Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Rick Santorum Attacks the Separation of Church and State


by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The ignorant (if not moronic) right wing is stirring up fears and spreading distortions about the First Amendment again. Rick Santorum, for example, has said that the separation of church and state is NOT absolute. I beg to differ and so would have Thomas Jefferson who described a WALL OF SEPERATION between Chruch and State. And I will venture that Jefferson was in a better position to know what he was talking about and that Jeffeson was infinitely more intelligent than Rick Santorum.

The following is the text of the letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut, assembled October 7, 1801.

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson Jan. 1. 1802.
Rick Santorum is of an authoritarian mentality that asserts a "right" to believe claptrap i.e, "intelligent design" but at the same time DENY you the right to believe modern theories of evolution. These ignoramuses label their opposition with the word Darwinian --as if 'Darwinian' were a bad word. It's NOT! Of course, Darwin's theory is "Darwinian". It also happens to be, in the man, true and verifiable. It is not theory; it's fact!

Tragically --the right wing has a mental blind spot. They are utterly INCAPABLE of applying to themselves objective rules of logic and evidence. While most intelligent people today are comfortable with the fact that the laws of physics apply equally everywhere in the universe; they are discovered, described ONLY by observation and empirical methods. The "right wing" inclined have, obviously, never considered for a moment that their thinking processes are, in fact, reversed. Intelligent people will follow a premise logically to a conclusion. The right wing --rather --ASSUMES the truth of an ideology and work backward. Forcing everything into the mold. As a result of prejudice and mentally impaired rationalizations, the right wing will accept ONLY those conclusions conforming to their prejudices. An "pen mind" is anathema to them if not completely unheard of. By any definition, the American right wing is a "kooky cult"!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Mitt is Either Wrong or Lying; Corporations are NOT People

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Mitt Romney seemed very precise: "Of course, corporations are people, my friend!" His argument is as follows: corporations were made up of people; ergo: they ARE persons themselves.

That's fallacious of course! It's also a very bad re-write of Thomas Hobbes who described a Leviathan --a 'state' comprised of the people in it. But not even Hobbes would have dared to say that the 'state' IS a person! Being 'comprised' of people is not the same thing as being a 'being' a person.

As a person, I am made up of millions of cells, each of which replicate my DNA to some degree. But to say that EACH cell IS "ME" is absurd. What if I should prick my finger and I lose some blood? Have several hundred thousand 'people' died? Of course not!

Romney seemed to be arguing that because money that "...gets into people's pockets" does so by way of companies, companies are therefore 'people'! Again --his argument is not only fallacious but non-sensical! That workers are paid by corporations does not make people of corporations.

What about those 'people' not employed by the corporations about which Romeny spoke? Are we to believe that they are NOT people? In Romney's view, one must work or be indentured to a 'corporation' in order to be a person! That's absurd on its face. Clearly:

  • Romney has never truly understood the issue and may be incapable of understanding it
  • He is ignorant of the implications
  • He needs to take remedial courses in elementary logic and biology
  • Corporations are NOT and will never be 'people'
Let's consider Mitt's analogy in this way: if it were true that every cell in my body is a 'person', anyone cutting off my finger is, at least, guilty of assault and battery and possibly the cold-blooded murder of millions of little, micropscopic 'ME's". 

Being a 'person' occurs by virtue of being born of two members of the species: homo sapien! That is not the case with a corporation, any corporation, a corporation of any type! A corporation is, by definition, a charter, filed with a Secretary of State (most often Delaware); the charter outlines the corporate structure, lists the major officers and describes the 'type' of 'incorporation in legal terms. It is a NOT a person but simply a contract listing the major stockholders, summarizing the management and delegating various responsibilities. Certain accounting conventions follow but, certainly, no procedure has the God-like power to create 'persons' with a ledger book! No such combination of debits and credits has ever breathed life into inanimate objects and, by doing so, make 'people' of them!

When a corporation is given birth to by a woman as a result of her doing what human beings (persons) have done for thousands of years, then I might concur that corporations are persons. That will happn when pigs fly. And pigs WILL fly when I vote for a moron like Mitt Romney.

In the meantime, I suggest Mitt...

  • go back to school
  • take a biology course
  • take two semesters of philosophy
  • take two semesters of symbolic logic and one INTRO to the "Philosophy of Logical Analysis".
And ---corporations are NOT and never will be "people'!

How to Resist Illegal Police Searches and Violations of the Fourth Amendment!

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Commit this to memory:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

--Fourth Amendment, U.S. Constitution
Bottom line ---unless the officer wanting to harass you, search your car, pester you or argue with you can PRODUCE a WARRANT issued by a judge that describes 'particularly' the article that you are suspected of possessing, you need not submit to any search whatsoever. You know that! The judge knows that! But 'hot dogs' cops either don't know it or don't care or both! It is bitter irony that many who have had the law on their side have become victims of those who either care nothing for the 'rule of law'. An alarming number of these nimrods resent the fact that you have rights; as many resent legal restraints upon their conduct. Almost as many are not in the least bit concerned about your rights as a law abiding citizen and tax payer. 

Before you can be arrested, police must present the 'probable cause' that you have committed a crime to a judge before a warrant for either search or arrest can be issued.

Police may not --legally --conduct fishing expeditions, blanket searches, harassment! Information is reliable if it shows that it's more likely than not that a crime has occurred and the evidence sought exists at the place named in the search warrant, or that the suspect named in the arrest warrant has committed a crime.

These restrictions on unreasonable searches and seizures effectively restrain those cops who may wish to take you into custody but cannot without a warrant. Producing probable cause is the responsibility of the police and it follows from the 'presumption of innocence'. That is not your problem! The fact is "unreasonable searches and seizures" are illegal. Any search is illegal if not authorized by a warrant and NO warrant shall be issued but upon 'probable cause'! Therefore, you are not required or expected to do the cops' job for them. And if they do not know what their job is or how to do it they should resign immediately accompanied by a big 'STFU'!

An example of what cops are capable of occurred in Houston some 20 years ago. Cops, responding to a disturbance, arrested an hispanic Viet Nam war hero who was accused of creating a row in a bar.

He was beaten so badly by the cops that the jailer refused to admit him; he ordered the cops to take him to a hospital. Instead, they took him to a dimly lit area on Buffalo Bayou between downtown and the city's River Oaks/Memorial area. There they beat the holy hell out of him while shackled. Then they leveraged him out over the bridge and DUMPED him into the inky dark waters of Buffalo Bayou some 20 ft (or more) below.

He drowned and the cops --to Houston's credit --were made to stand trial for murder! They were convicted! I covered the trial.

If you should get stopped by a cop who persists and despite not having a warrant FORCES a search upon you, get his badge number!

  • SUE him!
  • Demand that he be dismissed without pension!
  • FILE charges against him!
  • Sue either the city, the state, the district!
  • Sue the bastards!


Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Fatal Holes that Sink Bush’s 911 Lie

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

History is being re-written as we write, speak or post. American Airlines itself was the source for my blog article of about 2 years ago in which it was revealed that Flight 11 did not fly nor had been scheduled to fly on 911.

The TIP off was a Wikipedia article which had been revised to reflect the truth about Flight 11. However, I wanted confirmation that it was, indeed, American Airlines, that was making the change. This I was able to confirm with a WHOIS look-up of the IP address making the change. It was --indeed --AA itself that was the source of the Wiki change that now said that Flight 11 was not even scheduled to fly on 911, had been mothballed for some 6 months as I recall. There is no information that it had been pressed into service at the 11th hour. There is simply no evidence that supports the Bush theory with respect to any of the alleged flights whatsoever.

In my opinion, that's better documentation than Woodward-Bernstein got from 'Deep Throat'. But --as Orwell taught us --history is re-written daily these days. The best that we can to is point out how UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE (if not ludicrous) is the Bush 'official conspiracy theory of 911'.

Our only consolation is that the FATAL holes in the theory are so large that not even BIG BRO can plug them up. The people themselves could help the cause of TRUTH by honing some elementary skills to include the refusal to SWALLOW utter junk that
violates basic principles of physics
  • is internally inconsistent
  • is blatantly inconsistent with its own timelines
  • is blatantly inconsistent from one version to the next.
The best example of that is Don Rumseld who referred to (his words) "....the MISSILE that struck this (Pentagon) building." That's called a Freudian slip. Rumsfeld knew that NO airliner had struck the Pentagon. He slipped up and told the truth.

Another glaring but obvious hole is the fact that official records of the Bureau of Transportation Safety [BTS] indicate that the cockpit door was NEVER opened after take-off. But we are told and expected to believe that Hani Hanjour had hijacked the plane and piloted it himself into the Pentagon. We are expected to believe that Hani Hanjour walked through a closed door --a trick envied by David Copperfield, I am sure.

The ONLY OFFICIAL SCRAP of evidence to have survived the Bush cover up is the AUTOPSY REPORT released to Dr. Olmstead via an FOIA request. There are NO ARABS on the list. Ergo: there were NO Arabs on board! But ---that's not all:
  • there is no record of any passenger being autopsied and, in the process, identified;
  • while Pentagon employees were buried at Arlington Cemetery, there is NO record of a single burial for any passenger. Where were/are their remains?
Almost forgotten these days, is the BBC story that inspired my very first suspicions. The BBC, in fact, interviewed several of the hijackers after Bush had said that they perished in the 911 attacks. But --there they were --interviewed by the BBC.

It is also worth mentioning here that the venerable BBC actually interviewed some of the 'said' hijackers after Bush had told us they all died crashing airplanes in New York, DC and PA.

There are many, many more FATAL HOLES in Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911. As Arthur Conan Doyle wrote: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however improbable must be the truth!" What remains are two facts: 1) Bush lied to hide the truth; 2) 911 was a govt/Bush admin inside job!


The 'Cowboy' on Facebook

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009



Monday, February 20, 2012

Illegal Immigrants Pay More Taxes Than Many Top U.S. Corporations



by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

If 'corporations' are people, then why are they NOT paying their fair share of taxes? Some pay very little! Some pay no taxes at all! The tax burden has, in fact, fallen upon REAL people and that --in itself --proves the LIE to the SCOTUS decision known, simply, as "Citizens United" in which five robed liars decreed that 'corporations' were 'people'. Citizens United was not a 'decision; it was a bald-faced lie! If it had been the truth 'Corporations' --being 'real' people --would be paying their fair share of taxes just like hard working and often hard pressed American REAL 'real people' are doing and have been doing since this nation's founding. And, when caught breaking the law, they would be imprisoned as are 'real' real people! If the letter of law applies to people and not to corporations, then corporation are NOT and will never be 'people'! SCOTUS has become crooked!
According to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (itepnet.org), undocumented workers paid billions in state organization that works on federal, state and local tax policy issues." GE, remember, paid NOTHING. Though conservatives will likely put ITEP alonside FactCheck and PolitiFact as liberal propaganda machines, ITEP is, as the NY Daily News reports, "a prestigious, nonprofit, nonpartisan research

--Illegal Immigrants Pay More Taxes Than Many Top U.S. Corporations
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has put out “A Guide to Corporate Freeloaders.”

  1. Exxon Mobil’s 2009 profits totaled $19 billion, yet according to its SEC filings, the company received a $156 million rebate from the IRS plus it didn’t pay any federal taxes.
  2. Bank of America made $4.4 billion in profits last year. This was after it received a $1 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS.
  3. General Electric has made $26 billion in profits in the United States over the past five years. It’s also received a $4.1 billion tax refund from the IRS. GE has cut a fifth of its American jobs in the past nine years, and is boosting jobs overseas – where tax rates are lower. And where it can continue evading U.S. taxes.
  4. Chevron’s IRS refund last year totaled $19 million but it’s 2009 profits came to a whopping $10 billion.
  5. Boeing received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers. It also received a $124 million refund from the IRS.
  6. Valero Energy made $68 billion in sales and received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS. Over the past three years, it has received a $134 million tax break thanks to the oil and gas manufacturing tax reduction
  7. Goldman Sachs paid 1.1% of its 2009 income in taxes. Yet it made a profit of $2.3 billion. And guess how much it received from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department? $800 billion.
  8. Citigroup profits last year totaled more than $4 billion. But it paid zero dollars in federal income tax, and received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.
  9. ConocoPhillips profits from 2007 through 2009 totaled $16 billion. But it was still awarded $461 million in tax arrears because of the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.
  10. Carnival Cruise Lines is apparently getting pretty good business. Its profits over the past five years totaled more than $1.1 billion. It’s federal income tax rate, however, came to just 1.1%.
Experience had led me to believe that most of the so-called 'illegal immigrants' who live and work in the U.S. are honest, hard-working folk. They work, raise children, shop, spend money! In fact, they represent a far greater infusion of 'monies' into the economy than do corporate leeches.

These so-called 'illegal aliens' are, in fact, paying their fair share and more! Corporate crooks often pay NOTHING whatsoever even as they export jobs, possibly your job! They leave it to real 'real' people to take up the slack!

Unlike corporate leeches upon the economy, so-called 'illegal aliens' do not export jobs. Jobs stay right here in the U.S. That is in stark contrast to GOP policies in general which have always resulted in the decline of U.S. jobs, in effect, a net export to those nation's with whom we have a negative trade balance --significantly: China. [See: CIA World Fact Book, Current Account Balance]

It has been asked: when did America, a country whose narrative and history was built on the sweat of immigrants, turn against immigration and immigrants? That's easy! That result came about with the rise of the GOP --a party of lies, scapegoats and excuses!

It has been said that there has always been a strong anti-immigration element in America! But I believe that that was not always the case. In fact, the Native Americans were here thousands of years before Europeans showed up and, in many if not most or all cases, Native Americans welcomed the new arrivals. They paid dearly for it. There are myriads of stories of genocide and atrocities. I refer the interested reader to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, specifically, his description of the fate of the Arawaks.

In the meantime, all Americans of every ancestry and origin must begin to think clearly about transperant, bald-faced lies that are invariably told and sold by the U.S. GOP --not a political party but an evil kooky cult.

I suspect that if all immigration --legal or ill --were stopped overnight, the nation would be plunged into a recession/depression. Few economies are so large that they can simply kiss off an overnight withdrawal of some several billion dollars! Banks would fall like dominoes.

To be fair, it is not only Hispanics that the GOP begrudges health-care! It's Americans of any origin or political persuasion! Their motto was best articulated by one Ebenezer Scrooge whom Dickens "quoted" thus: "Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? Then let them die and decrease the surplus population!"



Monday, February 13, 2012

The Ominous Implications of Corporate-Personhood'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

I do not and cannot support the Libertarian party. Primarily --if the libertarian position re: taxation had been the rule, FDR could NEVER have spent the U.S. out of the GREAT DEPRESSION. Think of how fortunate we were to have had a great President in office! Think of how disastrous our fate had a 'libertarian' been occupying the White House!

As I understand their platform, the 'Libertarian party', would have opposed Roosevelt's 'New Deal' and, most certainly, Social Security. Therefore, I would hope that Libertarians have denounced the exploitation of the 14th Amendment to rationalize 'corporate personhood', which in effect, grants to corporations 'Freedom of Speech'.

I do not believe that Exxon (for example) may enjoy 'free speech'. Exxon is not a person. If EXXON were never allowed to spew their lies and propaganda on REAL people, it would not keep me awake nights. I have freedom of speech. A 'legal abstraction' does not! I don't care what myths, lies and voodoo are subsribed to by ilk like Scalia.

But this issue is of considerable interest to anyone considering whether or not to support Ron Paul. Ron Paul is a strong supporter of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and so am I. But SCOTUS recently applied the 14th to 'legal abstractions', i.e, corporations.

IF corporations are people, then nothing can be done to prevent them becoming monopolies, enslaving 'real people' in various ways. IF corporations are people, to restrain them violates the 14TH amendment. Ron Paul's vocal support of the 14th must not cloak any support whatsoever for 'corporate personhood'?

If I were opposing Paul in a run for a nomination, I would demand he answer this question: are you for or against corporate personhood? This is, in fact, the 'cutting issue' that will define the election. With the 'possible' exception of Paul, every other Republican (prominently Mitt Romney) is in accord with the GOP 'line', i.e, the infamous Citizen-United decision in which SCOTUS bestowed upon mere legal abstraction the miracle of 'personhood'. Previously --only our 'creator' had been capable of such a miracle.

Even so, the following question must be put to every Republican seeking the nomination: If you are for the 14th but against corporate personhood, how would you propose to avoid a nation in which 'corporate-persons', in fact, legal monstrosities would exploit that unique status in ways that are yet still unknown?

If corporations were allowed 'personhood' today, nothing would prevent that 'concentration of wealth' in very, very few corporate-elite hands! Ergo: corporate personhood is a recipe for a NEW GREAT DEPRESSION. It would be the immediate onset of BIG BRO.

If corporations were allowed 'personhood' today, nothing would prevent that 'concentration of wealth' in very, very few corporate-elite hands! Ergo: corporate personhood is a recipe for a NEW GREAT DEPRESSION.

Libertarians cannot have it both ways. If 'people' are to have this brand of freedom AND if corporations are people, then what 'power' would restrain them, the government being reduced in power and status?

Rather --corporations should be restrained by a government responsible only to REAL, real people. Pin Ron Paul down on this point! It should be made clear --beyond any shades of gray or doubt --that CORPORATIONS are NOT people! It should be made clear that corporations exist at the pleasure of a government that was described by our founders --a government of REAL people, BY real people, and FOR real people!

I suspect that just such an outcome is precisely what 5 ideologues on SCOTUS had in mind. SCOTUS, certainly, does not care about R. Paul's problems. SCOTUS, kissing up to corporate 'sponsors' re-created the Frankstein monster but on paper! It's a monstrous problem for anyone but more so for anyone claiming to be a 'libertarian'.

FREE JULLIAN ASSANGE! OCCUPY THE WORLD!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Julian Assange has been in 'custody' illegally! His right of 'habeas corpus' has been denied him though not formally. He is simply detained, denied his freedom of movement and, presumably, his access to the international press! In fact, no charges have ever been filed against him. No judge has demanded of his captors that they produce 'probable cause' that he has --in fact --committed any crime of any sort! He is a political prisoner in every sense of the word. He may be the picture of a fascist future when 'authority' or 'force of arms' may simply decree one to be an enemy of the state.

Assange is locked up though the burden of proof in almost every western nation has rested upon those making accusations. Officially, he is not accused of a specific crime. He is --simply --a political prisoner, a 'captive' of a crooked state(s).

TYRANNY
The arrest warrant for Julian Assange should not stand and breaches "a matter of fundamental legal principle", the supreme court has heard .

Dinah Rose QC, defending the WikiLeaks founder in his final appeal against extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sex crimes, told the panel of seven senior judges that to consider the Swedish public prosecutor as a judicial authority was "contrary to a basic, fundamental principle of law".

Reaching back as far into European legal history as the Codex Iustinianus, dated 376AD, Rose said the Swedish prosecutor was a party in the Assange case and therefore not independent and impartial, breaching the principle that "no one should be judge in their own cause", which Rose said was one of the pillars of natural justice.
--Julian Assange extradition breaches legal principle, lawyer claims
This is an outrage! If Julian Assange can be imprisioned though no charges have ever been lodged against him, NO ONE IS FREE!

When the U.S. Bill of Rights had not yet been trashed, subverted by the likes of George W. Bush, the crooked court made crooked by the likes of Thomas, Scalia et al, the Bill of Rights had GUARANTEED every American DUE PROCESS LAW. The principle, it was hoped, would have been universal among 'western nations'. In fact, no one should be denied the right of Habeas Corpus.
Latin for "that you have the body." A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a prisoner or other detainee (e.g. institutionalized mental patient) before the court to determine if the person's imprisonment or detention is lawful. In the US system, federal courts can use the writ of habeas corpus to determine if a state's detention of a prisoner is valid. A habeas petition proceeds as a civil action against the State agent (usually a warden) who holds the defendant in custody. It can also be used to examine any extradition processes used, amount of bail, and the jurisdiction of the court.
--See, e.g. Knowles v. Mirzayance 556 U.S.___(2009), Felker v. Turpin 518 US 1051 (1996) and McCleskey v. Zant 499 US 467 (1991).
Simply, if charges cannot be found and filed upon PROBABLE CAUSE, the person targeted should be, must be released! Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, embraced by the American founding fathers, and made law in the Bill of Rights! It is, likewise, guaranteed in many nations.

Make the Right of Habeas Corpus a Principle of International Law

It is an essential safeguard against tyranny, arbitrary state action, 'official vendettas! ORGANIZE to demand that Julian Assange be 'arraigned' and the charges against him heard together with the probable cause that he violated any laws whatsoever. If the 'authorities' cannot produce the 'probable cause' to file a formal complaint with a judge, then ASSANGE MUST BE RELEASED!


Thursday, February 09, 2012

Jean-Paul Sartre vs the Pod People

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

'Mormanism' is a cult which believes Joseph Smith is a prophet! But believing Joseph Smith a prohet is no 'kookier' than any number of unquestioned shibbboleths and ideology that define the GOP just as many articles of 'faith' and/or superstitions define most if not all the world's religions. And the world's kooky cults!

By any definition, Christianity is, likewise, a cult just as it was considered to be by 'free Romans' during the long Roman Empire. Rome, especially during the post-Republican period was full of cults to include, prominently, various flavors of Mithraism. The Christians were just one of possibly hundreds of kooky cults of various persuasions, convictions and delusions.

Today it is not only Mitt Romney who is a cultist!

The GOP has seemingly deified Ronald Reagan! The GOP rank and file still worship Reagan's economic legacy, though it is, in fact, a sorry tail of inequities, slow growth, the 'export' of American industries, and recession/depression. In practice, the GOP clearly loathes any education which insists upon rigorous, skeptical science, objective inquiry, logic and/or empirical observation. All of those things threaten both cults --Christianity as well as the cult of Republicans.

Not all groups that could in one way or another be defined sociologically as cults are necessarily destructive. For instance, not every group requires its members to cut off normal contact with friends and family.

To be fair, cults are not always evil, kooky or destructive! But I am hard-pressed to name an entirely benevolent 'cult' offhand. In fact, I defend a persons right to be a 'cult-member' for so long as he/she does not harm others, commit or try to justify crimes in the name of the name of the cult, or, in any other way, deny the right of others to believe as they choose. I am tempted to write that most cults, however, are intolerant of dissent and, if not intolerant, may 'persuade' but in ugly, overly aggressive manners.

That said, I am of the opinion that cultism of any sort is 'anti-freedom'. A cult seems to me to be the ulitmate Faustian bargain in which an individual surrenders or concedes his/her individualty (soul?) to the larger social group. Just as a member of any 'armed force' or military surrenders his/her autonomy, a cult-member may no longer act autonomously.

“Existence Precedes Essence”: How May One be Free Today?

It was Jean-Paul Sartre's slogan—“existence precedes essence”—which defined 'existentialism'. With this phrase, Sartre made the point that it may be impossible to define or describe precisely what it means to be 'human'. It was, rather, a matter that is defined in the act of living itself. The human being may be alone in this respect, the inanimate world being the result of universal 'laws of physics' or 'evolution' in which 'essential properties' seem to be fixed from without, by forces exterior to the individual. Hence, Satre's famous declaration: "A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself".


Sunday, February 05, 2012

It Takes Courage to Leave the GOP Cult

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP is not a political party. It is a crime syndicate, to be sure, but also evinces characterisitcs of a kooky cult. I say that based upon my experience as a young man who got an education from 'inside the GOP'. I consulted them but stopped for reasons of conscience. I can relate to comments by John P. Judis, who chose to leave the cult.
"Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery." U.S. Fascism Will Have TX Origins
--John P. Judis, quote found at Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult, Mike Lofgren, Truthout | News Analysis
The GOP --sponsored as it is by exceedingly huge corporations which now presume to be persons --is an existential threat to American Democracy. The recent decision re: corporate personhood will prove to have been the piece de resistance! Either the GOP is in the pocket of the huge corporations or it is the other way around. The distinctions are as blurred as is the term 'corporate moraltiy' --an oxymoron.

The fact is corporations are mere 'legal abstractions'; they are NOT people. The definition of 'people' may be found in biology and/or psychology textbooks; I deny that politicians, old men, liars in robes can redefine with a mere decree some several million years of evolution over which they had no control or input. Robed judges are not 'God'! They cannot --with a mere decree --change the laws of evolution and/or physics. That some on the 'court' think so is evidence of insane and myopic arrogance!
I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth, I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

--John P. Judis, quote found at Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult, Mike Lofgren, Truthout | News Analysis
That the GOP has gone too far may be good news! GOP extremes, crimes, lie and absuridties have, at last, awakened some Democrats to the danger. At the same time, some Republicans have grown uncomfortable playing Faust to to the GOP's Mephistopheles, i.e, Satan. To them --I say: too late! You may have already sold your soul! And --as they say in Hollywood: what else you got?

Friday, January 27, 2012

How U.S. Elections May Violate the 14th Amendment

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The ideal of 'one man, one vote' has never been achieved. If your vote does not carry the same weight as does the vote of someone else, then your rights under the 14th have been violated! For example, it is possible that a Presidential candidate could get a greater number of popular votes but, by losing a few large states, get fewer 'electoral college votes and, thus, lose the White House.

That's only one example and a more obvious one. On any given election, votes are not equal. Someone else's vote may be 'worth' more than yours or yours may be worth more than another person's. Votes are not equal. And, in some cases, some votes --perhaps your vote --may not even count.
In a democratic election between two candidates, the winner is the person with the majority of the votes. But when three or more candidates run, things are seldom so simple. The winner often amasses only a plurality, not a majority, of the votes. (Bill Clinton, for example, won the presidency with 43 percent of the vote; Jesse Ventura won the Minnesota governorship with 37 percent.) The plurality winner could be everybody else's least favorite candidate and could even lose to each of the other candidates in a head-to-head battle. As Saari puts it: "The plurality vote is the only procedure that will elect someone who's despised by almost two thirds of the voters."

--Discover Magazine, May the Best Man Lose, November 1, 2000
The 14th says that "...no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

--U.S. Constitution, 14th Amendment
The Equal Protection Clause can be seen as an attempt to secure the promise that "all men are created equal". But not only minorites but every person has a stake in his/her vote being counted but --even more imporantly --counting for as much as every other vote cast by every other person in the nation.

The most promising proposals include the 'System of Single Transferable Vote' (STV) proposed by Thomas Hare in England and Carl George Andrae in Denmark in the l850s. Adopted throughout the world, STV has been adopted to elect public officials, prominently in Australia, Malta, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland as well as in local school board elections in New York City.

But other systems, likewise, have their advocates. They include 'preference voting', the Borda Count, range voting et al. All have in common that they are far superior to any method now used in the United States in terms of how accurately any given election reflects the will of the people. My own 'preference', however, is the Borda count in which...
...each voter ranks all of the candidates from top to bottom. If there are, say, five candidates, then a voter's top-ranked candidate gets 5 points, his second-ranked candidate gets 4, and so on. Finally, the points from all the voters are added up to determine the winner.

--Discover Magazine, May the Best Man Lose, November 1, 2000
It is hard to see how anything could be simpler and just as hard to see how a nation which tolerates the unequal nature of elections can --with a straight-faced --claim to be democratic or fair. It is hard to see how any government formed as a result of unfair or inaccurate voting systems can claim to be legitimate.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

AA Exposes Bush's 'Big Lie': Flight 11 DID NOT FLY on 911!


by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy


American Airlines is the source for information that AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 911. If neither flew on 911, the Bush 'theory' is a lie.

If the Bush 'theory' is a lie, there remains only one explanation: 911 was an inside job given a green-light by Bush himself. Moreover --only Pentagon employees were autopsied as a result of Flight 77 crashing the Pentagon.

There are NO names of passengers on the list, which is, in fact, the only admissible evidence to survive Bush's cover up and his obvious and felonious destruction of evidence (wreckage) at the Pentagon.

These "holes" are fatal to the Bush government's crumbling cover up! Conan Doyle, the brilliant creator of the character Sherlock Holmes, said:
"When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" 
Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is not only impossible, it is absurd and insulting to intelligent people!

The Bush Conspiracy Theory is impossible; That's why we know it is a lie!  


There is, then, probable cause to indict Bush and his co-conspirators for the crimes of mass murder and high treason. See: U. S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. That includes every lying statement made by Bush.

WikiScanner discovered that it was American Airlines which changed their Wikipedia entry to state that Flights 11 and 77 did not fly on 9/11. If these flights did not fly or did not exist, then Bush's "official conspiracy theory" must be discarded. It is a lie! The original entry was as follows:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: American Airlines Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and American Airlines Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).
New entry [as of the date of this article] is as follows and includes the bolded text below:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).

Although these flights were daily departures before and a month after September 11, 2001. Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.
--Wikipedia
To make the point: Wikipedia is NOT the source for these changes. The original source is American Airlines by making changes to Wikipedia. The 'story' is not about Wiki. The story is about a fact that is consistent with the observed facts as follows:
  1. no wreckage traceable to any airliner was ever recovered at the Pentagon
  2. That the flight (77) was not scheduled
  3. no airliner wreckage of any type nor any wreckage traceable to any flight was ever found or revealed by Bushco.
Instead, Bushco ordered the felony destruction of evidence i.e, wreckage that most certainly would have been verified and traced --not to an airliner but to a U.S. Global Hawk!

The ONLY turbo fan that was found and documented is not traceable to any airliner. It is, in fact, about 1/3 the diameter of two much larger turbo-fans that would have been recovered had Flt 77 struckt the Pentagon. It seems to me that Bush's felony destruction of evidence is evidence in itself that it was not an airliner that struck the Pentagon.

What had Bush to fear from airliner wreckage? Surely --the verified presence of debris traceable to an airliner would have supported Bush's version of events. Instead --Bush behaved like the criminal that he is and remains, i.e, he ordered the destruction of the evidence. That's a felony! 

The story is about how corrections to the official story originated with and from inside AA. The story is about the fact that the evidence that Flights 11 and 77 were not flying on 911 comes from American Airlines itself. Clearly --airliner personnel were trying to set the record straight. 
Just as no wreckage traceable to any 757 was ever recovered from the Pentagon, there is, likewise, no indisputable or official record that the flight --mothballed for some six months --was ever put back into service. If it had been, the burden of proof is still on Bushco and his league of liars to prove their story. 

SHOW ME THE WRECKAGE!! 
According to a Freedom of Information Act reply from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks, while no pre-9/11 final flight information was provided for American Airlines flight 77 (N644AA).

However, a discovered searchable online BTS database produces the following search results for three of the four 9/11 aircraft on September 10, 2001:

AA 11 departs San Francisco (SFO): AA 09/10/2001 0198 (flight number) N334AA (tail number) BOS (destination) 22:04 (wheels-off time)

UA 175 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0170 (flight number) N612UA (tail number) BOS (destination) 13:44 (wheels-off time)

UA 93 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0078 (flight number) N591UA (tail number) EWR (destination) 23:15 (wheels-off time)
--911 Blogger, UPDATE: U.S. BTS FOIA Records For 9/11 Planes Differ From BTS Online Database [The records were obtained by Adrian Monaghan]
The question is raised: how do we know who made the changes to Wiki? Everyone logged on to the internet does so from an IP address. In this case, the IP is that of American Airlines. It's traceable.

My own WHOIS lookup as well as my Google search of the IP address proves conclusively that the change originated from American Airlines itself. That is consistent with the fact that no wreckage traceable to any 757 was ever recovered. If it had been, you can bet that the Bush administration would have put every scrap on parade. They didn't!

Therefore, the Bush theory of 911 is a deliberate lie.

My look up returned the following:

WHOIS - 144.9.8.21


Location: United States [City: Ft. Worth, Texas
OrgName:    American Airlines Incorporated
OrgID:      AMERIC-112
Address:    P.O.Box 619616
Address:    MD 5308
City:       DFW Airport
StateProv:  TX
PostalCode: 75261
Country:    US

NetRange:   144.9.0.0 - 144.9.255.255
CIDR:       144.9.0.0/16
NetName:    AANET
NetHandle:  NET-144-9-0-0-1
Parent:     NET-144-0-0-0-0
NetType:    Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS-P1.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P2.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P3.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P4.SABRE.COM
Comment:
RegDate:    1990-10-31
Updated:    2002-06-27

RTechHandle: OG60-ARIN
RTechName:   Gelbrich, Orf
RTechPhone:  +1-817-931-3145
RTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

OrgTechHandle: ZW72-ARIN
OrgTechName:   WARIS, ZISHAN
OrgTechPhone:  +1-817-967-1242
OrgTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-29 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

In previous articles, I pointed out the fact that mere scraps that were found lying around on the Pentagon lawn were quickly gathered up by white shirted geeks. It was the only wreckage of any kind found on the Pentagon lawn. It included only one engine turbo-fan! But two would have been found had Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fan that was located and photographed on the lawn was one-third the diameter of two much larger compressor rotors that would have been left behind had a 757, indeed, ANY airliner crashed the Pentagon.

Last time I checked, the GOP had not managed to repeal the laws of physics, in this case, the law of the conservation of matter and energy. Simply, the wreckage found at the Pentagon when gathered would have weighed several tons; in other words, it would have weighed as much as a 757 minus passengers and fuel. Instead --the only wreckage gathered was carted off on the shoulders of four or five white-shirted, skinny geeks! Several tons? I don't think so.

Bottom line: NO WRECKAGE TRACEABLE TO A 757 was EVER found at the Pentagon. I do not believe that the laws of the conservation of matter and energy [See: conservation of matter and energy, M.I.T.] were repealed by Bush however much he might have wanted to do so.

SHOW ME THE WRECKAGE and TRACE IT TO A 757!!

We can expect a gang of crooks and liars to cover up their own misdeeds but to cover-up the work of an 'alleged' gang of terrorists only makes them look guilty. It makes them look guilty because the only remaining alternative is that Bushco is motivated to destroy evidence. Only those who are guilty of crimes are thus motivated. In this case, only Bushco is motivated to 1) lie about 911 2) order the destruction of evidence as he, in fact, did with respect to the Pentagon and the towers in New York; 3) try to intimidate those questioning the official lie by branding them traitors and/or subversives.

One of Many Fatal Holes in the Bush Official Conspiracy Theory

The many lies (many referenced in previous EC articles; see links below) are probable cause to begin a Federal Grand Jury investigation of George W. Bush's role in 911. Bush should be compelled by subpoena and Federal Marshals to testify under oath before an independent Federal Grand Jury. The AA revelations demand it!

911 as we have been told did not happen.

Bushco's 'official conspiracies theory' of 911 is full of holes. Flights 11 and 77 are essential ingredients in the "official conspiracy theory" of 911. That AA claims that neither 11 nor 77 were in the air that day sinks Bush's theory. Clearly --the official theory is a lie, an intentional cover-up. Cover-ups imply guilt! Otherwise --what is there to cover up? The official lie goes like this:
At 8:20, Flight 11 stopped transmitting its transponder signal, and veered northward and departed dramatically from the westward heading of its planned route. The controllers concluded that the plane had probably been hijacked. 4 5 At 8:24, the following transmission was reportedly received from Flight 11: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay .. we are returning to the airport
..Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody move please we are going back to the airport .. don't try to make any stupid moves. 6
Neither of the pilots pressed the distress call button. At 8:28 controllers reportedly watched the plane make a 100-degree turn toward the south. 7 Presumably, Flight 11 continued south along the Hudson River until it reached the World Trade Center, though documentation of this is sparse given the lack of public information.
According to NORAD's September 18 timeline, the FAA did not notify NORAD of the signs that Flight 11 was hijacked until 8:40, 25 minutes after the first signs of trouble. 8 
--Flight 11, The First Jet Commandeered on September 11th, 911 Research
Simply: if AA Flight 11 was not in the air, it could not have struck the towers; ergo: the Bush theory is false!

The house of cards collapses.

Assertions that Flight 11 struck the North Tower that are utterly baseless! If neither Flight 11 mor 77 was in the air that day, the Bush administration's version of events must be utterly discarded.

If flights 11 or 77 did not fly on 911, officialdom must come up with another explanation to explain the the events of 911.

No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon.

One would not expect to find wreckage of a flight never flown. What is significant with respect to the changes to Wiki, with respect to BTS/NTSB records is that the burden of proof is now placed upon Bushco to prove its theory. Bush et al should be compelled to prove the official theory --or face charges resulting from the probable cause that Bush himself and high ranking members of his administration participated in the crimes of mass murder and high treason!
Photos of an engine rotor appear to depict an engine used in the Global Hawk, a payload carrying missile that was, according to Britain's International Television News, flown from the US to Australia completely by remote control. "A robot plane has made aviation history by becoming the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean." 

Britain's ITN continued:
"The Global Hawk, a jet-powered aircraft with a wingspan equivalent to a Boeing 737, flew from Edwards Air Force Base in California and landed late on Monday at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh, in South Australia state... It flies along a pre-programmed flight path, but a pilot monitors the aircraft during its flight via a sensor suite which provides infra-red and visual images."
ITN quoted Australian Global Hawk manager Rod Smith: "The aircraft essentially flies itself, right from takeoff, right through to landing, and even taxiing off the runway."

"The Missile that Struck this Building" --Don Rumsfeld

The Global Hawk is a much better candidate for what Rumsfeld called '...the missile that struck this building' than a 757. Here's what you need to know about the Pentagon.
  • Only minutes after the strike, [see pic above] there is no sign of an airliner at all!!
  • No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered.
  • Only ONE engine rotor was recovered to be seen in photo! This rotor is about one third the diameter of a 757 rotor, i.e about the size of a U.S. Global Hawk rotor and can be traced to a U.S. Global Hawk.
  • A 757 has two rotors, each of which are nearly three times the size of the SINGLE rotor located at the Pentagon. Again --only one rotor was found in Pentagon debris.
  • Engine rotors are made of a Steel/Titanium alloy to withstand high temps inside jet engines and would have been found had they been there.
  • Flight 77 could not and did not crash into the Pentagon. That may be because Flt 77 did not fly on 911. According to airline records, Flight 77 had been mothballed and had not flown for some 6 months prior to 911.
No Arabs Were on Board 77

There are no Arabs on the only Pentagon 'evidence' that is admissible in court: the 'Official Autopsy Report' of Pentagon victims. If no Arabs were on board Flight 77, Bush's theory must be trashed! There is not only no evidence to support the conspiracy theory that Arab terrorists hijacked 77. There is every reason to believe that none ever got on board.

The autopsy report was released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. In a 'neat' cover-up, a 911 memorial lists all victims of whatever it was that crashed into the Pentagon. At the same time, 77 victims were said to have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery. All are Pentagon employees! Where, then, are the passengers buried? I would be very surprised to learn that there were passengers on a flight that cannot be proven to have existed.

Whatever crashed into the Pentagon was described by a witnesses as looking like a "hump-backed whale". Rumsfeld himself called it a missile: Below: a US Global Hawk painted to look like an AA airliner. It is both a 'missile' and it also has a hump back! It 'fills the bill'.

The photo below does not purport to be the craft that would ultimately crash into the Pentagon. It merely demonstrates how easily such a 'paint job' could dupe those who are 1) not experts on aircraft 2) saw it only for a second or less as it scooted across the Pentagon lawn as NO 757 could possibly have done 3) were, in any case, caught off guard.


Recognizing lies for what they are is a part of the process of growing up! America, it is time to grow up! It is time to confront this heinous pack of lies! It is time to insist that the Obama administration begin a REAL investigation of 911.

It is time to insist that a Federal Grand Jury investigate every count of high treason, mass murder and domestic terrorism that was perpetrated upon the people of the U.S. by the Bush administration, his collaborators in the Pentagon, K-Street, the Congress and the leadership of the Republican party, Marvin Bush's 'Securacom', Larry Silverstein who ordered WTC 7 be 'pulled', General Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and, of course, George W. Bush who was, at the time, the 'Commander-in-Chief' and ultimately responsible for the orders given the US military to 'stand down'.
By Donald Rumsfeld's own admission, he was unaware of any threats to the Pentagon -- the building where he was located during the September 11th attacks -- until an aircraft crashed into the side of it, and he ran out "into the smoke" to see if it might be a "A bomb? I had no idea." (ABC News This Week, Interview 9/16/01).
Well, that's a pretty tall tale by any standard. The New York Times reported that by 8:13am, the FAA was aware of the first hijacking out of Boston. The Pentagon explosion, which Donald Rumsfeld claimed he had "no idea," did not occur until approximately 9:37am, nearly an hour and a half later, this after two of the tallest buildings in the world were devastated. Note that a plane hijacked out of Boston can reach Washington D.C. as easily as it can reach New York City.
It was widely reported that Pentagon personnel were indeed aware of the threats to their security, and they took security measures on that morning. But not the "Secretary of Defense." Why should the man charged with defending the United States of America concern himself with hijacked aircraft?
There is a set of procedures for responding to hijackings. In particular, these procedures were changed on June 1, 2001 while Rumsfeld was in power as our Secretary of Defense, in a document called: "CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A"
The video asks: "Was 911 a Conspiracy?" That is not the question. Even Bushco claims that it was a conspiracy --a conspiracy of 19 Arab Hijackers who could not possibly have pulled it off. It's a stupid theory; without the shock and awe campaign, no one would have believed it.

The questions, rather, are which conspiracy and who were the conspirators? It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however improbable MUST be the truth!

There has been a spate of fallacious comments of the form: "...uh...what happened to the passengers, dude?". A few points:
  1. the 'question' is, in fact, an implied statement and assumes that there were flights! It assumes there were passengers! If there were --in fact --passengers one would have expected to have found their names on the official autopsy report. One would have expected to find in the public records the time and location of their burials.
  2. But --alas --there are NO Arab names whatsoever on the ONLY official/admissible scrap of evidence to have survived the Bush cover-up of 911! That would be the official autopsy report! There is simply no evidence of any passengers, no evidence that any flight alleged by Bush to have crashed in either NY or the Pentagon flew at all on that fateful day! In a court, it would be said that any statement with respect to 'passengers' that 'it assumes facts NOT in evidence'!
  3. Absence of evidence is not evidence! It is certainly not evidence in support of anything, let alone Bush's idiotic, fallacious and pernicious lie(s)! The 'absence of bodies' is not evidence of a crash of any sort. Only the presence of bodies traceable to the alleged flights would have been evidence in support of Bush. Alas --there were none! Ergo: Bush lied! The Bush 'theory' is bunk and bullshit!
The only available evidence, moreover, disproves the Bushco conspiracy theory of 911. There is no evidence whatsoever that there were --at any time --any Arabs of any sort (terrorist or otherwise) on board Flight 77, a flight for which there is no evidence whatsoever that it was even in the air.

Even the Washington Post is on record reporting that Hani Hanjour could not have been on board; he did NOT have a ticket. Skinny Hanjour is said to have been very slight, perhaps less than a hundred pounds. Are we to believe he over-powered people at the gate? In any case, there is simply no evidence of that, nor was it reported, nor is it credible.

Also --among the flight information released to an professional pilots association NTSB data that proves that the cockpit door was NEVER opened during the flight. Are we to believe that Hanjour managed to walk through a closed door into the cockpit? Was he sooo skinny he was able to slide under a closed cockpit door. Really! The Bush theory is not merely impossible, it's increasingly absurd, stupid and amateurish. Anyone duped by this bullshit should be ashamed of themselves.
The AFIP suggest these numbers; 189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were "passengers" on the plane. The AA list only had 56 and the list just obtained has 58. They did not explain how they were able to tell "victims" bodies from "hijacker" bodies. In fact, from the beginning NO explanation has been given for the extra five suggested in news reports except that the FBI showed us the pictures to make up the difference, and that makes it so.
Now, being the trusting sort, I figured that the government would want to quickly dispel any rumors so we could get on with the chore of kicking Osama/Sadaam's butt (weren't these originally two different people?). It seemed simple to me. . .produce the names of all the bodies identified by the AFIP and compare it with the publicized list of passengers. So, I sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the AFIP and asked for an expedited response, because we were getting ready to send our boys to war on the pretext that Osama/Saddam had done the deed. Fourteen months later, a few US soldiers dead, many Iraqi civilians pushing up daisies, and I finally get the list. Believe me that they weren't a bit happy to give it up, and I really have no idea why they choose now to release it.
foia-10003.jpg
No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab; however, three ADDITIONAL people not listed by American Airlines sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras. Indeed, American had the opportunity to "revise" their original list, but they have not responded. The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague. The AFIP claims that the only "passenger" body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg, whose parents and young sister are on the list of those identified. The satanic masterminds behind this caper may be feeling pretty smug about the perfect crime, but they have left a raft of clues tying these unfortunates together.
--Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D., Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77 
Worth repeating and in summary:
...the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks.
I don't wish to belabor the point but it must be made clear that unaccounted for passengers is among the biggest holes in Bush's cover story; it is Bush's big, treasonous lie.

If Bush cannot explain the absence of airliner wreckage or the missing passengers, then his official theory must be discounted. It was Conan Doyle's character, Sherlock Holmes, who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth!" But, of course, finding, learning, revealing the truth has never been the Bushco agenda. Seizing unjustifiable war powers was, I am sure, always on his agenda which always included oil!

Those who assert must prove! 

The burden of proof is on anyone believing and/or asserting that the alleged flights existed. A mass movement of Americans to include members of Congress should have insisted insisted that a Federal Prosecutor put Bush on the witness stand in front of a federal grand jury where the following question would be put to him: 'what was the fate of the passengers on flights 77 and 11?'

It would be very interesting to learn how he might escape the experience without being indicted for:
  1. PERJURY
  2. OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
  3. MASS MURDER
Concerning possible charges of 'high treason' against Bush: was it not Bush who declared that we were at war? Was it not Bush and his shills who insisted that the US attack, invade and occupy Iraq in response to an 'attack' upon the US? Have not Bush partisans insisted, from the 'gitgo' that the U.S. attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq was part and parcel of the US 'war on terrorism'? That being the case, Bush's complicity in the events of 911 are most certainly acts of betrayal against a sovereign in a time of war and, therefore, high treason! 

Among a growing number of links back to this article is this excellent expose of the Flight 77 fraud:
According to the official story, AA Flight 77, a Boeing 757, took off from Dulles Airport in northern Virginia at 8:10 a.m. bound for Los Angeles, with between 50 and 58 passengers. It flew west for about 45 minutes, making a curious detour to the north, west and south, before turning around and flying for another 45 minutes back to Washington. Why hijackers would allow a jet which they planned to crash into a target in Washington to fly for 45 minutes away from its target is not explained. Why did they not commandeer the plane ten minutes after takeoff when the plane was only ten minutes flying time from its intended target? The official story ignores this question, as it does all other questions.

As reported by the New York Times (International Herald Tribune, 2001-10-17, p.8), as AA 77 approached the Pentagon it executed a 270-degree 7,000-foot descent over Washington while flying at 500 mph. It approached the Pentagon on a horizontal trajectory so low that it clipped the power lines across the street then (so the story goes) it smashed into an outer wall of the Pentagon.

We were told (and, of course, expected to believe without question) that this maneuver was executed by an Arab pilot, Hani Hanjour, who in August 2001 was judged by the chief flight instructor at Bowie's Maryland Freeway Airport as not having the piloting skills required to fly a Cessna 172 solo. (Is there something fishy here?)

In contrast to the attention given to the collapse of the Twin Towers, the attack on the Pentagon received little attention until in February 2002 a French website (by Thierry Meyssan) appeared which reproduced images obtained from U.S. Army websites: Hunt the Boeing! These images cast doubt upon the official story that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757 jetliner. For example, here is a picture of the Pentagon crash site taken about two hours after the impact, with the fire still burning. Can you see any remains of the approximately 100 tons of metal (including engines, wings, and tail section) which makes up a Boeing 757? .....
--Pentagon Official Story Hoax
The FBI doesn't believe the 'official conspiracy theory' of 911. Why should you?

The FBI has admitted, officially, that it cannot find any 'evidence' or documentation to support popular myths that some four airliners were hijacked by terrorists and used as weapons on 911. Moreover, the FBI itself admits that "... no records would have been generated responsive to plaintiffs request for documents."

In other words, even the FBI concedes that there is no admissible, no official evidence to support Bush's lies about 911. Their investigation, says the FBI, was based upon the never questioned assumption that the said flights had been hijacked. The key word in the FBI statement is: ASSUMPTION. The FBI is overly polite. 'Assumption' by Bushco is unacceptable! But a better description of Bush and company is 'bald-faced lie' purpose of which was two-fold: 1) obstruct justice 2) protect the guilty and prevent their prosecution for the crimes of high treason and mass murder!

The Co-chairs of the 911 Commission don't believe the official theory; why should you?



Saturday, January 21, 2012

Deceptive, Dubious and Dishonest Origins of Corporate Personhood

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The origins of 'corporate personhood' are dubious, suspicious, crooked! 'Corporate personhood' derived from an informal note from a CLERK:
"The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There are many things wrong with this statement. For a start, the 14th states clearly that its intention is to forbid a state "...to deny to any person ...equal protection of the law." To apply this to coporations assumes that corporations are people to begin with. Logicians call this a circulus en probando fallacy i.e, a circular argument! Lawyers would say that it 'assumes facts not in evidence'! Specifically , it 'assumes' that corporations are people under the 14th and does so in order to prove that 'corporations are people'. Thus an assumption becomes the premise that 'proves' the assumption; in this case an 'assumption' that 'corporations are people'! In fact, corporations are NOT entitled to the protections of the 14th because they are not, in fact, people!

A political agenda was at work! It is in the interests of the 'corporate party' [GOP] that corporations, their benefactors, be considered people. It is in the interests of this corporate party that corporations be granted privileges which, as mere legal abstractions, they would not, do not in any way deserve or warrant! In this way, I can prove almost anything,however fallacious, however stupid, however backward.

The GOP has learned to hide their 'assumptions' among the panoply of crap that is believed by the GOP rank and file in order to feel good about themselves. In fact, this fallacy would not survive a first semester logic course at university; this fallacy would not survive a sophomore high school debate coach.

Again --the right wing is severely, endemically confused about cause and effect, about premises and conclusions. A conclusion cannot be a rationale for a premise! A conclusion may not precede a premise. "One" precedes "two" and 'causes' --without fail --always precede their effects.

'Corporate personhood' was a desired result! One senses desperation at work. Failing authoritative sources --say --the U.S. Constitution or previous decisions of the high court, the five desperadoes, otherwise disguised as 'justices' seized upon whatever sounded good. Scalia is expert at this. His rationale for Bush v Gore, for example, was just as fallacious --a circulus en probando fallacy.
"...to count first and rule upon legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires."

--Antonin Scalia, CNN Transcripts, December 11, 2000, Supreme Court Bush v. Gore
The effect was simply this: the re-count was halted while Bush was still ahead! If this fallacy, which in fact works backward from a foregone conclusion, is the basis for SCOTUS's 'corporate personhood' decree then we must conclude that valid opinions of and by real jurists and past courts, several hundred years of jurisprudential traditions dating back to MAGNA CARTA mean nothing to Scalia! In better times, Scalia would have been called out, challenged, tarred, perhaps feathered, made to squawk while flapping his flabby arms.

Five republicans on SCOTUS have nothing but contempt for the concept of 'equal protection under the law' guaranteed to all citizens via the 14th Amendment'. They are contemptuous of the Bill of Rights in general.
"Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during its first fifty years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than fifty percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations"

--Justice Hugo Black 1938*
The Fourteenth Amendment was one of three amendments to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War to guarantee black rights. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth granted citizenship to people once enslaved, and the Fifteenth guaranteed black men the right to vote. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress in June 1866 and ratified by the states in 1868. The Radical Republicans had been battling with Andrew Johnson for control of Reconstruction. Johnson was in favor of leaving the future of black people in the hands of white Southerners.
The Radical Republicans disagreed, and they won. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States and prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the U.S., depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ("No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") With the exception of Tennessee, the Southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The Republicans then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which set the conditions the Southern states had to accept before they could be readmitted to the union, including ratification of the 14th Amendment.

Since Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment -- especially the equal protection clause -- has been applied to a number of cases. It emerged in the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka when the United States Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment as one of its rationales for declaring school segregation unconstitutional.
--Why the progress made by blacks during Reconstruction was seen as a threat by whites, Richard Wormser
In 1971, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Reed v. Reed. Sally Reed had sued when Idaho law presumed that her estranged husband should be automatically selected as executor of the estate of their son, who had died without naming an executor. The Idaho law stated that "males must be preferred to females" in choosing estate administrators.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, decided that the Fourteenth Amendment did prohibit such unequal treatment on the basis of sex -- the first US Supreme Court decision to apply the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause to gender or sexual distinctions. Later cases have refined the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to sex discrimination, but it was more than 100 years after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment before it was applied to women's rights.

-Jone Johnson Lewis, Women's Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment - Finally Applied, Reed v. Reed and Roe v. Wade, Findlaw


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Support the Proposed Amendment that Would ABOLISH 'Corporate Personhood'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

I fully support a movement to enact a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that rejects and will undo the recent SCOTUS decision 'creating people' of mere 'legal abstractions'. The idea that corporations ---mere legal abstractions --are people is insidious and endangers American Democracy. While 'real people' are held to the letter of the law and often imprisoned for wrong doing, the very purpose of 'corporate personhood' has had the effect, in practice, of placing 'corporations' above-the-law.

A proposed amendment would reverse the decision of the high court with respect to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In a 5-to-4 vote, SCOTUS 'created' real people of mere corporations declaring that corporations have, among every Constitutional right, a right of 'free speech' under the First Amendment. It was declared that the government may not 'impose restrictions' on the political speech that corporations may indulge. As a result, corporations and other special interest groups are now given license to spend "unlimited amounts of money on elections." It was a green light to corporations: buy and/or support any candidate with as much money as you want to spend! The decision could not have been a bigger afront to Democracy, i.e, government of the people. Free speech is a right of people as affirmed by our founders. That corporations may now claim that right is simply fascism. Pure and simple!

The ORIGIN of 'corporate personhood' is found in an informal note from a CLERK: "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Prior to this mere clerk's mere note, NO ONE had believed that the 14th amendment applied to anyone but real people. Nor does it now! Scalia's court blew it again! If Scalia had a last remaining vestige of conscience, he would confess that he 1) blew it; 2) admit that he is a bought and paid for tool; 3) RESIGN!