Hey, Robert, I like your new .sig line, by the way. :grin:

On 2002-03-20 12:09, Sbarros wrote:
That's for sure.

Maybe the Millenials will fight the evil designs of Bush....
they'll mobilize against greedy capitalists who pollute our environment. No, you don'thave to be anti-American to oppose this administration. Just anti-Bush.


The Millenials will fight for socialism and green power. They won't fight Mr.Bush's war.
Progressive Power!

Are you a fan of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers? :lol:

On 2002-03-20 12:13, Sbarros wrote:
Millenials will build the world's tallest buildings in America again. They will modernize the Internet.

Millenials (1978-1999) will fight for the masses.

Progressive Power!

How about building colonies in orbit, on Mars, on the Moon, on asteroids, and in the seas here on Earth. I plan to start my pan-galactic empire on the Martian moon Phobos. :grin:

On 2002-03-19 21:31, Marc Lamb wrote:



Mr. Reed claims,
"But leftism does not equal Marxism."

:lol: Well, only die hard lefties, like Christopher Gillen, will ever admit that it does. Good grief, a lot of Democrats don't like being called liberal either, these days. Some labels are just plain dirty words, Mr. Reed.

Marx had a maxim, Mr. Reed, it's very simple to learn, love and live. It goes like this:

<FONT SIZE="+2"><center>From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.</FONT></center>

And every lefty learns it, loves it, and lives Marx's maxim, Mr. Reed. Apply it to your post back there and you'll find it fits very well in your historical take on America's past. :smile:

Well you follow <big>Marcism</big>, which is the worst ideology of them all!! :grin:

_________________
Robert Reed III (1982)
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." -- Heinrich Heine
"The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren and to do good is my religion."-Thomas Paine

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: madscientist on 2002-03-20 13:20 ]</font>

On 2002-03-20 12:47, firemind wrote:
...

What I want to know is, WILL THEY GO BACK TO THE MOON? WILL THEY COLONIZE THE ASTEROIDS?

Uhhh, yes.

Millenials will cure cure cancer!

What!? We will find the cure to the cure for cancer!? Are you saying that the cure for cancer will do something like make us all lose control of our bladders, meaning that we have to find a cure for this side effect? Neat! :grin:

Millenials will add vitamin A to rice!

That sounds good, but since children love to eat paste at elementary school, I plan on adding nutrients to that.

Millenials will improve baseball averages!

Baseball sucks. Instead, we will become the world champions in Quake!!

I can agree with some of Brother Bennett's agenda. In general, looking at his list of ten agenda items, the lower on the list he gets, the closer we get. The Top Three, however, has us coming from very much different places. I may return to the other seven, but for now...

1. America is confronted with an enemy no less dangerous and no less determined than the twin menaces of fascism and communism we faced in the 20th century. And as we were victorious over them, so we must prevail in this, the first war of the 21st century. AVOT will, as its first task, remind citizens of the paramount importance of this effort.

Given the weapons of the time, it made every bit of economic, moral and political sense for the democracies to fight an all out conventional war against fascism. We won. Economically, morally and politically, few would argue that fighting that war was a prudent and good decision. The price was high, the reward was worth it.

Given that both the communist and capitalists nations had weapons of mass destruction, it was not prudent or cost effective for an all out war. We had the Cold War instead. Part of this was generational mechanics. It is traditional after a major conflict to avoid another immediate major confrontation. Part of it is a change in weaponry available. The existence of weapons of mass destruction makes major confrontations between major powers not cost effective. Thus, the all out conflict between the First and Second worlds never occurred. Each created their own zone of influence, and fought each other conventionally and through proxies.

Assume that weapons of mass destruction are becoming more easily acquired, available to the Third World. Assume that the victors of the Cold War believe they should maintain all the advantages of their now global Zone of Influence. Assume continued exploitation of Zones of Influence results in continued poverty in the Third World, a continued division of wealth. Brother Bennett might be tragically wrong. Our new foes might become far more dangerous than the old. World War II was a Good War. The Cold War was a phony war. World War III on the other hand...

2. The radical Islamists who attacked us did so because of our democratic ideals, our belief in, and practice of, liberty and equality. AVOT will take to task those who blame America first and who do not understand--or who are unwilling to defend--our fundamental principles.

The Radical Islamists see their own culture as under siege. The Oil Monarchies might be perceived as working for the interests of the West and of the ruling Arab elites. Western media and goods are destroying traditional ways of life. While the old is being destroyed, prosperity, rights and democracy are not happening. The West has acted far more to keep the oil coming and preserve Israel than to advocate for the political or economic interests of the average Arab.

A major question is whether the fundamentalist extremists or the western sympathizers offer more hope to the Arab on the street. In Iran, the fundamentalist extremists triumphed over the Oil Monarchy. We should not assume similar revolutions could not happen elsewhere. We should not assume the fundamentalist extremists are irrational or insane. Is it they, or the United States, that offers the best future for the people? Has collaborating with the US or Soviets been beneficial?

3. America's foreign policy should be guided by those same principles upon which America itself was founded. AVOT will call for a foreign policy that emphasizes democracy and human rights.

Which answers my criticism of paragraph two, or at least gives lip service to the needs and desires of the Arabs.

One problem is the appearance of an assumption of superiority. We can reasonably offer assistance to nations that might wish to change. We cannot reasonably force cultures to become more like us. It is one thing to show the historic failures of corrupt autocratic regimes, and recommend reforms that would help a nation repeat common mistakes. It is another thing to use foreign aid to prop up corrupt autocratic regimes. In the early 1960s, the United States attempted to prop up a corrupt dictator in South Vietnam. Let's not walk that way again.

If one takes Point Three to the extreme, one would have to advocate democratic revolution to overthrow royalty, military dictatorship, and other autocratic governments. So long as the West remains dependent on oil, such a policy is very easy to preach if one isn't in power, but very dangerous to even hint at if one is in a position to act. One can't make the Crown Prince of Saudi nervous. How can one advocate the interests of both OPEC and Israel?

I find myself in a paradox here. We need the oil, but it will be dangerous to commit ourselves either for or against the current Oil Monarchies. We need to show the people of the region a path to peace and prosperity without being seen as aggressively forcing the destruction of their ancient culture.

I view the situation as complex. Bennett's propaganda has to be simple and strident, has to appeal to Red Zone values. In a democracy, the first step towards major change is getting elected. I have little doubt that Bennett is quite aware of the paradoxes, but a successful politician can't present doubts and paradox in position statements like this one. He has ten sound bytes. Each sound byte is targeted to resonate with his perception of current US mood and values. Should he actually achieve a strong position of influence, I would not be surprised if he continued presenting strident values in public, while using more subtle diplomacy in the smoke filled rooms. Dubya is doing the same.

Shall we post a Gray Champion watch on AVOT and Bennett? I am doubtful. Too early. Too extreme. The Gray Champion can compromise, can moderate between the need for change and the need to preserve traditional values. Bennett reminds me more of patriot Sam Adams or abolitionist Charles Sumner, trying to create and ride a extremist wave. He also errs on the side of the status quo. I'm obsessed by the division of wealth, weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the impoverished, religious and ethnic hatreds, and ecological limits to wealth. Bennett, from my perspective, is scoring a very dangerous near miss. He sees many pieces of the puzzle, but, IMHO, is missing some important pieces. What he is missing makes him a conservative, rather than a radical. Sam Adams and John Brown were radicals. In a fourth turning, one wants to keep an eye out for the guy that sees the need for change, and pushes for change. Bennett ain't it.

Still, Bennett and AVOT might become one focus for the regeneracy. I've been looking for the equivalent of the patriot/loyalist, abolitionist/slaver and isolationist/interventionist debates. I've been disappointed that such debates haven't been active, but not surprised that Dubya had a honeymoon. The honeymoon is over. Here we go.

Bob:

You were actually far more gracious toward Brother Bennett than I expected.

On 2002-03-20 13:39, Bob Butler 54 wrote:

Still, Bennett and AVOT might become one focus for the regeneracy. I've been looking for the equivalent of the patriot/loyalist, abolitionist/slaver and isolationist/interventionist debates. I've been disappointed that such debates haven't been active, but not surprised that Dubya had a honeymoon. The honeymoon is over. Here we go.

Bennett and AVOT clearly represent the status quo to me. Definite loyalists; definite tories. I suspect that the debates you seek have been active among people whose voices we never get to hear. You can go to websites, both "conservative" and "liberal," and see them in action. The corporate media is careful not to give them airtime however.

Hey, this little red-diaper baby called sbarro is flying around this joint like chicken with it's head cut off. Sheesh! Is this fun or what? :lol:

On 2002-03-20 14:27, Marc Lamb wrote:



Hey, this little red-diaper baby called sbarro is flying around this joint like chicken with it's head cut off. Sheesh! Is this fun or what? :lol:

Be careful, Marc. There's two of them. Singular and plural. :lol:

Pizza! Pizza! They're twins! :lol:

Good grief, I needed a good laugh today.

On 2002-03-20 14:35, Kiff '61 wrote:

On 2002-03-20 14:27, Marc Lamb wrote:

Hey, this little red-diaper baby called sbarro is flying around this joint like chicken with it's head cut off. Sheesh! Is this fun or what? :lol:

Be careful, Marc. There's two of them. Singular and plural. :lol:

I was wondering about that. If sbarro (as in the restaurant found in malls) is Italian, wouldn't the plural be sbarri? Whoever he is/they are, I hope that he/they will be forthcoming with the pizza slices while he/they is/are here.

On 2002-03-19 12:45, firemind wrote:

On 2002-03-19 11:28, Stonewall Patton wrote:
Robert:

Here are some musings on the Bush administration, new stamps, Neighborhood Watch, Ed McMahon, Mussolini, Rome, and the Third Reich:

http://www.almartinraw.com/column53.html

This page was very amusing. Imagine using the design of a postage stamp to imply that the United States was now Nazi Germany, just because it had an eagle on it, and a particular shade of blue that, if you look it up in some esoteric color naming book that nobody ever thinks about, is called "Nordic Blue".

NEWS FLASH: An eagle has been featured on the back of our dollar bill for decades. I guess we've always been Nazi Germany.

Honestly, the argument is as valid as a Christian Fundamentalist arguing that the Founding Fathers were Satan-worshipers because of the eye-over-the-pyramid symbol.

I remember having a discussion in high school with a guy who argued that the fact that there was red on the American flag was proof that we were partly Communist. This is about as valid.

Firemind, you did notice that I absurdly named Ed McMahon along with Rome, Mussolini, etc. when I posted that link? It was intended for humor. But there may well be elements of truth in the column and it is for the reader to sort out. That said, I had the same reaction as you did to the stamp presentation although I tend to believe Martin has the Bush administration's number generally with respect to their goals and ambitions. There is no necessity that the stamp be an overt indication of their desires as Martin claims.

Here is an interesting little critique of that column which I came across. It kind of makes you wonder how much of Martin's spiel is deliberate misinformation (mixed in with truth):

http://www.bartcop.com/0749.htm

Review by Brad P:

Hey BC,

The Al Martin column is a good example of how he mixes a few
facts (in this case an actual US postage stamp) with mostly fiction --

The "Obsidian Order" is from Star Trek Deep Space 9, not from ancient Rome.

Moh's is a hardness scale (for minerals like obsidian), not a color scale.

I'm curious to know who this Al Martin character is and what his motives are.

-- Brad

On 2002-03-20 15:41, Stonewall Patton wrote:
Firemind, you did notice that I absurdly named Ed McMahon along with Rome, Mussolini, etc. when I posted that link? It was intended for humor...

Ah, OK, sorry. It DID cross my mind that you intended it for humor, but I wasn't sure. Sorry for underestimating you.

As for Ed McMahon, I didn't read much beyond the postage stamp part before deciding the guy was being pretty goofy. Hence, I couldn't be sure he didn't somehow bring Ed McMahon into his argument further down.

There is no necessity that the stamp be an overt indication of their desires as Martin claims.

Indeed. In fact, the United States Postal Service is probably not at all "in the loop" concerning their alleged evil neocon plots. The USPS is only tenously a branch of governement, anyway, and I'll bet the people who design stamps have been at their current posts for longer then GWB.

Here is an interesting little critique of that column which I came across. It kind of makes you wonder how much of Martin's spiel is deliberate misinformation (mixed in with truth)...

HA!

As for conspiracy theories that are funny, have you seen this:

http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero...erreurs_en.htm

and this, which debunks it:

http://paulboutin.weblogger.com/2002/03/14

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: firemind on 2002-03-20 16:03 ]</font>

On 2002-03-20 15:41, Stonewall Patton wrote:

The "Obsidian Order" is from Star Trek Deep Space 9, not from ancient Rome.

Oh, dang. :oops: I actually thought that the Trek writers had stolen that phrase from the Romans. :lol:

I mean, the Romulans are just Romans in Space, right?

Even though the Obsidian Order is actually a Cardassian version of the CIA.

On 2002-03-20 10:51, Marc Lamb wrote:
Nah, Mr. Saari, about Mr Rush and Mr. Lamb.

WWVD: I would take them seriously when they are serious, take them humorously when they are humorous and when they are superstitious or enthusiastic I'd remember Mr. David Hume on such matters and sigh, and move elsewhere. HTH

On 2002-03-20 16:02, Kiff '61 wrote:
Even though the Obsidian Order is actually a Cardassian version of the CIA.

Mossad actually, the Cardassians are very Israeli, from a left wing pro-Palestinian viewpoint. The Bajorians being the oppressed Palestinian people.

On 2002-03-20 13:08, Kiff '61 wrote:

On 2002-03-20 12:47, firemind wrote:

What I want to know is, WILL THEY GO BACK TO THE MOON? WILL THEY COLONIZE THE ASTEROIDS?

But of course, firemind. :wink: And they won't stop there:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/726652.asp

Anyone for this? Robert Reed? :grin:

Seriously, this is a good example of what you sometimes get when academics try to apply their ideas of how things work onto the real world.

?We would have to leave aside the military-style organization of a crew and instead follow a social structure along familial lines,? Moore said in a telephone interview.
This type of organization mirrors those developed by small tribal groups on Earth, where elders and the basic bonds between parent and child contribute to a working society. Family ties, with the obvious seniority structure between parents, children and older and younger siblings, Moore said, can be used to ?construct a division of labor to accomplish any kind of work, including the work required for space travel.?

The tribal cultures he talks about exist in very stable environments, and are not realistically suitable to the kind of society you'd need to maintain a work STL (slower-than-light) starship over a period of decades or more likely centuries.

Those ships, if we launch them at that speed, are almost certainly going to be run as iron military command structures, with rather draconian penalties for deviation from the assigned roles.

Of course, many tribal cultures are not so different from that.

There are very good reasons why the Navy does not run its oceanic ships as democracies in any sense, and those reasons would apply that much more so in space.

But when you run the numbers on a vehicle to carry 180 people, their recyclables and consumables, their support systems, and so on, you get a mass that's way way too big to be accelerated to .1c by laser-light-sail.

It looks as if someone has been reading Rocheworld by Dr. Forward, though.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-03-20 18:59 ]</font>

On 2002-03-20 12:09, Sbarros wrote:
That's for sure.

Maybe the Millenials will fight the evil designs of Bush....
they'll mobilize against greedy capitalists who pollute our environment. No, you don'thave to be anti-American to oppose this administration. Just anti-Bush.


The Millenials will fight for socialism and green power. They won't fight Mr.Bush's war.
Progressive Power!

Sorry to disappoint you, but if S&H are right, history suggests that the Millennials will try to implement whatever damn-fool idea the GC cooks up, if left unchecked by Xers. Are the Millennials less trusting of authority than the G.I. Generation?

No offense intended to Millennials or the GC, whoever he, she, or it may be. :lol:

On 2002-03-20 09:04, firemind wrote:

On 2002-03-20 08:24, Jenny Genser wrote:

On 2002-03-19 21:31, Marc Lamb wrote:
Marx had a maxim, Mr. Reed, it's very simple to learn, love and live. It goes like this:

<FONT SIZE="+2"><center>From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.</FONT></center>

My family operates that way.

I don't expect my seven-year-old to earn what she needs to buy groceries for herself, clothes, shelter, etc... She is expected to go to school and learn, to do homework and practice her recorder, to be nice to her Mom, to clean up after herself, to do some household chores, and the like.

I expect your family operates the same way, yes? Are you a Marxist? :grin:

Excellent point, Jenny.

In college, I minored in political science, and was taught the following as practically an axiom:

COMMUNISM WORKS BETTER IN SMALL, HOMOGENOUS GROUPS. THE SMALLER AND MORE HOMOGENOUS, THE BETTER IT WILL WORK.

Yes, absolutely, most families are and have always been organized in a communist fashion. The parents have the most abilities, the older children fewer, the young children fewer still, and babies practically none. These various family members are expected to contribute according to their abilities.

Likewise, the babies are the most "needy", and are supplied their needs from the group. Etc, etc.

However, obviously, families are the smallest groups in society, and they are usually quite homogenous (in terms of culture, etc.)

Small collectives of dozens of people (such as kibbutzes) have also managed to apply communist principles with some degree of success for decades, but problems arise even at that small level.

Small, homogenous countries such as Iceland, Ireland, and Denmark have managed to be very socialist for long periods, with a degree of success, although there are big problems. I note that more problems are arising recently as their societies are becoming less homogenous due to immigration.

With a large, very diverse society like the U.S.A., communism would be a collosal failure from the start.

However, the term "Marxist" is only correctly used when discussing large groups. The fact that families are communist units does not make everyone a Marxist.

Regarding families, don't forget that they are not only homogenous, but in most cases genetically related. This does matter, since there biological instincts relating to it. Adoptive families may not be blood kin, but they work by tapping into those same instincts to some degree.

This is the mistake made by people who try to compare national politics to familial politics, and wonder why the politicians bicker like children. The comparison is meaningless, the two institutions have so little in common that applying the standards of one to the other is irrelevant.

"This is the mistake made by people who try to compare national politics to familial politics, and wonder why the politicians bicker like children."


With regards to the most recent post, a timely response, though lost in the fray, is worth repeating...

"My home is a religious institution, Ms. Genser. Something our fair Republic is not. Or at least, should not be."


But make no mistake, folks, this ain't where we be headed. We be headed Back to the Future!

"Finally, revolution can give what no other road promises to give so directly and forcibly -- a new religion. It will be based not on rewards in the Hereafter, but on peace, goodwill and plenty on earth today. ... Great religious movements have usually been grounded in collectivism, in the brotherhood of man, leaving laissez-faire, in the last analysis, a cold and ferocious anti-Christ. ... Western mankind is thirsty for something in which to believe again. Red revolution is a creed, dramatic, idealistic and, in the long run, constructive." --Stuart Chase, Author A New Deal (1932)

[quote]
On 2002-03-20 15:41, Stonewall Patton wrote:

http://www.bartcop.com/0749.htm

Review by Brad P:

Hey BC,

...The "Obsidian Order" is from Star Trek Deep Space 9, not from ancient Rome.

Moh's is a hardness scale (for minerals like obsidian), not a color scale....

-- Brad

For the record, obsidian is an igneous rock, composed of different minerals-- not a mineral itself.

HopefulCynic asks...

Sorry to disappoint you, but if S&H are right, history suggests that the Millennials will try to implement whatever damn-fool idea the GC cooks up, if left unchecked by Xers. Are the Millennials less trusting of authority than the G.I. Generation?

From my perspective, the G.I.s were as into big government solving big problems as any. The Depression and World War II were solved by the Military Industrial Complex.

One of the Awakening themes was distrust of the Establishment. This has morphed into "Campaign Finance Reform." If the various issues bubbling to a boil about now have a common theme, it is a need to check the influences of big buisiness and money on government.
During and after E2K, I spoke of the 'disgust level.' Few to none were enthused about either Bush or Gore, less so after the Flordia vote count debacle. I wondered at the time how much it would take before the people had enough, and a true reform movement developed. September 11th and Dubya's Honeymoon washed the disgust towards our government clean.

But the Millenials grew up under Clinton. In some ways the problems are centered on big government, rather than being solvable by big government. Big Oil and the Jewish Lobby pushed us into a questionable long term policy in the Middle East. The price might have to be paid. I'm not at all confident the Millenials will be G.I. Generation II. I'm not confident that the Gray Champion will be FDR II.

Bill Bennett opened up a can of whup-ass with his AVOT speech. The retaliatory strikes in defense of liberty continue:

(For info and discussion)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blumert/blumert49.html

The Neocons Turn Their Guns on LRC

by Burton S. Blumert

Bill Bennett gives vermin a bad name.

I remember when the bombastic Bennett brothers from Brooklyn descended upon our nation's capital.

It was more than 20 years ago. Bob Bennett clawed his way to the top as DC's premier lawyer, ultimately disgracing even himself by defending Bil Clinton in the Monica affair.

But as an evildoer, he was a piker compared to brother Bill.

Bill Bennett first came to my attention when he was part of the neocon cabal that smeared Mel Bradford, an elegant, courtly Southern gentleman. Prof. Bradford, a good friend of Murray Rothbard's, was devoted to the old republic of the framers, but had committed the unpardonable sin of criticizing Abe Lincoln.

Perhaps the political-correctness germ was not yet epidemic, or it was simply a miracle, but Mel was up for head of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The neocons wanted that plum for themselves. Once in control, they could expand the budget and direct it to their minions, and since they are Lincoln-worshippers to a man, they set out to destroy Mel, pulling out all the stops, and screaming he was a racist and a Nazi.

The attack was joined by the usual media fellow travelers, especially the New York Times and Washington Post. He was a "fascist," they implied, because he didn't like that most National Socialist of presidents!

The neocons also hated Mel because he believed in the ideals of the founders, and was so eloquent in their defense.

And who was there, right at the front of the axis of evil, wielding the smear brush like the veteran he was? Bill Bennett ? hitherto best known as a temporary paramour of rock star Janis Joplin ? was also an academic rent-a-thug for Harry Jaffa.

To those unfamiliar with Jaffa, it's enough to say that he is one of the chief Straussian neocons. Neocons, as ex-Trotskyites, are bad enough, but those who follow the pro-pagan Leo Strauss are deadly. Strauss advocated the Big Lie as a governing technique.

Forgive me for all the gory details, but these people ? with their allied neocons like Irving Kristol and Bill Buckley ? perverted the American right into shills for the welfare-warfare state.

Mel Bradford wasn't their first victim. Earlier, they had marginalized Murray N. Rothbard, John T. Flynn, Robert Welch, Ayn Rand, and other "unfashionable" types.

The smear was totally effective against Mel. After a lifetime's work as a brilliant teacher of good writing and good ideas, he was defeated. He died not long afterwards, though he was never embittered, and remained gracious to the end.

Dancing on Mel's grave was Bennett's first triumph (if we don't count Janis). Then it was onwards and upwards to Drug Czar, where he sought to abolish financial privacy in the name of fighting drug use. Tighter and tighter he fastened the State's screws on the privacy of the American people.

Indeed, Bill Bennett's fingerprints are all over every aspect of the disastrous, totalitarian, never-ending "War on Drugs."

Then Bush I made Bennett Secretary of Education, and while he blabbed about traditional values (in that lying neocon way), Bennett's real agenda was having American kids raised to worship Martin Luther King and the other politically correct socialists, and monsters like Lincoln and FDR.

Not a word about men like Jefferson, not a word about the constitutional foreign policy ? as outlined in Washington's Farewell Address ? of peace and commerce, and no entangling alliances.

All we heard from Bill Bennett were platitudes. His real interest was in promoting the massacre of the people of Iraq, again all too successfully.

For awhile, I thought, just maybe, we were finished with Bill Bennett when he campaigned against Calif. Prop. 187. The measure, which denied welfare to illegal immigrants, passed by more than 2-1. Then it was deep-sixed, to Bennett's cheers, by a black-robed dictator, a federal judge. Bennett, need I add, wants the entire Third World here, with you paying for it.

But, like the B-movie monster who refuses to stay dead, Bill Bennett not only still wants to murder Iraqi civilians, he'd like to do the same to all the peoples of the region, and everyone else in the world who won't take orders from the DC empire. (That applies to you and me, too. He also approved the murders at Waco.)

Bennett's next performance, as head of the unconstitutional Department of Education, was as disastrous for liberty as his tenure as drug czar. He schemed to end local control of schools, and install all power in DC.

For all this good work, Bennett was rewarded with high-paying, virtual no-show jobs at neocon Beltway think-tanks.

From the look of him, he hasn't been doing much in recent years except cashing their checks. But they wheeled him out the other day for his next assignment: crushing LewRockwell.com and the rest of the right-wing anti-war movement.

Let's face it: the neocons hate us. That's a medal on our chest, of course. But now they think it is essential to shut us up, in the best Trotskyite fashion.

So Bennett, with a coterie of sinister ex-Pentagon types, lobbyists for the munitions manufacturers, and ex-CIA agents, has set up a group called AVOT, Americans for Victory Over Terrorism.

Funded by pro-war neocon billionaires like Lawrence Kadish, AVOT seeks to stamp out conservative and libertarian dissent about war, militarism, and Pentagon budgets.

AVOT wants all power to the Pentagon, perpetual war for global empire, no civil liberties for dissenters, and much more money extracted from you for bombs, spies, and foreign aid for their favored foreign governments.

Guess who they see as their main obstacle: Us.

The fact that such global interventions might bring on more attacks on America is good news for these types, for that would, they think, advance their totalitarian agenda, and allow total federal power, with them running it.

I saw AVOT's now-infamous press conference live on C-Span. When the creepy Bennett denounced Lew by name, and said his ideas must be prevented from "spreading into the mainstream," I thought we must be doing something right. Here's the proof of the importance and effectiveness of Lew's work.

In addition to those charmers who comprise AVOT, there is its Amen Corner also denouncing Lew, including professional-victim Andrew Sullivan, the Irving Kristol-Norman Podhoretz think-tank in DC, and the Pittsburg newspaper owned by neocon billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.

Yes, I'm proud of Lew but I'm also a little worried.

LewRockwell.com is recognized all over America and the world as the source for anti-war, anti-state, pro-market thought. Students and professors, housewives and businessmen, kids and old-timers like me, come to this site every day.

We learn, are inspired to independent thought and action, and are comforted that we are not alone. And that is exactly what the neocons want to stop.

What do Bennett and company plan? They will use their same old vicious tactics: attack the innocent with lies and libel, and smear the good. The first check they got to fund their lie-squads was $500,000, and more followed. That could buy truckloads of intimidation and deceit.

We've been a needle in their eye for a long time, of course. They would love to bury us, to put LewRockwell.com out of business.

LewRockwell.com upholds the great moral vision of Murray Rothbard, of peace, freedom, capitalism, and the old culture. I'm prejudiced, of course, but I don't think anyone does it as well, let alone for so little.

Please make your most generous donation. Help us pay the bills, repel the smears, and be a truth-squad against all the lies of the State and its neocon pals.

Only the truth can win. Help us spread our message of hope and freedom wider and more effectively. America, indeed the whole world, has never needed it more. We can't let our repellent enemies win. Please help!

March 21, 2002

This one, also fueled by Bill "Book of Virtues" Bennett's assault, takes no prisoners whatsoever. No matter what your political orientation, one portion or another of this column is guaranteed to offend you. But the rest of it should make you laugh, so it is all worthwhile:

(For info and discussion)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace28.html

Dubya Strangelove

by Bob Wallace

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/cover.jpg> First art imitates life, and now we have life imitating art. If we got rid of the art, then we'd just have people repeating the same tragicomedic mistakes ? over and over and over ? without anyone to make fun of their dumbitude. It all shows just how prescient Santayana was when he wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I am, of course, talking about the classic black satire, Dr. Strangelove (for some great audio files and pictures, click here.) The movie was art imitating life, specifically the Cold War of the 1950's and early '60's. Now we've got life imitating art ? Dubya Strangelove, as it were.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/muffley.jpg> The similarities are positively eerie. We've got the good-natured but aimless and clueless Dubya reprising Peter's Seller's role of President Merkin Muffley (the entire male line of the Bushes appears to be genetically Muffleyeske. What a bunch of spaghetti-spined wimps ? except when they start a war. Then, it's "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" which was the last line in the movie, cried out by the wheelchair-bound Strangelove, who is so ecstatic about the nuclear war that has just started that he rises up from his chair, his paralysis overcome by the joy of destruction.)

I decided years ago Daddy Bush is so dull-witted he couldn't cut soft butter with his forehead, but at least didn't try to start WWIII, unlike his squished-head son. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to disprove evolution, just take a look at the slippery-slope descent of American presidents from Washington to Dubya. The Bushes appear to be as dangerously inbred as British royalty. If it keeps up, in another century we'll be ruled by monkeys. Monkeys with tiny, little rudimentary heads, with eyes set too close together ("Look, son, there's goes King Chim Chim on his ducal tricycle!" "Daddy, why does his crown keep falling down over his eyes?")

And this guy is trying to slowly start Holy World War I (a war on "terr-ism," as he calls it). Let's call it mission creep by creepy missionaries.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/ripper.jpg> Then we've got Richard "Prince of Darkness" Perle, whose head full of tangled brain-wiring has apparently shorted out just as badly as his genocidal dopplelganger, Sterling Hayden's Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, who started WWIII to save the US from having its "precious bodily fluids" polluted by the "Commie rats" (in today's world, read "Iraqi" for "Commie"). I wonder if Perle secretly has a taste for stogies and drinks made from "distilled water and pure grain alcohol"?)

If things go really bad, I wonder how Perle will go down in history? I've seen lots of books that are compilations of serial killers, but I can't remember one that covers government mass-murderers ? at least domestic ones. Since history is written by the winners, everyone is familiar with foreign mass murderers ? war criminals, really ? but I've yet to see one that covers American mass murderers like Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, McNamara, Daddy Dumbya, Clinton, Albright, Reno, Kissinger, Nixon....Perle, obviously, would be in that book.

And now it looks like we're involved in the early 21st century version of the Cold War ? quickly becoming hot ? as Dubya's administration rattles sabers and talks about nuking several postage-stamp-sized countries. Just astonishing. We've got the whole of history to guide us, and still the US is making every mistake ever made by every past Empire. And if this nonsense keeps up, we're going to end up like every Empire in the history of the world ? collapsed. The perps in government will, of course, scratch their heads, furrow their brows, and go "Huh?" (The sheeple will also go, "Huh?" once they unglue their eyes from the collective Coliseum known as the TV.) If these guys have any kind of education, they apparently got it from reading the back of a box of cereal. And maybe they got their degrees from inside that box ? the degrees that read "Harvard" and "Yale." ("Hey, lookie, I even got a toy whistle, too!")

I'll bet there are a lot of people out there right now who understand how Cassandra felt. She was the figure from Greek mythology who the gods gave the gift of prophecy. She really could see the future. The gods also made sure no one would believe her. Such is the power of myth. Prophets really are never honored in their home countries ? most of the citizens don't know enough to peek over the walls of the propaganda-box and see the truth outside. Hey, if these stories didn't embody universal truths they wouldn't have survived thousands of years, right?

I don't think it takes any kind of mystical gift of prophecy to see the future, at least in a general way. All you have to do is look at the past, which always repeats itself, and then pay attention. Both Polybius and Plato, for example, noticed that democracy turns into tyranny. Where are we? Do-do do-do, do-do do-do. Next stop: The Tyranny Zone.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/kong.jpg> Madeline Albright can easily be the the brutal, ape-like Major T.J. "King" Kong (played by ex-rodeo clown Slim Pickens). Kong's the one who rode the Bomb as it fell from the aircraft's belly, waving his hat and yelling "Yee-haw!" To be truthful, I consider Albright (along with Janet Reno) to be more Frankensteinish than anything else. They lack only bolts in their necks (every time I see the hideous Reno and think of her involvement of the incineration of Waco, I see this image of her as Frankenstein's monster in The Bride of Frankenstein, muttering, "Dead...I love dead"). The catastrophically incompetent Reno has no business being governer of Florida, but I can think of an ancient Greek isle she would greatly enjoy ruling.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/bat.jpg> As the warmongering Col. Bat Guano (played by Keenan Wynn) we have William Bennett, who had fortunately disappeared for several years. At first I thought he had tripped over his excruciatingly boring bat-guano doorstop of a book, The Book of Virtues, and possibly put himself into a coma, but if he did, now he's back, fat on taxpayer money, all eyedar and eardar and brown-nosedar, searching for what he perceives as the "enemies" of the US government (a government which he apparently perceives as being identical with the country), whether they are foreign or domestic, animate or inanimate.

There is one thing I will say about Guano; as ignorant, warmongering, and pig-headed authoritarian as he was, he at least had the courage to join the military, something that our current crop of chicken-hawk arm-chair generals have done their damnedest to avoid.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/buck.jpg> The satyr Bill Clinton would make a wonderful Buck Turgidson, the drinking, partying, womanizing general played by George C. Scott (Turgidson, fortunately, was able to throw a ho(e)-down without getting impeached).

Turgidson was based on General Curtis LeMay (one of the clumsy architects of the Vietnam non-war), whose career reminds me of lines from Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, "And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight/Where ignorant armies clash by night."

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/strangelove.jpg> As for Dr. Strangelove himself, that role was taken by Henry "I Learned Propaganda from Herr Goebbels" Kissinger a long time ago. You could put Strangelove's and Kissinger's pictures next to each other and caption it, "Separated at Birth." Want nightmares? Imagine both of their heads on one body. If your children misbehave, tell them they/it lives in their closet or under their beds. It would scare them even more than the urban legend about the razor-sharp Hook dangling from the teen-agers' car as they're parked in Lover's Lane. I sincerely hope Henry doesn't have a fetish for wearing one black glove.

There are of course some differences between the movie and real life. There's no Doomsday device (give the government time; just give them time). In the movie the "shadow" government at least waited until the bomb was irrevocably on its way. Here, we've got the sniveling, uh, weasels of the State heading for the hills before anyone even says "boo" to them. My first thought was "What about babes?" then my second thought was, "They don't need them," since the Essence of Politician is to first stick it each to other, and, after that, all the citizens.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/chucky.jpg> If the "shadow" government survived and everyone else didn't, then the world would be repopulated by fascist ubermench troglodytes ? literally the mutated Morlocks from H.G. Well's The Time Machine. Now that Hillary and Bill's Traveling Pandemonium Horror Show has been cancelled, Senator (sob) Hillary's now three-quarters of the way toward her true Morlockian self, and getting yuckier by the minute (although I doubt her descendents will be much trouble ? they'd be unable to run very fast since they'd be shaped like those bowling-pin Bobo clown figures. The kind that when you knock them down they bounce right back up because they are so bottom-heavy.)

One of my mini-nightmares is some Mad Scientist with a truly wicked sense of humor creating an animal from the DNA of Hillary, Jennifer Lopez and a goat. Then you'd see some real butting contests.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/maynard.jpg> When I was a teenager I used to think the B-52 that got through, nuked the Russians and started WWIII couldn't possibly happen. The government simply could not mess up that bad. Oh yeah? What a foolish, naive boy I was! How about the student visas for two of the dead Sept. 11 hijackers showing up at their flight school six months after they flew the planes into the WTC? Who's in charge of the INS, Gilligan? A stoned Gilligan? How about Bob Denver's beatnik character from Dobie Gillis ? Maynard G. Krebs? Maybe Maynard's in charge of the entire federal government! If the feds can't even get something as simple as a visa right, I'm to believe they can protect the citizens? Har har!

Ezra Pound once wrote, "The artist is the antenna of the race." He may have otherwise been an loopy as they come, but he got that one comment right on the mark. Dr. Strangelove is almost 40 years old, and it's still as relevant today as it was then.

I'm sure that Stanley Kubrick is chuckling right now. I know I am.

March 21, 2002

Quote:
"I wondered at the time how much it would take before the people had enough, and a true reform movement developed. September 11th and Dubya's Honeymoon washed the disgust towards our government clean."


Uh, according to ABC NEWS there remains a little bit of dirt in the wash... :smile:

<table class='Wf' border=0 align='center' width='100%' cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3 nowrap> <tr><td><pre>

Trust the Government? Yes No
To handle national security 68% 30
To handle social issues 38 61
</pre></td></tr></table>

"This suggests that people haven't changed nearly as much as their frame of reference has changed. It seems likely that before Sept. 11 people assessed the government chiefly in terms of social policy, an area in which trust was low, and still is. Today, however, many more people are focused on national security, an area in which trust runs high."