Happy Martin Luther King Day

There was a trial that found there was a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King, and it took over 30 years to get that far.

After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In a press statement held the following day in Atlanta, Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying , “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief.

It is an interesting case with lots of interesting findings.  Such as the fact there were two active duty military units observing the assassination, an intel unit apparently filing it and a sniper team.

How come they were there? Neither liberals nor conservators when in power have ever inquired into this.  Well, because they want a fake MLKing to honor, not the real one.

The real one said the USA was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.  A year to the day that he said that, he was dead.  An open court found it was a high level conspiracy.

I've blogged on this before...

http://hbhblog.blogspot.com/search?q=martin+luther+king

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

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Ota Benga and Martin Luther King

Slavery is America's original sin, and it is kept alive by people who gravitate to political power to exercise racist eugenics.  There is a pretty horrifying story of a African pygmy exhibited in a New York Zoo with apes and labelled the missing link by racist eugenicists, in the early 1900s.  How could people be so cruel, back then?


Last week the head of the ailing New York schools suggested "Sophie's Choice" like decisions, and birth control be used to solve economic problems.  Margaret Sanger launched the birth control movement in USA expressly to advance racist eugenics, so when people call birth control a solution, it is clear code for who is the problem.


We have an industry processing black males into prison. We flood the ghetto with joblessness, crack and welfare checks,  make crack offenses nine times longer than cocaine, plus 3 strikes you are out. White lawyers and professionals who use cocaine get treatment and diversion... blacks using crack get hard sentences, and recidivism means a life term.  Welcome to America.


Washington Post quotes liberal "Sociologist James Q. Wilson, who in the 1980s helped develop the "broken windows" theory that smaller crimes must be punished to deter more serious ones, agreed that sentences for some drug crimes were too long. However, Wilson disagreed that the rise in the U.S. prison population should be considered a cause for alarm: "The fact that we have a large prison population by itself is not a central problem because it has contributed to the extraordinary increase in public safety we have had in this country.""


But, but, but... crimes statistics are rife with inaccuracy, misrepresentation and falsification, since they are reported by political entities.  Crime rate has not gone down, the rates have been lowered by those who report crimes.  And since most people in prison are there for nonviolent drug offenses, how can Wilson claim and extraordinary increase in public safety, when there was never a threat to begin with?


According to the New York Times, "By their mid-30's, 30 percent of black men with ... a high school education have served time in prison, and 60 percent of dropouts have..."  The people who would put Ota Benga behind bars are still active in government today, in particular the criminal justice system. Government is big enough to be a great platform to operate if you want to effect racism and eugenics.  


The Jim Crow laws in the south were laws, not business practices.  It was government that required racist policies, not business.  Government laws were overcome by civil rights legislation.  Businesses were more than happy to finally be allowed to take black folk greenbacks.  And after casting out one demon, seven came back and took its place.


LewRockwell has a review of a civil case in which the court found that several citizens and various government agents conspired to murder Martin Luther King.  Analyzing the findings in the court case, the author says King was murdered for his plans for wealth redistribution in USA and his antiwar stance.


Ahem.  Nobody gets murdered for advocating wealth redistribution.  Such a plan can be defeated politically.   But certainly being nonviolent, antiwar can get you killed, because it is an idea that the powers that be cannot deal with via the political process.  But I am more interested in what King had to say, or what we did not get to hear, about his economic plans.


In a free market it is not possible to amass exceptional wealth, nor to aggregate the excess necessary to mount assassination operations and the necessary cover-up.  In a free market wealth is experienced as access to a far wider range of goods and services than a managed economy affords.  In a free market it is division of labor, not love of money, that obtains the widest spread of ever widening selection of goods and services.


Free markets do not perfect humans, it merely gives them freedom to act as they would free from coercion and free to pursue the good, the true, the beautiful.  People commonly behaved in nazi germany in ways they would never do in Hong Kong today.  The system matters, some system are superior for people than others.


I think King should not have argued equal rights for blacks.  He should have argued for equal rights.  Equal rights for blacks can be ignored, and the proposition plays into the original sin of USA that blacks are a unique case.  They are not.  The problem was not one of lack of rights for blacks, but lack of rights. Only now, as whites experience what blacks always have (at airports, lack of opportunity, etc) are whites objecting to the system.  

An excellent recounting of the civil rights movement is the controversial book by Rev. Ralph Abernathy, the brains and courage behind King's charisma and eloquence. Read the book and you see quickly why it is controversial, but enlightening.  Jesse Jackson has some explaining to do.

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Martin Luther King On USA

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said:

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be -- are -- are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

A commenter said:

He should be tried for war crimes. I served twice in Iraq and never did anybody commit acts like this. Even when we lost 2 soldiers, one a good friend, did we lose our cool and kill innocent civilians during our convoys. He violated his ROE and noncombatants were killed on purpose. He deserves prison.

gijanearmy 2 weeks ago 

But she misses the point.  If Iraqis resisted the criminal invasion of their country, and gijanearmy coould not deal with it, they would bring in harder people who could and would.  Think Fallujah.  And Jane, perhaps you were not asked to do this work.  Thank God.

It does not matter if the vast majority of soldiers and cops are decent.  The vast majority in Nazi Germany were decent.  When they are backed by the indecent, then it does not matter.

Dr. King also said, in the speech above,

and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.

He was dead exactly one year later.  Nothing has changed because the aftermath was violence, and the powers that be bought off the leaders.  The war went another eight years.  Many young people entered government to improve it.  And it just got worse.  You cannot fix a polity that defines itself as the entity with a monopoly on violence.

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Abernathy On King

Twenty years ago Rev. Ralph David Abernathy published an autobiography called AND THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN. Abernathy was the heart and conscience of the civil rights movement as Dr King was its undisputed charismatic leader. It was widely panned by the powers that be, so I decided someday I must read it.

Now that you can get anything on the internet, I finally came by a copy. It was worth the wait. Anyone interested in freedom and the struggle thereto will very much enjoy this book.

Abernathy tells the story from one who was there as the movement got going. And Abernathy and King are so young when the story starts Abernathy has tales of them competing for the same gals to marry.

Abernathy describes a South few people recall or understand. It was brutal, but the Abernathy family had carved out a separate peace and thrived. The description of their life, and the South, and how they coped is a case study in “secession in place.”

How Abernathy and King met, their struggles and disappointments, the arc of the movement and its dissolution in the Resurrection City demonstration in the USCapitol is told city by city, campaign by campaign.

The dissension among black leaders and groups, the degree to which their movement had been infiltrated to subvert it, and the self-inflicted scandals are all there, the stuff of any movement.

One aspect is the sheer joy of their work, and Abernathy explains they had to protect MLK’s image: he had a keen sense of humor and was a deadly mimic, keeping the crew in stitches between confrontations. They appreciated the raw grandstanding of racist politicians, such as when one governor gave white women the day off so they could stay home when blacks marched (the implication being “uppity blacks” would assault white women if the were in a mob. The on the edge humor lasted until Rev. King’s funeral: Abernathy reveals the donkey-led rickety cart used to carry this poor boy to his grave had actually been stolen! They thought it would be easy to find one, but when it proved to be a challenge, well...

Few people realize that the Jim Crow laws which oppressed blacks in the South until the 1960’s were just that: laws. the powers that be passed the laws. The busses and businesses could care less about whether or not blacks ate in their restaurants or what seat they took on the bus. It was the government and politicians, using power aggregated by a political system, to put blacks in such a place.

Abernathy does not have much use for the Kennedy's, but he sure likes LB., who passed the voting rights act and other legislation the SCLC desired. Although Abernathy expressly states their success came from pressuring private business, he seems for most of the book to not realize that his success came through private channels, not the government channels. (Also, kind, gentle reasonable sheriffs were a disaster, since they did not generate news. Big success and support and money came when dogs and firehouses were turned loose.)

Fascinating are the details of the movement, events and strategy. Particularly interesting was the debate for the SCLC to back off and let the black militants bring down the wrath of the state upon themselves, and resume with nonviolent confrontation after the militants had been wiped out. The debate never finished, because King was murdered and the violence erupted.

It seems some mistakes in strategy were made.

1. Their appeals should have been to business, not to govt.

2. They ought not have stressed rights for negroes (the term kept changing), but rights for everyone. Blacks were pitted against poor whites who were as abused as blacks in many cases. We may have had better results faster if the terms of the argument were more inclusive. The powers that be were able to divide and delay.

Rev. Abernathy loves Jesse Jackson very much, but that does not mean Jackson comes off very favorably. Inner workings of Jackson’s schtick are revealed, not that it was any secret.

With our political system, as practiced, a small group of evil people can band together and take over the political landscape. Emerson regretted it and blamed the civil war on precisely such a concatenation. The oppression of blacks in the South was an unholy alliance between the government and big business. Small and medium business pressured the powers that be to finally make changes. Change did come.

In an effort to revive the movement, Abernathy led all peoples and races to set up Resurrection City in our nations capital. The event lasted a few months, a demonstration project highlighting need for government intervention and cooperation among minorities.

Abernathy was appalled to find Mexicans refusing to live next door to blacks, and youth gangs robbing and burgling the participants. It was an end of an era, and time for new leadership and direction. The movement died with Dr. King.

But on the last page of the book, Dr. Abernathy reproduces a proclamation of the SCLC declaring January 15th as Martin Luther King Day, under the aegis of the SCLC and over his signature. Finally Rev. Abernathy gets it. Private initiative is the best way.

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Non-Violence

One would get the impression that Christianity is the religion of hate given the wars the USA perpetrates on Moslem countries, and how both Catholics and protestants together have large, vocal contingents that call for ever more war.  We seem to have forgotten the lessons of Jesus, and as far as I can tell the last leader who was pro-peace was Martin Luther King.  And here is what he had to say:

As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government

That was back in 1967.  King was dead shortly thereafter.  Perhaps that is why we have no such leader today.

We need to learn about nonviolence, and one of my top three authors working today, Mark Kurlansky has written a book, Non-Violence: The History of a Dangerous Idea.  Kurlansky opens the book with the observation that on the subject of non-violence, there is no word for it, not in any history or language.  You can read Kurlansky's views on this phenomenon, which are interesting, but it seems to me that the expected synonym for non-violence, peace, is inadequate since peace is an aspect of freedom, especially truth in freedom, and violence is concentrated force, unto its terminal conclusion.  Violence is always based in a lie, and exercised by force. Violence is so specific and limited that its opposite can be expressed only in abnegation: non-violence.

Most of Kurlansky's book are huge, generous, well written, and this book is short and well written, I suspect because the world has had so little experience with non-violence.  The protestors in Egypt are showing it can work (so far) as did the protestors bringing down the Soviet bloc.   The book is a fascinating and quick read, although I could quibble with some observations and analysis, I'd give this five stars.

The last page gave me a bit of a charge.  I am a CO (conscientious objector, different from a draft dodger), Vietnam era, govt certified (as if they would know)... and Kurlansky recounts the tale of a GI who change his mind about war, and applied for CO status.  They asked the lad if he would defend his family from a violent intruder.  He said yes, his application was denied.  See, they do not know.  Jesus defended the temple against violent intruders with force, yet He was nonviolent.  Righteous rejection of immediate and effective danger can be expected, a brace of hearty kicks for the mugger who knocked down an old lady, nothing more than you'd see at a rugby game.  It is qualitatively different to take a job where you train and wait to kill.  There is a difference between saying yes to violence, and saying no but being caught up in the moment.  One can reasonably be a conscientious objector, yet innocently take a life.  You just cannot agree to it. And certainly one cannot join the military, or in any way accept alternative government service.

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How to Win the War In Iraq.

Re: [spiers] How to Win the War In Iraq.

Some of the assertions do sound unusual. As for me,
it's important to hear other perspectives. I may not
agree, but I need to know and learn other views.
Although I can't point to a specific instance(help
anyone), there are trade opportunities in poor
political decisions anywhere in the world. It seems
trade and politics are intertwined. Not knowing or
discussing politics puts me at a disadvantage in the
world of trade.

Anthony

--- Pete Holt wrote:

> John,
> Please provide some credible evidence for your
> following assertions:
>
> On the other hand, I believe the reason there has
> been no second attack
> after 9-11 in the United States is because the
> Chinese have forbidden it.
>
> This is nothing new, the prime reason for Nixon
> visiting China in 1972 was to ask the Chinese for a
> "decent interval" before Saigon fell to the
> communist forces, so the US would not look so bad
> when we quit Vietnam.
>
> China paid for US concessions with a washed-up
> puppet they had stashed in a spider-hole, a puppet
> the US already owned!
>
> I don't agree with either the Republican neocons or
> the Democratic liberals. But I think it is a very
> good thing for both you and us that you did not go
> into politics. It would be even better if you
> stayed as far as possible from the subject as your
> level of expertise is much below you knowledge of
> business. It is rudimentary at best and unrealistic
> in the extreme. Best left alone.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: John Spiers
> To: spiers@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 12:54 PM
> Subject: [spiers] How to Win the War In Iraq.
>
>
> Folks,
>
> Since no one thinks we can win the war in Iraq,
> indeed, everyone is looking for the best way
> to lose, I think I should offer a way to win, a
> bit of public service on my part. Perhaps my
> specialty of small biz int'l trade can help out in
> this case.
>
> First, we'd have to define victory in Iraq, and
> apparently Iran as well shortly. Well, that is
> easy, victory is peace and prosperity in the
> region.
>
> As it stands now, we are mired in a conflict which
> the neocons explicitly promoted since 1998
> at the Project for a New American Century.
>
> http://www.newamericancentury.org/
>
> George Bush is no neocon, but he certainly hired
> them on to do his thinking and policy
> development. Just as Martin Luther King hired on
> New York experts in agitation and
> propaganda to advance his moribund civil rights
> movement, so the Bushes accepted the
> neocons offer to advance the Bush family
> interests.
>
> The interesting part is the Chinese welcomed the
> neocons offer as well. A United States as
> the focus of all Moslem rage, present and future,
> takes the heat off the Chinese, who have an
> even more pressing Moslem insurgency problem.
>
> Just as in what the Americans call the Vietnam
> war, and what the Vietnamese call the
> American war, the Chinese are now providing
> crucial intelligence and technological ability to
> insurgents in Iraq. On the other hand, I believe
> the reason there has been no second attack
> after 9-11 in the United States is because the
> Chinese have forbidden it. From the Chinese
> point of view, the situation in the world is
> excellent, and it must not be upset.
>
> This is nothing new, the prime reason for Nixon
> visiting China in 1972 was to ask the
> Chinese for a "decent interval" before Saigon fell
> to the communist forces, so the US would
> not look so bad when we quit Vietnam.
>
> In 2003, while the efforts in Iraq were stumbling,
> the US death toll for the "cakewalk" was
> approaching 500 souls, morale was dropping, and
> Americans began to question our
> involvement in iraq. At the same time Taiwan was
> making independence noises. Here is a
> news summary from those days:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/eqpah
>
> Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Washington from
> December 8 to 12 of that year, and
> gained many concessions from the US side. Three
> days after Premier Wen returned to Beijing,
> December 14 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured,
> giving the neocons a big boost. China
> paid for US concessions with a washed-up puppet
> they had stashed in a spider-hole, a
> puppet the US already owned! I am not criticizing
> the Chinese, I just wish we elected
> politicians half as smart as the Chinese
> politicians. We have people that smart, they just
> will
> not go into government.
>
> The neocons are trotskyites, and believe all
> disasters can serve their interests. Seymour
> Hersh has an article in the New Yorker laying out
> the situation today, and notes the window
> of opportunity for peace is now.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/hyfsf
>
> One point the article makes is:
>
> "... that ElBaradei's overriding concern is that
> the Iranian leaders "want confrontation,
> just like the neocons on the other side"-in
> Washington."
>
> Exactly.
>
> Hersh also makes the point that in regards to the
> use of a nuclear strike by the USA on Iran,
> many top generals are talking about resigning.
> This not a surprise, in fact, it is quite
> common they do indeed resign. When the elder
> President Bush wanted to invade Panama
> illegally the US general in charge refused to go
> along so he was cashiered. When Clinton
> wanted to invade the Balkans, the general in
> charge refused so Clinton replaced him with an
> Arkansas boy, Wesley Clark.
>
> When the neocons prepared for invading Iraq,
> Generals Zinni, Shinseki and other active
> officers, and quite a few retired, argued against
> it. The active officers were replaced with
> more compliant officers, like Gen. Tommy Franks, a
> Texas boy, with a curious resume.
>
> The general directly responsible for the Abu
> Ghraib prison torture fiasco was a reserve
> colonel promoted to general for the task, in spite
> of the fact she had been busted for
> shoplifting perfume at a PX previously. This is
> the quality of the generals the neocons can
> atttract. After Abu Ghraib, the US Army had
> trouble reaching recruitment targets. After Abu
> Ghraib, the terrorists had trouble training all
> the new recruits.
>
> The president can only nominate who becomes
> general, the congress confirms the
> nominations, or rejects the nomination. It is a
> pity our politicians do not support the troops
> in Iraq by requiring they be led by our first rate
> generals, and accept 2nd and 3rd rate
> generals in war. It is a pity that although
> officers can resign, the poor soldiers are obliged
> to
> fight regardless of who leads them.
>
> So, how to win the war in Iraq, as defined as
> peace and prosperity? Bring back our first string
> generals. The ones who can win the war. Of
> course, they won't work for the neocons, so it
> will require a regime-change in the USA, the
> impeachment of Geo Bush, and a clearing out of
> the executive branch. Talk has begun on this
> point, and really, is a mere impeachment too
> high of a price to pay for peace in the middle
> east? Go Russ Feingold!
>
> Elections won't work, since the democrats have
> promised they will be more of the same. Even
> when the democrats sweep congress this fall,
> nothing will change. With both Cheney and
> Bush impeached, the House of Representatives would
> have to produce a president, as
> provided by the constitution. A very messy
> process, much closer to the US citizens, will
> produce a better president. The struggle would be
> a small thing compared to peace in the
> middle east.
>
> With a completely new administration, devoid of
> the neocons, the hardliners overseas will not
> be as persuasive in their home countries.
> Further, the first rate generals are smart enough to
>
> threaten to withdraw US forces leaving the Chinese
> to step in and fill the void. Just as the
> USA fell into its own trap in the middle east, we
> can
=== message truncated ===

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I DEMAND AN APOLOGY

So Martin Luther King was not killed by a lone nut.  Neither was John Lennon.  Nor President Kennedy or his brother.  All killed by conspirators!

On behalf of lone nuts everywhere, I demand an apology!  Who is spreading this obnoxious libel about them?

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

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How to Win the War In Iraq.

Folks,

Since no one thinks we can win the war in Iraq, indeed, everyone is looking for
the best way
to lose, I think I should offer a way to win, a bit of public service on my
part. Perhaps my
specialty of small biz int'l trade can help out in this case.

First, we'd have to define victory in Iraq, and apparently Iran as well shortly.
Well, that is
easy, victory is peace and prosperity in the region.

As it stands now, we are mired in a conflict which the neocons explicitly
promoted since 1998
at the Project for a New American Century.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

George Bush is no neocon, but he certainly hired them on to do his thinking and
policy
development. Just as Martin Luther King hired on New York experts in agitation
and
propaganda to advance his moribund civil rights movement, so the Bushes accepted
the
neocons offer to advance the Bush family interests.

The interesting part is the Chinese welcomed the neocons offer as well. A
United States as
the focus of all Moslem rage, present and future, takes the heat off the
Chinese, who have an
even more pressing Moslem insurgency problem.

Just as in what the Americans call the Vietnam war, and what the Vietnamese call
the
American war, the Chinese are now providing crucial intelligence and
technological ability to
insurgents in Iraq. On the other hand, I believe the reason there has been no
second attack
after 9-11 in the United States is because the Chinese have forbidden it. From
the Chinese
point of view, the situation in the world is excellent, and it must not be
upset.

This is nothing new, the prime reason for Nixon visiting China in 1972 was to
ask the
Chinese for a "decent interval" before Saigon fell to the communist forces, so
the US would
not look so bad when we quit Vietnam.

In 2003, while the efforts in Iraq were stumbling, the US death toll for the
"cakewalk" was
approaching 500 souls, morale was dropping, and Americans began to question our
involvement in iraq. At the same time Taiwan was making independence noises.
Here is a
news summary from those days:

http://tinyurl.com/eqpah

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Washington from December 8 to 12 of that
year, and
gained many concessions from the US side. Three days after Premier Wen returned
to Beijing,
December 14 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured, giving the neocons a big boost.
China
paid for US concessions with a washed-up puppet they had stashed in a
spider-hole, a
puppet the US already owned! I am not criticizing the Chinese, I just wish we
elected
politicians half as smart as the Chinese politicians. We have people that
smart, they just will
not go into government.

The neocons are trotskyites, and believe all disasters can serve their
interests. Seymour
Hersh has an article in the New Yorker laying out the situation today, and notes
the window
of opportunity for peace is now.

http://tinyurl.com/hyfsf

One point the article makes is:

"... that ElBaradei’s overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders “want
confrontation,
just like the neocons on the other side”—in Washington."

Exactly.

Hersh also makes the point that in regards to the use of a nuclear strike by the
USA on Iran,
many top generals are talking about resigning. This not a surprise, in fact, it
is quite
common they do indeed resign. When the elder President Bush wanted to invade
Panama
illegally the US general in charge refused to go along so he was cashiered. When
Clinton
wanted to invade the Balkans, the general in charge refused so Clinton replaced
him with an
Arkansas boy, Wesley Clark.

When the neocons prepared for invading Iraq, Generals Zinni, Shinseki and other
active
officers, and quite a few retired, argued against it. The active officers were
replaced with
more compliant officers, like Gen. Tommy Franks, a Texas boy, with a curious
resume.

The general directly responsible for the Abu Ghraib prison torture fiasco was a
reserve
colonel promoted to general for the task, in spite of the fact she had been
busted for
shoplifting perfume at a PX previously. This is the quality of the generals the
neocons can
atttract. After Abu Ghraib, the US Army had trouble reaching recruitment
targets. After Abu
Ghraib, the terrorists had trouble training all the new recruits.

The president can only nominate who becomes general, the congress confirms the
nominations, or rejects the nomination. It is a pity our politicians do not
support the troops
in Iraq by requiring they be led by our first rate generals, and accept 2nd and
3rd rate
generals in war. It is a pity that although officers can resign, the poor
soldiers are obliged to
fight regardless of who leads them.

So, how to win the war in Iraq, as defined as peace and prosperity? Bring back
our first string
generals. The ones who can win the war. Of course, they won't work for the
neocons, so it
will require a regime-change in the USA, the impeachment of Geo Bush, and a
clearing out of
the executive branch. Talk has begun on this point, and really, is a mere
impeachment too
high of a price to pay for peace in the middle east? Go Russ Feingold!

Elections won't work, since the democrats have promised they will be more of the
same. Even
when the democrats sweep congress this fall, nothing will change. With both
Cheney and
Bush impeached, the House of Representatives would have to produce a president,
as
provided by the constitution. A very messy process, much closer to the US
citizens, will
produce a better president. The struggle would be a small thing compared to
peace in the
middle east.

With a completely new administration, devoid of the neocons, the hardliners
overseas will not
be as persuasive in their home countries. Further, the first rate generals are
smart enough to
threaten to withdraw US forces leaving the Chinese to step in and fill the void.
Just as the
USA fell into its own trap in the middle east, we can let the Chinese fall into
their own. The
last thing the Chinese want is for the US to withdraw from the middle east.

I think our first rate generals know that our unwillingness to fight will force
all parties to sit
and negotiate a settlement, a diplomatic solution. No sane general wants a war.
Our first rate
generals would provide a credible threat to the Chinese that we want peace.

Once the diplomats reach an accord, we small business international traders can
step in and
provide the front lines of peace and prosperity: trade. Iranian teens will be
watching
Bollywood videos on Chinese TVs beamed over US satellite networks, while we
finally get the
best rugs, pistachios and pomengranate juice in the world. Paul Wolfowitz will
be pumping
gas in Indiana while some tall bearded fellow in Eugene Oregon will be repeating
50 times a
night, "Welcome to Applebee's, my name is Osama, and I'll be your waiter
tonight."

John

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Not a Dime for Katrina

I was waiting for it, would there be anything in the stimulus to help repair damage after Katrina (What money that has come in over the last few years has been private, and the results have been remarkable). Add this to the long list of policies where Obama and Bush are exactly alike.

New Orleans is one of the world's most strategic cities, at the mouth of USA's most important river and on the Gulf of Mexico. It is heavy in oil and transportation and services. It is a city redolent of Soul, and jazz at its soul. (I will always be fond of NOLA for the fact I got married there once after one particularly wild night, and I have the marriage certificate to prove it. Unlike Vegas, they keep records.) Mayor Nagin, responding to events after Katrina that suggested a pattern of change of demographics, said:

"I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day," Nagin said in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech. "This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."

Apparently so, because all of the powers that be in both the democratic and republican party want it a white city. Citizens of African ancestry have been dispersed to places like Bakersfield and Eugene and Anchorage, and those who stayed to fight on have endured Stalingrad-like conditions.

The Supreme Court has ruled cities can take land from private parties and give it to other private parties. Adverse possession claims are easy against abandoned property.

New Orleans would repair rather quickly if the City and State were to publish the title records of the affected parts of the city and declare the disaster areas "free trade zones" and announce there will be no taxes or regulations outside of property rights on families and businesses inside the zones for 15 years. The disaster zones would become the wealthiest zones in five years.

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Islam is the Religion of Peace - Khudai Khidmatgar and Nonviolent Resistance

Book Reviewed:
The Pathan Unarmed: Opposition and Memory in the North West Frontier (World Anthropology Series)

This is the first and last time you will ever see or hear the term Khudai Khidmatgar, although they were critical to the Indian nonviolent movement to throw the British out of India in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. At the time, the British controlled what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Gandhi’s Indian National Congress would need the cooperation of the Moslems in the NW Frontier (now Pakistan) to drive the British out. Gandhi got the help in the form of a leader named Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, aka Badshah Khan, and his nonviolent movement called Khudai Khidmatgar.

In the PATHAN UNARMED, Mukulika Banerjee reviews a brief and shining moment of some 40 years, where the most fearsome warriors in Islam, the Pathan of what is now Pakistan, embraced nonviolence in the service of freedom, and joined ranks with the India National Congress.

Let me draw a distinction between pacifist and passivist. One steps in and pacifies an unjust and chaotic situation, like, say, colonialism. The other sits back and accepts colonialism. Gandhi pacified the British, destroyed their will and ability to fight, and succeeded. Tolstoy advised the Russians to learn from Gandhi, certainly Martin Luther King followed Gandhi’s game plan. Badshah Khan came to the same conclusion as Gandhi, at the same time, initiated a Moslem version of the pacifism, and arrived at Moslem rational for nonviolence, and called it Khudai Khidmatgar, grounded in the code of the Pakhtunwali.

Badshah Khan embraced the warrior culture of the Pakhtun, especially the premium put on courage. By one teaching his followers were not to carry even a walking stick, because it might deflect a blow from a policeman, and lessen the injury received. He extended the warrior ethic beyond the physical to the spiritual, and made jihad a matter of results gained from self-control in the face of oppression, and made mujahadeen synonmous with nonviolence. The philosophy and theology was strictly Moslem. It worked.

The story of the development of the philosophy and its spread, the recruiting and training is fascinating. Camps were set up, schools organized, much like the Indians were doing. Sadly the British were so doubtful that Moslems could conceive of nonviolence, they believed this was a ruse to raise and army of violent warriors instead of the nonviolent. The British cracked down on the Khudai Khidmatgar with a ferocity on par with the Nazis dealing with resistance. The way Banerjee, a Hindi, tells it, the Moslems suffered far more far longer than the Indians for their freedom. Yet in the face of horrific odds these nonviolent Moslems held to their convictions.

Today in Pakistan a US puppet has taken dictatorial powers, moderates are imprisoned, tortured or disappeared, and government soldiers are rooting out “militants” in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. The way Banerjee tells it, Khudai Khidmatgar and the Badshah Khan are still highly revered among the people. I heard about this book from a expert on Islam, tired of the cartoon caricatures of Moslems fed by the government-contolled media. Indeed, one would expect diversity among 1/4 of the world’s population. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear stories every day about the Khudai Khidmatgar freeing Pakistan from foreign control, again?

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How to Win the War In Iraq.

Re: [spiers] How to Win the War In Iraq.

John,
Please provide some credible evidence for your following assertions:

On the other hand, I believe the reason there has been no second attack
after 9-11 in the United States is because the Chinese have forbidden it.

This is nothing new, the prime reason for Nixon visiting China in 1972 was to
ask the Chinese for a "decent interval" before Saigon fell to the communist
forces, so the US would not look so bad when we quit Vietnam.

China paid for US concessions with a washed-up puppet they had stashed in a
spider-hole, a puppet the US already owned!

I don't agree with either the Republican neocons or the Democratic liberals.
But I think it is a very good thing for both you and us that you did not go into
politics. It would be even better if you stayed as far as possible from the
subject as your level of expertise is much below you knowledge of business. It
is rudimentary at best and unrealistic in the extreme. Best left alone.

----- Original Message -----
From: John Spiers
To: spiers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 12:54 PM
Subject: [spiers] How to Win the War In Iraq.


Folks,

Since no one thinks we can win the war in Iraq, indeed, everyone is looking
for the best way
to lose, I think I should offer a way to win, a bit of public service on my
part. Perhaps my
specialty of small biz int'l trade can help out in this case.

First, we'd have to define victory in Iraq, and apparently Iran as well
shortly. Well, that is
easy, victory is peace and prosperity in the region.

As it stands now, we are mired in a conflict which the neocons explicitly
promoted since 1998
at the Project for a New American Century.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

George Bush is no neocon, but he certainly hired them on to do his thinking
and policy
development. Just as Martin Luther King hired on New York experts in
agitation and
propaganda to advance his moribund civil rights movement, so the Bushes
accepted the
neocons offer to advance the Bush family interests.

The interesting part is the Chinese welcomed the neocons offer as well. A
United States as
the focus of all Moslem rage, present and future, takes the heat off the
Chinese, who have an
even more pressing Moslem insurgency problem.

Just as in what the Americans call the Vietnam war, and what the Vietnamese
call the
American war, the Chinese are now providing crucial intelligence and
technological ability to
insurgents in Iraq. On the other hand, I believe the reason there has been no
second attack
after 9-11 in the United States is because the Chinese have forbidden it.
From the Chinese
point of view, the situation in the world is excellent, and it must not be
upset.

This is nothing new, the prime reason for Nixon visiting China in 1972 was to
ask the
Chinese for a "decent interval" before Saigon fell to the communist forces, so
the US would
not look so bad when we quit Vietnam.

In 2003, while the efforts in Iraq were stumbling, the US death toll for the
"cakewalk" was
approaching 500 souls, morale was dropping, and Americans began to question
our
involvement in iraq. At the same time Taiwan was making independence noises.
Here is a
news summary from those days:

http://tinyurl.com/eqpah

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Washington from December 8 to 12 of that
year, and
gained many concessions from the US side. Three days after Premier Wen
returned to Beijing,
December 14 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured, giving the neocons a big boost.
China
paid for US concessions with a washed-up puppet they had stashed in a
spider-hole, a
puppet the US already owned! I am not criticizing the Chinese, I just wish we
elected
politicians half as smart as the Chinese politicians. We have people that
smart, they just will
not go into government.

The neocons are trotskyites, and believe all disasters can serve their
interests. Seymour
Hersh has an article in the New Yorker laying out the situation today, and
notes the window
of opportunity for peace is now.

http://tinyurl.com/hyfsf

One point the article makes is:

"... that ElBaradei's overriding concern is that the Iranian leaders "want
confrontation,
just like the neocons on the other side"-in Washington."

Exactly.

Hersh also makes the point that in regards to the use of a nuclear strike by
the USA on Iran,
many top generals are talking about resigning. This not a surprise, in fact,
it is quite
common they do indeed resign. When the elder President Bush wanted to invade
Panama
illegally the US general in charge refused to go along so he was cashiered.
When Clinton
wanted to invade the Balkans, the general in charge refused so Clinton
replaced him with an
Arkansas boy, Wesley Clark.

When the neocons prepared for invading Iraq, Generals Zinni, Shinseki and
other active
officers, and quite a few retired, argued against it. The active officers
were replaced with
more compliant officers, like Gen. Tommy Franks, a Texas boy, with a curious
resume.

The general directly responsible for the Abu Ghraib prison torture fiasco was
a reserve
colonel promoted to general for the task, in spite of the fact she had been
busted for
shoplifting perfume at a PX previously. This is the quality of the generals
the neocons can
atttract. After Abu Ghraib, the US Army had trouble reaching recruitment
targets. After Abu
Ghraib, the terrorists had trouble training all the new recruits.

The president can only nominate who becomes general, the congress confirms the
nominations, or rejects the nomination. It is a pity our politicians do not
support the troops
in Iraq by requiring they be led by our first rate generals, and accept 2nd
and 3rd rate
generals in war. It is a pity that although officers can resign, the poor
soldiers are obliged to
fight regardless of who leads them.

So, how to win the war in Iraq, as defined as peace and prosperity? Bring
back our first string
generals. The ones who can win the war. Of course, they won't work for the
neocons, so it
will require a regime-change in the USA, the impeachment of Geo Bush, and a
clearing out of
the executive branch. Talk has begun on this point, and really, is a mere
impeachment too
high of a price to pay for peace in the middle east? Go Russ Feingold!

Elections won't work, since the democrats have promised they will be more of
the same. Even
when the democrats sweep congress this fall, nothing will change. With both
Cheney and
Bush impeached, the House of Representatives would have to produce a
president, as
provided by the constitution. A very messy process, much closer to the US
citizens, will
produce a better president. The struggle would be a small thing compared to
peace in the
middle east.

With a completely new administration, devoid of the neocons, the hardliners
overseas will not
be as persuasive in their home countries. Further, the first rate generals
are smart enough to
threaten to withdraw US forces leaving the Chinese to step in and fill the
void. Just as the
USA fell into its own trap in the middle east, we can let the Chinese fall
into their own. The
last thing the Chinese want is for the US to withdraw from the middle east.

I think our first rate generals know that our unwillingness to fight will
force all parties to sit
and negotiate a settlement, a diplomatic solution. No sane general wants a
war. Our first rate
generals would provide a credible threat to the Chinese that we want peace.

Once the diplomats reach an accord, we small business international traders
can step in and
provide the front lines of peace and prosperity: trade. Iranian teens will be
watching
Bollywood videos on Chinese TVs beamed over US satellite networks, while we
finally get the
best rugs, pistachios and pomengranate juice in the world. Paul Wolfowitz
will be pumping
gas in Indiana while some tall bearded fellow in Eugene Oregon will be
repeating 50 times a
night, "Welcome to Applebee's, my name is Osama, and I'll be your waiter
tonight."

John






Compete on Design!

www.johnspiers.com

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Cash and Carry B2B Trade Shows?

this is interesting

Featuring the biggest and best selection in the west with no long wait for delivery, this show offers order-writing and immediate delivery of merchandise available in several product categories

WHEN: Friday, October 16 - Sunday, October 18, 2015
WHERE: Oregon Convention Center
777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Portland, OR 97232
HOURS: Friday & Saturday | 10 AM - 5 PM; Sunday | 10 AM - 4 PMMORE INFO: www.candcshows.com | 800.318.2238 or 678.285.3976

Cash and carry?  I wonder how it will do.  When credit is a rational imperative, mve the trade shows to cash and carry?    Well, it's an experiment.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

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Small Property Versus Big Government

Mish Shedlock is quoting Hussman on inflation/deflation debate:

To clarify once again - I emphatically do not anticipate inflationary pressures until the second half of this decade. As I've repeatedly emphasized, the primary driver of inflation - historically and across countries - has been growth in government spending for purposes that do not expand the productive capacity of the economy.

Perzactly!  I am reading a very good book on 1970's California anti-tax revolt led by Howard Jarvis that resulted in proposition 13, and a tremendous cut back on property taxes.

The writer's thesis is the small property owners anti-tax initiative was hijacked so that big business got the lions share of the benefit of the tax cuts.  The copyright is 1990 so it does not have the experience of the last 20 years to draw upon, but it tells an interesting story that would very much benefit the Tea Party folk today.  I'll give story away:  you too will fail to reform the system.

The story is clearly laid out, and the author's thesis is "the political processes affect, and sometimes completely alter, the redistributive program of a movement."  In essence, The Man could care less, and will use his government office to frustrate you.  The powers that be will hijack your movement, and use it to please themselves.  Please note that Dick Armey is in charge of the Teaparty movement.  The fix is in.

Back to the 1970's... the government was printing money wildly and the inflation was showing up in home prices.  County assessors in California were shifting from personal assessing to computer-based assessments.  (Here the author makes another observation:  an assessor deciding on his own may take a bribe to lower an assessment, but he will also pity the unemployed worker and lower the assessment there too. A computer can't do either. Score one for corruption.)

As the property values skyrocketed, based on comparable sales (a ludicrous way to establish property values) people who bought $20,000 homes at 6% taxes, found they were soon enough living in $100,000 homes, at 6% taxes.  From $1200 to $6000 in taxes, when one's income only went up from $11,000 to $12,000 in the same period.

The author, Clarence Y. H. Lo,  makes an interesting observation:  although the media and government (well, that is the same thing) portrayed the activists, homeowners and small business people, as wanting to change the system, in fact the activists wanted to keep things the way they were, they wanted to put limits on tax increases. It was the government that was changing things, by destroying home ownership and small business through rapidly rising taxes.

The small guy thought he won the fight.  And would have, if the powers that be did not simply raise fees and assessments on anything and everything else, to make up the loss (and more) from property taxes.  The size and scope of government kept growing, it did not miss a beat.

The author sees big business gaining most of the benefit from proposition 13, as opposed to the small business and property owners.  There is a fundamental error in the thinking though: businesses do not pay taxes.  The customers pay the taxes.  All taxes are ultimately borne by the consumer. It is impossible in theory and practice to tax a business. At best you can make a business an unpaid tax collector, but even that cost they will pass on to the consumer.

What the author does not observe, nor almost no one else asks, is what is the vast amounts of new money, collected in these tax rises, what is the money used for?  Well, it is used to vastly expand government hiring,  jack up salaries of government workers to the point they take home double what private industry does, promise them gold plated pensions to get their votes at re-election time,  launder massive sums through "public works" projects... gold plate camping grounds and college campuses, in short spend the increase on the unnecessary and based on the unsustainable.  What the author did not see 20 years ago we see today: California is bankrupt, not from a lack of taxes collected, but what it is spent on.  Which takes us back to Hussman's quote:

the primary driver of inflation - historically and across countries - has been growth in government spending for purposes that do not expand the productive capacity of the economy.

Perzactly!  If any reform contemplated today does not include reducing both the number of people working for government, plus cutting taxes by the amount collected to support them, say going back to at least 1990 levels, we will see no improvement.  This would require that the social security numbers of the riffed government workers were put in a database to be consulted before hiring anyone for govt work, and it would be a criminal offense for them to take another government job,  on both sides of the application (employer and employee.)  Noting short will do the trick.

In a book printed by Cal Berkeley Press, redistribution would be an important point.  The premise is redistribution is a fundamental government task.  Again, this is nonsense. Redistribution is a market function.  The freer the market, the better the redistribution of goods and services.  People forget the Jim Crow laws were laws, that is enforced by government.  Going against government, Martin Luther King got no where.  Appealing to businesses, he made progress.  The government maintains the status quo for the powers that be, such as with the Jim Crow laws.  It is up to business and activists to set things right.

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Why Pope Francis’ “Joy of the Gospel” Is Important to You

Who cares about what some Pope named Francis has got to say?  Especially when he writes a letter that is no more than a outline of his game plans.  Think of a new coach who has made the measure of his team and the competition they will play against, and comes up with his game plan for how he will play as long as he is coach.  That is all this letter is.

But something is going on.  These times are different. The iron is hot, and depending on how it is struck we’ll have the shape of things to come.  This Pope is different.  He has decided to strip down, lather up, and wade into the fight.  He is striking while this iron is hot. Stalin sneered at the Pope’s lack of military divisions, but Gorbachev found out what the Pope’s armies can do.

I’ve read the letter.  It is an amazing document, and it is very easy to misread, willfully or unwittingly, as I pointed out in my rebuttal to Judge Napolitano.  There are also translation problems.

Rush Limbaugh has attacked the letter in the same way Napolitano has, so we know the tack of the right wingers.  The left wing has been rather silent, but here comes another tactic: embrace and extend.  

This writer,David Simon, does not mention the Pope’s letter, but his article tracks the letter as it  mentions points the Pope mentions.  So in this case, we have an implicit agreement of the Pope's letter but he takes what the Pope teaches somewhere that the Pope has not gone.

David Simon and I agree in a way on Marx, the way I would put it is Marx has his facts right, but his policies are bad.  Simon goes on to decry Marx for “platitudes” about the state withering away, etc.

What wrong with the state withering away?

The word trickle down is very 1980s, so I was surprised to read it in the Pope’s document.  Here it is again.

Ultimately we abandoned that and believed in the idea of trickle-down and the idea of the market economy and the market knows best, to the point where now libertarianism in my country is actually being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought. It's astonishing to me. But it is. People are saying I don't need anything but my own ability to earn a profit. I'm not connected to society. I don't care how the road got built, I don't care where the firefighter comes from, I don't care who educates the kids other than my kids. I am me. It's the triumph of the self. I am me, hear me roar.

That may be what libertinism says, but not libertarianism.  Libertarians say there is a better way than force and fraud to provide for fire suppression, roads, education.  So Simon is as dishonest here as his TV show.

This is just greed. This is an inability to see that we're all connected, that the idea of two Americas is implausible, or two Australias, or two Spains or two Frances.

(Frances?  As in Pope Francis?)  Why?  Don't we have a split Israel?  Two Koreas?   Don't we have that in USA with the Indian reservations. although to genocidal purpose?  In China, one country, two systems we have, with much better results.  So why is what actually works implausible to socialists?

The idea is not implausible, since the only solution is to break the leviathan up what is failing.  Simon wants a North Korean state, and the rest want something more liberal, and some of us want a Hong Kong.

And so in my country you're seeing a horror show. You're seeing a retrenchment in terms of family income, you're seeing the abandonment of basic services, such as public education, functional public education. You're seeing the underclass hunted through an alleged war on dangerous drugs that is in fact merely a war on the poor and has turned us into the most incarcerative state in the history of mankind, in terms of the sheer numbers of people we've put in American prisons and the percentage of Americans we put into prisons. No other country on the face of the Earth jails people at the number and rate that we are.

Odd he leaves out the targeting in these liberal programs of people of some African heritage.  The big beneficiary of these programs are the state employees.

I'm utterly committed to the idea that capitalism has to be the way we generate mass wealth in the coming century. That argument's over. But the idea that it's not going to be married to a social compact, that how you distribute the benefits of capitalism isn't going to include everyone in the society to a reasonable extent, that's astonishing to me.

No, the argument regarding capitalism is not over.  Capitalism with redistribution is the problem today, that which Simon is advocating.  The redistributing part of capitalism is how we get crony capitalism, which results in all of the horrors Simon catalogs.  Simon has not advocated for any change, but then he directly benefits from the status quo.  We all love a system that works for us.

The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile.

This is a straw man since, at least in the 40 years I’ve been reading economics, no one says the market is a solution to all problems.  So this is another straw man argument, or straw boy in this case.

If you watched the debacle that was, and is, the fight over something as basic as public health policy in my country over the last couple of years, imagine the ineffectiveness that Americans are going to offer the world when it comes to something really complicated like global warming. We can't even get healthcare for our citizens on a basic level.

Thank God for that. What you call healthcare for the poor I call death panels for the poor.  And global warming is a hoax, so I truly do not want to solve that problem that does not exist.

And here is the problem: the contradictions are not negotiable, there is no room for compromise in Simon’s view, and nor on the other side.  That split is necessary to save the peace and prosperity.  Let Simon and his ilk have the Northeast, and let freedom come to the south west, and anarchy to the northwest, and we’ll watch Simon's tribe become like North Korea.

Like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela has been captured by Hollywood and the west is scrambling to hide his message.  He moved from embracing terrorism to truth commissions, and amazing change.  With truth commissions, and more facts out, the pretenses of the David Simons of the world are deflated.  Then there can be movement toward unification,or at least some sort of modus vivendi.

The document the Pope wrote is remarkable in many ways, and I’ll break up my review over several days.  I recommend you read it.

Paragraphs 98 to 175, about 1/3rd regards an attitude shift relating to preaching the Gospel, so it an be skipped if you are looking for what is applicable outside the church, as opposed to inside.

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Scrambling to Praise the Communist Terrorist Mandela

Odd that, a communist declared a terrorist by USA until 2008 dies and the West is scrambling to honor and attend his funeral. Odder still the Chinese will not be attending.  You know it is important when Bill Clinton pops up to make the event about himself.  You see, Mandela was declared a terrorist when China was our enemy and helping Mandela end Apartheid, which USA decided was authoritarian and not totalitarian (I am not making this up, you had to be there.)

On his second trip to China, (Mandela) said the Chinese people, who fought for liberation and freedom, had greatly encouraged South African people in their fight against apartheid.He expressed his appreciation for the support South Africa had received from the Chinese government and people.Liu Guijin, then a senior official in the Department of African Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, recalled the moment when he first saw Mandela during his second visit to China."He smiled and extended both of his hands to shake hands with all the people in the room,"Liu said. "Everyone was touched.""He once told me that when he was in prison he and his fellow inmates used to celebrate China's National Day, which falls on Oct 1. They painted Chinese flags on their hands secretly, to encourage each other to fight and achieve success like the Chinese people."

The would be the Chinese Communist National Day.  Now odd that no Chinese leader will be attending the funeral, at least no mention yet.  His death is getting big press in China, with fulsome praise for the man.  Geopolitics?  I think so.

The Arab Spring cleared the decks in late 2010, in essence all bets were off as to geopolitics, and the opportunity for peace and prosperity was present.  But, Kaddafi had sold his oil to the Chinese, USA had been defeated in Iraq and was losing in Afghanistan,  we took the opportunity to get the Libyan oil flowing back to Europe, whose refineries by technology and law can refine only the Bonny Light that Libya possesses.  Murdering Kaddafi has not worked out so well, with this week the extremists killed another American they say was a CIA asset under cover as a chemistry teacher.   In any event, the oil is not flowing.

We intervened in Egypt, what a mess, and we had our chestnuts pulled from the fire by the Russians in Syria.  Next we cut a deal de-escalating our show-down with Iran. See a pattern?  USA is being pushed out of the Middle East, which is the backyard of Russia and China, and apparently all along North Africa.

In the meantime, the USA has opened up the new United States Africa Command, which really refers only to sub-Saharan Africa.  Now step back for a moment.  Are we at war with anyone in Africa?  Why are we maintaining a military command over another continent?  Is that somewhere in the constitution?  Is that at all wise?  How do sub-Saharan Africans feel about being under a USMilitary Command?  What is the thinking on this?

And true to form, since establishing this command, old fights have warmed up and new ones are afoot.  Mali, Central African Republic, the Congo...   these are sold as Christian vs Moslem in service of recruitment campaigns, but all wars are about real estate, never religion.  Funny that: by blaming religion, the powers that be can both cover their crimes plus excite recruitment for their crimes.

USA borrows 46 cents of every dollar it spends.  It has to borrow that from people who believe they will be paid back.  We are borrowing the money because we cannot earn it under capitalism.  We are borrowing the money to maintain the pretense capitalism works, but buying off all of those who would otherwise be productive, that is in a free market.  To convince those who lend us money that we can pay it back, we must have on our balance sheets such assets as, well, sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Canada, etc.  Now expect some of those people to resent doing without so one-half of the USA population can live off the checks made possible by borrowing 46 cents of every dollar we spend.

So although China should have pride of place at any funeral honoring Mandela, front row seats for the leaders of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China might be impolitic.  If the implicit, or perhaps explicit, agreement has been made to divvy up Africa with the North to Russia and China and the South to USA (two into the Congo) then Chinese leadership in a South African major world event might ruffle feathers.  What with the childish USA response of flying unannounced B52s over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in response to China requiring flight traffic to check in crossing that space, perhaps the Chinese are showing adult restraint to USA puerility.

What a mess.  Washington warned us about "entangling alliances" on his way out, and Eisenhower fingered the "military industrial complex" on his way out  A month after JFK was whacked, the President Truman who from the CIA said it was time to put a tight leash on it.

Can we recover our freedom to do business and our freedom from force and fraud?  Tokugawa Japan was the Samurai era observed romantically from afar, in which there was a class as deadly and as thorough as the powers that be and their minions today.  But change they did.  Also, the former Soviet Union reformed into Russia in a remarkably peaceful transition. Can we do it?  Hard to say, wait and see.

If you listen to the speeches and follow the news on the Mandela funeral, please let me know if any of the speakers mention Mandela's truly magnificent move:  truth commissions.  Listen to hear if anyone of the criminals who will be interviewed or speak at his funeral mention truth commissions.  I doubt it, since those were the means by which Mandela effected change from the evil to the much better.  Which politicians or celebrities are going to praise the best means for relieving them of their positions?

Don't expect anyone to mention why Mandela was a great historical figure.  Just like no one mentions today Martin Luther King pointed out that the USA was the world's #1 purveyor of violence.  Watch the speakers begin the process of recasting Mandela from communist terrorist to "our best friend all along."  Never mind he developed an effective plan to overthrow the people who will be controlling his legacy.

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