" – and the revolutionary ranks were full of what would today be called "terrorists" – warring against duly constituted authority.

We can thank our mis-representatives in Washington (both Republican and Democrat) for the on-going loss of the constitutional guarantees of freedom. For the liberty and freedom we once knew, we can thank an illegal combatant.

So, for those enemy combatants who are fighting for their own cause rather than ours or Israel's, Guantanamo seems to be the only logical answer.

John Q. Pridger

Sunday, 1 October, 2006

TORTURE BACK IN VOGUE
THE LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE BRAVE

Torture is coming back into vogue. And the irony is that it is coming back under the administration of a self-professed, "born again Christian," president. Christians, of course, are supposed to be kind and compassionate, forgiving, generous and tolerant. But we are gaining a breed of Christians in this country who are going back to the Middle Ages, when the Church itself was not yet civilized when it came to treatment of what it considered heretics.

"The Church" went a long way toward perfecting various hideous means of torture back in the Middle ages when it decreed (contrary to any bona fide Christian teachings), that faith was not a matter of choice. But this is the twenty-first century. The Church reformed centuries ago, thanks, in part, to what has come down to us as the "Enlightenment."

The United States became the most enlightened descendant of the Enlightenment. Both the historical abuses of The Church, and churches in general, as well as that of Old World Monarchies, was to become a thing of the past – at least in the new nation born in the New World in 1776.

Our Constitution's Bill of Rights (adopted in 1790), set our national standards of conduct down pretty clearly, as outlined below. These constitute the Peoples' Ten Commandments to their government, limiting its potential for abuse: 

1. Freedom of religion; freedom of speech; freedom of the press;

2. The right to keep and bear arms...

3. No quartering of soldiers in homes without consent of the owner...

4. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects; against unreasonable searches and seizures...

5. ...Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law....

6. In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed... and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

7. The right of trail by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

8. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

9. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

10. Powers not delegated by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.   

Contrary to the opinions of many of our present leaders, the "rights" guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to the American people, are applicable to all fellow human beings – at least those who might find themselves in our midst or within or civil or military control.

Of course, things are different in wartime, but the United States has always maintained that prisoners of war should be treated with respect. We – certainly wanted, and expected, our boys to be treated humanely when captured and held as prisoners of war by the enemy. The Geneva Convention, which we helped formulate, demanded humane treatment of prisoners of war, and reciprocity was the standard and goal. And reciprocity is the essence of the Golden Rule.

It has finally come to the public attention that our CIA, with the approval of the presidential administration, has been routinely involved in torturing prisoners. The administration now admits it, and is trying to justify it on the grounds of "national security."

These prisoners not only have not been convicted of a crime, but not even charged with a crime. They get no counsel and no speedy trial. More often than not they are merely suspected of knowing about a plan to commit a future crime. Often they turn out to be totally innocent.

But our leaders claim they are still guilty. At the very least, all of them are guilty of thought crimes against the United States and the American people. And this has become grounds for "enemy combatant" status, torture, and indefinite incarceration without a trail.

Torture, by definition, is cruel and unusual punishment. And it is cruel and unusual even if no permanent injuries or great bodily pain is inflicted. The best way to determine what torture is, is to imagine yourself the one undergoing the treatment. Or imagine your son or daughter as captives of an enemy power. What kind of treatment would you want for them?

The administration has a valid point, of course. "Torture works." Almost everybody will talk to avoid great pain or feared death. The guilty, as well as the innocent, are likely to confess to just about anything, or tell everything expected of them to make the torture stop. In the process, the guilty are likely to reveal themselves. As for the innocent – well, too bad, sorry about that.

If one terrorist act can be thwarted, the reasoning goes, the policy of torturing prisoners has been vindicated.

Our leaders are now saying that the end of torture justifies both the means and any possible mistakes made in the process. "Our" national security is at stake, and nothing else matters. But others should never do these things, of course – at least not to our people.

"The end justifies the means," was always the great justification of Nazi and Communist depredations and wanton excesses. We once soundly condemned them, but now we are emulating them. Among people who respect human rights, however (and this includes all "truly Christian" people), torturing anybody is unacceptable, and the idea of torturing possibly innocent people is totally repugnant.

The American people should rise up en mass and express their outrage that such things are being perpetrated in their once good name.

Who and what are these terrible enemies of ours that have made the American leadership morph into cruel tyrants in the name of national security? What are these so-called "enemy combatants" who have managed to change the face of what was once billed as the world's preeminent champion of human rights and justice under the law? How did we become known as the "Great Satan"? Even our friendly neighbor, Hugo Chavez, has gone to calling the president of the United States the "Devil" before the forum of the United Nations. Why would he venture to say such an undiplomatic thing? 

For better or worse, those menacing Islamic enemies who would attack us are people fighting for something they believe in – for what they consider a just cause. It's as simple as that. If the truth be known (and in all kindness), our president is probably no more of a devil than Osama bin Laden.

Of course, we tend to be on our president's side. He may be a devil, but at least he's our devil.

The truth of the matter is, we had been meddling in the affairs of Arab nations, and backing Israel right or wrong – building hate capital in the Arab world – decades before any Arab thought to cross the ocean and attacked us.

"What is it that makes them hate us so?" we've wondered since 9/11. It isn't because they envy and hate our way of live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as George Bush has told us. George Bush will tell us whatever is necessary in order to complete his assigned tasks. That's his job – at least as he sees it.

It's because we've gone out of our way for a long time to earn the enmity of the Arab and Islamic Middle East while pretending to be the champions of peace and justice in the world. We're busily earning more as we seek to bring the 9/11 culprits to "justice" and impose democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. We earned gobs more of it by backing Israel's bloody and ruthless recent incursion into Lebanon.

"Blowback" is a term for it – a term, Pridger understands, often used by the CIA to describe the consequences of often long on-going policy – usually policies that the public was never made aware of. Another way of putting it is that sooner or later the chickens come home to roost.

John Q. Pridger