If Not Now, When? Stopping Genocide!

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Rob DeLoss

When I first saw this picture of this woman lying on the grave of a loved one, it touched my soul & I thought of how many millions of people around this planet must have experienced such a deep, soul-wrenching pain. I often feel like a fool in that I have spent so much time & energy reading & writing but rarely feel that I’ve connected with others. But this essay isn’t just about me, no, it’s about all of us and our common humanity or lack of it. What does it mean to be humane? Well for me it means to be; compassionate, kind, charitable, merciful, sympathetic, empathetic, benevolent, & understanding. And I believe that the overwhelming majority of people on this planet we call home are humane, loving creatures who care about other people, the environment, animals, plant life, the quality of our lives, work that pays a fair wage & makes people feel proud of the work they do. I also believe that the vast majority of humanity is opposed to war but unfortunately for humanity, a small percentage of humanity is composed of people who seem devoid of the characteristics we associate with being humane or civilized. I refer to these entities as corporate cockroaches.

Nazi death camp

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

And I realize that I have been beating the same drum for decades now but I must raise my voice in protest and I have to keep on trying to strike a chord in the hearts of others regarding the myriad of issues threatening our very survival. Some will dismiss this as paranoia, exaggeration, fear mongering, negativity, etc. well, that’s their right and it’s my right to speak out against these evils. Far too many of us have been silent for too long and we are facing global genocide both environmentally & economically. It’s only by dreaming the seemingly impossible that we/I can keep my spirit alive. This isn’t fun but it’s necessary. This is my calling, my reason for being here. I believe as Plato said in effect, those who are educated have a responsibility to share their knowledge with others. And this isn’t to say that I have the corner on truth. No, far from it but I have done a tremendous amount of work over the years in my search for the truth or wisdom and it sets before me a goal that I know I will never reach but it isn’t reaching that goal that matters, no, it’s the journey that gives me purpose & is my companion on the road. My challenge is the same as that of all teachers and that is to find a way to connect with people, to show them how these seemingly disparate tragedies happening all over the globe are connected & touch each of us as individuals & touch us collectively as a species. Not until enough of us realize our common bonds will we stem this tide of greed, corruption, rape, murder, humiliation, etc.

The inspiration for this essay came to me last night as I was watching again, Steven Spielberg’s epic movie, “Schindler’s List.” The inhumanity the Nazis displayed toward the Jews & others of Europe in their day is unfathomable? How can a human being with blood flowing in their veins, who has children, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, etc. commit such heinous acts against their fellow human beings? How is this humanly possible? Is it propaganda? Is it in their genetic make-up? What could possibly account for such inhumanity? I have no clear answer to this question but I want/hope to alert you to the repetition of such colossal acts of bestiality throughout history. Why? Because if we don’t truly learn & not only learn about them but truly understand them, how they came about, the tell-tale signs that a society, a nation, etc. is on the path to committing such crimes against humanity again, these acts of genocide can & most likely will occur yet again!

Before I move on, lest you think me a Henny Penny or an alarmist and guilty of doing the same as FOX News e.g. spreading fear & hatred, reflect on this:

“The denial of the Holocaust has no more credibility than the assertion that the earth is flat. Yet there are those who insist that the death of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps is nothing but a hoax perpetrated by a powerful Zionist conspiracy. For years those who made such claims were dismissed as harmless cranks operating on the lunatic fringe. But over the past decade they have begun to gain a hearing in respectable arenas, and now, in the first full-scale history of Holocaust denial, Deborah Lipstadt shows how—despite tens of thousands of living witnesses and vast amounts of documentary evidence—this irrational idea not only has continued to gain adherents but has become an international movement, with organized chapters, ‘independent’ research centers, and official publications that promote a ‘revisionist’ view of recent history.” (from the back cover of “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.”)

and “In April 1993, in conjunction with the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Roper Organization conducted a poll to determine the extent of Americans’ knowledge of the Holocaust. Neither the Roper Organization nor the American Jewish Committee, which sponsored the poll, expected any startling results. But they were surprised by the response to one of the questions. When asked ‘Do you think it possible or impossible that the Holocaust did not happen?’ 22 percent of American adults and 20 percent of American high school students answered, yes, it was possible.’

(pg. xi of the preface)

mindbogglingly brilliant man!

I don’t know about you my friend but this truly scares the Hell out of me. If such a large percentage of adults & high school students can believe this, what does that say about the possibility of yet another massive genocide? To me this clearly proves how vitally important it is for us to not only educate & inform ourselves and others as well as unlearn much of what we’ve been taught in our public & private schools. Yes, just because some people were privileged enough to attend private schools & elite, private colleges doesn’t mean that they too weren’t lied to. Another genocide that many, if not most, Americans are ignorant of is America’s despicable history of the genocide of the Native Americans or the indigenous peoples who lived here way before the White man.

As I was hitch-hiking across the U.S. in 1974, I read Dee Brown’s classic “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” and I was dumbfounded at what I learned from this book. A few years later, I was in a job interview and the manager told me that he was the president of the local school district & seemed open-minded so I asked him directly, Why is it that they lie to us about American history & his response was matter-of-fact with no hint of apology; “Quite simply, the majority of people don’t go on to higher education & the government wants people to leave school with a good feeling about their country.” I was flabbergasted at the audacity of the lie or the deceit and the nonchalance of this manager’s answer. If I remember correctly, he was a Hispanic person and this also amazed me because surely someone who had most likely been discriminated against for a good part of his life would have some resentment towards the dominant culture’s crimes? I guess I’ve always been naive regarding such matters?

Of course there have been many other genocidal wars conducted throughout history such as the little known genocide waged by the Turks against the Armenians which the Turks still deny. Again though, the point is that we must, even if we only care about our own, immediate family, care about all of humanity because all our lives are inextricably & wonderfully dependent on one another not only for our common survival but for our mutual enlightenment, joy, quality of life, etc.

Upton Sinclair, author of “It Can’t Happen Here”

As I was watching “Schindler’s List” last night I also thought of the book by Upton Sinclair called “It Can’t Happen Here.” This book came to me because my guess is that for even those who acknowledge that the Holocaust did actually happen, I bet most would deny that such an event could ever happen here in America? As some scholars have pointed out, before the Nazis came to power in pre-war Germany, Germany was noted for being a very enlightened society of well-cultured, sophisticated intelligent people who appreciated the fine arts, science, etc. So evidently, intellect alone is no guarantee that such horrific events can’t happen. No, we must educate our hearts as well as our heads and that’s one of the reasons why I chose such a tragic image to open this essay. I want to touch your spirit & remind you of personal loss on such a deep level that hopefully this image will never leave you and serve as a reminder of our common humanity no matter the color of our skin, our religious beliefs, our political identity, our nationhood. There’s a significant reason why our government & our corporate overlords no longer allow images of America’s fallen soldiers or their coffins to be shown on television. They know the power of images to touch people’s emotions and possibly turn them against the never ending wars we engage in around the globe. They, the warmongers know that the images of America’s boys in body bags being sent home daily as we wallowed in that quagmire called the Vietnam War, steadily eroded the public’s support of the war.

winning “Hearts & Minds” in Vietnam

Corporate Media Conglomerate of Cockroaches!

Stalin killed 20 million of his own people!

Hiroshima

In a nutshell, if the powers that be via the C.E.O.s of the six media conglomerates; Vivendi Universal, AOL Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch & FOX News), Viacom, & Bertelsmann A.G. control not only the content of what we read & listen to as well as the images we are allowed to see & are shown, we are almost completely helpless in terms of being manipulated, indoctrinated, & brainwashed. There are a number of good books written on this subject but two that I highly recommend are; “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” by Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky (and Chomsky is a one man intellectual tour de force for those of you who may not know of him) and “The Media Monopoly” by Ben Bagdikian. We are up against an array of forces so great that it’s not like David vs. Goliath, no, it’s more like a piss-ant against Goliath! Do we have a choice? Yes, we always have a choice, we can turn a blind-eye like so many “Good Germans” and live with the shame & guilt of knowing we stood by while humanity was destroyed or we can stand up on our hind-legs like the noble race we are and fight with every ounce of strength, intellect, love, & compassion within us. I know to the marrow of my bones that this is a fight we must fight & win if we are to continue as a species and this is no mere hyperbole. Even a cursory look at the state of the world proves this so a thousand fold times over. And I’ll leave it to you to reflect on the following list in your heart of hearts and ask yourself if you see any parallels to American society today?

Powerful and continuing nationalism
Disdain for human rights
Identification of enemies/scapegoats
Supremacy of the military
Controlled mass media
Obsession with national security
Religion and government are intertwined
Corporate power is protected
Labor power is suppressed
Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
Obsession with crime and punishment
Rampant cronyism and corruption
Fraudulent elections
Rampant sexism

This was taken from a poster titled: Early Warning Signs of Fascism

I’ll leave you with a quote from a Holocaust survivor who won the Nobel Prize

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

― Elie Wiesel

Posted in Class War | Tagged apathy, Armenian genocide, Ben Bagdikian, Bury My Heart, Chomsky, compassion, Dee Brown, economical genocide, Elie Wiesel, environmental genocide, fascism, FOX News, global genocide, history, Holocaust denial, humanity, It Can't Happen Here, John Trudell, Manufacturing Consent, media conglomerates, Media Monopoly, Native American genocide, propaganda, Schindler's List, Upton Sinclair, Vietnam war, war | Leave a comment

Poverty is the Worst form of Violence!

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Rob DeLoss

This is a quote from Mahatma Gandhi that I came across a few weeks back and thought it’d be a good essay title. I am going to relate experiences from my past with my perspectives on the connections between poverty and violence.

To listen to many so-called “conservatives” like Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc., poverty is simply a matter of people’s laziness & a lack of character. But a cursory overview of this subject reveals what a shallow & dishonest accusation this is. Throughout recorded history and probably even before recorded history, the privileged elite have gained their wealth, power, & prestige by intimidating & exploiting those “inferior” to them in class, wealth, and status. Emperors, kings, queens, lords, etc. have maintained their stranglehold over those under them by forcing them into servitude as in making them pay “tributes” to them and by making them serve in their armies. The military has been used by rulers throughout history to expand the ruler’s power by conquering new lands, enslaving the people of these new lands, and forcing the newly enslaved into paying tributes (taxes) and also joining the conqueror’s army.

In the modern world we have disguised this age old practice with a lot of fancy rhetoric and lies about how taxes are necessary for the betterment of all the citizens. And serving one’s country by becoming a soldier is one’s patriotic duty. Strange thing though, if you do a quick 15 minute search on the Internet of America’s top 20 corporations you’ll soon learn that not only do they not pay any taxes, they actually get tax rebates in the tens of millions and some of these corporate cockroaches even get billions back in tax rebates. These vulture capitalists get the free use of our nationwide highway system, our ports, our airports, our water systems, the protection of our police and court system, etc. etc. etc. and they have the balls to tell us that they’re patriotic and we’re not if we don’t buy their products, pay our taxes, serve in the military though very few of them have, etc.? “Our” yeah, that’s fresh, government gives these same corporations massive subsidies to start up their companies, do their research & development, tax breaks, etc. yet when these companies start making a profit, we are told that they are private and we, the public who subsidized them have no claim on a share of their profits. The Internet is a prime example because it was developed by the Pentagon and professors at M.I.T. amongst other universities who are also subsidized by us, the taxpaying suckers!

It’s hard for me to hold my tongue when I talk about such matters because Americans are clearly suffering a prolonged recession as they call it but it should more accurately be called a Depression! They believe that if they keep referring to it as a Recession, not a Depression, it’ll keep us playing their game and believing that there is light at the end of the tunnel. If you need more “proof,” consider the war in Iraq. We’re supposed to just forget about all the lies that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, etc. told us to sell us on starting that war. And we’re supposed to believe that we brought freedom & democracy to Iraq. Well how did that work out? What about the several thousand American soldiers, who died, the tens of thousands of our soldiers who were maimed and lost legs, arms, etc.? What about the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Iraqis who were killed or had to flee Iraq and become refugees in foreign lands and treated as unwelcome intruders in the countries they fled to?

I could go on for hundreds of pages laying out for you examples of how rigged this system we call democracy & capitalism is. How the power elite with their senators, congressmen, federal, state, & local judges in their pockets have pocketed billions & trillions of our tax dollars that we’re forced to pay or threatened with jail and financial ruin, have screwed us royal. But that’s up to you to research if you give a damn! Yeah, my tone is snide, sarcastic, cynical, etc. but that’s because I have just seen and learned too well how they have been leading us to slaughter over the centuries and all the while looking down their noses at us like we’re human scum. Telling us we’re poor and suffering because we are an inferior breed of human. I do take some comfort in knowing that history often repeats itself and I look forward to a repetition of the French Revolution. You might think, boy is this guy violent!

Am I the violent one when as during the time preceding the French Revolution, people were starving and dying in the streets? When the French working class begged for bread and their queen, Marie Antoinette responded with “Let them eat cake.” Translation; who gives a fuck! You may accuse me of being overly simplistic but am I really? At the time of the French Revolution, the government and the aristocratic elite lived a life of obscene opulence epitomized in The Palace of Versailles. Look around you in our life in America today. The corporate behemoths are making record profits even as they continue laying off, firing, and “downsizing” millions of America’s workers. They have closed so many of our former manufacturing plants here and opened them up overseas where they can pay workers $2 per day and have no worries about unions, workers’ rights, environmental laws, etc. They have taken back most of the hard won benefits American workers fought so bravely for and had their heads caved-in for or were killed for e.g. the right to overtime, health benefits, pension plans, time and a half, etc. etc. etc. all the while telling us with somber tones, “times are tough, we don’t want to do it but we have to because of the ‘bottom-line.’ And at the same time they, the C.E.O.s double or triple their own salaries in the tens or hundreds of millions? How dare they call themselves or their corporations, American!

America is now infamously, the largest per capita prison country in the world. Why? Because not only is it cheaper in terms of locking up the trouble makers who cause trouble in the streets of our cities rather than deal with the underlying causes for poverty and crime in our cities but now they have turned prisons into a profitable money-making venture. Yes indeed my friend, they have brought back debtors’ prisons and now force prisoners to work for private corporations who can wipe-out their competition because they don’t pay their workforce anything or maybe 20 cents an hour or so. And this is what’s known as the “free market?” There isn’t a goddamned thing free about it. If you bribe politicians with your lobbyists and campaign contributions, you are protected just as the Mafia does with small business owners and their extortion tactics. Is it becoming clear why the French invented the guillotine after they had reached the end of their rope and chopped the heads off of half the rich elite of France in their day? People will only take those jackboots on their necks for so long. People will only watch their children, their elderly, their handicapped loved ones, etc. suffers for so long until they rise up.

No, I’m not preaching for a violent revolution. I’m hoping that with enough education and connecting with one another, we can have a bloodless revolution but we absolutely need a revolution! When the Wall St. wolves bankrupted us a few years back and brought the world to a near total economic collapse, the American public made it crystal clear that they didn’t want us to bail the corporate cockroaches out but the government did so anyway, and behind our backs and in the middle of the night. Why? Because the high-priced whores we call politicians and their corporate masters are one and the same and they will stop at nothing to keep us ignorant and separated from one another. Look how they came down on the Occupy Wall St. movement but allow the Tea Party to assemble in their protests armed with guns but Occupiers aren’t even allowed to carry a backpack? Connect the dots my friend, it’s staring us right in the face. We have the largest, most powerful military in the world, larger and more powerful than all the rest of the nations in the world combined. Are they really that fearful of terrorists or is it we, the people that they are afraid of and want to keep us under their thumbs so they can continue to get ever richer while we die slowly in degradation.

The number one cause of homelessness in America is lack of ability to pay for medical emergencies and people lose their homes. The greedy bastards have illegally foreclosed on millions of Americans’ homes but the courts and Obama do nothing to them. They have stolen people’s pension plans and again, no consequences for them. But if you or I steal a hundred dollar item from a store, we go to jail. If we write a bad check we’re convicted of fraud yet the standard business practice of American companies is to commit fraud on a daily and fantastic level. Isn’t it clear as a bell, they write the laws via their political whores and they don’t obey their own laws but those laws are enforced against us, the peons who pay all the taxes that keep us in our place. These same lying bastards who fight tooth and nail to prevent raises in the minimum wage rate but jump at every opportunity to give themselves raises. Who are seeking to eliminate or privatize Medicare and Social Security while they have the best medical insurance in America and pay next to nothing in Social Security but reap the highest benefits from it?

Again, I could go on for quite some length but I’ll attempt to refrain from doing so. I submit that two of the major reasons we’re seeing such an upsurge in “terrorist attacks” around the globe is 1) because of retaliation against us for their innocent loved ones killed by our drone attacks, our soldiers indiscriminate firing on civilians out of fear and hatred; 2) and the perfectly legal exploitation of their people and their resources by “American” corporations. Think I’m a nutcase? Check out Major General Smedley F. Butler, he admitted that he was ashamed that his career as Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps had been one of a hired thug doing the bidding of corporations in enslaving & exploiting people in countries around the world. The corporate cockroaches even went so far as to try to recruit this man to lead a coup against Franklin D. Roosevelt because they were so angered at Roosevelt’s “New Deal” which was established as a result of the Great Depression that the wealthy had caused.

I can definitely relate to and testify to the truth that poverty is the worst form of violence. I came from a single parent home, my mom. She worked two or three jobs and when she wasn’t working, she was usually in a bar drinking to numb her pain and hoping to meet a man who would make everything better. Unfortunately, my mom was a poor judge of character and we had to live with a series of mean men who cared nothing for us and were cruel. I raised my brother and sisters and started cooking supper for us when I was 12 years old. To be honest, I never truly realized just how poor we were until I was in my teenage years and began to venture out of our town called Paramount, right across the L.A. riverbed from the now infamous Compton, home of the Crypts. I have been in so many fights over the course of my growing up that it’s hard to keep track of them and just about every weekend, the police and ambulance sirens were blaring because somebody had been shot, raped, mugged, etc.

And the form of violence that I experienced that was even more pernicious than the physical violence I lived through was the violence they do to a young person’s soul or spirit when you are from the “wrong side of the tracks.” I paid little note to it at the time but when I was in the sixth grade they told me that I was reading at the 11^th grade, sixth month level. I didn’t put two and two together until I was in my twenties and began to become politically aware. Because I lived in a poor, industrially-zoned town (Paramount) I was never called into a counselor’s office and told that I had potential to go far in life and be just about anything I wanted to be because I was obviously a superior student. In fact, several years after I graduated from Paramount High School, I was a cub reporter for the local newspaper and I interviewed the principal of my former high school and asked him about this and he told me matter-of-factly that because Paramount was a poor, industrially-zoned city, they designed the curriculum for blue-collar or vocational occupations. I wanted to be a forest ranger when I started attending community college and soon learned that I should have completed chemistry, physics, calculus, trigonometry, etc. in high school. Ha! They didn’t even offer such courses at Paramount High. In brief, they played gods with our lives and our futures and it didn’t matter how bright you were, you were condemned to a life in the factory. How do you think that makes a person like me feel?

I have worked in their shit factory jobs, their Mickey Mouse jobs, etc. and I have spent my entire life struggling to educate myself. I have seen the violence done to peoples’ spirits, including my own. I have experienced the degradation of feeling like a machine or an animal as possible investors took tours of the factories I worked in and how they and my bosses didn’t even look me in the eyes like I was some sort of subhuman. This may sound like a self-pity party, a rationalization, etc. but it’s not just me that I’m speaking for. Millions of America’s children have had their spirits dampened if not completely extinguished due to the indifference of the status quo or the powers that be. And I am one. When I was in high school, I was full of confidence that I would go far in life and could do anything I wanted or be anyone I could dream of but a couple of major life events stopped me in my tracks and are probably responsible for the man I am today.

I graduated from high school in 1971 and the U.S. was still embroiled in the Vietnam War (recall that Congress never officially declared war though) and I was in the ‘lottery.’ My number was so low that I knew they’d draft me shortly so I chose the Army because it had the shortest tour of duty requirement (two years). Me and about four or five other guys must’ve scored pretty high on their battery of tests in our first week of Basic Training because they kept taking us to private meetings with high ranking officers who tried their damndest to talk us into “re-upping” e.g. signing up for more years if we’d go to O.C.S. (Officer Candidate School) and they promised us the moon —we’ll station you wherever you want, we’ll train you in whatever M.O.S. (Military Occupational Specialty) you want. Well, I wasn’t politically aware at that time, I was just another young guy interested in girls and having a good time but I trusted my gut instinct and thought no, I don’t even want to be squad leader. I hated the way guys with just a couple of weeks under the belt in Basic Training, enjoyed harassing the poor schmucks just off the bus literally.

Well after I completed Basic Training, they sent me to Ft. Sam in San Antonio, Texas. And I became a company clerk. It was an extremely easy position and I had many perks in this job. But after a few months, word came down that half of us were being sent to Vietnam and the other half would be sent to Germany. I didn’t know which half I’d be in but I knew that Vietnam was a bad idea so I started going AWOL. I kept turning myself in just under 30 days so I wouldn’t be classified as a ‘deserter.’ But they weren’t taking me seriously so I stayed gone until the F.B.I. arrested me. While AWOL, I had to ask “friends” if I could sleep in their garages temporarily or sleep on their couches, etc. It was a very humiliating time in my life, the first of many to come. And to be honest, I became so depressed that for the first time in my life, I briefly contemplated suicide and it really scared me that I could even entertain the idea for a few seconds. I saw that all my so-called “friends,” were merely fair weather friends because as soon as I needed help, they became indifferent to my personal troubles. I was finally released from the Army after I signed a piece of paper waving my rights to the G.I. Bill. And I was given an “Undesirable Discharge.”

The second life-changing event was a few years later after I’d been released from the army. My little brother, Tim, four years younger than me, had, like so many others, gotten into hard drugs and was shooting heroin. I tried to tell my mom but she was in absolute denial. I beat the Hell out of him. I hugged him and told him that I loved him. Finally, I avoided him because I was so ashamed of what he was doing. He committed just about every crime just short of murder and two days before he died, I got a message that he was trying to get a hold of me but I didn’t call him. And I still carry that guilt with me to this very day!

I believe that these two events radically altered my life path and I’ve been on the road to find out—to borrow a song title from Cat Stevens—ever since. It took me 14 years to earn my B.A. in English Literature and many family members & “friends” had called me a loser and a quitter for my dropping out of community colleges so many times, sometimes halfway or three quarters of the way through a semester but I didn’t care. I hit the road and did a lot of hitch-hiking up and down the West Coast, across the U.S., and to Europe several times sometimes on a one-way ticket with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket. I was in search of truth, meaning, adventure, and my dreams. I saw the poverty in foreign countries and my eyes were opened about the truth of America because of the intelligent or intellectuals I came across and the books they recommended that I read.

And the more that I read the classics in literature by such authors as Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, Dickens, etc., the more I began to connect the dots between poverty and violence and the underlying cause, exploitation by the heartless rich and the stronger my hate for this class grew. If I had to guesstimate a quantification for my “self-education,” I’d say that I have probably average 40 hours per week for the past 30 years and while I’m not claiming to be a “know-it-all,” I believe I have done an amazing amount of research & work and that should count for something in the way of credibility. Without a doubt, the best job I ever held in my life only lasted six weeks but oh, what a six weeks it was!

I was a substitute teacher for L.A. Unified and had built a reputation for being a substitute that teachers could rely on to follow their lesson plans, interact positively with the students, and not sit on my butt. My now ex-wife, Jeri, was teaching a Special Education class at Van Nuys High School in the San Fernando Valley and I often was requested to work in the Special Ed dept by her fellow teachers and I was requested to sub in the ESL (English as a Second Language) dept. I accepted a long-term assignment in the ESL dept. and after being there just a few weeks, I was asked to interview for the position full-time, year-round as I was signing out for the day. I was interviewed at the same time by the principal, the ESL dept. chair, & the English dept. chairperson. I was pleasantly surprised when they offered me the choice of a full-time position in either dept. I chose the ESL position because the students had touched my heart.

Most of the students were from El Salvador & Nicaragua and had seen the atrocities committed by the Death Squads that Ronnie Reagan equated with our founding fathers. My heart went out to them and I felt more like a cheerleader than a teacher because I basically just kept reassuring all my students by telling them that English is a difficult language to learn but that I was there to help them and that they would do okay. I tried to show them respect by often asking them how to say things in Spanish. These students asked permission to enter the classroom and no matter how many times I told them, “No es neccessario,” they continued to ask out of respect to me. I loved working with them so much that I offered my help for free at the local library on Saturday mornings. Everything was great and then I got word that because I hadn’t completed six units towards my teaching credential, the district wouldn’t renew my long-term credential and that I had to move on. I was devastated and when I announced to my class that I had to move on, several of the girls started crying and it brought tears to my eyes and I left the room out of embarrassment.

I think the loss of this position affected me so strongly because I sympathized with these students and could relate to some extent, the hard lives they had lived. My compassion and empathy for others is no doubt a result of my own upbringing and experiences. And I know that a lot of the suffering of the people from El Salvador and Nicaragua is a direct result of U.S. involvement, support of their dictators, placing their dictators in power, training their secret police in the ways of torture, etc. and I feel a responsibility as a U.S. citizen as well simply being a fellow human being.

In conclusion, I am now 60 years old and scared. Scared because I have no health insurance and I have to practically beg for minimum wage jobs that are so degrading that my spirit dies a bit more each day I walk into work. I am forced to work jobs where I feel humiliated by co-workers often younger than my own son not because of their age but because they feel its okay for them to talk to me and treat me in such disrespectful ways. I want to scream and/or slap them across their faces and yell “I’m fuckin’ light years ahead of you, you mental midget and how dare you talk to me in such a manner!” The daily suffering & pain of watching your children slowly die from malnutrition of diseases that are so easily preventable or treatable with a medicine that costs pennies, is building anger against all who are either directly responsible or simply indifferent to it. We have a true poverty of compassion, a poverty of knowledge, a poverty of intellect, and a poverty of imagination that is a threat to our very survival as a species! And I don’t care how much or how vehemently the moral midgets on “FOX News” such as Limbaugh, the oxycontin addict, O’Reilly, the bully, Coulter, the callous, etc. deny these realities, we ignore them at our own peril!

We do have a wealth of racism. A wealth of fear. A wealth of greed. And a wealth of indifference to pain, suffering, degradation, & poverty!

—Rob DeLoss, Gearhart, OR, May 5, 2013

Posted in In the news | Tagged degradation, education, FOX News, Gandhi, justice, personal experiences, poverty, truth, violence, war | Leave a comment

A Tribute to Noam Chomsky

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

I hardly know where to begin or how to begin but want to say that I’m writing this tribute while Noam is still alive because I intend to send it to him and want to express my admiration & respect for his life-long pursuit of truth. One of the phrases I’d use to describe this humble, intellectual giant is moral courage because he has stood his ground unflinchingly against the best & the worst his detractors could throw at him. I remember chuckling at an old video clip of the much touted conservative voice of the Republicans, William F. Buckley, who was noted for his erudition and intellectual reasoning. Obviously Buckley couldn’t handle Chomsky’s counter arguments and resorted to threatening to punch Chomsky in the nose.

In addition to moral courage, Chomsky possesses an intellectual integrity rarely seen outside a small circle of men like Bertrand Russell, I. F. Stone, George Seldes, etc. By intellectual integrity I mean that Chomsky has consistently throughout his whole life refused to compromise his principles of speaking truth about power no matter how unpopular, no matter what vile epithets were hurled at him, no matter what lies, distortions, perversions were told about him, no matter what absurd labels were placed on him by the corporate media. Like I.F. Stone, from what I have read, Chomsky follows a simple but steady daily discipline of reading several of the world’s major newspapers, numerous magazine articles, scholarly journals, government documents, etc. to cull the facts often buried in masses of misinformation and he then forms a coherent picture of the events shaping our world. This is obviously a task very few are willing or intellectually able to handle. And this discipline clearly reveals a dedication that can only come from an abiding love for humanity that reminds me of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, etc.

Unquestionably, the common thread that connects Noam Chomsky with the above mentioned great souls is a compassion for humanity that runs so deep it is their very essence. I truly believe that compassion is the key to our survival as a species. And what I mean by this is that if we don’t somehow collectively realize our common humanity i.e. we all put our pants on one leg at a time, when we are cut, we all bleed red, we all want a safe world for our children, etc., we may very well either blow the world up in a nuclear conflagration or reach a point of having polluted the world so greatly that we will be forced to live in completely artificial habitats afraid to venture outside?

Fortunately, we have individuals like Noam Chomsky working themselves to death trying to enlighten us and therefore wake us up before we destroy ourselves. Paradoxically, Noam Chomsky has never been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace but President Obama has? Please don’t misunderstand me; this isn’t yet another Obama bashing. I voted for him but I won’t vote for him again because he has betrayed the principles & values he proclaimed when he was running for office. But how in the Hell could Obama win the Nobel when he continued the war in Iraq—and the façade of the war in Iraq being over is a farce because we have the world’s largest embassy there and something like 14 military bases and tens of thousands of mercenaries to control the oil fields—and escalated the war in Afghanistan which is costing us $2 billion a week to perpetuate and we can never “win” such a war. I hope that this doesn’t come across or sound like I’m boasting but I have been to Europe several times, sometimes on a one-way ticket with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket and when I wanted to find some books in English to read, and whether I was in Rome, Madrid, Paris, etc. when I did manage to find a bookshop with a small section of books written in English, the majority of those books were written by Noam Chomsky. Could it be that the rest of the world knows something that most Americans don’t?

This professor of linguistics & philosophy from M.I.T., one of America’s top ten universities, has done far more for world peace than any dozen of people alive today combined. Unlike President Obama, Chomsky doesn’t compromise with corrupt & morally bankrupt people no matter how “important” they are. This man doesn’t “bend” with the shifting political winds. And many so-called progressives and liberals are afraid to mention Chomsky’s name because he reminds them of their cowardice & hypocrisy!

To change the topic somewhat, I want to share with you, a personal experience. Several years ago I learned that Chomsky grew up in an Irish neighborhood in Philadelphia and was regularly beaten-up by Irish bullies. Well, I’m Irish and my family dates back to 12^th century Ireland and I decided to send Professor Chomsky an e-mail. And in this particular e-mail, I apologized for my Irish relatives who bullied him when he was a young boy. To my surprise, Mr. Chomsky wrote back that if he were forced to leave America for some reason, Ireland is where he’d go. Chomsky’s mind & wit never ceases to amaze me but what amazes me even more is that this world-renown & revered figure has taken the time to respond to my e-mails over the years? This isn’t false modesty or merely self-deprecating B.S. but I’m 59 years old, I work as an instructional assistant in a special education dept. at a middle school, and I’ve never been published because I haven’t had the discipline/courage to send my writing to publishers, and the fact that Noam Chomsky recognizes my name when I write him and often reassures me when my spirits or confidence is low, quite simply blows me away.

Noam & his better half, Carol Chomsky

(In honor of Carol Chomsky)

Moreover, the world has laid wreaths of adulation at his feet and he makes self-deprecating remarks about himself. This is a truly simple and humble guy who just feels that he’s doing his job. I have expressed my worries as a father to him and he has comforted & reassured me. After his lovely wife, Carol, passed away a few years ago, I wanted to comfort him and I sent him a copy of a parchment facsimile I bought when my son and I were on a trip to Europe. The subject was death and it gave me more comfort than anything I have come across since my mom’s passing. Chomsky wrote back that it brought tears to his eyes and this in turn brought tears to my eyes. I know to the marrow of my bones that this is a venerable man because he never veers from his true course as he navigates this world of greed, corruption, & human suffering with celestial guidance. He shows no fear because he knows his aim and his heart is pure in its love for humanity. He cares nothing for the outward trappings of “success.” He has given me confidence in myself by reassuring me that what I am trying to express in my writing is worthwhile and helping in the fight against the powers that be.

By the way, I want to add the fact that as I discovered in watching some documentary on Chomsky, that his companion for life, Carol, started accompanying him on some of his lectures around the world because she wanted to shelter him from his perhaps overly generous nature by hustling him away from persistent interviewers, fans, etc. after speaking engagements because even though he was often exhausted, he’d kindly give even more of himself. A great soul or great spirit like Chomsky’s only comes around once in a very great while. Humanity owes him a great debt for all his courage and hard work in the service of mankind and the planet.

In conclusion, I want you, my friend, Noam Chomsky, to know how profoundly you have affected my life and if I had one wish, I wish that you and I could sit down and drink a beer or two and have a chat.

From the bottom of my heart!

—Rob DeLoss, March 3, 2012

P.S. I feel that a couple of quotes from Marcus Aurelius would be appropriate here & for those of you who may not be familiar with him, he was a Roman emperor and perhaps the closest thing to Plato’s ideal of a “philosopher/king.” And if you saw the movie Gladiator with Russell Crowe, Marcus Aurelius was the character played by Richard Harris.

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

“The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.”

(And Chomsky has showered the world with his wealth of knowledge & wisdom.)

Sorry, must be a sign of old age but I meant to end this with a quote from Bertrand Russell whom I learned was/is a hero of Chomsky’s and in fact, Professor Chomsky has a poster of Bertrand Russell in his office at M.I.T. I believe that these words written by Russell, who did earn a Nobel Prize, could very well be right out of Chomsky’s mouth as well?

The Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography

What I Have Lived For

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness–that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what–at last–I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. (this song by Nicolette Larsen is dedicated to Carol Chomsky) Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) won the Nobel prize for literature for his History of Western Philosophy and was the co-author of Principia Mathematica.

I included this song because I have loved it all my life for its feeling of optimism and I feel that it conveys the spirit of Noam Chomsky nicely!

Posted in Education, Featured | Tagged American Empire, climate change, courage, genius, honesty, integrity, Noam Chomsky, nuclear armageddon, truth, wisdom | Leave a comment

An Ideal Education

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

: The School of Athens

(Dora Polk, one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever known!)

For a start, I believe that the best place to begin talking about an ideal education is with the subject of philosophy because philosophy is the love of wisdom. And this reverence or love of wisdom is the necessary frame of mind, heart, & spirit if one is truly seeking an ideal education. By the way, some people speak of being educated but this is misleading because education is a life-long process and is never truly completed therefore we shouldn’t speak of education in the past tense. Moreover, at the risk of being overly simplistic, I firmly believe that wisdom must be our goal yet I realize that wisdom is fleeting, can come & go, and at best, we are given brief glimpses of it. Unfortunately in today’s chaotic, topsy-turvy world where many traditional values have been cheapened or dismissed, many, if not most people think of knowledge or only value knowledge in its lowest form which should more accurately be referred to as information.

For the sake of clarity, information is simply facts which are neutral or value free. Knowledge is the next rung up in the spectrum from information to knowledge to wisdom. Each level is built or based on the level before it i.e. necessary. I did a search on the Internet to help explain the difference between the levels of learning or knowledge and hopefully, the following will make the distinctions a bit more clear:

Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom

by Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills

There is probably no segment of activity in the world attracting as much attention at present as that of knowledge management. Yet as I entered this arena of activity I quickly found there didn’t seem to be a wealth of sources that seemed to make sense in terms of defining what knowledge actually was, and how was it differentiated from data, information, and wisdom. What follows is the current level of understanding I have been able to piece together regarding data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. I figured to understand one of them I had to understand all of them.

According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content of the human mind can be classified into five categories:

Data: symbols
Information: data that are processed to be useful; provides answers to “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” questions
Knowledge: application of data and information; answers “how” questions
Understanding: appreciation of “why”
Wisdom: evaluated understanding.

Ackoff indicates that the first four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past. But achieving wisdom isn’t easy; people must move successively through the other categories.

A further elaboration of Ackoff’s definitions follows:

Data… data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data.

Information… information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This “meaning” can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database makes information from the data stored within it.

Knowledge… knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that it’s intent is to be useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. When someone “memorizes” information (as less-aspiring test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, an integration such as would infer further knowledge. For example, elementary school children memorize, or amass knowledge of, the “times table“. They can tell you that “2 x 2 = 4″ because they have amassed that knowledge (it being included in the times table). But when asked what is “1267 x 300″, they can not respond correctly because that entry is not in their times table. To correctly answer such a question requires a true cognitive and analytical ability that is only encompassed in the next level… understanding. In computer parlance, most of the applications we use (modeling, simulation, etc.) exercise some type of stored knowledge.

Understanding… understanding is an interpolative and probabilistic process. It is cognitive and analytical. It is the process by which I can take knowledge and synthesize new knowledge from the previously held knowledge. The difference between understanding and knowledge is the difference between “learning” and “memorizing”. People who have understanding can undertake useful actions because they can synthesize new knowledge, or in some cases, at least new information, from what is previously known (and understood). That is, understanding can build upon currently held information, knowledge and understanding itself. In computer parlance, AI systems possess understanding in the sense that they are able to synthesize new knowledge from previously stored information and knowledge.

Wisdom… wisdom is an extrapolative and non-deterministic, non-probabilistic process. It calls upon all the previous levels of consciousness, and specifically upon special types of human programming (moral, ethical codes, etc.). It beckons to give us understanding about which there has previously been no understanding, and in doing so, goes far beyond understanding itself. It is the essence of philosophical probing. Unlike the previous four levels, it asks questions to which there is no (easily-achievable) answer, and in some cases, to which there can be no humanly-known answer period. Wisdom is therefore, the process by which we also discern, or judge, between right and wrong, good and bad. I personally believe that computers do not have, and will never have the ability to posses wisdom. Wisdom is a uniquely human state, or as I see it, wisdom requires one to have a soul, for it resides as much in the heart as in the mind. And a soul is something machines will never possess (or perhaps I should reword that to say, a soul is something that, in general, will never possess a machine).

Personally I contend that the sequence is a bit less involved than described by Ackoff. The following diagram represents the transitions from data, to information, to knowledge, and finally to wisdom, and it is understanding that support the transition from each stage to the next. Understanding is not a separate level of its own.

Data represents a fact or statement of event without relation to other things.

Ex: It is raining.

http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm

I’d like to now share with you some of my thoughts/experiences with philosophy. I chose the picture of Raphael’s “School of Athens” also because I have more respect for the academic discipline of philosophy than I do for any other subject. Why? To begin with, I stumbled upon a coffee table size book on philosophy, years ago in the North Hollywood Branch Library and I kick myself to this day that I didn’t make a copy of this picture I saw i.e. it was an elaborate, black & white drawing of a tree which was labeled “philosophy.” And it had several dozen branches with labels like: history, science, physics, math, algebra, law, music, poetry, chemistry, etc. etc. etc. This blew my mind because it made it so clear that philosophy is the tree of knowledge and every branch of knowledge that we can think of or have developed over the centuries, is an off-shoot or comes under the umbrella of philosophy. So, you can imagine how perturbed I get when ignorant people dismiss philosophy as a “useless subject” that is of no use in the “real world.” Moreover, I’d like to add that during the course of my life, at times when I’ve felt somewhat lost or my spirit was feeling low, I have always felt more comfort or solace from reading philosophy than I have from the relatively speaking, upstart pseudo-science known as psychology. To me, philosophy requires that we look long, deep, & hard within ourselves and within the great books for some guidelines or possible answers. Psychology, on the other hand, usually offers us quick & easy fixes and this smacks of shallowness to me and insults my intelligence. Of course we’d all like simple or easy answers when we’re hurting but if we truly want to get to the root of our problems, there’s no easy way around it i.e. we have to do the work necessary. In short, once a subject or academic discipline becomes established, it turns into a sort of science and breaks away from the trunk of the tree I refer to as philosophy. Philosophy is all knowledge and to seek wisdom is to trace the roots back to the branches of knowledge and eventually to the tree of knowledge itself i.e. philosophy. I am reminded of a quote by Leonardo da Vinci that I heard many years ago but haven’t been able to find again. It went something like “All knowledge is like a puzzle and the more pieces of the puzzle that you put together, the more you see the interconnectedness of all knowledge and as you begin to see the whole, you see life, reality, the world.” This is a crude paraphrase from memory but conveys nicely what I’m fumbling to express.

Philosophy is the golden key that opens the door to knowledge which in turn, can allow you entrance to the palace of wisdom, if you have proved your worthiness and have paid your dues. I am reminded of a quote by William Blake i.e. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Sorry, it’s the literature major in me? Furthermore,descend from my Mt. Olympus of abstract or lofty ideals, philosophy is extremely utilitarian or practical. How? Two words i.e. critical & analytical thinking. I recall my ex-wife’s best friend who while in law school told us that one of the students in her class was a philosphy graduate and he kicked everyone’s ass intellectually. And, to be honest with you, if I were asked to sum up my whole philosophy of education or to give advice on the single, most important skill that students should acquire, I’d have to say that I can’t boil it down to a single intellectual skill, no, it boils down to two basic skills i.e. critical thinking skills & analytical thinking skills. By the way, have you ever wondered about the difference between being intelligent and intellectual? I never did until one day when my wife & I were visiting her best friend, the lawyer, and she had asked me a question but as I was responding, she rudely stopped paying attention and when I called her on it, her response was “Rob, I’m intelligent and I’m a good lawyer but I’m not an intellectual.” This really puzzled me because up until that point in my life, I had never really made any distinction between the two nor did I think there was any difference that is, until I read the following passage from the brilliant author, Richard Hofstadter and his book “Anti-intellectualism in American Life.”

“Intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly narrow, immediate, and predictable range; it is a manipulative, adjustive, unfailingly practical quality—one of the most eminent and endearing of the animal virtues…..Intellect, on the other hand, is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind. Whereas intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes, imagines. Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole. Intelligence can be praised as a quality in animals, intellect, being a unique manifestation of human dignity, is both praised and assailed as a quality in men.”

In my search for knowledge, and hopefully a little wisdom throughout the course of my life, I have stumbled upon several markers or major tools that have shown me the way. One such tool, reference, resource, or insight was when I came across the subject of Rhodes Scholars. But before I begin, I want to preface my remarks with a rebuttal of sorts to the often leveled dismissal of such ideas as useless. I argue that if the study of the Classics is such a waste of time, then why do the most powerful and wealthy people continue to insist on having their children educated in the Classics? I contend that it is not merely elitist though that does enter into it to some extent but most importantly, they believe in the value of a classical education because they know that it develops an excellence of mind second to none. I believe it was Mortimer Adler who said that studying the Great Books (Classics), is like a conversation with the greatest minds that have ever lived. And in that vein, I want to share with you some notable Rhodes Scholars to help establish the value of such “useless knowledge” according to some.

Here is a partial list of some notable Rhodes Scholars: Senator William Fulbright; Dean Rusk, U.S. Secretary of State; Daniel Boorstin, U.S. Librarian of Congress; Stansfield Turner, U.S. admiral & C.I.A. director; Kris Kristofferson, musician & actor; Jonathan Kozol, teacher & education critic; Lester C. Thurow, American economist & professor at M.I.T., Robert Reich, U.S. Secretary of Labor; Bill Clinton, U.S. president; Strobe Talbott, American diplomat, journalist, & U.S. Deputy Secretary of State; James Fallows, American writer with The Atlantic Monthly; E.J. Dionne, American journalist; Russ Feingold, senator from Wisconsin; Pat Haden, Rose Bowl winner, quarterback with USC; Naomi Wolf, author; & Rachel Maddow, (liberal) host on MSNBC.

I included this list of relatively, well-known people who had earned Rhodes Scholarships to substantiate what I just read in a cursory review of an article on Rhodes Scholarships i.e. Rhodes Scholars, once they graduated, pretty much had their choice of any profession they wanted & usually excelled in their chosen fields. In August of 1997, my son, Ryan, who was 11 years old at the time, and I, spent the month traveling around Europe. And one place we visited was Oxford University because I wanted to see first hand, this world-renown university that dates back to the 12th century. Unfortunately, the Rhodes House was closed for the summer and we weren’t allowed into the library. But, I did manage to talk to a person in their office and was told that basically, a Rhodes Scholar was a student who had earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and when they came to Oxford for their studies under the Rhodes Scholarship guidelines, it boiled-down to meeting with their don i.e. professor, once a week and they were given a reading assignment & had to write a paper on what they’d read, then deliver their paper orally in their don’s office. The don would critique their work and assign them another assignment for the following week. The studies were of the classics

Now, when you mention the word “classics,” you can run into a bit of controversy with some scholars so for the sake of brevity & argument, I will simply defer to the set of books published by Encyclopedia Britannica (best encyclopedia in the world, in my opinion) and under the supervision of Mortimer Adler, one of America’s great philosophers. The collection is known simply as “The Great Books.” And what is really great about these “Great Books,” is the stupendous two-volume Syntopicon which Mr. Adler compiled. In brief, this Syntopicon is a fantastic reference resource which cross-references the “Great Ideas” in the 54 volume set of “The Great Books.” In other words, you can select any topic or sub-topic, sub-heading, etc. that you can think of and then find every reference to it in the Great Books.

For example, let’s say that you wanted to write a paper on democracy. With the aid of the Syntopicon, you could look up what everybody from Plato to Freud had to say on the subject and you could cite your references down to the exact paragraph, line, & page from the pretty much, universally accepted, greatest minds of Western civilization. Speaking of which, I am reminded of a private conversation with a history professor of mine and when I told him that I was a philosophy major, he said, “It’s been argued that you can pretty much divide Western civilization between two men, Plato and Aristotle. By the way, I’m fairly sure that that is why Raphael chose to position these two, under the main arch & as the central figures in his masterpiece “The School of Athens.” My history professor went on to say that “These two philosophers had such an extensive influence on so many fields or academic disciplines from science, literature, history, politics, mathematics, etc. that this is why they are considered the two pillars of Western civilization.” And if you don’t mind my adding another interesting aside, at least, in my opinion, Socrates, generally acknowledged as the “Father of Western philosophy,” was Plato’s mentor/teacher, Plato was Aristotle’s mentor/teacher, and Aristotle, was Alexander the Great’s mentor/teacher. And, out of respect for his teacher, Alexander the Great had a special group of his men collect specimens of plants, minerals, animals, etc. from everywhere they roamed in their conquest of the then known world. Aristotle used all that was given to him in his creation of the world’s first encyclopedia. Food for thought, eh?

To return to the subject of philosophy, its most utilitarian value boils down to two skills the study of philosophy helps us to develop i.e. critical and analytical thinking skills. Moreover, I contend that these two skills are perhaps the most self-empowering skills we can aspire to. More specifically, the development of our critical & analytical thinking skills is a way to develop our intellect rather than just our intelligence. Moreover, in today’s upside down world where “reality” resembles Alice in Wonderland’s absurdity, critical & analytical thinking is our shield & sword. We are bombarded from cradle to grave and 24/7 with advertising designed to deceive & trick us into buying products we don’t need. The Earth has only so much in terms of natural resources and we simply can’t sustain this endless obsession with purchasing ever more material goods. If we can learn to cultivate an interest in and an appreciation of the things of the mind and the spirit, we may be able to curtail our addiction to the electronic gadgets, fast cars, fancy clothes, etc. and learn to slow down & savor the simple beauty all around us and each other. The public relations & advertising industries were built by employing the insights learned from crowd or mass psychology. Freud is the name that first comes to mind when most people think of psychology and his nephew, Edward Bernays, was the father, so-to-speak, of the PR and advertising industries in America. Unfortunately for America, and because of America’s military superiority, tragically for many around the globe, the techniques & strategies developed by Bernays have also been utilized in manipulating public opinion to support one military invasion after another for the past hundred years or so. I hope it is becoming ever more clear how imperative it is for us to develop our intellect if we are to stop or at least slow down this campaign of plunder & profit for the elite masquerading as our leaders?

In order to reach our goal of an ideal education, we must first become aware of some of the pitfalls of our public education system and Jonathan Kozol first comes to mind. I read his book “Illiterate America” over 20 years ago and was flabbergasted at what I learned. Please bear in mind that I’m not arguing that there is nothing right with our public school system. I have worked in this system for over 25 years off & on and I have met and worked with a good number of excellent, dedicated, compassionate teachers but we still need to analyse & criticize those areas that need improvement or revision if we are to progress.

If it is of any comfort to this man, he should know that he is not alone. Twenty-five million American adults cannot read the poison warnings on a can of pesticide, a letter from their child’s teacher, or the front page of a daily paper. An additional 35 million read only at a level which is less than equal to the full survival needs of our society.

Together, these 60 million people represent more than one third of the entire adult population.

The largest numbers of illiterate adults are white, native-born Americans. In proportion to population, however, the figures are higher for blacks and Hispanics than for whites. Sixteen percent of white adults, 44 percent of blacks, and 56 percent of Hispanic citizens are functional or marginal illiterates. Figures for the younger generation of black adults are increasing. Forty-seven percent of all black seventeen-yearelds are functionally illiterate. That figure is expected to climb to 50 percent by 1990.

Fifteen percent of recent graduates of urban high schools read at less than sixth grade level. One million teenage children between t velve and seventeen percent cannot read above the third grade level. Eighty-five percent of juveniles who come before the courts are functionally illiterate. Half the heads of households classified below the poverty line by federal standards cannot read an eighth grade book. Over one third of mothers who receive support from welfare are functionally illiterate. Of 8 million unemployed adults, 4 to 6 million lack the skills to be retrained for hi-tech jobs.

The United States ranks forty-ninth among 158 member nations of the U.N. in its literacy levels.

In Prince George’s County, Maryland, 30,000 adults cannot read above a fourth grade level. The largest literacy program in this county reaches one hundred people yearly.

In Boston, Massachusetts, 40 percent of the adult population is illiterate. The largest organization that provides funds to the literacy programs of the city reaches 700 to 1,000 people.

In San Antonio, Texas, 152,000 adults have been documented as illiterate. In a single municipal district of San Antonio, over half the adult population is illiterate in English. Sixty percent of the same population sample is illiterate in Spanish. Three percent of adults in this district are at present being served.

In the State of Utah, which ranks number one in the United States in the percent of total budget allocated to the education sector, 200,000 adults lack the basic skills for employment. Less than 5 percent of Utah’s population is black or Hispanic.

Together, all federal, state, municipal, and private literacy programs in the nation reach a maximum of 4 percent of the illiterate population. The federal government spends $100 million yearly to address the needs of 60 million peo ple. The President has asked that this sum be reduced to $50 million. Even at the present level, direct federal allocations represent about $1.65 per year for each illiterate.

In 1982 the Executive Director of the National Advisory Council on Adult Education estimated that the government would need to spend about $5 billion to eradicate or seriously reduce the problem. The commission he served was subsequently dismissed by presidential order.

Fourteen years ago, in his inaugural address as governor of Georgia, a future President of the United States proclaimed his dedication to the crisis of Illiterate America. ‘Our people are our most precious possession … Every adult illiterate … is an indictment of us all … If Switzerland and Israd and other people can end illiteracy, then so can we. The responsibility is our own and our govemment’s. I will not shirk this responsibility.’

Today the number of identified nonreaders is three times greater than the [6] number Jimmy Carter had in mind when he described this challenge and defined it as an obligation that he would not shirk.

On April 26, 1983, pointing to the literacy crisis and to a collapse in standards at the secondary and the college levels, the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned: ‘Our Nation is at risk.’ http://eserver.org/courses/spring97/76100o/readings/kozol.html

This simple, stark & ugly reality of our public school system goes a long way in terms of explaining how we, supposedly the beacon to the world, have people running for the highest office in the land, who make such blatant & overt racist remarks. I have “friends” and relatives who make racist comments and yet are surprised when I tell them it offends me. So, it may seem preposterous for me to be arguing for the sort of ideal education that I am describing but I firmly believe that no matter what our economic situations may be, nothing less than setting our sights on the top of the mountain will do. I too, came from the wrong side of the tracks and was raised by a single parent, my mom. She worked two or three jobs and I raised my brother & two sisters. I walked to school (about a mile & a half) and got 40 cents a day for lunch which I shared with my friend. Yet my love of learning & reading always kept me dreaming and believing that some day I would make those dreams a reality.

I know this is very depressing information and it may come as somewhat of a shock to many but burying our heads in the sand won’t change the ugly truth. And knowing these things, makes me angry and ashamed especially when I hear ignorant people boasting that America is so superior to so many other countries. Yeah right, only to those most likely who graduated from one of the dismal, inner city public schools. Is it any wonder that FOX News attracts so many viewers and that their viewers can’t see through the smoke screen of fear & hate monger propaganda spewed out daily by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, etc.?

In spite of coming from such a humble background, I have pretty much educated myself and was told that in the sixth grade, I was reading at the 11th grade, sixth month level. Moreover, I have been an educator in various capacities and have had some students cry when I had to move on. I have traveled throughout Europe nine times and I have written over 2,000 pages of a major project that I am working on and I’m now writing this blog. So, according to most people’s value system in this predominantly materialistic & consumer driven society, I am not successful. Yet, for those who value the treasures of the mind and the spirit, I am wealthy beyond my fondest dreams and I want to share some of my wealth with all who value it. Let’s continue with John Taylor Gatto, another teacher who taught in New York City’s public school system and won the teacher of the year award two times I believe as well as New York State teacher of the year once. His seminal work, “The Underground History of American Education,” was another book that blew my mind and I made copious notes throughout it and used it in that major project that I mentioned above.

As I mentioned above, I studied Gatto’s book very closely. I made my usual notes in the blank pages during my first reading of it and as I went through it the second time for use in my major project which I’ve titled “Truth Against the World,” I began to suspect that he may be a closet fundamentalist so-to-speak. I may be wrong and I can’t point to any particular evidence of this but his general attack on what he refers to as the “utopian educators” e.g. John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, etc. is what makes me a bit wary. Generally speaking though, he taught me a lot about the history of our public education system of which I knew next to nothing about. I would add that he, in my opinion, goes far too easy on the Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, etc. types who clearly had a hand in shaping our public school system and the negative consequences their influence had on our society. I still maintain that a good, solid grounding in the classics is vital for students’ intellectual development and is not elitist and certainly not a waste of time as many would have us believe. Continuing, I want to introduce you to Henry Giroux, another excellent educator and one that I just stumbled upon late one night a few years back as I was watching Free Speech T.V.

The Business of Public Education
Zmag.org

The assault by corporate America on public education has taken an ominous turn in the last decade. Funded by an array of conservative institutions such as the Heritage Foundation, Hudson Institute, and the Olin Foundation, the corporate drive to undermine public education has enlisted an army of conservative pundits many of whom served in the Department of Education under Presidents Reagan and Bush. Some of the more well-known members of this reform movement include Chester Finn Jr., Lamar Alexander, Diane Ravitch, David Kearns, and William Bennett. Providing policy papers, op-ed commentaries, appearing on television talk shows, and running a variety of educational clearinghouses and resource centers, these stalwart opponents of public education relentlessly blame the schools for the country’s economic woes. Citing low test scores, a decline in basic skills, and the watering down of the school curriculum, Ravitch and others use such critiques to legitimate the ideology of privatization with its accompanying call for vouchers, charter schools, and the placing of public schools entirely in the control of corporate contractors. More specific reforms simply recycle right-wing ideology critiques calling for the replacement of teacher unions and “giving parents choice, back-to-basics and performance-driven curriculums, management ‘design teams’ and accountability.”

Underlying the call for privatization is a reform movement in which public education is seen as “a local industry that over time will become a global business.” As a for-profit venture, public education represents a market worth over $600 billion dollars, and the importance of such a market has not been lost on conservatives such as Chester Finn, Jr. and David Kearns, both of whom have connections with for-profit schooling groups such as the Edison Project and the North American Schools Development Corporation. At the level of policy, the right-wing assault by all reports has been quite successful. More than 28 states have drafted legislation supporting vouchers, choice programs, and contracting with for-profit management companies, such as the Edison Project and Sabis International Schools. But the public’s perception of such ventures appears to be less enthusiastic, and rightly so. Many firms such as Educational Alternatives Inc., which took over the Hartford and Baltimore public schools, have had their contracts canceled as a result of numerous complaints. The complaints range from the way in which such firms deal with kids with learning disabilities and engage in union busting to the charge that their cookie cutter standardized curriculum and testing packages fail to provide the quality of educational results that were initially promised by such companies.

But there is more at stake in the privatization of public schooling than issues of public versus private ownership or public good versus private gain. There is also the issue of how individual achievement is weighed against issues of equity and the social good, how teaching and learning get defined, what sorts of identities are produced when the histories, experiences, values, and desires of students are defined through corporate rather than democratic ideals.

Within the language of privatization and market reforms, there is a strong emphasis on standards, measurements of outcomes, and holding teachers and students more accountable. Privatization is an appealing prospect for legislators who do not want to spend money on schools and for those Americans who feel that they do not want to support public education through increased taxes. Such appeals are reductive in nature and hollow in substance. Not only do they abstract questions of equity and equality from the discussion of standards, they appropriate the democratic rhetoric of choice and freedom without addressing issues of power. The ideas and images that permeate this corporate model of schooling reek with the rhetoric of insincerity and the politics of social indifference.

Stripped of a language of social responsibility, the advocates of privatization reject the assumption that school failure might be better understood within the political, economic, and social dynamics of poverty, joblessness, sexism, race and class discrimination, unequal funding, or a diminished tax base. Rather, student failure, especially the failure of poor minority-group students, is often attributed to a genetically encoded lack of intelligence, a culture of deprivation, or pathology. Books such as The Bell Curve, and films such as 187 and Dangerous Minds reinforce such representations about African-American and Latino urban youth, as they perpetuate a history of racist exclusions. Similarly, such racist exclusions are being deepened by the informalities of privatization schemes in which schools mimic the free market, with the assumption that its regulatory and competitive spirit will allow the most motivated and gifted students to succeed. There is a shameful element of racism and a retrograde Social Darwinism that permeates this discussion, one which relinquishes the responsibility of parents, teachers, administrators, social workers, businesspeople, and other members of the wider society to provide young people with the cultural resources, economic opportunities, and social services necessary to learn without having to bear the crushing burdens of poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression.

Education in this framework becomes less a social investment than an individual investment, a vehicle for social mobility for those privileged to have the power to make their choices matter, and a form of social constraint for those who lack such resources and for whom choice and accountability betray a legacy of broken promises and an ideology of bad faith.

The privatization model of schooling also defaults on the legacy of schooling as a public good by undermining the power of teachers to provide students with the vocabulary and skills of responsible citizenship. Under the drive to impose national standards and standardized forms of testing, privatizing school advocates devalue teacher authority and deskill teachers by dictating not only what they should teach but also how they should teach. Such pedagogical approaches affirm teachers less as engaged public intellectuals than as depoliticized, deskilled clerks. The main role of the teacher turned classroom manager is to legitimate through mandated subject matter and pedagogical practices a market-based conception of the learner as a consumer of information. A different, but no less important and dangerous, strategy of the corporate dismantling and take-over of public education is the right wing promotion of educational choice, vouchers, and charters as a way of both opening public schools to private contractors and using public tax monies to finance the creation of private forms of education. Both approaches treat education as a private good, and both substitute the role of the student as a citizen for that of an educational consumer. But the real danger at work in privatization is not simply that students who transfer into private schools will drain money from the public schools, but that they will further a process already at work in the larger society aimed at eroding “the public forums in which decisions with social consequences can be democratically resolved.”

As schools struggle to raise money for texts, curricula, and extra-curricula activities, they often find themselves engaging in partnerships with businesses such as Campbell Soup, Pepsi, McDonalds, and Nike, all of whom are willing to provide free curriculum packages that shamelessly instruct students to recognize brand names or learn the appropriate attitudes for future work in low-skilled, low-paying jobs rather than learning how to define the meaning of work and struggle over what it means to subordinate matters of work to the imperatives of a strong democracy. For example, the McDonald Corporation provided a curriculum package for Pembroke Lakes elementary school in Broward County in which, as a Business Week article reported, students “learned how to design a McDonald’s restaurant, how a McDonald’s works, and how to apply and interview for a job at McDonald’s.” When one ten-year old was asked if the curriculum was worthwhile, she responded, “If you want to work in a McDonald’s when you grow up, you already know what to do….Also, McDonald’s is better than Burger King.”

Couched in the language of business competition and individual success, the current educational reform movement orchestrated by corporate capital in its now near global expansion must be recognized as a full-fledged attack on both public education and democracy. The goal of such a movement, as David Stratman has argued, “is not to raise the expectations of our young people but to narrow, stifle, and crush them.”

Educators at the public school levels are under massive assault in this country. Not only are they increasingly losing their autonomy and capacity for imaginative teaching, they increasingly bear the burden, especially in the urban centers, of overcrowded classes, limited resources, and hostile legislators. Progressives need to join with community people, social movements, and teachers in both public and higher education around a common platform that resists corporate power, the marketing of schools, the deskilling of teachers, and the reduction of learning to the dictates of selfishness and capital accumulation.

The meaning and purpose of such a debate has not been lost on students. During March of this year (1998), students from over 100 colleges held a series of teach-ins protesting the intrusion and increasing involvement of corporations in higher education. For those of us who work in such institutions, it might be time to take an object lesson from these students and provide an example through our own actions and the willingness to organize and fight against the current ruthless assault being waged by corporate America against schools and other sites that attempt to serve the public good http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/business_education.htm

Before I move on, I want to make a few comments on Professor Giroux’s essay. Tragically, corporations have grown far too powerful and are de facto ruling the world. You may dismiss this as conspiracy gibberish but I have been studying this for over 30 years and speak from my head & my heart. Note just a few of the more blatant examples of this: Supreme Court decision that corporations are people and money is speech; our being forced to bail-out the Super Banks & they weren’t held accountable and didn’t make credit available to help stimulate the economy; the biggest corporations spend millions on lobbyists and not only don’t pay taxes but get millions & billions in tax rebates; NAFTA allows countries to sue other countries if they interfere with business by enforcing environmental laws, labor rights laws, etc. That’s enough for now but my point regarding public education is that the CEOs of megalithic corporations can only see as far as the next fiscal quarter and profit margins for their board members & investors/stockholders. Their blind obsession with profit and power is so destructive that they allow people to die because of exposure to their products. They allow monumental ecological disasters like the BP Gulf oil spill to happen. They start and perpetuate wars to confiscate the natural resources of other countries e.g. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc. In today’s ever more fragile world in which we grow more interdependent e.g. the global economic crisis, the environmental crisis, the social unrest, etc. we need citizens who are more enlightened, not “dumbed-down.” Accepting the business mantra of the need to be more competitive, that means a more intelligent workforce, not a workforce of a tiny minority of highly-skilled technicians and an ever growing population of illiterate, permanently unemployable citizens who have little recourse but to turn to a life of crime in order to survive. Do you want to live in fear of constantly being vulnerable or at risk of being mugged or murdered? Your home being broke into? Afraid to leave the confines of a gated & guarded community? The so-called “conservatives” are always railing against paying taxes and especially taxes for redundant things like prisons but they have a solution for that, now they are using prison labor to enrich themselves while charging taxpayers for the cost of housing & guarding prisoners. Yeah, the “free market” is a wondrous thing. I personally feel embarrassed each time I have visited Europe because America is the laughing stock of the world in terms of our cultural and intellectual ignorance. We are also feared because of our war mongering and imperial ambitions. I dream of an America that is respected and loved for its more noble, ideal, humanistic practices.

Instead of suppressing our students’ natural talents & love of learning, we should be doing everything in our power to foster the healthy development of their minds, their creative potentials, and nurturing their hungry spirits. When people feel they’re using their creative and intellectual faculties, they’re more content and fulfilled as Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers expressed in our right to pursue happiness. I have long argued that America would a lot better off if we followed the role models of Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries. Conservatives scream “But they pay such high taxes!” My reply is yes but everybody has a decent home to live in, top notch health care, plenty of food, a good education, etc. So what is left is all basically spending money for whatever luxuries you may desire or to travel, etc.

A significant factor in the corporate war on public education over the last decade is George “Dubya” Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” law. I am not sure why Professor Giroux nor many others don’t highlight what to me is the primary lie behind this law that has so undermined our nation’s teachers and aided in the further erosion of our children’s education? You can look it up yourself, 60 Minutes, the CBS News program, broadcast an expose around ten years ago which revealed that this “No Child Left Behind” law was based on the deliberate falsification of statistics of a school district in Texas. They got rid of as many of the lower scoring students as they could by transferring them to other districts, not counting their scores, etc. in order to make their district’s academic scores look much better than they actually were and this was considered something of a Texas miracle and has helped tremendously in the promotion and calling for the spread of “Charter schools” and “school vouchers.” I don’t wish to dwell too long on this subject because I’m long-winded as it is but in a nutshell, charter schools are a scam for the corporate cockroaches who want to get their hands on the billions of dollars spent on public education. Like their desire to get their hands on the billions if not trillions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare. This call for the privatization of public schools under the banner of “accountability” would be laughable were it not so serious. Just as the banks were not held accountable even though they took our tax dollars and were considered “too big to fail,” and corporate investors like Mitt Romney who force companies into bankruptcy, take all the profits, & leave the federal government with the bill, aren’t held accountable. There are thousands of examples of how irresponsible corporate America is and has been and this is why it makes me nauseous every time I hear them declare that schools must be held accountable. There are some exceptions among the wealthy in terms of not being totally bankrupt morally but they are few and far in between. To sum up, if we are to ever be that “Bright, shining light upon the hill,” that so many propagandists for the power elite like to proclaim, we need to seriously cut back on the corporate takeover of America and the rest of the world. This is my mission in life and this is what I strive to do in my simple ways. It saddens me deeply that as I learned many years ago when I was a substitute teacher in L.A. and learned that the average high school graduate only reads at an eighth grade level, can’t make change when they work as cashiers, and something like three out of every five high school graduates can’t even handle a job at McDonalds & McDonalds has had to resort to putting pictures on their cash register keys. I dream of an America where the politics of fear & hate that perpetuates the military/industrial/congressional complex has been silenced forever by a truly, well-educated populace. I dream of an America that is truly magnificent, compassionate, & well-cultured.

By the way, I should point out that Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education has now publicly come out against standardized testing i.e. No Child Left Behind, and argues that it undermines teaching. Again, I don’t mean to dwell so much on the negative aspects of education in the U.S., but I believe we need an overview of the factors which affect these vital institutions.We have allowed our public education system to decline and big business has played a significant role in this decline. It has become a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, & corruption and if we don’t break out of this cycle, I fear dire consequences for all of us. I will switch to some of the more positive or hopeful voices in a bit but I can’t leave the critical voices part of this essay without including my intellectual hero, Noam Chomsky. And for those of you who may not be familiar with Professor Chomsky, allow me to provide a little background. Noam Chomsky is credited with having revolutionized the field of linguistics in the 1960s and to my mind, completely demolished the arguments of B.F. Skinner, a leading behaviorist who, by the way, was a major influence on educational psychology/theory. I attempted a course in linguistics several years ago and dropped out because it was perhaps just too boring or over my head? Nonetheless, what first attracted me to Chomsky was his political writing and activism. He is a very humble man and is often introduced with a New York Times blurb i.e. “He is arguably the most important intellectual alive.” And Chomsky in his usual, self-deprecating manner, reminds his audiences whenever he is introduced with this praise, “But what they leave out is that the Times goes on to say, ‘Then why is he so often wrong?’ I want to add that this world renown champion of the poor, the disenfranchised, etc., has done more in service to humanity than any single individual I have ever heard or read of. You know he is striking at the heart of the power elite when he is not only reviled by the “conservatives” and is often dismissed, marginalized, ignored by the so-called Left or many liberals, progressives, and democrats because he doesn’t spare them in his scathing criticism. I have never read, heard, or seen anyone who could defeat him in a battle of the minds and his scholarship is second to none. Lastly, in reference to the article by Professor Giroux, I want to sum it up in these perhaps, over-the-top remarks i.e. it really boils down to whether we are just going to acquiesce to the people who brought America to its knees economically with their unbridled greed for profit & power, or are we going to stand up, speak up, & take action to take back our country and make America a true democracy and positive role model to the rest of the world?

So long as we continue to dream and take positive steps towards realizing an ideal education not for just a chosen few but for all who are intellectually capable, the Don Quixote in me fights on. I firmly believe, to borrow a line from John Donne, “No man is an island.” In a nutshell, our lives are all interdependent & intertwined i.e. if we don’t care for and show compassion for all of humanity, the selfish, tiny elite who hold the reins of power at present, will have won. What kind of world do you want your children or your grandchildren to grow up in? A world where “dog eat dog,” “survival of the fittest,” are the core ideology and where the people have become so suspicious and fearful of one another that everyone barricades themselves behind the gates of their armed enclaves? No, I refuse to live in such a world and I know that the corrupt and powerful spend a good chunk of money to perpetuate this fear among us. Furthermore, silly me, I prefer to live in a world where we can still stroll along the beaches of the wild, rugged Oregon Coast and not see oil derricks on the horizon. Or still enjoy the magnificent serenity of the California Redwoods, the Olympic Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, the breathtaking panoramic view of the Grand Canyon, etc. If we don’t draw a line in the sand so-to-speak against corporate crime, these precious treasures will be lost forever and we will be reduced to an artificial life lived in a skyscraper we never leave, I fear? And in contrast to this creeping fascism that is growing in the corporate boardrooms across America & the halls of Congress, I proclaim that the liberal arts liberate and the humanities humanize! Let’s now discuss some fine examples of true educators who inspire and lead by example.

Undeniably, Marva Collins is one of the rarest kinds of teachers i.e. she demands a lot out of her students but she also praises her students frequently with simple gestures, a smile, a pat on the back, etc. and this woman worked such miracles with her students that the Chicago Public School System accused her of cheating, trickery, etc. I first heard of Mrs. Collins around 30 years ago when I saw a story about her on the CBS News program 60 Minutes. And I was quite simply blown away. In brief, she was a teacher in the Chicago Public School system but finally tired of doing battle with them over her “unconventional” teaching methods and quit only to form her own little school in a poor, inner city neighborhood.

Marva N. Collins

Educational Program and Philosophy

My educational program and methodology is based on the Socratic Method. Socrates, an

Athenian philosopher and teacher, lived from about 470 – 399 BC. The Socratic method teaches

by using a series of questions and answers by which the logical soundness of a definition, or a

point of view, or the meaning of a concept, is tested. The Socratic method is based on logical

analysis, consequently, it develops superb reasoning skills in students.

I select reading materials that contain ideas that are abstract. These ideas may, and will, mean

different things to different students. There may not be one correct answer, but several

interpretations are possible. Socrates asks, in Plato’s Republic, what is “justice?” As Socrates’

queries of his students reveal, “justice” as a concept has several definitions. The purpose of

teaching, I believe, is not just to master factual material, but also to teach the student how to

think, and to encourage him/her to think, indeed. The ability to reason, to analyze logically, will

survive long after the student’s retention of memorized fact is lost.

Before beginning any reading selection, I first pre-read the selection (it is folly to attempt to

teach what one does not know) and I extract all of the difficult words. These “words-to-watch”

become the vocabulary words for the class to learn. Every student must be able to pronounce,

spell, and know the meaning of each of these words prior to starting the reading in class. It

makes no sense to delve into the selection if the students do not understand the words in the

material to be read. Otherwise, the reading will both tedious and meaningless.

Then, I refer to the title of the reading, and ask, “ What do you think this selection is going to be

about?” This process is gathering information from the title. Other questions that may be asked,

before the reading actually begins, include, “Is this story going to be about pain?” “A good

conscience?” “How do you know?” Next, identify the purpose for reading the selection. As the

reading progresses – readings must be done aloud, never silently – ask pertinent questions, such

as “What do you think will happen?” Predictions must use logic, reason, evidence, in order to

develop meta-cognitive skills.

Students are taught to examine their line of reasoning. What information from the reading

supports your response? This teaches the student the importance of factual responses as

compared to interpretative answers. Certainly, students will score higher on standardized tests

when they know how to think critically and analytically. Tests do not want to know what we

think; they measure the correctness of our factual responses. Thus students are taught to refrain

from making wild conjectures. Inquiry becomes a disciplined process in which students use prior

acquired knowledge and evidence to arrive at new insights and understanding.

In the Socratic method the teacher controls the rate and flow of information. Understanding takes

place during the reading, at each important juncture, not at the end of the selection. This method

encourages participation by all students, thus it alleviates discipline problems, and eventually

eliminates them entirely. When students misbehave, it indicates that they have not developed the

habit of “right” reasoning. My methodology is designed to teach that choices have consequences.

I use discipline, self-discipline, not punishment to engage the students in “right” thinking.

Ultimately, the teacher should increase reading longer amounts of text between stopping points.

This will increase the students’ ability to gain meaning from extended reading. Always stop at

points in the reading to ask questions, such as, “Why did you (the student) give the answer you

did?” And, “Can you point to the sentence, or paragraph, in the reading that supports your

conclusion?”

Stop-points in oral reading should occur at logical places such as where the story changes and

especially at highly abstract passages. The master teacher never shies away from difficult reading

selections or passages therein. The class is only as good as its leader! Stopping at abstractions

allows for oral discussion, the refinement of ideas, and the use of vocabulary, and for guidance

by the teacher. Stop points also provide discussion time, increased verbal and writing skills, and

the development of critical thinking.

My educational program does not allow the inane use of independent seatwork, busy work

sheets, and workbooks. These so-called education tools do not connect ideas into a logical

thought process. They do not, and cannot, teach children how to read, or how to write. They

presuppose that the participant is already an independent reader, and is already imbued with

critical and analytical thinking skills, or that the student is able to grasp, without supervision or

guidance, the relevant points being made by the author. There are more reasons why I do not use

work sheets in my classes, and I do not permit their use by any teacher in my school.

Upon completion of a reading selection, students should write daily letters to the characters in

the selection, or to the author of the material. Students should write a critical review of the

selection. Which character did they identify with the most? Why? What did this character teach

them? What life-lesson, if any, did they learn from the reading? Why is this life-lesson important

to them? Again, workbooks and worksheets can never accomplish this. There is a difference

between “busy work” and “thought work.”

The direct teaching method reinforces skills learned in every reading selection. The child is

taught to refer to what has been learned previously to support an opinion. References come from

many different sources, from poetry, newspaper editorials, magazines, great speeches, novels, or

any other written material. Everything everywhere provides potentially excellent material for

developing reasoning skills. To illustrate, a piece of paper represents trees, because wood is

processed into paper. A piece of paper also represents the water that nourishes the tree, the

woodsman who cuts down the tree, or the trucks that take the felled tree to the processing plant.

Direct teaching expands the mind beyond the two covers of a book and the four walls of the

classroom. Textbook word-for-word, lock-step methods never make good critical thinkers. There

is a difference between word reading and word understanding. And, there is a difference between

knowing how to read, and loving to read.

My methodology of teaching has the advantage of establishing an intellectual environment that

promotes the gaining of textual information, conversational information, vocabulary building,

idea building, idea sharing and expansion, and it demands the attention of all participants. It

alleviates guessing. It teaches abstract thinking. Critical thinking involves a general attitude of

questioning and suspended judgment, the habit of examining before accepting. The teacher and

the student now have a common goal, which is the gaining of knowledge and information

sharing. Direct teaching does require new behavior by both the teacher and the students,

therefore it does require some degree of behavior modification. In my long teaching career, I

have learned that the benefits are worth the effort. Once teachers try the Socratic Method, or

direct method, of teaching, they will never again return to anything that cannot produce the

“magic.” http://www.bridgeconsults.com/downloads/Marva%20Collins%20Educational%20Philosophy.pdf

I was hoping to find a brief outline of Mrs. Collins teaching methodology that I came across years ago but couldn’t so I decided to share this piece with you. I heartily encourage you to check out the movie that was made many years ago about Mrs. Collins life and struggle to teach the kids often discarded by our public education system and our society. Cicely Tyson played the role of Mrs. Collins and Morgan Freeman played the role of Mrs. Collins’ husband. In addition, I want to also share with you some of the notes I made in my copy of Marva Collins’ Way. Somewhere in perhaps my late 20s or early 30s, I developed the habit of making notes in the blank pages of my books. I either copy a passage verbatim or I paraphrase it and I’ll often write a person’s name next to the quote that reminds me of an argument we had on the subject or whom I’d like to show the passage to. Additionally, I add my own symbol system trying to convey the importance of the passage. Anyway, here are a few brief notes I made in my copy of this amazing teacher’s life story:

*she starts out with Emerson’s Self Reliance

*she strives to be sensitive to a child’s feelings

*the words & thoughts in your head, make you

*the most important thing is to build self-confidence

*people are looking for easy solutions

*until you reveal a larger world to children

*classroom discussion is the heart of the lesson

*Aristotle said “The heights of great men were not attained by sudden flight.”

*aphorisms help children remember ideas

*use lots of positive motivating slogans

*Without education, man is a slave, a savage wandering from here to there believing whatever he is told.

*My job as a teacher was to get their talents working. And that’s what I tried to do…..The great books were their greatest teacher…..I have found that great literature not only teaches students to read but makes them thirsty for more and more knowledge….We read to stretch the mind, to seek, to wonder, and then reread. We discuss the ideas contained in those books with others, and we temper our own thoughts. The great books are great teachers because they demand the attention of the reader….To me they were beginning to sound like Rhodes Scholars—even when they were insulting one another.

Well, that’s enough for now on the marvelous Marva Collins but if you get a chance, look up the 60 Minutes story on her because it is truly enlightening and she, is truly inspiring. I have had only a handful of teachers who truly inspired me in my life but that was enough because I’m obviously still seeking knowledge. Tragically though, far too often children are exposed to teachers who have no business teaching because they don’t like kids, aren’t true lovers of learning, aren’t competent enough, etc. So, if you are a parent and want the best education possible for your child, I have given you some great resources to check out and there are more to come.

Mrs. Collins has proved the power of hard work and frequent praise in grooming a student for success, so now, I wish to expand on the subject of hard work in the sense of not accepting the “common wisdom” of schools of education and the corporate world to “specialize.” Yes, contrary to almost all conventional wisdom on the subject, R. Buckminster Fuller, affectionately referred to as “Bucky,” by his friends, argued that we should strive to become “generalists” rather than specialists. And I wholeheartedly agree with this man who was also referred to as “The planet’s friendly genius.” I had the honor of attending a lecture given by Bucky at my alma mater, California State University at Long Beach, just several months before he passed away. And I was very impressed at the energy level and vitality of this great spirit, who, in his 80s, was jumping, pounding his fist, raising his voice passionately, etc. as he addressed us that day. To give you a brief background on this compassionate teacher, let me start by saying that most people have heard of or have seen a geodesic dome. Well, Bucky designed the original geodesic dome and he came up with his design by first creating a totally new geometric figure i.e. the tetrahedron. Do you know the last time a new geometric figure was created? Yeah, back 2,500 years ago in Ancient Greece. Oh yeah, and after Einstein published his famous Theory of Relativity, Bucky wrote to him and offered his interpretation of it and Einstein wrote back, “You are one of the few who have truly understood my theory.”

To give you a more succinct and insightful overview of this great man, let me leave you with this paragraph from Wikipedia:

Philosophy and worldview

The grandson of a Unitarian minister (Arthur Buckminster Fuller),^[14] R. Buckminster Fuller was also Unitarian.^[15] Buckminster Fuller was an early environmental activist. He was very aware of the finite resources the planet has to offer, and promoted a principle that he termed “ephemeralization“, which, in essence—according to futurist and Fuller disciple Stewart Brand—Fuller coined to mean “doing more with less”.^[16] Resources and waste material from cruder products could be recycled into making more valuable products, increasing the efficiency of the entire process. Fuller also introduced synergetics, an encompassing term which he used broadly as a metaphoric language for communicating experiences using geometric concepts and, more specifically, to reference the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components. Fuller coined this term long before the term synergy became popular.

Fuller was a pioneer in thinking globally, and he explored principles of energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design.^[17]^[18] He cited François de Chardenedes’ opinion that petroleum, from the standpoint of its replacement cost out of our current energy “budget” (essentially, the net incoming solar flux), had cost nature “over a million dollars” per U.S. gallon (US$300,000 per litre) to produce. From this point of view, its use as a transportation fuel by people commuting to work represents a huge net loss compared to their earnings.^[19] An encapsulation quotation of his views might be, “There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance.”^[20]^[21]^[22]

Fuller was concerned about sustainability and about human survival under the existing socio-economic system, yet remained optimistic about humanity’s future. Defining wealth in terms of knowledge, as the “technological ability to protect, nurture, support, and accommodate all growth needs of life,” his analysis of the condition of “Spaceship Earth” caused him to conclude that at a certain time during the 1970s, humanity had attained an unprecedented state. He was convinced that the accumulation of relevant knowledge, combined with the quantities of major recyclable resources that had already been extracted from the earth, had attained a critical level, such that competition for necessities was not necessary anymore. Cooperation had become the optimum survival strategy. “Selfishness,” he declared, “is unnecessary and hence-forth unrationalizable…. War is obsolete.”^[23] He criticized previous utopian schemes as too exclusive, and thought this was a major source of their failure. To work, he thought that a utopia needed to include everyone.^[24]

Fuller also claimed that the natural analytic geometry of the universe was based on arrays of tetrahedra. He developed this in several ways, from the close-packing of spheres and the number of compressive or tensile members required to stabilize an object in space. One confirming result was that the strongest possible homogeneous truss is cyclically tetrahedral.^[25]

In his 1970 book I Seem To Be a Verb, he wrote: “I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe.”

He had become a guru of the design, architecture, and ‘alternative’ communities, such as Drop City, the community of experimental artists to whom he awarded the 1966 “Dymaxion Award” for “poetically economic” domed living structures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Philosophy_and_worldview

And here is a more specific piece related to Bucky’s views on education in general:

School is an ignorance factory

Fuller believed that school limits the mind and suppresses original thinking. He said, “What usually happens in the educational process is that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed, and paralyzed, so that by the time most people are mature they have lost many of their innate capacities.”

Although he received forty-seven honorary doctorates, including a Phi Beta Kappa key from Harvard, Fuller was self-educated. In avoiding the educational factory, he missed both the advantages and drawbacks of being part of a shared culture, but he also avoided majoring in a specific area that would have boxed him into a category such as architecture or engineering. Instead, he became what he called a “comprehensivist” — interested in just about everything.

Adam Trombly, who founded Project Earth with Fuller (see Adam Trombly’s February article), explained in a recent interview:

Bucky once said that those who are educated to death are only able to communicate that in which they were educated. One of the problems we’ve had in the US and worldwide is the complete failure of the educational system to educate members of the species. Education, as Buckminster Fuller pointed out a long, long time ago, is very controversial. He incorporated himself in the educational system, even though he was uncredentialed. He was a college dropout, and he didn’t encourage that in his college students. He once took hold of my head and said, “You must promise me that you will never allow this instrument to die of an overspecialized death.” He was a very intense man, and he was not always happy with the way that I lived my life.”

http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/apr2/bucky.htm

Obviously, Bucky Fuller, like Noam Chomsky, Marva Collins, Henry Giroux, Jonathan Kozol and others I will introduce you to, have/had very differing views on what an ideal education system would be like. And this is not merely an exercise in fantasy or some pie-in-the-sky utopian vision. No, there are concrete steps we can and must take to make these ideals a reality. One of the last books that Bucky wrote is Critical Path and in a nutshell, he laid out the dangerous crossroads that humanity is at. Bucky proved that there are enough resources on our planet to provide every single human being with proper housing, food, clothing, medical care, etc. and it’s only the robber barons or global pirates as I recall that Bucky referred to them as, that through their greed & lust for power over others, have caused most of the misery, suffering, & death of billions of people. Perhaps to illustrate how uncommon or how unfamiliar even college educated people are with great minds like Buckminster Fuller, please allow me to share a reminiscence with you. It was the summer of 1981 and I was taking a honors course in political science. And as was my habit ever since I had my intellectual awakening after discovering the academic discipline of philosophy, I would go to my professors’ office hours, or rather, to the professors who inspired me, to simply talk about subjects that intrigued me. I had mentioned my interest in Bucky Fuller during one of my visits to Professor Brown’s office one day and on another occasion when I returned to chat some more, his office partner was there and Professor Brown introduced me to his office mate with “This is the student I told you about who reads Buckminster Fuller.” I was a bit embarrassed at the attention and didn’t really understand at the time why it was so unique to be familiar with Bucky Fuller? I want to add though that reading Bucky is very challenging and I in no way, claim to fully understand or grasp all that he has to say. But every morsel of Bucky’s thought that I do get a bit of a handle on, is such a treasure for my mind & spirit to savor. I apologize but I stumbled upon another nugget/excerpt from Bucky himself that I must share with you before moving on:

The way the power structure keeps the wit and cunning of the intelligentsia—who are not musclemen, who cannot do the physical fighting—from making trouble for the power structure (if the intelligentsia are too broadly informed, unwatched, and with time of their own in which to think) is to make each one a specialist with tools and an office or lab. That is exactly why bright people today have become streamlined into specialists.
Nobody is born a specialist. Every child is born with comprehensive interests, asking the most comprehensively logical and relevant questions. Pointing to the logs burning in the fireplace, one child asked me, “What is fire?” I answered, “Fire is the Sun unwinding from the tree’s log. The Earth revolves and the trees revolve as the radiation from the Sun’s flame reaches the revolving planet Earth. By photosynthesis the green buds and leaves of the tree convert that Sun radiation into hydrocarbon molecules, which form into the bio-cells of the green, outer, cambium layer of the tree. The tree is a tetrahedron that makes a cone as it revolves. The tree’s three tetrahedral roots spread out into the ground to anchor the tree and get water. Each year the new, outer-layer, green-tree cone revolves 365 turns, and every year the tree grows its new tender-green, bio-cell cone layer just under the bark and over the accumulating cones of previous years. Each ring of the many rings of the saw-cut log is one year’s Sun-energy impoundment. So the fire is the many-years-of-Sun-flame-winding now unwinding from the tree. When the log fire pop-sparks, it is letting go a very sunny day long ago, and doing so in a hurry.” Conventionally educated grown-ups rarely know how to answer such questions. They’re all too specialized.
If nature wanted humans to be specialists, she would, for instance, have given them a microscope on one eye, which is what nature has done with all other living organisms—other than humans. Each has special, organically integral equipment with which to cope successfully with special conditions in special environments. The low-slung hound to follow the Earth-top scent of another creature through the thickets and woods . . . the little vine that can grow only along certain stretches of the Amazon River . . . the bird with beautiful wings with which to fly, which bird however, when landed and in need of walking, is greatly hampered by its integral but now useless wings.
Humans are not unique in possessing brains that always and only are coordinating and storing for later retrieval the integrated information coming in from each and all the creature’s senses—visual, aural, tactile, and olfactory. Humans are unique in respect to all other creatures in that they also have minds that can discover constantly varying interrelationships existing only between a number of special case experiences as individually apprehended by their brains, which covarying interrelationship rates can only be expressed mathematically. For example, human minds discovered the law of relative interattractiveness of celestial bodies, whose initial intensity is the product of the masses of any two such celestial bodies, while the force of whose interattractiveness varies inversely as the second power of the arithmetical interdistancing increases.
The human mind of Bernoulli discovered the mathematical expression of the laws of intercovarying pressure differentials in gases under varying conditions of shape and velocity of gas flow around and by interfering bodies. The Wright brothers’ wing foils provided human flight, but not the information controlling the mathematics of varying wing foil conformations. Bernoulli’s work made possible the mathematical improvement in speed and energy efficiency of various wing designs. Human mind’s access to the mathematics of generalized scientific laws governing physical phenomena in general made possible humanity’s production of its own detached-from-self wings to outfly all birds in speed and altitude, while being able to loan one another those wings and modify them to produce even better wings. http://www.maebrussell.com/Critical%20Path/Critical%20Path%20excerpts%201.html

With respect to the nuts & bolts or concrete steps we can collectively as well as individually take to empower ourselves intellectually, I have already provided you with insights from some brilliant minds. If you will take the time to read closely what these true educators have said, you know what you have to do. First and foremost, you must stop relying on others, especially the public education system. Some will try to tell you that “self-education” is no longer possible and is a romantic memory of a bygone era. I say B.S.! The bottom line is that we must learn to trust ourselves, our innate wisdom, and our ability to inform ourselves if we are willing to do the work or develop the self-discipline. Ideally, for the most effective or significant kind of learning to take place, we must be in the company of others and feel free to express contrary ideas, and speak about controversial subjects with no fear of censorship or retaliation. But for those who either cannot afford the cost of higher education or can’t find the kind of stimulating academic environment I am referring to, you must fall back on your own resourcefulness.

In brief, if you are so fortunate as to have a friend or two who is also interested in expanding their intellect and thinking skills, set up a regular study group and follow Mortimer Adler’s Great Books Study Program. It provides you with many, thought-provoking questions and ideally, if you have the Great Books set published by Encyclopedia Britannica, it provides the exact pages to turn to. In lieu of not owning this amazing collection, either check the books out from your local library or purchase inexpensive, used paperback copies. Personally, I recommend purchasing your own copies so you can make notes in them for future reference. By the way, I searched for several years for the Great Books set and at first I was told for a set of used ones from an Encyclopedia Britannica salesman, it’d cost me $1,700.00. Eventually, I found a woman in Santa Ana, California who sold encyclopedias out of her garage, and got the set for $175.00, one of the best bargains of my life. Next in the self-education program I am outlining, find a copy of:

Problem solving and comprehension

Arthur Whimbey, Jack Lochhead

0 Reviewshttp://books.google.com/books/about/Problem_solving_and_comprehension.html?id=RAsRAQAAIAAJ

L. Erlbaum Associates, Sep 1, 1991 – Education – 366 pages

Books on the improvement of thinking processes have tended to be complicated and less than useful; the authors of this renowned text emphasize a simple but effective approach. The Whimbey method of teaching problem solving is now recognized as an invaluable means of teaching people to think. Problems are followed by their solutions, presented in easy-to-follow steps — this feature permits students to work without supervision, outside the classroom. The latest edition of this best-selling text covers two new topics: decoding complex instructions, and the uses of pair problem solving.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Problem_solving_and_comprehension.html?id=RAsRAQAAIAAJ

Excuse me if I have already mentioned the following anecdote but it is instructive. I had attended several community colleges and had never been required to write an essay exam. All my tests were multiple choice & true or false on Scantron forms. I was attending California State University at Long Beach and taking a course in World History. I studied for perhaps 40 hours for our first big test of the semester. We had read four or five short paperbacks and perhaps 200 pages in the textbook and the professor told us that he would choose 30 topics from all this material and we had to write an essay for ten of the topics i.e. a brief essay response for each of the ten topics we chose. I thought, my God, he could choose several hundred topics from all this material, how am I going to prepare for this test? I did my best but still received a D on the test. Many of my classmates did poorly as well and we raised hell so the professor said he’d allow us to retake the test a week later and that he’d keep the same topics for us to answer. He also suggested the “Remedial Learning Lab” in the college library for help. I went to the lab and in a provocative discussion with the supervisor of the lab, I came away with this advice i.e. buy the book above by Whimbey & Lochhead and try to find a study partner to do the problems with. I should add that this director of the learning lab had received a Jesuit education and had four years of Latin & three years of Greek under his belt. We got into an in-depth conversation when I told him that I was a philosophy major and why I was interested in studying philosophy i.e. to empower myself. And the greatest gift this scholar gave me was how to make “memory slips.” In short, narrow down the main ideas in textbooks, really quite simple because they are usually the headings of paragraphs or are in bold. Sometimes the main ideas are buried within paragraphs and they’re not always the first sentence or the topic sentence but with practice, one becomes proficient at zeroing in on the key ideas/information. Take several sheets of paper and fold into six equal parts (standard 8.5” by 11” paper). On one side, write down a main idea in the form of a question, and on the back, answer the question in short bits of information (you don’t need every “a” “or” “the” etc., just the key words because they will trigger your memory of the core concept. Don’t write more than four or five brief blurbs of the answer because the mind can easily become overloaded and works best with trying to retain no more than 4 or 5 pieces of info at a time. If an answer is too long, devise a way of breaking the question down to a few different memory slips but with the overarching question in mind. Carry these memory slips with you wherever you go and pull them out periodically when you have a few moments to spare and quiz yourself. If you get the answer wrong or only partially correct, give yourself an “X” on the back of the memory slip. If you get it right, give yourself a check mark on the back of the memory slip. Once you have four or five check marks in a row, you can be assured that you have it memorized and it doesn’t matter what order the question comes to you on the test. Well, I followed the director’s instructions and I aced the test the next week. What’s more, I applied this new tool to every course I took from then on and in whatever subject matter I was studying and my graves improved significantly. Best of all, it took so much pressure/stress of my shoulders because I was now confident that I could master any subject.

Finally, in terms of practical steps you can take to empower or self-educate yourself, I recommend printing a list of the basic, informal logical fallacies and referring to it often when reading editorials, opinion pieces, watching FOX News, etc. and you will begin to see just how often T.V. pundits, demagogues, politicians, preachers, advertisers, etc. commit these fallacies as they’re trying to deceive you. Sadly, I have had to pursue my program of enlightenment alone because I’ve never found a friend yet who gave a damn about their ignorance and was willing to commit to a program of study with me. Hopefully you are more fortunate but if not, don’t wait, dive in and you will become addicted to learning as I am. It’s a most glorious journey and it’s the only thing I never tire of.

Admittedly, I once again have probably written a much too long essay but I’m confident that those of you who are as passionate about education as I am, will invest the time in reading it through. I bring this up because I want to return to Noam Chomsky and some quotes I noted in my copy of his book Chomsky on Mis-Education. And for the record, in my opinion, Noam Chomsky is the scholar’s scholar. He meticulously footnotes his work and keeps himself informed by reading several of the world’s major newspapers and countless journals, government documents, etc. I like to tell people that Chomsky is a one man revolution and if you read all his books, you’d have one helluva political education. By the way, his work in the field of linguistics in the 1960s is said to have revolutionized the field. Here’s a taste of Chomsky:

*”Teachers who are paid to safeguard the ideological doctrinal system have little interest or incentive to teach students that the United States has systematically violated the Pledge of Allegiance, from the legalization of slavery, the denial of women’s rights, and the near-genocide of Native Americans to the contemporary discriminatory practices against people who, by virtue of their race, ethnicity, or gender, are not treated with the dignity and respect called for in the Pledge.”

*”Central to a pedagogy of lies promoted by the dominant ideology to prevent the development of a ‘critical comprehension of reality’ is the creation of ‘necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications….to keep the bewildered herd—the naïve simpleton—from being bothered with the complexity of real problems that they couldn’t solve anyway.’ That is why schools and universities try to block the development of a more critical education along the lines suggested by Chomsky, Paulo Friere, and Henry Giroux,…”

*In an era in which we are more and more controlled by ever increasing ‘manufacturing of consent’ through technological wizardry used by the media—ephemeral sound bites, metaphorical manipulations of language, and prepackaged ideas void of substance—it becomes that much more urgent to adhere to Chomsky’s proposal to develop a critical approach to education that would serve ‘the general public by providing people with techniques of self defense.”

*”The more there is a need to talk about the ideals of democracy, the less democratic the system usually is. This is well known by those who make policy, and sometimes they don’t even try to hide it. The Trilateral Commission referred to schools as ‘institutions’ responsible for ‘the indoctrination of the young.’”

*”In a free and democratic society, Dewey held, workers should be ‘the masters of their own industrial fate,’ not tools rented by employers.” (pgs. 10,11,12,17, and 47)

I was sorely tempted to share a lot more with you but resisted the urge. This should be enough to wet your appetite for more Chomsky. Pretty mindboggling isn’t he? And it’s clear just how far from actually educating our youth, our public school system is. I’ve even talked to people who claim to be liberals or progressives and yet they had never heard of Noam Chomsky. But, whenever I’ve been in bookstores in Madrid, Paris, Rome, etc., the small section of books they’d have that were in English was overwhelmingly Chomsky. He is much more well known outside the U.S. than in the U.S. and he has lived here his entire life. He has been marginalized and dismissed by many on the Left because he doesn’t pull his punches i.e. he levels his critical eye at whoever and whomever is guilty of lying, distortion, etc.

Okay, time to move on. This next gentleman is Sir Ken Robinson. “….is a senior adviser for education policy at the Getty Foundation in Los Angeles, and a recognized expert in the development of creativity, education and training throughout the world. He has served as professor of education at Warwick University in the United Kingdom and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts.” The following quotes come from a pamphlet titled “How Creativity, Education and the Arts Shape a Modern Economy.”

*…but the fact is if America wants to remain competitive in the global markets of the 21^st century, creativity is not a luxury. America needs a workforce that is flexible, adaptable and highly creative.”

*Are companies today having a hard time finding these types of creative employees?

*Yes. In 2001, McKinsey published a study called The War for Talent. It asked 6,000 executives from 400 companies what they considered to be their biggest challenge as they face the future.

*The most important challenge they said was finding people who could make good decisions in times of uncertainty, who can adapt to new opportunities and respond creatively to change. Apparently they have real problems finding such people. Now these are among the top companies in America and can recruit the supposed cream of America’s education system. So even at the top end, the system isn’t keeping pace with what the economy really needs.

*The standards movement (No Child Left Behind) is killing innovation because its focus is very narrow, and its generating a climate of fear and risk aversion. In some ways, the standards movement is actually lowering standards….

*The fact is the educational system we’re all trying so hard to improve was developed in the 18^th and 19^th centuries to meet the needs of a different age—the age of industrialism….But America is rapidly becoming a post-industrial economy.

*All the evidence shows that if you have a broad curriculum, one that is infused with a more sophisticated conception of intelligence, kids are more motivated, more driven, have higher self-esteem and perform better academically.

Are you beginning to see the connections between the various educators I have shared with you? And by the way, and before I forget, it’s appropriate that Ken Robinson works/worked for the Getty Foundation because many years ago I saw an article in The Oregonian newspaper on Gordon Getty. I believe it said something like he was the richest man in the world and in a nutshell, he said that a liberal education was worth more than a million dollars and he was far more proud of his classical education in music theory and composing than he was of his wealth. Now of course, not many people can become a Gordon Getty but unless you have serious intellectual challenges, you can earn a classical or liberal education if you apply yourself. Believe it or not, I’m finally beginning to wind-down this lengthy treatise and that brings up another good point i.e. I guess because I’ve been told so many times that my writing was too long, I’m often afraid that no one will read my writing. We can thank television and the consumer society that chops everything into sound bites and images for the general public’s intellectual laziness as Chomsky mentioned earlier.

Another significant factor in earning or working towards an ideal education is writing. You may feel this is rather obvious but not really. I believe that I may have mentioned it earlier but perhaps not? I attended several different community colleges in the L.A. & Orange County area and every test I took was Scantron i.e. either true or false or multiple choice. I was told that I couldn’t take any of the literature or composition classes that I was interested in because I scored so low on the English Placement Test. And yet, I ended up earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and I’ve been a prolific writer for the past 20 years or so. I wrote to Noam Chomsky about this curious state and he said that when he was in high school, he failed grammar. I cracked-up because here’s the world famous linguist admitting that he failed grammar and he also noted that many of the rules of grammar are arbitrary and a pain in the butt. Alright, that was a preface to this article I have titled Learning to Think—the Write Way: Key to Education Is Putting Words on Paper, Experts Say by John Tagg, a San Marcos, Callifornia, free-lance writer and former speech and writing instructor at Cal State Northridge and UC Berkeley.

*”Writing is necessary for genuine learning.

“Writing represents a unique mode of learning—not merely valuable, not merely special, but unique.”

*The reason? John Dewey had it right, ‘We learn what we do.’ When we write, we do several things. We think, we formulate our thoughts into meaningful strings of words, testing them in the process, we record those words graphically, we read them back to test them again.

*”When we write we not only think, recall, select and verbalize, we visually reinforce the verbal choices which we have physically recorded. Hence writing is unsurpassed as a way of learning to think and a way of thinking to learn.”

*”The habit of good writing—the organization of ideas, the marshalling of evidence, the proper choice of words—is virtually indistinguishable from clear thinking.”

*”Perhaps more than any other form of communication, writing holds us responsible for our words and ultimately makes us more thoughtful human beings.”

I have often told students who were intimidated by a writing assignment to relax and that all writing is, is putting your thoughts down on paper. It gets easier with practice and just about every author in the world, makes mistakes and has to revise and rewrite sometimes several times before they are pleased with their results. Again though, because teachers are so overworked and have such huge caseloads of students, many if not most teachers will use Scantron tests because otherwise they’d be up to midnight every night grading papers. If we are serious about improving our public education system, teachers need to be paid much more than they are now and should have personal secretaries to help them with the administrative paperwork that the bureaucrats dump on them. This would allow teachers to do a lot more actual teaching. And perhaps then teachers could assign more writing assignments?

Before I begin to sum up, I want to share a personal anecdote and two more video clips with you. Back somewhere around the mid-1980s, I heard of this film called “Mindwalk.” It intrigued me so I drove a good distance to a small, independent, artsy sort of movie theatre to watch it. I was blown away by the grand scale of thinking & ideas it contained. And the next time I heard mention of this film was around 1994 when my wife and son & I moved back to Portland, Oregon. I was working for a private company that offered supervision & training services for adults with various disabilities. We had a regular monthly meeting and at one of our meetings, the owner of the company told us that she had taken all the supervisors on a retreat to a posh location on the Oregon coast and had hired a consultant to give a seminar. The consultant, from the conversation I overheard my supervisor and some other supervisors have, basically just showed this film “Mindwalk.” All the supervisors moaned when the owner mentioned this film and said they hated it and that it was so boring. By the way, speaking of boring, I got so sick & tired of hearing students make that complaint when I was a substitute teacher in L.A., that it became almost like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard to me after awhile. Then one day I saw the greatest quote on boredom on the wall of a classroom I was subbing in. It read: “The cure for boredom is curiosity and there is no cure for curiosity.” It was like I had been struck by lightning. From then on whenever students would moan “This is so boring” or “I’m bored,” I would recite this quote and tell them, in other words, there’s a million new tastes, sounds, thoughts, etc. out there and if you’re bored, it’s your fault or it’s because you’re lazy. I’d try to downplay or soft soap the laziness part and highlight some of the fantastic places to travel to, etc. Okay, back to my story. The owner upon hearing the moaning & complaining of the supervisors, asked for a show of hands of who enjoyed the film. Only the owner and me raised our hands and I remember the incredulous look of my supervisor as she asked me “Are you serious? You liked it?” So much for the superiority of that group of supervisors and by the way, my supervisor ended up firing me a few months later. She expected me to grovel over some petty fighting between two women I worked with and which I had tried to redirect politely i.e. because I had spoken my mind, I was going to be transferred to a very tough assignment and when I refused, I was fired. Oh well, I was obviously over-qualified for that position anyway. Here are the two clips from “Mindwalk”:

Anyway, I want to end with these two clips from the movie because I think they nicely connect some of the themes of this essay. Sometimes it amazes me how things come together so nicely almost as if it were predestined? The movie “Mindwalk” popped into my head as I was working on this essay and now, after having viewed the two clips from the movie, I did a search of the term ‘holistic education’ and wasn’t even sure if such a term existed and lo & behold, there is and it dovetails nicely with all the teachers I have introduced in this essay i.e. today, more than ever, because of the serious crises facing humanity such as global warming & the possibility of a group of terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear weapon to name just two of the most critical problems, we must learn to educate our whole selves, not just the academic or intellectual aspect of ourselves. Compassion and creativity are more vital for our survival than any other time in history.

Let’s review briefly what each of these great minds taught us. Mortimer Adler showed us the practicality of a classical education i.e. it can train the mind to a degree not often attained by most people. Jonathan Kozol revealed just how pooorly America rates intellectually as compared to other countries and he pointed out in his book “Illiterate America,” which I read over 25 years ago, “The term ‘functionally illiterate’ should not be applied to humans because machines function, the word doesn’t apply to us.’ Connect this thought to the discussion in “Mindwalk” where the woman is discussing how Descartes brought the notion of a mechanistic world view to the forefront and how it has dehumanized us. Then we have John Taylor Gatto who outlined are outmoded and Prussian military based educational system. Henry Giroux is/was a fan/friend of Paolo Friere and developed his theories of critical pedagogy from Friere’s groundbreaking work. Noam Chomsky of course needs little explanation because as I have already amply noted, “The New York Times said he is arguably, the most important intellectual alive.” Marva Collins’ work proves that discipline need not always be negative and that with a true love & compassion for students, mindboggling strides forward can occur. Bucky Fuller as some have described him was simply “the planet’s friendly genius,” and he proved that there is no reason outside of plain old greed, for any human being to go hungry, be without a proper shelter/home, be provided with medical care and a good education as well as meaningful work. He also counseled us to become generalists, not specialists in pursuing knowledge. Sir Ken Robinson amused and enlightened us all by showing how creativity is playing an ever more vital role in the workplace of today and his enthusiasm has inspired me to pursue some career paths that I have long dreamt of. And finally with the clips from “Mindwalk,” we can step back and take a look at the whole of education, where it’s been, it’s history, it’s future, and that by not looking at public education with a microscope but rather a telescope, we can begin to glimpse the wonderful universe of understanding that true wisdom affords us. Lastly, but certainly not leastly, I want to share a bit from Wikipedia on the subject of ‘holistic education’ and give you some more resources to check into for your own empowerment. And I am going to include one last video clip which I feel is very insightful and relevant when you reflect on the so-called “conservatives” and their efforts to destroy what little is left of our public educational system. Yes, it is a mess but that doesn’t mean we should scrap it completely and many of the desperate poor in this country depend heavily on it for at least some basic sustenance or food for the mind. Every now & then, a great teacher comes along and makes a lifechanging impact on a young student. One of mine was Dora Polk, a kindly little lady from Wales who openned my eyes to the many levels of reading in a single book.

“An informed citizenry is the strength of democracy…. a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.” (James Madison)

Holistic education is a philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to humanitarian values such as compassion and peace. Holistic education aims to call forth from people an intrinsic reverence for life and a passionate love of learning. This is the definition given by Ron Miller, founder of the journal Holistic Education Review (now entitled Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice). The term holistic education is often used to refer to the more democratic and humanistic types of alternative education. Robin Ann Martin (2003) describes this further by stating, “At its most general level, what distinguishes holistic education from other forms of education are its goals, its attention to experiential learning, and the significance that it places on relationships and primary human values within the learning environment.” (Paths of Learning)

The concept of holism refers to the idea that all the properties of a given system in any field of study cannot be determined or explained by the sum of its component parts. Instead, the system as a whole determines how its parts behave. A holistic way of thinking tries to encompass and integrate multiple layers of meaning and experience rather than defining human possibilities narrowly

Key Historical Contributors

It is difficult to map the history of holistic education because many feel that the core ideas of holism are not new but “timeless and found in the sense of wholeness in humanity’s religious impetus” (Forbes, 1996).^[1] On the other hand, the roots of holistic education can be traced back to several major contributors. Originating theorists include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, Johann Pestalozzi, Friedrich Fröbel, and Francisco Ferrer. More recent theorists are Rudolf Steiner, Maria Montessori, Francis Parker, John Dewey, John Caldwell Holt, George Dennison Kieran Egan, Howard Gardner, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Paul Goodman, Ivan Illich, and Paulo Freire. With the ideas of these pioneers in mind, many feel that the core ideas of holistic education did not truly take form until the cultural paradigm shift that began in the 1960s.^[1] After this, the holism movement in psychology emerged in the 1970s where, during this time, “an emerging body of literature in science, philosophy and cultural history provided an overarching concept to describe this way of understanding education – a perspective known as holism.”^[2]

Significant forward motion was accomplished by the first National Holistic Education Conference that was conducted with The University of California, San Diego in July 1979, that included 31 workshops. The Conference was presented by The Mandala Society and The National Center for the Exploration of Human Potential.

The title was Mind: Evolution or Revolution? The Emergence of Holistic Education

For six years after that the Holistic Education Conference was combined with the Mandala Holistic Health Conferences at the University of California, San Diego, with about three thousand professionals participating each year.

Out of this came the Journal of Holistic Education and the observation that educators think they are teaching the basic three R’s: Reading Writing and Arithmetic. With Holistic Education the basic three R’s are Education for: Relationships, Responsibility and Reverence for all life.

Philosophical Framework

Any approach to education must ask itself, what is the goal of education? Holistic education aims at helping students be the most that they can be. Abraham Maslow referred to this as “self-actualization”. Education with a holistic perspective is concerned with the development of every person’s intellectual, emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative and spiritual potentials. It seeks to engage students in the teaching/learning process and encourages personal and collective responsibility.

In describing the general philosophy of holistic education, Robin Ann Martin and Scott Forbes (2004) divide their discussion into two categories: the idea of Ultimacy and Basil Bernstein’s notion of Sagacious Competence. ^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holistic_education

I will leave you with perhaps FDR’s most famous quote “Remember, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And I hope that you won’t fall for the fear & hate mongers who call themselves journalists on FOX News. They seek to divide us so the rich can continue ad nauseam to rip us all off and pollute the planet. Join the good fight and persevere!

Posted in Education, Featured | Tagged Bucky Fuller, Henry Giroux, Holistic education, Noam Chomsky | Leave a comment

We are All on the Res Now!

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Rob DeLoss

Joni Mitchell

The Occupy Wall St. movement here in America & the world-wide social revolution is a physical manifestation of the realization that we, the 99% of the world’s population not born with silver spoons in our mouths, are slowly waking up to the fact that now, we are all being treated the way the indigenous people have been treated for hundreds of years.

This is a painful awakening for many of us because we believed all the myths we had been brought up on e.g. equal opportunity, freedom, justice, democracy, the American Dream, etc. It has gotten to the point where, if you are honest with yourself, there is no more denying the fact that we have all been manipulated & betrayed. Many are still in denial & the longer they deny the “reality” surrounding & swallowing us up, the more violent their awakening will be. John Trudell was clearly right when he said that “civilization” is the great lie. We are the only species that pollutes its own nest. How smart is that? Civilization is defined as an advanced stage or system of social development. Mr. Trudell is obviously correct because if you consider this state of affairs in our world with billions of people starving & not having access to clean, drinking water, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the BP “oil spill” in the Gulf of Mexico, the nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, the rampant mountain top removals in the Appalachian mountains, the climate change that threatens our very survival as a species yet it is dismissed by the corporate whores especially those on FOX News, etc. etc. etc., we are clearly on the Eve of Destruction

John Trudell

The power elite have no respect for Mother Earth or Father Sky and like the Nazis who herded the Jews into ghettos & concentration or death camps not unlike the reservations we have forced the indigenous peoples of America into, we are all now being forced into a global reservation. The overwhelming majority of humanity live like dogs, sniffing through mountains of garbage for scraps of food thrown away by the privileged. Millions of human beings walk around like zombies with dead eyes because the spirit in them has been crushed. Its only relatively lately that we, in America, the world’s greatest super power with more weapons than all the rest of the world combined & supposedly the strongest & most prosperous economy in the world, that the average American is beginning to connect the dots. And that is what the Occupy Wall St. movements around the country are trying to do i.e. wake us up from our sleepwalking stupor and apathy. Until we realize that we are all in this together and that the reptilians walking upright amongst us are the only enemy, not the poor, the homeless, the drug addicts, the “illegal immigrants,” the gays, the Muslims, etc., we will continue to suffer the degradations they have forced on us.

I want to share a powerful short story by Mark Twain which he didn’t allow to be published until after his death because he knew he would be attacked viciously for speaking such truth:

The War Prayer

by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his publisher, and was found after his death among his unpublished manuscripts. It was first published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine’s anthology, Europe and Elsewhere.

The story is in response to a particular war, namely the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed. See Jim Zwick’s page “Mark Twain on the Philippines”for more of Twain’s writings on the subject.

Transcribed by Steven Orso (snorso@facstaff.wisc.edu)

It is by no means merely a coincidence that America has been at war, whether declared or not, or involved in police actions, etc. ever since the end of World War II. And no, I’m not saying it’s been a grand conspiracy but it is simply due to the never enough greed of the status quo. I urge you to check out Gore Vidal‘s book Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace if you’d like to get a detailed list that substantiates this. The corporate cockroaches have dehumanized the indigenous peoples from every country around the globe. In ancient times it was the kings, emperors, & presidents who used this tactic to convince their subjects or citizens that they were the superior race and were therefore justified in stealing from the people they attacked & even killing them because they weren’t “God-fearing” people. This raping, pillaging, & plundering has been going on for so long that there isn’t much left in the world that is up for grabs so-to-speak. So, many nations have now turned to “eating their own,” or self-cannibalizing themselves. And the most powerful players in this never-ending tragedy e.g. the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain, etc. now wage wars of aggression on the weaker nations either overtly by invading with their military as we, America, has done in Iraq and Afghanistan or through covert methods. Of course this is always done under the mask of bringing Democracy or Freedom to those poor souls who happen to have wealth in the form of resources the corporatocracy want to get their greedy paws on.

Following this further, this is where the corporate whores like Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc. come in and play a very important role. These pundits of intolerance, fear, & hatred are paid millions of dollars to keep the ordinary citizens distracted from what the powerful are up to & to focus citizens’ anger on the poor, welfare cheats, gays, illegal immigrants, liberals, you name it. Who do you think pays the salaries of these hate mongers? Do you believe that the men who own the handful of corporate media conglomerates pay these preachers of venom such outrageous sums of money simply because they believe what they’re saying? No way my friends. The owners tell the talking heads what to say because if the owners spoke for themselves, people might become suspicious. So, the curtain of deceit, as in The Wizard of Oz, must be maintained. This is why these pathetic excuses for human beings always pose as “just ordinary folk.” The illusion is all important. And just as Hitler’s minister of propaganda knew, what is absolutely critical to their success in terms of keeping the public in the dark, is the constant repetition of the lies the elite want us to believe as truth. For example, if you tell a child that they are stupid from the time they can begin to understand language until they leave home, you can be almost 100% sure that they will believe they are stupid. This is also why advertisers pay millions of dollars for their ads on television because they know that through repetition of the images & words, most people will believe that their product is superior and will buy it. Naturally, when someone like myself tries to tell people that they are being brainwashed, I am seen as a nut case, anti-American, un-patriotic, etc. because, hey, everyone else agrees and I stand alone in my very different and critical point of view.

Moreover, if these media lap-dogs, and their masters as well as the republicans truly respect the sacrifices of our soldiers, then why are they the ones who slash every government program established to help returning veterans? For the sake of brevity, I won’t go on and list all the programs they have cut but for the record, at least one out of every four homeless people in America, is a veteran. And many veterans are involved with the Occupy Wall St. protests & actions going on around the nation. Tell me again how patriotic these parasites in power are. Yet if you bring up such subjects, you are charged with waging class war? Well wake up America! The rich have been waging class war on us from the beginning. We are wage slaves (see Noam Chomsky) and the so-called Democratic champion of the working class & middle class, President Clinton, opened the floodgates of American jobs being shipped overseas with his signing of NAFTA. Again, check out Gore Vidal on the subject of how little difference there is between the Democrats & the Republicans.

And to return to the subject of civilization, isn’t it interesting to note that when we invaded Iraq & had control of Baghdad within the first few weeks of bombing Iraq back into the Stone Age & the looting of some of the world’s oldest relics of Western civilization were allowed to be stolen & destroyed as our soldiers stood by? The only building our soldiers were ordered to protect was the Ministry of Oil. Nah, we didn’t invade Iraq for oil, that’s just liberal propaganda.

Simultaneously as we are waging wars of naked, imperial aggression abroad, the ruling elite are waging a blatant war against workers and public employee unions. Just how obvious or blatant do they have to be before we wake up? Wisconsin’s governor, Scott Walker, let the cat out of the bag when he thought he was talking to David Koch, one of the most audacious of the reptilian class, but was actually talking to a progressive blogger. The audacity or cold-blooded lack of morality or conscience on the part of these scum is absolutely mindboggling? These vermin are clearly out to destroy every last vestige of power for the working class & the middle class. They want to get rid of Medicare, and they want to get their hands on Social Security and, in brief, they have publicly announced that they want to wipe-out every single program that was contained in FDR’s New Deal. Why? Because they have actually drank the Kool-Aid and believe that they have made their fortunes all on their own (they conveniently forget all the government subsidies, tax breaks, loans, bail-outs, etc. that they were given) and all the rest of us can rot on what has become one, giant, de facto reservation. They hide behind their gated communities and in their executive boardroom suites protected by mercenaries like Blackwater. By the way, Wal-Mart, which is held up as some sort of model of corporate success, is just short of a private, fascist enterprise. And what many people don’t know is that Wal-Mart shows its new employees how to apply for food stamps because they pay their workers so little & keep most of them on part-time status so they won’t qualify for any sort of benefits. Yeah, yet another example of that miraculous free market in operation. Let the suckers paying their taxes support the workers of the corporate cockroaches by paying for the food stamps. And never mind that when Wal-Mart comes to town, most of the small, mom & pop businesses go out of business because they can’t compete with the prices of Wal-Mart products which mostly come from China and are made by prison labor. But hey, things are looking up for the corporate conspirators because through the secret meetings held by the organization known as A.L.E.C. (American Legislative Exchange Council), the corporate chieftains and “our” political representatives meet & draft legislative bills that will make the obscenely wealthy even more powerful & wealthy. They are using American prison labor more & more. In fact, to keep their anti-democratic practices hidden, awhile back they allowed something like 500,000 lbs. of contaminated beef to be sold here in America. Meanwhile, city after city and town after town across America are going bankrupt and turning into ghost towns & looking more and more like those shameful reservations we force the indigenous peoples to live on. Before I forget, I want to share something with you that amazed me. Bill Clinton, as I mentioned earlier had signed the NAFTA agreement, was on Book TV today, November 14, 2011, being interviewed by his daughter, Chelsea, about his new book called Back to Work. Can you believe the hubris of this class of cockroaches? Clinton is now going to tell us how to put Americans back to work after he opened the floodgates for his corporate cronies to not only shut down factories here in America and put hundreds of thousands, if not millions, out of work but then turns around and is pimping such a book. It’s like rubbing salt in the wound in my opinion.

Yes my friends, everywhere you look, the world is becoming one vast wasteland like many of those sad reservations across America. And we have been indoctrinated with the stereotype that all Indians are drunkards & lazy, welfare bums. Yeah, some drink alcohol & some have become addicted to drugs but they aren’t any different than the rest of us. People turn to alcohol & drugs when the harsh, ugly reality of their lives is just too painful to bear. Escape from pain is a natural response. We have little or no sympathy for the poor among us who waste away on alcohol & drugs but what about the slime-balls like Rush Limbaugh who got hooked on oxycontin? Ah, poor baby, it’s a tough job lying to the public day in and day out and making millions of dollars for it. Could it be that he does have a conscience and uses drugs to escape from his evil demons? I was going to go on and delve into the fact that the corporate cockroaches have now learned how to profit on natural disasters but I fear I’m going on too long so I’ll just recommend a brilliant, young lady, Naomi Klein, and her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism because she is absolutely brilliant and connects so many dots in this race to the bottom that the corporate crocodiles are forcing us towards.

Dylan Thomas, another infamous drinker!

In conclusion, I want to state that it is my gut-feeling that these Body Snatchers posing as people, are waging genocide on a global scale now & want a world populated by only themselves. But, they will fail because the human spirit is strong and just as they failed in wiping-out the honorable indigenous peoples who never laid claim to this land we now call America, they will fail also in their grandiose scheme of getting rid of us. As Dylan Thomas exhorted, “Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that dark night!” The last thing I want to share with you, my readers, is this sad, painful lament by one of my favorite singers, Joni Mitchell. It is the story of yet another nation, Ethiopia, driven to ruin by greed and corruption. Persevere and please let me know your thoughts or feelings about this piece I have written.

P.S. I almost forgot the minor point of the world-wide, economic meltdown caused by the power elite and which we, the Indians on the res, are forced to pay for with our dignity.

Posted in Class War | Tagged American Dream, American Empire, apathy, class war, corporatocracy, David Koch, hate mongers, media lap-dogs, NAFTA, Occupy Wall St. | Leave a comment

The Politics of Patriotism

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Rob DeLoss

“Judge Learned Hand of the U.S. Supreme Court once said that he would like to see these words ‘I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken,’ inscribed ‘over the portals of every church, every courthouse and at every crossroads in the nation.’ This is not only a plea for those who disagree with us. It is, profoundly, a plea for us to recognize that our righteousness can lead us into places that are most deeply wrong. At this time, perhaps more than any other time in the history of our wonderful human race, do we need to be in touch with our hearts. We need to be in touch with our humanity. The lesson of Nazi Germany is clear: it is those who dehumanize others who lose their own humanity. We are all artists, poets and intuitives. It is our birthright. As humans, we each have the ability to seek and connect with our most human qualities. Among these are love and compassion. In these lie our divinity, our humanity and our survival.” (Taken from: www.sarvananda.com Newsletter March-May 2003)

“If Fascism came to America it would be on a program of 100 percent Americanism.” —Huey P. Long, U.S. Army Talk, March 24, 1945

yeah, 100% American & God-fearing too!

I was trying to find the quote from Chief Justice Learned Hand and stumbled upon the quote above and felt it was appropriate to include the entire quote for the purposes of this essay. In fact, I sent this quote to President Clinton when he was in office when I wrote him a letter asking him to pardon Leonard Peltier. I wrote this essay in the hope that it may be of some help if even one person who is contemplating joining the military doesn’t join after reading what I’ve written. To risk being maimed physically and psychologically or being killed because the president & the corporate media tell us it’s our patriotic duty and without knowing the hidden history of America’s wars, is a fool’s errand. I was in the lottery for the Vietnam War in 1971 and my number was something like 69. I wasn’t politically aware back then but when it got close to me being possibly sent to Vietnam, I trusted my gut instinct and kept going AWOL until I got out of the army with an Undesirable Discharge. Receiving this “bad” discharge was morbidly humorous. So I wasn’t worthy of killing and possibly dying for my country? Oh the recruiters are masters of deceit. They’ll promise you the moon to get you to sign that contract. They told me that if I wanted to be a clerk-typist I’d have to sign up for another year. Lie! I didn’t even have to go to the normal advanced training that just about everyone goes through after their basic training in the army. I was a clerk typist as soon as I got to Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio. Almost everyone I’ve ever known or met that was in the military didn’t have hardly any use for the skills they acquired in the military in the work world when they looked for work after getting out of the military. In other words, their time in the military was dead time just as if they’d been in prison and out of the work force. Hence, wherever they found work, most started at the bottom. “Be All You Can Be,” is a sinister lie the recruiters, the Pentagon, & the presidents perpetuate and perhaps one of their key selling points. Most of the gullible young fall for this tactic and believe when they get out they’ll walk into a challenging job and a good paying career. Sadly, most of us find ourselves pumping gas or flipping burgers.

Just to show you how desperate the army was and probably still is for well-educated or somewhat intelligent recruits or enlistees, when I was in basic training and we’d taken a battery of written tests for the first 3 or 4 days we’d been there, they took me and 4 or 5 other guys out of our company to several meetings with high-ranking officers whose ranks I had trouble figuring out. Anyway, talk about high-pressure salesmanship; this was mind-blowing and ego inflating to the max. They basically told us that we could be stationed wherever we wanted to be in the world and that they would train us in whatever M.O.S. (Military Occupational Specialty) we wanted if we’d re-up (extend our contracted tour of duty’s amount of time) to six years I believe? I couldn’t see myself as being capable of sending men to certain death, which as an officer you might sometime have to do. They wanted to send us to O.C.S. (Officer Candidate School) and I didn’t even want to be a squad leader. As in the military, it’s the same it seems in the corporate business world that dictates everything about who we are, how we’re suppose to behave, talk, think, dress, etc., the less you rock-the-boat and the more incompetent you are and the better you are at ass-kissing, the higher up that so-called ‘ladder of success,’ you’ll go. I saw the army’s wise use of their manpower when I saw guys who had master’s degrees picking up cigarette butts, and not for disciplinary purposes.

Well when orders came down that half of us were going to be sent to Vietnam and the other half would be sent to Germany, I decided it was time to start going AWOL. I had met an older guy who was also trying to get out of the army and he told me that the army didn’t give a damn about how miserable you were or how much you hated it. He counseled me that you have to prove that you’re more trouble than you are worth before they will let you out. And if you keep going AWOL, you will be tied up with going to court martial hearings and they can’t ship you out while you’re going through this process. I went AWOL three or four times but they weren’t taking me seriously because I’d just receive a fine and have to do some extra duties like mop floors so the last time I went AWOL, I stayed gone and after about two months, the F.B.I. busted me at my mom’s house. Yet when Bush Jr. was AWOL for eight months or so, he was never arrested by the F.B.I. and his records disappeared. This is “justice” and “equality” in America.

Unequal Sharing of the Burden

Next on my list of reasons why you should think long and hard before joining the military is the obvious but maybe not as obvious as most of us are led to believe, risk of serious physical harm. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not a pacifist and I do believe there are times and circumstances when we should put our butts on the line and physically take up arms. I have said for many years that if any nation launched an attack against us on our own shores, I’d be the first son-of-a-bitch down there fighting them but for us to put ourselves in harm’s way just because we are told it is the right thing to do, is dangerously naïve on our part. Look at the millions of mostly poor white boys, Latinos, and Black young men who went to Vietnam and were exposed to the defoliant, Agent Orange, and when they came down with a variety of exotic medical problems and diseases, this ‘honorable’ government of ours at first denied that Agent Orange had even been used. And when the lie could no longer be hidden, the government denied its connection to all the health issues our returning soldiers and their families had to deal with. The Pentagon and the federal government will deny responsibility for Agent Orange, the chemical weapons of the Gulf War, and the present use of depleted uranium until Hell freezes over! Why? Because if they admitted their responsibility it would open them up for a tidal wave of lawsuits and morally cut their legs off in terms of credibility with the general public. It would also seriously demoralize those now in the military service.

Another, ‘insignificant’ little factor that the military recruiters and television ads fail to mention in their sales pitches is the fact that once you sign that Faustian contract for your soul, you are in effect giving the military the right to use you like a lab rat or a guinea pig in whatever experimental programs they dream up. For example, the army thought it’d be interesting to see how soldiers fought when under the influence of powerful hallucinogens. Research for yourself what Timothy Leary had to say on this subject. And for a Hollywood version of it that was pretty horrific, see the movie, Jacob’s Ladder, with Tim Robbins.

Guinea Pigs

the evil Dr. Mengele

Furthermore, our government and military’s total lack of care or concern for our health and welfare is illustrated with the series of atomic blasts they forced our military personnel to expose themselves to so the Pentagon and its Dr. Mengele imitators could study the effects of atomic radiation on humans. Or how about the fact that the Pentagon sent our soldiers into Vietnam with the new M-16 which we dubbed the ‘Mighty Mattel’ because the stock was made by the toy manufacturer and these ‘toy weapons’ jammed up repeatedly and cost many boys their lives. I understand that they eventually worked out the ‘kinks.’

Lack of proper gear & Defective weapons

How about the fact that many of our soldiers currently in Iraq complain that they don’t even have flak jackets or have half of one & when their parents started sending them flak jackets, this “compassionate conservative” administration forbid it? And only one in eight of the vehicles our soldiers in Iraq drive around it are armor plated. This is Bush’s idea of “supporting our troops.” How many stories has “60 Minutes” shown regarding the multitude of various weapons systems, aircraft, tanks, etc., that were defective and cost our people their lives? Many soldiers who returned from Iraq after the Gulf War reported that they either didn’t have a gas mask issued to them or else they were defective! And one of the things that really makes me want to go ballistic is when I heard that AWOL chicken-hawk, spoiled, rich brat, George ‘Dubya’ Bush, say how proud he is of our young soldiers in Iraq and how he supports their efforts and their sacrifices but behind the scene he has cut their medical benefits and pay! Moreover, it’s absolutely stunning how shamelessly Bush can stand in front of the television cameras and lie his ass off. I heard recently that soldiers are given a bonus for each additional tour of duty they serve in Iraq but if they get wounded and can’t finish out their tour, Bush wants them to return their bonuses. When this got out in the news, Bush & the Pentagon did some fast backpedaling and they’re now trying some other surreptitious way to screw the soldiers they proclaim to honor. This just highlights the betrayal of our soldiers and of America once again by the greedy elite. And all the defective and grossly over-inflated weapons systems that we, the taxpayers, are forced to pay for but not the rich, is part of what former President Eisenhower warned us of as he was leaving office when he said beware of the military/industrial complex (he was going to include Congress in this complex was talked out of it—a little too revealing would be my guess). In addition to betraying everything America supposedly stands for and what our soldiers are suppose to be fighting for, is the fact that this insane, bottomless pit of manufacturing and buying with our tax dollars ever more weapons, bombs, aircraft, ships, etc., is bankrupting America. And you can be sure these corporate capitalist cockroaches in and out of government know full well what they’re doing because why else would Cheney be investing in the Euro dollar and not the American dollar? Mark my words my friend, they are going to drive America into a total financial collapse and then abandon ship and live overseas on their stolen billions.

Tom Cruise playing Ron Kovic, Born on the 4th of July

Equally important and to further illustrate not only the physical neglect of our soldiers but also the psychological impact of this government’s disregard for our soldiers, I strongly recommend all those contemplating joining the military watch the movies ‘Coming Home,’ and ‘Born on the Fourth of July.’ These movies will show you how well cared for you might be if you are unfortunate enough to be wounded in battle. Many V.A. hospitals are barbaric throwbacks to the Dark Ages and patients are forced to lay in their own feces and urine for hours. I’m drawing a blank on the name of that V.A. hospital that was recently in the news for its disgusting conditions and neglect of our soldiers? But as those movies I mentioned showed, rats and cockroaches often ran the hellholes and the V.A. nursing staff often treated the patients as annoying, sub-humans. Yeah, the government really appreciates your sacrifices! Let’s just hope and pray that the conditions in our V.A. hospitals are no longer as shameful as they were in these movies?

Economic situation after you leave the military

Next in my list of factors you should consider before signing your name on that enlistment contract are the economic or financial aspects that most young guys aren’t aware of when joining the military. The financial lies, distortions, & manipulations are especially egregious because most of those who join the military do so because they can’t find any work except minimum wage jobs with little or no future. Closely linked to young people’s inability to find a decent paying job is the pathetic state of our public education system. I heartily recommend that you read The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto if you want to really know just how extensively the government and the corporate robber barons have screwed us all with the public educational system they designed and made mandatory for us to attend or face the legal consequences. I have dissected this book and I’m using it in a book I am writing because it is a gold mine of utterly unbelievable machinations done by the powerful and the influential (Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan) to deliberately give the vast majority of Americans a “dumbed-down” education so we’d be obedient little workers and consumers. Are you willing to risk and possibly sacrifice your life and limb for an “Establishment” that sees itself as God-like and predetermines your future and condemns you to the life of an automaton on their assembly lines in their factories? A life that causes many of us to turn to alcohol or drugs for temporary escape from this ugly reality!

Corporate America’s “Values”

In the meantime, to give you another example of Bush and his cronies’ “values,” have you noticed how he and Rudi Giuliani take advantage of every opportunity to show the flag-draped coffins of the police and firemen who died on September 11^th, in their political ads for their campaigns? Yet Bush won’t allow the flag-draped coffins of our soldiers who die in Iraq to be shown on television? And this is the same commander-in-chief who cut the salaries of New York’s policemen and firemen. Read what they have to say about Georgie & Rudi. This is also the fearless leader of our nation who told the Environmental Protection Agency to falsify their reports on the air quality around Ground Zero so people would return to the area and Wall Street would resume business as usual. And as Michael Moore showed us in his recent film Sicko!, many of the volunteer firemen, emergency workers, etc. who are now coming down with serious pulmonary and other diseases, are being denied medical coverage. It always boils down to money with the power elite yet they appeal to our patriotism to stir us to sacrificing in their wars to enrich themselves and then turn a callous back on our suffering and deny responsibility.

Results of our victory over Communism

Tiananimin Square

Perhaps I sound a bit too harsh in my criticisms of “our” government and their corporate masters? Reflect on this if you will, besides the immorality of our invasion and occupation of Iraq is the pragmatic matter of what our presence there and our open-ended ‘War on Terrorism’ is doing to our economy. Many conservatives were elated with the collapse of Russia and credited Reagan with bringing it about. Well, I disagree and believe that Russia’s economy imploded due to their forty-year competition with us in the insane arms race. Russia’s economy simply fell apart before ours i.e. they couldn’t maintain their infrastructure of housing, health care, education, roads, bridges, etc. because they spent so much in trying to keep up with us in military weaponry. A lot of Americans aren’t aware that we used to be the world’s largest creditor nation but now we are the biggest debtor nation i.e. we owe more money than any other country. In other words, we are in hock up to our eyeballs. I recently found out that it is mostly Asian nations we have borrowed from and China is the nation we are most indebted to.

Hypocrisy

When I heard this, things suddenly added up that I couldn’t understand previously. For instance, I couldn’t comprehend why we didn’t do something when the Chinese government killed and jailed thousands of Chinese students who protested in Tinnamin Square for democratic reforms and even had a Statue of Liberty as a rallying point? Another betrayal on our part towards the promise of democracy was when we stood by and again did nothing when China invaded Tibet, murdered hundreds of Buddhist monks, destroyed ancient cultural artifacts, and forced the Dalai Llama to go into permanent exile. But then I shouldn’t have been surprised because we’re a “Christian” nation and we don’t give a shit about the world’s other major religions such as Buddhism and Islam. Yet time and time again, our president stands in front of T.V. cameras and proclaims for all the world to hear, “America stands for freedom, democracy, and basic human values.” The rest of the world has seen example after example of Bush’s hypocrisy and they don’t buy his empty rhetoric for one minute. It seems the only people who have fallen for Bush’s B.S., are the American people. I have been to Europe several times and listening to their perspectives on America has been quite an eye-opener for me. When you peel away all the layers of lies and deception that our politicians and corporate spokesmen have wrapped themselves in, at the core is one concern and one concern only i.e. the protection of their wealth and whatever it takes to ensure their pursuit of more wealth.

Military/Industrial Complex

Let’s return to the issue of our “Defense budget,” and this is a misnomer and a cruel joke because the word ‘budget’ implies a practical balancing of one’s finances i.e. paying for the necessities of food, shelter, medical, insurance, etc. and staying within the limits of how much money you have to spend. I forget the guy’s name but I saw a PBS program with him and he worked in the Pentagon’s accounting department I believe for like 30 years? Well, he’s been telling Congress for decades about the deliberate fraud of ‘Defense’ contractors in purposely underbidding the costs of various weapons programs and once they were awarded the contract, then gouging the taxpayers and charging millions and sometimes billions over what they had originally stated. And don’t forget that many of these multi-million dollar projects turned out to have serious defects or never even worked at all and cost the lives of U.S. servicemen and women!

This truth-teller also pointed out a very significant deception used by all the corrupt politicians, which is the fact that to really conduct an effective war on terror, all these expensive weapons systems are useless. What is needed to wage this war—which itself is an incorrect term because you can’t wage a war against an invisible enemy. What we need to wage should more accurately be referred to as a criminal investigation and we need agents well trained in the languages, customs, geography, religion, etc. of the terrorists we are hunting. But of course this doesn’t require the billions of dollars that our military/industrial/congressional complex wants to continue pouring into their pockets so they keep spreading the fear and the lies with their million dollar public relations firms, advertising agencies, ‘Spin-doctors,’ and hired guns i.e. ex-military officers, journalists, economists, professors, and etc.! (Just watch the FOX network)

Bush lied us into Iraq War!

Why should you go fight in a war that Bush started with no provocation on the part of the Iraqis and based on false accusations and blatant lies that started with “we have to strip Saddam of his weapons of mass destruction,” which then evolved into “there are definite links between Saddam and Al Qaeda,” to the current line of crap “we’re bringing democracy to Iraq because we’re compassionate and caring defenders and promoters of democracy.” Yeah, Bush and his brother Jeb are real believers in democracy and proof of this was evidenced last year in Miami at the demonstrations against the I.M.F., the World Bank, and the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). Do you remember that $80 billion or so that Bush requested for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Well the Bush-baby gave $7 million of it to his brother, the governor of Florida—who helped rig his election voting scam to ‘win’ the oval office—to hire cops from dozens of Florida counties and they illegally and brutally shot, beat, gassed, jailed, and ripped off the cameras and etc. of thousands of Americans who went to Miami to exercise their democratic right to protest the policies of their government! And on top of this travesty of justice, there was some scandal regarding their not spending the money granted by Congress for the reasons given in their request? I forget the details but this just shows to me that this wimp in the White House must see himself as back in the wild West where the only law was the gun and they could do as they pleased i.e. run rough-shod over our Bill of Rights and every law including international law and the Geneva Convention i.e. Rumsfeld said the Geneva Convention rules are outdated and the U.S. doesn’t have to observe them. Gee, I wonder where those soldiers who tortured and humiliated and killed so many Iraqi prisoners, got the notion they could do what they pleased with their captives? Or, what about that ‘democratic’ value or assumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law? Our soldiers fight for the honor and principles America stands for but our ‘leaders’ betray and undermine that honor and our principles. And this hypocrisy of claiming to respect law and order and defying international standards like the Geneva Convention which we signed at the end of WWII and which was established to hopefully prevent a repeat of the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis and now violating, won’t leave us a leg to stand on morally speaking when our soldiers are captured and tortured by their captors.

Corporations have no loyalty to America

compassionate conservatives

Furthermore on the subject of economic reasons why you should think twice before considering the military as the solution to your problems, you might not be aware of is the fact that part of the reason you can’t find any decent paying or livable wage jobs is because Bush and the other “compassionate conservatives,” give fantastic tax breaks to corporations who shut down their companies here and move them overseas for much cheaper labor costs. Again, why should we risk our lives for “this country” when those who set the economic, social, political, etc. policies of “our country,” show us time after time that they could care less at the humiliation we suffer and the hardships we experience because they have no loyalty to us? I saw an expose on Bill Moyers’ PBS T.V. program on 4/16/04, a pitiful and disrespectful example of yet another way our military and political elite treat our young men and women who risk their lives fighting for this country. The story dealt with the fact that many families whose husbands are over in Iraq and in harm’s way but because the military pays them so little, their wives and children have to go to Food Banks and rely on the charity of their community! We really honor our men and women serving their country don’t we? Our loving and brilliant military and political elite instead spend our billions of tax dollars—of which almost none of the super-rich pay a dollar—to hire mercenaries (Blackwater for example) who were trained in the U.S. military and upon completion of their tours of duty are hired by ‘sub-contractors’ and make something like $100,000 per year. I also read recently in the Oregonian newspaper that many National Guardsmen were either not receiving their full pay or none at all. Yeah, join the army and “Be All That You Can Be!”

Welfare for the Rich!

Additionally, why should you risk all for a government that deregulated dozens of industries such as the Savings and Loan industry which during Reagan’s reign went bankrupt or defaulted on tens of thousands of senior citizens and wiped out their life savings? Then just a few years ago, Ken Lay of Enron, Bush’s buddy, did the same thing but this time to his employees’ pension plans and stocks. Enron was only one of tens of dozens of corporations who screwed us once again on a grand scale. These kinds of business practices can only flourish in an atmosphere of corruption and with the politicians and regulatory agencies looking the other way. There’s another great book just out called Perfectly Legal and the author points out that something like 60% of our corporations have paid absolutely no taxes for several years by claiming their headquarters are in places like the Bahamas and yet they still enjoy all the rights of our legal system, the protection of our police and military, etc. Does this strike you as fair or egalitarian? Here is the dictionary definition of ‘egalitarian,’ you decide; ‘a belief in human equality especially with respect to social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among men.’

War on the Poor!

Sorry but I can’t believe in leaders who are trying to eliminate the right to overtime pay for 40 million American workers and at the same time make exceptions for those C.E.O.s who make over $10 million per year to shelter as much as they want in their 401K pension plans while the rest of us are limited to something like $13,000 per year. In fact, believe it or not, I also recently learned that Bush cut the funding for the IRS program delegated to going after corporate tax evaders and at the same time increased the funding for the IRS program delegated to go after individuals evading paying their taxes. No, I can’t believe in such ‘leaders,’ and if I can’t believe in them, I’m sure as hell not going to risk my life because they say it’s my patriotic or moral duty! To these bastards, loyalty is a one-way street i.e. we owe it to them but they have no such obligation to us. They think they are our feudal lords and we are at their mercy, and we’re here to serve them as peasants serve their masters!

Some of the reasons I have already brought up for why you should seriously question the morality of ‘our leaders’ who preach to us about the necessity of noble sacrifice for the United States, have already touched on the subject of betrayal and I want to now go into this subject at length. The power elite, status quo, or however you wish to refer to them, label those of us who dissent from their ideologies, policies, & practices as disloyal, anti-American, betrayers of American principles, or traitors and some of them even have the audacity to call for our incarceration or even our death. But I submit that they are the de facto betrayers of America’s principles and values and our founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves at such arrogance and betrayal of America’s citizens.

More Government Lies & Deceptions

Deception is another of the forms of lying that the government and the Pentagon—which is a branch of the government, have become very proficient at. Take the Vietnam War and how the Pentagon (General Westmoreland) inflated the body counts for the North Vietnamese soldiers we killed and deliberately issued false lower numbers of our men who had been killed so as to keep the public in the dark. This clearly was an attempt by the powers that be to manipulate public opinion and keep us on the side of the pro-war hawks. And what strikes me as unbelievably callous and another clear example of the Pentagon and this administration’s attempts to deceive the American people is the fact that they won’t allow the coffins of our returning dead to be shown in the media, Bush hasn’t been to a single funeral of our fallen soldiers, and the military actively discourages the families of the dead servicemen and women from being there at Dover Air Field when their loved ones arrive—usually in the middle of the night under the cover of darkness. And this slime-ball of a person who claims to be “our president,” has the balls to declare ad nauseam that he “supports our troops?” No, Bush is the number one betrayer of America and more and more Americans are beginning to wake up to the truth of this.

what they don’t want you to see

You know, sometimes it takes the ‘village idiot’ or a child to state the obvious which seems to escape the rest of us as in that classic fairy tale The Emperor Has No Clothes and in this vein of thought it occurred to me that if our leaders were honorable men and women and this war in Iraq were such a noble cause then why is it necessary for them to lie, distort, & manipulate us into supporting it? These corrupt politicians and military elites can only get away with all their deceptive practices with the assistance or collusion of the mainstream media. The powers that be learned a crucial lesson regarding the power of the media during the Vietnam War debacle. Even though the Pentagon attempted to control what the war correspondents saw and photographed by flying them in to combat zones after the fighting was done and only allowed them access to battle areas where the military had nothing to hide. But, there were a handful of journalists who had integrity and refused to be spoon-fed the public relations propaganda dished out by the Pentagon. These brave souls found their own transportation and went to some of the restricted areas and reported back to us the truth of what they witnessed. This was very damaging to the politicians’ and the Pentagon brass’ images. But what was perhaps most damaging of all was the nightly news broadcasts which showed the steady stream of body bags and flag-draped coffins of our dead.

Media collusion with the powers that be

And this is why they keep such a tight lid on the images of war ever since Vietnam because eventually the sleeping giant of the American public will waken from its long slumber and ask, ‘if we’re doing so well in this war then why are so many of our soldiers coming home dead or severely wounded?’ Unfortunately because we have become so hooked on television in the past half century, images are now much more powerful in shaping people’s opinions than the printed word. And because our public educational system is in such disarray, most Americans lack the critical or analytical skills necessary to defend themselves against the corporate indoctrination assault. The power brokers know that once the majority of American citizens turn against a war, their days of war profiteering are numbered. Personally, I feel it was so outlandish that for our invasion of Iraq, reporters had to be approved of by Pentagon officials and ‘embedded’ in specific military units. The muzzling and shackling of journalists during our times of war and in peace time as well has caused America to much more resemble those totalitarian nations we were always told we were so morally superior to. We have allowed these lying and morally repugnant people we call our ‘leaders,’ to almost totally erode our precious freedoms and the bedrock of those freedoms in contained in the First Amendment to our Constitution, which contains the ‘Freedom of the Press.’ It’s extremely important to recall these words from Thomas Jefferson, ‘Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.’ By the way, I just learned from watching Naomi Wolf on the most patriotic and real news program in America i.e. Democracy Now!, that Hitler embedded war correspondents in his divisions, for instance, he had a famous film director go along in the invasion of Poland who later on helped produce some of the Nazis’ most effective war propaganda documentaries.

Hitler & Mussolini

Fascism, American style!

Now I don’t know about you but I’m a little confused because we are in Iraq and the latest PR rhetoric is that we are there to establish democracy yet while doing so, here in the U.S. the government is subverting our ‘democracy,’ by intimidating, restricting, and deliberately misleading our media? Also related to the silencing of our media whether they are cooperating partners in the subterfuge or whether they have little choice but to go along is the issue of censoring the images and the numbers of Iraqis killed and wounded including the large percentage of innocent women, children, and the elderly! Or, how about our soldiers who signed up for a specific amount of time and are about to return to the U.S. only to learn that the Pentagon has extended their tours of duty and they have no choice in the matter? Wouldn’t this be the same as false advertising by the recruiters or be condemned by community standards as deceptive business practices? After all, it is a contract that you sign to enter the military.

the My Lai Massacre

War Crimes!

Similarly, the Pentagon has deceived us on another critical issue and I’m in no way excusing the sick and barbaric treatment of the Iraqi prisoners but I am arguing that these young military personnel didn’t invent these methods themselves! Just as in Vietnam in the most notorious case that we were told about i.e. the My Lai Massacre when the Pentagon tried to lay complete responsibility on Lt. William Calley, the Pentagon again is saying it was just a few bad apples. They really think we’re all stupid and have absolutely no memory. By the way, I just learned something amazing the other day i.e. Colin Powell was delegated to investigate the My Lai Massacre by his superiors in the Pentagon and he summed up his ‘investigation’ with “Nothing happened.”

Equality?

Another example of how the corporate crocodiles in the boardrooms and in Congress have betrayed us, struck me one day while I was reflecting on “All that you can be.” I must admit this is a very clever bit of propaganda. It immediately appeals to that ‘egalitarian’ principle we supposedly all believe in. You know, we all have an equal opportunity to be whatever we choose to if we just knuckle-down and persevere? How can we have an equal opportunity or there be a level playing field if public schooling is so vastly inferior to most of those elite, private academies? I contend that you wouldn’t be so severely limited in your options after graduating high school if you had a truly good quality or top-notch education from your years in the public school system. How many of the rich kids going into those Ivy League colleges, join the military or if they do, how many see real action on the battlefront?

The Coward from Crawford

And the masters’ children don’t have to know the horrors of war. Our current bushwhacking president scored one point above the minimum score required to get into the Texas Air National Guard and yet his name was moved to the top of the list of those eligible and there were hundreds of other candidates who scored far higher than ‘Dubya’ and there was only one slot left. Just coincidentally, George Sr. had a friend at the time who placed a call and got junior in the Air Guard and even more amazing, when junior became governor of Texas, he appointed this old friend of dad’s to run the Texas lottery—and he was convicted of corruption and fired from the lottery commission a short time later.

Patriotism Betrayed!

Meanwhile, the betrayal goes on. I have to ask whether we are really still citizens of a democracy? It seems to me that with the passage of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security bill, we have forfeited just about all those rights in the Bill of Rights? The Thought Police can demand that librarians and bookstore owners give them the lists of the books we check out or buy. The secret police can break in and arrest you or I wherever or whenever they want to and we no longer have a right to have a lawyer to represent us, to be told of the charges against us, etc. There is absolutely no such thing as privacy anymore. They can enter your home without a warrant and go through all your things including your computer and you may never even know they were there. They can spy on your e-mail, regular mail, and phone calls, whatever they want.

The Shredding of the Bill of Rights!

I borrowed the term, ‘the thought police,’ from George Orwell and his masterpiece 1984. Why do you think the authorities are so interested in what we read? You may recall that in Nazi Germany, the brown shirts had massive public displays of book burnings. In other words, books, which represent knowledge, can be very dangerous to those in power. In fact, I have a paperback titled Books That Changed The World written by Robert B. Downs and I thought it appropriate to bring it up here because we don’t normally think of books or the ideas contained in them as having so much influence. As I like to say, the liberal arts liberate and the humanities humanize. And this isn’t merely clever word play. I believe this sincerely and if you too read deep and wide enough, you may also come to believe this. Are terrorists so stupid that they’d walk up to a librarian or a bookstore clerk and ask, ‘could you please direct me to the section on bomb-building?’ Common sense will tell you that any terrorist wouldn’t give their real name or leave any paper trail that would lead back to them. They’d copy whatever information they found useful or they’d purchase it by mail with a phony address or something. I know I’m going to probably sound like a conspiracy nut or something but as Michael Parenti said, “Conspiracy theories aren’t always theories.” I theorize that the secret police want to know what we read because they believe it will lead them to those of us who could possibly pose a threat to the status quo by spreading dangerous ideas like social justice, democracy, freedom, no special breaks for the rich, etc. etc. etc.

Laughing at our sacrifices

The power elite hide the facts from us because they know that most of what they’re doing is immoral and would outrage us if it were to be revealed. And speaking of ‘revealing,’ I was dumb-founded awhile back when I heard that Bush was joking around and looked under his desk and said, “no, no weapons of mass destruction under there,” and then he looked behind the curtains in the oval office and said, “nope, no weapons of mass destruction there either,” and then he laughed. My God! What kind of heartless bastard is he? How insensitive and disrespectful can he be to all of our soldiers whom he sent to Iraq under this shroud of lies and by manipulating our emotions by appealing to our sense of patriotism and our fears that terrorists are laying in wait. In my day it was the commies are coming, the commies are coming!

Abandoning our P.O.W.s

Apocalypse Now

Another topic which I believe shows our leaders for the immoral, belly-crawling reptiles they are is the claim that Nixon and Killer Kissinger promised the communist Vietnamese government after we left Vietnam that they’d pay a ransom for our P.O.W.s and M.I.A.s that were being held and then chose to renege on the deal and left our men there to rot. I can’t substantiate the charge but after so many examples of our government’s treachery, I have no trouble believing it possible of them. And let me be crystal clear, both democrats and republicans are guilty of allowing these immoral and anti-democratic practices to continue to be done in our names. I believe deep down inside that most Americans are good people but as most humans when involved in immoral activities or military actions and etc. are without strong, ethical leadership and are encouraged to commit unethical, perverted, depraved, or savage acts by that same weak leadership can do, they can slip into a being with a Heart of Darkness. This is a book written by Joseph Conrad and was the basis of the movie Apocalypse Now. I purposely chose this book because I know that many of you have probably seen the movie but not read the book and I wanted to give an example of human barbaric acts in the extreme to get your attention. Too far or exaggerated? What about the atrocities at Abu Gharib to name just one glaring example that leaked out? Or what about the stories I have heard of American G.I.s in Vietnam collecting “gook” ears and wearing them as necklaces? Furthermore, I remember a picture a friend of mine showed me years ago of his dad and several of his buddies in WWII with one of the G.I.s holding the severed head of a Japanese soldier proudly displaying it as a trophy?

Our Hidden History

Again I want to remind you that America has a long and bloody history that we are never told about in our public schools. No doubt I will be written off by some of you as just another paranoid, conspiracy buff and I understand the reflexive thinking that causes most people to dismiss critics like myself with this cop-out of “conspiracy nut.” Okay, then why is it that the textbooks, which are used in our public education system, are so chock full of lies, perversions of the truth, distortions, revisionist versions of our history? It’s no wonder that most kids are so turned-off to history because it has been so watered-down, sanitized, and twisted that it bears little resemblance to reality and students sense its untruthfulness or lifelessness. For instance, check out Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States in which he informs us that Christopher Columbus had his men kidnap native women & children and told their husbands if they didn’t come back with gold, they would kill their women and children. What really frightens me is the fact that because of our “educational system and mass media,” as much as a third of the American population doesn’t believe that the holocaust in Nazi Germany even happened! I am scared because if so many people can be in such an extreme state of denial about such a horrific episode in human history, it can indeed happen again and in fact, it is happening in Darfour in the Sudan like it happened in Rwanda and we, America, the champions of freedom and democracy sit by apathetic and more interested in Brittany Spears & Paris Hilton’s lack of underwear, public drunkenness, & other such shattering “news.” Check out Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory by Deborah Lipstadt if you’d like to know more about this phenomenon. You might also care to look up Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past by Daniel J. Boorstin, a former Librarian of Congress. It seems unlikely that they’d allow a conspiracy nut to hold such a prestigious position as librarian of Congress? Lastly, you might want to check out Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen.

Now I wish to share with you some examples of our hidden history that anyone thinking about joining the military should know about before making that possibly fatal choice. George W. (WRONG!) Bush is the miscreant (one who behaves criminally or viciously) who calls himself a ‘compassionate conservative’ and declares he is on a holy mission from God to destroy evil. This is the man whose father as president before him, and during the Gulf War urged the Iraqis to rise up against Saddam—after we had withdrawn from Iraq—and when they did, he abandoned them and let them be slaughtered by Saddam. Our government supplied Saddam with the weapons of mass destruction, which he used to murder tens of thousands of his Kurdish & other citizens, and we didn’t raise a voice of protest because Saddam was our man (trained and put in power by the C.I.A.). And now these same hypocritical cowards repeat over and over how heinous a crime that was back then but conveniently don’t tell the public by omission i.e. it’s not allowed to be broadcast in the mainstream media, but is common knowledge in the alternative media.

The friends of the Corporatocracy

Something else occurred to me while reflecting on U.S. support for freedom & democracy and that is, why, if we are so morally righteous and just, did we wait so long before we entered both WWI & WWII? As far as I’m concerned, the final nail in the coffin of those who shout that the U.S. has always been the defender of freedom and democracy is the simple list of most of the world’s most brutal and sadistic dictators whom our military, C.I.A., and etc. have given millions of dollars to and have trained their secret police in exotic and unbelievably inhumane techniques of torture. And by the way, our military has been used repeatedly to invade these countries and put down the poor who were revolting against their dictators. These dictators jail, torture, and kill students, teachers, professors, artists, peasants, journalists, musicians, writers, etc. who dare to speak out against the oppression of their fellow citizens.

Ian Masters & friend

I know this is not common knowledge because you won’t find this information in textbooks, mainstream T.V., radio, newspapers, or magazines. You will have to put forth significant effort to discover the hidden history and the current activities of “our” government and its agents of repression. Don’t just accept anything I say because you trust me or believe I’m an honest person. Find out for yourself and do your own homework because that’s the only truly worthwhile knowledge there is! I will point you in the direction of some very valuable resources that I have uncovered in my search though. I believe you will find them very enlightening and you will become more and more outraged as your knowledge expands. On the radio or Internet, look up the Pacifica Radio Network especially KPFK in Los Angeles and its Sunday program called Background Briefing with host, Ian Masters. And Robert McChesney does a weekly radio broadcast from Urbana University, which is very worth listening to. On the radio, the Internet, & some public cable access channels is Democracy Now! with host Amy Goodman who is a true heroine and has had her head caved in because she dared to try to report the truth of the slaughter in East Timor. Finally, there is Noam Chomsky who is a one-man revolution and who will rock your world. And Michael Parenti & Gore Vidal are mind-blowing in their analysis of history and politics and definitely worth your time. I almost forgot, here are some excellent magazines who speak for the progressive or liberal political point of view: The Nation, The Progressive, Z magazine, Harper’s magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The Utne Reader, & Mother Jones.

Amy Goodman, courageous journalist

Here is just a partial list of those dictators “we” have supported because they allow “our” corporations to rape, pillage, & plunder their people and their natural resources—these are the ones I’m at least somewhat familiar with: Idi Amin of Uganda; Batista of Cuba; Botha of South Africa; Chiang Kai-Shek of Taiwan; Christiani of El Salvador; Duvallier of Haiti; Kind Faud bin’ Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia; Franco of Spain; Hitler of Germany; Marcos of the Philippines; Mobutu of Zaire; Noriega of Panama; Shah of Iran; Papadopoulos of Greece; Chung Hee Park of South Korea; Pinochet of Chile; Pol Pot of Cambodia; Halie Salassie of Ethiopia; Somoza of Nicaragua; Ian Smith of Rhodesia; Stroessner of Paraguay; Suharto of Indonesia; and Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. Note also that we invaded Nicaragua and Haiti several times in the 20^th century to make it safe for corporations like United Fruit which the Bush family had significant investments in. And Bush says we’re bringing democracy to Iraq? Can you see why the people of Iraq may not believe him?

Rumsfeld & his buddy, Saddam

Thought Control

The true agenda of the robber barons is rarely clearly stated but if we pay attention to their actions, not their words, we can make fairly educated guesses as to what their real agenda is and here are some of my guesses. The powerful are some of the most paranoid people you’d never want to meet. I don’t know why they overreact to such an extent? Their gutting of the traditional public school curriculum has been nearly 100% effective in producing a nation of illiterates and functionally literate. They have censored, distorted, and left out so much of the true history of America that we truly have become a Nation of Sheep. Orwell wrote prophetically in 1948 when he published 1984, “those who control the past, control the present and those who control the present, control the future.” Think about it. When they rearrange the facts in our history textbooks aren’t they controlling the present? Therefore it’s a no-brainer i.e. they control our future. Remember how the Pentagon controls the reporters writing about and covering of our military actions around the planet!

Ignorance & Incompetence

I feel this administration is a bunch of bush leaguers and that they are as cowardly as bushwhackers who shoot men in the back because they don’t have the courage to fight out in the open! Some critics have posited what I believe to be a plausible theory that we sent the weapons inspectors into Iraq to make sure as possible that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction before we invaded to try to keep our casualties at a minimum and give the public a quick, clean victory? And this is another reason why the term ‘military intelligence’ is an oxymoron. Our ‘intelligence’ agencies and Condoleeza Rice was supposedly an expert on Russia, didn’t have a clue that Russia was collapsing and Ms. Rice & our “intelligence” agencies were caught completely off guard until after the fact when Russia self-imploded. Believe it or not, I am approaching the end of this rather lengthy essay of mine and if you’re still with me, I want to applaud you for your diligence. I tuned into Democracy Now! last week and was very glad that I did because there was a very lovely guest by the name of Naomi Wolf on and she was discussing her recent book The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. During the course of the interview, Ms. Wolf calmly & eloquently laid out what she calls the blueprint for fascism in 10 steps that she has observed from her study of despots and dictators and which is common in every despot’s attempts to destroy democratic movements or to close down a democratic society. I request that you keep these ten steps to fascism in mind and reflect back on what I have written and then decide for yourself how much ‘truth’ there is to my essay.

The slippery slope to fascism

1) Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. As Ms. Wolf points out this can be totally fictitious or true to some extent but grossly overstated or hyped to scare the public into compliance with the fascist agenda. Note our internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII & the confiscation of their land. And also notice that Bush’s “War on Terror,” has no physical location or time limit so he & his cronies can carry on their war against internal & external “enemies” indefinitely. Also interesting is the parallel to the Reichstag fire in Germany to the attacks of Sept. 11^th in that they galvanized the people against an invisible enemy.

2) Create a gulag. Remember Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, which detailed the horrific conditions all those unfortunate souls whom Stalin dispatched to Siberia were forced to endure. Of course our most infamous gulag is Guantanamo and next to it is Abu Gharib. But there are perhaps hundreds of other “black sites” at secret locations around the globe. We have over 170 military bases around the globe and we also farm-out some of our torture to friendly dictatorships like Egypt & Syria. Naomi also reminds us of a famous pastor who lived in Nazi Germany, Pastor Martin Niemoler who realized that he, like so many other good Germans never spoke out because they first came for the communists, then the Jews, then the labor union leaders, then the Catholics, etc. but he never said anything because these were people on the fringes of German society and he didn’t identify with them but when the brown shirts came for him, there was no one left to speak out. “Most Americans don’t understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantanamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too.”

3) Develop a thug caste. Mussolini had his Blackshirts & Hitler had his Brownshirts and Bush has Blackwater. Not a very original title for a private, paramilitary force on the part of the powers that be when you think about it. If you recall or in case you aren’t aware of it, Blackwater doesn’t just operate as cowboy mercenaries in Iraq and other ‘hot spots’ around the world but have been deployed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to intimidate, beat up, & terrify the black residents of New Orleans so they’d clear out and the rich cats could ‘gentrify’ New Orleans. And in the recent fires in Southern California, Blackwater was dispatched again to ‘help out’ and partnered with McDonalds. Ah, good old capitalism never ceases in its pursuit of profit while the poor are once again kicked in the teeth. Note that the State Dept. has been shielding Blackwater from prosecution for its murder of innocent civilians in Iraq. Equally important, another American ‘hero,’ Oliver North, who was awarded for his betrayal of America with his very own T.V. show, told us of Reagan’s preparations in case there was domestic ‘unrest’ whereby they would round up all dissidents, declare martial law, and lock up all the troublemakers. Can’t happen here?

4) Set up an internal surveillance system. “In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about ‘national security’; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.” The “Patriot Act” which should more rightly be called The War on Freedom Act has effectively taken away our right to privacy. And the masters have been hiding behind the term “National Security” for decades in order to cover all their crimes against American citizens and their covert activities around the world such as assassinating foreign leaders not ‘friendly’ towards American corporations who are exploiting sovereign nations’ resources and people. If you’d like to learn more about this subject, I invite you to check out another PBS Frontline program called Spying on the Home Front that first aired in May of 2007. In fact, I just went to the website and tried to access a side story on what the N.S.A. may be up to and got a message saying “Access Forbidden.” Home of the Free? Under the cloak of “protecting us from possible terrorist attacks,” the wicked wizards of wanton greed are actually tightening a noose around our necks and especially the necks of all of us who dare to dissent. Note that you can’t attend a public speech by Bush without signing a loyalty oath and if you’re wearing a t-shirt with anything remotely critical on it, you will get the bum’s rush escort and possibly a tazer tune-up? Mussolini, Hitler, Communist China, Communist East Germany, etc. have all employed internal spy networks in order to intimidate their citizens into silence. And it works remarkably well because people become more and more fearful that their neighbors or strangers might report them if they say the wrong thing. Keep on watching Jerry Springer, ‘reality T.V., and all the other mindless crap & don’t trouble yourself with these minor inconveniences or infringements and one day you’ll wake up and wonder where you are because America will have become one giant gulag. “Don’t Worry Be Happy!” (Stupid song from about 15 years ago)

Senator Frank Church on the left

5) Harass citizens’ groups. As Senator Frank Church from Idaho, warned us around 1975 when he held the Church Committee Hearings to investigate the government’s COINTELPRO activities, our secret police infiltrated dozens of peace groups, anti-nuclear groups, the Black Panthers, etc. and sometimes marked charismatic leaders of these groups for death by other agencies, and used agent provocateurs to foment violence which then gave the fascists the pretext to cave-in people’s heads and haul them off to prison. I was at a demonstration once in L.A. outside a fancy hotel which was holding a $500 a plate dinner for Ronald Reagan and I got scared because a black man struck up a conversation with me and I felt that he was trying to suck me into suggesting we take some sort of violent action so he could arrest me. They are very subtle and clever in their tactics and you’d better be very careful about what you say and to whom if you don’t want to end up in prison. Anyway, our secret police had to cool it for a while but not for long because when Reagan took office, the gloves came off again in terms of spying on us. The bastards even go after pastors & preachers who dare to criticize their brutal and callous methods. But if you’re a fellow hatemonger like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who even called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, you have nothing to fear. They use the IRS to intimidate church leaders into silence by threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status. Michael Moore also highlighted this harassment of citizens’ groups in his film Fahrenheit 9/11

6) Engage in arbitrary detention and release. People, like myself, who have marched in peaceful demonstrations, signed petitions, written letters of dissent to editors, blogs, etc. have been put on a Terrorist Watch list. I don’t know yet if I’m on the list or not but will find out the next time I try to fly. The point is that if you dare to dissent in America under the Bush regime, you are likened to a terrorist. Of course this completely turns on its head what our founding fathers and framers of our Constitution established with our freedom of speech, right to assemble, right to privacy, etc.

7) Target key individuals. You may recall that during the turbulent 1960s, virtually every leader of the organizations critical of the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panthers, etc. Leaders were either jailed or killed. Consider the fate of Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, Tom Hayden, Stokely Carmichael, etc. Also reflect on the fact that in almost every coup d’etat, one of the first things the new dictator does is shut down the newspapers, T.V. stations, universities, etc. Why? Because they know that if they can keep the public in the dark and only allow the people to hear their propaganda, it’s much easier to control & shape their opinions and hence manipulate the people to go along with their hidden agendas. To illustrate, I remember my shock when I was attending California State University in the early 1980s and learned of an organization by right-wing “Christian” fundamentalists called “Accuracy in Academia.” Yeah, ‘accuracy!’ Not! It was clearly an attempt to silence ‘liberal’ professors and intimidate them into perpetuation of the right-wing ideological perspective.

greatest intellectual alive, Noam Chomsky

8) Control the press. Unfortunately, the death knell for the ‘free press’ in America has long ago been sounded. For an excellent, detailed analysis of this woeful state of affairs, I warmly recommend that you check out Noam Chomsky & Edward S. Herman’s classic Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. “The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of U.S. journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf (no relation), a blogger in San Francisco, has been put in jail for a year for refusing to turn over video of an anti-war demonstration; Homeland Security brought a criminal complaint against reporter Greg Palast, claiming he threatened ‘critical infrastructure’ when he and a TV producer were filming victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Palast had written a bestseller critical of the Bush administration. Other reporters and writers have been punished in other ways. Joseph C. Wilson accused Bush, in a New York Times op-ed, of leading the country to war on the basis of a false charge that Saddam Hussein had acquired yellowcake uranium in Niger. His wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a CIA spy—a form of retaliation that ended her career.” Yeah, here’s an example of true betrayal or treason but of course when the White House hoodlums do it, they get away with it. Scooter Libby was finally convicted of this crime and even though the blow-heart Bush who swore that when he discovered who outed Valerie Plame, they’d be punished to the full letter of the law. It was just another lie in a tidal wave of deceptions perpetrated by this junta of jackals. Bush pardoned Libby before he saw a single day in jail. And let’s not forget the once venerable New York Times the ‘paper of record,’ that sets the standard for the rest of the newspapers in America. They beat the war drums for the rush to war along with the FOX “News” channel. “You won’t have a shutdown of news in modern America—it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it’s not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can’t tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit.

9) Dissent equals treason. “Cast dissent as ‘treason’ and criticism as ‘espionage.’ Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalize certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of ‘spy’ and ‘traitor.’” I’m sure that a lot of what I have said in this essay could be construed as ‘treason’ by these perverters of the truth and I’ve heard that they are either thinking of or have already started confiscating people who dissent’s property. Yep, land of the free and home of the brave. “And here is where the circle closes: most Americans do not realize that since September of last year—when Congress wrongly, foolishly, passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006—the president has the power to call any U.S. citizen an ‘enemy combatant.’ He has the power to define what ‘enemy combatant’ means. …he has the power to have us seized as we are changing planes at Newark tomorrow, or have us taken with a knock on the door; ship you or me to a navy brig; and keep you or me in isolation, possibly for months, while awaiting trial. (Prolonged isolation, as psychiatrists know, triggers psychosis in otherwise mentally healthy prisoners. That is why Stalin’s gulag had an isolation cell, like Guantanamo’s, in every satellite prison. Camp 6, the newest, most brutal facility at Guantanamo, is all isolation cells. We U.S. citizens will get a trial eventually—for now. But legal rights activists at the Center for Constitutional Rights say that the Bush administration is trying increasingly aggressively to find ways to get around giving even U.S. citizens fair trials. ‘Enemy combatant’ is a status offence—it is not even something you have to have done. ‘We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model—you look like you could so something bad, you might do something bad, so we’re going to hold you,’ says a spokeswoman of the CCR. Most Americans surely do not get this yet. No wonder: it is hard to believe, even though it is true. In every closing society, at a certain point there are some high-profile arrests—usually of opposition leaders, clergy, TV and radio, and the facades of a civil society. There just isn’t real dissent. There just isn’t freedom. If you look at history, just before those arrests is where we are now.” Reminds me of that futuristic movie Minority Report with Tom Cruise as a law enforcement officer who would arrest people before they committed a crime because the government had the ability to know which citizens were going to commit a crime in the future. Talk about life imitating art!

10) Suspend the rule of law. “The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the National Guard. This means that in a national emergency—which the president now has enhanced powers to declare—he can send Michigan’s militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state’s governor and its citizens. Even as Americans were focused on Britney Spear’s meltdown and the question of who fathered Anna Nicole’s baby, the New York Times editorialized about this shift: ‘A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night…Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any ‘other condition.’ Critics see this as a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act…. the founders were terrified of exactly this kind of concentration of militias’ power over American people in the hands of an oppressive executive or faction. Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini’s march on Rome or Hitler’s roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that. Rather, as other critics are noting, our experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion…. As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to Internet shopping and American idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are ‘at war’ in a ‘long war’—a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president—without U.S. citizens realizing it yet—the power over U.S. citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone…. What if, in a year and a half, there is another attack—say, God forbid, a dirty bomb? The executive can declare a state of emergency. History shows that any leader, of any party, will be tempted to maintain emergency powers after the crisis has passed. With the gutting of traditional checks and balances, we are no less endangered by a President Hillary than by a President Giuliani—because any executive will be tempted to enforce his or her will through edict rather than the arduous, uncertain process of democratic negotiation and compromise…. Right now, only a handful of patriots are trying to hold back the tide of tyranny for the rest of us—staff at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who faced death threats for representing the detainees yet persisted all the way to the Supreme Court…. We need to look at history and face the ‘what ifs.’ For if we keep going down this road, the ‘end of America’ could come for each of us in a different way, at a different moment….’The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…is the definition of tyranny,’ wrote James Madison. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.” (excerpted from The Guardian, a British newspaper at www.guardian.co.uk)

America’s respect for Law & Order

It’s appropriate that step ten of Ms. Wolf’s ten steps to fascism is to suspend the rule of law because again it is truly frightening how far this criminal corporation in Washington D.C. has gone in their ignoring, violating, and suspension of the law. The power elite regularly proclaims the sanctity of American jurisprudence and remind us that we’re a nation based on law and order yet the acts of this administration has been perhaps the most lawless administration we have ever known? It also dawned on me awhile back that while we have a glut of TV programs about law & order—in fact, a series by the name with several spin-offs—yet our reality is the political & corporate crooks consistently get away with high crimes and misdemeanors while more and more of us on the lower end of the social ladder are being locked up for ever greater lengths of prison sentences?

uh, I can’t recall? (265 times re: Iran/Contra)

Let’s take a brief stroll down memory lane. Anyone remember the Iran/Contra scandal? Dear old Ronnie Reagan who’s name brings a tear to the eye of a good number of Americans to this very day, swore we would never bargain with terrorists but behind closed doors and against the express law passed by Congress, sold weapons to the Iranians who kidnapped Americans and held them captive for over a year—and what a coincidence that the moment Reagan was being sworn into office, the Iranians released the hostages? And on top of this, the weapons that ‘we’ sold the Iranians were bought with drug money our CIA made from bringing cocaine into America. And ‘we’ supported the death squads in Nicaragua with this money as well. I used to travel to students’ homes in L.A. & teach Spanish-speaking adults English. A woman from Nicaragua whom I worked with told me something that shocked me & made me sick to my heart that ‘our’ government & Reagan could compare the death squad butchers to our founding fathers. Maria told me that her sister was 9 months pregnant and the Contras came into their village and sliced her sister’s stomach open, pulled the baby out, & slit the baby’s throat in front of her sister as she bled to death! I also used to substitute for L.A. Unified Schools and had the privilege of teaching many young high school students from Nicaragua and El Salvador and I hope that I never have to witness what these poor souls had to go through. I taught these students for six weeks and when I had to move on, several of the girls started crying because they knew that I truly cared about them and they brought tears to my eyes as well!

And speaking of ‘law & order,’ something else occurred to me while I was thinking about all the domestic spying that Big Brother is doing on us. I think it was something like a year or two back that the TV program Sixty Minutes did a story on a government program called “Echelon.” This story really caught my attention because my ex-wife’s cousin told me over twenty years ago that the government was listening to our phone conversations and if certain words like ‘bomb,’ ‘Allah,’ etc. were used, they flagged you and you would soon receive a visit from one of the intelligence agencies’ agents. This ‘Echelon’ story verified this and revealed that they now can pull the data from our e-mails, phone calls, faxes, websites we visit, in short—every form of communication we use, right out of the air. They no longer need to physically tap into our phone lines. I remember just before Bush launched our invasion of Iraq and he was pretending to go along with the requirement of getting the approval of the U.N.’s Security Council and it was revealed that ‘we’ were spying on the Security Council members to find out which way they were going to vote on the resolution. I bet Echelon was how they were able to spy on the members? Furthermore, I know I’m going to sound like a nut-case but I was also amazed when the movie Enemy of the State came out because even though it is a Hollywood movie i.e. work of fiction, I believe it has a lot of factual information in it and it surprised me that the ‘friendly fascists,’ would allow this knowledge to be revealed even if in a fictional Hollywood movie. If you’ve seen the movie, think about the technological capabilities that were shown in the movie and then consider what we now know about Echelon & Bush’s spying on us and in violation of the F.I.S.A. laws. The key question that this movie brought up was spoken by the woman who played Will Smith’s wife in the movie when she said, “yeah, but who’s going to watch the watchers?” Chew that one over for a while if you will. Anyway, I was going to quote at length from another PBS Frontline special called Cheney’s Law but I’ll leave that to those of you who might be intrigued enough to do a little digging on your own. But this Frontline program will show you just how great the contempt this administration has for Congress’s authority, for law, and for us. I fear that I’m going to lose more readers than retain so I’m going to start winding down this ‘essay.’

Enter at Your Own Risk!

When I originally wrote this essay back in May of 2004, I titled it “Reasons Why A Young Person Should Not Join the Military or Enter At Your Own Risk & Buyer Beware!” Several people who read it suggested that it could be more effective if I arranged it a little more logically so, I finally have done so and I’ve updated it a bit as well. I hope that it makes a difference in at least one person’s life because then it will have been worth the effort I’ve put into it. Far too many times our government has lied to us about the reasons for going to war and therefore you should be damn sure you have all the facts necessary to make an informed decision before you put your butt on the line. I wrote this not because I’m unpatriotic or anti-American but because I am a true patriot and not afraid to speak my mind (yet). I criticize our government because just as a good parent criticizes and disciplines their children so they’ll mature into honorable men and women, I criticize our government in the hope that it too can learn from its mistakes. And as Thomas Jefferson said, “it’s not only our right to hold our government accountable; it’s our duty as citizens of a democracy.” I must confess though that the primary reason I wrote this essay was because I have a son and I hope and pray that he won’t become just another sad statistic of yet another young person ground up and spit out of the military machine. And what really cuts me to the bone is the fact that my son won’t even take the time to read this essay that I wrote for him in an attempt to save his life and hopefully squash any thought he might ever have of joining the military.

As I mentioned earlier, the military today regularly violates the contract they make with enlistees so when you sign on that line, you are theirs for an indefinite length of service like this indefinite ‘war on terror.’ And this ‘war on terror’ gave the right-wing extremists and reactionaries in the White House just what they were looking for i.e. an excuse to wage war on all the social welfare agencies and legislation passed and established over the last one hundred years. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Reactionary Right were desperately searching for a new national enemy to justify the continuation of the transfer of the money from the pockets of the poor to the pockets of the rich via what is called the ‘defense industry’ but should be referred to as the death industry. Can you recall that the ‘defense department’ used to be called what it actually is, the War Department?

War on Drugs as disguise for War on the Poor!

Before the terrorists came along and assisted their buddies in the White House by providing them with a rationale for invading and attacking any nation they so choose to, we had an interim and still on-going ‘War on Drugs.’ I recently watched a documentary on Free Speech TV (a very valuable learning tool) regarding this ‘War on Drugs,’ and it was deeply disturbing because I had what I believe to be a profound insight. Our government is funneling billions of dollars into Columbia’s war against coca and marijuana growers & smugglers but upon close examination you will discover that most of the drug traffickers in Columbia are involved in the trade because the money enables them to buy the weaponry necessary to fight the corrupt Columbian government backed by the U.S. A lot of the drug dealers are Leftists fighting for social justice, fair wages, the right to form unions, and etc. Coca-Cola for a case in point has hired assassins to threaten, torture, & kill union organizers. Once again our military forces and our tax dollars are being used to repress democratic aspirations of the poor and the disenfranchised under the guise of championing democracy. I believe the main Leftist group is called FARC and they too have committed crimes against humanity as in their kidnapping of foreigners for ransom. If the foreigners work for the U.S. military, government of the U.S., or the corporations exploiting the Columbian people & their resources, I can understand though I don’t approve of kidnapping. But if the people being kidnapped are innocent tourists or are there as teachers or health workers, it is morally reprehensible for them to suffer the trauma of being kidnapped!

Our forty year ‘Cold War’ against the Communists, all our incursions into places like Haiti, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Iraq, etc., the War on Drugs, and our current open-ended carte blanche ‘War on Terrorism,’ are in effect really a war on all the poor and working classes in every nation on earth. I know this sounds rather extreme but I bet that if you study the story behind the official ‘Newspeak’ handed to us, you’ll see a common pattern in country after country of the U.S. assisting the corrupt and helping to undermine the poor in their dreams of a more equitable social arrangement just as Naomi Wolf did when she discovered the blueprint common to all despots and dictators as they brought and are currently bringing fascism to their countries.

I love America but hate the government & corporate elite!

Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m in no way saying the Communists were the good guys! What I am saying is that we’ve all been so grievously wronged and ripped-off and betrayed—Russians and Americans—that we should all be raising holy hell and demanding the return of our sovereign rights! Neither side gives a damn about democracy, communism, freedom, or anything except power and all the material prosperity that the elite can hoard. I was recently reflecting on the reasons we were given for getting involved in that long quagmire called the Vietnam War—though never officially declared by the cowards in Congress—and as I recall, we were on a noble mission to save the world from communism? Remember the Domino Theory? It was claimed that if we didn’t intervene in Vietnam and it became communist, it would act as a domino (role model) and a ripple effect of all the surrounding countries becoming communist and falling like dominoes would be the result. If the communists were our mortal enemies and wickedness personified, then answer me this, why almost directly after our defeat in Vietnam did we reach out to Communist China and become trading partners? What did all our boys die for or come home with a leg or arm missing?

Masters of the World

Be afraid, Be Very Afraid!

I say that ‘our’ government and military are really the servants of the global corporations who are shoving globalization down our throats not to make this a more democratic or equitable world—unless you consider all workers around the world making $2 or less per day, equitable—but rather to consolidate their power to such an extent that they need never worry again about the pesky peons demanding food and shelter! The illegal & immoral person who stole the U.S. presidency and whom I affectionately refer to as the Bushwhacker, paints his ‘War on Terror’ in very simplistic black and white terms i.e. “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists,” because this distracts people from the deeper issues and the gray areas by keeping us emotionally off balance and lusting for blood. The Bush & Cheney cabal have several reasons for why they embroiled us in yet another quagmire but this time in Iraq; 1) to establish a permanent military presence and large enough force to ensure a strategic post in the Middle East, 2) to control access and therefore power over our rivals for oil around the world, 3) to seek revenge for the attempt on George Sr.’s life, etc., etc., etc.

America has morphed into Russia

As I was watching another PBS Frontline documentary last night called Spying on the Homefront, something else occurred to me i.e. the strutting little dictator from Crawford keeps telling us that it’s necessary for them to spy on all of us in order to prevent further terrorist attacks against us. Yet, if this were true, then why did the F.B.I. fire Sibel Edmonds who was hired a few weeks after Sept. 11^th as a translator because she speaks Farsi, Arabic, & Turkish? They fired her because she blew the whistle on her supervisors who were telling her to slow down in her translations of documents that intelligence agencies had gathered in their attempt to discover what terrorists were up to. She stated publicly that Condoleeza Rice’s claim that the administration had no idea of an impending attack by Al Qaeda before the tragic attack was an “outrageous lie.” Ms. Edmonds held the highest security clearance but like everyone else who dares to speak truth to power in this den of thieves and liars, they are gotten rid of and their character is assassinated by the Karl Rove smear team. But this courageous patriot hasn’t given up and she’s been fighting the swine in the courts. And something else occurred to me, a simplistic theory perhaps but nonetheless, I am old enough to remember that the former director of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover, who enjoyed cross-dressing while conducting his fascist war against America, had secret files on just about every politician in Washington D.C. and whenever any politician, pundit, businessman, etc., dared to not go along with Hoover’s program, he’d threaten to publicly expose them and ruin their careers. I wonder if perhaps those men with the real power, through the use of Echelon and other NSA dirty tricks, have dossiers on everyone in Congress and the handful of corporate media moguls and other powerful interests and keep them in line by threatening them also?

One thing I am sure of though is the fact that politics is all about gaining power and then hanging onto it once you’ve gained it. A book written several hundred years ago by Nicolo Machiavelli called The Prince, laid out the blueprint for gaining power and holding onto it. It’s a very cold-blooded, calculating, & no holds barred inside picture of what goes on in the real halls of power and most of the world’s “leaders,” use it though very few will admit that they do. Just as in that movie by Oliver Stone called Wall Street with Michael Douglas revealed with the book by Sun Tzu titled The Art of War revealed the art of doing dirty business that the corporate, criminal class follow in their never enough pursuit of profit. And as the moral of the movie revealed, yes, you can gain great power by being ruthless but in the end you lose your soul. I can see this ruthlessness being used against the world’s poor & struggling billions now in the form of globalization but unlike in the movies where the good guys win in the end, I don’t see any force that is powerful enough to stop these modern day Attila the Huns. Our hope lies in whether enough of us care enough to empower ourselves with the knowledge necessary to stop them and unite in this ultimate battle for the life of the planet and the future of humanity. Again you may think I’m going off the deep end but consider if you will what the gluttonous, power-mad, warmongers are up to with their plans for space-based satellites with lasers for the domination of space and the entire planet. Look up Bruce Gagnon for a frightening glimpse into the next phase of Star Wars. It may seem that I have wandered way off the subject of this essay but it’s all connected. The question is, do you want to be part of those who are the oppressors and who are destroying life and turning this world into a living nightmare or do you want to join the battle for dignity, fairness, & peace?

Propaganda to stir up Patriotism

The powers that be use fear and propaganda to push our emotional buttons and appeal to our ‘sense of patriotism,’ to remain in power and clearly have no loyalty to us as citizens of what used to be a sovereign power. Most Americans define patriotism as “my country, right or wrong.” And this is indeed a very narrow & childish understanding of the term. If you are interested in understanding what it means to be a true patriot on a much deeper level, the best source I can point you towards is an issue of The Nation that was devoted to this single subject and had brief pieces by a wide variety of artists, intellectuals, professors, journalists, teachers, etc. I think it was around the 4^th of July in 1992 or perhaps around the time of the first Gulf War? The old saying by Samuel Johnson that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” isn’t just a witty little quip but is a very profound insight into those who use the concept to manipulate the gullible for their own personal gain. And Thomas Jefferson who wrote our Declaration of Independence was very serious indeed when he warned us to beware of “sunshine patriots.”

In a nutshell

The government representatives, the military elite, the mass media corporate giants, the public school system & the university system, & the global corporations have betrayed us time & time again and care nothing about our physical well being, our psychological well being, whether we’re forced into homelessness, etc. So, we owe them no loyalty but we do owe it to ourselves to pull them down from their golden thrones because no one is superior to anyone else and we have a God-given or natural born right to live in a world of justice for all! The U.S. & Israel have defied international law and United Nations resolutions hundreds if not thousands of times, and have stood alone, united in their crimes against humanity. We are the rogue nations and our ‘leaders’ have the audacity to stand on the world’s stage in front of the media from around the globe and denounce Iran and any other nation who dares to tell us no, as threats to democracy and freedom? Their egos and arrogance is truly breathtaking. How they can stand there in front of all those cameras and say the preposterous shit that comes out of their mouths with a straight face is beyond my comprehension? Israel and we have about zero credibility in the eyes of the world and it’ll take a long time if it’s even possible for the U.S. to regain a semblance of respectability.

Who are the true terrorists?

This in conjunction with Bush’s flagrant & consistent violations of U.S. law completely negates any claim to authority, respect, or trust of this oil cabal occupying the oval office and blackening America’s reputation the world over! We would do well to remember F.D.R.’s famous words “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Don’t let them scare you into submission. In conclusion, I say that on moral grounds ultimately I rest my case and that the ‘true’ (my truth) causes of terrorism as is generally understood i.e. individuals who have no respect for human life and commit suicide bomb attacks because they are religious fanatics and have no valid reason for their heinous crimes. This is brazen propaganda and indoctrination. By the way, don’t forget that the U.S. is the only country that has ever been labeled a terrorist nation by the International Court of Law, and we are the only nation to have ever used a nuclear bomb on another country. So how righteous are we and what moral high ground do we occupy? They won’t ever allow the deeper issues to be discussed in the national media because it would open a Pandora’s box of misery and humiliation and disgrace for them if we ever start a public dialogue on war issues or domestic politics. I believe the ‘true’ causes for most terrorist attacks against Americans is in brief all the bloody and butcherous dictators we have helped or installed in power and taught them also how to maintain their power by a perpetual reign of terror conducted against the poor, the workers, students, etc. And the emotional, physical, psychological tolls the oppressive and totalitarian vice-grip tactics take on the people because they are forced to work like dogs for pennies and under draconian conditions. They often slave away in factories owned by Americans and they can’t feed their children or find medical care. School is a luxury and only a rare few ever receive even a modicum of education. And be assured, I in no way condone acts of terrorism committed by other nations or individuals or by our own government or citizens. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I’m simply trying to inform you of some of the reasons behind terrorism.

Risk your life for the elite?

Therefore, why should you risk your life when those who really hold the reigns of power in this country don’t give a damn about you or your loved ones? Most importantly, the psychological damage done to those who go to war, often goes unnoticed but as time passes, the results of that damage become evident in the large numbers of homeless vets, the high rates of divorce, alcoholism, drug abuse, estrangement from their loved ones & friends, & the screams in the middle of the night due to the horrific nightmares that so many soldiers suffer from. In a recent poll, 72% of our soldiers in Iraq said they believe we should withdraw from Iraq within a year. And 29% of those polled said we should withdraw immediately. The Pentagon says that since the year 2000, more than 40,000 military personnel have deserted. And the suicide rate of military personnel since the beginning of the Iraq invasion has alarmed many outside experts. What does this all tell you? It struck me recently that history has once again shown us a very cruel irony in that we supposedly entered into World War II to stop the fascist Germans, Italians, & Japanese and today it is we, the U.S. who are becoming the fascists. Strong or harsh accusation? You’re goddamned right!

Lord of the Flies

The powerful have in common with the devoutly religious, mastered the art of denial and have raised it to a level of perfection hard to imagine. If you doubt the human capacity for barbarism that lurks within our souls, I suggest you read or watch The Lord of the Flies. And if after everything I have said, you still believe it right or worthwhile to join the military then, all I have to say is good luck and best wishes because it’s your life after all! But I can’t blame the Iraqis for rejecting our brand of democracy.

—Rob DeLoss (first draft May 17, 2004, revised & updated December 6, 2007)

P.S. I know this is a very lengthy essay but I was scared to death that my son might be talked into joining the military and what is more precious to us, as parents, than our children? The issues surrounding our loved ones in the military and why they are sent to war and how they are treated touches all of our lives. So, please let me know what you think whether pro or con on any of the things I have said. Only by discussing these issues can we empower ourselves and isn’t it our right to express our opinions in a democracy?

Posted in Corporate Power | Tagged American Imperialism, globalization, homeless veterans, military recruitment, military/industrial complex, Stop Gap, sunshine patriots, Vietnam war | 28 Comments

Willful Ignorance is A Cancer on America!

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Rob DeLoss

The four best examples of the willfully ignorant & most dangerous!

Preface: before I begin I want to state that my aim is to be briefer than usual because I know that most people aren’t willing to take the time to read anything “too lengthy.” Moreover, many on-line sites that allow you to post your writing, censor how long an article/essay can be. So, don’t criticize me if some of my points aren’t as clear as perhaps you’d like them to be. In fact, I was tempted to just make this a bullet-point list but upon reflection I realized that I must do more to “connect the dots.”

“Change” being the key word & key lie!

My simple definition of “willful ignorance” is that a person purposely blocks out new information, knowledge, or wisdom because it is basically too threatening to their belief structures. And by contrast, “innocent ignorance” simply means that a person doesn’t know something through no fault of their own, they simply have never been exposed to the new information. My thesis is that a pervasive willful ignorance is killing America and I am very concerned not just because I fear about America’s survival but also because America is such a major player in this global game of Monopoly, the survival of our planet is at stake!

The recent revelations regarding our Justice department’s spying on Associated Press reporters motivated me to write this essay. And the general sense of apathy among the general public regarding our government spying on us so blatantly ever since 9/11 truly saddens me. When I bring this issue up to people I know or have recently met, the usual response is “Oh well, I have nothing to worry about because I’m not doing anything wrong!” This is mind-boggling to me & I ask myself “Then why have our soldiers died or been maimed in this perpetual state of war we’ve been in my whole life?” The constant refrain I hear is “Support Our Soldiers because they are fighting for our freedom, Democracy, etc.” How can this be when our freedoms, democracy, etc. is being seriously undermined & eliminated altogether here in America?

Bradley Manning, called “Whistle blower” but actually true patriot because he told us the lies re: our wars.

Julian Assange, guilty of spreading the facts!

Case in point; President Obama has prosecuted more “Whistleblowers” than All the presidents who preceded his administration. Like so many other terms or words, the word “whistleblower” has been twisted to the point that it is now almost completely understood as a negative thing. This is truly Orwellian because “whistleblowers” are the true patriots & are doing us a great service by warning us of illegal & immoral actions on the part of our government & the corporate cockroach elite.

Some of you may not be familiar with I.F. Stone, George Seldes, Edward R. Murrow, or Robert Scheer but these men were/are amongst a relatively small handful of our greatest whistleblowers & often labeled as “Muckrakers.” Another derisive term implying they just stirred up trouble & threw mud at political officials, corporate Robber Barons, etc. because they were jealous, mean-spirited, unpatriotic, etc. etc. etc. This is another example of willful ignorance and absolutely wrong. These men and women were the most patriotic and courageous people this country has produced because they dared to stand up on their hind-legs and blow the whistle on the thieves in high places by stating publicly how politicians & businessmen were breaking our laws as a nation & the higher laws to which humans are responsible for—the laws of humanity commonly known as ethics!

this image brought tears to my eyes

Today’s America is but a dim shadow of those golden ideals & principles that we were told we believed in & practiced as a nation as we went through public school. Most Americans are now either afraid to speak up or are too apathetic & as long as they have their inane television sit-coms, soap operas, sports, & “reality” shows, don’t give a shit! Willful ignorance is now held up as the way to be & well-meaning friends admonish me to not fight the system, it’s futile. I have been fighting this apathy & willful ignorance all my life and it’s been a lonely journey. For example, several years ago when my son was still in high school, his mother & her brother started saying they believed that it would be a good thing for my son to join the military. This scared the Hell out of me because I was in the U.S. Army and came close to being sent to Vietnam & knew after 30 years of serious searching for facts, knowledge, truth, & wisdom the lies, the needless slaughter of Vietnamese innocents, the death of over 55,000 American soldiers, etc. how wrong & how dangerous a game they were playing with my son’s life!

So, I sat down at the kitchen table & wrote for two days, every reason I could think of as to why my son, or any young person should not join the military. And to this day, I haven’t been able to persuade my son to read this outpouring of my soul in an attempt to save his life. Thankfully he didn’t join the military but I still feel the pain & suffering of all those poor, young people who have joined the military and had their souls crushed.

Continuing on, this isn’t a self-pity party but merely to substantiate my argument regarding America’s general sense of apathy & willful ignorance. I have been mocked & dismissed for most of my adult life because I am almost always in the minority regarding these issues & people take comfort & believe they must be right because they are in the majority when arguments arise about these topics. If we had more courageous journalists like those I mentioned earlier, then perhaps we could have averted invading Iraq and all the horrible aftermath of that war of choice?

Furthermore, I contend that because of our general sense of apathy and our willful ignorance, the powers that be have been, are, & will continue to erode & destroy America as a nation. And lest you think me an alarmist, conspiracy nut, or whatever, I challenge you to do a little research for yourself starting with the late, great Gore Vidal and his book “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.” In this simple little book, Vidal lists the over 200 military incursions or whatever you care to refer to them as, since 1945. Here is a blurb relevant to this point:

In all, the United States has only made 11 separate formal declarations of war against foreign nations encompassing 5 wars.

War with Great Britain 1812 (Act of June 18, 1812, House 79-49; Senate 19-13)
War with Mexico 1846 (Act of May 13, 1846, House 174-14; Senate 40-2)
War with Spain 1898 (Act of April 25, 1898, House & Senate voice votes)
War with Germany 1917 (Act of April 6, 1917, House 373-50; Senate 82-6)
War with Austria-Hungary 1917 (Act of December 7, 1917, House 365-1; Senate 74-0))
War with Japan 1941 (Act of December 8, 1941, House 388-1; Senate 82-0)
War with Germany 1941 (Act of December 11, 1941, House 393-0; Senate 88-0)
War with Italy 1941 (Act of December 11, 1941, House 399-0; Senate 90-0)
War with Bulgaria 1942 (Act of June 5, 1942, House 357-0; Senate 73-0)
War with Hungary 1942 (Act of June 5, 1942, House 360-0; Senate 73-0)
War with Rumania 1942 (Act of June 5, 1942, House 361-0; Senate 73-0)9

Since 1942, of course the United States has not led the world in a seventy-years’ peace. Despite Roosevelt’s relative ease in obtaining six formal declarations of war, since World War Two Americans have been drawn time and time again into war without a congressional declaration. Gore Vidal commented:

“Since V-J Day 1945 (‘Victory over Japan’ and the end of World War II), we have been engaged in what the historian Charles A. Beard called ‘perpetual war for perpetual peace.’ I have occasionally referred to our ‘enemy of the month club’: each month we are confronted by a new horrendous enemy at whom we must strike before he destroys us.”

Vidal goes on to list several hundred wars and operations conducted against Communism, terrorism, drugs, or as he puts it, “sometimes nothing much” that occurred between Pearl Harbor and September 11, 2001. Based on casualties alone the costliest conflicts following the last official declaration of war include the Korean War with 33,686, the Vietnam War with 47,424, Iraq War with 3,542 and Afghanistan at greater than 2,000. http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2013/volume_5/number_1/war_is_declared.php

And with the latest brainstorm on the part of the Pentagon & the politicians, we now “embed” our journalists in military units so they can “report” the facts of war protected by the units they are embedded with. Is it just me or does anyone else see the dangers inherent in this new version of war coverage by journalists? This is a very clever tactic designed to keep an even tighter leash on journalists by making them dependent on soldiers for their very lives, journalists will naturally be a lot more reluctant to report on abuses, crimes, etc. committed by the soldiers they are embedded with. And as a result, we, the American public will be left even more in the dark regarding the truth about the wars, police actions, incursions, etc. that we are continually involved in around the globe.

a one man, intellectual tour de force!

No! Not “fairly unbalanced, seriously unbalanced!”

One of the most pernicious myths about the Vietnam war is that it was the “liberal media” which caused us to lose that war because they were broadcasting all those horrible images of war back to our homes and as families sat around the T.V. and watched those images day in and day out, Americans gradually began to turn against the war. The movie “The Killing Fields” showed how bogus this claim was because it revealed the fact that most of the journalists covering the Vietnam war would wait until after a battle and the military had brought them to the battle scene after it had been “cleaned-up” and take their pictures & accept the military commanders’ version of what happened and dutifully transcribe it for their newspapers. Noam Chomsky clearly proved the falsity of these claims and the myths regarding the liberal opposition to the Vietnam war, etc. And again because i don’t have the space to go into great depth, you’ll have to check out the truth of what I claim for yourself.

to be more accurate, FOX News should be referred to as False News!

a “Nation of Sheep” classic book by William J. Lederer & ?….(sorry, can’t remember right now? no disrespect)

The myth or “truism” that there is a “liberal media bias” in America is just that, a myth. And it has been mostly been thanks to FOX News and the “mainstream” or corporate media which have vested interests in maintaining the status quo in America. It’s very well known that FOX News, especially during the Gulf war and the Iraq war, took their daily “talking points” directly from the White House so as to keep all their talking heads on the same page and hammering the same pack of lies day in and day out. And this brings me to an extremely important point e.g. just because a newscaster, a politician, or anyone keeps on repeating something it’s not necessarily true or a fact. I have gone round and round with people, including my ex-wife, on this matter and in particular, far too many naive people don’t recognize the difference between opinion and objective fact. Facts can be backed up or substantiated and yes everyone has a right to their opinion but not all opinions are valid or perhaps I should say, equally valid. FOX News is the farthest thing from news because it is mostly opinionated, loud-mouth bullies who believe that if they scream loud enough to drown out their disagreeing guests, they’re right and the guest has been proven wrong. Moreover, even sticking to mere opinions, if one person in an argument is arguing about a subject they have formally studied for years & have earned a degree in the subject is arguing with someone else who has never even read a book on the subject, their opinions are not equally valid. One is arguing from knowledge & experience and the other is arguing from an emotional perspective or a set of beliefs. And this is not elitist but simply logical or scholarly and is the basis for most of human progress. I know that for a lot of people I have met over the course of my adult life, this point regarding the validity of arguments is a bitter or hard pill to swallow. It sounds very arrogant of me to make such statements but consider it from this point of view if you will; I have next to no knowledge when it comes to mechanical aptitude or matters and if I tried telling some guy who had 30 years of experience as a mechanic that he was definitely wrong about some mechanical problem I was having, it would be just as absurd for him to tell me I was off my nut about some political issue which I had spent 30 years of my life studying.

the racist card always works well on the most willfully ignorant!

Naturally, the power elite or the 1% want to keep the general public as ignorant as possible because it’s much easier to control an ignorant populace than a well-informed one. Why do you think they cracked down so hard on the Occupy Wall St. movement? These protestors were constantly derided on FOX News as dirty, lazy, young kids who didn’t want to work, etc. They weren’t allowed to use microphones at their meetings, they weren’t allowed to even carry a backpack but at the Tea Party rallies, they were allowed to use microphones, they could even bring their guns, and they were covered by the corporate media because they were the dupes of FOX News and the so-called conservative Republican party. Free speech in America? Yeah, right. Only if you agree with the corporate cockroaches are you allowed to be heard.

note that the Mad Tea Party guests are allowed to carry weapons but the dirty, unpatriotic, young hippies aren’t even allowed to carry backpacks to their rallies????

FOX News’ motto!

I didn’t start listening to what was going on politically until Ronald Reagan became president because I grew up in L.A. and I’d seen what he’d done as governor of California. Reagan the “great communicator,” cracked-down on student protestors with a vengeance & probably would’ve like to have them all shot down like dogs. So when he became president I got worried and ever since his presidency, there has been a steady & stealthy building of power on the side of the rich in America. They built a network of think tanks and hammered away at the American public with their rhetoric & propaganda telling the public ad nauseam that it was the government that was making their lives tough & it was the liberals, the students, the illegal immigrants, gays, in short, anyone who wasn’t rich was the problem.

in case you’re too young to remember, Reaganomics boiled down to “give the rich ever more tax breaks & they’ll put America to work but, in fact, they got even richer & shipped the decent paying jobs that were here, overseas. That’s Conservatism for you!

And just as Hitler’s minister of propaganda, joseph Goebbels realized, the more you repeat a lie and the greater the lie, the more people will accept it as truth. The Right-wing extremists in America now have the microphone almost exclusively & when people like myself who have been paying attention, try to speak up, we are shouted down as communists, terrorists, etc. It’s gotten so bad e.g. we’ve become such a corporatocracy that the Democratic party which once stood for the working Americans has now almost completely gone over to the corporate controlled side.

Georgie “Dubya” the Bushwhacker aka Alfred E. Newman

Summers, Geithner, Bernanke (wolves guarding the hen-house)

I thought I was pretty savvy politically speaking but Obama even fooled me but only for a few weeks. After he was elected and appointed Bernanke, Summers, & Geithner to the top financial & economic positions in America, I knew I & America had been duped yet again. And if you still need convincing of this, as many “liberals” do, note Obama’s speech where he said he wasn’t interested in “looking back” in reference to calls for Bush, Cheney, et al being prosecuted for lying us into the Iraq war and wrecking the U.S. economy. Yet Obama is going after ‘Whistleblowers’ with a vengeance & he has prosecuted those who are trying to protect America more than all the other presidents did in total. Obama the Oreo as I call him (black on the outside, white on the inside) not only hasn’t given up any of the illegal expanded powers of the presidency that Georgie Bush stole, he has expanded the imperial presidency and he personally participates in a weekly meeting where he & his advisors act as judge, jurors, & executioners as they select people to assassinate around the world, even American citizens.

“A Kinder and Gentler Nation”

At the risk of being dismissed as just another “conspiracy nut,” I think all these racist attacks against Obama on FOX News may serve the financial elite’s hidden agenda because it keeps the yokels, both the innocently ignorant & the willfully ignorant occupied & focusing their anger on Obama rather than the truly heinous criminal class who are sucking the lifeblood out of America. We have witnessed the largest transfer of wealth from the poor, the working class, & the middle class to the obscenely wealthy in the top 1% of our population over the past 30 years or so. The traitors at the top have almost completely eliminated unions, have outsourced almost every manufacturing plant that used to be in America, have gained ever more tax breaks, have made our land, air, & water toxic, and are now focused on getting their bloody talons on Social Security & completely gutting Medicare & privatizing our public education system.

I say, Preacher of Hate & Fear!

By keeping the ignorant public focused on guns & gays & abortion, they have emptied the federal treasury and bankrupted America & turned us into a Third World nation. And the horrific events of 9/11 was the perfect excuse for them to hide their sinister agenda behind. With the passage overnight with no Congressional review & very few even took the time to read it, of The Patriot Act and Homeland Security, they have almost completely eviscerated our Constitution & Bill of Rights. We more closely resemble Stalinist Russia than the America I was born into in the 1950s. We hear the talking heads on television, the political pundits, the politicians, the corporate crocodile C.E.O.s, the televangelist preachers, etc. constantly telling us how great America is and how proud we should be of our soldiers fighting in the steady stream of wars overseas for freedom & democracy right? So then why are so much less free here in America? We are truly living that book by George Orwell “1984” here in the United States in 2013.

our fight against the bad guys in Afghanistan really boils down to our bribing of the war lords who are also drug lords of the opium/heroin trade in Afghanistan??????

Colin Powell in Vietnam

Again, as Gore Vidal has pointed out, just about every month there is some new enemy of the month and we must again spend billions of dollars fighting this never ending stream of villains. As they slash our programs that were supposed to act as a Social Safety Net such as Head Start, food stamps, welfare, health care, etc. they keep spending billions & trillions on weapons systems that often don’t work & kill our own soldiers. They lose pallets of money in Iraq. They pay warlords in Afghanistan hundreds of thousands of dollars month in, month out for the past decade, those same warlords who also control the poppy fields that produce the majority of the world’s heroin. Yeah, it must be nice to be stupid & not realize that all these blatant contradictions & hypocrisies are going on. We were forced to bail-out the Wall St. wolves and the Banks too big to fail as they stole our homes, our pensions, our health care, our self respect & dignity but hey, let’s go beat up some gays, some illegals, some Occupy Wall St. protestors because they are the ones causing our pain.

Lt. Colonel David L. Hackworth

If you want to be a “success” in America, it’s real simple, all you have to do is ignore your conscience & be as cutthroat, ruthless, cold-blooded as you can be. Look at Colin Powell who made it up the ranks to the highest position in the military services. He showed the powers that be that he was their boy back in the 1960s when he was sent to investigate the My Lai Massacre and returned a report saying nothing had happened or no wrongdoing had been done. If you’re tired of being ignorant about the Vietnam war, check out a book by Lt. Colonel David L. Hackworth called “About Face.” This guy was a true Audie Murphy and had been wounded more times than is almost believable. He fought in N. Korea, Vietnam, etc. and after a few years of serving in Vietnam, he couldn’t take the lies & the waste of human life anymore and started speaking out and finally resigned in disgust. And Lt. Colonel David L. Hackworth was the most decorated soldier of his time & created and commanded a unit he called ‘Tiger Force’ which used guerrilla warfare tactics to fight against the Vietnamese guerrillas.

John Paul Vann “A Bright Shining Lie” (Vietnam)

Furthermore, we have the case of another highly respected officer who tried also to wake up our military commanders in the Pentagon & the political leadership as to the folly of our involvement in Vietnam:

John Paul Vann became an adviser to the Saigon regime in the early 1960s. He was an ardent critic of how the war was fought, both on the part of the Saigon regime, which he viewed as corrupt and incompetent, and, as time went by, increasingly, on the part of the U.S. military. In particular, he was critical of the U.S. military command, especially under William Westmoreland, and their inability to adapt to the fact that they were facing a popular guerrilla movement while backing a corrupt regime. He argued that many of the tactics employed (for example the strategic hamlet relocation) further alienated the population and thus were counterproductive to U.S. objectives. Often he was unable to influence the military command but used the Saigon press corps including Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam and Malcolm Browne to disseminate his views.

The volume begins with a prologue giving an account of Vann’s funeral on June 16, 1972, following his death in a helicopter accident in Vietnam. The author, Sheehan, a personal friend, was present. The subsequent account is divided into seven “books” detailing Vann’s career in Vietnam and America’s involvement in the conflict. Book I tells of Vann’s assignment to Vietnam in 1962. Book II “The Antecedents to a Confrontation” tells of the origin of the Vietnam War. Book III gives a detailed account of the shambolic Battle of Ap Bac on January 2, 1963 in which the South Vietnamese army suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Viet Cong. Book IV details Vann’s criticism of the way the war was being fought, his conflict with the U.S. military command and his transfer back to America. Book V tracks back to give Vann’s personal history before his involvement in the war. In the final chapters, Books VI and VII give an account of Vann’s return to Vietnam in 1965 and his doomed attempt to implement a war winning formula for the beleaguered U.S. army and how he eventually compromised with the military system he once criticized.

(A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam)

But of course if you don’t mind sending your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, or mothers to slaughter or being maimed for life in these wars to make the rich even richer then by all means enjoy your blissful ignorance! Moreover, we are kept in the dark about the epidemic of sexual assaults against not only women in the military services but of men as well. We are also ignorant of the fact that a good percentage of the homeless wandering our streets like ghosts on the landscape are veterans who were used, chewed-up and spit out on the street with little to no assistance by the government who had promised them the world to get them to enlist.

As for me, I will continue to speak out, to argue, to scream about the true betrayers of the American promise, the real traitors like the politicians, the top officers in the Pentagon, the corporate cockroaches, & the cowards who crow so brazenly on television. Against the wolves in sheep’s clothing claiming to be Christians as they preach hatred, fear, & call for the murder of those whom they don’t agree with. Against the Bush administration who “leaked” Valerie Plame’s identity but weren’t prosecuted by Obama, the Constitutional law professor. True Christians know that Jesus focused all his time & energy on taking care of the homeless, the sick & disabled, those shunned by society such as the prostitutes, etc. and that he detested the rich for their greed, oppression of the poor, & their apathy. And I know what the true agenda or the motives behind the prosecution of whistleblowers are, it’s to silence the true patriots who sound the alarm warning us, the willfully ignorant, that the power elite are killing America just as surely as an inoperable cancer but under the guise of National Security. But what they mean by National Security is the military/industrial/congressional complex that gives the overwhelming majority of our tax dollars to the already obscenely wealthy while impoverishing the rest of us, the 99% forced to work for slave wages & pay taxes or be imprisoned! I choose to inform myself and will fight to inform others but of course if you prefer to be willingly ignorant, there’s nothing to be done and I feel no sympathy for you as you wither & die!

re: nuclear weapons & nuclear war

—Rob DeLoss, Gearhart, Oregon, May 16, 2013

“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin — more even than death…. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”

—Bertrand Russell, winner of the Nobel Prize

Addendum: just dawned on me as I was searching for pics to illustrate this essay, the man who epitomizes those who fight against ignorance because they are “our better angels,” is Aaron Swartz. And this gentle, young soul’s crime was “illegally” making available the knowledge of scientific journals reserved for paying customers. Tell me again that there isn’t any anti-intellectualism in America or a deliberate effort to keep us ignorant!

Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist.

Swartz was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS,^[4] the organizationCreative Commons,^[5] the website framework web.py^[6] and the social news site Reddit, in which he was an equal partner after its merger with his Infogami company.^[i] Swartz also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism.^[7]^[8] In 2010, he became a research fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Research Lab on Institutional Corruption, directed by Lawrence Lessig.^[9]^[10] He founded the online group Demand Progress, known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by MIT police on state breaking-and-entering charges, in connection with the systematic downloading of academic journal articles fromJSTOR.^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14] Federal prosecutors eventually charged him with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,^[15] charges carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines plus 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture,restitution and supervised release.^[16]

On January 11, 2013, two years after his initial arrest, Swartz was found dead in his Crown Heights, Brooklyn apartment, where he had hanged himself.

Note! I can’t get my Comments section to work so if you’d care to leave a comment please e-mail me at:

professor1029@yahoo.com

(I love/need feedback to keep the muse alive!)

Posted in In the news | Tagged Aaron Swartz, Afghanistan occupation, Bernanke, Bertrand Russell, Bradley Manning, Col. David Hackworth, Colin Powell, Edward R. Murrow, FOX News, Geithner, George Bush, George Orwell, George Seldes, Gore Vidal, Hitler, homeless veterans, I.F. Stone, Iraq War, John Paul Vann, Joseph Goebbels, Julian Assange, Noam Chomsky, Occupy Wall St., Pat Robertson, President Eisenhower, President Obama, rape U.S. military, Reaganomics, robber barons, Robert Scheer, Summers, Tea Party, Vietnam War Memorial, whistleblowers | Leave a comment

True Power!

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Rob DeLoss

The recent tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School have reignited the debate between the so-called patriots who believe it’s their Constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms & those of us who believe guns for hunting are one thing and assault weapons are an entirely different matter.

Of course, the NRA (National Rifle Association) has spent millions in their propaganda campaign designed to muddy the waters of debate & confuse the general public. And we’re supposed to ignore the fact that the NRA doesn’t represent the interests of the gun-owning American public but rather the profit motive of the gun & ammunition manufacturers who are their largest financial contributors & the NRA is a de facto lobbyist.

The NRA’s leadership hides behind the American flag & a very limited and strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. We are supposed to accept ludicrous “reasoning” such as it’s gun owners convenience in terms of their not having to reload as frequently with assault weapons which should prevail rather than the general public’s right to not be vulnerable to weapons of mass assault.

Some even argue that if a law was passed banning these assault weapons, that wouldn’t prevent them being used. Of course there are always going to be those bent on committing mass murder & naturally a law isn’t going to stop them just as laws against murder aren’t 100% effective in stopping murder. But this is circular reasoning and doesn’t negate the fact that the more of these assault weapons we can take out of circulation, the less dangerous a world we live in.

I contend that our government should offer to reimburse people for the assault weapons they already own and also pass laws making the possession of such weapons an extremely serious offense with several years in prison if you are caught with one. There is quite simply no logical or just reason for anyone to own these kinds of weapons. Are these people going to argue next that we have the right to own hand grenades, rocket launchers, surface to air missiles, etc.? Absurd? Well where do you draw a line? Their reasoning is empty and they hope that we won’t recognize it.

Personally speaking, I have never understood so many guys’ obsession with owning handguns, rifles, etc.? I feel it’s sort of analogous to the reason some people want to become a cop e.g. they feel owning guns will make them more powerful just as many, if not most, people want to become cops because they feel that carrying a gun, a badge, & the ability to place a call and have backup makes them more powerful & feared by others. This is insecurity pure & simple.

True power comes from within and not from anything external to yourself. Any 90 lb. weakling can pull the trigger on a gun but a real man or person of strength or power can handle life’s crises by using their intelligence and from an inner sense of power because they have self-confidence.

Real confidence comes from knowing that you have faced danger & have rose to the occasion. Yeah, some of you gun “enthusiasts” will write me off as unrealistic because you believe that you have the corner on common sense, reality, the world as it really is, etc. And if this is your line of reasoning, I must be either extremely stupid or lucky, perhaps both? Yeah, that must be it!

Well here is an overview of my “luck” and why I have the confidence to go wherever the road or chance may take me. I have tried to avoid fighting all my life but nonetheless, I have been fighting since I was around five or six years old. My theory is that as a result of the fights I’ve been involved in over the course of my life, I have learned that I am more than capable of defending not only myself but also others who were weaker or less able to defend themselves.

My point isn’t to make myself sound like some sort of macho man but rather to substantiate that guns aren’t necessary to defend ourselves. I have always made use of whatever happened to be handy e.g. a chair, a stick, whatever; if someone had a knife or some other weapon they were threatening me with. Moreover, if a person is aware of their surroundings and pays attention to the cues that a situation is leading to a possibly dangerous level, one can often avoid crises by simply being observant & watching for the telltale signs.

Furthermore, my personal history is one of being physically, emotionally, & psychologically abused from an early age. This has made me somewhat suspicious of people and wary of the dangers posed by some people. Yet my fears & insecurities have never made me want or feel the need to own a gun for self-protection. I have hitch-hiked up & down the West coast of the U.S. dozens of times, across the U.S., around Europe several times sometimes on a one-way ticket with a couple of hundred bucks in my pocket. I have gone into bars that were pretty much Black only or Hispanic only, by myself and have had a good time and not been threatened by anyone. Can this all be just blind, dumb luck? Of course not. I grew up in a pretty rough area of South Central L.A. called Paramount, which is right across the L.A. riverbed from the notorious city of Compton. I have taken on several guys at a time because they were bullying someone. I have had tire-irons, baseball bats, etc. upside my head but I’m still here to say that I don’t feel the need to own a gun. I keep a baseball bat by my door and if I can’t take care of things with that, I figure it’s not meant to be.

It saddens me that so many Americans have succumbed to the fear & hate mongers such as on “FOX News” which want us all fearful so they can push their agenda of a society ruled exclusively by rich, old white men who own everything. Fear and hate divide us and this is precisely what they, the powers that be, want. Sure, write me off as another Left-wing conspiracy nut but in fact, the true conspiracy nuts are the Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Anne Coulters, etc. who dominate the airwaves on the corporate media. By the way, the media is rightfully ours, the American publics, but like so many other areas of our lives, we have stood by silently as they robbed us blind.

True power comes from within and also from a sense of community and belief in our God-given rights as human beings. Love is the greatest power on Earth and I am confident that there are many more out there like me. My purpose in life is to share what I have learned with others. I try to lead by example and have seen through too many of the lies, myths, & propaganda in the culture war, the class war, and the assault on our dignity. The 1960s was a decade often derided for being idealistic, naïve, disruptive, & destructive for no good reason. I say bullshit! We believed a better world was possible and we helped to stop the Vietnam War, to ensure Civil Rights, women’s rights, awaken the public to the dangers created by the corporate cockroaches to our environment, etc. Yes, it often feels like an exercise in futility but it’s the good fight. And by joining in the good fight, the fight for humanity, and the fight for justice, equality, fairness, etc., we share in the greatest power on Earth, the power of an idea whose time has come & the power that comes from that wonderful, uniquely human feeling of belonging to a much larger whole that shares a common humanity!

Rob DeLoss, Feb. 6^th, 2013

Trinidad, California

Addendum

I have an old, blacklight poster that I’ve owned since I was a teenager. It’s a large Peace sign made-up of many, small what look like swastikas which originally was a Jewish symbol for peace. And the quote underneath the giant Peace symbol is “There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the end, the mind always conquers.” —Napoleon Bonaparte

Posted in In the news | Leave a comment

The Fear of Knowledge

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Rob DeLoss

Aaron Swartz

There is an evil lurking in this land that we proclaim as the champion of freedom & democracy. And that evil is the fear of knowledge. The recent suicide of Aaron Swartz clearly reveals the government’s panic whenever the “wrong” type of information or knowledge is leaked to the general public.

This evil has been labeled terrorism since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and while that horrific event was indeed an attack intended to strike terror into the hearts of the American public, its real objective was to unleash the dogs of war. Osama bin Laden knew full well that if he gave the American military giant the excuse to attack and occupy Middle Eastern countries, he’d unite the fanatical, extremist elements of his twisted version of Islam in a never-ending jihad against American imperialism. And the extremist element in our government and corporate elite have likewise used this “war on terrorism” to implement the plans they have had for decades for the expansion of the American empire.

Unfortunately for the 99% of Americans and the poor & suffering billions around the globe, we all lose in this battle between fundamentalists and fascists. And one of the first casualties was our Bill of Rights. All people everywhere have a natural, God-given right to knowledge and none but the wicked fear knowledge. They fear knowledge because when knowledge is revealed and the light of public scrutiny shows the hollowness of what our leaders try to tell us, the powerful are toppled.

Aaron Swartz was 26 years old and his “crime” was that he believed the knowledge contained in tens of thousands of scientific journals should be available to everyone, not just those who could afford an M.I.T. education. So, Aaron was accused of “hacking” into the computer system at M.I.T. and was hounded and threatened for many months with over a million dollars fine and a possible 35 years in prison. This absolutely astounds me especially when I know that the corporate cockroaches on Wall St. & elsewhere who brought our national economy & the world economy to the brink of total collapse, have not been prosecuted or seen a single day in jail. A young man who wants to share knowledge with the world is persecuted to the point that he takes his own life but war criminals like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz, Colin Powell, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, etc. not only get away with murder by lying us into a war but they earn millions on the talk circuit? Jesus Christ! What is it going to take for us to wake-up? Do we have to return to a level of poverty and degradation similar to the conditions in Scotland as portrayed in the movie “Braveheart?”

Furthermore, what about our government’s determination to get Julian Assange in an American prison. His organization pulled the curtain back as in the final scenes of The Wizard of Oz and revealed the stark truth that we are being manipulated by fear & trickery. Wikileaks released something like over 250,000 State Dept. cables that revealed the truth behind all our corporate media spin regarding our actions overseas. We, myself included, have become a nation of sheep because we willingly offer up our personal information on sites like Facebook, which is a gift for the government spies amongst us. Think I’m being paranoid? What about those “No fly lists?” Many American citizens have been subjected to humiliating treatment and weren’t allowed on flights.

Perhaps you think I’m blowing this “fear of knowledge” way out of proportion? Consider the war on public education and teachers’ unions in particular. The fascists (government & corporate collaborators) have joined forces with the “Christian” fundamentalists or extremists in their goal of completely eliminating public education and privatizing all schooling. Why? I’m not claiming it’s a grand conspiracy; quite frankly they’re not that clever. No, it’s a matter of convenience. The power elite wants to stifle dissent and by posing as Christian values crusaders they can de-fund the humanities departments in universities. Not all Christian fundamentalists are evil and I believe many of them sincerely believe they are on moral high ground. But we’ve all seen countless television preachers who have fleeced their flocks so they could live in luxury.

But, the truly powerful in this government and in the transnational corporate suites and penthouses, want a populace that is educated just enough to keep the money flowing but not encumbered by trivial things like morality or ethics. What the malicious morons don’t understand though is that the human mind needs to be completely unfettered or free to follow knowledge wherever it leads and by trying to confine & curtail it, they are stunting its growth and the human imagination. Corporations need graduate students who are capable of the highest thinking skills such as critical & analytical thinking skills. They also need nonconformity in terms of employees free to think outside the box, free to question the wisdom of their superiors, etc. if they are to be truly innovative and create, design, invent new ideas, new products, new services, etc. which will give their corporation the edge on the competition.

One of my greatest disappointments in the last several years was the election of President Obama and I voted for him the first time but not the second. President Obama’s first campaign for the presidency was boiled down to a singe word, “Change.” What a brilliant public relations campaign or more accurately, advertising scam and propaganda coup. Not only has Obama not been a champion of real change or progress, he has continued many of the worst practices of the George ‘Dubya’ Bush administration such as drone strikes, the prison at Guantanamo, suspension of habeas corpus, spying on Americans with no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever, opening up ever more of our wilderness areas to exploitation by the corporate whores, etc.

Moreover, Obama has prosecuted more ‘whistleblowers’ than Dubya and I believe, all former presidents combined? What the Hell? He wants to silence whistleblowers who believe it’s the morally right thing to do to inform the public of illegal corporate & government practices, unsafe products, etc. but when asked about prosecuting the Bush administration for their war crimes and part in the economic collapse that should truthfully be called what it is, a Depression, Obama said “I’m not interested in looking backward.” Which of course dovetails nicely with his new bullshit campaign’s mantra “Lean Forward,” which has become the logo for MSNBC’s supposed Left-wing liberals. You may recall that it was MSNBC that fired Phil Donahue right around the time of our invasion of Iraq. Why? Because he was too critical of the propaganda cloud that smothered all rational voices at the time. Donahue would have on one “liberal” and two “conservatives” but even this was too much for those who fear knowledge because the public may not be as dumb as the status quo hopes and may start connecting the dots. If people are allowed to hear the many sides in these complex issues which affect our lives so profoundly and if the public is taught to recognize the circular reasoning, the arguments ad hominem, the red herrings, the straw man arguments, etc. the house of cards that American power is made up of will crumble.

Chomsky at work

Noam Chomsky has spent his life reading, writing, lecturing, and fighting against the injustices here in America and around the world and he has summed it up very nicely. MSNBC’s “talking heads” are allowed on national television because they stay within the allowed framework or parameters of discussion. If they were to step outside that box and delve into the deeper, hidden agendas of the corporate elite, they would pose a real threat to the powers that be so they must be kept on a tight leash. And when FOX News is allowed to do nothing but lie, pervert, distort, manipulate the facts 24/7 without ever being called out for their blatant propaganda, we are truly fucked!

I say this because FOX “News” clearly preys on people’s emotions and its tools are fear & hate e.g. keep the public whipped-up emotionally by scaring them and scapegoating gays, “liberals,” democrats, immigrants, unions, teachers, etc. they keep the uninformed public focused on everything but the actual things that matter e.g. the 1% pulling the majority of the politicians’ strings. It’s the age-old strategy of Divide & Conquer and they keep us distracted with our modern day equivalents of the gladiators in the Roman Coliseum with lavish spectacles, gory deaths via combat, etc. while the rich plunder the poor. More Americans are concerned with who won the latest Dancing with the Stars competition, American Idol, ‘Reality shows,’ sports, etc. than with the people overseas and here in America who are being thrown out of their homes, dying because they don’t have medical insurance, having their pension plans & life savings stolen legally by the politicians who are the lapdogs for the corporate cockroaches. What does this say about American values? Isn’t that we hear them screaming about ad nauseam, “family values?”

As for me, I will persevere in my belief in the power of knowledge to empower, not in a Machiavellian sense but in the sense of personal empowerment so one is not easily victimized by the unscrupulous. Knowledge is my guiding light and comfort or shelter from the storm. The rich and powerful have been afraid of knowledge from the beginning of recorded history. Socrates has been called the “Father of Western Philosophy,” and I respect his life and teachings so deeply that I purchased a bust of him many years ago and take it with me wherever I go as an inspiration and constant reminder of what is true or truly worthy of admiration and emulation. Socrates was put on trial by the government of Athens because he stirred people up with his questioning, his consistent logic, honest and rational reasoning. He was put to death for his defiance & integrity but he went to his death with dignity because he knew in his heart he was true to the pursuit of wisdom.

I’d like to believe that Aaron Swartz also went to his death knowing this. I believe Aaron Swartz was a warrior for equality, freedom, truth, & justice and had such a deep love for humanity that he gave his life in order to bring attention to the importance of knowledge being free and available to all people. Another one of my heroes is Bertrand Russell and this quote from him sums it up nicely:

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid … Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”
― Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight

Addendum

The way to fight terrorism is with knowledge, law, and practicing what we preach, not terrorizing the world with our military that is more powerful & larger than the rest of the world’s military might combined. We need people trained in the languages, customs, religions, etc. of those countries that terrorists originate from. But then the massive, Congressional/Military/Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about wouldn’t make their trillions of dollars by draining our economy and we could instead invest in Americans. We could put everyone to work, provide top notch universal health care & education, take care of our roads, bridges, etc. You see, this is what knowledge could teach us if we were allowed access to it but people like Aaron Swartz & Julian Assange pose a threat to those in power because they want to make all knowledge, especially the hidden knowledge available only to the corporate cockroaches, to be on public display for all to ponder, debate, and vote on when it affects their lives. I wish to end with another quote from that venerable sage, Bertrand Russell, who by the way, is an intellectual hero to Noam Chomsky & Chomsky has a poster of Russell on the wall of his office at M.I.T. with this quote:

The Three Passions of Bertrand Russell: Love, Truth, and Justice“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. (…)I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. (…)Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to Earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. (…)I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness – that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. (…)

This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found. (…)

Posted in In the news, Uncategorized | Tagged Aaron Swartz, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, justice, Noam Chomsky, Obama & Bush, Obama's betrayal, terrorism, truth, Wall St. crimes, war on education, whistleblowers | Leave a comment

Dying for an Education!

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Rob DeLoss

Dying for an Education!

I just watched a video on Free Speech T.V. about the memorial to our soldiers who died in Iraq i.e. the white crosses on the beach, and a good number of the young soldiers who survived & were there to pay their respects to their friends said they had joined the military because their families couldn’t afford to pay for their going to college. The rich and the powerful have a very strong & vested interest in keeping Americans ignorant. Holding the carrot of a better life, a prosperous future, etc. out in front of us with the myth of the American Dream & the lie that a college education will enable you to realize the American Dream, keeps the rabble in line. It assures the corporate chieftains that the poor will risk their lives in the military, fighting in wars of invasion to enrich the corporate pirates. And the power elite manipulate, distract, & tempt us 24 hours a day with the barrage of advertising designed to keep us wanting and desiring their products that make the cockroach captains filthy rich. Meanwhile they fire us and go overseas because they can pay the Third World poor $2 per day. And they take away our health insurance & our pensions and call it the ‘free market.’ This is the ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ our young sacrifice their lives for?

Posted in Class War, Education | Tagged advertising, American Dream, back door draft, college education, consumer culture, corporate media, democracy, freedom, globalism, Iraq War, media manipulation, NAFTA | Leave a comment

My Life of Fantasy and Fear

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

If I were to subtitle this piece, it might be something like “Waking-up at Age 60?” or “Fear’s Fugitive.” And perhaps it was the turning 60 a few months back that got me to doing some serious soul searching? I’m sitting here at my dinette table in my fifth-wheel trailer, looking out my windows at the beautiful landscape surrounding me here in Trinidad, CA and I want to give some sort of accounting for what my life has been so far. This might also be a sort of apology to my ex-wife, Jeri, and my son, Ryan, for all the heartaches I have caused them.

I have done a lot of self-analysis so-to-speak, over the years in my vain attempts to figure out what was “wrong” with me. For example, I never have been able to understand why I don’t have any real friends and I feel in my heart that I’m a true friend and confide in people and am a good listener to their problems, etc. Yet, I know only one guy, Phil, and he calls me once every six months or so and only when he’s drunk.

Every great now & then, I have had fantastic, in depth conversations with a stranger or strangers in a bar and they have said things like “This is the best conversation that I’ve had in years,” but those who I feel closest to, rarely ever call me or do any of the things that regular friends seem to do? In my twenties, my “friends” in L.A. often told me that I was “too sensitive.” I have been full of self-doubt it seems for most of my life and have sometimes even questioned my own sanity. I cry at the drop of a hat and feel such empathy for people suffering that it tortures my soul but I can’t seem to get close to people?

Before I met Jeri, I never seemed to last more than four months in a relationship with a woman. Were Jeri and I living in a fantasy or was it just me? I do know that Jeri’s love for me gave me a lot more self-confidence and that I accomplished far more as an individual when I was in that relationship. I feel that the fact that she was a teacher and working on her Master’s Degree and believed in me gave me the courage or determination to push myself. And when our son was born, my life was completely transformed because I now felt a deep sense of responsibility like I had never known before. Here was a baby completely helpless and dependent on Jeri and me and watching him go through his changes as he grew gave me such joy, satisfaction, & pride that it’s hard to put down in words.

tough day at Disneyland

And as I’m sure happens with many young couples, the pressures of work & raising a child are so demanding that it puts a real strain on the relationships between husbands & wives and Jeri & I slowly drifted apart to the point where we hardly recognized one another and the once bright flame of our love flickered slowly out. We were both to blame for neglecting our relationship but I believe that the fault is mostly mine. My ego has always been fragile and it obviously couldn’t handle the compromises necessary in a marriage.

This leads me to perhaps my greatest revelation as of late e.g. I have been an escapist all my life and as I grow old and am filled with even more dread, anxiety, & worry, I know that I have to face my demons or I will definitely spend the rest of my years in sad, bitter, isolation.

Therefore, in the hope of connecting the dots of my chaotic life and perhaps empowering myself along the way, I am going to relate the significant events, factors, people, etc. that have been a part of my life. Freud developed what was originally called the “talking cure,” and somewhat tongue in cheek, maybe this is my “writing cure?” But seriously, I know that a “cure” is wishful thinking but nevertheless, this work is critical to my future happiness so it’s well worth the effort.

Jeri, Ryan, and me & my sister Darcy & her husband

To begin with, on the “fantasy” side of my life, my earliest memory is of my girlfriend, Connie Hockett, from Salem, Oregon when I was in either the first or second grade. Connie lived right next to the park at the end of the block my grama lived on and we’d swing on the swings for hours singing songs and we’d sit on the park bench and make plans for our future. We were going to get married, live in a cabin high in the Swiss Alps, and raise dogs. I guess I was a hopeless romantic from the beginning and looking back, I’m sure it was a sort of warm, cozy, security blanket for me psychologically.

I believe that maybe my seeing the Shirley Temple movie “Heidi” is what planted the desire to live in the Swiss Alps in my young mind? And the fact that my grama had some college students rent the top floor of her house and they’d left behind some stuff, including a travel journal that described their trip around Europe on motor scooters probably sealed the deal?

Also somewhere around the first or second grade—not sure because I went to the first grade twice—the wonderful world of books was opened to me thanks to my loving grama. My grandmother took me to the Salem Public Library across from the state capitol building and got me my first library card. Moreover, my grama showed me how to find my way around town by telling me to note where the gold man on top of the capitol building was, and following that landmark; she showed me the street to follow home to her house. My grama was a tough but loving lady and I’ll never forget her. She gave me independence and confidence and unconditional love.

Books became my friends and even though I didn’t realize it at the time but can now see it in the hindsight and wisdom that comes with the years, books were my escape from the ugly reality of my life.

Before I go on, I want to be clear that I don’t fault my mom completely though I know that I have always felt some bitter resentment towards her. She had me when she was only 19 years old and my biological father had gone down to California to look for work. She got scared that he might not return and married the first guy who asked her to marry him. And from what an aunt of mine told me in my late teens or early twenties, my stepfather would beat me severely as a young baby. Because of these beatings, I became terribly fearful of him and basically all men & would hide behind furniture whenever he or other men would come into the room I was in. this only made more & more sense as I have matured and tried to grasp why I have always been so fearful of people.

Furthermore, the only step-dad that I ever cared for, Don Piercey, told me when I was in my twenties, that when I was a little boy, other kids would pester me and that I preferred to play alone. He said that I’d move away from them and they’d pursue me and that I’d keep moving away from them but after awhile, I’d snap and practically try to gouge their eyes out in my ferocious anger.

our house in N. Hollywood

These two revelations regarding my earliest years have shone a spotlight on why I am the way I am. My simplistic or amateur perspective is that because I had been beaten so severely as a baby, I withdrew from others and when others wouldn’t leave me alone; I lashed out viciously and built a wall around myself for life. And in a strange, twisted, ironic, perverted sense possibly, my inner rage has been a sort of security blanket for me because I have hitch-hiked across the U.S., around Europe several times, up & down the West Coast dozens of times and although I’m always fearful, I know deep down inside that my rage will protect me e.g. I have overcome great odds such as several guys with tire irons beating on me due to my powerful rage. So I’m not afraid to go across the ocean on a one-way ticket with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy or glad about this, it’s just who I am but I would like to get closer to people and find a way to lose this rage. Maybe that’s why I fight so passionately against the corporate cockroaches that are bullying all of us?

I have always identified with the underdog and have hated bullies with a passion my whole life. I have defended family, friends, & strangers all my life and I don’t care what the odds are because I hate bullies, unfairness, or injustice with a passion that goes to the marrow of my bones. My sisters, my cousins, my “friends” will tell you that I have fought their battles and defended them against overwhelming odds as we grew up. My mom & her sisters would get together every now & then and would drop us off in a park with some spending money for candy and they always told me “Rob, you’re in charge.” I always took this responsibility seriously but wasn’t happy about having it thrust upon me. And this carried on into my twenties when my friends and I would go out nightclubbing. If a fight broke out and one of my friends was involved, I took care of it. If they were too drunk, I drove them home. I have often lamented over the years that I wished I had an older brother who would stand up for me. And this reminds me of something one of my aunts told me after my mom died, my Aunt Sylvia said that my mother told her that Jeri, my ex-wife, stood up for me no matter what and that Rob had never had that but deserved it.

Ryan & me in Scotland, August 1997

And this reminds me of something that I used to tell people about Jeri but it bugged her, “She’s my Rock of Gibraltar.” I only meant to compliment her but she was somehow offended by it? Okay, let’s return to some of the fantasy side of the ledger.

The next girlfriend I can remember was in the fourth grade and I think her name was something like Magdalene? I know she was Hispanic and we lived in Wilmington, near Long Beach in the L.A. area. And to be honest with you, I have always had a thing for Hispanic women ever since. The only memory I have of this young love was a party at her house and the fact that the song “Louie, Louie” was playing. A few years later in the sixth grade, I fell in love with Donna Bowman. Her family was from Germany and I don’t think our relationship lasted very long though I did look her up several years later when I was in the U.S. Army and she had developed into a very buxom & attractive young lady who worked at the local hospital, Rancho los Amigos.

The first, real love of my life was Teri Cobo. She was from Ecuador and she made my heart stop a beat. Teri and I never consummated our love and my insecurity caused me to break up with her several months after we became boyfriend & girlfriend. I regretted that mistake for many years. A “friend” told me that Teri was dancing with another guy at a school dance and that’s why I broke up with her.

Another fantasy of mine started when I was around seven or eight and took a test in The Reader’s Digest from Rod Serling’s writing course. They said I scored an 85 on the test but the price for the course was something we couldn’t afford so I tucked my dream away for a few years. As I went through school, other kids often asked our teachers to read my stories because I was pretty imaginative. I have entertained the dream of becoming a successful writer ever since but my inner critic has held me back for most of my life. It wasn’t until I turned 50 that I was mostly able to silence that negative voice within me. I started a major project that had been sitting on my bookshelf for nearly 17 years and once I started it was like I had opened the floodgates of my creative spirit and before I knew it, I had written over 2,000 pages but I haven’t touched it for several years now and have been focusing on my blog site for the past year. It’s probably my insecurity that has kept me from sending my writing out to publishers but I’m hopeful that I’ve reached a milestone in my life and that if I keep working on dealing with my fears, I may yet become a “successful” writer.

just south of Yachats, Oregon

I picture myself in my R.V. parked alongside the ocean, surrounded by giant Redwoods and typing away on my magnum opus. I am financially independent and no longer have to work & can devote myself full-time to my writing and I have a lovely companion who is also an artist. We stay as long as we want, wherever we want and periodically take extended trips overseas. This is my vision.

I believe my fear of my anger has been my greatest enemy. Because I fear my anger so greatly, I have quit many jobs for fear of losing my temper and saying or doing something I will really regret and I have started over so many times that I have a pretty sketchy job history and don’t command much in the way of a salary. But this is going to change because I am the master of my fate.

I am working on reprogramming my subconscious so-to-speak. My subconscious has been telling me for the better part of my life that I’m not worthy of much and I have gotten into such a habit of playing the victim that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And although I have become pretty good about putting myself down, upon reflection, I can honestly say that I have lived some of my dreams and I have many more to come.

Fear is a strange thing, on the one hand, it has kept me from becoming the kind of man I want to be but on the other hand, it hasn’t stopped me from traveling across oceans alone and with little to my name & not knowing where I was headed or how I would survive. Several times in my life I have been on a plane and just as we took off, fear reared its ugly head along with insecurity, anxiety, worry, doubt, etc. and yet, when I returned back to the U.S., I felt a new sense of power because I had survived. I’ve gone hungry for three days, slept on park benches, worked as an illegal, under the table, etc. In this regard, my fantasies were more powerful than my fears but when it comes to speaking to a large group or to a beautiful woman, I run like a coward.

Digging a bit deeper, here are some more of my fears: consciously I know it’s absurd but my subconscious tells me that one day I will be discovered for the phony that I am; I also fear that I’ll die alone in the gutter; I often worry that my son will be or is secretly ashamed of me because I have been such a loser & quitter all my life; and I don’t know exactly why but I believe that deep down inside, I have never felt worthy of true love.

my main man, Socrates! (in my fifth-wheel)

It just dawned on me that perhaps part of the reason I have trouble relating to people stems from something my mom often did whenever I brought up subjects she didn’t want to discuss as I was growing up? She’d start shaking seemingly uncontrollably and acting as if she were having a nervous breakdown until I shut up. I hope this doesn’t come across as feeling sorry for myself and come to think of it, I’m actually fortunate because at least I am beginning to unravel some of my inner demons and many people go through their entire lives the prisoner of their fears. I feel like a man who has been imprisoned all his life but senses that his day of liberation is close at hand and my soul is reaching towards the stars.

Speaking of the heavens, my search for knowledge & wisdom has probably been my greatest source of comfort & hope. To me, knowledge is a golden treasure that empowers us and opens up a world of possibilities. As a young boy, I’d devour books telling tales of adventure, fantasy, action, & science fiction. And as I became a young man, books gave me the confidence that comes from knowing that I was able to master difficult subjects. I believe knowledge can be a great equalizer if we’re given a level playing field and my next task is to put some of this knowledge I’ve worked so hard for, towards getting me the kind of job that will assure me financial independence. And the first step I need to take is to package my skills, abilities, & talents in such a manner as to make me very attractive to a worthy employer.

To resume my inventory of my fears, the death of my brother, Tim, in 1975 due to a heroin overdose, had a very profound impact upon my life. I’m not sure if this event could be classified as a fear but it definitely caused me to reevaluate my life and reflect upon what life was about. My mom commented the day of my brother’s funeral that it was the second time she ever saw me cry and since that day, I can barely contain myself from crying & often my tears flow unexpectedly & uncontrollably.

Next to my brother’s death at eighteen years old, my experience in the U.S. Army was the other seminal event of my life. I was stationed in Texas and orders came down that half of us were going to Vietnam & half of us were going to Germany. I didn’t know anything about the politics of the Vietnam War but I trusted my gut instincts and started going A.W.O.L. so the army couldn’t send me to Vietnam. I had never been so terrified in my life up until that point. I stayed here and there, asking friends if I could crash on their couches, in their garages, etc. I felt like such a bum and so alone because most of these “friends,” gave me the bum’s rush usually after a few days and the F.B.I. was after me and the entire U.S. Army told me that I would never amount to anything if I didn’t do my patriotic duty. I had scored well on the various tests the Army gave us and the Army promised me the moon in terms of promising me that I could be stationed wherever I wanted and trained in whatever I wanted. But I had witnessed how often the army lied to soldiers and didn’t believe a thing they said. So, I persisted in my A.W.O.L. escapes and after several months I was released with an undesirable discharge.

The Redwoods, my idea of Heaven on Earth

Following my experience in the army, I started a long run of Mickey Mouse jobs that were often dirty, dangerous, & low paying. I learned how low a regard most employers had for their employees and often felt like a trapped slave and felt disrespected and humiliated by many employers. I learned that those who were good at ass-kissing usually got the easy jobs and the higher pay. My pride wouldn’t let me be one of those guys and I naively believed that one day an employer would recognize my hard work, intelligence, good character, etc. and give me the opportunity to prove myself. This never came to be though and since I was single and had little in the way of bills, I’d save up a few hundred bucks and hit the open road in search of dreams & fantasies.

Many relatives and “friends” over the years accused me of being “irresponsible” and I used to believe this until I started connecting some of the dots in my life. As I mentioned earlier, I was responsible for taking care of my cousins as I grew up and I took care of my brother and sisters as well. I cooked for my brother & sisters since I was 12 years old, made them do their chores, complete their homework, etc. I protected my friends and I stood up for strangers who were being picked on by bullies or outnumbered. And now I strive to protect all those who weren’t as fortunate as me in getting an education. So, I say fuck all those who say I’m not responsible!

And speaking of “responsibility,” I recall an especially scary experience when I was looking out for all my cousins—approximately a dozen or so. We were in a liquor store buying candy before going to the park to play. My mom & her sisters were out barhopping and as usual “You’re in charge Rob!” I was taking a head-count and noted that my brother was missing. I walked out of the store and around the corner of the building and saw a woman trying to coax my brother into a car that had the passenger door open & a man behind the wheel with the engine running. I ran over and grabbed my brother’s hand and the woman had his other hand and we were in a tug of war. I started screaming and my cousins came over one by one and were helping me pull on my brother’s free arm. The woman finally gave up and hopped in the car and they left. It has occurred to me that perhaps because I had so much responsibility dumped on me from such an early age, once I became a young man in my twenties and no longer responsible for my brother & sisters, I sort of rebelled and was trying to make up for lost innocence or freedom.

where I stayed in Galicia, Spain 2008

Another fear that haunted me from an early age was a cruel step-dad by the name of Wyman Mason. He would whip us at every opportunity and for the smallest infractions. We had to wash dishes, dry dishes, clean the entire kitchen every night, sweep the floors, mop the floors, clean the bathroom, vacuum, empty the garbage, etc. and I felt like we were prisoners of war. I learned to become sneaky and would exit out the back door as he came in the front door. He was such a miser that I can only remember him buying me a single soda in the four or five years he was around. He was a redneck racist bastard from Mississippi and when the Watts riots broke out in South Central L.A., which was right across the riverbed from us, I remember him saying “Any of them god-damned niggers come near here and I’m going to blow their god-damned heads off!” I was never so happy as when he and my mom divorced. I learned years later that he had molested my sister Darcy and wasn’t that surprised considering his character. My mom clearly had poor taste in men and I was happiest when it was just her and us kids living alone without a man.

Pursuing this train of thought further, I believe that growing up in a town like Paramount also contributed significantly to my general fearfulness because Paramount was a very poor, industrially-zoned town right across the riverbed from Compton which became infamous as the home of one of America’s most notorious gangs, the C.R.I.P.S. Just about every Friday & Saturday night we’d hear sirens from either ambulances or police cars or both. Beatings, muggings, stabbings, murders, etc. were a common occurrence and I learned as I went through my adolescence that if you get in a fight, you kick their ass fast and hard and get the hell out of there as soon as possible because they’d most likely come back with a weapon and friends and then your ass was grass. In fact, we named ourselves Skid Row and took a kind of pride in our tough surroundings & poverty.

I will simply state that I’ve been in many fights in my life and they have often been very ugly. I’ve been knocked down several times but I’ve never been knocked out. And call it courage or call it stupidity but my violent childhood and teenage years gave me the confidence to walk into just about any bar anywhere in the world. I have drank in bars that were all black people, all Hispanic people, bikers, etc. and I have rarely had any trouble because I am respectful and sit by myself and drink my beer but don’t show my fear. They probably think I’m either extremely tough or stupid and therefore leave me alone?

the best job I ever had (teaching ESL at Van Nuys High)

By the way, a funny anecdote that I’d like to share with you is when I had to go to anger management. I had gotten a D.U.I. and had to go to a program called Diversion (alcohol abuse/group counseling) and because I was honest and mentioned in the initial interview that Jeri said that if I stopped drinking and went to anger management, perhaps we could work out our differences & save our marriage. As soon as I said this the counselor mandated that I had to attend Anger management group counseling as well as the alcohol group. I felt this was bullshit because I had no charges or record regarding anger issues.

Anyway, my anger management group was all guys and a female “counselor.” One of our assignments was to write about every fight we had ever been in and the consequences. Well I’ve always been into writing and I take all assignments seriously and ended up writing something like 25 pages on the subject. We usually got through at least two guys reading what they wrote and the counselor would use their experiences to counsel us about the triggers, consequences, etc. related to anger. Well, when it came to my turn one night, I was the first and I kept reading and before I finished, the counselor stopped me because I was taking up too much of the group’s time and one of the guys in the group said “No, let him go on, this is better than T.V.” Everybody cracked-up but she didn’t let me finish.

Changing the subject, it dawned on me this morning that books are more than just an escape for me. I believe that in the back of my mind, I have a fantasy that if I keep on searching long enough & hard enough, someday I will find the knowledge that will set me free i.e. bring me a great career, help me find my soul mate, & bring me peace which is what I believe is my main goal in life. I also dream of meeting a beautiful woman whom I feel intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, & physically in tune with. She will have her own home and be some kind of artist as well and we will travel in my fifth wheel and take occasional trips to foreign lands.

Paradoxically, a part of me is somewhat fearful of the coming changes I hope to make. I keep thinking of a quote by Rainer Maria Rilke who was a friend of Nietzsche’s, he said that he was afraid that if he got rid of his demons, he would lose his angels as well. I don’t know if this is my subconscious fighting to keep things the same and talk me out of attempting these changes but I can’t help but wonder if all the stress, turmoil, chaos, etc. in my past & present isn’t what drives me creatively?

my greatest accomplishment

To return to some more of my fear/anger experiences etc., I already mentioned the impact my brother’s death had on me but I should also mention that I have attended several friends’ funerals over the years and have often wondered why it wasn’t me who died? I have come close to death several times. Let’s see, I was hit by a car when I was around seven years old, I almost drowned at the Wedge in Newport, CA, I’ve had my head caved-in with tire irons, had baseball bats upside my head, been shot at, had knives pulled on me, etc. My simplistic theory is that some of us have a stronger instinct for survival and perhaps because I have some calling or destiny to do something special with my life is the reason I haven’t gone yet?

Unquestionably, one of the most frightening experiences of my life was when I went to L.A. County jail and Wayside Honor Rancho for selling two ounces of pot to two undercover agents. I feel that fear & anger are interrelated and that’s why I’m including some of my scariest life experiences in this essay. In L.A. County jail, I was one of six guys in a four-man cell and had to sleep on a thin mattress under one of the bunks. My stupid, loud-mouthed friend was in County with me because he’d told me that he knew the two guys I sold the pot to and they busted us both. Anyway, David, my “friend,” was a little guy with long hair and he was in another cell and he told me that an older guy kept on making passes at him and I was going to stand up for David but a cellmate warned me that everyone had to fight their own battles in jail or it could get even worse for David. Luckily nothing ever came of it and after a week we were shipped up to Wayside Honor Rancho across from Magic Mountain just north of L.A. about 30 miles or so. Even though I had no record of violence, they put me in maximum security, which was a large dorm of about a hundred bunk beds. It too was extremely overcrowded and again I got a thin mattress and was told to place it between two single beds. A black guy started screaming at me because he didn’t want to be crowded and I didn’t want any trouble so I found a bunk-bed and placed my mattress underneath it so I wouldn’t be in anybody’s way. They didn’t bother to separate out the extremely violent inmates from the relatively harmless ones like David & myself who got busted for pot. There were murderers, rapists, you name it, in this giant cage that was my prison for a week. And one of the rules was that if you didn’t eat everything on your plate, you had to scrub floors for hours. I was never so happy as when I was released from that Hell-hole and I was such a fool that I even paid the bail for David and he never paid me back. My life of crime e.g. selling pot, lasted two days and cost me quite a lot which was probably a good thing or I might have progressed to more serious things?

The Oregon coast!

And speaking of high prices paid, one of the things that has hurt me the deepest over the course of my life is the fact that I’ve been in love several times before I met Jeri and they were deeply in love with me as well but because they felt that I wasn’t “ambitious,” I’ve had several girlfriends leave me and break my heart.

Perhaps the pursuit of wealth is just not in my DNA or maybe because of my brother’s death & the U.S. Army trying to send me to Vietnam that caused me to reevaluate or distrust any of the common wisdom, common sense, or way we are supposed to live our lives? But as you can see (I hope?), I have indeed paid a heavy price. And I’m either extremely stupid or I have tremendous perseverance.

I like to believe that I’m a bulldog and romanticize that my life-long pursuit of knowledge will one day pay off and I don’t just mean financially but that I will be vindicated. I often feel that others may think me the fool but I am proud for example that even though it took me 14 years to earn a bachelor’s degree in English literature & several family members & “friends,” called me a loser, quitter, etc., I finished it. Of course after I earned my B.A., those same people tried telling me that they knew I could do it. Yeah, right! I did it despite their negativity and with no emotional support from them. Bottom-line, even if all the knowledge I’ve spent my life acquiring never makes me a wealthy person, I am already rich in knowledge and my knowledge reassures me because it’s always there for me like a close friend who continually reassures me & encourages me to keep on going and to believe in myself. I’ve been saying to people for the past few years that I feel sort of like a modern day Don Quixote chasing windmills and I think this is a good metaphor to describe myself.

I still dream of sailing the South Pacific

In conclusion, I have often felt sort of like a fugitive from life, fearful, angry, worried, etc. but hope springs eternal and perhaps I’m getting close to finding that peace, security, & calm that we all seek? I hope that this exploration of my past may bring some understanding & possibly even help Jeri & Ryan to know me on a deeper level? And if my life experiences can serve as an inspiration or lesson to even a single person, this essay will have been worth the effort of writing it down.

Addendum

The following are some nuggets I’ve gleaned from “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers, Ph. D. (felt these might add some clarification re: the experiences, and other factors in my life?)

o I believe it’s primarily an educational problem (fear)

o A wonderful sense of relief & calm I’d never felt before

o I unlearned the thinking that had been keeping me a prisoner

o I’m not promising that change is easy

o Exercises to help you unravel the complexities of fear

o Raise your self-esteem, become more assertive, make your dreams a reality

o A part of you knows that there is a lot of wonderful “stuff” within you

o …opening the door to the power & love within

o fear can be broken down into three levels

o level two fears involve the ego

o you protect yourself & thus limit yourself

o you shut down and close out the world around you

o the biggest fear of all—that you can’t handle whatever life might bring you

o everytime you feel afraid, remind yourself it is simply because you’re not feedling good enough about yourself

o Truth One: the fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow

o Truth Two: the only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it

o “When I feel better about myself then I’ll do it” (common rationalization)

o Truth three: the only way to feel better about myself is to go out and do it

o Truth four: everyone else feels the fear too

o Exercise: say the Fear truths ten times a day

o Truth five: pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness

o You live with a sense of dread far more severe than the fear you feel if you take the risk

o We can’t escape fear but we can turn it into a companion, an adventure

o You have the Power to do what is necessary for your own self-growth

o The truth is that Love & Power go together

o Your subconscious believes only what it hears, not what is true

o Take a risk a day

o Most of us are filled with old conditioning that is keeping us weak

o Are you a victim or are you taking responsibility for your life?

o They have given their power to someone or something else

o You are your own worst enemy

o Until you fully understand that you are responsible for what goes on inside your head, you will never be in control of your life

o Taking responsibility means not blaming yourself

o You must be patient with yourself

o Anger is your clue that you are not taking responsibility

o List of signs that you are not taking responsibility (anger, upset, blaming others, pain, vengeance, lack of focus, self-pity, envy, helplessness, constant state of limbo, impatience, joylessness, fatigue, intimidation, attempt to control others, obsessiveness, addictions, judgmentalness, disappointment, jealousy)

o Your inner chatterbox is making you a victim

o Payoffs and perpetuating the negatives in our lives

o Affirmations are one of the most powerful tools for building self-confidence

o Taking responsibility means figuring out what you want in life and acting on it

o Many of us spend our lives waiting

o The key is : commitment, clear goals, & action

o At every moment you are choosing the way you feel

o The key is not to blame others for your being upset

o In every situation there are at least 30 options

o See if you can go one week without criticizing or complaining

o Avoid blaming yourself for not being in control

o Postitive thinking is one of the most difficult concepts to get across

o 90% of what we worry about never happens

o why be miserable when you can be happy?

o Nothing is realistic or unrealistic

o Stop feeding yourself negative thoughts

o The intellect acts in the same way as our muscles e.g. use it or lose it

o Your library of self-help books as an incredible support system

o Use positive quotes

o An Affirmation is self-talk in its highest form

o Out-talk your Negativity

o Repeat Affirmations in front of the mirror

o Don’t listen to negative news the first thing in the morning or the last thing at night (until you’ve developed the habit of positive thinking—a month approximately)

o Your whole world will turn around

o Positive thinking does not deny the pain & suffering in the world

o Denial creates inactivity

o It’s extremely important to have a support group in your life

o You have to go out and create the kind of support system you want

Trinidad, CA

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Anger, Power and the Fear of Success

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

my new home in Trinidad, CA

First and foremost, this isn’t a self-pity party. This is a humble attempt at a sort of writing therapy. The older I get, the more worried I become at how I’m going to end my days e.g. lonely, desperate, broken or happy, healthy and with a sense of fulfillment? As I was taking stock of my life’s puzzle the other day, the phrase “fear of success” popped into my mind. I did a little reading on the subject years ago but didn’t follow through or pursue it seriously. And perhaps because I just turned 60, I am now ready to do something about my life situation? I know that I can’t keep on doing the kind of work that I do and to be honest, nor do I wish to. I want the last chapter of my life to be devoted to pursuing my creative projects.

I have been a caregiver of one sort or another for a good portion of my life. And my compassion for others has been the hallmark of my life. But it’s time that I focus that compassion inward and attempt to heal myself. I was speaking to Jeri, my ex-wife on the phone last week and I told her that it’s ridiculous for me to be working for minimum wage at my age and with all my qualifications. I feel that I’ve been my own worst enemy or have been holding myself back for all these years.

In a cursory scanning of a few articles on the “fear of success,” I noted a few things that jumped out at me. Fear of success is closely linked with the fear of failure and anger is a common factor that prevents many people from pursuing their dreams. That word “anger” practically jumped off the page and slapped me across the face. I have been afraid of my anger for most of my life and it has been like a monster that I keep caged inside of me. I had several step-dads growing up but there was only one that I loved and his name was Don Piercey. Don told me once when I was somewhere in my twenties that when I was a little boy, I’d often play by myself and when other kids would bug me, I’d move away but if they kept bugging me, I’d lash out viciously and practically try to gouge their eyes out.

This anger was always a mystery to me until an aunt of mine told me that when I was just a baby, my step-dad, whose last name I have, would beat me severely and that I’d hide behind furniture whenever he or any other man would enter the room. I have always been a loner and I retreated into the world of books at a very early age. Books became my best friends and were always there to take me away to make-believe worlds of fantasy and adventure. Books never hurt me and were a comfort when my reality was too painful.

Then when I was first starting junior college, I heard that as a student, you could visit the college therapist for one free visit. I was having a lot of self-doubts because friends had been telling me for quite some time that I was “too sensitive.” The therapist basically said B.S. that’s like saying you’re hair is too brown. You’re either sensitive or you’re not. She also said that I was constantly giving my power away. I didn’t know what she meant by this but I’ve been pondering it ever since. I think I know now? I often make self-deprecating or self-effacing remarks probably in an attempt to put myself down before anyone else can so as to not be hurt by others.

I recently moved to a beautiful little town called Trinidad and I commented to a young co-worker that I didn’t feel worthy to be living in such a beautiful community by the sea. And this fits the pattern of my life e.g. I have always felt unworthy whenever fortune has smiled upon me. I feel like a fugitive sometimes and like people will find me out and I’ll be publicly humiliated because I don’t belong, am not worthy, etc. I have felt like an outsider for most of my life and the pieces are slowly coming together.

In the first article that I read on the fear of success, the author stated “There are payoffs for holding onto less-than-successful realities and failing to change…for example; what emotions am I not willing to release? For many it is anger.” This is so true of me. I recall with shame, my wedding night when my wife first saw the beast within me. In brief, two uninvited guests tried to molest my sister, had been causing all sorts of trouble, went after my sister’s ex-boyfriend with a knife, etc. and I hurt them bad and it was vicious and ugly and the cops came and we just barely got away and when we left for Europe on our honeymoon the next day, I didn’t know if I had killed them or not.

So yes, my anger scares me but it’s long past time that I wrestled with it because it has been holding me back for far too long. I recently quit a job in Oregon that was paying a fairly decent wage, because again, I was afraid of my anger and thought it better to quit than to tell my supervisor what I thought of her. She had been treating me like her personal whipping-boy for over two years and I dreaded the thought of working another day with her and here I am working for minimum wage for a flaky agency.

In conclusion, this article has given me hope because the author claims that if we work on ourselves and can forgive ourselves, we can move on and find success. Part of me has been afraid to seriously pursue my dreams because if I failed after trying to realize a dream it would be just too crushing a defeat. So I prefer to just talk and write about my dreams but there I go again with the self-deprecating remarks/criticism of myself. I have lived several of my dreams and I have channeled a lot of my anger into the study of politics because I want to protect the poor, the working class, the down and out against the corporate bullies who are oppressing all of us. I know it sounds very grandiose but one must dream boldly if one is to summon up the energy to say something worthy. And I have written over 2,000 pages on my magnum opus and one of my greatest dreams is to see it published and to make a difference for the positive in this oftentimes-cruel world!

P.S. I learned severa years ago that my family’s ancestry dates back to 12th century Ireland and that my ancestor was a soldier in Richard the Lionhearted’s army and intervened when an assassin attempted to kill Richard the Lionhearted by chopping the assassin’s head off. Perhaps protecting others is in my blood?

Posted in autobiography | Tagged anger, autobiography, fear of failure, fear of success, Power, self reflection | Leave a comment

The Free Marketplace of Ideas & Democracy

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

John Milton

[T] hough all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play on the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?

—John Milton, 1644

The inspiration for this essay came from a recent story on Democracy Now! Titled “As Obama, Romney Hold First Debate, Behind the Secret GOP-Dem Effort to Shut Out Third Parties” televised on Oct. 3, 2012. It was quite an eye-opening story. The guest’s name was George Farah who is the founder and executive director of “Open Debates,” and the author of “No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates,” for this reason & several others which I will discuss, my argument is that America is but a hollow shell pretending to be a democracy.

He’s the one who didn’t put the toilet seat down!

For the most part, I have lost my naïveté regarding all things political in America but this information did come as somewhat of a revelation as to just how pernicious or corrupt our so-called democracy has become. Here are a few of the highlights that Mr. Farah revealed in his interview with Amy Goodman:

The presidential debates used to be run by The League of Women Voters but the GOP & the Dems colluded and took over because the League wouldn’t compromise their true democratic principles
President Carter absolutely opposed independent candidate, John Anderson’s participation in the presidential debates. The League stood up to Carter’s demand and President Carter refused to show up and the League held the debate anyway and it was watched by 56 million Americans
Four years later the Mondale & Reagan campaign teams vetoed 80 of the moderators the League had proposed for the debates
The League held a press conference revealing these facts and the Dems & the GOP were forced to back down due to public outcry
Four years later, Dukakis & George Bush drew up a 12-page secret debate contract and asked the League to implement it, the League refused to because it dictated the terms of the format of the debates. Instead, the League released the contract to the public and held a press conference accusing the candidates of “perpetrating a fraud on the American people” and refused to be an accessory
A year earlier, the Republican and the Democratic parties had ratified an agreement to “take over the presidential debates” and they created this artifice, the Commission on Presidential Debates and ever since, we’ve had this commission in charge/control of the debates
The contract specifies that the candidates cannot actually ask each other any questions during the debates; no third party candidates are allowed to participate, the make-up of the audience, etc.
The heads of this commission are the chairs of the respective political parties and Frank Fahrenkopf, the chair of the Republican party, is also the director of the American Gaming Association, the nation’s leading gambling lobbyist
The other co-chair of this commission is Mike McCurry, former press secretary to Bill Clinton and also a lobbyist on behalf of the telecommunications industry. They have demonstrated time & time again, a willingness to sacrifice the interests of the American people for private, political, and financial interests
This Commission on Presidential Debates gets the vast majority of its money from major businesses that support it. Anheuser-Busch is the biggest contributor

I included these details regarding the details behind our so-called presidential debates because this is my central argument i.e. the president of America is arguably the most important position not only in America but also in the world. The United States is not only by far the most powerful military in the world especially since Russia’s collapse but we are also the most powerful economy. And to have these debates so controlled/limited in such a shallow, staged manner makes a mockery out of what democracy is supposed to be. The “questions” are selected, designed so the candidates can avoid revealing their weaknesses, their ignorance, and their hypocritical stands e.g. Romney claiming to be a jobs creator when in fact he’s a jobs destroyer. Obama can pose as the champion of the working class when he in fact is the champion of Wall St. and has not prosecuted them for all the harm they’ve done to America and appointed three of the biggest crooks (Summers, Geithner, Bernanke) to the top positions in terms of shaping our economic policies.

These presidential debates are an elaborate public relations campaign clearly designed to dupe us into thinking there are major differences between the two candidates. I don’t enjoy being the bearer of bad news but somebody has to do it especially when we have a lap dog, corporate media that does nothing but lie and manipulate the facts and the news. I remember what a big deal the republicans made of John Kerry’s so-called “flip-flopping” when he was running for president but he was as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar compared to Romney who flip-flops every time he opens his mouth. Romney obviously caught Obama off guard in the first debate because he had once again completely reversed himself on every position. I was confident that Obama’s superior rhetorical skills would mop the floor with Romney but obviously, Obama’s advisors have so ham-strung him by telling him what subjects he couldn’t discuss e.g. Romney’s not revealing his tax returns, his tenure at Bain Capital, his flip-flopping, etc. that Obama was but a pale shadow of his normal self in speechmaking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not voting for either one of them, I am sick to my stomach at the whole process and don’t buy the lesser of two evils argument anymore. As long as we keep allowing them to move the goal posts farther and farther to the right, the worse things are getting. Facts and truth have absolutely nothing to do with this three-ring circus and each candidate ignores the questions, no matter how soft they are and just pontificates about what he’d do as president. Lies heaped upon lies and we are supposed to feel proud and patriotic?

need I remind you of how few of those changes he made?

In conclusion my friend, like in ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy, the rich and powerful men feared the truth and that’s why they silenced Socrates, the father of western philosophy. Socrates made the rich uncomfortable with his courageous defense of and seeking for the truth. We have sunk to an almost three thousand year low in western civilization and I fear for the survival of our species. The corporate cockroaches are running the world and we are but ugly, annoying eyesores as far as they are concerned. It’s all a dog and pony show or a circus maximus, an appropriate analogy to the Roman empire as the American empire rapidly disintegrates with our loss of liberty here at home and our expansion around the globe. Our military is the handmaiden to the power elite as we invade one country after another in a never-ending series of wars, police actions, etc. to rape, pillage, & plunder the resources of the world.

The Death of Socrates who spoke at the powerful in the birthplace of Democracy.

And like the charade called “the free market,” we don’t have anything even remotely resembling a free market of ideas. I was hopeful for a bit when the Occupy Wall St. movement sprang up but the wealthy soon stomped them into the ground and wouldn’t even allow them to use amplified sound to speak at their gatherings. Contrast that with the Tea Party movement where they could use amplified sound and even carry guns. If you’re a member of the Occupy Movement, you’re not even allowed to carry a backpack.

America is dying and it’s our own damn fault because we have been asleep at the wheel. FOX News has been allowed to do nothing but spew-out propaganda 24/7 and like Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Goebbels, they have succeeded in brainwashing millions of ignorant Americans. The major network and cable news channels follow in lockstep and even the so-called bastion of “liberal thought” the New York Times, beat the war drums for our invasion of Iraq louder than all except FOX News. Our soldiers should be fighting here at home to defend democracy in America, not overseas where they die for oil and for the profit of the greedy bastards who have no loyalty to America and discard our soldiers like yesterday’s newspaper when they return home. Wake-up America, the sun is sinking and twilight is fast approaching on our so-called democracy!

Without the free & open debate about the life-changing issues affecting America, the public is slowly persuaded that the “experts” on FOX “News” are right and there are always two sides to an issue and no matter how absurd the other “side’s” claim, it is equally valid. This timidity when it comes to standing up on one’s hind legs and calling Bull-shit, has allowed the craven & cowardly who call themselves “Conservatives,” to bully us into a corner. Issues such as public education, health care, military spending, foreign wars, have thousands of points of view and not all of them are equally valid.

I had to complete a ridiculous half unit course in order to earn my Bachelor of Arts in English Literature but there was one valuable thing I learned in this six-week course, which showed us where the library was, etc. after I’d been attending the university for two years. In a simple, thin handbook they gave us, there was a paragraph or two which pointed out that basically the closest we can come to finding out the truth about something is to 1) check the author’s credentials; 2) find out what other authorities in the discipline have to say about the author.

But in this topsy-turvy world full of Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks, FOX News, WalMart, infotainment, anti-intellectualism, etc. any moron can spout off whatever gibberish, fear mongering, racist rants they want to and nobody calls them on it. Why do you think it’s primarily the Right-wing nuts that dominate television & radio? Yeah, I know, another conspiracy nut. But think about it, could it be that these ignorant, racist, bigoted, anti-feminist, homophobic, war-mongering blowhards’ points of view don’t bother the corporate media’s owners because they deflect the public’s attention away from the crimes of their corporate owners?

The very core of what a Democracy is supposed to be is that the citizens have a voice in how their government i.e. their country, is run. And without a voice, the public are not participants in a Democracy but mere spectators. It is not a conspiracy theory to point out the rather obvious ownership of the U.S. media is in the hands of five corporations that are de facto conglomerates often with interlocking boards, C.EO.s, stockholders, etc. and there is enough evidence to fill a full set of encyclopedias, to prove clear as a bell that they, the owners, the vast majority of politicians, etc. collude with each other in keeping us dumbed-down and distracted. Consider the “variety” we’re offered on our hundreds of channels to choose from: “Reality shows;” sports 24/7; soap operas; sit-coms; cops & robbers shows; mini-series such as “The Walking Dead”; etc. Is it any wonder that so many Americans have little to no idea on subjects such as global warming, fracking, possibilities of nuclear war, etc.? It’s time we grew up and faced our responsibilities as citizens of the most powerful and hence dangerous nation on the planet by informing ourselves, spreading our knowledge, & standing up to the power elite, the plutocracy, the oligarchy or whatever you want to call it!

And perhaps if we took this responsibility much more seriously, just perhaps, we could put a stop to this absurd charade we call the presidential debates where they avoid every issue of true significance in order to pose & pretend to be “presidential looking” but don’t tell us or teach us about anything worth a damn!

Good luck and persevere!

—Rob DeLoss

John Milton (1608-1674)

P.S. As the quote that I started this essay with said in other words, what’s there to worry about? The power of truth has nothing to fear from lies, censorship, propaganda, etc. let’s be open to debate and hold each other accountable to a much higher standard of truth, honesty, no circuses, and passionate but civilized debate and argument.

Addendum

I wanted to end this essay on a hopeful note but my conscience won’t let me. It’s 5:30 A.M. Nov. 5, 2012 and tomorrow we may find that the most powerful nation on Earth is led by not only a habitual liar but a pathological liar. I started this essay over a month ago but only finished it a couple of days ago because quite frankly, my creative energies are almost dried-up due to my daily struggles to get by financially. I am forced to work two part-time jobs that pay barely above the minimum wage and have no benefits. This state of affairs is due mainly to what George H.W. Bush dubbed “a kinder & gentler nation” and his son Dubya referred to as “Compassionate Conservatism,” and the complete lack of principles or spine on the part of the Democratic party. It dawned on me as I lay in bed unable to sleep due to my insomnia that America may find itself ruled by a male reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. Romney’s comments captured on video regarding the 47% of Americans who see themselves as victims and who are basically leeches on the liberal government’s social welfare programs is truly breathtaking in that it reveals in as clear a manner as is possible, the utter contempt & disdain for the American public as Marie Antoinette’s reply when the people of France were begging for bread.

If there was a competition in the Guinness Book of Records, Romney would have to be the world champion of liars and it really depresses the Hell out of me to know that perhaps 50% or more of my fellow Americans can actually believe that Romney should be our next president. Romney is the real life embodiment of the character, Gordon Gecko, in Oliver Stone’s first movie, Wall St. And like Gordon Gecko, Romney’s business model is to swoop on companies in trouble financially, buy the majority of shares in the company so as to be able to take over the management of the company, take out huge loans which the company is liable for, reward himself for his efforts handsomely, then chop the company off and sell it off piece by piece and putting the employees out of work and leaving the company a dead carcass with taxpayers footing the bill. And this is what he calls “job creation.” How have we come to such dire straits that a vulture capitalist like Mitt Romney could dupe half the citizens of the United States? First of all, a channel like FOX News that is allowed to spew forth lies 24/7 with little to no outcry on the part of journalists, academic leaders, or Congressional outrage. I refer to FOX News as the fear & hate mongering propaganda channel. Secondly, we have the corporate media that calls itself the mainstream media but is actually a lapdog to the power elite. And thirdly, we have a crumbling public education system which has been systematically destroyed from within and from without by “compassionate conservatives,” who prefer to keep the public ignorant and thus more easily managed, and from lackluster liberals who like Obama, go into every battle just wanting to compromise and play nice.

As I laid in my bed trying to go back to sleep, the book and the documentary “The Corporation: the pathological pursuit of profit and power” popped into my head and struck me like a lightning bolt, that’s Mitt Romney! Here’s a comment from my hero, Noam Chomsky, on the book:

This fine book was virtually begging to be written. With lucidity and verve, expert knowledge and incisive analysis, Joel Bakan unveils the history and the character of a devilish instrument that has been created and is nurtured by powerful modern states. They have endowed their creature with the rights of persons — and by now, rights far exceeding persons of flesh and blood — but a person that is pathological by nature and by law, and systematically crushes democracy, freedom, rights, and the natural human instincts on which a decent life and even human survival depends: the modern corporation. This incisive study should be read carefully, and pondered. And it should be a stimulus to constructive action — not at all beyond our means, as the author outlines.”
– Noam Chomsky

Here is a checklist of the clinical diagnostic checklist of the traits of a sociopath, reflect, if you will, on Romney, the Super Banks that played such a significant part in the world-wide economic collapse of 2008, Enron, and the thousands of corporations who commit fraud daily, as you read this list:

The science of exploitation

To determine the kind of personality that drives the corporation to behave like an externalising machine, we can analyse it like a psychiatrist would a patient. We can even formulate a diagnosis on the basis of typical case histories, of harm inflicted on others, selected from a universe of corporate activity.

	Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
	Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
	Harm to human health
	Reckless disregard for the safety of others, harm to animals
	Deceitfulness and repeated lying and conning others for profit

	Incapacity to experience guilt
	Harm to environment
	Failure to conform to social norms with respect to to lawful behaviours, ie obey the law if its cost effective, business decisions based on economics
	Unaccountable to nobody except itself – the biosphere is in decline, all the animals are in decline through pollution and loss of habitat.

Finally, yes I know this is profoundly depressing but our usual reaction of denying it and distracting ourselves allows this pervasive corporate criminal behavior to go on. So, bottom-line, it’s up to us to save ourselves and if we don’t make the effort, we have no one to blame but ourselves! And I couldn’t resist sharing one last gift with those of you who are true seekers of knowledge:

Marketplace of ideas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The “marketplace of ideas” is a rationale for freedom of expression based on an analogy to the economic concept of a free market. The “marketplace of ideas” belief holds that the truth will emerge out of the competition of ideas in free, transparent public discourse. This concept is often applied to discussions of patent law as well asfreedom of the press and the responsibilities of the media in a liberal democracy.

The marketplace of ideas metaphor was first developed by John Stuart Mills in his book, “On Liberty” in 1859. It was later used in opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States. The first reference to the “free trade in ideas” within “the competition of the market” appears in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.‘s dissent in Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919). The phrase “marketplace of ideas” first appears in a concurring opinion by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. from 1965.^[1]

The general idea that free speech should be tolerated because it will lead toward the truth has a long history.^[2] The English poet John Milton suggested that restricting speech was not necessary because “in a free and open encounter,” truth would prevail.^[3] U.S. President Thomas Jefferson argued that it is safe to tolerate “error of opinion … where reason is left free to combat it.”^[4] Fredrick Siebert echoed the idea that free expression is self-correcting in Four Theories of the Press: “Let all with something to say be free to express themselves. The true and sound will survive. The false and unsound will be vanquished. Government should keep out of the battle and not weigh the odds in favor of one side or the other.”^[5] These writers did not rely on the economic analogy to a market.

In recent years questions have arisen regarding the existence of markets in ideas. Several scholars have noted differences between the way ideas are produced and consumed and the way more traditional goods are produced and consumed.^[6] It has also been argued that the idea of the marketplace of ideas as applied to religion “incorrectly assumes a level playing field” among religions.^[7] In addition, the idea of a marketplace of ideas has been applied to the study of scientific research as a social institution.

Posted in In the news | Tagged 2012 election, corporate media, infotainment, marketplace of ideas, Mitt Romney, oligarchy, plutocracy, President Obama, presidential debates, public education, reality television, true Democracy | Leave a comment

A Very Special Experience

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

Ryan in museum in Athens

It had been a very rough year. My mother had passed away on Halloween of 1996, two days after my birthday & I had to deal with my two sisters & my nephew while dealing with an incompetent probate lawyer, real estate vultures, AT&T lying through their teeth and claiming mom didn’t have any pension, etc. I was glad that I had convinced my Aunt Sylvia to be co-executor with me because we had to both co-sign every check, etc. and I knew my sisters would accuse me of cheating them.

I got my first real chunk of money from an insurance policy my mom had and thought that this would be a great opportunity to hopefully instill the travel bug in Ryan, my son. He’d be a teenager in a couple of years and would start pulling away from me & want to hang out with his friends much more than me so I struck while the kettle was hot so-to-speak. I had big dreams for Ryan since he was born & unfortunately, home schooling didn’t work out so I saw this as an opportunity for him and me to have a very special experience together. So I bought us Eurail passes and tickets to Europe for the month of August. It was 1997 and Ryan & I were both very excited about the adventure before us. I tried to convince Jeri to let me take the video camera with us but she was a ding-a-ling and trusted me to take our son to Europe but not the video camera. Oh well? My major concern was Ryan’s asthma so we went to the asthma specialists’ office and told him of our plans & the doctor started him on a reduced level of prednisone a few weeks before we left & this was suppose to build up his immune system. The following is from the travel journal that I kept during our trip. Ryan also kept a journal but I’ve never seen it. I bet it’d be interesting to read?

Well, the first leg of the flight wasn’t bad. I was disappointed though that Aunt Vi & La Dawn weren’t at the Detroit airport to meet us. The second part of the flight from Detroit to London was miserable though. We couldn’t sleep due to the loudness of the engines and I was particularly uncomfortable due to the lack of legroom and rudeness of a woman behind me.

She said, “I know you’re just trying to get comfortable but I just wanted to let you know that you have only so far to go back because I’m resting my head on the tray in front of me.” In other words she was telling me I couldn’t recline my chair because her comfort was more important. And the person in front of me had reclined their chair so, I was as cramped as a sardine. As usual, I didn’t say anything but just sat there in discomfort & stewed.

Another unsettling aspect was that just as we were taxiing out to the runway, we came to a stop and the captain said that a mechanic had spotted some leaking hydraulic fluid and that we needed to have it checked out.

We arrived at Gatwick airport and I commented to Ryan that I had never seen such poor service by stewardesses. They never smiled and we’d asked for water or something and they’d forget all about us. Oh well, their loss. I won’t fly Northwest Airlines again.

We breezed through Customs and caught a train for Brighton. We then caught a bus from the train station to the youth hostel. And as usual, I was being an asshole to Ryan because I was tired and aggravated. We went to bed at 5 P.M. and were constantly awakened by the rude jerks that shared our room.

We woke at 5 A.M. and quietly moved our stuff out into the hallway and took showers and left. We discovered at the bus stop that a bus probably wouldn’t be by until 8 A.M. and tried using the phone booth nearby but it didn’t work. We hitchhiked & got a ride in less than ten minutes. It was a lorry-driver who gave us a ride and his name was Tony. He gave us a ride to about six or seven blocks from the train station. We saw a little café and since Ryan was asking me before we even went to bed the night before if we could have a big breakfast, we ordered a traditional English breakfast. It consisted of an egg, beans, and two slices of bacon, a banger and a slice of buttered bread. They don’t ask how you’d like your eggs done and the bacon was under-cooked and the banger was over-cooked and the café was a dingy hole-in-the wall but the meal hit the spot.

We then caught a train for London and when we arrived at Victoria Station we learned that trains were leaving for Edinburgh every hour but we had to take the Tube to Kings Cross train station.

The weather since we arrived had been very muggy and I still was uptight from the jet lag and the terrible night’s sleep at the hostel. So, I wasn’t ready to tackle London yet. We caught the train to Edinburgh and it only took a little over four hours and was a pleasant journey.

inside Edinburgh castle

When we arrived in Edinburgh we went to the Accommodations office and waited in line. The cheapest room available was $100 per night and the youth hostel was full. We decided to put our packs in baggage storage and do a little sightseeing and Ryan was anxious to do some shopping.

Edinburgh Castle

wax figures inside Edinburgh Castle

We walked up to the Castle and it was quite a view of Edinburgh from the top of the Castle. We did a little window-shopping after our tour of the Castle and then went back to the train station to catch a train to Glasgow. We figured we’d try to call Chris Lever’s brother in Greenock to see if we could pay him a visit and rest up from the road.

When we got to Glasgow and called Chris’s brother he said we could come by for a couple of hours but that he didn’t have the accommodations to put us up for the night. I felt this was kind of cold so I said that maybe we’d stop by on our way back from Inverness.

Atop Edinburgh Castle

We then checked to see if there were any trains to Inverness but there weren’t. We tried calling the youth hostel & several hostels but they were all filled-up. A ticket person told us to take the Tube a few stops to an area called High Hill because they had several places with rooms for rent. We asked at a bookstore and the woman directed us to a Cecil st. but we couldn’t find it. We did find a couple of places that rented rooms but they had no vacancies.

I was struck by the number of women out walking alone or with another woman. A lot of beautiful women and a trippy area. Several nightclubs with jazz, blues, and rock & roll. A couple of record shops with some very old album covers from the 60s. We gave up and went back to the train station. I must add that Edinburgh did have a room for $100 a night but I didn’t want to pay that much. And there was a room in Glasgow for $66 a night but it was so late we didn’t think it was worth it. We caught the last train back to Edinburgh and thought we’d be able to catch a train going somewhere and sleep on the train overnight. But again, no such luck. This woman at the train station ticket office suggested that we talk to the station manager and we did. He was sympathetic and said that he’d find someplace for us to spend the night but it was difficult because there was a lot of construction going on once they closed down at midnight.

He said it’d be around 1 A.M. before he could help us and it was about 11:30 P.M. at present. We went to try to find something to snack on but everything was closed down. I saw a bar and told Ryan to wait with the packs just inside the bar so I could keep an eye on him. I stepped up to the bar and an employee came up and said, “I’m sorry sir, but we can’t have children in the bar.” I said that I just wanted to order a little food and we’d leave shortly. He said, “no problem.” We had a couple bags of chips and were sitting on the cement just outside the bar when the same guy came by and after asking about our plight, told us about a youth hostel near by. He said he’d try to call them for us and be right back and he was. The phone line was busy each time he’d call and so he directed us how to walk there.

We tried but couldn’t find the place. We did see the fireworks display from the Castle. And again, I was surprised at the number & quality of the women who were out and about. We went back to the station manager’s office & he showed us to the travel centre office, which was closed down. There was a row of padded chairs long enough for me and a row long enough for Ryan. A potted plant separated us and we slept head to head. I told Ryan to wake me if he needed anything and we hugged each other goodnight.

The manager said that the office opened at 7 A.M. and we thought fine because the train for Inverness left at 9:30 A.M. I heard a few noises in the morning and people talking but nodded back off. When I did wake up it was 8:30 A.M. and people were lining up in the ticket office not 30 ft. away. But where we were was still dark and the door between the offices was wide open just as the night before. I went to the toilet and again had to pay 40 cents and then I woke Ryan up. He had peed in an empty water bottle during the night.

He went to the toilet and the woman told him to crawl under the turnstile rather than pay. We bought sandwiches, chips or “crisps” as they call them and a bottle of water and waited for the train to Inverness. We caught the train and passed through some very beautiful country which included several bodies of water with some lovely cottages and a bridge that resembled the Golden Gate Bridge, several cemeteries, and lush fields of grass that looked more like green carpet than grass.

I had read an article and I thought that it had highly recommended Perth and so we got off there. I thought why rush it, we still had almost a week on our Britrail passes and had been through a lot of stress in our first few days.

We couldn’t put our packs in lockers because the lockers were all full. We set off to explore the town and stopped in a café to have a hot meal. We ordered breakfast and instead of Black Pudding (fried lamb blood) we got extra sausage. We then walked around for a while but almost everything was closed. We were trying to find a camera shop because Ryan had found a nice Cannon camera on the bench next to us in the train station at Glasgow just before we boarded the last train back to Edinburgh the night before.

We weren’t sure if it was any good or how to work it. Anyway, Perth seemed pretty dull and I discovered it wasn’t the town I had read about in the magazine. The town I was thinking of is Stirling. It’s where a famous battle was fought in the movie “Braveheart.” And some argue that it’s the prettiest town in Scotland. We were headed back to the train station to catch the 3:10 P.M. train to Inverness and I spied a pub/restaurant that had a large yard (what they refer to as a garden) with tables. I figured it’d be a nice spot to relax for the two hours we had to kill and I could enjoy a beer. I went in and bought myself a beer and a coke for Ryan. We were the only customers in the garden and while I wrote in this journal, Ryan played on one of those huge inflatable jumping things. Ryan also wrote in his journal and did a little reading. I drank three pints and felt pretty good as we boarded the train for Inverness.

The trip to Inverness was uneventful and punctuated by picturesque vistas. I again got short-tempered with Ryan and he too with me. I really do need to go to anger management classes or therapy. I’m always quick to blame others for my shortcomings or frustrations. This trip is either going to drive us apart or cement our relationship!

our hostel in Inverness

When we arrived in Inverness we called the hostel and got the last two beds. By the time we walked up the hill to the hostel, I was sweating like a pig. We put our packs on our bunk beds and I took a shower and felt much better. We then went out to check out the town. Again, being still Sunday, most shops were closed. We did go in one shop that had Scottish souvenirs and wool blankets and etc. Very expensive but nice! We had dinner in a pub/restaurant and I got the eye from a very lovely blonde Scottish lassie! Ryan had sausages with beans & chips and a coke and ice cream. I had Steak pie with chips (fries) and pickled vegetables and a pint of beer.

Inverness Castle

river in Inverness

The atmosphere or ambiance was pleasant & relaxed. I bought some post cards on the way back to the hostel and we watched a little TV. when we got back. It was a stupid Western and we were getting sleepy so we retired about 10 P.M. We first tried calling Jeri but got her answering machine.

It was another night like at the hostel in Brighton. Guys kept coming in and out all night long, slamming doors and making racket. We awoke about 6 A.M. and I purposely let the door slam shut several times and wasn’t too concerned about waking anyone. I’m tired of being polite & considerate and not having it returned.

We again tried calling Jeri and got her answering machine. Ryan took a shower somewhat reluctantly because the water was cold but I insisted. The night before I had tried to reserve another day at the hostel but they told me that they were booked-up and that I had to let the desk person know first thing in the morning and if they had a cancellation we would get another day. We had to have all our stuff out by 10:30 A.M. at the latest so they could clean, so we got an early start and left by 7 A.M. and went looking for a place to get some breakfast.

I thought the train station might have a café open and they did and we were their first customers. Breakfast was $6 for one, so we shared one breakfast and a cup of tea. It wasn’t much but it was warm. We then went back to the hostel and lucked-out and got another day. We then went looking for a camera shop and after several stores that still weren’t open, found a store that was very helpful and bought a flash, some film, and batteries and got a few instructions in the use of the camera—though they weren’t real sure about all the functions of the camera.

taking a break, Inverness

Ryan’s favorite spot, the Amusement Centre

We then went out in search of good photo opportunities and took 12 pictures as a trial run. I am currently sitting in a pub facing the Castle about two feet from the doorway. It’s a beautiful, sunny day and I’m enjoying watching the occasional beautiful lady stroll by. Ryan has gone down the street to the amusement center.

When Ryan returned, we went for lunch after first dropping-off the trial roll of film. We stopped in another bar/restaurant, which was doing good business. It was loaded with memorabilia from the 1920s & 30s in Great Britain including two working model trains. I ordered a Shepherd’s Pie for us to share figuring it’d be more than enough since it cost five pounds ($10).

It was a great disappointment because it was such a small portion though it did taste good. When the waitress came over and asked how things were, I told her it was tasty but the price was ridiculous because it was such a small portion. I said, I know it’s not your fault, she was pleasant and said she’d tell the manager. We then went in a bookstore and again the prices were outrageous.

my favorite pub in Inverness

We then went to the amusement center Ryan had been to because he wanted to show me a game. He lost at the game and was upset and almost started to cry. We left and went back to the pub I was at earlier because we were killing time until two hours were up to pick up the pictures we had just taken to see how the camera worked.

Ryan was still upset and I got upset with him for being so distraught over a game. He started crying and it came out that underneath the tears over the game it was really about me being so hard on him that he felt he couldn’t do anything right. We had a long talk and I promised I’d try to watch my rush to criticize and he’d say a code phrase of “eat a dead fish” to warn me when I was doing it again.

We then went down to pick up the pictures and they’d turned out great. We stopped at a super mart to buy some groceries to cook our own dinner at the hostel and save a little money. We bought sausages, potatoes, carrots, and butter to cook the food in.

At the hostel, they had a huge kitchen with several small stoves and lots of pots & pans and three or four sinks. Ryan volunteered to help cook and he took care of the sausages while I peeled the carrots and potatoes. We just beat the crowd and it was refreshing to see the kids of the other guests all pitching in and helping to prepare their meals. We could barely finish our meal and it tasted great and only cost us about $2.50.

After dinner, we went to watch a little TV. I think a young girl there was flirting with me because of the length of her gaze at me? I couldn’t do anything though because Ryan was with me. We didn’t last long because we were both so tired. We went to bed about 8:30 P.M.

The new roommates were a lot more considerate and my only complaint was that one of them kept closing the window I opened up. It felt a little stuffy. We awoke around 7:30 and I took a shower and we checked out. We walked to the train station to see when a train was leaving towards the Lighthouse hostel we wanted to check out. It was leaving at 10:45 A.M. so we went looking for breakfast.

The hotel right next to the train station wanted 8 pounds 50 pence, which was like $17, and we said, no thanks. We walked on and found a pancake house and shared one breakfast for five pounds, which was very tasty and fairly generous portion. While waiting in the train station we wrote most of our post cards. The train ride was only about one hour and fifteen minutes. When we got off the train, I thought uh-oh; there wasn’t even a train station. There was a little craft store and a tiny post office about 10 feet by 12 foot. Just as we were leaning our packs against the post office and I was saying to Ryan, all right, this looks like a good time to send our post cards, a woman in the post office said, “Do you want to catch the bus?” I looked and a postal van was there. I walked over and spoke to the woman driving the postal van and told her where we were going. She said she could give us a ride for ten miles and I asked how much and she said one pound 80 pence. We climbed in and were separated from the front of the van by a wire-mesh screen.

taking a break on way to Lighthouse hostel (hitch-hiking)

I felt as if we were prisoners. The road was a single lane for cars traveling in both directions and you’d often have to pull to the side in little pullouts to allow a car going in the other direction to pass. We were let out at another little hole-in-the-wall village but this one had a little store, a pub, a hotel and several cottages for rent. You could catch a bus from here, which would take us another 20 miles closer to our destination but the last 12 miles we’d have to hitchhike. The bus wouldn’t be there for another six or seven hours so I thought let’s go have a pint or two and then try our luck at hitchhiking.

We sat at a picnic table under the shade of a tree just outside the pub and I enjoyed my beer while Ryan enjoyed his coke. Ryan also figured out how to set the timer on the camera and took a picture of us.

We started hitchhiking and it probably took us less than half an hour to get a ride and it was an elderly gentleman driving a garbage truck. He was a very pleasant fellow and I enjoyed our conversation. Ryan hardly said a word. The driver asked if I’d noticed the prices had gone up and I said yes and that I was shocked at how much they’d gone up. He said yes, it’s a disgrace and they raise the prices just for the tourists.

He let us off at a little resort town near the sea and we went into a tourist bureau and I cashed travelers check. We then went to a little store and Ryan bough an ice cream cone and I bought a can of Guinness and some sun block.

We then walked a few blocks to a shady spot in which to hitchhike the last 12 miles. We were there maybe ten minutes when a guy in a van pulled over. His name was Leo and he gave us a ride all the way to the Lighthouse hostel even though he wasn’t going there. When he dropped us off he gave us his address and said we were welcome to spend a day or two with him and his wife.

Lighthouse hostel built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s brother

The hostel was beautiful in its simplicity and was very remote. I said to Ryan we might have a long walk when we leave here. The lighthouse was built by the brother of Robert Louis Stevenson and was now fully automated and two women who operated it as a hostel and a bed & breakfast owned the buildings.

cliffs near Lighthouse hostel, Scotland

When we walked in, a young woman who worked there showed us to our room and also showed us the sitting room, the bathroom, dining room and kitchen where we could prepare our meals. Doors and windows were wide open and dogs & cats lying around and several roosters were roaming around outside. The girl told us we could pay when we left.

We went out to do a little exploring and followed a trail to what use to be a ramp where ships were unloaded and the goods hoisted up the ramp. A family had climbed over the rocks and was perched on a high point overlooking the ocean. I was amazed at how calm the sea was. There was no sand, only jagged and treacherous rocks. A wild rugged beauty. We went back to the hostel and the woman picked out a basket of groceries for us to prepare some spaghetti. Ryan diced and sliced while I cooked. We made a sauce of zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and canned tomatoes. He grated up some Parmesan cheese and we had a feast.

After dinner, we washed up our dishes and went for a walk to help the digestion. Ryan spotted what he thought was a suitcase down on a rocky beach and we climbed down the cliff which was a bit tricky for me because I was wearing my shower slippers. It turned out to be a car seat not a suitcase but he did find what we thought were shark’s teeth.

sunset at Lighthouse hostel

We climbed back up the cliff and took a picture of the sunset. And I bought a warm can of beer and a warm soda for Ryan and we drank them as we watched the sun go down. There was a great sense of peace & tranquility and trust and openness between the guests and the proprietors.

We then went into the sitting room, which had a stereo, a tattered rug, several worn stuffed chairs and small couches and a British version of Trivial Pursuit. We met a family from Kent and soon entered upon a pleasant and wide-ranging conversation. The husband, Allen, was listening to a radio program on UFOs and his wife, Julie, was relaxing with their son, Sam, who was 15 years old and a very clever and pleasant lad.

I learned that Julie is a special education teacher and we compared notes and had a very interesting conversation. Ryan as usual was Silent Sam, and disinterestedly occupied himself with making paper airplanes. Ryan later brought in his deck of cards and built a house of cards. I suggested he ask Sam if he’d like to play and as usual he was too shy so I asked Sam if he’d like to play cards with Ryan and he said yes.

Sam and his dad took turns playing around with an acoustic guitar that was missing a string. They were both quite talented. We talked until around 11:30 and then went out to see the lighthouse lights and Ryan and I said goodnight and went to our room, which had about four sets of bunk beds.

The next thing I knew, I was woken-up by a guy who was sleeping in one of the other bunk-beds and he said I was snoring so loudly that he couldn’t sleep and he asked if I could change positions or something to stop the snoring? I replied that I was sorry and I’d try. A few hours later, his girlfriend poked me several times until I woke up. She said that I was still snoring and could I go sleep in the sitting room because there wasn’t enough room in there for her & her boyfriend. I replied again that I was sorry but that I needed to stay near my son. She angrily got dressed and went to the sitting room. They talked loudly in German and I can guess what they were saying.

She kept coming back into the room and took great care to be as noisy as possible. I guess she couldn’t get comfortable in those short couches but expected me to sleep in there so as not to disturb them? I guess that would have been the humanitarian thing to do but I’m only self-sacrificing to a point. Awhile later, I heard the guy yell, “Do you think that’s fair?” And he stormed out. I just ignored them because I was afraid of my temper but they were pushing it. He came in awhile later and turned on all the lamps and the overhead light. I thought, enough is enough and I turned over and sat up and was going to tell his ass off and he wasn’t there.

They were obviously trying to make me get no sleep since they couldn’t sleep. I turned off the overhead light and went back to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, I woke Ryan up and told him we needed to go because if I saw them I was probably going to have a confrontation.

I paid our bill and the owner said she was going into Gairloch and could give us a lift. She didn’t say a word for the 12 miles and I’d told her about our roommates, so I assume she thought I was wrong? Well, fuck her too! Ryan has severe asthma and they could’ve molested him for all I know?

I left them a note before we left and it read in regular size print: “Mr. & Mrs. Asshole (and in large underlined print) Fuck You! When we got let off, we went into a little store because Ryan was hungry and said that his throat was hurting. I bought some rolls, ham slices, an orange, some throat lozenges, chocolate milk & a beer. We found some rocks on the beach to sit on and had our breakfast.

We walked several blocks to the turn-off in our direction and our friend, Leo, who gave us the ride to the lighthouse, stopped by and got out of his van and came over to chat. As we were talking, a couple pulled up and asked where we were headed. They were headed in our direction and so we said goodbye to Leo and piled in. They were from Cambridge and we had an enjoyable conversation. They dropped us at the little pub we had been at the day before where we had a couple of sodas and beers and took a picture of ourselves.

We tried hitching for about 45 minutes and were just about to go take a break and have a drink when the lady in the postal van pulled over and we paid her a pound and 80 pence to get a ride back to the train stop. We had an hour before our train to the Carbisdale Castle Youth Hostel, so we finished addressing our post cards and mailed them. We sent 13 cards and it cost about four pounds 80 pence.

When we got our train, we got off at a town called Dingwall and had about a four hour layover till the next train going in our direction. We got some money at an ATM and went into a pub. I had a Guinness and Ryan had a coke. We asked the waitress for a menu and she said okay but then completely forgot about us. She walked past us or rather clomped past us several times and never once looked, smiled or remembered. I think she was a young airhead.

The next thing we knew, she was walking out the door with her purse. We went on our way in search of nourishment and ended up buying an order of fish & chips. We crossed the street to a bit of shade under a tree and leaned our packs against a wall. Ryan wolfed down his food and then we leaned our heads against our packs.

Ryan was afraid we’d oversleep and miss our train but I reassured him that your subconscious and your inner clock were on guard for you when on the road. I awoke before Ryan and started writing in this journal.

When Ryan woke up we went back to the pub and had a few more drinks until it was time to catch our train. It was about an hour and a half to Carbisdale Castle. It was half a mile from the train stop to the castle through thick forest and there were hardly any signs of life or civilization. The train stop was a platform and a wall and you had to request for the conductor to stop at it—it wasn’t a regularly scheduled stop.

castle hostel we stayed in

When we got up to the castle we were impressed. It was a real castle. We were also tickled-pink that we had our own room. It was the maid’s room and still had the bells of the various lords & ladies to let her know who was ringing for service. I took a shower and felt much better. We then went exploring. The main hall impressed me the most with its statues of nudes, paintings, stained glass, and beautiful hand-carved staircase. There was also a quiet room for reading, a TV. room, a commons room for socializing, a billiard and ping-pong room in the dungeon, several dining rooms and kitchens. We went outside and took several pictures and then bought some food to prepare.

Ryan on stairway in castle hostel

We made pasta with cheese, leek & onion sauce and on top meatballs with gravy. The meatballs looked like dog food and not that I ever tasted dog food, tasted like it.

Ryan wanted to play pool but we didn’t finish eating until 10:30 P.M. and we were both so tired we decided to turn in. I slept pretty well but Ryan said his throat was hurting him. I woke at 7:30 and went to the desk to see when the next train heading south was. It was at 8:40 A.M. so I went back and woke Ryan up and told him to hurry.

They were serving a free breakfast and I got a tray and tried to leave but they wouldn’t let me. It was getting close to train time but Ryan needed a shower. So, he took a shower and I packed. We had to forego breakfast to make sure we had time to make the train. When we got to the train stop, there were several other travelers waiting. It looked like you could only go in one direction because there was only one set of tracks.

foyer in castle hostel

So, I assumed —big mistake! —We went north a bit and then transferred to a southbound train. I should’ve asked the other travelers but I didn’t and as I said, there was no station to speak of & certainly no station master to ask and we left. We came to a stop not ten minutes away and I was looking for a ticket collector I could ask about whether we were going in the right direction and there was another train going south. But of course, no conductor came by and we stayed on the train. Ten minutes later a conductor comes by and I showed him our Brit Rail passes and told him where we were headed and he said, “You’re on the wrong train, you’re headed north.”

Well of course, dumbshit, I knew we were headed north. Anyway, we were stuck. We’d now go three hours north and then turn around and go three hours south to where we left from. Just our luck or should I say, par for the course? When we got to Thurso, we had an hour and 15 minutes wait so of course, I headed for the nearest pub.

Ryan was happy because they let him play the slot machines and I was happy because I got a buzz and I enjoy checking out pubs wherever I go. As I told Ryan, I enjoy going into the pubs, bars, taverns, etc. wherever I go because there you get the real feeling of a community. You meet the real working class locals who aren’t friendly because they have their hand out for a tip. You can either strike up a conversation or simply eavesdrop.

We got to Inverness about 4 P.M. and learned that we could go on to Edinburgh but that there were no trains from Edinburgh to London except for a sleeper that would cost an additional 28 pounds each. So, we went to the Pancake Place for supper and each had a Grand Slam breakfast.

We then checked out a couple of hostels and youth hotels but they had no vacancies. We went back to our old hostel and they were full also but had an emergency overflow in a nearby high school with no showers. They told us to wait around for 20 minutes and if people didn’t show, they might have a vacancy. We got two beds in the women’s dormitory but they had changed the room we were in to a men’s room for the night. All my clothes were dirty and some of Ryan’s, so I did a load of clothes in the hostel’s laundry. We then went to the local pub and had a drink and then Ryan wanted to go back to the amusement center to try his luck again.

We then walked back to check on the clothes in the dryer. Ryan wanted to gamble some more, so we went back to the amusement center and I had a beer in the pub next door and told Ryan to come and get me as soon as he was done. We walked back to the hostel and watched a little TV. and went to bed.

We had some more inconsiderate roommates and I said, you know, some people are trying to sleep. They said “sorry,” and quieted down until later when two more came in drunk and hiccupping and they started giggling like schoolgirls. I gave up and finally got back to sleep. We woke up about 5:00 A.M., got dressed and walked to the train station.

I bought a sandwich, chips, water and a candy bar and we caught the 6:35 train to Edinburgh. We met a young law student from San Diego with two traveling companions and they were pretty friendly. He said, “I know, just what the world needs, another lawyer.” I replied yeah, I was trying to bite my tongue because I have two lawyers right now and I see why they make all these lawyer jokes. I also added though, that my wife, Jeri, has a good friend who is a lawyer and that she has helped us out a few times.

We arrived in London and it was muggy as Hell again. I found out that there were no more trains to Dover until the next day and that meant we’d have to find a room, pay for train fare to Dover the next day because our BritRail passes would expire and pay for the ferry across the Channel—probably 15 pounds apiece. There was a Eurostar—the new highly touted three-hour service from London to Paris thru the Chunnel.

I decided to go for the Eurostar though we had to pay an additional 72 pounds. I didn’t want to put up with the humidity and we’d spend just about as much to stay another night in England. And I figured we might get lucky and catch a late train out of Paris for Basel. It wasn’t really anything to rave about (the Eurostar). We sat at a table opposite two young French women. One had her nose up in the air so I raised my nose even higher. The other one at least smiled once in awhile and didn’t seem to be stuck up. We didn’t say a word to each other for three hours. The haughty one was playing with what looked like a Tarot deck.

We arrived at Paris’ Gare du Nord and found out that the Gare du Est was a short walk and I figured we’d need to catch a train from there to head towards Basel. It was 11:30 P.M. and no trains were leaving for Basel until the morning but there was a train leaving for Strasbourg in 20 minutes and I knew that was in the right direction and not too terribly far from Basel. I didn’t relish the idea of spending the night in the train station and figured we could sleep on the train with any luck.

So we caught the train to Strasbourg and we did luck out. We got a first class cabin to ourselves and the seats slid together and we got a fairly good rest. I woke at 4:30 A.M. and because it was a little cold, I put my sheet over Ryan and I put my sweater on. I went back to sleep and we reached Strasbourg about 6 A.M. We then caught the train to Basel and arrived there about 8:30 A.M. They just waved us through Customs. With Ryan, I haven’t been checked once yet.

I called Ruedi’s parents but his mother had just got out of the hospital the day before & they said it wouldn’t be a good time for a visit. I said we’d call again after we came back from Greece. I then called Ruedi and he had a long day of work to do for a publisher and then had to attend an exhibition he had arranged on Sunday. He said after Monday would be best. I thought we’d go to Munich and get a hold of Gerdi (a girl I had a one night fling with years earlier).

We grabbed a bite to eat and caught the train to Munich. We were about an hour out of Basel when this elderly German woman came up to us and started ranting and mumbling in German. I got the gist of it though; she wanted us to move because we were in her seat. She didn’t say danka or anything, she just huffed and so I huffed also as we moved and I left our mess as to say “up yours.”

Munich, I loved the architecture of this building

We arrived in Munich about 2 P.M. I started thinking before we arrived that maybe Gerdi didn’t live near Munich but only worked in Bavaria? And through checking the area code of her phone number & the codes in the youth hostel book I discovered that she lived another several hours north of Munich. I decided that maybe it’d be better to go on down to Greece and give Ruedi’s mom a chance to recuperate & Ruedi a chance to get his work done and we could pay Gerdi a visit on our way north again?

it was actually a sunny day, me in front of fountain

There was an overnight train to Bologna, Italy where we’d transfer to Brindisi. It wouldn’t leave until 11:30 P.M. and we’d spend the rest of the day sightseeing and trying to find a video parlor and toy store for Ryan.

We first put our packs in a locker in the train station after I cashed an American Express Travelers Cheque. We then went into a bookstore that had books in English and I bought a book called “Serious Creativity” by Edward de Bono. I needed something to pass the time and was bored with the tour guidebooks I’d brought along.

We then went roaming around. Oh yeah, before we left the train station I told Ryan that we needed to have a Knautwurst & Bratwurst and a beer & coke for Ryan. The streets were packed with people and there were many sidewalk cafes with people either having a beer or eating or both. When we came to this square with a huge building with a life-size sort of cuckoo clock, thousands of people were standing with their necks craned up towards the figurines on the clock. You’d have thought it was the second coming of Christ?

me, leaning against wall near pub with sand & Harley Davidsons

We walked on and Ryan was more and more bummed-out because most of the stores were closed. We stopped at a little bar that was a block off the main drag because the music was blaring and it seemed rather festive. They had poured a load of sand in the street in front of the bar and had a couple of beach umbrellas stuck in it and several beach toys scattered around. I went inside to order our drinks and the music was blaring. Several customers were frolicking around like it was Mardis Gras. A woman behind the bar who looked like an old hooker was shaking her size 50 tits at anyone & everyone. I saw her in pictures on the wall and wondered if she might be the owner?

There was a big banner outside that said something about Harley Davidsons and there were two Harleys parked outside. The old floozy went for a ride with one of the “bikers” in her hot pants, black stockings, caked-on makeup and bleach-blonde hair. We walked on and came across a movie theater that had a bar inside and a huge picture of Marlene Dietrich that was very sultry and flattering of her. The music was playing loud and was some smooth jazz and sounded great so we ordered drinks. I had asked if any of the movies were in English but they weren’t.

The young guy who worked there was very helpful though and showed me the way to a theatre that did have movies in English but they were playing “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and I didn’t think Ryan would enjoy it. After our drinks, we headed back toward the train station and were checking the restaurants for prices. We settled on a sidewalk café and shared a dinner that offered a variety of Bavarian foods. The meal was pretty good but still a little on the skimpy side. We walked back to the station and did a little more window-shopping. I treated myself, by purchasing a pocket watch because I’d always wanted one.

We then had a couple of drinks in a bar/restaurant and then collected our packs. We went over to the platform for our train and when we boarded it was packed. We were lucky to get two seats. There were people in the aisles, in the area between cars, etc. It was terribly cramped and made for a very lousy night’s sleep.

We were supposed to arrive in Bologna at 7:30 A.M. but as usual, we were given bad directions and had to get off and catch another train back to Bologna. Before this though, we sat for about an hour and it reminded me of that feeling when you’re in jail and time is going so slow and nobody is talking, they’re just anxiously waiting for something to happen and the tension is so thick that you can almost cut it with a knife.

A few conductors walked by and I tried to ask them when we’d be in Bologna and they completely ignored me. I was tempted to say, Hey Stupido! to see if they’d pay attention then. Anyway, we finally learned we were on the wrong train—it happened to me three or four times on my first trip to Europe when I was trying to get to Greece due to these incompetent train employees. We got off and caught the train to Bologna. At Bologna we got some money out of an ATM, bought a slice of pizza, then went to McDonalds where Ryan had an ice cream and I had a beer and the music was loud and contemporary.

I must say, I’ve been most impressed with these Italian women. Of all the women I’ve seen so far on this trip, I’ve never seen so many exquisite beauties as here in Italy. A lot of tanned and very sexily dressed women with wild hair and fire in their eyes. We bought a few snacks for the seven-hour ride to Brindisi from a very rude woman at a snack stand. When we boarded the train it was packed to the gills. We were forced to sit in the tiny walkway behind the toilet and on the steps.

It was hotter than Hell and we had to sit on our packs. It was like sardines and I was pissed—first class my ass (I’d paid for first class Eurail passes)! Ryan was falling asleep on my shoulder and my back was hurting. We stayed there for four hours and tried to find seats at each stop but they were taken each time and more people got on.

I saw people sitting in the dining car that weren’t eating or drinking, so I said to Ryan, come on; we’re going to have a bite to eat. We left our packs where they were and asked the Oriental woman who was sitting next to us to watch them. We ordered Risotto Parmesan style and I had a whiskey & coke. We ate very slowly and continued to order beers & cokes and sip very slowly. We stretched it out for two to two and a half hours and I wrote in my journal and Ryan wrote in his and started reading the second book in the C.S. Lewis series, The Chronicles of Narnia.

As soon as we arrived in Brindisi, I warned Ryan of the con artists and we stopped briefly in an office that advertised ferry tickets to Greece. We were there two minutes and heard them tell a guy, “The ferry is sold out for tonight.” I told Ryan, this sounded like a scam and we left. We walked another few blocks and saw a crowd in front of the Hellenic Line to Greece. This was one of the two lines that my Eurail book recommended.

I had Ryan stay near by with the packs and I got in line. People were a little pushy but they didn’t push me too much because I believe my size was a little intimidating to them? I had to tell one guy who tried to cut in front of me to get behind me. He readily apologized. After I got our tickets, 62,000 lira even with Eurail passes (1,700 lira = $1.00) we had to walk to the police station to have our passports checked and then back to the office to catch a bus to the ferry.

blurry pic of me on deck of ferry boat (our bed for the night)

We got on the ferry and climbed to the top deck. I’m not sure but I believe our passage was just for deck space, not even a reclining chair. So, we laid my sheet down right next to the railing at the top of the stairs and laid our heads on our packs. We put our sweaters on and tried to cover ourselves as best as we could with Ryan’s sheet (sheets we’d sown together like a sleeping bag because many hostels require them).

I was just wearing a tank top at first and felt fine. There was a warm breeze in Brindisi but Ryan said he felt cold. It was a romantic, adventurous feeling lying on the top deck of the ferry and headed for Greece.

It was cold when we woke in the morning but I pretty much slept soundly through the night. I asked Ryan before we went to sleep if he thought I’d bother anyone with my snoring (the sound of the engines & the sea being fairly loud). We had only slept for maybe six hours and tried to go back to sleep but it was so cold that we couldn’t. I was reminded of the movie, Ship of Fools, where all the poor people i.e. Mexicans, had to sleep on the lower deck of the ship. We went into a restaurant and I got breakfast i.e. two hard-boiled eggs, a bowl of cereal, a cup of tea, a cup of orange juice, two eggs sunny-side up, a few pieces of bacon and a piece of bread.

After breakfast, we went back out on deck and it was warm enough to take our sweaters off. I was writing in my journal when I remembered that I forgot to call Jeri yesterday with all the rushing around (I promised Jeri we’d call her every Sunday so she wouldn’t worry as much about our welfare). I asked the Purser if they had a phone on board and he said no, you’d have to use the ship radio. It was behind the bridge. The radio/electronics officer told me to have a seat in the radio room and he’d be with me in a few minutes. I was reminded of MASH when Radar makes long-distance calls.

The radio officer came in and I told him I wanted to make a call to the U.S. collect. He said that you couldn’t make collect calls from the ship and I asked how much to call to Oregon from the ship and he said about 12,000 liras. It took awhile to get through and it must have been about 12 midnight or 1 A.M. Jeri’s time. She sounded glad to hear from us.

I told her that we didn’t have a chance to call yesterday and that we were on board the ferry to Athens and that Ryan was fine. I also said that he was playing the gambling machines and she laughed. She asked me to call again next Sunday and she wanted to speak to Ryan but I said he was down watching our packs. I kept the conversation short to also keep the cost down. After we disconnected and I paid the officer, we had a little conversation.

He told me that the best thing to do in Athens was to find someone who speaks Greek to show us around because they would charge us four times as much for everything as they would for those who spoke Greek. I asked where I could find someone to show us around and he said all the Greeks spoke English. He said that they’re required to learn Greek, Spanish, & English in school and if someone said they didn’t speak English they were crooks trying to rip you off. He wrote down four different places in Athens to head for and when I asked how much it’d cost to have someone show us around, he said, “No, no, no, they would be offended if you offered them money. They enjoy showing people their city. He said you needed a month to really see Athens because there were over 3,000 museums.

I asked if it’d be hard to find a room at midnight when we were due to arrive in Athens and he said yes, the Greeks don’t sleep at night, they go to the bars and the Acropolis, etc. and sleep in the morning. He also said that you couldn’t expect to get served at every restaurant. If the owner doesn’t like you, he’ll refuse to serve you and sometimes if they do like you, they won’t accept any money for the meal.

I also asked him about a good island to go to that didn’t have many tourists and he said Crete was the best and told me how to get there. He also pointed out what he calls the best beach in the world. He ended by giving me his address on Crete and saying that if we were here in September, we were welcome to be his guests. I offered to give him my address but he said that it wouldn’t be possible for him to come to the U.S. for a long time because he had four daughters. He mentioned earlier that he was born in Philadelphia and then moved back to Greece and got married. He knew Oregon and said it was very beautiful. I thanked him and left.

I discovered a shower and it didn’t cost anything and was available so I took a shower. I also bought a bottle of Ouzo (a fifth) for 10,000 liras.

Observation: Italians seem to be a very happy and easygoing people. For example, when we were stuck on the train from Bologna to Brindisi sitting on the stairs, hot & cramped like sardines, an Italian fellow I believe who was married to the Oriental woman we asked to watch our packs when we went to the dining car, was singing and helping people on & off the train and he had to stand for four hours. We saw many other Italians who also seemed very cheerful.

Back on the ferryboat to Patras, Greece. We had a hearty lunch of spinach pastries, lasagna, mixed cooked vegetables, salad, watermelon, coke, and beer. It cost around $15. We then went back on deck and Ryan taught me how to play wist—the card game he learned at the Lighthouse hostel. I was feeling tired so I laid my sheet under a stairway and stuck our packs under there also and I took a good nap for about two hours. When I awoke, Ryan was sleeping next to me.

I let Ryan continue to sleep for as long as possible even though we were almost to port because if the radio officer was right, we might be up all night partying. Ryan woke up about an hour before we reached Patras. The wind really picked up and I was a little nervous that it might blow my glasses off but I loved the feel of it blowing so strong in my face and my hair-blowing wild.

We waited until almost everyone had disembarked so we wouldn’t have to stand in a long line holding our heavy packs. We watched the tugboat push us into place and the Texaco refueling barge gas us up and several other huge ocean liners.

After we got off the ferry, we walked several blocks to the train station. We had 20 minutes until the train for Athens left so I bought a bottle of water, some chips, and chocolate chip cookies for the four-hour ride. We got on a first class car but it was hard to tell. It reminded me of an old railroad car from the old West in the U.S.

The seat I was in wasn’t even completely bolted down. There were several young, Spanish travelers in the same car who were rather amusing in their youth and enthusiasm. A young girl with the group came up to me and asked me if I spoke English and what time we would arrive in Athens. I replied, 12:00 midnight. (Ryan is upset with me for running two of his pens out of ink now). It was a pleasant trip and I read the introduction to the de Bono book I bought in Munich.

I didn’t know he was a Rhodes scholar. He also owns and lives on an island in Venice. I’m impressed. The countryside and what I could feel reminded me of Mexico. Most of the houses were of the same basic design; squared and white stucco. There were a lot of very nice homes and some were simple and humble. But what struck me most was how many homes had the owners sitting in their front yards or porches eating dinner, drinking, or simply socializing.

Ryan slept most of the journey and again I thought he’d need the rest if we’d be up all night. Just before we arrived in Athens, several guys came up to us with brochures and their various sales pitches on hostels. The first guy who approached me was a small Englishman named Steve and he had the best sales pitch. I politely accepted their brochures and told them I’d think it over. Steve pressed for the closing but I didn’t divulge much and I was a bit suspicious due to all the tattoos on his arms.

We arrived in Athens and taxi drivers kept trying to hit us up but I took heed of the radio officer’s admonition to stay away from the rip-off taxi drivers. We walked towards what I thought was the bus station but it was closed. There were several young people hanging out and I asked if they knew where we could catch a bus. They said the buses had stopped. So, I asked for directions to the hostel that Steve had told us about.

While I was talking to them, a taxi pulled up and the driver got out and was yelling “taxi, taxi, “ he then said, “It’s not safe for you & your family to be here.” I was getting a little nervous at this but didn’t know if he was just trying to drum up some business either. Anyway, I tried not to show any fear and I remembered that the radio officer said if they claim they can’t speak English, they’re trying to rip you off. They didn’t know how to direct us to the hostel so we started heading back toward the train station.

Just as we neared the train station, we ran into Steve and a couple of his fellow employees. I told him that we decided to check out his hostel and he said great and that he’s show us the way. There were three of them and I noticed a guy walking behind us for a bit and when Steve said, “Let’s take a short-cut through here, I really started sweating.

The short cut was through a dirt area with a few scattered trees. It was only about 200 feet wide and I could see a busy street on the other side and it wasn’t too terribly dark. I was mainly worried for Ryan’s safety and was feeling very vulnerable with my pack on my back, the day pack over one shoulder and the bag in my other arm. I wondered how fast I could slip my pack off if they made an aggressive move towards us?

I wasn’t intimidated by their sizes or demeanor, Steve was about 5’4’’ and 120 lbs. and the other two weren’t much bigger and the guy behind us had disappeared but I was very relieved when we reached the busy, well-lit street and after crossing it, were at the hostel.

It was a run-down place and I knew instantly the brochure photos were a deception. We got a room of our own and I asked if I could pay the next day though I had the money because Steve and his buddies were all standing around and I didn’t want to pull out all my money with them watching. So, the boss—an Indian gentleman—kept my passport. The room was the pits and you couldn’t flush the toilet. I killed a huge cockroach and we went down to the “bar” in the hostel. Steve and one of his friends joined us in the bar. I had a rum & coke and Steve asked the owner for a beer and the owner offered him a coke and Steve insisted on a beer and the owner acquiesced.

Steve smelled of alcohol when I first met him that night. I surmised he might have a drinking problem. We watched an American gangster movie with Robert De Niro and James Woods. After my rum, I ordered a beer. The bar was supposed to remind one of a South Seas tropical location but was very cheap and tacky. When I ordered my second beer, I also bought one for Steve.

He was periodically pumping me for more info while we watched the movie. At 2 A.M., they closed up so Ryan and I went back to our ‘room.’ I slid a dresser in front of our door for added security. We put our sheet down on the bed for added protection. I woke several times due to bug bites that itched terribly. In the morning, I was awakened by a knock on the door and the sound of the dresser being pushed.

I got up and moved the dresser and one of the hostel employees came in with a young Japanese couple to show them the room. They left shortly and I attempted to go back to sleep.

A short while later, they returned to take up residence. Ryan and I started packing after we took showers. We turned in our key, paid our bill and I collected my passport and we were on our way. We had to find a shop to sell us bus tickets to Vulla. It took three tries to finally get tickets and we caught a trolley downtown where we had to catch the bus we needed.

We took the A2 to the end of the line by the seaside. The driver directed us to Vulla Plaza. We came to a Texaco station and Ryan used the toilet and I asked directions once again. We had passed it up. It was what looked like a private beach with volleyball, tennis, etc. I asked if they had a bar and the woman said yes. We paid about 800 drachmas to enter. We walked towards the beach and saw an old, heavy-set woman sunbathing topless.

bar we spent the day at in Vulla

I spotted a bar and we headed for it. It was decorated in a tropical motif and had three or four levels of wood decking and several large speakers hung from the rafters. There were three different bars to order drinks from. We found a good table in a corner with a huge straw umbrella to shade us from the sun. I went to order our drinks and a waitress intercepted me to ask what I wanted and I told her that was okay, that I’d do it. I figured that she just wanted a tip. I ordered our drinks, a large Heineken and a coke with ice. She told me to go sit down and she’d bring the drinks over. She also brought over a bowl of stale cheese popcorn. It felt great to sit in the shade, drink a cold beer and watch the ocean ten feet away. The radio station played a lot of great songs that I haven’t heard in years. They played a lot of Motown and Dylan’s “Knockin on Heaven’s Door.”

Ryan was getting restless and bored and we had an argument. I was digging the ambience and getting a mellow buzz but he wanted to do something active. I told him to go for a swim and I’d watch him from the deck. But he didn’t want to. I was also enjoying the view of two young ladies, one of whom was sunbathing topless and the other was nude. Our waitress was about my age or a little older and her name was Ava.

the beach-side bar in Vulla

She gave Ryan a free coke and later on gave me a free beer. I asked her if she knew of any places to get a room and she said that she’d think about it and get back to me. When I went to the toilet later on, she told me to come over. She said she’d call some places and let me know. I went back to our table and continued writing in my journal and Ryan was reading (I had one rule for Ryan every summer i.e. he had to read for 20 minutes every day & I’d pick a book for him to read and when he finished it, he’d pick the next book—I did this to keep up his reading skills).

A little while later, the bartender, a young man from Bulgaria named Daniel, told me there was a phone call for me. I thought who in the Hell is calling me? No one knows I’m here. It was a lady from the tourist bureau that Ava had called. I told her that I wanted to be as close to Vulla as possible and wanted a hotel because Ava said they were safer.

She gave me the numbers for five or six places and then Ava said she’d call them for me. She called and found one nearby with its own bathroom for about $27 per night. She said she’d get someone to watch the bar and she’d give us a ride there and asked when I wanted to go and I said no, when would it be convenient for her? So, we agreed on a half hour.

We had a conversation in the meantime and she said that she was glad to be able to help. She had a family and felt that we all needed to treat each other as humans. She also felt that health was the most important thing and I added that children were too. I told her that I felt very lucky to be able to take my son on this trip and I couldn’t have afforded it if it wasn’t for my mom passing away and leaving me the life insurance money.

We finished our drinks and Ava gave us a ride. She stopped at two other hotels first to see if they were the same price because they were closer. They either didn’t have a room or were too expensive. We found the one she’d called and we went up to check out the room and it was very clean and had a balcony and we took it.

Ava left and I gave her about a $6 tip (looking back, I wish I had been much more generous considering all that she did for us). We changed clothes and I freshened up a bit and we set off to explore the area. Ryan wanted to do a bit of window-shopping. We then headed back to the bar we’d met Ava at. I wanted to eat there and check out the dancing.

It started to rain on the way and we sought shelter under a beach umbrella. It was a very light rain so we continued on. We were approximately two miles from the bar. When we got there, Ava was glad to see us again. I told her that we wanted to eat and she suggested a ham & cheese sandwich for Ryan and I said, make it two. She seemed surprised like she thought I should order something more extravagant. Ava bought us another coke and beer. I couldn’t believe her kindness.

Ryan skipping rocks

It started to rain so Ava and Daniel started to gather up all the cushions from couches and chairs. There were hundreds of them so we pitched in to help. Ryan and I decided to go for a walk down the beach. The grounds near the tennis and basketball courts were not kept up and there were some abandoned buildings. We also skipped rocks for a while and had a contest to see who could hit the big rock platform that people would swim out to and sunbathe on. I of course was the winner but Ryan came very close.

We went back to the bar and it was time for Ava to get off work. She introduced us to the owner of the place and we spoke briefly. I complimented him on his shirt and he said he’d just bought it that day. Ava told us that they were expecting a thousand people for a company party that night and told us to go check out the other side.

We went through a big door and much to our surprise, there was a whole other club it seemed like. They had a huge cage with a cute little spider monkey in it, a nice pool with a bridge over it, two or three bars, covered seating and outside tables, umbrellas and chairs. It was a very classy looking place. No wonder the drinks were so expensive here. I paid about $6 for each large glass of Heineken and $3 a coke for Ryan.

the other bar, part of one we spent day at, with parrots, monkeys, etc. for big parties

When we returned to the beach side of the bar, Ava was leaving and told me she’d give us her address tomorrow. There was a cool breeze blowing and the sun was going down and they lit their tiki torches and I felt good Ava and Daniel were leaving so I made sure to tip Daniel well this time because I’d forgotten him earlier. A few people started filtering in and around 10 P.M. they played a whole Sade album, which was the perfect choice.

There were three or four good looking women but no one got up to dance and we stayed there till about midnight. Ryan passed the time making paper airplanes and betting me whether he could fly them to the water or not. I treated him to a bowl of chocolate ice cream which wasn’t that big and cost $6, but what the Hell, we’re on vacation and he was pretty patient with my spending most of the day in a bar. I spoke a little with the waitress who served us—a good looking young lady—and asked about what islands would be good to visit. I mentioned Ios because that is where Ruedi went 20 years ago and she said that now there were lots of teenagers there and they get very drunk. Sounds like the Colorado River at Spring Break and not my cup of tea anymore.

We walked back to our hotel and bought a couple bags of chips and a beer and soda and ate & drank them on our balcony. Ryan said his chips smelled like turds and kept trying to get me to try them because he claimed they tasted good. I refused and he tossed a few in my bag of chips. Ryan said I laid across the width of the bed and he tried to get me to move for about ten minutes but I wouldn’t budge and was rambling in my sleep.

Ryan on the steps of the Acropolis (holy ground)

The church bells of the church our balcony overlooked, woke me the next morning around 10 A.M. I decided that we’d do some fun things for Ryan today and also see the Acropolis. We took a bus and had a heck of a time finding it. It was a maze of streets crammed with souvenir shops and we zigzagged back and forth until the Acropolis came into view. We stopped at a few shops here and there because Ryan couldn’t resist and I was looking for busts of Plato and Aristotle.

All I could find were tiny busts & statues of them. It was a hot day and the climb up the steps and the hill were very tiring. I felt like I was on a pilgrimage to my hero’s home or something. Some of the steps were slippery and we could see why they had a fire truck parked at the base of the Acropolis.

view from the Acropolis

We got some great shots of Athens and the Acropolis. A lot of scaffolding and a huge crane were inside to make repairs. Time and pollution are taking their toll. After we left the Acropolis, we walked a couple of blocks on the way down and stopped at a little café for drinks. We then started shopping. After several shops, I finally found a little tea set for my Aunt Sylvia. Ryan was having trouble deciding on the right gift for his mother.

another view from the Acropolis

We came to another sidewalk café that advertised Lowenbrau beer and it was at a four-way intersection of these narrow “streets” lined with souvenir shops. I told Ryan I’d sit there and have a beer and he could take his time and shop some more but to come back after each store and tell me where he was going. It only took him about 40 minutes to pick out and settle on a mask. And I downed two large glasses of Lowenbrau in the meantime.

Ryan on Cloud Nine

We then found our way to a bus stop and caught the A2 back to Vulla. Ryan fell asleep on my shoulder. (Oh yeah, I bought a small bust of Aristotle for myself). A few miles before our stop, I saw a go cart track and woke Ryan to get off at the next stop but we were too slow. So, we got off at the following stop and started walking back. I didn’t tell Ryan where we were headed because I wanted to surprise him.

Ryan, pedal to the metal

When we came to the go-cart track, Ryan yelled out “Wow! Go-carts!” I said, I thought you might enjoy this. We found out it was about $10 for 10 minutes. Ryan found a car and put his helmet on. I took a few pictures before, during, and after his thrill ride. He spun-out a couple of times and cut people off a few times. It was hilarious. As soon as he got off the car he asked if he could do it again if he used his own money. I said no, just enjoy it for what you had and let’s be on our way.

Ryan’s spin-outs & etc. scared the hell out of me

I wanted to see Ava before we left and we caught another bus but used our old tickets and were going to play dumb if asked for tickets. The bus turned on the street of our hotel so we got off there and dropped our packages off and then walked to the bar. Ava had already left but waitress from the night before served us and was pleasant and chatted for a while. We had one drink and then I asked the waitress to give Ava our address and a note and I asked her what would be a good island to visit.

She said Sifnos or Serifos and gave us directions of how to get to the ferryboats in Piraeus. I thanked her and tried to give her a tip but she refused and said it was too much. I don’t know because it was dark, I might have given her 5,000— I thought it was 1,000. We walked back to our hotel. We had dinner at the café next to our hotel. We ordered the chef’s special, a dish of spaghetti with baked cheese, ham, green peppers, and mushrooms. It was good and after we ate, we worked on our journals.

The next morning we caught the A1 bus to Piraeus and I didn’t realize it was like a suburb of Athens. I had Ryan ask the driver to tell us where to get off and the ticket guy said he’d speak to the driver. An elderly woman was going right to the ferryboats and offered to take us right there. She didn’t speak any English but offered to help Ryan carry a bag but I guess I’ve made Ryan so suspicious of people he wouldn’t let go of his bag.

We found out that the ferry wouldn’t leave until 9 P.M., so we had the whole day to kill. The lady at the ticket office let us leave our packages in the office and we set off to find the post office and the first two people we dealt with were very rude. The clerk took my money for stamps and wouldn’t answer my questions; she just motioned for me to go away. I stamped and addressed the two packages and got in line again. This time another clerk kept saying “Normal, only normal” referring to the tape on the one box. I said, why didn’t other woman tell me? And so now, I’m supposed to buy more stamps? She couldn’t communicate with me and vice-versa and we got her supervisor in on it. Finally, they gave up and said I pay 400 more Drachmas and it was accepted.

We then went in search of a phone I could call Jeri from. We found a place and I got hold of Jeri. As usual, she wanted to know everything and I was trying to keep it short. I told her the things I wanted of my mom’s (my sisters were dividing up our mom’s things & of course, they took what they wanted and didn’t care about my requests) and she spoke to Ryan. I also called Ruedi and left a message on his machine. I asked the telephone person to recommend a good Greek restaurant and he wrote down the name and directions for us.

On our way to it, we passed a toy store and I promised Ryan we’d return to it after we ate. We couldn’t find the restaurant and had trouble finding the toy store again but eventually we did find it. Ryan spent quite a long time looking over the toys and I had an interesting conversation with the owner. He had lived in Toronto and his son was born there. I told him I loved to read and he did too. I asked about our C.I.A. overthrowing the Greek government and he said yes and that’s why a lot of Greeks don’t like Americans. We talked about happiness, success, the drug problem, war, and etc. When Ryan finally decided on a robot, we shook hands and he said he was glad to have met me.

We then went back to the ferry station and ate at McDonalds or actually we took the food to the most remote end of a pier. I was tired of crowds and noise. We then went to a restaurant nearby and I had beers while Ryan drank cokes. I worked on my journal and Ryan played with his robot. They had a jukebox but Madonna was the only English artist and I never got a chance to play it.

When 7 P.M. finally rolled around, we retrieved our packs, bought some goodies and boarded the boat, which wouldn’t leave until 9 P.M. We had a good table but these youngsters moved their table closer to ours and tried to move our packs out of their way. I said no, we were here first, you move. They all started smoking so I went to find a spot near the railing on the side of the ship (Ryan can trigger an asthma attack for Ryan). When we started to move our stuff, one of the girls started clapping and I said, Fuck You!

After the ship got under way, I bought us some sandwiches, which were like two pounds of bread & three grams of ham. Ryan played with his robot and a little Greek boy joined him. It was funny! We fell asleep and woke just in time for our destination of Sifnos. It was a madhouse disembarking with all the cars, scooters, motorcycles and people on foot. It was 2 A.M. and we made our way through the little town and no rooms were available anywhere.

our first night on Island of Sifnos

I saw a sign that said camping and we made our way there. It too, was packed and I spoke to the guy who ran the place and he asked if we had anything to sleep on and I said, sheets. He said to try and find a spot and leave my passport with him. We found a patch of dirt between a tent and a garbage can. We laid out my pink sheet and put on warmer clothes and used some clothes for pillows and covered as best as we could with Ryan’s narrow sheet. The wind was blowing and we had a big gust blow some dirt in our faces. Just before we fell asleep, the guy who ran the place came by and covered us up with two thin blankets and a nylon two-man pup tent.

When we woke in the morning, I returned the blankets and tent and asked the guy about finding a room and he said he didn’t think we’d have any luck because even the police were calling him asking if he had any space. He said the best time to try to find a room was between 10 A.M. and noon. We had a ham and cheese croissant and orange juice and strawberry juice and set off.

I figured we’d better get an early start on finding a place because all the others had scooters or motorcycles and could cover more ground and much faster than us. I thought we’d go to the end of town and work our way back. We tried several places all to no avail and decided we’d better rent a moped before they were all gone too.

We found a place and the cost was approximately $12 for 24 hours. The guy asked if I knew how to ride a motorcycle and I said yes, but it’s been many years. He said it was a semi-automatic with no clutch. It was down 1-2-3. I had to leave my passport and he said we needed gas and the nearest station was Apollonia about five kilometers away. It was embarrassing at first because I had a difficult time shifting and getting the hang of it. We made it to Apollonia and gassed up and went on looking for a room. Again, no luck. I tried going up a few hills and started rolling backwards and Ryan had to hop off and walk up a little.

the beach near our campground on Sifnos

We gave up on finding a room and headed back to our campground. When we got back, I had a beer and Ryan a coke. We then walked over to the beach near us. It was pretty much deserted. Ryan worked on a sand castle and I on my beer. We then walked down the beach to a bar/café at one end of the beach. We were still hungry so I ordered an omelet and Ryan ordered sausage and eggs. As usual, the prices were high and the quantity low. I also ordered a bloody Mary and Ryan a mixed fruit drink.

Ryan’s chest immediately started to hurt like in an allergic reaction—we figured the banana in the drink. Ryan took some Ventillin and didn’t drink anymore of the drink. My Bloody Mary was pitiful. We then went back to the campground to get our stuff for the beach and I bought three beers and two cokes. I asked where a good beach was and he said just follow the road to the end. So we did. I was starting to get a little better control or feel for the bike but we still had to walk a few hills.

bar on the beach on Sifnos, near our campground

There were some beautiful views from the top of the hills. We reached the end of the road and parked the bike and walked down to the beach. We had to really hunt to find a little shade. We put on our sun block and went in for a swim but Ryan thought the water too cold. It was almost 72 degrees and I splashed him and got him wet. You could see pretty clearly underwater almost like in a pool. Ryan only stayed in for about ten minutes and got out. I went for a short swim and got out too since there was no one to play with or talk to.

There were a couple of huge yachts that must’ve cost over a million dollars. There were several women sunbathing topless and it was hard not to stare. We were losing our shade and had to move up onto some ice plant for more shade. We both fell asleep and when I woke I felt the heat of the sun and woke Ryan so we wouldn’t get too sunburned. I had promised Ryan we’d rent a boat but I figured we didn’t need any more sun. He was disappointed but that’s the way it goes.

Ryan dwarfed by yacht (guess the wealthy liked Sifnos?)

We packed up and left. Ryan didn’t think we’d be able to make it up a lot of those hills we came down on our way there but I’d finally got the hang of down-shifting and getting a running start on some of the hills. The only worry was a couple of sharp turns where if we were going too fast and a car was coming the other way it could’ve been nasty. I even goofed-around a little bit and bounced the bike a little and stood up somewhat on the foot pegs. I was yelling whoopee and ride em cowboy.

After we got back—and Ryan didn’t have to get off once—we went back to the bar on the beach. We played a game of checkers and Ryan had improved since we’d last played but I still won. I had five or six beers and was feeling good. I noticed a girl looking at me several times. I asked the DJ to play some Motown after he wouldn’t let me look through his albums. A salsa type song came on and I asked the girl who was watching me if she’d like to dance and she said no. She was practically dancing in her chair but oh well. Then Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy, Mercy Me” came on and I said fuck it! I went over by the DJ booth and danced by myself. One of the waiters danced a few seconds with me and I got a lot of smiles. There were probably 50 people in the place but no one danced except me.

Guess why I took this pic?

After the song was over and I had returned to our table, a waiter brought me a Heineken and said it was on the house because I had brought a smile to people’s faces. I had tried each of the beers available—Heineken, Amstel, Corona and had three Heinekens. We then went to see if we could rent a mini-bike for Ryan but they said he had to be 18 years old. He was again bummed-out. I wanted to see when the ferryboat was leaving the next day and we asked at a Dolphin office. One was leaving at 9 A.M. and it only took two hours but it was expensive ($50) but I went for it. We then did a little souvenir shopping.

I bought Ryan another book because he’d finished his two books. He chose Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. I bought a few more post cards. The scooter rental place closed at 10 P.M. and opened at 8:30 A.M. so I figured I’d better return it tonight so we wouldn’t be rushed in the morning since I’d booked the 9 A.M. Dolphin. We had Mousaka for dinner at the campground and I told the owner I wanted to buy him a drink. He had said that morning he’d find a tent or something better for us for tonight and he did.

We had the tent we’d slept next to the night before and he gave us a quilt to lie on the floor of the tent. He said he’d have a drink with me later. After dinner we went back to the bar because I wanted to dance. We had to pay $3 each to get in this time and there were a few people dancing but I couldn’t find any single ladies so we had one drink and left. We went back to the campground and the guy said he didn’t care much for alcohol so he let me buy him an orange juice. I had a Bacardi & coke and he said to say when and it was at least a third of the glass i.e. a strong drink.

We then went to our tent. I threw-up several times during the night. Luckily, I left the front flap open to get some fresh air and I’d just stick my head out of the tent and barf and cover it with some dirt.

Oh yeah, I forgot that when we went back to the bar, one of the bartenders who was on duty when we were there earlier came up to our table. He said that my dancing had made everybody happy and he thought it was great for Ryan to be traveling at his age because he could learn by experience rather than just through books.

When we were awakened by our host (I’d asked him to give us a wake-up so we wouldn’t miss our boat), we took showers, packed our stuff and paid our bill. We caught a Dolphin (sort of hydro-foil boat) to Pireaus and it only took two hours. We had very comfortable seats and the boat really flew. When we arrived in Pireaus we immediately tried to phone the train station but none of the phones had the number for information or anything. We walked several blocks and then a young lady directed us as to which bus to take to get to the train station. We had been walking in the opposite direction.

It was about a five-minute ride to the train station but it was a sub-station and we had to wait about an hour and a half. I bought a couple of burgers and fries while we waited. We got on the train and went a short distance to the main station where they told us we had to get off if we didn’t have reservations. A lot of good our 1^st class Eurail passes did us! We had to wait another hour to catch the next train. A family tried to tell us we were in their seats but their tickets didn’t match our seat numbers so we refused to move.

It was a long and hot trip and it took five hours this time instead of the four hours it took us upon arrival. When we arrived in Patras, we immediately went looking for either the Hellenic or the Adriatic ferry lines, which were supposed to honor the Eurail Pass, but still charged us a fee. We found the Adriatic and at least it didn’t have a line. They wanted to charge us an additional $90 for berths and they didn’t have any seats. I decided we’d just pay for deck passage. It cost us about $24. We had to go see the passport police again and as usual; they were very rude i.e. they just throw your passports and papers back at you.

We then stopped at a sidewalk café and had drinks and Souvlaki (pork pieces on a stick). We then boarded the ferry a lot more quickly than on the Hellenic Line coming over. We found a good spot on the second to the top level that had windows blocking the wind and were next to a restroom and shower. We laid our raincoat & poncho down and then my sheet on top of them and dressed warm. We covered with Ryan’s sheet and slept pretty soundly. Ryan said they were playing some good music that he recognized including his favorite, Smashing Pumpkins.

view from our spot under the stairs, next to the bathroom on ferry boat

We slept for about ten hours and when we woke up it was warm and the sun was beating down. I took a shower and felt much better. I had Ryan hold the shower door shut because it kept opening. I was getting angry earlier before we got up because nobody would close the bathroom door and it kept hitting my foot. Just like on the train from Athens to Patras. Was I being the Ugly American again?

I slammed the door a couple of times and people looked kind of surprised but I think they got the message. We passed the time reading and writing and playing a little cards. There was a small pool (I guess they were imitating a luxury liner) and many of the teenagers & early 20 something’s lounged around it in their swimsuits. We had a hot lunch in the Buffet. All in all, I think it was better than the Hellenic Line.

Ryan napping on the ferry boat

the young, luxuriating in their pseudo lifestyles of the rich & famous

When we reached Brindisi, we headed for the train station. Ryan had to stop and take some Ventilin so; I carried his pack and had him carry only one bag. I was worried he might be getting overheated so I made him take his shirt off. He didn’t want to but I insisted. The next train to Milan was leaving in about an hour. When we boarded the train it was a madhouse. I sent Ryan ahead and I loaded the packs. It was standing room only in the aisles.

Ryan made his way back to me and he was sweating profusely on his face. He had no luck. A girl was smoking even though it was a no smoking car and I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the no smoking sign and she ignored me. I tapped her again and repeated what I’d said and she said something like, “Don’t touch me.” I got right in her face and called her stupido, bitch, etc. She eventually putout her cigarette and went back to her compartment. But person after person kept lighting up and I kept asking them not to smoke and made gestures indicating Ryan had trouble breathing.

A big guy lit-up and I also tried to get through to him so he went to the door separating the cars and kept the door open while he and several others in there smoked. He was being defiant and showing me he didn’t give a damn what I didn’t like. I went over and tried again to explain to him & the others about Ryan’s asthma and I don’t know what they said but I could tell by the tone it was basically, go fuck yourself. I was getting so pissed-off I was afraid I was going to start swinging.

When a conductor came by, I told him about the girl and he didn’t say anything to her. I insisted he tell her and he just said, “No fumar.” She motioned that she had been smoking out the window and he went on his way. Ryan said we ought to just get off the train, it was too crowded. I wanted to make some progress towards Switzerland but I agreed eventually due to my anger level at all those inconsiderate bastards who probably didn’t understand me and just thought I didn’t like smoke.

We only rode for about one and a half hours and got off in Bari because it looked like a good-sized town on the map. We went to the Information office and I explained to them what had happened. I told them I didn’t care whether it was first or second-class just so long as people weren’t smoking because I didn’t want to have to take Ryan to the hospital. They got on the phone for about 20 minutes and said sorry, all first class is full but they kept trying and then they called the guy who handles reservations and he said no problem.

We left with him and he put us in a compartment on an empty train and put a note saying compartment reserved. Ryan lay down a little while later and fell asleep. It was two and a half hours before we left and whenever someone walked by, I’d fan Ryan to make it look good why we had a whole compartment to ourselves. It was hard staying awake, I was really tired. Finally we left and all night people kept coming in and I’d point to the sign and say reserved. A few asked like why only two people? I’d just point to the sign and say excuse me. Around 2:30 A.M. I gave up and stretched out to sleep. The next time I heard the door, a guy was sitting in our compartment and had been for a while. Ryan had sat up & fallen asleep sitting up. A conductor asked to see our reservations and I showed him the note they’d written saying Ryan has asthma and please don’t smoke. People who were sitting in the aisles were pestering him.

He looked it over and told the people “Reserved.” They weren’t very happy campers and I felt a little guilty but not so much as to give up our private compartment. Some of the people who tried to enter our compartment were smoking and again it was a no smoking car. So, we had our own space all the way to Milan where we arrived about 9:00 A.M. the next morning.

the architecture of Milan’s train station blew my mind

inside Milan train station; felt like a cathedral

the cutie in blue-jean shorts caught my eye

taking a break in Milan, I think?

We had a couple of hours to kill until the train for Bern so we went to find something to eat. On the way I found a phone and called Jeri. We ate at McDonalds again. We then did a little shopping in the station and I took a few pictures. (Oh yeah, while in McDonalds, Dean Martin’s song “Volare” came on & I started chuckling, Ryan didn’t know what was so funny) We arrived in Bern around four o’clock and called the youth hostel.

Berne, Switzerland

near the bear pit in Berne

On our way to the youth hostel, we came to a park where all the junkies hung out. It gave me the creeps and I asked Ryan if he noticed anything but he hadn’t. (Need to insert something here that I forgot to mention; when we were in Patras at an ATM machine, I was taking out some money and Ryan was facing the ATM with me & I told him, no Ryan, this is when I need you to put your back to mine and let me know if anyone approaches because it’s places like this where you can get mugged. It was a seedy-looking part of town, down by the docks) I asked two passersby for directions and they were junkies. Luckily we didn’t have to go through the park. (I again asked Ryan if he had noticed anything about the guy who gave us the directions to the hostel & Ryan said no. I told him the guy who gave us directions had all those marks on his arms because he shoots-up heroin. I was always looking for opportunities to teach Ryan some street smarts.

another example of my poor photography skills

We found the hostel and got a family room at the normal price. I washed a load of clothes, took a shower and we played ping-pong. We then went to a pizzeria that had nice outdoor seating but everyone was smoking. We were told of another restaurant but all they had was fish and it was expensive (Ryan had developed quite a talent at calculating the costs in U.S. dollars & saved me a lot of trouble & I’d think over whether I felt it was a fair price) so we just had drinks. It was right near a waterfall on the river running through town and it was scenic but loud. We then went back to the pizzeria and got a pizza to go. They were very friendly and helpful. We had drinks while we waited on the steps.

outside chess at our hostel in Berne

Ryan ate almost the whole pizza except for the two slices I had. In the morning I had Ryan take a shower and he was embarrassed because there was a man in the shower also. I told him to get over it. We had a roll and a glass of orange juice at the hostel and then went to the train station and put our stuff in a locker. We found out about Hermann Hesse’s museum in Montagnola and then went out shopping and sightseeing. Ryan was in heaven.

our hostel in Berne (image of Lenin)

enjoying our dinner by the river in Berne

Lake Thun, reminded me of Disneyland with storybook atmosphere

I bought a four CD set for about $12 and a shirt for Jeri and a few post cards. Ryan bought some fireworks and candy. We caught a train around 2 P.M. for Leissengen, a beautiful hostel on Lake Thun. We took a Lake Steamer boat the last stretch for about one hour & 45 minutes. It was gorgeous with all the little lakeside houses and beautiful lawns & gardens and the mountains and lush green hillsides. Ryan slept a good part of it on my shoulder. Oh yeah, I also bought a tank top in Bern for about $6 and I was very tempted to buy a cuckoo clock.

Ryan as arts & crafts teacher

When we got off the steamer, I asked a man for directions to the hostel and he gave us a ride in his Opel—a very funny car. The hostel was a big house and it was 30 feet from the lake. The woman who ran the place said she’d made a mistake and had overbooked but we could have dinner with them and could get a hotel room for less than the hostel would cost. I ordered a beer and a soda and I was writing and Ryan was reading when dinner was served. I was a little offended when no one told us to come to dinner and it didn’t look like there was space for us anyway.

the hostel we had dinner at in Lake Thun

So we just continued reading & writing and then the woman in charge said to us, “Come and eat, you ordered dinner.” I said there didn’t appear to be any room and she replied yes, there in the middle.” We felt a little awkward and uncomfortable but the German family whose table we were sharing, were friendly and I gradually got into a conversation with them. The husband was a teacher of math & physics with students 15 to 25 years old. They had twin sons, Georgio & Henry, I believe? Their sons were eight years old.

I was enjoying my conversation but Ryan never uttered a word even though I kept trying to get him involved in the conversation. Finally, when I told them that Ryan designed probably a hundred different paper airplanes, the father asked Ryan if he’d show them one. Ryan got my tablet and started to work. When he flew it and it went all the way into the lake, he was an instant hit with all the kids. There must have been six or seven kids gathered around Ryan and he taught them how to make various models. They would go to the top floor of the hostel and launch them out the windows and etc.

The kids had a blast and Ryan loosened-up. Ryan wanted to have a foot race against the twins and he won once and they won the next. It was a very pleasant family atmosphere. They had a boathouse that had a ping-pong table and a stereo system. They had paddleboards i.e. like a surfboard you paddled with a kayak type paddle. It started getting dark so I paid for dinner and asked directions to the hotel.

It was about a 20-minute walk and it was a clean & decent looking hotel. We paid about $32 for our room and breakfast. Before we went to bed, we had a drink on the terrace balcony. We wanted to watch a little T.V. in the T.V. room but couldn’t figure out how to work it.

waiting for our train at beautiful little village Lake Thun

The breakfast the next morning was actually a buffet. There were several kinds of breads, meats, cheeses, fruits, cereal, juice, etc. The hostess also made us soft-boiled eggs like they serve in a tiny, metal egg holder. We stuffed ourselves and then paid the bill and were on our way. I really wanted to see the Hermann Hesse museum so we got on a train for Spietz to transfer to Brig and then supposedly to Lake Lugano (I almost forgot to add that when we were at the youth hostel in Bern, they had a pin-up board with pics & descriptions of youth hostels all over Switzerland and I told Ryan that since I had been picking almost every place we went to, it was his choice as to which hostel we went to in Switzerland and he chose the one we went to at Lake Thun).

We were told to transfer again after Brig for Dusseldoma and were back in Italy. Three men who worked for the train system took about a half-hour giving me directions of how to get there. They said we’d have to go back to Milan then come to Lugano and then maybe a bus. I gave up and told Ryan forget it. It’d be late at night and the museum would be closed and we’d probably have trouble finding a room. So, we boarded a train for Zurich. We arrived in Zurich around 6:30 P.M. and I called Ruedi and he again said he was busy for the next couple of days. He asked me to call a few days in advance and I said okay.

I told Ryan how disappointed I was in my “friend,” and it added-up, I’d write him and maybe five years later he’d write back. He didn’t have time for us. I saw there was an overnight express to Amsterdam and we had three hours to kill so we shopped around in the huge shopping complex under the train station. Ryan found an encyclopedia to his Magic cards he was collecting and I bought it for him to make him happy and because I felt bad for my “friend’s” bad manners. Ryan commented that he too was disappointed because he was looking forward to meeting Ruedi because I had spoken so highly of him so often. Once again, I’m not the good judge of character that I like to think I am when it comes to “friends.”

We had an appetizer sampler at the American Bar, which had computers you could use to chat with people on the Internet & etc. The appetizers were tasty and they included; potato wedges, poppers, tortilla chips, meatballs, barbecue chicken wings with thousand island sauce, ranch, salsa, etc.

When we boarded the train, we shared a compartment with two Japanese young men from Toronto. We slid the seats together and I slept with Ryan’s feet in my face and vice-versa. We arrived in Amsterdam at 9 A.M. and put our bags & packs in a locker and went looking for a room. We first went to the Hotel Kabul where I’ve stayed at a few times. The woman at the desk didn’t think it a good idea for Ryan because of all the pot smoking, drinking, & partying. We checked out a few hotels in the better part of town but they wanted $100 to $120 for rooms that weren’t worth $30 a night. We decided to just do some shopping and try to find an arcade and then we’d head for Dover.

Antwerp, beautiful architecture

Ryan was pissed-off because they wouldn’t let him play in the arcades. You had to be 18. It didn’t make sense. All the drugs and sex shops and yet he couldn’t play kids video games. We did find a bar with pool tables and played a game of pool. We caught the train for Antwerp, Belgium and arrived around 7:30 P.M. We checked a couple of hotels and they were expensive. I found one for $54 and it wasn’t very hot (good). I thought I’d try the fancy, new hotel a woman had told us about. She said that she thought it had a swimming pool and special rates because they were brand new. It cost $89 but was well worth it.

The room had a T.V., mini-bar stocked with Heinekens, telephone in the bathroom, air conditioning, room service, and a safe for your valuables, etc. We immediately went for a swim and though chilly at first, it was very refreshing and relaxing. They also had a sauna, Lifecycles, etc. with several TVs mounted on the walls. Very top of the line.

Antwerp

I felt the price for the room was very fair but their food & drink prices were outrageous. Fifteen dollars for a hamburger if ordered through room service. The mini-bar cost $3 for a coke and $7 for a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels, about enough for one drink. We went out and got some fast food that was like shiskabob. We went back to our room and watched the Jay Leno show & Demi Moore was on. We then went out again. We found an amusement center that Ryan could play in and I got a pocketful of change and let him go for it. Then I said okay, now it’s my turn to play and we found a pub with a jukebox.

It was about one hundred feet from the arcade and there were a handful of customers in it. There were two other pubs close by but they seemed a bit rowdy. I played some tunes on the jukebox and had several beers while Ryan played a few games. I was feeling pretty good not just from the beer but also because we had a nice room and I felt better about myself. I felt more important or uptown I guess?

I bought the house a round, including the bartender, and did a little halfway dancing to a song by Mike & the Mechanics. I got into a conversation with a Belgian guy and had quite a good time. We touched on the subject of Vietnam and I started crying and said that it was a civil war and we had no business there. We changed the subject and I again was the happy drunk. The guy I was speaking to asked me if I knew how to roll pot and I told him I didn’t and couldn’t due to my mom’s Will which said my sisters and I had to be drug-tested before we got our share of the inheritance. We finally left the bar around 3:30 A.M. and got an assortment of meats (Middle Eastern, I believe?) and went back to our room.

Check out time was noon but we didn’t wake up until 11 A.M. We rushed through our showers and packing—well, I rushed Ryan and I drank three beers from the mini-bar fridge. We missed-out on the breakfast that was included and didn’t get to take another swim like I hoped to but I was still in a great mood. The guy from the night before had given me his phone number and invited us to be his guests and show us Antwerp.

We checked out at 12:30 and went to the bar across from the one of the night before because it wasn’t open yet. (I forgot another thing about our stay in Amsterdam, I purposely had us walk through the Red Light District in Amsterdam with the women sitting in the picture windows so perspective customers could do some window shopping. I think I wanted to see if Ryan would have any reaction but like on the Greek island, Sifnos, with the women sunbathing topless, Ryan didn’t show any signs of shock, no, he was a cool customer. I bet he couldn’t wait to tell his friends about these experiences when we returned to Oregon though?) Part of street smarts and life experience? I ordered drinks and called the guy up. He said his parents were over and that he’d meet us at 3 P.M. While I was ordering another round at this bar, one of the customers spoke to me. At first he seemed friendly and he said he saw us the night before. He then seemed to get a little disrespectful. I couldn’t make out exactly what he said but I could tell from his tone that he was being a jerk.

I played it cool and said firmly, no, I don’t understand. I stayed a while so as to make it clear I wasn’t intimidated. After the other bar, we were in last night, opened up, we went over. We waited until 4 P.M. and my “friend” never showed. I gave the bartender his phone number and asked her to return it to him if and when he showed up.

We caught the next train to Oostende and then booked passage on the ferry to Ramsgate. In Ramsgate we found a bed & breakfast for 27 pounds. After we unloaded our stuff, we went out to find our supper. It was Friday night and the young & not so young were out on the town. As we passed a disco, I noticed the bouncers frisking the guys before they entered. I thought this must be a rowdy area though I didn’t get that impression. We found a Greek restaurant and Ryan had an English breakfast and I had a Greek dish of meat & rice wrapped in leaves.

We walked back to the B & B and ordered drinks from the little bar in the lobby. Two guys—looked like working class stiffs—and a middle-aged woman, shortly joined us. She had a nice smile, looked a little weather-beaten but had a sexual charm about her. We were watching Star Trek or something but I heard the guys making a few crude and lewd remarks to the woman and then she moved closer to them.

I thought it wise to go to our room, so we did. We watched a little more T.V. in our room and fell asleep. We got up early the next day but I didn’t see where breakfast was served so I went back to the room and we took our time with showering and packing. When we came down, I saw the door to the dining room and we went in.

It was 9:15 A.M. and the woman serving breakfast was the woman of the night before at the hotel bar. While we were waiting, a guy came over and said, “We’re going to serve you even though you’re pushing it, you were told that breakfast is over at 9:00 A.M. I simply said sorry, I forgot, rather than try to explain. It was a substantial breakfast. Afterwards, we headed for the road to Dover. We had a pretty good walk and Ryan had to stop frequently and he took a few puffs of Ventilin.

When we finally reached a spot where traffic seemed to be headed out of town, we found a shady spot and I enlightened Ryan as to the tricks of the trade regarding hitchhiking. It only took about 15 minutes to get a ride. A young couple on their way to Calais for the day. Her name was Fiona and she & I did most of the talking. It was a pleasant conversation and she commented that she didn’t see many children hitching around southeast England. She feigned offence when after asking if we were going to London, I replied as short a time as possible.

I explained that the cost, the crowds, & the humidity were what I didn’t like about London. Fiona had red hair and had been to the States. She knew what I meant when I told her I didn’t think I’d ever get used to driving on the left side of the road. They let us out in the centre of Dover and we went in search of a place to cash travelers cheque.

We found a Thomas Cook Exchange and it cost $6 to cash a hundred dollars traveler’s cheque. We then had quite a walk past the docks to the road westbound towards Haslemere where I wanted to show Ryan the work I’d done at Lou & Kate Shields place.

We tried hitching a ride for about two hours but to no avail. We were just outside a place that was holding a charity auction and we went in to see if we could get some water. I spotted a water faucet and asked a guy who was doing some work on a building if we could get a drink.

He said to come with him and he’d get us some water from the house because the faucet water had something in it. He came out with a large measuring cup of water and some paper cups. A big man I recognized from the ferry ride the day before was sitting outside the house. Our host left us with him and asked him to get more water for us if we wanted it.

The big guy recognized us too and we exchanged a few words. He and his companion had slept on the beach last night and this place was like a Goodwill or Salvation Army but they were full up and so he’d have to be moving on. I introduced Ryan and myself and he said his name was Tiny. I smiled and lightly chuckled at this because he had to be 6’ 5” and near 350 pounds. We all shook hands and he gave Ryan some candy and we said good-bye.

We moved up the highway a bit to a bus stop with some shade and an area for cars to pull over. Ryan had been bugging me for a chance to try out some of the fireworks he’d bought. I told him it was okay. There was a fenced in area with a few goats in it. One goat had a long beard and wide horns and seemed to be the boss. Ryan had fun feeding the goats some old bread he’d found on the ground, some of our chips, some of his Starburst candy and the wrappers.

We finally decided to hang it up and walked back down the hill to the first pub we came across. The music was blaring and the décor was that of an old, sea-going vessel. I ordered the usual, a pint of beer for myself and a Coke with ice for Ryan. Ryan drank part of his Coke and fell asleep even though he had complained a few minutes earlier that he couldn’t sleep because the music was so loud. We were about three feet away from a speaker in order to avoid the smoke of the other customers. I had another beer while Ryan slept. Poor little guy was tuckered out with all the walking and carrying our heavy loads.

A group of people who were dressed up—maybe a wedding—came in. The women played pool and the one who seemed to win consistently had her blouse unbuttoned so low that I saw almost her entire breast each time she bent over to take a shot. She was probably my age but had an earring in her nose. Another woman with the party who was much more demure and seemed to command the respect & the attention of the others smiled at me or rather Ryan’s sleeping several times. When I took a picture of him sleeping she said, “That’s cruel.” I replied, Yes, I know. After I’d finished my second beer, I woke Ryan because we needed to find a room for the night.

We walked on to a quiet little pub that had the distinction of being the smallest pub in York. We would have taken up too much room with our packs and bags so we sat outside. As I was ordering the drinks, I asked if they knew of any reasonably priced B & Bs and was given directions. Ryan enjoyed petting a very mellow Golden Retriever that seemed to belong to the pub.

The dog would lie right across the entrance so that people had to step over him and he’d get up once in a while and go into the pub for a few minutes. We finished our drinks and headed for the street with the B & Bs. The first one we came to was full and charged 40 pounds. The next one wanted 36 pounds but was a dive. The proximity to the train station made the price higher so we walked past the next dozen or so until we saw one advertised for 12 pounds per person.

I knocked on the door and an elderly woman answered and said she did have a room. I took a look and it seemed cheerful and there was a T.V. We took it and dropped our stuff off and went out. We first stopped at the train station to price tickets to Canterbury. We then went to the pub across from the train station and had drinks. After our drinks, we headed for the centre of town to find a restaurant. And believe it or not, we again ate at a Greek restaurant but this time we got take away food because it was cheaper. We had the variety special and walked a short distance to a little square with benches.

We must’ve started something because then a few other travelers took up the other benches and ate their various dinners as well. It was getting dark and again the young were out and about. I noticed four pretty young things sitting outside a pub all dressed up. If I were alone, I probably would have seen if I could’ve got a dance or two. After dinner we headed back to the B & B but first we stopped at a Texaco station convenience store and bought a few goodies.

We stopped at another pub near our B & B and played Snooker pool and talked briefly with a couple of young boys aged 16 and their father. They taught us how to play and asked about the U.S. They had been to Disney World but not to Oregon. After they left, one of the customers got a little cocky with me but I shined him on and when we were finished with our game and walked out, I just let the door slam. I think he was pissed that I didn’t let him push my buttons.

The T.V. in our room was 12 inches and it only got one station & the reception was lousy. The next morning we took our showers and had breakfast and walked to the train station. We caught the train for Canterbury and arrived about 30 minutes later. I called the Youth hostel and was given directions but they didn’t open until 1 P.M. and it was 10 A.M. so we went in search of a laundry mat.

We found a launderette but it was closed. So, we did a little shopping and stopped at a few pubs to pass the time. On our way to the hostel, Ryan noticed a B & B for nine pounds each and I went up to the door to check it out. A woman answered and said she did have a room for us. I went and got Ryan and we took the room. It was a real home with lots of natural wood and natural wood furniture.

Our room was right off the living room and looked like a sunroom with bunk beds and two easy chairs. We dropped our packs and went out to explore Canterbury. The first place we stopped at was a Laser Tag place Ryan had spotted. I treated Ryan to a game of Laser Tag, it was only $7 and while he played, I had a couple of beers—this is my kind of amusement center. I went in with one of the employees to watch Ryan and the others play for a bit.

When Ryan came out 25 minutes later, he was very sweaty and high on the fun he’d had. He played a few of the arcade video and pinball games while I finished my beer and I played a few songs on the jukebox including a Smashing Pumpkins song for Ryan. We then went across the street to Safeway to buy some groceries for our supper. I bought a steak, some broccoli, potatoes, can of Leek & Potato soup, milk, and two Scotch eggs (a delicious concoction I had discovered at a pub when we lived in North Hollywood in L.A. which is a whole egg, deep-fried & wrapped with bacon). We then did more shopping in the quaint narrow streets. I bought a book on Shakespeare.

We gradually made our way to the famous Canterbury Cathedral and I’d forgotten how impressive it was 21 years earlier when I’d first visited it. You had to pay for a permit to take photos so I skipped taking pictures inside. The ceiling had to be a hundred feet high and the stained glass was awe-inspiring. Before we left the cathedral, we checked out the gift shop and I bought a parchment facsimile of the Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral by Henry Scott Holland on the subject of Death. The words on this imitation scroll have given me more comfort regarding my mom’s death than anything else I have ever come across & I have shared it with several people, including Noam Chomsky who said it brought tears to his eyes—his wife, Carol, had passed away not long ago and I wanted to hopefully offer him a little comfort.

After we left the cathedral, we stopped in at another pub. Ryan wanted to play pool again and it was in an attic at the top of the pub that I had jokingly guessed when Ryan had asked me where it was. The poolroom looked pretty shabby and that’s where the youngsters gathered and they were smoking pot when we came in.

We played one game and left because some kids were waiting on the table and I was afraid our food might go bad. I had also bought us a couple slices of cheesecake because Ryan had been wanting some for a couple of days and we’d eaten it a couple of hours earlier. When we got back to the B & B, I started cooking our supper.

The woman whose home we were sharing was named Mary. She was Irish and from Galway. As I cooked and she prepared her family’s dinner she questioned me and passed her judgments on me. She was very opinionated and I was a bit annoyed but I didn’t show it or feel the need to justify myself. She reminded me of Nancy Reagan in her solution to the “drug problem”, “Just say No!”

Ryan and I went outside to eat in the backyard and I either was eating too fast or it simply went down the wrong pipe but I got a piece of steak caught in my throat. I kept going over to the bushes and spitting up flem and couldn’t get over that feeling of something caught in my throat. It went on for at least an hour and I finally told Ryan to eat my dinner.

After dinner, we joined Mary and her husband in the front room. The conversation at first was awkward and not free flowing. Then gradually as some of the other guests joined us, it got a little better. I felt like I was the social director and also felt a little guilty like I was talking too much. Later on, Mary’s daughter came in and though she wasn’t a raving beauty, she had a magnetism about her. I thought I noticed Mary giving me distrustful looks a few times because I felt her daughter was attracted to me & vice-versa. She and I talked mostly and the others mostly sat silent.

Mary’s husband had offered me a glass of wine earlier and I must’ve nursed it for at least two hours. One of the other guests was English also but he’d just spent ten years in Australia working in the mines. And there was a couple from Portugal who hardly spoke. Ryan was the central subject of our conversation. We discussed his many talents and he reveled in the attention. He demonstrated several of his talents including paper airplanes. Mary’s husband was much more mellow than she was. I liked him. He paid a lot of attention to Ryan, as did his wife but he got involved with Ryan whereas Mary mostly just sang his praises like a doting grandmother.

We also discussed education at length and I learned that Mary’s husband had once studied to become a priest. He also worked with abused children and we shared observations. He was in the process of building a little cottage or hut in their backyard and I told him about my efforts on Ryan’s tree house. Around 11:30 or so, Mary announced that it was bedtime and I went to sleep fantasizing about her daughter and wondering whether we should maybe stick around a few more days as Ryan had suggested.

The next morning, Ryan too wanted to stay. I believe he enjoyed the family atmosphere and the attention he had received. I told him that I really wanted to see Oxford University and the British Museum and that we had to move on and that he should just take it as a good experience and remember it as such. We said good-bye and Mary asked Ryan to write her. She shook my hand and hugged Ryan. As we walked away, I kept kicking myself because I felt that I might have walked away from a possibly lovely & sensual experience with Mary’s daughter. While we were packing, Mary’s daughter had come down to the kitchen in a flimsy slip and Mary scolded her and told her to go put something decent on, and I noted that Mary’s daughter didn’t seem particularly concerned about her mother’s prudish admonitions & didn’t exactly rush up to her room to change. I think she enjoyed titillating me with her lovely body? Several times throughout the course of our vacation, Ryan had wanted to stay at various places but I was so anxious to show him everything, I’d press for us to move on. Now of course in hindsight, I wish I’d listened to my son more often. I knew that we’d probably never get a chance to make such a trip together and I simply tried to cram too much in to our trip. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to add that Mary had to give me one last parting jab, Ryan was packing his backpack as we were preparing to leave & Mary said in a sarcastic tone, “Looks like Ryan is in charge,” (or something to that effect i.e. like Ryan was directing/running our trip). I just gave her a scowl and we left.

When we got to the bus station it started raining. The bus was late and then there wasn’t enough room so we had to wait for another bus. It was supposed to be another 15 minutes but was 45 minutes. When we arrived at Victoria Station in London, I was glad at least that it wasn’t muggy like two & a half weeks earlier when we had passed through. I called a few hostels and they were all full except one that wanted 36 pounds or $72 for a six-bed dormitory. I talked it over with Ryan and thought we’d find cheaper accommodations in Oxford.

We caught a bus to Oxford and arrived there one & a half hours later. On our way out of London, we noticed huge crowds filling the streets. Ryan guesstimated a million people and I thought he was way off but I later learned he was pretty much accurate. It was the annual Notting Hill Festival that the Blacks from the Caribbean put on. This year’s festival was supposedly one of the most peaceful. Only three stabbings and one shooting of a French student.

When we got to Oxford, the tourist information office was closed. We had drinks at the pub next to the bus station and I saw a board for tourist info. It had guesthouses, B & Bs, and hotels listed. I copied down several of the least expensive and returned to our table. Ryan was dodging bees. I also asked inside the pub re: places to stay and the bartender didn’t know of any. We were just about to leave when the waitress came by again. I asked her and she said she thought someone inside knew of a nearby place. When she returned she said it was right across from the bus station. I told Ryan to stay put and I went to check it out.

It was above a pub and the bartender showed me the room. It looked clean and the beds were okay and it had a T.V. and best of all, we didn’t have to go looking for a room. I had taken a gamble because when I called the Oxford hostel from London it was full up and the guy said that the B & Bs around it were expensive. So, we paid just as much as the hostel in London ($72) and we had our own room over a pub, next to the bus station and in the heart of Oxford University.

After we moved our stuff into the room, I went into the pub to ask where a launderette was. The bartender gave me directions and I packed a bag of dirty clothes and told Ryan to stay in the room and watch T.V. It took me 15 minutes or so to reach the launderette and it was closing in ten minutes. Typical of our luck on this trip. So, I washed a tee shirt & socks by hand and had Ryan was a pair of underwear, socks, & a tee shirt. We hung them near the window to hopefully dry by morning. I told Ryan I was going downstairs to the pub and he worked on his journal.

I got into a conversation with a history professor from Oxford. He was okay but I sensed he was somewhat insincere and I thought he might be gay. I tried to pick his brain and told him why we came to Oxford. I’ve always been curious as to exactly what Rhodes Scholars read and what sort of questions or papers they wrote and wanted to see how I measured up against these requirements?

I stayed a bit too long and Ryan came down to get me. We were going to go out for some supper and the bartender recommended “The Kebab Kid,” a fast food Middle Eastern place near by. Ryan got a Kebab burger and I got something like a Kebab Falafel. I was afraid it might not be enough so I also ordered fries and a meat pastry. It was more than enough and we had trouble eating it all while watching T.V. back in our room.

After dinner, Ryan wanted to check out a laser/video arcade but it was closed. We went back to the room and watched T.V. until we fell asleep. The next morning after we had our breakfast, we left our packs in the basement of the B & B/pub and set off. We stopped first in a bookstore called Dillon’s and I bought “A Beginner’s Guide to Plato,” the comic type series of books. A salesgirl photocopied a map showing us how to get to the Rhodes House when I asked about anything on what Rhodes Scholars studied.

We first headed to the Bodleian library because I thought it’d be intriguing and maybe a place to get info on Rhodes Scholars. We shopped as we made our way. I did find a Trivial Pursuit game for kids that I remember Willa (my supervisor at Aloha High—a real bitch) but it was 35 pounds. When we found the Bodleian Library it was closed. Typical!

We then moved on to the Rhodes House and it too was closed. A guard came over and I explained what I wanted and he let us in and showed us the way to the administrative offices. I again explained and an office worker gave me a short pamphlet on the Rhodes program.

I was very disappointed and we stopped at the first pub we came to. As we were enjoying our drinks, and if I remember correctly, the pub we were in used to be frequented by the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien and several other famous dons (professors) of Oxford University. After our drinks we did a little more shopping and went back and collected our packs/packages and caught the return bus to London. At Victoria Station, it cost me $14 to store our packs/packages in lockers. We caught the Tube (Underground) to the British Museum and boy was it packed. Mostly Japanese.

There was no charge but they requested donations. We first went in a gift shop inside because I’m always in search of posters or busts of philosophers. No luck and though they did have a few interesting items, prices were out of this world. We then went into the library and yes, it was impressive but everything was enclosed in glass cabinets and was locked. We looked around briefly and again I was disappointed. We didn’t care to check out the rest of the museum so we left. We did a little more shopping and caught the Tube back to Victoria Station. We planned on catching a bus to Guildford and spend the night there and then go to Haslemere the next day to show Ryan what I had worked on with Lou Shields.

We waited an hour & a half and got in line to board the bus. The guy from Information didn’t tell me the day before that for this bus you had to buy a ticket from the bus station, not the driver like we had on the other two buses we’d taken. And they let everyone on and we were the very last and they had no room left. I was pissed-off and I let them know it. I then went and stood in a queue to buy a ticket for the next bus. It took me a half hour to find out that it wasn’t due to leave until 10 P.M. and it was now 6:30 P.M. The guy told me to try the other bus line across the street or take a train.

I relayed the latest info to Ryan and was off again. The Green Line was closed and we’d just missed the last bus they had to Guildford. So, I bought a train ticket that was only a few pounds more than the goddamned bus would’ve been but I couldn’t understand what time or gate to go to. Another example of British courtesy! I went and got Ryan and I was surprised he didn’t even ask to go into the arcade in the shopping mall of Victoria Station.

We stood with the crowd staring at the Departure schedule board for probably about half an hour and I thought I finally knew the right platform to go to. We hustled over to it but there were no signs on the cars saying their destinations and there were no conductors to ask. I was afraid we might hop on the wrong train so we stood and watched it fill up. I saw the train driver/engineer and made a beeline to him and said excuse me and he looked at me and ignored me.

I angrily walked back over to Ryan and kept saying fairly loudly, fuck the British. We walked back over to the Departure Boards and I went back to the ticket window to find out for sure. Clapham Junction to transfer for Guildford at Platform 10 every five minutes.

We didn’t arrive in Guildford until 9:30 P.M. and I asked a group of cops if they knew of any B & Bs? They said most likely everything was full up but I could walk to the police station and get a list of B & Bs to call. It sounded like quite a walk and the odds were low we’d find a room and then we’d probably have to pay a rip-off taxi driver to take us there so we decided to see if we could catch a train to Gatwick Airport. There was a train leaving for Gatwick at 10:20 P.M.

I was going to see if we could sleep in the train station but they said they locked up at 1:00 A.M. Ryan was hungry and I saw what looked like a fast food place a few blocks away so I headed out and told Ryan to stay put. There was a woman sitting next to him and there didn’t seem to be any undesirables about, nevertheless, I walked at a brisk pace. It was a Chinese take-out place. The prices were so high I just ordered some rice and two cokes.

We wolfed the rice down and a few minutes later we boarded the train for Gatwick. We arrived about 11:00 P.M. and found a comfortable and long enough seat on the upper floor in “The Village” of stores, restaurants, and pubs, to sleep on. I went in each of the three pubs to get a beer but they each said, “Sorry we’re closed,” even though they still had a few customers drinking.

Ryan spotted a kids’ play area that had a T.V. on. We moved our stuff over to it and I said, alright, an old Jimmy Cagney movie. As soon as we sat down, a troop of young kids came in to play and we couldn’t hear or watch the T.V. so we went back to our bench. Ryan checked out the arcade and was mad that I wouldn’t let him go play in it. It was getting late and I knew we’d be woke-up early. I told him he’d have at least 20 hours to kill before we left on Thursday and to chill-out.

We were awakened around 5:30 A.M. the next morning and the place was swarming with people already. I bought donuts and milk for our breakfast but Ryan’s stomach was bothering him. I freshened-up in the restroom and later on went to see if there were any laundry facilities at or near the airport.

The airport didn’t have a launderette but they did have showers. The village a mile and a half away had one but you had to take the motorway and couldn’t walk on it. I checked out the Hilton Hotel connected to the airport but if you weren’t a guest, tough luck. The Hilton receptionist seemed genuinely sorry though.

I ended up buying a Bugs Bunny & Tasmanian Devil tee shirt in the Disney store in order to have at least a clean shirt for the flight back. We spent the day taking turns watching our packs & bags. I read quite a bit and Ryan spent a lot of time in the arcade. Ryan kept coming back and telling me of tickets or coins he’d found. I went to each of the pubs and had a beer in each and would sip on a beer to stretch out the time as long as possible. That is, I’d go to a pub while Ryan watched our stuff and then return while he took his turn in the arcade for a couple of hours. And then when it was my turn again, I’d go to a different pub. I hadn’t been keeping track of my ATM withdrawals for the entire length of our trip but had a hunch that I was getting very low in my balance and that’s why I was sipping my beer very slowly & I needed a change of scenery from sitting on the bench with our packs for hours at a time.

One of the pubs I went in was decorated with all sorts of memorabilia from the 50s & 60s. The bartender was a young guy who was truly entertaining. He reminded me of Tom Cruise in the movie, “Cocktail.” He’d toss glasses & bottles of liquor in the air with amazing juggling feats and he never missed. We had a brief conversation and I learned that he was quite a traveler himself. He’d go down to the Caribbean and work for a while and then be off somewhere else. He said that London was one of the best cities to get very cheap flights to various destinations around the world.

There were a couple of nice looking girls wearing Hawaiian tops & sexy straw skirts with leis of flowers around their necks who were handing out cards for some company’s promotion. Each time I came up the escalator, they’d try to hand me another card and I’d have to remind them that I’d already gotten one. I was starting to get a little bummed-out that they didn’t remember my face.

Ryan and I took turns cat-napping throughout the day. I went to a store downstairs that was less expensive than the others and bought us a couple of sandwiches & chips & a soda for Ryan and a beer for myself. I bought myself several beers during the course of the day and I thought that the airport police would say something to me but they never did. I felt kind of like a bum because we were camping out for so long at the airport but I also felt resourceful because we were making do.

In some ways, the time seemed to drag out but it really wasn’t that bad. I got tired of sitting though and would take occasional walks to stretch my legs. Reading has always been a good traveling companion. And Ryan and I would play card games and talk. Ryan also did a good amount of reading and kept trying to interest me in the arcade.

I finally gave in and went into the arcade with him. Ryan, I must say is very wise or frugal with his money whereas I’m the total opposite. For dinner we went to a cafeteria that wasn’t too expensive and had a good hot meal of soup, hot sandwiches and etc. After dinner we went back over to the kids’ play area with the T.V. and watched an old Jimmy Cagney movie.

By the time the movie was over, most of the benches were taken. We had to take seats in an area that had an air conditioner going and that I wasn’t too crazy about. We put our packs under the benches and slept head to head and I wore my money pouch inside my shirt. When we woke the next morning, there were already a lot of people coming & going. I had learned that there were showers for public use and wanted to clean up for the flight home. Another guy and I waited for quite some time. There were only two showers and he said that two Oriental girls were in them. When I finally did get in the shower, it felt great. I hadn’t showered for three days and felt like a slob.

I put on my new shirt and felt like a new man. We passed the next few hours pretty much as we had the day before. We checked-in for our flight about three hours before departure time and while waiting in line, I noticed a sign that said there was a $25,000 fine for bringing on board various things of which fireworks were one. We asked the ticket person about it and showed her Ryan’s fireworks. She said we couldn’t and Ryan was very bummed-out.

She took the fireworks and we went to the check-in area. After passing through the security check we were in a huge room with probably 20 different duty-free shops. We took turns staying with the packs while the other went to check out the shops. I didn’t see anything that I felt was a great deal. Ryan saw a hand-held computer that he felt was a good deal and he was debating on buying. Of course they had an arcade and Ryan wanted to check it out. They also had a pub and I wanted to check it out. So, I told Ryan to meet me in the pub when he was done. I forget the name of the pub but it was designed in the fashion of pubs in Shakespeare’s time.

They had a blackboard with a list of crimes and the punishments given for each crime in those times. It was very severe. I had a couple pints of Guinness and then Ryan joined me. I overheard a group of American businessmen who had come over to go golfing and felt a little superior, feeling they really didn’t experience “true traveling.” I had Ryan go and exchange my English pounds into American money.

Our flight back was a lot more pleasant than the flight over. The service was friendlier and the food even seemed to taste better. We transferred at Minneapolis/St. Paul and I checked out the shops while waiting. I lucked-out and wasn’t cramped for leg space on either portion of the flight back.

When we arrived in Portland, Jeri and her parents were there to greet us. They were amazed at Ryan’s cheeks and thought he had a reaction to his medicine or something. I told them that he must’ve put on weight because he had been eating like a horse the whole trip. He did quite a bit of walking and carried quite a load and worked up a hearty appetite.

We went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant though Ryan and I weren’t very hungry. Ryan’s grandfather, Sy, commented, “What a wonderful experience for Ryan to have had.” And I felt proud to have been able to take my son on this trip. I asked Ryan a few days later if the good outweighed the bad and he said yes and that there was hardly a day that went by that he didn’t think about our trip. I was concerned that I had been too tough on him but about a week after our return, I took Ryan and his buddy, Jeff, fishing in Estacada and as we were walking along a trail, I started to tell them that I was going to take a trip around the world and Ryan immediately exclaimed “Can I go?” I felt glad and a little awkward and tried to explain that this was something I wanted to do on my own and we’d just been to Europe for a month. But I was relieved to know that Ryan truly had the travel bug now and wanted to travel more with me.

Posted in Travel Experiences | Tagged autobiography, Europe with my son, European vacation, hitch-hiking, travel, travel tips | Leave a comment

Obama’s Promise of Change

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

Let me begin by warning you that I am going to criticize President Obama very harshly in this essay so if you’d rather not hear anything disparaging about Obama in this election season because Mitt Romney, if elected, would obviously do much more harm, then perhaps you shouldn’t go on reading my essay? I’m sure you recall that during Obama’s first presidential campaign, the mantra was “Change.” This single word was suppose to encapsulate what he was about and I’m sure they conducted many polls which all pointed to the fact that Americans were sick to death of the system as it was and were starved for change, real change in how our government & big business operates. Well, we were obviously suckered once again by the PR assault on our emotions and Obama’s first campaign was a marketing marvel. I noticed on a recent video of Obama campaigning for the 2012 election, the word “Forward” was on the lectern he was standing behind. I guess they figure, well, it worked the first time around i.e. a single word that succeeded in keeping the voting public in the dark as to what Obama stood for or his real agenda & track record. What’s the old saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me? Well, I’ve been paying attention & I won’t get fooled again. Here are some of the key reasons why I won’t be voting for Obama again:

First and foremost, shortly after being elected president, Obama appointed three of the major criminals responsible for our economic collapse and which we still suffer under, Bernanke, Geithner, & Summers. As soon as Obama did this I knew I’d been had and Obama had betrayed the millions of us who were so naïve to believe that a single person could save us & would save us from the predators in the financial industry elite. And Obama’s recent defense of Jamie Dimon, the smirking CEO, president, & owner of JP Morgan Chase, who is one of the most egregious of the Robber Barons, truly disgusted me.

Next on my list was Obama’s proclamation regarding the calls to hold Georgie ‘Dubya’ Bushwhacker, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. accountable for lying us into war and the hundreds of other crimes they committed while in office, “I’m not interested in looking backward because I want to look forward.” Jesus Christ! And Obama was a Constitutional law professor? What does this say about America’s so-called respect for law & order? This completely turns our entire legal system on its head because crimes are committed in the past and prosecutors are supposed to build their cases against the perpetrators of crimes and hold them accountable in a court of law. But Bush & Co. was never held accountable for not only getting thousands of our soldiers killed but also wrecking the U.S. economy. How bout the next time you or I go to court, we tell the judge, ah come on judge, that was in the past, can’t we just look forward & forget about past mistakes?

Continuing on, the absolute apex of Obama’s hypocrisy is the fact that he has gone after “whistleblowers” with a zeal unlike any other U.S. president and has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any other president. He won’t prosecute the crooks who robbed us blind and drove our economy into a tailspin and in fact, he’s placed the foxes in charge of the hen house e.g. the federal treasury, etc. but he pursues the courageous souls who try to warn us about the illegal spying on Americans, about unsafe products such as pharmaceutical drugs, military weaponry, etc. Obama’s administration want to get their hands on Julian Assange so badly that they almost drool in public whenever the subject comes up. Bradley Manning is alleged to have revealed classified secrets that have endangered American lives but there is absolutely no evidence to support this claim and meanwhile, Pvt. Manning is being tortured, his rights have been completely ignored, and he is held almost incommunicado again in this land of law & order. I argue that Obama and his crony, vulture capitalists are really bent on vengeance against Manning & Assange because the WikiLeak secrets they revealed was analogous to sharing with the public, your playbook to use a sports metaphor. In short, what was revealed was a treasure trove of all the dirty Machiavellian tricks used by our government and other governments against their own citizens in order to gain power, hold onto power, and increase their power!

The true patriot act & Obama knows better i.e. he was a Constitutional law professor!

Furthermore, Obama’s continuation of The Patriot Act and not giving-up any of the illegal powers that George Bush gave himself as president, is further proof in my book that Obama is just another power hungry egotist & sociopath like most corporate CEOs who relish their reign in their private tyrannies. And it really saddens me that so many Americans don’t even seem to notice or to care that most of those “Rights” that we are so fond of boasting about to the world, have simply been taken away under the guise of protecting us against terrorists. Hell! If we dared to face the ugly truth about America, we are the leading terrorist nation on the planet and we have far more to fear from our own government than we do from any boogey-man terrorists lurking in the dark. George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, & Ray Bradbury would be rolling-over in their graves if they could see what we’ve become and how meekly, like lambs going to slaughter, we have responded. Tell me again what our soldiers are defending us against or for, overseas in this perpetual state of war we’ve been engaged in since WWII?

FOX News’ role model & mentor, Joseph Goebbels

Pursuing this further, how can Obama and those other hypocritical hyenas stand before the world’s major news gatherings & declare our belief in freedom, democracy, justice, etc. while we send drones after “terrorists” almost daily and innocent women, children, elderly, etc. are killed by the hundreds and thousands? How noble is this of us? How can a U.S. president give the order to kill suspected terrorists, even American citizens, anywhere in the world, on sight with no trial, no proof, no nothing? The rest of the world knows what liars & hypocrites we are i.e. our government, and the American public seems to be the only ones who still believe the propaganda, mostly because they watch FOX News & the corporate-owned media who have a clear financial interest in keeping the public ignorant.

Another significant reason why I won’t vote for Obama again is because of his JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act. Here are some of the details outlined by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine:

“…Will very nearly legalize fraud in the stock market”

“…It’s a sweeping piece of deregulation”

“…This law actually appears to have been specifically written to encourage fraud in the stock markets”

“Ostensibly, the law makes it easier for startup companies (particularly tech companies whose lobbyists were a driving force behind its passage) to attract capital by, among other things, exempting them from independent accounting requirements for up to five years after they first begin selling shares in the stock market.”

I will leave it to you to read the rest of the article if you’d like to learn more about it at http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-obamas-jobs-act-couldnt-suck-worse-20120409

Proceeding on with Obama’s idea of “Change,” here’s a “treaty” started under the Bushwhacker from Crawford and now Obama has taken-up right where Georgie Porgie left off on this truly terrifying “treaty” that not many are even aware of. It has been dubbed “NAFTA on steroids.” And don’t forget that it was another darling of the Democratic party i.e. Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA which opened the floodgates for corporate America, those rich rodents who love America so deeply, to ship our jobs overseas where they could make greater profit, not have any restrictions on polluting the environment, no workers’ rights, no unions to deal with, etc. Yeah, and Billy Bob Clinton also signed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act which forbid commercial banks from risking their depositors’ money like investment banks do and played a very significant role in the global economic meltdown. This nightmare of a “treaty” that, if passed, will make our days a nightmare come true is called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Here are a few details:

“…Negotiations have been conducted in extreme secrecy”

“…It’s been cleverly misbranded as a ‘trade agreement’

“…It adds new rights to Big Parma”

“…It would limit Internet freedom”

“…It seeks to expand NAFTA’s ‘corporate tribunals’ which have been used to attack domestic public interest laws”

“Think of the TPP as a stealthy delivery mechanism for policies that could not survive public scrutiny”

“Only two of the 26 chapters of this corporate Trojan horse cover traditional trade matters. The rest embody the most florid dreams of the 1%—grandiose new rights & privileges for corporations and permanent constraints on government regulations.”

“They include new investor safeguards to ease job off shoring & assert control over natural resources and severely limit the regulation of financial services, land use, food safety, natural resources, energy, tobacco, healthcare and more.”

Again, I’ll leave it to you to read more if you’re so inclined http://www.thenation.com/article/168627/nafta-steroids# I don’t know about you my friend, but these revelations about knocked my socks off. It’s absolutely mind-boggling that even as we’re still suffering through this ‘recession’ which I believe is actually a de facto Depression, the corporate cockroaches haven’t slowed-down one bit in their rapacious greed to gobble-up every last crumb the billions are struggling to survive on. Obama, the Oreo in the Oval Office boasts of creating thousands of new jobs but neglects to tell us that most of those ‘new jobs’ are minimum-wage jobs like at Wal Mart & McDonalds with no benefits as food stamp benefits, etc. are being cut and the poor who were mercilessly thrown off welfare by Clinton are being kicked to the curb. The middle class is disappearing just as so many towns across America become ghost towns.

The Gulf Oil Spill “Gee, sorry bout that”

nuclear disaster in Japan; Obama’s response? Let’s build some more here

In conclusion, I want to remind you of two more examples of Obama’s “Change,” his environmental policies which again have opened up deep-sea oil drilling in the Gulf and now in the Arctic. Or how about the Keystone Pipeline? Yeah, another bullshit PR campaign of disinformation because it will only create a relatively few jobs here in the U.S. but will also endanger one of our largest aquifers, the Ogalala Aquifer which supplies drinking water to millions of Americans & that extremely dirty & costly oil that will flow across America is for shipment to other countries, not the U.S. Secondly, even after last week’s horrific shooting at the movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, neither Obama nor Romney have the balls to take a stand against the NRA & allow the fear and hate propagandists on FOX News to continue to control the message by claiming the government wants to take your guns away from you. It’s so absurd that it’d be funny if it weren’t so tragically true. Rational people are calling for a ban on assault weapons not for the confiscation of all weapons. There is absolutely no need for people to own weapons with hundred round clips that are designed for only one thing i.e. killing as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. Shame on you Obama, you phony champion of the public. I know Romney is a snake in the grass and I’ve never held any illusions about him because it’s as clear as the nose on my face that he is Gordon Gecko come to life. Note that Romney’s first big jump in his personal wealth creation was by doing business with Michael Milken who was doing business with Ivan Boesky, the model for Oliver Stone’s movie Wall Street and the Michael Douglas character, Gordon Gecko.

Bottom line, Obama hasn’t delivered on most of his promises for change and in fact, has helped make things far worse for the average American citizen. All the television ads, the public speeches, the phony legislation, etc. is all a smokescreen for keeping us blind to what they’re really doing i.e. bankrupting America while they build their palaces in remote tropical paradises which they own & have guarded by their mercenaries. It’s all a dog & pony show. It’s bread & circuses. There are many terms to describe what’s being done to us and I, for one, am not going to play in their rigged game anymore. With the corporate right to donate as much money as they want to politicians’ campaigns, the rigged voting machines, the on-going disenfranchisement of people of color by disqualifying them from their right to vote, etc. What’s the point? I am voting for the Green Party and for Dr. Jill Stein for president. Yeah, I know, but you’ll be throwing your vote away! Nope! Sorry, just not buying that line of reasoning anymore. As long as we keep on voting for the democratic candidate they’ll take us for granted and keep on moving farther to the Right. Mine is a vote of no confidence in this system of electoral politics that has sold us all out to their corporate masters who pull all the strings. I kind of feel like that cartoon of a rabbit defiantly flipping-off the bear that is about to devour it but hey, it’s better to die standing than to live on your knees! And the more of us that vote for the Green Party, the stronger it’ll become and eventually it will be a real contender and vehicle to enable us to take back our democracy!

Persevere!

—Rob DeLoss, Waldport, OR July 25, 2012

P.S. I’d really love it if any of you who might read this essay, would leave a comment because then at least I’d know I’d been heard and wasn’t merely another voice in the wilderness. Thought I’d end on a hopeful note with The March on Washington 1963.

Posted in In the news | Tagged 2012 election, Aurora, CO, deregulation, Dr. Jill Stein, George Orwell, Glass-Steagall, Gordon Gecko, Iraq War, Keystone pipeline, Matt Taibbi, NAFTA on steroids, Obama's betrayal, Obama's JOBS bill, Patriot Act, President Obama, The Green Party, Trans Pacific Partnership, vote suppression, Wall St. accountability, whistleblowers, Wikileaks | Leave a comment

Talking About Politics

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

I have long wondered about the social taboo of talking about politics in American bars, taverns, & pubs, and I’d really like to know where or how this taboo started? A part of me can’t help but wonder if this taboo against talking about politics in bars might not be a conspiracy on the part of the elite? Think about it, who benefits from our silence on the subject of politics? And who is disabled or handicapped by not being able to discuss politics in perhaps the most common meeting place for American citizens? Tens of millions of Americans are illegally being foreclosed on by the Super Banks “Too Big to Fail” and we were forced to bail them out against our will but we’re not allowed to talk about it? There’s definitely something very wrong with this picture.

the second-rate actor who fooled America

Politics touches every aspect of our lives because politics is primarily about economics, money, wealth, & who has the power over that wealth. Communication is the essence of being human and even the most mentally challenged amongst us wants to communicate if only their basic needs of food, water, etc. I first got interested in politics when dear old Ronnie Reagan became president because he scared the hell out of me. I knew he was a habitual liar and that America was in for deep trouble when he made public statements such as “Limited nuclear war in Europe was a possibility.” And Reagan’s destructive deregulation spree sowed the seeds of financial ruin we are facing today but we’re not supposed to connect the dots. Ironically, Reagan was dubbed “the great communicator.” Yeah, that’s the reactionary right-wing’s idea of communicating i.e. you, the ignorant masses, just sit there silent and accept our truths (propaganda) as handed down to you by our T.V. pundits like Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, etc. and that’s why these blowhard demagogues are paid millions of dollars because they are so convincing to the ignorant—those who simply don’t know or aren’t informed about how language can be used to manipulate us.

Like I mentioned earlier, I first started paying attention to politics when Reagan was elected and I have been reading, researching, writing, collecting books, magazine articles, etc. voraciously for nearly 30 years so can you imagine my sense of frustration when I’m told in many, if not most bars, taverns, & pubs around this land of the free that I must shut-up or be banned from entering the bar? Every now & then when I’m traveling or when a new bartender starts working at one of my old haunts, I will risk violating this taboo and I love it when I see people’s eyes light up because they are starved for serious conversation. People become very animated and are eager to share their views and once in awhile someone will tell me “Wow! This is the best conversation I’ve had in years!” And I too come alive because I have so much information & so many ideas that I want to bounce off others to get their feedback.

Freedom of Speech in America!

Moreover, those loud-mouthed bullies like Limbaugh, O’Reilly, etc. are so fond of proclaiming that America is the greatest nation on Earth and we enjoy the greatest amount of freedom, and our soldiers are fighting for our freedom yet we aren’t permitted to discuss or argue politics in bars? Where else in public are people likely to engage in discussions about such serious issues? Are you likely to open up a discussion with strangers in a coffee shop? Perhaps, but unlikely. Alcohol as they say, is a social lubricant and for people like myself who are shy, alcohol helps or gives me a bit of that false courage to risk striking up a conversation with a stranger. And the freedom to have stimulating political discussions is one of the reasons I love traveling in Europe. I have never noticed any taboo against talking about politics in European pubs and in fact, it seems to be commonplace. I love the long dinner conversations I’ve enjoyed many times in Europe as well. People there will take two or three hours dining and relaxing while engaged in conversations about subjects from politics to art to history, etc. While here in America, we wolf our food down while watching the boob-tube. And you wonder why Americans are so woefully ignorant about so many things?

FOX News 24/7

Continuing on, week after week, we learn of new scandals, more conspiracies & crimes committed by the financial institutions that brought us this worldwide economic chaos. People are losing their pensions, their life savings, their health care, their self respect and we’re suppose to just sit here in silence and pay our taxes while the corporate cockroaches not only don’t pay their fair share of taxes, many don’t pay any and even get tax rebates in the millions & billions even though we subsidize their industry. How in the Hell are we ever going to stem this tide of theft & destruction if we can’t even talk about it? The young people who came together in Zucatti park, in the belly of the beast, Wall St., were immediately silenced by the powers that be i.e. they weren’t allowed to use amplified sound because the power elite don’t want passer bys to accidentally hear some of the people’s truths. But the creative souls who gathered there were resourceful and used the people’s voice and shouted out and repeated each phrase a speaker said until all had heard it. I’m not sure but I bet the Tea Party protests are allowed to use amplified sound?

The Fear & Hate Mongers Millionaire Club

Furthermore, because the “mainstream media” has now been reduced to five or six mega corporate conglomerates, even when there are massive public demonstrations such as just before we invaded Iraq and there were hundreds of thousands of protestors across America and around the globe but the corporate media didn’t broadcast it so it was a non-event i.e. it didn’t happen! Again and again, we are silenced and as a result, Joe and Jane six-pack only hear FOX News, America’s version of Pravda and become indoctrinated into accepting the negative image of the Occupy Wall St. protesters as dirty, lazy, hippies who don’t want to work. I have cousins whom I’ve become estranged from because I couldn’t remain silent anymore as they regurgitated Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, et al hate & fear mongering.

Yes my friend, it is very depressing and perhaps you can understand why I toy with the idea of a possible conspiracy? Not a grand conspiracy like the nut cases on the far Right or the far Left but a series of smaller conspiracies that just happen to collide and create this prison of silence, apathy, & ignorance? I have worked in the public education system in a variety of positions for over 20 years and while I don’t subscribe to a covert conspiracy theory regarding our public education system, nonetheless, our students are progressively becoming more and more “dumbed-down” to borrow a phrase from John Taylor Gatto. Mr. Gatto wrote a short book called Dumbing Us Down and he was a teacher for over 30 years and was named Teacher of the Year for New York City and New York State a few times as I recall? If you really want to have your mind blown, read his Underground History of American Education. In brief, he points out that at the local level, every school board across America is generally made up of local business people, who tend to be conservative, and often, Christian fundamentalists. Of course, we all know, or should know what the Christian fundamentalist agenda is for public schools e.g. don’t teach evolution but instead, teach Creationism, censor the humanities, etc. And if you read Gatto’s Underground History of American Education, you will discover that the Robber Barons had a hand in designing our public school system as well. Men like Carnegie, Ford, JP Morgan, & Rockefeller. Why do you think these master thieves would be interested in the public school system?

In conclusion, I was inspired to write this essay a few days back while watching the old classic film Fahrenheit 451. Obviously, the movie was about a future dystopia where books are banned & burned. And when you reflect on it, books are speech i.e. thoughts written down and totalitarian societies fear thought because people thinking and discussing poses a threat to their power. Isn’t it interesting to note how obsessed we are with sports in America and how televisions in most bars are constantly tuned to some game? I agree with Noam Chomsky that sports primarily serves to distract and divert our attention from more serious matters. Furthermore, I don’t buy the bullshit excuse or rationale that people are more likely to get in a physical fight because of a disagreement over politics. I’ve seen many fights in bars over the years but they were rarely over politics. And I’ve had many disagreements with people about politics in bars but when I saw that I wasn’t going to change a person’s mind and that his mind was closed or just too indoctrinated, I’d say something like “Well, can we just agree that we disagree and drop the subject?”

Here is an example of one of my barroom disagreements over politics that stands out in my memory. This was over 20 years ago in a simple tavern in North Hollywood, CA. I got into a political discussion with two young gals, and there was a black man sitting a few barstools down from us. I’d overheard the black man earlier talking to somebody else & telling them that he’d served ten years in the U.S. Navy and ten years in the U.S. Army. Well, as my conversation with the gals progressed, this black man was shooting daggers with his eyes at me. I guess I was feeling a bit mischievous and I asked the black man “Tell me this, if America is so wonderful, then why is it that after putting your butt on the line for 20 years in defense of America, you are still treated like a second class citizen?” He just glared at me and stomped out. That probably wasn’t a very polite or smart thing for me to have said but I didn’t feel like being silenced because he didn’t approve of my political point of view. And it’s sad when a fellow victim of this grand democracy of ours can’t see that I’m not the enemy and wants to punch my lights out but isn’t angry at the bastards who treat us all like slaves.

talk about Doublespeak!

Lastly, you might care to ponder this observation? With the overnight passage of The Patriot Act, which they just happened to have already to go even though it is several hundred pages long and was signed without even being read by the overwhelming majority of congressmen, I can’t help but think of George Orwell’s nightmare world that he depicted in his book 1984. Orwell described what he called the “thought police,” and several provisions of The Patriot Act are chillingly similar to what might be a de facto thought police come to life in present day America? Any of the government’s police, military, or surveillance agencies’ agents can kick in our doors in the middle of the night and haul us off to a secret prison without even telling us what we are accused of. We don’t have the right to a lawyer and our loved ones may never hear from us again and aren’t notified. The right to habeas corpus has been thrown out the window. Our phone conversations, our e-mails, the websites we visit, in short, every form of communication we have is open to spying by our government in the land of the free and home of the brave. The thought police even wanted librarians to turn over computer print outs of the books we check out of our public libraries but those beautiful and courageous librarians banded together and said no. Is this all much ado about nothing or are we asleep at the wheel? We will each have to decide that for ourselves but as for me, it’s a truly frightening time that we are living through and I, for one, will not be silenced and will continue to speak my mind in bars, taverns, & pubs whether I’m 86ed or not!

Persevere! P.S. If you’d like to learn exactly how the corporate media manipulates public opinion, read or watch Noam Chomsky’s “The Manufacture of Consent” By the way, as George Orwell warned, “Those who control the past, control the present and those who control the present, control the future.” So, when school boards control what is taught in public schools & when the large textbook publishers censor & rewrite our history, they are controlling the past. And the corporate media controls the present by selecting what is news, how it’s slanted, and what it leaves out so the future is every bit as gloomy as Orwell depicted unless we stand up & speak out.

Posted in Politics | Tagged conspiracy & censorship, corporate media, dumbing us down, freedom of speech, in the news, JP Morgan, mainstream media, Noam Chomsky, Occupy Wall St., politics in bars, public education, social taboos | Leave a comment

The Wall St. Conspiracy

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

some of the Wall St. conspirators

Why is it that no one is calling the world-wide, economic meltdown what it is, a conspiracy? I am sadly aware of the Left’s fear of being labeled “conspiracy nuts” or “too soft on terrorism” (which replaced the old ‘too soft on communism”) & as it’s becoming ever more clear, the so-called Democratic party, are de facto co-conspirators. As has been recently revealed on Democracy Now!, more than 240 members of Congress are millionaires or multi-millionaires. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize who these senators & representatives are loyal to & who they protect. But what I can’t figure out, for the life of me, is why the American public isn’t calling for the corporate robber barons & their political lap dogs’ heads on a platter? No matter how ill-educated or uninformed the citizenry may be, it’s so outrageous & glaringly apparent that they are screwing us all so royally, and humanity may never recover?

how the corporate cockroaches see us i.e. rats in a maze

Let’s see, we are suppose to believe that Wall St.’s major banks, investment houses, mortgage lenders, credit rating agencies, & the federal agencies charged with the responsibility of overseeing or regulating these institutions, were all just asleep on the job & once again, it was just a few ‘rotten apples?’ Give me a break! There had to be collusion and conspiracy for a crime wave this spectacular to have gone on for as long as it did. The interconnections & interdependence of these institutions is too elaborate or intricate for those at the top to not know what was going on. I am reminded of when Reagan was finally forced to testify regarding his part in the Iran/Contra Scandal and he was asked something like 270 questions and approximately, 245 times his answers were “uh, I don’t recall,” “I can’t remember,” “I can’t recollect,” etc. And speaking of forgetting, don’t forget that it was primarily Reagan’s doing that unleashed the wave of deregulation which led to the Savings & Loan Scandal and the current economic melee. Yes, Reagan that darling of the rich & rapacious, cold-hearted class.

Pursuing this further, Reagan made a career out of scaring us with “the commies are coming, the commies are coming,” and he even dubbed it “the speech.” He gave this speech for over twenty years as a spokesman for G.E., you know, that corporation that “brings good things to light.” And G.E. was one of the largest producers of nuclear energy & waste in the U.S. In addition, G.E. owned NBC and silenced critics of Reagan and the Reptile class e.g. Phil Donahue, CBS & Sixty Minutes, etc. I know this may be a lot to take in & that some of you who read this will label & write me off as a conspiracy nut also. But I don’t care. I’ve grown use to it because I have been mocked & ignored for most of my adult life. How is one suppose to condense thirty years worth of serious pursuit of the facts into a few brief paragraphs the average person can comprehend and believe? No, my friend, it’s not the communists nor the terrorists that we need to be afraid of, it’s those titans of finance we glorify in the media as exemplars of wisdom & success who are the greatest danger facing the world.

the courageous & honest, Brooksley Born

Consider the fate of just three among many, who spent their careers trying to warn Congress & the American public of major crimes & calamity approaching. For instance, John O’Neill, who was the F.B.I.’s top, counter-terrorism expert tried repeatedly to warn his superiors in the F.B.I., including the director himself, of an impending terrorist attack & that it would probably occur in New York City & be of colossal proportions. His reward? He was ignored, demoted, & given a Mickey Mouse position and he became so disgusted with the cowardice & corruption within the F.B.I. that he quit and took a job as head of security for the World Trade Center and died on that infamous day.

Or what about Brooksley Born, who testified before Congress 17 times about the coming financial disaster we are currently experiencing. Her thank you? She had her power taken away from her. The old boys club (the financial/economic wizards of Wall St. & the federal government, smashed her i.e. destroyed her reputation & credibility.

the good old days of the Great Depression, could be coming again?

And lastly, a gentleman who worked in the top office of the Pentagon that deals with overseeing its budget (unfortunately, I can’t recall his name right now) who testified before Congress for over 20 years regarding the scams by “Defense” contractors, corporations, & their accomplices in the Pentagon and the federal government and he too, was ignored. The unmitigated gall or audacity of these thieves in high places is truly astounding? They have no shame and no conscience obviously. How they can stand up on their hind legs and cry, no, we can’t afford to provide health care for the American public after we were forced, against our will, to save their asses, is beyond me? They were given billions supposedly to stimulate the economy by making loans available for small businesses and working people but refused to do so & they now stand up on their hind legs and snidely tell us that where the money went & how it was spent, is none of our business? They are like a person who borrows money from a friend but claims he can’t pay his friend back even though his friend is now out of work, on food stamps, & has lost his home. And they boast of their record profits & personal bonuses? Just how much longer is the public going to keep its head buried in the sand & say, I’m not interested in politics and not be as mad as hell and do something about it?

Ken Lay, I wish all the Super Bankers & their political lapdogs were also treated this way

Yes, my fellow victims, we are suppose to accept that this was all just an unfortunate set of circumstances & coincidences, not a conspiracy. Lest you think that I’m laying this all at the feet of the Republicans, no, not at all. It was under Clinton that the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed and opened the floodgates of this current wave of robbery. The Glass-Steagall Act was established after the Great Depression to prevent a recurrence of the corrupt practices that caused the Depression. And the corporate “businessmen,” have waged a steady campaign ever since the introduction of Glass-Steagall, to wipe it out and every last vestige of F.D.R.’s “New Deal.” Mind you, they haven’t been secretive about their desire to undo the “New Deal,” Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” in fact every single program set up to help the poor, the working class, & the middle class. It’s only “common sense” that the government provide subsidies, tax havens, federal dollars for research & development, the infrastructure for businesses to use & profit from but as soon as a corporation starts profiting from that government assistance, the profits become privatized. These are the glorious wonders of capitalism and the “free market.” Us “conspiracy nuts” on the Left are communist sympathizers or socialists—just one rung down from communists—when we demand that we be given safe working conditions, a living wage, social security, health coverage, decent public schools, and that our jobs not be shipped overseas so the corporate bastards can be given further tax incentives and greater profits.

Moreover, can you recall that preceding wave of corruption and greed exemplified by ENRON, World Com, etc. near the beginning of President “Dubya” Bush’s term in office? ENRON’s chief, Ken Lay, let Georgie use his private jet to fly around the country as he was campaigning for the presidency but as soon as “Kenny boy” (Bush’s affection nickname for Ken Lay) came tumbling down from grace & power, Bush claimed to barely know him. What about our current president, whom I voted for, hoping & praying that against all odds, he actually intended to honor his mantra of ‘change?’ Obama has betrayed us consistently since taking his oath of office & the most damning evidence of his betrayal of the American public is the fact that he appointed the very same bank robbers who led this looting of the federal treasury and the public’s private savings & investments e.g. Geitner, Summers, Bernanke, etc. Talk about putting the foxes in charge of the hen house!

It occurred to me this morning as I was formulating my thoughts for this essay that, these ‘wizards of Wall St.,’ differ little from the warlords of Afghanistan whom our tax dollars support in their drug trade & terrorism of the Afghan people. Our warlords wear $2,000 suits though. And our warlords threaten the entire planet whereas the Afghan warlords threaten only Afghanistan. Without a doubt, you’re going to think what I say next clearly proves I’m out in la-la land but check it out for yourself if you think me full of crap. Look up what’s been dubbed “Full Spectrum Dominance.” And an author by the name of Bruce Gagnon. Talk about a horror movie! In brief, our warlords are launching rockets & satellites into space with large quantities of plutonium & trying to erect a so-called ‘missile defense system,’ which will be equipped with lasers capable of threatening every nation on earth. Their goal is nothing less than the control of the galaxy or universe. They want to mine the other planets for valuable resources. Isn’t it interesting that the U.S. is so adamant about other nations possessing nuclear weapons but it’s okay if we own the world’s largest stockpile of them? And they neglect to inform us that all it would take, is for one tiny piece of the thousands of pieces of space debris (old satellites, etc. that have decayed & circle the earth) to hit one of these rockets as they fly into space and cause them to explode, releasing a dose of plutonium lethal enough to be fatal to every human on earth! I know, “don’t worry, be happy!” Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Just ignore these inconvenient facts & purchase that new, big screen, flat screen, HD television and amuse yourself to death.

One minor problem though my friend, for a rapidly expanding proportion of Americans, the latest electronic gadgets & toys are only a dream. The overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to keep their heads above water by paying their mortgages, their rent, their health insurance premiums & deductibles, their auto insurance, their utilities, their ever increasing food costs, etc. Gone is the dream for most families of sending their children to college, enjoying a comfortable retirement and maybe even doing a little traveling. I believe that the majority of Americans, like myself, live in a perpetual state of fear that we may get some terrible disease or form of cancer and wind up losing our homes, our life savings and everything we own and find ourselves living in the gutters like so many of our soldiers who make up the invisible homeless haunting our cities.

Moreover, the financial elite, you know, those captains of the new industry, the financial “services” industry which makes up approximately 40% of our economy, have long ago realized that thanks to wonderful deals like NAFTA, that President Clinton proudly signed, has moved the market for what few things we still manufacture in America to emerging economies like China, India, & Brazil. Check out the song by James McMurty “We Can’t Make it Here Anymore.” Yes indeed, the Wall St. wizards who just made a few innocent “mistakes” like Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, who oops? lost his bank $9 trillion and counting yet President Obama proclaims that Jamie is a brilliant financial expert and when recently Dimon was called to testify before Congress, he wasn’t required to take the oath to tell the truth and the overwhelming majority of congressmen basically competed for kissing his ass. How can they call this testimony and why did they allow him to not swear an oath like mostly everybody else is required to do? Could it be that the financial elite, like their co0conspirators, the politicians, are above the law that they are so fond of reminding us is the bedrock of America’s strength & stability?

the smiling fox, Jamie Dimon, guarding the hen-house

Yeah, we’re about as stable as George Clooney was in the movie, “The Perfect Storm,” and speaking of which, Clooney must have hit his head pretty hard while filming that movie because he just threw a dinner party to raise funds for Obama’s reelection at $40,000 a plate? The major reason our economy and the world’s economy is so unstable is because the Wall St. speculators, bankers, hedge fund managers, etc. have been given carte blanche to speculate with our bank deposits, pension funds, etc. and when they lose their speculations (bets), they don’t pay up, we do. They manipulate our currency, our interest rates, our food prices, our energy prices, in short, they manipulate just about everything affecting our lives and the quality of our living. When Jamie Dimon “testified” before the first Congressional committee, the losses at JP Morgan/Chase were reported at $2 billion but gee, two weeks later the losses had risen to $9 billion and they’re still climbing. Oh well? That’s business! Nope, clearly no conspiracy here, just a string of bad luck which could’ve happened to anybody and poor Jamie shouldn’t be held accountable. Of course, it helps when you are your own boss i.e. he is CEO, chairman, & president of JP Morgan Chase and oh yeah, he was appointed the Director of the Board of Directors of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

I wrote the bulk of this essay several months ago and my intention this morning was to wind it up for publication but the more research I do, the more intriguing it becomes. I am truly astounded at the gall, the lack of shame, and the extent of the greed on the part of the 1%. And I’m sure that those corporate cockroaches aren’t the least bit worried because they know they can count on the apathy, general level of ignorance (to simply not know something), and how much intellectual energy & perseverance it would require for the public to connect the dots. And since they (the powers that be) own the handful of media conglomerates as well as the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), they have little to fear but I at least take satisfaction in knowing that I have at least a glimmer of understanding or seeing the big picture. Nevertheless, my words are only read by a handful of friends and I must remain a lone voice in the wilderness, dismissed & mocked as a malcontent by many I come into contact with. This isn’t a pity party but a sad reality. Okay, I have more to connect here.

another Wall St. wizard, Timothy Geithner, uh? I don’t know what happened?

You might wonder why I mentioned that Jamie Dimon is also Director of the Board of Directors of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and to be honest with you, I didn’t know what the role of the New York Federal Reserve Bank was until a few minutes ago when I did a Dogpile search (I prefer it over Google). And this is why it’s such a blatant conflict of interest for Jamie Dimon who just lost his bank anywhere from $4 billion to $9 billion, to also be director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, the most influential member of the 12 federal reserve banks across America, these banks play a leadership role in monetary policy, they supervise and regulate the financial institutions and the payment system.

As I have argued ever since President Obama took office and appointed Summers, Geithner, & Bernanke to his cabinet, Obama is a brazen liar and his mantra of “Change” while he campaigned for the presidency was a public relations coup. Obama appointed Dimon to the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and this is the final nail in Obama’s coffin which will follow him in his legacy as the first Black man to be elected president of the United States. He had a great opportunity to show all the racists that a Black man could rise to the highest office in the land and be a moral exemplar of all that is good about America but instead, he has shown that it doesn’t matter whether you are white, black, brown, yellow, red, etc., power corrupts. It’s a sad day and perhaps it was just naive of me and millions of other Americans who believed that we at last had a chance to take back the America we were taught about in our public schools. By the way, Timothy Geithner, Obama’s other butt-buddy, was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank from 2003-2009, another coincidence, nope, no conspiracies here. Talk about putting the foxes in charge of the hen-house?

NYPD, security guards for the Wall St. cockroaches, against true democracy, freedom of speech, etc.

To return to the subject of Jamie Dimon, here’s another coincidence, Dimon “donated” $4.6 million dollars to the NYPD and a few days later, the NYPD led the Occupy Wall St. movement to believe a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to Chase Manhattan Plaza was okay and when the protestors got to the middle of the bridge, over 700 of them were arrested. And a few weeks later, the NYPD evicted the Occupy Wall St. movement from Zucati Park where they had peacefully camped for several weeks. Nah, no conspiracies here either. By the way, what do you bet that Dimon’s “donation” to the NYPD was tax deductible? And speaking of taxes, here’s another coincidence, not a conspiracy, many of the largest, most profitable corporations in America, not only don’t pay any taxes, they actually get tax rebates in the millions & billions, yes, Billions! http://www.progress.org/corp12.htm Again, no conspiracy here, nope, these corporate crocodiles proclaim their loyalty to America as we subsidize them, especially those poor oil companies and they not only get out of paying any taxes, but in addition receive tax rebates? Only in America where if you’re big enough and can buy some politicians off with your lobbyist, you get to write the laws regarding your business and you can even write off the expense of hiring the lobbyist. Just good old fashioned, standard business practices. Jamie Dimon made $23 million last year as he lost his bank several billion dollars and he was named CEO of the year for 2011. I kid you not. I heard it said many years ago that if there were a nuclear war, only the cockroaches would survive. You can bet the corporate cockroaches have their bunkers all picked out and stocked with fine cigars and champagne and that would be a fitting life for them i.e. to live out the rest of their days in a dark, hole in the ground with no one left to oppress and no oceans, forests, or mountains to enjoy. Sorry, I indulge myself in fantasies of revenge now and then, it’s the only way to keep my sanity.

Eisenhower tried to warn us but we have been asleep at the wheel and that’s why we’re where we are at now

Wall St. represents all that is wrong with business in America and the world in general. I just wonder how much longer the American public is going to put up with it? President Eisenhower tried to warn us about this amalgamation of power, decades ago but still we waste trillions of dollars on the “Defense budget” do you recall that it used to be more honestly called the War Dept.? Let’s review briefly, the politicians make up lies for why we need to invade another country, their lackeys in the media spread the lies, we send our sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers to go fight in the wars that make corporations like Halliburton filthy rich and when the financial elite make mistakes we are forced to bail them out but when we are laid off from our jobs they tell us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps? How am I doing? Sound about right?

the venerable Howard Zinn, rest in peace dear brother!

I hope this isn’t too overwhelming for you, my reader, and I don’t mean to be all doom & gloom because there are good people out there fighting the good fight and trying to wake us up and to organize people. Bottom line, as Howard Zinn pointed out, they, the 1% only have the power they do because we allow them to have it. If we unite, we are far more powerful than they are. But first and foremost we need to inform ourselves and everyone we know so we can take back what is rightfully ours, not theirs. Elliot Spitzer for example, he went after them with a vengeance and he scared the Hell out of them and because he was doing real damage to the crooks in high places, they destroyed him by exposing his human fallibility of lust for women. Personally, I don’t give a damn about a person’s sexual proclivities as long as they are doing a good job like Spitzer was. In fact, I bet you every single CEO of Forbes Top 500 corporations, pays for prostitutes but are we told about their romps in the hay or are they ever fired for it or do people stop buying their products because of it? Hell no! Ralph Nader has been fighting against corporate corruption his whole life but what has it gotten him? Even the so-called liberals/progressives attacked Nader and since they can’t nail him for sexual misconduct, they labeled him a spoiler and an egotist.

a real fighter & he scared the Hell out of Wall St but they brought him down with their dirty politics as they always do

Elizabeth Warren, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20110042-503544.html , a brilliant law professor at Harvard known for her high ethical standards, is fighting the good fight. She came up with the idea for a “Consumer Financial Watchdog Agency” after the financial power elite wrecked the world economy and drove the world to the brink of economic collapse but as usual, Obama the spineless and the cowardly & craven Democratic party bowed down to the Republicans and didn’t appoint her to head this agency but put in someone who is a good team player i.e. coward.

Elizabeth Warren, champion of the people!

Robert Scheer, a reporter’s reporter

Furthermore, there was another brave woman who tried to warn us about the housing bubble and the sham of sub-prime lending and credit default swaps, derivatives, etc. Her name is Brooksley Born. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/interviews/born.html and what was her reward for trying to look out for us, the peons, she was ignored, marginalized, and trashed by the old boys club of the corporate cockroaches. I’m inserting URLs to make it easy for you to check out/verify what I’m saying and in the hopes that you too, will help spread the word and thereby empower our fellow citizens in this rapidly fading democracy. If you’d really like to get a much fuller/deeper understanding of how the slime balls brought us the second Great Depression—they keep calling it a Recession in the hopes that we won’t panic and get Mad as Hell and possibly hold the criminal class responsible—read an excellent book by Robert Scheer called “The Great American Stickup; How Reagan Republicans & Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall St. While Mugging Main St.. I read this book with great interest and made many notes in the margins & blank pages for further reference. He tells Brooksley Born’s story in great detail and helps to simplify the complex legal maneuvers made by the politicians & Wall St. worms. When looking for something to share with you about Robert Scheer, I stumbled upon this article which clearly ties in with this essay http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/crime-of-the-century_b_1653321.html Yep, just another fortunate set of circumstances for the banksters, who are so smart and deserve the millions and billions they make. Here’s a few figures for you that I found in a couple of hours of searching the web; America’s national deficit as of June 2012 is $15.85 trillion or 103% of current dollar GDP, our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is $15 trillion, & the real/true total of the Wall St. bailout is $14.4 trillion and counting. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/real-size-bailout-treasury-fed and add to this the just revealed story by Robert Scheer (see above) and I don’t know about you but as for me, I’d love to see every one of these hideous, hyenas of high-finance and banking sentenced to life in the worst prison in America. It was a conspiracy for Halliburton to be awarded the lion’s share of the “rebuilding” contracts in Iraq because Cheney owned over 400,000 shares of Halliburton stocks and Cheney was one of the key architects behind the series of lies that were made up to serve as the pretext/rationale for us to first blow the Hell out of Iraq’s infrastructure and then award sweetheart contracts to corrupt corporations like Halliburton & Blackwater Mercenaries. Of course, Halliburton did a half-assed job of “rebuilding” and stole millions and lost millions by accident but is still doing business and only got a hand slap for their crimes and fraud.

If you still believe in the free market crap and the trickle-down theory of economics that started with Reagan and has allowed the filthy swine to bankrupt our nation and drive us to ruin and humiliation, here are a few more fun facts for you to chew on: the services sector of our economy is 67.8 % of our GDP and the industrial sector is 20.5% of our GDP. Note: the “financial services” makes up 40% of that “services sector.” And our manufacturing is shrinking rapidly thanks to treaties like NAFTA. JP Morgan Chase has over 10,000 law suits filed against it. Among the ten largest employers in America is Walmart (rabidly anti-union & they show their employees how to apply for food stamps & other government assistance programs), the U.S. Postal Service which is under attack because it’s unionized, IBM, UPS, McDonalds (source of many of those jobs Obama brags about having added, and note a study conducted over the course of several years shows that McDonalds burgers don’t decompose i.e. they don’t decay and break down like real food does so what do you think they’re doing for your body?), Target (another anti-union company), Kruger, Home Depot, G.E. (Reagan’s benefactor and creator of nuclear reactors like the ones in Fukashima, Japan and pays no taxes but gets millions & billions back in tax rebates and is subsidized by taxpayers), and Sears, which I believe is about to file for bankruptcy? Kind of warms your heart doesn’t it? More like heartburn. These vicious vermin are playing Russian roulette with our lives and it’s up to us to arm ourselves with knowledge of how they’ve done it and to spread the knowledge and inspire our fellow countrymen to fight the power!

There is an old book called None Dare Call It Treason, well, I do and I call it a diabolical conspiracy against humanity designed to turn back the clock of history to the Dark Ages, the days of feudalism where the lords ruled over the serfs and peasants and the people begged for scraps from the masters’ tables like dogs!

Nomi Prins, former Wall St. insider, very bright gal & another champion of the people

References

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/17/timothy-geithner-jamie-dimon_n_1525812.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bernanke-congress-fix-dimon-ny-165155961.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/05/joseph-stiglitz-the-price-on-inequality

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511

Addendum

Since this is such a huge subject, I feel that I should attempt to be a bit more clear in my reasoning. First of all, here is a dictionary definition of conspiracy (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.) In order for their to be a conspiracy, you must have at least two people colluding (come to an understanding or conspire together). I believe that even the most skeptical observer would have to admit that for the sheer scale of the worldwide economic collapse, there had to be collusion between the banks, the mortgage companies involved such as Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae and the credit rating agencies that gave the subprime loans their triple A ratings.

Well my friend, as I started digging deeper into this morass known as the global economic meltdown of 2008, I got sucked in to such a web of deceit regarding our economy and what we’ve been told by the corporate media and the politicians that I am truly dumbfounded at their hubris. And again, at the risk of sounding like an alarmist and conspiracy nut, I’m going to speak my mind and heart on this matter because quite literally, the whole world’s economy is at stake here. I learned something very simple many years ago but it’s important to bring it up here, the closest we can come to the truth about any subject is to first check out the credentials, if any, of the person whom you want to check out because you want to verify the validity/credibility of what that person is saying/writing. And secondly, you must do your homework and see what other “experts” in the particular field have to say about the person. That’s it in a nutshell. I am definitely no economist but sometimes, being an outsider gives you a fresh perspective and allows you to think more outside the box because of your naivete. A few days ago, I rented & watched the HBO film “Too Big to Fail” about the U.S. role in the global economic meltdown of 2008 and it was mentioned a few times that the other “Super Banks” complained to Hank Paulson who was then the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and was basically calling the shots, that they wanted the same deal that Jamie Dimon & JP Morgan Chase got. And then I saw the very recent “testimony” of Dimon before the Senate Banking Committee and how deferential the senators were to him and I got to wondering why Dimon was so special or powerful so I did a little research and came across this rather startling article by Ellen Brown, Why the Senate Won’t Touch Jamie Dimon. Here’s a clip from the film “Too Big to Fail to possibly pique your interest?

and

here’s a snippet of Jamie Dimon being grilled by one of the few senators (from my home state of Oregon by the way) who had the balls to put Mr. Hot Shit in his place and dared to speak truth at power.

Sorry for digressing again, it’s difficult to keep on track because I keep on gathering more information and I’m also trying to not bore you to death and this is such a complex web filled with financial jargon purposely designed to keep the average citizen in the dark. I am learning as I go and trying to translate it for you to the best of my ability. Senator Merkley was very inspiring in his standing up to Dimon and reminding him that he wasn’t in control, though you wouldn’t have known it by the groveling of the other senators. Jamie Dimon’s bank, JP Morgan Chase, is the largest political contributor to the senators on the Senate Banking Committee so it’s clear that most of the other senators are paid for like high class hookers. No, I should say, low class hookers.

wouldn’t you just love to slap that smug smile off his face?

Let’s return to Ms. Ellen Brown’s mind-boggling article Why the Senate Won’t Touch Jamie Dimon http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2012/06/21/why-the-senate-won-t-touch-jamie-dimon-j Here are the most pertinent & shocking revelations by Ms. Brown in my opinion: ”Interest rate swaps are now over 80% of the massive derivatives market & JP Morgan Chase holds about $57.5 trillion dollars of them.” “Dimon sat on the board of the New York Federal Reserve Bank when it lent $55 billion dollars to JP Morgan Chase in 2008 to buy Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar.” “Dimon then owned 3,000,000 shares of JP Morgan Chase stock, that sort of conflict of interest is a felony.” “There is evidence that JP Morgan Chase losses are not just $3 billion dollars but $30 billion dollars or more and that JP Morgan Chase is actually bankrupt.” That about says it all, the largest bank in America and its CEO, chairman, & president all in one, Jamie Dimon, the smug, smirking king of the robber barons, could wreck the entire American economy if his crimes were made public and he was held accountable. Why? Because all the other financial institutions that are currently propped-up with the guarantee of the federal treasury backing them, would fall like dominos because of the intricate interconnections and a loss of faith in our banking system would cause such a run on the banks that it would make the first Great Depression (originally called the Republican Depression) look like a walk in the park. You may be tempted to just dismiss my concerns as yet another alarmist or fear monger like many of those nut cases who believe in a vast Illuminatti conspiracy, a vast Jewish cabal of bankers, the Trilateral Commission, etc. but I tread very carefully when I use the term “conspiracy” because I know the usual reaction is to reject it out of hand. But again, the Right-wingnuts scream conspiracy daily on FOX News and because they spew it out daily, they are rarely questioned or called on it. I simply ask you to consider/reflect on the recent revelations regarding Wall St.’s criminal activity and I have a bit more evidence to share with you as well. But for now, we know that the “housing bubble” was allowed to go on for years due to the collusion between the Super Banks, the federal & private mortgage giants like Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, the S.E.C.’s cowardice, incompetence, & collusion, the world’s largest insurance agency, A.I.G., the credit rating agencies collusion, the hedge fund managers, etc.

Furthermore, the details are just beginning to leak out about the Libor scandal (Libor is the lending or interest rate that banks charge in their massive transactions of $3 trillion dollars or more, I believe? And as Robert Scheer points out in a recent article he wrote, this scandal will make Enron and other scandals pale in comparison: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/crime_of_the_century_20120706/ The Libor scandal could affect or be as great as several hundred trillion dollars! Stop and think, that’s the entire economy of the world. Can you possibly still think these are all simple matters of coincidence? I wanted some clarification on how A.I.G. fit into this malevolent morass of money & fraud on such a colossal scale and I found this article by Elliot Spitzer: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_best_policy/2009/03/the_real_aig_scandal.html This reveals yet again of how Wall St. and “our” government have deceived by claiming that the bailout we were forced to give Wall St. was $800 billion dollars when in fact, it was more like $15 trillion dollars as Nomi Prins and others have proved.

Moreover, here’s even more evidence of their conspiracies and corruption as shown in a recent Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi, whose been on Wall St.’s ass like stink on shit for quite some time now: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620 Again, I am including these links to make it easy for you to do your own reading and come to your own conclusions. But to my mind, there is absolutely no way in Hell that this is merely a series of inadvertent mistakes and again, I’m not claiming there was one vast, all encompassing conspiracy but rather, a plethora of conspiracies that make it clear as a bell that we must unite and stand up on our hind legs and scream to the rafters, “I’m as Mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Here are some of the points that I feel are important in Matt Taibbi’s recent article comparing Wall St. to the Mafia: Oh yeah, before I forget it, note that in the recent revelations due to the investigation of Barclays’Bank in England regarding the manipulation of the Libor rates, the bank’s president said “But everybody is doing it?” And in the case of the three defendants who worked for G.E. Capital, the finance arm of General Electric, they too were only doing what had become standard practice among all the major banks in America (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia, and more. This in no way excuses their actions and crimes but reveals just how thoroughly corrupt and rotten to the core our banking and financial institutions have become because they were allowed to by the politicians running our government. Bear in mind that G.E. has paid no taxes many years and has even received tax refunds of millions & sometimes billions of dollars even though they receive huge subsidies from the government just like JP Morgan Chase and etc. And don’t forget that the director of the brilliant film Inside Job, won an Oscar for it a few years back and in his acceptance speech he pointed out that none of the corporate executives responsible for the collapse of the U.S. economy have been tried for their crimes or gone to jail. Matt Taibbi “The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. By conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, the banks systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes—from ‘virtually every single state, district and territory in the United States…” Just open a newspaper or listen to the news and almost daily we hear of yet another town or city forced to declare bankruptcy, we clearly have already been turned into a feudal fiefdom where our only value is in servicing the lords of Wall St. I’m going to leave Taibbi’s excellent article because this essay is just going on for perhaps far too long.

But I can’t leave altogether yet without sharing a bit more evidence in my argument for the existence of a Wall St. conspiracy. For a glimpse into just how symbiotic or parasitic the Wall St. and Congress conspiracy is, check out this link http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20001981-10391695.html Note, it was former Goldman Sachs CEO, Hank Paulson, who as U.S. Treasury Secretary, choreographed the bail-out for the Super Banks, “Too Big to Fail” as shown in the film by the same name and Goldman Sachs, clearly a co-conspirator in these crimes against the American public, definitely benefitted from Paulson’s interventions. Here is Nobel prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman’s take on our precarious economic situation:

and here is what former vice-president & chief economist with the World Bank and Nobel Prize winner has to say:

In conclusion, I feel that it would be very instructive to share with you my reader, a part of American history that I’m sure many, if not most, Americans, have no idea of i.e. the Wall St. conspiracy that resulted in a failed coup attempt right here in America in 1934. Here is a brief overview: the plan was to get Major General Smedley Butler U.S.M.C., to lead an army of 500,000 pissed-off veterans from WWI who couldn’t find work, were homeless, hungry, and mad as Hell at the U.S. government for not treating them fairly after they’d sacrificed in war for America. Well, the Wall St. conspirators thought Major General Butler was their guy because he had done their dirty work for most of his career in the Marine Corps but they were wrong. Here is a quote from Major General Butler that revealed his awakening so-to-speak:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier

As I said, the Wall St. conspirators grossly miscalculated the Major General and he kept his mouth shut until he learned the identity of those wealthy financiers plotting to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt. They called themselves the American Liberty League and it was headed by the DuPont and JP Morgan cartels and had major support from Andrew Mellon Associates, Pew (Sun Oil), Rockefeller Associates, E.F. Hutton Associates, U.S. Steel, General Motors, Chase, Standard Oil, and Goodyear Tires. Money was funneled thru Senator Prescott Bush (Georgie “Dubya” Bush’s grand-daddy) led Union Banking Corporation and the Prescott Bush led– Brown Brothers Harriman, to the league. Yep, what a forgiving land of opportunity America is, Brown Brothers Harriman is the largest private bank in America and two other of its notable members are George H.W. Bush and Alan Greenspan. It might also be worth noting that not a single conspirator was ever charged with treason or called to testify, hey, just like Jamie Dimon not being required to swear an oath when he recently “testified” before the Senate Banking Committee? Maybe they didn’t want to expose him to possible future charges of perjury like Lloyd Blankfein who is under threat of prosecution for perjury regarding his testimony before Congress a couple of years ago? Did you notice that JP Morgan was listed as not only one of the conspirators but a major force behind the organization of the league? Yep, the Morgan family has a long history of greed and corruption. In the Civil War, the original JP Morgan bought up thousands of defective rifles for $3 apiece and sold them to the government for $17 apiece. Yes, good old fashioned business sense. One last note, during the film “Too Big to Fail,” the term moral hazard was mentioned a couple of times and lastly, right near the very end of the film. I first heard this term when watching a PBS documentary on the Wall St. crisis and I feel it’s a good place to end on. Here is a brief video clip to help make the term “moral hazard” a bit more understandable:

What do you think, do you believe that Wall St. has learned its lesson and won’t commit any more Morally Hazardous acts? Have they been sufficiently punished, Hell, have they really been punished at all? What little regulations we have left are weak to totally ineffective and as long as we, the people, continue to let them and the politicians get away with their thievery, we will continue on our downward spiral until there is nothing left to protect.I came across this video clip which may also help to summarize what went so horribly wrong with Wall St.?

And sorry, I couldn’t resist

You know, our brilliant leaders have been waging their so-called “War on Drugs” for decades and its proven to be just another example of their stupidity and has only created the largest, per capita prison population on Earth but I just had an idea, since Wall St.’s addiction is gambling, but with other peoples’ money, not theirs, why don’t we declare a War on Wall St.’s Gambling with our lives, our economy, and our world? These conspiracies were obviously the result of unbridled greed but they were allowed to happen and to flourish because of the general conspiracy of silence on both the experts in government’s part and the conspiracy of silence on our part as citizens! Will you join with me in speaking out against it?

P.S. Sorry, couldn’t let you get away with out a few important points that Matt Taibbi made in his recent article The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia

1) “Organized crime learned their lessons from John D. Rockefeller,” Spitzer (Elliot) explains. “It’s much more efficient to control a market and boost the price 10 percent that it is to run a loan-sharking business on the street, where you actually have to use a baseball bat and collect every week.”….”The urge to become a monopolist,” he says, “is as old as capitalism.”

2)”The extreme youth of some of the conspirators was an obvious subtext of the trial, underscoring the fact that far more senior executives from bigger banks like Chase and Bank of America had been permitted by the government to evade testifying.” (note in Jamie Dimon’s recent “testimony” re: his loss of several billion dollars, he wasn’t required to swear an oath before “testifying”—my observation)

3)”So a mere $10,000 bribe to a politician—a couple of Super Bowl tickets and a limo—scored CDR a total of $665,000 of the public’s money. If you want to know why Wall Street has been enjoying record profits, here’s your answer: Corruption is a business model that brings in $66 for every dollar you invest.”

4)”To grasp the full insanity of these revelations, one must step back and consider all this information together: the bribes, yes, but also the industrywide, anti-competitive bid-rigging scheme. It turns into a kind of unbroken Mobius strip of corruption—the banks pay middlemen to rig auctions, the middlemen bribe politicians to win business, then the politicians choose the middlemen to run the auctions, leading right back to the banks bribing the middlemen to rig the bids.”

Posted in economics | Tagged deregulation, economic meltdown, Glass-Steagall Act, Jamie Dimon, President Clinton, Reaganomics, Robert Scheer, Savings & Loan Scandal, Simon Johnson, The Great Depression, The New Deal, Timothy Geithner | Leave a comment

The Price of Liberty

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Rob DeLoss

Can Americans comprehend the joy of the Egyptian people at their recent victory over their brutal dictator? I don’t think so. I fear that we have become too complacent, numb, apathetic, & dumbed-down to truly appreciate their exaltation? And at the risk of sounding thoroughly cynical, we will probably have to live under the iron heel of a brutal dictatorship for 30 years also before we find the courage to stand up on our hind legs like the Egyptians just did.

Obama loves Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan

Nonetheless, my heart weeps with joy for the Egyptian people. If only we too, knew the power of a people united. Our so called leader who’s promise throughout his campaign for the presidency was “change,” betrayed democracy once again. Obama was/is an apologist for the power elite who bought him. I say he’s Obama, the Oreo in the Oval Office.

Viva le French Revolution "Off with their heads!"

For one thing, thanks to brave journalists like those of Democracy Now, who had the moral courage and weren’t “embedded,” the word got out regarding the brave Egyptian people who had simply had enough of Mubarak’s repression, and their determination to withstand whatever his brutal regime threw at them. This is a clarion call to all you greedy, corporate cockroaches who have raped, pillaged, plundered, & murdered to protect your profits. The people are coming and your days are numbered. The aristocracy of pre-French Revolutionary France learned this lesson via the guillotine. All people want the same, simple, common human needs e.g. food, shelter, health care, & an opportunity to succeed. Food shortages and outrageous prices may have been the final straw that served as the catalyst for this revolution but the degradation and oppression of 30 years was the impetus for this daring action.

Ironically, it was the Internet and the new, social networking technology that helped ignite and organize the Egyptian youth in their rebellion. It is ironic because the Internet was basically created through the U.S. Pentagon—funded by our tax dollars—our war machine which has trained, funded, & supported with billions of our tax dollars for weapons systems we sell to despots around the world. And the sales of these weapons to brutal tyrants enriches the traitors in our “defense industry.” If you go back and read everything Obama said as the events unfolded in Cairo, he was very careful to not demand that Mubarek immediately step down & rather than come out in clear support for the revolutionaries, he’d say things like “America hopes there is stability in the region and a peaceful transition.” Stability is the key word. In other words, our power elite don’t give a damn how repressive a regime is but only that they keep a tight lid on their people so our corporations can continue to plunder their resources & our military bases, etc. are allowed to remain. Have you ever wondered why it is that America, who has more weapons and military bases than all the rest of the nations in the world combined, is the most fearful country? And if we were truly the champions of freedom & democracy, why would so many people want to harm us? Egypt’s dictator who was just forced to flee in disgrace is just one of hundreds of bloody dictators whom we have put in power and that’s why we are so despised by the poor, the dispossessed, & the desperate.

The role of the hate & fear mongers like Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc. is to keep Americans fearful and angry so the money keeps on flowing into the war machine in America and now that we were forced to bail-out the Wall St. crooks and money is getting tight, they are going to wipe-out every last vestige of “entitlement” programs. So, looks like we’re going to wait until we too are starving like the Egyptian people were and perhaps after they have degraded, humiliated, and ignored us for decades, we too may find the moral courage to say enough is enough?

Unfortunately for us though, the world may not wait that long. The power elite around the globe are shaking in their boots because freedom is a virus as John McCain inadvertently revealed. They fear Egypt’s example may spread and billions of people have been suffering for decades & our war mongers may panic and they have their fingers on the triggers of the world’s most horrific nuclear arsenal? We, as a people, have allowed not only our bodies to become soft, flabby, & lazy with our television, fast food, and lack of interest in politics to name just a few factors. I have little hope for the general enlightenment of the American public because the right-wing crazies have been brainwashing the masses for far too long and our public education system has dumbed us down to such a pathetic state that I have often been embarrassed when traveling in foreign lands at what others think of us.

Naomi Wolf, Rhodes Scholar

Undeniably, America is at a crossroads. We can follow our present course down the road to fascism (the marriage of government and corporate business) or we can stand up like those brave Egyptians recently did and take back our rights as a proud & free people. Perhaps there are enough of us who haven’t drank the Kool Aid that Fox News has been pouring out and maybe if we can find a national platform we can wake up our sleeping brothers & sisters. Naomi Wolf recently wrote a book titled The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot in which she lays out the creeping fascism taking root in America. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to fill in the examples for each chapter heading listed here:
1)Invoke an external and internal threat
2)Establish secret prisons
3)Develop a paramilitary force
4)Surveil ordinary citizens
5)Infiltrate citizens’ groups
6)Arbitrarily detain and release citizens
7)Target key individuals
8)Restrict the press
9)Cast criticism as “espionage” and dissent as “treason”
10)Subvert the rule of law

“The Founders never expected us to fall asleep or get lazy. They counted on us to keep the web of the precious system intact so that an American despot could never arise. They trusted us to cherish liberty as they did. The price of liberty, the generation that debated and created the Constitution understood, is eternal vigilance.” (Naomi Wolf, pg. 29)

Specifically, with the passage of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security in the middle of the night and without its being even read by the congressmen who signed off on it, the government’s agents can knock down our doors and haul us off to a secret prison and we have no right to a lawyer, no right to know what we’re accused of, we can be tortured (one of the reasons our government was said to see Egypt’s dictator fall because he tortured many of those “renditioned,” and our loved ones will have no idea of what happened to us.

Does this sound like the America you were taught to cherish in public school? Is this the America that our soldiers fight for, get maimed for, die for? Perhaps its human nature to let down our guard once we have gained our freedom. Maybe that’s why we have become so intellectually lazy and complacent? But the greedy never let down their guard nor do they stop their perpetual agenda of stealing ever more wealth, power, & prestige. We have been indoctrinated by our public education system and the corporate media to believe that all we have to do is send our young to fight in the never-ending series of wars or police actions around the globe that are actually power grabs by the rich & rapacious. This is a grand lie and trick to keep us weak and powerless. Its up to every one of us to inform ourselves and fight the powers that be or we will wake up one day to an America not unlike Stalin’s Russia.

Ralph Nader tried to warn us many times and most especially when that darling of the so-called democratic liberals, Bill Clinton, signed NAFTA, that it would reduce American workers to the plight of the billions around the planet forced to work for as little as $2 a day. What was Ralph’s reward? He was vilified by the liberal/progressives more viciously than he was by the right-wing nutcases. How much more evidence do we need before we wake up and smell the coffee? We’re the only nation with a healthcare for profit system that takes your home and everything you saved if you get seriously ill. And health insurance that collects your money every month and when you need it, they tell you that you broke some rule and aren’t covered. Moreover, Social Security which is so critical for millions of senior citizens is being attacked because the vultures want to get their hands on it. Pell Grants, home heating assistance, Head Start, etc. etc. etc., everything, every last crumb is being assaulted by the corporate cockroaches and the rapacious rich. Remember just two months ago, the republicans refused to budge unless the tax breaks to the rich were extended ($800 billion) and now they’re so concerned about the deficit that they demand we slash every “entitlement” program? Wake up you zombies! They are turning back the clock to the Dark Ages.

Speaking of the Dark Ages, I just heard minutes ago that the so-called “conservative” republicans are waging the most massive attack on abortion rights ever with 29 governors attempting to pass legislation outlawing abortion in their states. Furthermore, this week, the governor of Wisconsin attempted to pass a law preventing all public employees the right to collectively bargain. Wisconsin has been a bastion of labor organizing for close to 80 years and the rest of the nation is watching closely the results of this full frontal assault on public unions. The diabolical criminal, Karl Rove, has publicly stated that the republican party needs to crush public unions to effectively defund the democratic party. They want total control over all working people and have already almost completely eliminated unions in the private sector. Teachers are number one on their list for crushing, included in public sector unions will be cops, firemen, prison guards, etc. and what’s really absurd is that whenever anyone on the Left points out this class war against the poor by the power elite, they cry foul and accuse us of stirring up ugly passions and spreading propaganda. Their hubris, like their greed, knows no bounds. They are de facto striving with every weapon in their arsenal to make themselves masters of the universe.

A case in point, lest you think me exaggerating, is what the military has dubbed “Full Spectrum Dominance.” Check it out for yourself. They are working on developing a system of satellites to orbit the Earth and equipped with lasers capable of hitting every spot on Earth and thereby controlling every nation. Personally, I don’t believe they ever actually abandoned Reagan’s “Star Wars” weapons program. I am aware this is all very depressing but these are nightmares becoming reality and we can simply continue amusing ourselves to death or face up to our responsibility to become engaged both intellectually and physically in this battle. As I mentioned earlier, the riots or revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were sparked by massive hikes in food prices and the fact that so many people can’t find work, even well-educated college graduates. When I was growing up, the myth was that if you worked hard and earned a college degree, you were guaranteed a secure and good paying job for life. My experience has been just the opposite i.e. I’ve been turned down for many jobs because of being “over-qualified.” And as a result, I’ve never made over $25,000 per year.

Clinton signing NAFTA (goodbye middle class)

Following this further, recall my mentioning of President Clinton’s passage of NAFTA and the smear campaign by not only the right-wing repulsive ones but also so-called liberals/progressives on the Left? The powers that be sold this naked grab for more dominance over the working class and the middle class of all people on the planet by claiming it would raise the standard of living i.e. wages of those in the Third World who work for as little as $2 per day and they called it Globalization. And Nader was/is intelligent and prescient in pointing out that in fact it was a race to the bottom i.e. with the passage of NAFTA, employers can more easily than ever, crush their workers by threatening to move overseas for cheaper labor if workers dare to demand a fair wage, better working conditions, etc. So, we in the industrially developed countries are watching our wages decline, our benefits being taken away, and are being turned into feudal slaves. This is why such corrupt corporations such as Wal Mart are thriving and Wall St. touts Wal Mart as the largest and most successful corporation in America. The overwhelming majority of Wal Marts’ products are made in China and poor people in America buy their products because they are cheaper than the same products made in America. And what really blew my mind was that a so-called progressive radio station that I listen to in Portland, Oregon, airs commercials for not only Wal Mart but also BP who just contaminated the Gulf of Mexico on such a grand scale that we’ll be suffering its consequences probably for 50 years or better?

brought to you by Monsanto, Dow Chemical, etc. (80% of all processed food in U.S. is GMO)

Without a doubt, if we don’t get off our collective butts and take action, our future looks like it will resemble the nightmare world of Mel Gibson’s Road Warrior. Do you think I’m being overly pessimistic or cynical again? Well, I heard recently that the Czech Republic is running dangerously low on water and I’ve known for some time now that millions, if not billions, of people around the globe have either no access to water whatsoever or the water they do have access to is polluted and unhealthy. Of course we are all aware of the oil wars in the Middle East initiated by the U.S. to steal their oil and we dress it up as war to promote democracy and freedom. Then why didn’t we take a strong stand on the side of the Egyptians rebelling, the Tunisians, and the half dozen other nations protesting right now and being attacked, beaten, jailed, and shot by their military? I’ll tell you why, it’s because their military and government leaders (dictators), are our friends i.e. they let us operate our military bases there and our corporations get to rape, pillage, & plunder their resources and people. Our power elite don’t give a damn about people’s rights, democracy, freedom, or anything except their power and wealth. This is a fight to the death. Monsanto and Dow Chemical are genetically modifying food crops and who knows what Frankenstein monsters they are creating with their “killer seeds?” They claim they will be able to feed all the hungry people on earth with these crops made from DNA modifying compounds. Then why do the rich do all their grocery shopping at the ultra expensive organic, whole foods stores? Why won’t they eat these products?

To put it another way, the reactionary, far right extremists care nothing about America, democracy, social justice, or anything except what and how they can enrich themselves. Right now in Wisconsin, their governor has revealed how corrupt and morally bankrupt they are. A guy posed as David Koch, the billionaire, who along with his brother, are financing a large portion of the class war against all who aren’t millionaires in America. In a 20 minute phone conversation with the governor, this prankster got Wisconsin’s governor to reveal just how callous these rich bastards on the right are. They are following Karl Rove’s agenda to destroy unions in America because unions contribute significantly to democratic candidates and the republican extremists want total control in government so they can force all Americans down to the wage levels of the destitute around the world.

A major weapon in the arsenal of the greedy and corrupt is their steady propaganda war and its emphasis on anti-intellectualism. Like Machiavelli, they have shrewdly used the Christian fundamentalist right by repeatedly whipping up their righteous wrath against homosexuals and abortion. These are easy emotional buttons to push on the generally speaking, less educated, simple, Christian country folk. By invoking the liberal, intellectual elite as moral degenerates who are seeking to silence all Christians in America, on a regular basis with the help of the television and radio hate & fear mongers like Limbaugh, Beck, etc., they can, at a moment’s notice, mount massive public outrage in a very well organized assault on any politician, professor, media outlet, etc. who dares to speak for the principles upon which this country was founded e.g. freedom, equality, justice, etc.

Moreover, I have been reading Chris Hedge’s book Death of the Liberal Class (copyright 2010) and it’s been a very depressing read because I had no idea just how deep the betrayal of the so-called “liberals,” has been. Here is an excerpt from inside the dust jacket to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

For decades the liberal class was a defense against the worst excesses of power. But the pillars of the liberal class—the press, universities, labor movement, culture, Democratic Party, and liberal religious institutions—have collapsed as effective counterweights to the corporate state. In its absence the needs of the poor, the working class and even the middle class, no longer have a champion. The death of the liberal class has permitted the rise of a new and terrifying political configuration.

To more fully understand the phenomenon of how the power elite have brainwashed the millions of Christian fundamentalists, with the help of many corrupt preachers like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc., into voting against their own best interests, I strongly recommend Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter with Kansas? One of Frank’s intellectual heroes, perhaps his greatest mentor/influence, was Richard Hofstadter. I dissected Hofstadter’s classic Anti-intellectualism in American Life, and used many of my notes from it in the magnum opus I am writing. In brief, anti-intellectualism has been around since the formation of our country & has been regularly used by politicians and others seeking power. In the last 30 years or so, it has been very skillfully incorporated in the class war being waged against us in America. The powers that be have cleverly waged a steady anti-government campaign to dupe the public into believing that government is the enemy along with liberals & secular humanists, etc. And if it weren’t such a serious matter, it’d be almost laughable i.e. their anti-government campaign, because the power elite wouldn’t be anywhere as rich and powerful as they are weren’t it for the government subsidies, protections, tax breaks, etc. they are handed on a silver platter. You see my friend, it’s all a charade, designed to fool the unaware public into focusing their anger on the government and ignoring the corporations who are behind it all. This is not to say that I’m excusing the government, no, they are crime partners of the corporate cockroaches but they also do a lot of good e.g. protect us to some extent & provide very necessary services & functions.

example of Compassionate Conservatism after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

At the same time as they, the status quo, are waging war on us and screwing us in every way imaginable, they have the gall to affront us with cuddly little phrases like Daddy Bush’s declaration that his presidency would champion a “Kinder and Gentler Nation,” and “Dubya” Bush aka Alfred E. Newman, proclaimed he represented “Compassionate Conservatives.” Yeah right! Tears fill my eyes when I reflect on the eight years under his dictatorship and how he, along with the help of that liberal bastion, The New York Times, lied us into invading & occupying Iraq. Oh, don’t forget his complicity in the continuation of the deregulations of the Clinton presidency which gave us the collapse of the housing market and our economic system which we may not recover from for decades. Never mind the propaganda from Wall St. and the Oval Office, the vast majority of Americans are seriously suffering and will continue to suffer for years to come.

Of course, everything is hunky-dory for Wall St. and the “Super-banks” too big to fail, thanks to our being forced to bail them out with the promise that they would in turn help the economy by making loans available to small businesses & individuals trying to get on their feet economically. And as usual, the big boys took the money and then said tough shit to the American public who had bailed them out and just pocketed the money and rewarded themselves. Again and again, I can’t understand why we haven’t stormed Wall St. and the government & manned the barricades like those rising-up all over the Middle East? Just how many times do the rich have to screw us and how many examples do we need to experience of their callous disregard for our health, dignity, survival, before enough is enough?

Another example of their contempt for us, for democracy, for justice, etc. is the recent revelations in an article in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi titled Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? And in brief, he reveals that not only isn’t the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department going after the Wall St. firms, banks, insurance companies, etc. for their devastating crimes that have brought so many Americans to their knees, they are de facto, protecting these criminal entities. Yeah, chew on that for awhile! Or continue to bury your head in the sand and wonder why as you lose everything you’ve worked for. Oh yeah, just another tidbit, when these corporate robber barons occasionally are prosecuted for some crime, they simply pay a relatively small fine and don’t even have to admit wrongdoing and have no criminal record. How’s that for justice in America? On the other hand, if you or I get busted for say, drunk driving or writing a bad check, etc., we have a criminal record that follows us around forever and it makes it very hard for us to get back on our feet and we are labeled as bad credit risks. Interesting?

Perhaps you thought it too harsh or wrong of me to call Obama, the Oreo in the Oval Office? Well, I make no apologies because he lied and pretended even better than “Slick-Willie,” Bill Clinton, to become president and his mantra was “Change,” but he has shown from the get-go that it was all a sham. He is Wall St.’s darling and corporate America’s step-and-fetch-it boy. He showed his true colors from the beginning by putting the very crooks most responsible for the economic tsunami, in charge of the most powerful financial institutions we have. And it just keeps getting more obvious as time goes on. Who did Obama appoint most recently as his new, Chief of Staff, none other than William Daley, the son of Chicago’s infamous Richard Daley. For those of you around my age, you may recall the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968 when there was a police riot and the police mercilessly beat demonstrators bloody as they chanted “The Whole World is Watching.” How appropriate as we’re witnessing protests spring-up across the Middle East and they’re being beaten and killed by their own Mayor Daleys.

Once again the arrogance & audacity of the criminal class is simply amazing. The super banks have been whining that they have been victimized and are being beaten-up on like piñatas for the past year or so. So Obama the Oreo wanted to once again reassure them that he’s on their side by appointing William Daley, former chairman of J.P. Morgan’s Midwestern operations and head of corporate and social responsibility since 2007. No doubt a position invented to dupe the public into believing they actually give a damn and have a conscience. Hiring an executive from Morgan/Chase is fitting since it’s the most egregious example of corporate fraud and duplicity in the banking & financial corporate world. By the way, in case you wonder what I mean by calling Obama an Oreo, it’s a pejorative term Blacks use against one another and means you’re black on the outside but white on the inside. Seems pretty clear to me that Obama has been trying to prove to the corporate crocodile cabal ever since he took office that he’s their buddy and they have nothing to fear from him. He must have done quite a bit of ass-kissing before they even allowed him to run for president to assure them he would play ball i.e. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” (The Who)

Jamie Dimon & Obama's cabinet carrying on the tradition

Perhaps you think I’m being overly cynical or critical of Morgan/Chase and Wall St. & corporate America? Well, I challenge you to do a little homework and check out the history of J.P. Morgan. The founding father of this illustrious clan bought defective rifles for $3 apiece and sold them to the federal government during the Civil War for $17 apiece. You might find it informative also to read up on J.P. Morgan’s role in the first “Great Depression” originally called the Republican Depression but they didn’t like the bad P.R. So as usual in the corporate world where graft, corruption, fraud, theft, callous disregard for human life, etc. is business as usual, the worst or highest offenders/criminals are rewarded with the highest offices of “respect” and power in the highest offices in our country. Hell, why do I keep referring to it as our country? It’s no longer ours but theirs. We matter about as much as piss-ants you step on as you walk down the street. And tragically, the overwhelming majority of us will keep on playing by their rules in this rigged game we call capitalism until they have enslaved or killed-off every last one of us. We will continue to risk and sacrifice our lives in the military to enrich the filthy rich because we can’t find any work other than flipping burgers or pumping gas. And those of us in the military and the police forces etc. will serve as the Mafia type thugs who keep those of us in line who dare to protest or stand up for the so-called rights we were indoctrinated into believing we had in America as we suffered through what is laughingly called our public education system.

massive protests in Wisconsin despite freezing weather

United we stand and divided we fall and the power elite have known since the beginning of recorded history, the importance of divide and conquer. Look at Wisconsin’s embattled governor who admitted in his conversation with the guy posing as David Koch that he had considered putting agent provocateurs into the crowd of protesters so he could cause chaos and discredit the protesters & have an excuse to call in the National Guard. Yes indeed my friend, join the army and be all that you can be i.e. cannon fodder and when you, mostly women, get raped by your fellow soldiers, don’t expect any compassion or justice. No, the military protects its own no matter what crimes they commit and you will be forced to continue to serve in units with your rapist & will be looked upon as a pariah by the rest of your company for daring to file charges.

e.g. "FOX News" for those who may not know

To rephrase it, the myths we were told about America have very real consequences psychologically, physically, and spiritually. And no, I don’t hate my country but I do expect it to live up to those ideals & principles we were supposedly founded upon. I dare to criticize what is wrong with America because I am a true patriot not one of those phony, shallow lemmings who dutifully hang a flag from their front porch or wear one in the lapel of their jacket and see no evil, speak no evil, do no evil i.e. accept unquestioningly everything Fox News and the White House tells them. I don’t believe in the deification of America. We are just one nation amongst many others and we have no right nor duty to tell other nations what to do or how to behave. If all Americans knew the true history of what “our” government has done, we’d be a much humbler people and stop boasting and strutting around the world stage like our shit doesn’t stink.

Consider if you will, the recent celebration and mythologizing of Ronald Reagan in recognition of what would’ve been his hundredth birthday. Only the willfully blind or truly ignorant could believe the crap the spinmeisters have spun regarding Reagan’s tenure in office? Here are just a few facts the propagandists like Karl Rove don’t want you to know about ol’ Ronnie, the Gipper:

1)Reagan raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office.
2)Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit.
3)Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts.
4)Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously.
5)Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to choose.
6)Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.”
7)Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants.
8)Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran.
9)Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act.
10)Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden.
(source: 10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You to Know about Ronald Reagan at salon.com)

By the way, it was Reagan’s second term in office as president of the United States that sparked my interest in politics because even as untutored as I was at the time regarding politics, he scared the hell out of me. Additionally, I had been turned on to the Pacifica Radio Network by a creative writing professor of mine at California State University at Long Beach and my political education began to flower. The old saying that what you don’t know can’t hurt you is total bullshit and we are seeing the truth of this today in every aspect of our lives from the shredding of the Bill of Rights to the outsourcing of our jobs, our being held hostage to the health for profit care system in America, and the attacks on unions, Social Security, & Medicare to name just a few examples.

Randi Rhode, "progressive" apologist for all Democrat party crimes

Moreover, as Chris Hedges has laid out so succinctly in his book on the death of liberalism, many, if not most, of the so-called liberals/progressives have betrayed the principles they claim to champion. As I said, I started out listening to Pacifica Radio, KPFK in L.A., to be specific and they too, have betrayed their stated mission to some extent but they have one program hosted by Ian Masters called Background Briefing aired on Sundays and available via the Internet, that is truly inspiring and informative. I would argue that Ian Master’s program and Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! Broadcast Monday through Friday on the Internet and on local radio station KBOO, are the two most informative and best sources for the truth behind the scenes of power in America. And yes, I’m aware that nothing is more elusive than the truth & I’m not saying that everything these two programs say is the gospel but it is 180 degrees opposite the corporate media flak machine and we should always check the sources & references of anybody’s claims to the “facts” or “truth.”

Thom Hartmann, brilliant liberal but more concerned with making money than truth!

Because I have been paying attention for nearly 30 years now and have been reading, watching, listening, researching obsessively about politics, economics, history, philosophy, etc. I have noted inconsistencies & contradictions/hypocrisies on the so-called progressive/liberal side of things as well. Specifically, a so-called progressive radio host on what used to be Air America but is now syndicated and called simply Progressive Radio at least here in Portland, Oregon, Randi Rhodes, really turned my stomach several years ago when I heard her do a telephone interview on her radio program with Ralph Nader. She was vicious, relentless, & thoroughly unprofessional in my opinion. I remember thinking, and she’s suppose to be a “progressive voice?” Nader has been vilified by not only the right-wing nuts but also the so-called “Left.” I still stand by Ralph and believe he is a true champion of our freedoms and has devoted his life selflessly to protecting us as best he could. He tried to warn us about NAFTA which “Slick Willie” Bill Clinton signed into law & Randi Rhodes fawns at the mention of Clinton or Obama like they can do no wrong. In addition, “progressive radio” has other hosts like Thom Hartmann who is against “illegal immigrants,” being allowed to work in America. And another popular host is Ed Schultz who often comes across as bellicose and somewhat of a braggart in my opinion. And lastly, the late night host named Mike Malloy who loves to rant & rave but when I sent him an essay his only response was “Yikes, this is almost a book!” I don’t mean to sound like I’m totally trashing these “progressive” radio hosts but simply want to point out some of their contradictions at least in my perspective.

Ed Schultz, the Left's version of Limbaugh

Furthermore, still on the subject of “progressive radio,” what has really bugged me is the fact that this so-called progressive radio station at least in my area, also airs commercials for the likes of WalMart and BP. And Ed Schultz has often exhorted his listeners to “buy American,” and when I wrote him an e-mail pointing out the hypocrisy of this due to their airing of Wal Mart commercials, I got no response. It seems to me that Chris Hedges is indeed correct in his assessment of liberals/progressives in general i.e. they have been co-opted by selling out to their corporate masters. In fact, it really nauseates me to listen to progressive radio in Portland because every few minutes there is another corporate advertising commercial and I’ll switch for several minutes to KBOO which is totally listener sponsored. I do learn a lot from the “progressive” radio hosts but take a lot of it with a grain of salt. And I should listen to Limbaugh, Beck, etc. to know exactly where the enemy is coming from but to be honest, I simply don’t have the stomach for it. The bits & pieces I hear through the grapevine of what these fascists posing as patriots say & do, is so repulsive that I can’t believe they haven’t been laughed off the air a long time ago? I guess this is a sad reflection of just how ignorant we are as a nation? Remember, ignorance is not a pejorative, it simply means to not know. Bottom line, what really bugs me about “progressive radio,” is that they seem to be playing into the hands of the power elite, status quo, powers that be, however you wish to refer to the centers of power, in that they basically keep urging listeners to keep on playing by the rules, working within the system, and one day we will win. I firmly believe that the system is so corrupt and rotten to the core that we must have radical (getting to the root) change and take to the streets as they did in Seattle during the WTO conferences and make our message & voice loud and clear for all of the world to hear. Before I forget, two more “progressives,” that need a little light shone on them are Al Franken, the comedian turned radio host for Air America when it first was broadcast, and Keith Olberman, the “most dominant liberal voice” in America.

Keith Olbermann

It saddens me to have to report that many so-called liberals & progressives are what I would dub as fair-weather liberals & progressives and it really bodes ill for true freedom & democracy in America. I believe all humans are hypocrites or walking contradictions to some extent but some are more blatant than others and I am definitely no exception to the rule. But when national celebrities who have built their reputation on being liberals or progressives are hypocritical, they bear a much greater responsibility in my opinion because they are the role models for those of us who truly care about making this a more equitable world. In a Democracy Now interview, Michael Moore charged that both Keith Olbermann & Al Franken attacked him for opposing the War in Iraq because they supported the war at the beginning of our invasion and occupation. Al Franken has since tried to distance himself from his early stance on the Iraq war and of course he is now a U.S. senator but I must question what his true motives are? And I just learned that Keith Olbermann was making $7 million dollars a year working for MSNBC which also makes me wonder if it wasn’t all about the money?

I refer to myself as a progressive these days because I feel liberals have waffled or been spineless on far too many issues. And it depresses the Hell out of me to realize that not only do we have to do battle with the Republican noise machine and its overwhelmingly stronger and much more visible media empire but we have to also hold accountable those who supposedly represent the Left in America. From time to time, I will send an e-mail to people like Thom Hartman or Ed Schultz but they have never responded. Yeah, you could argue that they receive too many e-mails to respond but I don’t buy it because every time I have written to Noam Chomsky, whom most liberals & progressives would agree, is the world’s greatest and most famous voice for true freedom and democracy, Chomsky honors me by responding. And I have disagreed with him from time to time but always in a polite and civil manner. Yet Hartmann, Schultz, and several other “progressives” deem themselves too important to waste their precious time on people like myself. Please don’t misunderstand me, I agree with the overwhelming majority of what Hartmann, Schultz, et al, have to say but Hartmann’s views on immigrants in America without official permission, reminds me more of a Bill O’Reilly than a progressive voice. And Ed Schultz makes me think of him as a sort of Left-wing caricature of Rush Limbaugh with his bellicose and bombastic bragging from time to time. I listen to Thom Hartmann’s program more often than I do to Ed Schultz and definitely more than Randi Rhodes. But the thing that they all have in common is that they will only go so far in terms of criticizing our capitalist system and they definitely won’t touch the fact that many of the stations across America that broadcast their programs also run ads for Walmart, BP Oil, recruitment ads for the U.S. military, etc. And it’s clear as a bell to me that this is because they are making a lot of money playing the controversial liberal on radio and cable television. Thom Hartmann is the leader in this respect and while I don’t know exactly how much he earns, he makes a helluva lot more money than the others I’m sure.

You might be curious as to why I’m pointing these things out? Well, in a nutshell, it’s because I feel we must dare to air our dirty laundry if we are to stand a chance in our uphill battle against the reactionary right-wing nut extremists who are kicking our asses in the battle for the mind of the American public. We have to point out our defects, contradictions, hypocrisies, etc. before the Right does in order to deflate their arguments. And although we know it’s totally absurd when the Glenn Becks, O’Reillys, Coulters, etc. proclaim there is a liberal bias in the media, the majority of Americans don’t and in fact, believe the propaganda that FOX News spews forth 24/7 year after year. If it weren’t such an important issue, I’d be rolling on the floor with laughter. Here are two examples of “liberal bias” in the media: 1) MSNBC, the so-called “liberal bastion” of cable news, fired Phil Donahue for being too anti-war just a few weeks before we invaded Iraq. Donahue would have on his show, maybe one anti-war guest and two or more pro-war guests but even one was too much for this “liberal” network. And this is why I have been a defender of Donahue for many years, he is a true liberal or progressive and has the moral integrity and courage to stand up and speak truth at power. I remember watching the Donahue show one day, not long before the presidential election in which Reagan was running for his second term as president and Mike Wallace was on the show and announced that 60 Minutes was going to do an expose on Reagan’s ties with Senator Paul Laxalt from Nevada, who was Reagan’s campaign fund manager, and Laxalt’s clear ties with the mafia and MCA records but that was as far as it went and there was never a mention of it again on either CBS or NBC which aired the Donahue show. 2) The New York Times touted as the hallmark or flagship of “liberal thought” in America and whose banner proclaims “all the news that is fit to print,” and which supposedly sets the bar in terms of journalistic integrity i.e. most of the other newspapers around the country wait until the New York Times stories of the day are released and then rush to offer their own spin or regurgitation of the stories after the Times has told them what is worthy of reporting on. Yeah, some “liberal” paper, only FOX News—and I use that term ‘news’ lightly here—beat the war drums for our invasion of Iraq, more loudly than The New York Times did. Do you recall that it was their star reporter, Judith Miller, who wrote most of the stories supporting our invasion of Iraq by writing almost verbatim, the lies told to her by Chalabi, the guy convicted in absentia—because he fled Jordan after robbing his Petra Bank of $200 million dollars. Chalabi was at the top of our list for guys we wanted to appoint to be president of Iraq. You know how much we respect other nations’ sovereignty and free elections. But unfortunately, Chalabi’s criminal record leaked and it was also revealed that he was playing double agent for Iran so he wasn’t hired.

In conclusion, many Americans are fond of boasting that we are a land of “rugged individualists,” yeah right, give me a frigging break! We’ve become a nation of cowed conformists. I have worked in the education profession for well over 20 years and have known many teachers who would love to speak the truth to their students about our true history but because they are afraid of losing their jobs & their pensions, they remain silent. And I too, remain silent much more often than i used to because I am no spring chicken and worry more than anything about not having medical insurance as I grow older. It is hard for me to express how frustrated I feel when I start to talk about political issues in bars and am basically told to shut up or I’ll be asked to leave. It’s such a blatant contradiction of our so-called right to free speech. How we can our politicians, television pundits, etc., assert that America is the land of the free, the home of democracy, and we send our soldiers around the globe to supposedly fight in defense of these freedoms but here, we are not allowed to speak? Yeah, I know the common bullshit excuse is that a fight will break out. And again, I say, bullshit! Fights break out in bars al the time and for countless reasons e.g. perceived insults, disagreements over sports, one guy trying to pick up on another guy’s girl, etc. etc. etc. I believe it is a myth that fights are the likely result of political discussions/disagreements in bars. Every great now and then I have engaged in a heated political discussion in a bar and I have often noted how animated the discussion became and sometimes what started out as just me and another guy talking about political matters, soon spread and several other people around us joined in. And what really warms my heart is when I see the light come on in peoples’ eyes and how eager they are to share their points of view. Yes, there have been times when it started to become nasty and I realized that I was just beating my head against a wall and when this happened, I’d say something like “Can we just agree that we disagree” and I’d drop the subject because I knew it was going nowhere and wanted to head-off a possible physical confrontation. But there have also been times when I’ve had people say to me something like “Wow! This is the best conversation i’ve had in years!” I believe this reflects the general sense or hunger for truth and honest dialog that we are so desperately lacking in this great Republic of ours. And to be honest with you, I can’t help but wonder at times if there might be some sort of conspiracy on the part of the power elite or status quo of this country to keep us divided and silent with this taboo against talking about politic in bars? I have been to Europe several times and one of the reasons why I love going to Europe is that they are free to speak about anything they want in public bars and I have had many stimulating conversations in my travels there.

Most importantly, the Arab Spring has revealed that the human spirit cannot be extinguished no matter how vicious or violent the oppressing forces may be. Tens of thousands of people from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Mauritania, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, & Western Sahara have had their heads caved-in, been imprisoned, and been murdered in their struggle for liberty. They know the price of liberty but here in America, the so-called City on the Hill, the beacon to the world, we have forgotten how precious liberty is and have been asleep at the wheel while the rich, the corporate cockroaches, have stolen our precious liberties from us. And the propaganda machine known as the mass media or corporate media, keeps reassuring us that our soldiers are fighting for our freedom and democracy. Can we really be that blind, dumb, & stupid? Meanwhile, I will keep on writing, ranting & raving, and longing for some responses or comments on my writing and pray that America will have its own American Spring?

(Noam Chomsky, intellectual giant & immense moral integrity! If you want to remove the scales from your eyes, Chomsky is a one man revolution & can teach us all so much if we but have the courage & the heart to listen.)

Posted in Politics | Tagged Al Franken, Anti-Intellectualism, Arab Spring, Chris Hedges, Christian fundamentalists, class war, Democracy Now, Ed Schultz, fascism, FOX News, Full Spectrum Dominance, genetically modified food, Glenn Beck, globalization, Homeland Security, Ian Masters, JP Morgan, Karl Rove, KBOO, Keith Olbermann, Koch brothers, Limbaugh, Matt Taibbi, NAFTA, Naomi Wolf, Pacifica Radio, Pat Robertson, Patriot Act, Phil Donahue, President Clinton, progressive radio, Ralph Nader, Randi Rhodes, Reagan, secular humanism, Star Wars, super banks, Tahrir Square, Thomas Frank, Wall St., WalMart, war on unions | Leave a comment

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