Honor Labor - Austrian School

In my youth in a family of academics arguments over politics was endemic, and I tended toward what my mother called the "wobbly" position.  Not wobbly as in unbalanced, but IWW, the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement, Industrial Workers of the World.  To this day they make a wholesome case, as opposed to house unions (mostly government unions) and the business unions, which sold out to the powers that be.

We strive to build unions based on the direct strength of workers on the job, without regard to government or employer 'recognition.' It also refers to a strategy that eschews traditional contracts as our end goal. Instead we seek to win gains and build power through direct action tactics, rejecting concessionary bargaining and the prevalent 'no-strike' and 'management rights' clauses most traditional trade unions are all too willing to accept.

The IWW professes to neither endorse any party nor be "anti-politics" but truly independent.  But that in itself is anti-fascism, since fascism thrives on parties and political participation.  Being anarchist is necessarily anti-fascism, and thus the term anarchy has been dysphemized by the powers that be.

IWW is not well known because they don't join in (get co-opted).  This is good because their time will come when the roots matter (radical) to re-grow what is good.  They had spectacular successes early on when they used violence, but that proved passing glory, and that is regrettable, but seemed to have learned there lesson. (It seems to be attracting some young nihilists advocating violence, but these people typically turn out to be cops.) Any union movement targeted for destruction by both communism and capitalism cannot be all bad.

The Austrian School and its "anarcho-capitalist" strain denounce unions for using government power to extort concessions.  Fair enough, but what then about the IWW?

The unions began to form in response to capitalism as a set of patterns and practices being settled in law, patterns and practices funded by usury.  Capitalism, and its apotheosis, fascism, is anti-human, and those who tended to get ground up in both industry and war organized to resist.

Trade unionism is not about wages, it is about conditions and justice, ends contrary to fascism.  If trade unionism is not essentially anti-fascist in results, if not word, then it is not trade unionism, but capitulation.

Self-employment is necessarily unionism, since it depends on solidarity and mutual benefit with vendors and customers.  Union labor is self-employment as well, the company does not own the worker.  In the measure it is voluntary association, something the capitalism has ended by state laws, employment can be anarcho-syndicalist.

So this Labor Day we need to all Honor Labor, and hail the IWW for keeping anti-fascism alive in spite of overwhelming odds.  This may be a union the Austrians can love.

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The Spying Scandal!

This is another case of blame the black guy, an ancient tradition in the USA, where when something goes wrong, a person of some African heritage is accused of the problem.  At present the blame is being switched to Moslems, but that won't hold, blame the black guy will return.  But in any event, we have a Moslem president of some African heritage, so, well, perfect.  O! And a black guy for AG, too...

I have no sympathy for Pres. Obama since he had to know that his election was about setting himself up to take the blame for Bush policies, and to advance programs that would suit Pres. Hillary that she could enjoy but blame on the black guy.  Eight years of Stepin Fetchit, then unimaginable riches thereafter.  If you do not believe this, you have no idea who you are up against.  (And what, you would not take the deal?)

Blaming Pres. Obama for the ubiquitous spying is rather silly.  The United States Postal Service was originally formed by Ben Franklin, and became a cabinet level office in 1792... yes, Seventeen Ninety Two.    What is so important about delivering the mail that the government has to do it?  Well, since all communication back then was by mail, and all periodicals were delivered by mail, by making a government monopoly on mail the Federal Govt could spy on every American.  Folks, this stuff goes back to 1792!  And we are just getting around to realizing it?  And we blame the black guy for Ben Franklin's innovation?  We Americans are a whimsical bunch!

To this day periodicals get a massively subsidized rate.  How come?  To wipe out any competition in delivery, so all periodicals go through the USPS.  Since all distribution goes through the USPS, the USPS has inspectors that can read anything written.   To get these low rates, the publisher has to prove they have paid subscribers.  How do they prove that?  They provide the USPS with their subscribers list.  So the govt always knew who was reading Newsweek and Anarchy Today magazines. School catalogs get cheap rates, which allows the govt to track who is teaching what.

Of course, the USPS can and does stop anything the govt does not like from getting delivered.  This also has a chilling effect on what gets published.

Once America learned to create credit from nothing, the powers-that-be could start misallocating resources to actually producing content for Newsweek and Anarchy Today magazines.  And so now most content in most periodicals is no more than tweets from a govt office upon which a "reporter" slaps a by-line.

On the other hand, the rules, as usual, provide a system to be gamed.  The New Yorker gets the cheapest mailing rates by including "goings on in New York" the coming week for a magazine mailed all over USA at news rates.  To this day I benefit on super cheap media rates shipping my books.  One reason the USPS is going broke is because it loses money shipping my books, and Amazon's too.

What the internet has done is before the govt only knew you were reading Anarchy Today, they did not know what you think about what you read, now they know what you think.  Your blog posts, tweets, facebook and emails self-report to the State.

Young Zuckerberg and Brin claim they know none of this, which of course is sheer nonsense.  They went to the same Johns Hopkins youth camp where future leaders are groomed to take over the commanding heights.  Both Google and Facebook are USA intelligence gathering assets which is why China does not allow them and Europe keeps suing both so through "discovery" they can figure out what Uncle Sam is up to.

Yes, Uncle Sam has a record of everything you ever did on the web.  But we knew that back in 1988.  It has been repeated a million times.  Now it is a scandal?

No, you are not being targeted with someone watching you.  But yes, absolutely every moment in your life is being recorded one way or another.  Why?  Because they can, and it is inexpensive with the infrastructure in place, and if and when the State needs to target you, they can and will find more than enough facts on you to destroy you.  No of us can withstand full disclosure.

And for this reason, there are no judges, congressmen, generals or anyone else who can stand up to the "powers-that-be."  Yes, there are no more plane wrecks or lone gunmen to worry about, just the Petraues exposure things.  Just as good as as bullet, but without the conspiracy industry.  No doubt about it, he was banging the other officer, the other man's wife.  End of his military life.

This is nothing new either.  We all think that police officers back each other up out of honor and sacrifice or whatever.  No, cops back each other up because almost all cops maintain files on some other cops, one way or another.  Like us, they have all done something wrong.   Other cops look the other way if only to have something on other cops.  If one cop turns on another, others will go down.  This is why no where in USA is there independent citizen review board of police action.  A citizen review board might rule justly and send a cop to prison.  He won't go without taking six others.  Hong Kong has a version, the ICAC, which focusses on anyone in any office.  It works pretty well.

People are ticked off.  That is the dangerous part, for if it gets violent, it will only get worse.  There is a way out, and that is independent truth commissions.  Something like the ailing Nelson Mandella put in place.  Where anyone who confesses a crime is immune from prosecution for that crime.

But to do that we'd have to end the experiment of the United States, just like the South African system ended.  Rough going, that.  That is not going to happen.  Opium is the religion of the masses, and they are not going to give up their daily fix of facebook.  To those for whom reality is a crutch because they cannot handle religion, well, you are in a fine mess:  government is chaos and there is no god. Ouch! For me, I will go to Mass today and beg God to deliver me, yet fear His just punishment.

Update:

A hero speaks....

He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

Well, if the Chinese get him, he'll never be heard from again, if the US gets him he'll never be heard from again...    I doubt Iceland can protect him...  and Hong Kong cannot as long as there is a US Consulate there...  but I understand completely, since the daughters of Afghani villagers are not safe from the USMilitary my daughters are no safe.  I don't want to live under that regime either.  I won't kill to change anything...  but God's patience with USA is not approval.

Second Update:

O dear, the leakmeister Snowden was, like me, a Ron Paul supporter.  I learned as a Ron Paul delegate to the Washington State Convention in 2008 that all violence in USA originates and proceeds from the political parties themselves.  The election fraud was rampant and open.  It has been no surprise as we learn these last few weeks that the government employees themselves participate in the fraud efforts, something I understood in the early 1990s when AOL and Compuserve IRC rooms were stuffed with government employees killing time.  It also became clear the Microsoft's fortunes were tied to the growth of government.

Truth commissions.  They help the guilty too, who want freedom from their crimes.

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Faith Hope and Love

We who attend to business know its limits.  We know the difference between economic events and market events, which is which.  We know the market can address many of man's problems, and we regret the markets are so constrained from doing so much more good.  But at the same time we are clear there are vast swaths of action, probably most of human experience, that cannot be addressed by markets.  That territory might be summarized as man's experience of faith, hope and love.

These are also theological virtues, and come to us from metaphysics.  Love is the most accessible of these experiences, and love points to hope.  Hope comes and goes a bit too much, but when it is present, hope points to faith, the toughest virtue.  That is a dicey foundation. Think of the true believers after the crucifixion: eleven were in hiding, afraid they were next, a twelfth had committed suicide.

We naturally judge God by ourselves, when, as a preacher man said on the radio the other day, the trick is to judge ourselves by God.  Easier to judge others by ourselves, like Judas, the one who handled the money, and judged Jesus.

Love is wanting the good for the other.  Being customer-employed necessarily means wanting the good for the other, loving thy neighbor as thyself, with goods and services developed initially to solve problems for oneself.  And then in turn improving them in order that they serve ever more people.

So on this Easter, like every Easter, Jesus arises and says, Be Not Afraid.  And then, in essence, Jesus said, "get to work" as He defines it.  Love one another.

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Catholic Theocons Keep Talking War

With a new pro-peace Pope elected, Catholic theocons waste no time in insisting the Church needs to worry about Moslems...  Here from Michael Novak's website, in an interview with George Weigel.

Michael: On your side is that Catholics now number 1.2 billion human beings on earth — one out of six — and are growing rapidly, faster than Muslims.The atheist part of the earth is shrinking, as more and more persons lose meaning, purpose, and even the heart to defend themselves — and fewer couples have children. But your central point is how Evangelical Catholicism will change the people in the pews, say, in America.

I used to like these two, but they both sold out for a place at the table.  They are both excellent examples of getting a reward here and now but their pro-war and blood libels on Islam will cost them at some point.

America is hated for the influence of the theocons and neocons.  Both have been useful idiots to the powers that be.  Both delight in pretty shiny awards and time in front of a podium.  Generally CIA funded.  Neither will take responsibility for their role in the decimation of Christian communities in the Middle East.  Arrrggghhh!

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First Eliminate the Paid Fire Fighters

The "blame the black guy" health care bill has created a precedent wherein congress has passed a law that can tax you to pay for a private company's services.  That is now the law.  White folk countrywide who otherwise do not know how to serve customers will now flock to congress to get congress to make customers for them too.  There is no rational limit to this premise.  After the election, the law will not be overturned, no matter who wins.  People will blame Obama.

But the economic destruction of USA will speed up, because there is no way this can be affordable, and it also forbids innovation and price reduction.  So the time to look at rebuilding society from the ashes is now, and a good learning experience would be for cities to eliminate all paid firefighters.

There is probably no group of city workers more loved than firefighters, which is a tribute to social conditioning.  So if we can prove we do not need paid fire fighters, then what city services do we need?  Of course, none, and people will know we can do quite well without city governments when we have no city governments.

Someone joked the USA is the only place in the world where if your house is on fire a truckload of millionaires will show up and put it out.  Witty.  But that is city firefighters, they who retire with pensions and bennies which constitute millionaire-grade personal wealth.  It is the city firefighters who are paid.  70% of the firefighters in USA are volunteer, which means they are not paid.  They are every bit as well trained and equipped as any paid fire-fighter, they just volunteer to help their neighbors.  Glad to do it without pay.

Last Saturday night I had a conversation with a volunteer firefighter from connecticut, a strapping young man with shoulder length hair.  He added a few points I had not considered.  First he brought me up short on the question of why firefighters are paid.  I was wandering in the labor theory argument when he cut me off with "cities pay firefighters because they have money."

Max Whittaker for The New York Times

Now, for me, this economic reality I always such a challenge.  I know it is true, I know it is almost always a factor in economic calculation, but it is so hard for me to grasp and hold it.  First off, it is a repugnant concept, spending for the sake of spending, and second off,  I am from a field were to survive you must cut costs.

But the fact is the volunteer fire fighter is right.  Cities have a captive audience, which they tax.  Now they have money.  What to spend it on?  How about art, playgrounds, firefighters, whatever.  Nothing necessary. It does not matter what they spend it on, it just matters that they collect and spend it, and keep some for themselves.  Since cities have money, they spend it. The money comes from force and fraud, you will be crushed if you do not pay the taxes, the money is not spent as you think it is.  It does not cost that much to suppress fires in a city, we just spend that much.

It does not cost that much to produce new drugs, we just spend that much.

It does not cost that much to defend America, we just spend that much.

See how it goes?

Then there was another interesting observation.  In his small town when the alarm goes out thirty guys with axes and gear show up.  Fires are put out quickly. Then it is Miller time.  In cities Firefighters are paid.  Maybe twelve people show up, no more.  How come? Because lavishing so much money on so few, and having a public union to keep people from fighting fires, the result is city fires have less crews fighting them than town fires.  Since cities pay firefighters, they cannot afford better coverage. This would make an interesting study.  Come up with a gauge that reads how many BTUs a fire is giving off when the first firefighters arrive, and how long it ties to end the fire.  Then compare paid firefighters to volunteer firefighters.  I bet we'd find that volunteer fire fighters put out fires faster than the paid fire fighters.  But "unfair!" you say, there are more volunteer fire fighters attacking a fire.  Exactly!

He had another sidelight.  In his town they got rid of the police department.  Now no town in USA is allowed to have no cops, so towns must contract with county or state police to be the state presence of the monopoly on violence which defines the state, if they do not have their own cops.

Although he has met the cops, he could could not recall if they were state or county since he saw them so rarely, but he told a story.  The outside cop working evenings made his first task to meet the volunteer firefighters.  How come?  In case of trouble, the cop needed back-up.  The volunteer fire fighters being local, most likely knew everyone.  he recalled how once an outraged dad was threatening a cop for hauling his drunk-driver son away.  Police back-up was scarce, so the deputy called the volunteer firefighters.  Within minutes a dozen men with axes were on the scene, who in turned calmed down the outraged father.  No swat teams, no killings.  Only a drunk driver went to jail.

None of these make for ideal circumstances, but they are better ways.  People should not see the end of this country as we experience it and have fear.  What we are losing we don't need anyway.  We can test out living in freedom by eliminating paid city firefighters.  Then we will all see that one of our cherished conceits was all a sham anyway.

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Blame The Jews

No one in polite society actually says "Jews" but when the financial crisis is discussed and perpetrators criticized ... it is Goldman Sachs, Greenspan, Bernanke, Geitner, Blankfein, Cohn, Paulson, Summers, Rubin, not to mention Madoff, and so on.

And to be sure any article that allows comments certainly features plenty of blaming of the Jews.

What?  Rockefeller, Gates and Buffet had nothing to do with what is going on?  Jews control the financial world by means of a vast conspiracy?  Really?  Hasn't that been always said?  If so, how come in every other time in history economic crises turn out very badly for the Jews? How does it turn out badly for them if they are in charge? Or is this time it is different?

When Michael Lewis wrote Liar's Poker to explain just how wicked the practices were on Wall Street and the utter abuse of the USA investor, he hoped to effect some change and improvement by his expose.  He was perplexed to get an overwhelming number of letters from the best and brightest at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Yale... Christians all, inquiring as to how they could get such jobs themselves.

Getting Jews to do tax-farming has a long tradition in the West.  A Jewish face on oppression makes life easier for a Prince.

Mustn't be naive and think no Jew would so jeopardize other Jews. Just like the Irish and the Turks and the Japanese and the Bantus any other group, there are always those who will sell their own tribe down the river for fame, prestige and fortune.  And there are plenty of Jews who will gladly front the desires of the wicked capitalists who do not want to take the blame when the exploitation comes crashing down.  Where would Warren Buffet be without his Jewish bankers doing his bidding?

If it is to be different this time, how about we do not blame the Jews this time?  Let's see how the patterns and practices of capitalism are inherently evil, and reorder our patterns and practices to inhibit the concentration of power that motivates the powers that be?  Let's prove USA is exceptional.

The English threw the Jews out for 400 years (they were the first to mark Jews with a yellow star) and they had the exact same problems without the Jews.  It ain't the Jews that are the problem, it is the ideas.  And the ideas aren't Jewish, they are human.  And it is not unique to Judaism that Jews sell Jews down the river.  We all do it.  Time to admit it and withdraw our consent to be governed by the state, and engage in voluntary association.

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My Economics Journey

My interest in economics began in 1977 when I was crossing the bridge from Hong Kong to China at Lo Wu in Shenzhen.  Before that, the topic bored me. Back in the bad old days of hardline communism, the Hong Kong trains stopped at the border, we got off the Hong Kong trains, walked across the bridge into China, and got on a Chinese train.  I was bewildered as to how Hong Kong, with no resources, except people (and "overpopulation" at that) was a first world territory, and the Peoples Republic of China, with the exact same people and limitless resources, was distressingly poor.  As I reflected on this, the only difference could be the ideas behind the actions that gave the results.  Clearly these were the same people on both sides of the border.  It was ideology that made the difference, in essence economic ideology.

So free markets vs. communism.  What little economics courses I had in college mentioned capitalism (defined as keynesianism) vs. communism, and no wonder I was bored.  Pretension vs utopianism.  But Hong Kong was defined as a free market, which was not on the radar in academia.  Since I was in Hong Kong, I could see how a free (well, freer) market worked.  Little in the way of government.  Almost no one pays taxes.  Everyone who wants to work can.  Charities abundantly supplied. Freedom to come and go.  Goods and services abundant, diverse and affordable.  Private companies issue the currency!  Cosmopolitan with apparently no ethnic strife. Private security well armed on the streets (shotguns everywhere to dissuade the snatch-n-run thieves).  Transport cheap and plentiful (and even trains and later subways privately owned).  Whole districts where no even the cops would go.  Security probably the best in the world.  Wow.  Unimaginable to me.

This being the 70's and Milton Friedman a contributor to Newsweek magazine, I could read about libertarians (he wasn't really one) and the great work of monetarists in Chile.  As the devil emerged in the details, the "Reagan revolution" began and supply side economics and trickle down theory was popular. Gosh, a system that optimizes government receipts.  Why would we want that?

As I travel along these theoretical lines, I keep checking against Hong Kong as a test, and I also start to learn more about the history of Hong Kong, and begin to understand that Hong Kong and USA were started at the same time by the same people.  The USA version of freedom "evolved" over time to what I grew up in.  Hong Kong remained true to its roots.  Hong Kong was what USA should have stayed.

In the 80's I took a sabbatical form work and studied what I had observed the ten years working in importing.  At some point I read an article on school vouchers which included this comment.

Furthermore, there is no need for "vouchers" for particular goods or services: for education vouchers, food stamps, housing vouchers, television vouchers, or what have you. By far the best "voucher," and the only voucher needed, is the dollar bill that you earn honestly, and don't grab from others, even if they are merely taxpayers.

Do you recall ever having that experience when reading and your mouth drops openly stupidly, your brow furrows, and you start breathing through your mouth?  A great truth, a most obvious truth, dawns on you? Your mind is kicked back to neanderthal, as you realize just how stupid you can be?  You make the effort to assent to a new level of awareness, and all that will require.

The writer of that quote was one Murray Rothbard, and through his writings I was turned onto the Austrian school of economics.

I had been debating how vouchers can be "done right" when the truth is we need no vouchers at all!  This fit in well with Hong Kong, where education was plenty and "free" like anywhere else, but parents forked over money to make merely good become first rate.

I began to study the free markets as much as I could, getting sidetracked in German Historical School and following the lessons of Jude Wanniski, a supply-sider.  His unique position had to do with gold as the "north star" of navigation in the economy.  The idea is you set the price of gold (bout $350 at that time) and inflate or deflate the money supply depending on the signal you get from the price of gold rising or falling.

Back when email was first emerging in the late 80's, it was possible to email such eminent people, and get a reply.  Since people only got a few emails a week at first, they took the opportunity to practice.  I argued what I was learning from my studies of austrian school economics with one of the most advanced proponents of modern state economics.  He used one of my questions in his newsletter to stage a lesson, and we were able to argue extensively.  His patience gave me the opportunity to test Austrian economics against a first rate modern economic thinker.

Wanniski yielded to austrian thought over and over, except for their views on gold as money and is use and purpose.  Our arguments got to a dead end point, and that was over the need for government.  In our last exchange, he had said ultimately we need a government to arrange the reconstruction bonds necessary in the event of a huge disaster (since they control the financial system.)  I replied since bonds are voluntary, why could not the Red Cross simply offer the bonds?  He did not reply.  He died the day Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans, so he did not live to witness how government is helpless in a disaster, and private initiative gets the work done.

For ten years I tried to get to the Mises University, a week long seminar in Auburn Alabama where Austrian economics is laid out in toto.  Finally in 2002 I made it, and by then I was there as a faculty observer, not as an student, since I was teaching as an adjunct at SFSU by then.  I highly recommend the experience if you can get a week off for that.

AS I study more, see more, do more I realize more and more that so much of what we "know" is mere social conditioning.  That I would not question vouchers per se was a matter of my being completely indoctrinated in a social system that expects the state to be prime in all matters.  Austrian economics are outsiders, and it takes outsiders to point out the obvious.  To "get" Rothbard you have to realize that you are a person as opposed to a "citizen."

I no longer see economics as science, but back where it started, a subset of ethics, which is a subset of philosophy.  Economics can be considered a science in the old sense of arts and sciences, where philosophy was considered one of the hard sciences.  But this is a muddle:  Economics was carved out of a subset of philosophy. Philosophy is a hard science when it relies on logic, experimentation, rigor and the scientific method. But post-war, hard science meant mathematical formulae.  So economists began tarting up philosophy with whimsical, tendentious or just stupid mathematical formulas, and in so doing reduced their field to a soft science at best.  So the Austrians, who use no mathematical models, are actually the scientists, and those modern economists who do use them are charlatans.

So safer to go back a couple hundred years and consider economics under the field of philosophy, under ethics.  Economics is the study of man's relationship to man.

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Three More Safety Valves

In addition to the list earlier, here are 3 more uniquely USA items...

1. Home rule laws.  Towns can overthrow all county state and fed laws. Here they do so with raw milk.  You can tell when you cross the border into Louisiana, the freeway has potholes.  Louisiana goes its own way on so many items that they are denied fed funds for roads.  Going your own way has consequences, but it can be done.

2. Private Attorneys General.  In the 19th century most of the criminal prosecutions were pursued by private individuals in courts.  With the growth of the state, this important function was taken over by Government, and became politicized.  There are also qui tam cases to this day. Someone misbehaving in a way that harms the entire community, but the govt not doing anything about it?  Handle it yourself!  Environmental problems, police brutality, gang activity, securities fraud... bring a properly formatted case to the judge, and you to can be a prosecutor. (Although a state prosecutor may step in at the last minute for the glory.) Usually, you (the affected parties) can get 25% of any damages, and he govt gets 75%.  It is not a class action suit, but it must be for a group against some malefactors.

3. Citizen Arrest and Bounty Hunters.  So now you have a criminal case, and warrants, but what if the cops won't help you go round up the bad guys.  Citizens can make arrests in USA, and pursuant to a bond violation, bounty hunters can make re-arrests.  I've made a half dozen arrests myself in my crime fighting days, and my insurance carrier includes "false arrest" insurance on me.  What?  Are they worried I'll screw it up?  There are enough of us who love confrontation to keep the malefactor in line, without police.  We are called, dads, brothers, uncles, friends...

Update, 4.

Who protects our shipping.  Private companies.  http://constitution.org/mil/lmr/marque_it.htm

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How Are We Better Off?

“Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims,” Mr. Obama said. “Indeed, Al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

OBL was the FBI's #1 most wanted for a decade, but he was not wanted by the FBI for the 9-11 attacks.  In USA we believe people are innocent until proven guilty.  Bonnie and Clyde were blamed for so many bank robberies (some on the same day same hour a thousand miles apart), that they began taking credit themselves for all of them.  Police keep some aspect of a major crime secret (the caliber of the murder weapon, etc) because so many people call in to "confess" they need a way to sort out the nutjobs from people who actually know something.

There is not a single point of this "we got Osama" story that rings true.  The sad thing is it is plausibly all made up, that our government has so little credibility.  What might have been better to capture him and take him alive.

Or better yet, a decade ago, provided evidence of his criminals actions, the Taliban, who always wanted to be our friends, would have turned Osama over to us.  We answered with bombs.

The most likely story is Osama died a decade ago, and Benazir Bhutto was dead a few months after mentioning that.

One of the most common efforts in government is to solve problems that do not exist.  Assassinating a dead man is likely to be 100% successful, and you can hen made all sorts of grand pronouncements, and then also crack down on internal problems.  Like TSA is trying to take over Amtrak, and Amtrak is having none of it.  But now that killing Osama is "likely to bring new terrorist activity" TSA is making another run at Amtrak.  And we have a treasure trove of intel of what al qaeda is up to...  so now when our government has some new silly way to walk, or whatever they demand, we are supposed to go along.

Our government is busy deciding where to cut back.  The WACO disaster began with an effort to keep the ATF budget from being cut back.  Agencies will begin fighting each other for a place at the trough.

Why does nothing reported about this event sound true?

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Safety Valves

We do not read the Bible the way the founders did, nor the classics of Greece and Rome at all.  Both sources speak of a radical freedom otherwise unknown in their times, albeit for those who were citizens.  Slavery was a integral part and presumed necessity in those cultures, but history has proven otherwise.

Vestiges of the radical freedoms bequeathed to us are everywhere in USA.  I consider them sorts of pressure valves that keep the creative in place, and in essence buys us off when things are wrong.  

Probably the most important item fairly unique to USA is our right to arm ourselves.  In my own lifetime I have seen USA go from where nobody particularly cared if another was armed to where an armed person is presumed guilty.  althought there has been some legal curtailment of self-protection, the degeneration of this right is largely socially conditioned.

Personally I am not into guns, I go the other way, nonviolence.  Another great pressure valve is nobody has to be drafted or join the military in USA.     If you are a conscientious objector, you do not have to serve.    People who object to certain wars are not conscientious objectors.  If you truly object to all wars, then you can opt out.

Taxes are very objectionable, and you can largely avoid them without too much trouble, and with a lot of trouble avoid them completely (grow your own food in the wilderness).  As I’ve outlined previously, being self-employed allows great opportunity to avoid taxes, as intended in the tax codes.  Gummint wants businesses, and when it realluy needs money, they go after employees and property owners anyway.  What they miss from us they don’t really need.

The Amish have been exempt from Social Security taxes in USA, so this is avoidable too.

In USA you can publish anything you want, althugh just about all distribution is under government control.  

In many countries you can be fined or even jailed if you do not vote. Such laws are enforced in Australia and Argentina, and on the books but not enforced in Belgium and Turkey.  This list of countries that punish you for not voting is long.  In USA there is no obligation to vote.

For legal matters we are free to settle our disputes outside of court.  Where we are obliged to come to court, we may represent ourselves, pro se, and the law is judges are supposed to cut us slack if we are not lawyers. All  lawyers are government workers in essence, and their work is a direct tax on citizens.  You can avoid falling into their trap and games by representing yourself in court.

And while on the topic of courts, juries are never obliged to convict anyone, even if the person is guilty.  There are plenty of laws that are just stupid, like 3-strikes -your -out, marijuana laws, and securities regulations.  Any jury can perform what is called “jury nullification” and overthrow the government in that given instance.

At the same time, citizens can form a government in USA. there are thousands of governments in each state: port authorities, water districts, parks, all formed, maintained and beholden only to their voters.

Of course in USA you are free to pick any religion you want, or make one up, or have none of it.  Not so in many countries.  In Germany once you pick a religion, the government tithes you to support it.

In USA you can move.  If you do not like where you are, then split.  You can even leave the country.  

Failry unique to USA is anyone can import and export without license (technically there is an export  license, but it is more a check than a permission), you do not even have to be a citizen to import and export in USA.

You can make own booze.

You can home school, although that is being curtailed.

What made USA unique was a radical freedom, that has been reduced over the last generation.  But it started a long time ago, for example, after the US War between the states, the US Constitution was changed to make slavery expressly permitted.

The government now has a monopoly on currency via us treasury and a central bank that fiddles with interest rates and fosters moral hazards.

The taxes are inherently evil, but not the big problem.  The big problem is the taxes pay for people to crush freedom through subsidies and regulations. The problm is not deregulation, because there is no such thing, the problem is any regulation, because regulation is necessarily a process of picking winners and loswrs, something only a market should do.  A few government workers cannot substitute themselves for millions of daily signals between buyers and sellers.

We have lost a lot, and are losing more each day.  Students cannot bankrupt their way out of bad decisions made while teens (student loans), and we cannot avoid being assaulted when getting on an airplane.  A people who will tolerate these will tolerate anything.

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Escape To Anarchy

I am reading medieval history and delighted with the stories of Roman citizens fleeing to the barbarian lands to get away from Roman "order" in early medieval times.  Escape to anarchy!  They may start over with nothing when they get there, but at least they will be free to build something good, even if from scratch.

Here is a fellow who has a widely followed website on how to break free from the USA.  He hides his true identity but he vaguely suggests his background is in intelligence work.  As usual the comments are better than blog articles, and in this one a fellow objects to people escaping the USA.

Aside from the possibility this website is collecting info on people who desire to escape the USA for the USA (doubt it, did you know Gloria Steinem was a CIA asset?) if things go bad for USA and around the world, about the last place an American is going to want to be is outside the USA.  If you are rich and American, expect the locals to disappropriate you.  Who are you going to get to help you, Uncle Sam?  If you are poor and outside the USA, you will learn what it is like to be black in USA.  Uncle Sam is looking forward to shaking down Americans returning home after escaping.

Let me explain a very important point:  those people overseas who were educated in USA in the 70s 80s 90s got advancement over any locals in business and government.  Envy followed.  Now that the USA has generated such disaster worldwide, those people who benefitted from their USA association are now on the defensive.  They must be doubly anti-american as a matter of self-preservation.

Badmouthing USA yourself will do not good.  It only makes things worse, because if you know our policies are bad, why are you not resisting?  My strategy is to point out we small merchants are disdained wherever we go, I've got enough problems without having to answer for Uncle Sam?  (I was very happy to be able to explain I refused to join in the US invasion of Vietnam as a conscientious objector.  When I explained the difference between a draft dodger and a conscientious objector, that was a real head scratcher.  "You mean, you do not have to go to war, even in a draft, but they came anyway?"  Yep.)

Escape to Anarchy happens when the capitals are looted by invaders, very extreme stuff.  The Ming army opened the gates of the Great Wall to let in the anarchic Qing to rule China.  North African Christians welcomed Moslems to overthrow Roman oppression.

As Dr. Hans Sennholz advised, the powers that be have very many options to exercise before "the end" before escape to anarchy is preferable to staying put.  Right now you can "escape to anarchy" right here. Just get self-employed.

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Militainment

Now here is an interesting study of Bill Gate's and GE's NBC channel, and it's pro-war, anti-peace policy.  Microsoft and NBC rely heavily, well, completely, on government handouts, so they are obliged to follow the script.

From Rockwell, from Fr. Seraphim

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Jews Return To Europe

There are many people who view Jews they way they view lawyers:  they are all the same.  Mark Kurlansky has written a book on the resurrection of Jewry in Europe after the holocaust. One thing you will learn from this book is Jews are not all the same.

Kurlansky along with Spence and Schama are my three favorite writers currently, and all of them are historians.  I did not care for history as a topic in school, but then even the Catholic schools were ladeling out tripe when they decided to drink the kool-aid and accept government oversight of Catholic schools.  School got boring for Catholics too.

Elsewhere Schama recounts that at a seminar at Balliol College circa 1968 a don suggested to write history about people and not so much events.  It has occurred to me that this is the case with all three writers.  In A Chosen Few, Kurlansky traces familes in Antwerp, Budapest, Cracow, Paris and North Africa, and at various points in time: prewar, war, post war, and a few points until the 1990s.

kurlansky

Of particular interest to me is how people survive a disaster, what are the best moves, since we too have experienced a disaster, that is the economic boom of the 2000s in USA, when all of that damage was done to our economy.  Since we are in the phase where we pay for it, blame is set, and scapegoats are “sacrificed” (a goat is killed ... just who made a sacrifice here?) it is interesting to me the best way to navigate these well trodden paths.  Some important points:  people generally did not see what was coming.  What we think of as a swift disaster in the holocaust unfolded rather slowly.  Kurlansky relates frankly how some Jewish elites cooperated with the Nazis, but it did them no good.  After the war, escape to Israel was for many worse than staying in Europe since Israel had no economy.  Being a Jew in Germany had more opportunites than a Jew in Israel.  This is of particular interest to me: for all the vaunted Jewish entrepreneurialism, how come Israel could not survive without massive financial intervention of the communist states (it is undebatable that Israel was a socialist state, certainly at the start.)  Is it simply impossible to have a productive economy under socialism?  Would Israel have thrived if it had free markets, something it does not have to this day?

For those who wish to believe all Jews are alike, this book shows a distressing range of thoughts and actions by Jews.  First there is the argument as to who is a Jew.  Is Jewry a race, a nation, a culture?  All of the above?  Next, is assimilation a good idea, or the maintenance of  Jewish identity?  If so, what is the Jewish identity? From this uncertain foundation, there is a dizzying array of ideas, actions and even outright antipathy, such as Ashkenazim vs Sephardim.

Although Kurlansky is a Jew himself, he excels at not letting his personal views get in the way of his storytellers.  A Jewish informant for the Stasi, who explains she was just building a socialist paradise in East Germany, gets as fair a shake as the Jew who escaped a concentration camp and went on to fight the nazis.  Just the facts in this book.  Kurlansky is even fair to politicians who have a tin ear to Jewish sensibilities, such as some French polticians.  

There may be something unique about Jewish experience, and it is not about Jewish experience per se, but that is about non-Jew reporting thereof. Much is made of gas ovens in concentration camps, but apparently disease was the big killer.  This is extremely important information, if true.  Another Jewish scholar was looking at the number of six million dead, and comes up with a number of four million, with two million escaped East.  The Soviet Union set up a Jewish Autonomous Region in 1934.  It still exists... how come we haven’t heard anything on this?  It leaves it up to Jews to write about Jews, but why?  Good scholarship is not something peculiar to Jews.  The fact is especially in academia, people are afraid to touch the topic.

The stories that Kurlansky tells, within the narrow bounds of the time and location of his subject,  about Jews is so very true about any people at any time.  The range of personalities, the ideas, the options, the actions, the motivations.

Something Kurlansky alludes to in this history like Speilberg in Schindler’s List, is Jews sell Jews down the river.  Perhaps this topic is simply too clear to Jews to bear stating, given that in their bible Cain kills Abel and Joseph’s brothers actually do sell Joseph down the river.  Perhaps it is too painful, and for a people feeling beset, an obvious lack of unity is too dangerous a notion to allow abroad.  When your enemy thinks you are all alike, it is dangerous to let them know that divisions run deep in your ranks.  But it seems it is exactly awareness of Jewish divisions that Nazis used so effectively.

Yet people selling their own down the river is nothing new.  Japanese sell Japanses down the river, American Americans, Congolese Congolese, Argentinians Argentines, Romans Romans... there is no story to tell in history unless someone sells someone down the river.  Jesus and Judas.

Kurlansky is adept enough to flesh out what differences there are, and when people kill over tennis shoes, I suppose these differences can have lethal consequences.  So Carmelite nuns put up a convent at Oswiecim, and American Jews (fascinating politics this story) object.    American Jews want this killing place left forever a desolate reminder.  Christians build a convent on the grounds.  Sort of a ground zero mosque story, circa 1995.  Yes, Jews tend toward “l’chaim,” and Christians tend towards “pray for me.” The difference may be religious views, but the fight is politics.

I do recognize the “the Jews” are a favorite topic of wacko-americans, indeed wackos worldwide, and much junk and libel is written about them. But why cede any ground to them?  We’ll be better off when reticence on certain topics is relieved.  

In the meantime, read this book, it is great storytelling, fascinating history.

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WalMart vs. Specialty: Advantage Specialty

This would be a great time to be a specialty retailer, especially if you like a good fight.  For the first time in the history of mass merchandising, the big box stores are moving into the physical territory of the specialty stores.  Economics and the internet is forcing them to do so.  The mass merchandisers are sending out scouts, and the specialty retailers can send a message back to Bentonville, by the way these scouts are dealt with.

Let me preface that no specialty store has ever been harmed by WalMart in any way (and I am using WalMart here generically, in place of all mass-merchandisers), quite the contrary, WalMart has left more disposable income in peoples' pockets, which studies show get spent at specialty stores.  The relationship between the two has been symbiotic, mutually beneficial beneficial.

WalMart did wipe out the little discounter, the five and dime, and any retailer that failed to become a specialty store as WalMart emerged.  Anyone not prepared to make more money selling less (by migrating up market in their product mix) failed.  There are plenty of enterprising people who made the shift.

But it is undeniable that when Walmart emerged, businesses did fail.  Now, due to declining growth rates, walmart and home depot and best buy are testing the waters where they will be as shredded as once the witless small business was shredded.  You can help shred them, speed the process up.

Here is their rationale:

Office Depot Inc., meanwhile, quietly began opening new shops the size of convenience stores in December. The new 5,000-square-foot Office Depot stores are barely a fifth the size of the company's traditional locations, yet still manage to contain the office supplies and copy and mail services that account for 93% of the bigger stores' sales, said Kevin Peters, Office Depot's North American retail president.

Hang on...  did they think this through?  If I can get 93% of what you sell in a closer more convenient location, why would I ever visit your big box location, except in the rate instance I am buying a cheap chair (and there are plenty of used chair locations I can get cheap and good...)  If I stop visiting the big box, then how long can you carry it?

If I am retailer, and you are offering Swingline staplers in your store for $7, which you buy for five because you are so big, and I cannot get for less than $10, because I am so small...  I will walk into your store, buy four, and then put them on my shelves, for $7.00 also.  Next, in my window, in huge letters, I am going to show "Swingline Stapler:  Home Depot $7.00; Me $7.00."  Since no one buys just a stapler, I break even on the stapler, make it on something else, and break Office Depot.

As the article linked above states, Staples is the #2 online retailer behind amazon.com, since so many people buy office supplies online. So, I would link my upscale stationary store website as an affiliate to Office Depot, Staples, amazon, etc.  I would direct my customers to those websites, and earn the affiliate fee on the sales, but credit my customers with say 50% of the fee, as a credit on their next purchase inside my store. Most of the data is available already (I know from what affiliate programs I have) so it is just a matter of some database software to record it. I hope this makes sense, if not, please ask me to clarify.  These companies are too big to have an effective defense against this, their crowding in where they cannot work will fail, and it is our duty as good merchants to hurry the process along.  Every time a secretary buys a ream of paper from Staples through your store, she gets a credit for your store, thanks to a spiff funded by Staples.

I am not a retailer, but I adore a good fight.  I envy those retailers who will be executing this strategy (it does not mater if I thought it up myself, fact is, so did 500 other people who read the same article.)

These test stores will get their knuckles rapped, but it is tradable.  Make money as they make their mistakes.

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Man Who Admits Iraq War Lies Says No Other Way

Now that the Egyptian people have shown, as the Tunisian and Iranian people have shown, that the people of a country can overthrow a dictator, the man responsible for the lies regarding WMD in Iraq admits he lied, but says there was no other way to rid Iraq of Saddam.  Send him to Egypt.

Of course nobody believed Bush/Cheney when they claimed they knew, so Gen. Colin powell was trotted out, since his career has been a a series of milestone lies.  Maj. Colin Powell began his career on the way up by lying and covering up the My Lai Massacre.  Colin Powell claimed no GIs were left behind in Vietnam, knowing full well GIs were left behind.and here (chapter 26 note 9)  And the to cap his career, they brought Powell out to lie about weapons of mass destruction.

USA soldiers were massed at the Iraqi border prior to the invasion of Iraq.  If any general believed that Iraq had WMD and delivery systems, then that general was a fool or criminal.  Defeat would have been quick for the USA forces.  The fact that our troops were masses proves we already knew there we no WsMD in Iraq.

We need to get back to our constitution, bring our troops home, and build peaceful trade worldwide.

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Beautiful NonViolent Revolution

As long as the Egyptians can make their own choices, this should end well.  And for we who must overcome the puppetmasters here in USA who pulled the strings oppressing the Egyptions by distorting their free markets, we have much to learn as to how it is done.  And here is a reluctant hero's account.

telegraph UK

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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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Here is an excellent video on what the democrats are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, under the Obama administration.  We really should look at what we pay for, and vote for.  The last half is narrated by a speech, with which I could not agree more.  For some odd reason, there are no credits in the video, but the speech is by this woman.

The sooner we bring our troops home, and try to make reparations, the sooner we can start doing business with these people, like we do with the Vietnamese, after our pointless and useless war there.

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Christians & Muslims Together

Our criminal invasion of Iraq has subsequently led to a near complete wipe-out of the Christian Churches there, established by Apostles and living in harmony with Muslims for nearly 1000 years.  One way to whip up USA warmongering is to attack Christian Churches overseas, so we can never really be sure as to who is planting the bombs.

Absent of government, Christians and Muslims get along just fine, as Will Grigg reports from Egypt.  Warmongering Christians who support Israel are no true friends of Israel, but Israel takes what it can get, I guess.

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It has been noted that before the center of evil, the USSR fell, all of its satellites went down...  It is encouraging to see the generally peaceful acting up of the Egyptian people, here too...

عبد الرحمن يوسف في يوم الغضب

... no doubt they will throw out their USA backed dictator, like the Iranian threw out the Shah of Iran, and certainly the Iraqis could have thrown out Saddam if they cared to do so.

It is cruel and wrong to trap countless talented and motivated people in a system that benefits only a few, whether in Egypt or the United States.  Voting for change is impossible, but the only sustainable change is through nonviolence.

Islam is the religion of peace, so nonviolence is a typical response to oppression, and an excellent book on this is The Pathan Unarmed.

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