Max Weber Institute for the Study of the 5th Day

The Gift at New Ruskin College

2005-09-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: The Gift

This is my gift for you.

I will demonstrate that the rich and powerful can not oppress us as they have me these fifteen years.

They think they have won. They think they have destroyed me. They are wrong. They have destroyed no one.

I pray that you will send them a message also. Take away their broadcast licenses. Make them adhere to a standard of decency. Make them obey the law.

Punish them, show them that they can not oppress us. Show them that they are not as powerful as they imagine.

Take care of each other.

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Katrina & the Terrorists at New Ruskin College

2005-09-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

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Army Navy Club
Item No.: 51
08-28-05

The hurricane Katrina is estimated to be over southern Louisiana for more than 24 hours.

Ironically the news, which normally hypes even rain showers has not fully informed public of size of impending disaster. Storm may alter entire national economy for months.

Terrorist action at this point is almost beside the point, would probably be lost in the enormity of calamity.

Then too the current enemy has been lackadaisical at best. For example there was no serious follow up to 9-11. (Why would you attack the worlds most powerful country and not have a set of attacks ready to go?)

Explanation lies in fact that for current enemy marshal terms are metaphors from their religion not actual military terms. For one thing the emphasis on suicide is example of amateurish or theological understanding of warfare. Suicide is used even when the attacker could strike and run and prepare for another strike. Suicide not technically important in war as greatest efficiency gained by repeated action with benefit of growing experience. But theologically martyrs are important in religion of Islam.

No follow up attacks because they are not really fighting a war. It is theology for them at best. Then too cultural differences put different emphasis on “efficiency” of “war” effort. Not exactly play acting but similar. Religious.

Anthrax attacks were thought to be a follow up to 9-11, a threat to scare nation into acquiescence. The sort of idea that college kids might come up with.

Yet clearly by now real anthrax attacks could have been carried out if enemy was seriously concerned with war making in Western sense.

The dikes of New Orleans are long term problem but explosives now planted in key locations, or vessel ladened with explosives allowed to crash ashore, would during peak tides guarantee what storm may on its own achieve.

Bio agents or even chemical agents in shelters or released during confusion and mixing of population during the recovery could now be devastating on entire East Coast region.

But due to enemies attitudes to war these attacks seem unlikely.

Good luck.

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FCC at New Ruskin College

2005-07-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

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Date: 07-26-05

To:
F. C. C.Washington, DC 20003Email: fccinfo@fcc.gov

From:
Plinio Designori
New Ruskin College .com
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
email: PlinioDesignori@NewRuskinCollege.com

Subject:
KQED, KGO, KSFO, KCBS, KNEW, ABC Network, PBS, Viacom, Michael Weiner aka Savage, Don Imus, Ron Owens, Mrs. Jack Swanson, and Michael Krasney

"I would encourage the FCC to take a very hard look at whether something that is this pervasive, something that is so corrosive to the integrity of the market place should not merely be investigated and pursued, but whether some of these stations deserve to have their licenses stripped," said Spitzer at the downtown Manhattan press conference trumpeting the settlement. "They know what the law is and they have been disregarding it willfully and pervasively."The FCC appears to be paying close attention.
---- Billboard Radio Monitor (http://www.billboardradiomonitor.com/radiomonitor/news/business/leg_reg/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000991291)

I have been the target of the above referenced people for the last fifteen years. I set up a web site, www.NewRuskinCollege.com, to tell my story about how these rich powerful people have used their power, including their radio broadcasts, to oppress me over these years.

I came to their attention after conducting a letter writing campaign to the U. S. Senate about the importance of laser disks, computer aided instruction, in education. Out of envy or spite these people then began a program of harassment against me including using their radio broadcasts to let me know how they had interfered with my employment, or had me followed, etc.. Please visit my web site for the details.

I had hoped that those who have knowledge about what has been done to me would come forward and give evidence. No one ever came forward.

They have ruined me and driven me to my death. In a few days I will kill myself in front of the KQED building to protest them.

I ask that the FCC take away their broadcast licenses for their use of their broadcasts to harasse and oppress me.

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NY, NY at New Ruskin College

2005-07-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

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Army Navy Club
Item No.: 46
Operation New York, London is under attack.
07-23-05

The fact that one of the London bombers had on a shirt that had the words, “New York,” should be taken as a clue in as much as the bombers knew that they would be photographed by the London subway cameras.

This last attack reveals the falsity of the often heard admonition that : “We have to be lucky every time the terrorists only have to get lucky once.”

The reality is perhaps the opposite. The terrorists only have to make one mistake and we can identify and arrest them. One slip up might be enough.

For example Atta was said to have been a “professional” and that he had compartmentalized his operation. The facts are in the negative on both accounts: he made many amateurish mistakes, for example the repeated trips to Czechoslovakia, and he lived in the same house as one of the other pilots. If one or the other had been caught they both would have been caught.

The key to catching terrorists is to have lots of data points. Hopefully the first data point will not be them crossing the border, yet thanks to Mr. Bush’s open borders policy this is exactly the case, or rather even the border will not provide any information as they are not controled. At the port of entry the illegal is given a “notice to appear” at some future court date and they are gone, like the wind.

Yet even so, as the terrorist moves about we have hundreds of chances to catch him and we only have to be successful once, while he on the other hand must avoid our countermeasures successfully every time. But you are lied to about this because Americans hate defense. All the smart guys who want to lead you, lie to you because they only want to play on the offensive squad, they only want to be “the stars.” So they lie to you and tell you defense is futile. (It is not the only thing we should do but it is important in its own right.)

How do you know I am right? Just ask yourself do they care about you? If Mr. Bush cared about what happens to you would he be carrying out his open borders policy? Or for example, in Iraq the generals wanted more troops because they did not want to bother with, be bothered by, having to train and deal with Iraqi troops. They wanted another 100,000 troops so they could go on offense themselves, and “do the job” themselves, rather than “merely” supporting Iraqis.

Everyone has known about the movements over the Syrian border yet we can not control that border with double trenches protecting double fences with mobile remote controlled vehicles in the air and on the ground patrolling the no go zone. Why? How would it look for the US to guard the Syrian Iraq border while carrying out a open border policy in the US, because our borders are, as Mr. Bush says, “so big, our borders are big, they are just so big, . . . they are big . . .”? So our young people must die in Iraq because we do not want to admit that we can in fact control borders.

But I ask my self, just now hours from my own death, why should I care. What a foolish people. Not just the open borders, but the failure to control KWMD, (i.e. Knowledge of Weapons of Mass Destruction), the failure to put transponders on your cars so you can create a safety net, literally a network of sensors to warn of danger, the failure to use laser disk and computer aided instruction . . . on and on . . . the idiocy of “progressive taxation” . . . which causes you to think you are being “progressive” . . . well what is the use. I will protest open borders, and all the rest . . .

“Lord Stevens, a former head of Metropolitan Police who now serves on an advisory panel for Interpol's counterterrorism organization, said in an interview with the BBC: ''London is under attack. ... are working toward chemical or biological attacks. . .” (Boston.com)

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Sean Hannity at New Ruskin College

2005-07-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 07-21-05

Hannity Responds:

Sean Hannity 07-21-05 went on the air and announced that he was “married” to his show and his audience.

I think he has been cheating on us.

For example, when introducing Dr. Hammesfahr as a “Noble Prize Nominee.” Didn’t Sean Hannity first consider that his audience would be able to see how dishonest he was? He did not care about our opinion of him or his credibility. We do not count in his estimation of the power situation.

Or when discussing the Bush open borders policy he said to an irate caller, “they are introducing technology to police the border. . . .” a line right out of the White House briefing instructions to stooges. Even Rush Limbaugh will criticize the Bush open border policy. But not Sean.

Or in discussing the Kelo decision he repeatedly claimed that the Supreme Court was taking, or seizing property, etc., instead of telling the truth that the court had permitted, or deferred to the elected officials, allowed that they should first decide what is a public purpose. Does he want only judges to decide what is a public purpose? Of course he was not himself proposing anything he has no ideas of his own.

Sean Hannity has recommended Michael Weiner’s books (“a great read”) and had him on his TV show. Weiner for his part now refers to Hannity as “that Irishman” or “Pawn Hannity” or “Mr.” --- well you get the idea.

Hannity is a suck up. He sucks up and kicks down.

He knows that Weiner and Mrs. Jack Swanson have used their influence to ruin my life. He knows about the burglary, about the stalking me from place to place, job to job . . . he knows and does not care.

He goes out of his way to show that he does not care, or even to let it be known that he enjoys the spectacle of his radio colleagues destroying another.

He delights in cruelty.

Sham Hannity.

And consider Al Franken recently going out of his way to show his enjoyment in another’s suffering, even suicide.

This is our society.

“Not bad for a homeless guy.”
---- Sean Hannity, 07-20-05, at the end of an “interview” with Senator McCain ( McCain see 4-28-05, Lecture Notes: 5-18-05, Lecture Notes: 07-18-05 Protest)

You see Sean, when you do things like this your business partners just don’t understand.

They are thinking: “We give him payola every week to mention Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, on the air, (how much do they give you Sean? all reported to the IRS is it Sean?), and now we have an IPO about to come out, an IPO for Christ sake! . . . and dis radio c___ s___ing dick is going ta screws it all up so he can f___ wit’ some guy in California? What a Long Island sack of s___.”

See Sean, your business partners have been working this scam for some time now. And you were just a part of it. To help with the buzz. Mention those delicious steaks, talk it up, get . . . what $10,000 a mention? Oh, $1,000? . . . cheap radio advertising . . . and this would help with the IPO, and God knows they need help with the IPO.

This pig needs a lot a lipstick: “debt load, which came in at $116 million as of March 27.”

They have not only cooked Sean Hannity some free steaks, they have cooked the books. They had to: “Revenue, which fell in 2001 and 2002, rose 14.6 percent last year and operating income climbed 50.6 percent from the year earlier.”

Sound impressive? How do you like that “.6%”? Not just “14%” but see that little something extra? Sean helped with that did you Sean?

Impressive? It is not until the end of the article that you will read: “Ruth's Chris didn't open any new restaurants last year and closed two locations, including one in Manhattan, as it overhauled its management, including hiring a new chief executive in March 2004.” (New chief executive? Gee I wonder why? Some problem with the books? Or . . .?)

Does ya sees? If you do not open any restaurants you do not have any of those “expenses.” Helps with the “balance sheet.” (Never mind that the business plan is to open 80 new restaurants with all those expenses.)

But the business “reporters” are all over the “trend in eating out” and how Sean’s favorite restaurant is free from any risk of a turn down in the economy. How so? Because it is so expensive! See? That is where the rich go to eat so, yas knows, the rich’s gota eat. Rich men like Sean, does ya sees?

But the reported did tell us who the players are, Sean Hannity’s business partners and why the IPO is so important to them: “Madison Dearborn could receive an additional payment from selling 1.7 million shares covered by the underwriters' over allotment option. . . . Other holders of junior and senior preferred stock are set to be paid a total of $20.6 million by Ruth's Chris.”

I wondered why Sean Hannity didn’t talk about how the IRS was auditing him. They even came to his studio to search for records. “I just never talk about it” is all he would say, on the air.

When I was targeted by the IRS (see The IRS and the Illegals from the North), I felt it was my duty to tell how, during the Clinton administration, the IRS revealed my name to the very people that they had asked me to help investigate, Crawford and Company, and told them that I had cooperated in the investigation. But not Sean Hannity: “I just never talk about it”. (Sees ya? Yas just gota dummy up. See? When das police are – ya know – questionings ya, you just gota dummy up. Right Sean?)

And for those of you who think the economy is an evenly rotating system of objective fixed relations here is an interesting example. Here at New Ruskin we have argued that, for example, the IRS tax tables do not accurately explain who actually pays the tax.

We have argued that the rich, (those who are making goods and services which are in high demand), pass on their taxes to their consumers in higher prices, (the price mechanism of tax transfer). This is why the poor have such a high “propensity to spend” they end up paying their own taxes, and all the other taxes, and all other expenses in the price of the goods they purchase. We have explained that both Democrats and Republicans misrepresent the situation, each for their own political calculation.

But let us now consider the true value of the payola paid by Ruth's Chris to Sean Hannity every time Sean mentions the steakhouse chain. How much is the under the table payment, (the tax free payment), worth to Sean given Sean’s tax bracket? For extra credit, Class, How much income must Ruth's Chris hide in order to pay Sean?

But now with the IPO, Sean, the stakes are much higher. How much is Sean getting out of the IPO? How much extra commission must the underwriters charge to pay Sean? (All reported is it, Sean?)

This is why yas “business partners” doesn’t understands yas Sean. Why would you mess with some guy in California right now, right when the IPO is coming out?

Now it is not just the IRS, and the FCC, but Sean wants to add the SEC!

See Sean? It is things like this that give good old boys from Long Island a bad reputation.

And “not bad for a homeless guy” didn’t even fit in the conversation with Senator McCain. You are supposed to at least try and work it into the conversation. See? That is what makes them covert.

Otherwise you just look like a dick.

ps Secrets and secrets. So many secrets. And this is the whole society. Top to bottom. Why didn’t socialism work. The economist say because it did not allow for “economic calculation” but really because people are so dishonest. My tormenters have stalked me for these fifteen years, brought me to the end, and Sean Hannity interviewing Senator McCain wanted to take a little poke. (In the middle of an IPO!) But this is just one small example. A world of hate, cruelty, . . .

Do but seriously consider how much more insupportable and painful an immortal life would be to man than what I have already given him. If you had not death, you would eternally curse me for having deprived you of it; I have mixed a little bitterness with it, to the end, that seeing of what convenience it is, you might not too greedily and indiscreetly seek and embrace it: and that you might be so established in this moderation, as neither to nauseate life, nor have any antipathy for dying, which I have decreed you shall once do, I have tempered the one and the other betwixt pleasure and pain. ---- MONTAIGNE

LIBERAL ISLAM WEB SITES Collected by Charles Kurzman University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Islamic Statements Against Terrorism Collected by Charles Kurzman University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

International Tribunal For The Prosecution Of Terrorists Letter From Liberal Arabs & Muslims To The United Nations Security Council & The U.N. Secretary General

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Iraq at New Ruskin College Part II

2005-07-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

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Army Navy Club
Item No.: 45
07-13-05

“ First, the United States missed the opportunity before the war to train enough Kurds and other Iraqi exiles to assist the U.S. military, he said. "That didn't happen in the numbers we had hoped," he said.

“ A plan to train an estimated 5,000 Iraqi exiles in Hungary produced instead only a few hundred, in part because U.S. military leaders at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, were uncomfortable with it. Training Iraqi forces has since emerged as the central thrust of the U.S. exit strategy for Iraq.

“ Even more important, Feith said, was the reluctance among some U.S. officials to transfer power early on to an Iraqi government and dismantle the U.S. occupation authority, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA),
headed by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer.”
---- Washington Post, Pentagon Official Admits Iraq Errors, By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer, July 13, 2005

“BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 13 - A suicide car bomber on Wednesday steered his sport utility vehicle toward a group of children who had crowded around a patrol of American troops and detonated his payload, killing as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children, government and hospital officials said. One American soldier was also killed.”
---- New York Times, Baghdad Bomb Kills Up to 27, Most Children, By KIRK SEMPLE, Published: July 14, 2005

So we never learn. Why should anything be different now at the end than it was before?

Was the patrol worth the lives of 26 Iraqis and an American?

Did we even ask the question?

The American generals had permission, authorization, to train 5,000 Iraqi troops, before the war, and they only trained 500?

Remember in Falujha the Marines were said to be “frustrated” because the day before five Marines had been killed by a terrorist who had pretended to be dead?

First question: Why five? How many Marines does it take to check out a dead Iraqi?

Second: Why not leave the enemy dead and wounded to the Iraqi Red Crescent?

Because there was no Iraqi Red Crescent accompanying the Marines. Because the 5,000 troops that could have been trained, before the war, were not trained.

That soldier on the candy distribution mission might have been sent home had the troops been trained in 2002.

Had the . . .

Oh well, . . .

“ Iraq's government acknowledged that some of its new security forces could be resorting to the sort of torture and abuses of detainees seen under Saddam Hussein as they struggle to put down Sunni insurgents.
Responding to reports alleging the widespread use of irregular arrests and of violence against prisoners by Iraqi police and other security units, a government spokesman blamed it in part on the brutalizing of Iraqi society under Saddam and said ministers were addressing the problem.

“ "These things happen. We know that," Laith Kubba said in a news briefing after a report in Britain's Observer newspaper detailed allegations of death squads and secret torture centers.

“ Six months ago, New York-based Human Rights Watch documented what it called "routine and commonplace" abuse by Iraqi forces.” --- Iraqi government acknowledges torture of detainees, Spokesman attributes incidents of abuse in part to the brutalization of society under ousted regime of Saddam Hussein, Compiled by Daily Star staff, Monday, July 04, 2005

And so it goes. Of course our general in charge of prisons says she is not guilty of mismanagement because she never inspected the prisons. Such was the American example of how to handle prisoners.

“Accounts are common of people being seized by armed men in the uniforms of the police, army or special units like Baghdad's Wolf Brigade police commandos, and then disappearing without a trace or being found dead, sometimes showing signs of torture.”

See, this was the strategic objective. Not “kill them over there so we do not have to fight them here,” nor to “demonstrate our dominance”, nor to “rough up some rag heads.” The strategic objective was to deny the terrorists a state sponsor by creating a free Iraq, that could secure its sovereignty and not fall into civil war and genocide.

This was the objective. This was your job. What were you doing?

This is what all our billions were supposed to have bought us. Not just the billions for this war, I’m talking about all the billions. All the training. All the equipment. McCain has been an apologist saying “In North Africa we made mistakes but---” North Africa! That was an army that had been thrown together in two years! This army has had billons of dollars, decades to prepare. North Africa! What foolishness.

But when you entered the country you did not have even the puny 5,000 you were permitted. You did not accept the surrender of the old army. You did not even photograph and finger print them. Forget programs of indoctrination, civil reconstruction corps, training battalions. Not even a picture and a record of who they were, where they served . . . where they lived . . .

Did not care?

Painting classrooms was not the objective. Guarding gas stations and banks was not the objective. Giving out candy was not the objective.

Just secure the sovereignty of the new Iraq, prevent the new army from seizing control and prevent genocide . . .

But I have to let go. What a confusion. What turmoil.

When I was nine I was informed by my mother that the teachers had determined that I was retarded.

And given my personality, ah, you know, I ah, focus on life . . . and yet as I have grown older I have learned that I am not retarded. I look around at the rest of you and I am in disbelief . . . I am retarded?

So when things with Marlene started to go down hill, the more things fell apart the more I thought about a promise I had made to myself that when I grew up I would do something to help in education.

So I kept my promise to the unhappy child. I tried to get the government interested in the use of technology in education. Then I could die.

But I met Yvonne and perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps I could . . .

But then Yvonne betrayed me too . . .

I have continued on these last fifteen years as one after another of them, Weiner, Owens, Krasney, Imus, Swanson . . .

If you don’t take action against them it gets worse . . . if you do take action against them it gets worse . . . if you do or if you don’t . . .

What have you all been doing? You have destroyed my life . . . for what? Why?

I don’t understand what you are thinking. Are you thinking? You had the funding to train 5,000 and you only trained 500?

And I am retarded? I just wrote some letters to the Senate. Just a few letters. And for this you have followed me for fifteen years . . . destroyed my life for what?

Emptiness

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V1 at New Ruskin College

2005-07-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 06-23-05

What Mr. Bush should say about the bombings of Baghdad and Iraq:

“From time to time the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and tyrants.”
---- Thomas Jefferson

We support the Free People of Iraq as they struggle for their freedom against the forces of evil and tyranny which hide in secret conspiracy in the dark, afraid to show themselves, because they fear Justice.

People of Iraq, know this, you are not alone.

America has sealed its bonds of friendship with the Free People of Iraq with the blood of our young people. We even now are at the side of the Iraqi People at this very moment as the ordeal to give birth to the New Iraq continues.

To the people of Iraq I say again, you are not alone.

Your ordeal today is the same ordeal all free people have had to endure to win their freedom. Recall London, 1942, as the Battle of Britain was fought over their very roof tops. Recall the Vergeltungswaffe weapons.

Vergeltungswaffe? Vergeltungswaffe? Forgive my German.

Revenge Weapons? Revenge?

Revenge for what? What had the British done to Mr. Hitler?

People of Iraq, don’t you know what the British had done?

Yes! They were free! That is all it takes to make mortal enemies! Simply being free causes the evil, disgustingly brutal, the hatful villains to set upon you. That is all it takes, simply being free, to make such enemies.

The V1s, the ‘buzz bombs’, rained down on London in the early 1940s. Whole families killed in an instant, in an explosion of a 1,000 pound bomb of high explosives. It was their darkest hour.

No, sadly, People of Iraq, I tell you that you are not alone, in your suffering, in your dying, in the daily bleeding ---- this all free people have known, have had to endure, we know your struggle, know your sorrow.

And I tell you that America is your true friend; we shall stand with you today, as we stood with our British friends in their darkest hour. (Mr. Churchill called it their finest hour.)

And we shall be there by your side tomorrow, and tomorrow, until the light of Justice is made to shine down on your tormenters.

People of Iraq, you are not alone.

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Prisons at the Army Navy Club

2005-07-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

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Army Navy Club
Item No.: 44
07-03-05

And this is why we must arrest large numbers of suspects. This is the lesson of Kenya, Algeria, Burma, Malaysia, Vietnam, . . .

Because most of those arrested will be innocent they must all be treated well. Movies shown at night on out door screens, soccer, sun shelters with electric fans and misters, generators to avoid black outs, three meals a day, prayers five times a day . . .

Truly prison campuses.

But they must be arrested.

There crime? Being related to terrorists. Living next door to terrorists and not reporting it. Etc. etc.

They must be detained for a period of time. There must be courses of indoctrination. We must break the cycle of violence.

For if you do not get control of the situation there will be civil war.

I say again, perhaps for the last time, let the Iraqis do what is necessary, let them arrest the suspects, (treat them well), but arrest them.

But I do not expect to be heeded. Race and gender quotas. Open borders. Unbelievable deficits. Failure to institute vouchers or technology in education. No Quarantine Zones. Idiotic “biometric” identity . . . “We can not impose a government on the Iraqi people . . .” So no I do not expect the lessons will be learned now at this late stage . . . “We are American we do not just round up people . . .” hopeless

Shiite-Sunni tension rises anew in Iraq

By Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press Writer July 3, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq --The Shiite mourners were crying for blood, threatening to burn down a Sunni town where dozens of Shiite travelers had been slain. Their rage boiled over after a fresh spate of bombings killed nearly 40 people in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad.

A senior Shiite politician, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, appealed for calm, telling the 2,000-strong crowd that Sunnis and Shiites must live in peace together. Yet he had sent a very different message just two days before, suggesting Shiites set up vigilante groups to track down "terrorists" in the Sunni-led insurgency and report them to security authorities, which are dominated by Shiites.

Tensions between Shiite Arabs and the Sunni minority are rapidly worsening, pushing Iraq closer to a civil war that could disrupt its young democracy and lead to its breakup.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime more than two years ago, tensions have flared several times. But each time, historical ties binding the two groups and appeals for calm from religious leaders have averted conflict.

In the face of spiraling violence, however, anti-Sunni sentiments among Shiite leaders are being articulated publicly, with impunity and tacit approval from powerful political circles.

On Tuesday, a Shiite lawmaker joined al-Hakim's call for vigilante groups, finding so much support in parliament that some fellow Shiites forfeited their turn to speak so he could finish.

"The rage of our young people is putting pressure on us," said Khidir al-Khozai, who warned Sunni Arab political parties not to remain silent over the Baghdad bombings.
The bombings last week in the Shula and Karradah districts, and the killing Tuesday of a Shiite legislator in his 80s, have pushed anti-Sunni sentiments to levels never seen since Saddam's ouster. Beside making the rounds of parliament, the issue also had been discussed in the home of Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

"There is a terrifying amount of sectarian tension in Iraq these days," warned Adnan al-Janabi, a senior Sunni Arab legislator and a moderate.

Mohammed Abdul-Hassan al-Shammari, a 37-year-old tennis pro, was among the victims of the Karradah bombings. Mithaq Salem, his Sunni colleague and friend of 13 years, was with al-Shammari's family for four consecutive days to help with the funeral, sitting with family and friends under an outdoor tent drinking bitter coffee and listening to Quranic verses.

"Everyone was cursing the Sunnis and praying to God that He takes revenge on them," Salem recalled. "But what can I do? Not all of us are terrorists. Mohammed and his brother Fayez taught me everything I know. We are like brothers. This Shiite-Sunni thing never came up."

In Shula, storekeepers have taken matters into their hands, prohibiting parking in parts of the neighborhood by placing tires, metal containers and palm tree trunks alongside sidewalks.

There's virtually nothing in looks or speech to distinguish between ordinary Sunnis and Shiites, yet Salem Lazem Hussein, who runs an electrical supplies store by the site of one of last week's car bombs, said: "We have become so alert now that we can tell who is an outsider right away."

“I close the store when I hear the call to sunset prayers. You cannot see your enemy in the dark, so I stay home," said the 37-year-old father of six.

Shiite-Sunni tensions were most palpable at the June 26 ceremony marking the bombing deaths in Karradah and Shula. It was held at the offices of Iraq's biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Many in the 2,000-strong crowd cheered the Badr Brigade -- a Shiite militia associated with al-Hakim's party and which many Sunnis accuse of targeting their community.

Most of their ire was directed at sheik Harith al-Dhari, leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni group known to have ties to the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

"Al-Sistani is the sword of the Shiites, if he gives the order we will burn down Latifiyah," they chanted, alluding to the Sunni town south of Baghdad notorious for killings of Shiites.

The mood of the crowd appeared to reflect the angry tone of al-Hakim's June 24 statement in which he called on Shiites to set up "popular committees" in their neighborhoods to "uncover terrorist cells" and report them to security forces -- most of which are Shiite-dominated.

The call for vigilante groups appeared to suggest a system very similar to what was used by Saddam's Baath party and security agencies to ferret out critics of the regime.

In a statement Saturday, al-Hakim warned against sectarian strife and called on the Iraqi government to step up efforts to fight with militants.

"We stress the importance of being alert and cautious not to be carried away toward the sectarian strife that our enemies want for us," he said. "We ask the Iraqi government, particularly the security apparatuses, to exert more efforts to strike these terrorist groups."
Shiite tribal sheiks, meanwhile, have been begging al-Sistani to issue a fatwa, or edict, permitting them to go after Sunnis who kill their fellow Shiites, according to Iraqis familiar with the meetings held at the cleric's home in the holy city of Najaf.

Al-Sistani, whose word is law for many Shiites, has refused to grant such permission, but has signaled his concern about the rising tensions.

He told Shiite and Sunni politicians who met him Monday at the holy city of Najaf that it was "unacceptable" from a religious viewpoint for Muslims to kill each other.

Over the past century, Iraq's Sunni Arab minority dominated the country -- pushing the Shiites and Kurds to the sidelines. That ascendancy ended with the ouster of Saddam, their last patron. The domination by Sunnis of the two-year insurgency, and the rise to power of a Shiite-Kurdish alliance after elections in January, have deepened the rift.

Sunni Arabs account for up to 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people. Their inclusion in the political process -- drafting a constitution, putting it to a vote in October and holding a general election two months later -- is essential for its credibility and success.

If Sunni-Shiite tensions burst into conflict, the process will be derailed, throwing the country's political future into doubt and possibly causing the breakup of Iraq.

Already, the process is troubled over problems of a sectarian nature -- Shiite opposition to come of the Sunnis on the committee drafting Iraq's constitution, and a growing desire in the oil-rich, mainly Shiite south of Iraq for autonomy modeled on Iraqi Kurdistan.

There, 14 years of self-rule have reduced Baghdad's authority to virtually nothing. Replicated in the south, it could spell the breakup of Iraq, a country that has existed in its present shape for less than a century.

For some, the marble plaza outside the Shiite Kazimiya shrine in northern Baghdad offered some respite from the mounting pressures. Here, large families of robed women, children and men picnicked on rice, lamb and vegetables as worshippers prepared for the sunset prayers.

"Peace and tranquility are found here," said Abu Bilal al-Basri, a silver-bearded man who came with a friend to pray. "For us, it's the only safe place in Baghdad."
------
Associated Press reporter Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this story from Baghdad.

© Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Operation Spear

2005-06-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

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Army Navy Club
Item No.: 43
Operation Spear
06-23-05

U.S., Iraqi Forces Complete Operation Spear Near Syrian Border

American Forces Press Service

From:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2005/20050623_1824.html

WASHINGTON, June 23, 2005 – Iraqi security forces and U.S. Marines and sailors with Regimental Combat Team 2 completed Operation Spear on June 22, concluding a five-day operation in and around the city of Karabilah, near Iraq's border with Syria, military officials in Baghdad reported today.

Counselor: . . .

The operation . . . .

. . . Yes? . . . Yvonne…?

Counselor: . . .

. . . Dear . . .?

Counselor: . . .

Ah, . . . . . . rooted out terrorist strongholds, killing 47 and detaining one for questioning, officials said.

While patrolling through the small town along the border, Iraqi security forces and U.S. Marines discovered a terrorist torture house, with four hostages bound and gagged inside, officials reported. The hostages received medical attention for wounds they suffered at the hands of their captors.

The hostages said they were tortured and held for three weeks. According to media and others who spoke with the men, officials reported, they said they were neither interrogated by the terrorists nor told why they were being tortured.

The building where the hostages were held contained an improvised explosive device factory in the basement. This building was part of a compound containing a school with bomb-making instructions on the classroom's blackboard.

Three car bomb factories were discovered in separate locations by Iraqi soldiers and U.S. Marines in western Karabilah. A total of 17 car bombs were located, including a tractor-trailer, a dump truck and a van rigged with explosives, which were destroyed in place by a Marine tank unit. Large secondary explosions were observed coming from the explosive-laden vehicles. Iraqi forces and Marines also discovered small weapons caches with machine guns, mortar rounds and rockets.

There have been no signs or indications of any large-scale displacement of the citizens of Karabilah, officials said. Marines manning the checkpoints outside of the city, designed to capture fleeing terrorists, did not report large numbers of citizens leaving the city. (From a Multinational Force Iraq news release.)

Car-bomb factories explosives uncovered in Operation Spear raidsStars and StripesMideast edition, Wednesday, June 22, 2005

. . . Operation Spear was the latest in a series of actions near the Syrian border. U.S. military officials have repeatedly said insurgents use the porous borders to smuggle arms, money, supplies and foreign fighters into Iraq.

Spear was supported by U.S. air power. Monday, residents of Karabilah told the Associated Press that at least three neighborhoods suspected of housing insurgents were targeted by airstrikes. Some dozen houses, shops, four mosques, two schools and a medical center were among the buildings hit, according to wire service reports.

U.S. officials said 33 buildings were “damaged or destroyed” in the four days of the operation.
“The only buildings fired upon were those occupied by terrorists or foreign fighters,” read a press release from the military’s Baghdad headquarters.

“Several of the buildings were fortified, reinforced and barricaded structures with the windows bricked up and replaced by small rifle firing ports. The terrorists in the buildings were struck either by the main gun rounds of Marine tanks or by airstrikes.”

Some 13 Iraqis have been compensated for damage to their property, officials said.

During raids in the area, U.S. and Iraqi forces confiscated foreign passports from countries such as Sudan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Libya.

Insurgents in the area have used large-scale car bombs in a series of audacious attacks. In one, suicide bombers driving a firetruck tried to attack a Marine outpost; Marines defending the base repelled the assault.

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Iraq at New Ruskin College

2005-05-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

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Army Navy Club
Item No.: 42
New Improved Consolidated World Philosophy
05-23-05

Troops round up suspected insurgents
By TOM LASSETER, Knight Ridder Newspapers

Posted on Mon, May. 23, 2005

Much of the early rhetoric by U.S. officials in Iraq about defeating the insurgency has been replaced by the Bush administration's goal of training Iraqi forces to carry on the fight so that U.S. forces can withdraw. Operation Squeeze Play was the largest joint Iraq-American effort in the capital to date.

“Terrorists intended to separate the Iraqi people from their elected government. From what I can tell, they have merely cut themselves off from the majority of the Iraqi people," said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, of the 42nd Infantry Division, which is responsible for a swath of land north of Baghdad that's roughly the size of West Virginia. "The spectacular attacks against civilians or Iraqi police and army forces reinforce what most Iraqis already knew. Terrorists, whether foreign born or formerly Baathist, hold no concern for Iraqi or Islamic lives. They are a common enemy of all Iraqis."

So we have made some progress with our “rhetoric” good!

Of course it is more than rhetoric, it is strategy we are talking about.

What is the strategy?

Today it is the same as the first day. To stand up a new government after removing the old corrupt one. (Hey, could they do the same here at home for us?)

The Major is quite right. The car bombs do not help the terrorists with any conceivable political strategy. They can make the Iraqis miserable, but they will still be miserable free people. Welcome to democracy. The only real advantage is that we can laugh at our rulers wile they screw us over, and then we put a bullet in our own head. Of course, as with the old KGB, we have to pay for the bullet ourselves.

The terrorists have completed the transition to total nihilism. They are the new terrorists. They kill only to kill. Killing is their political program. Think of Pol Pot, killing anyone with glasses. Think of Chechnya. They had autonomy prior to the “Islamic” fundamentalists militancy. Militancy? Killing.

One thing to think about is how peaceable the Islamic world is. Internally. It is young, average age 17. It is expansionist. Coming into contact with the world there is violence at the edges of contact. Yet from the point of view of the fundamentalist radicals the Muslims are too passive. True they have repressive governments but why do they have such governments? Where is the history of turmoil, revolution? Why no Cairo Commune? Consider the sweet pacifism of the people living for generations, a thousand years, under the dictatorial rule of one potentate or another. You hear the car bombs, your attention is drawn to the beheadings, but think of all the others, the billion other Muslims who live every day, as the Shia say, staying on the well worn path.

Being of the West you do not readily appreciate the point. Not studying philosophy you are ignorant of the principles. But you can understand this much: after your ignominious retreat from Iraq after the First Gulf War, 50,000 Shiites were slaughtered by Saddam Hussein. Your front line troops heard the killing. The best of them wept. You, did not listen to my advise and those good people were slaughtered. Note conservatives how your liberal brethren take no responsibility for this. See the empty expressions on their faces. Kerry. Kennedy. Dodd. Clinton. (Either one.) Empty headed souless . . .

Yet, and you may not be able to follow this, the Shia have not rounded up the Sunni. No vengeance murders of the hundreds of thousands. They have talked only of courts, and law, and establishing the state. But you should at least pause a moment and reflect on all you do not understand of the East.

Islam teaches, as do most Eastern religions, submission. It comes as a surprise to most of you that Western philosophy has come to agree with the East. While most of you have been watching the M&A action on Wall Street you will be surprised to learn that Western and Eastern philosophy have decided it is more efficient to merge so there has been a global consolidation. (The seperate brands will continue to be marketed but all future research and development will be carried out jointly sources at the global headquarters said.)

It is instructive to note that though West and East started out from different positions working in seemingly different directions they have arrived at the same place. Many simple minded are vaguely aware of this and have interpreted it as a failing of the “West.” As if we had given up, or surrendered, etc., etc.

Rather you should regard Mr. Alan Watts as a typical English Imperialist who when to the East and plundered its wealth and brought the loot back home. The fact that the riches he stole were freely given ought not slacken your revelry in the spoils.

For, Western philosophy having reasoned itself into an appreciation of the “floating world” decided that it was more efficient to consult with others who had already had some experience in this philosophy. Why reinvent the wheel? The best teachers of the East always explain to their students that there is no reason to give up Judaism or Christianity in their study of what the East has to offer. (Some fundamentalist types will not credit this. ‘How can you be a Buddhist and a Christian?’ they thunder. As if : ‘the ball must be red or it must be a ball, it can not be both!’ The proper Buddhist reply is not to say ‘well you are not a very good Christian,’ rather one should bow and say ‘Ah, yours is such a pure Christianity. Congratulations!’)

Whether this merger will result in a more “passive” West remains to be seen. Japan, China, Singapore, Korea, India, and all the rest seem to be displaying all the dynamism associated with the Nineteenth Century West in their modern economic development. India’s current success has been achieved by throwing off the socialism they learnt from our British cousins.

Islam has been different. The passivity of the people is in a way a provocation to the radicals. Part of what drives the radicals to such stupefying violence is, in their minds, to counterbalance, or goad, the general population into action. In the end, as has been already observed, is violence for violance’s own sake. We have seen this sort of radicalism in the West. President McKinley was killed by one such. This radicalism, who can be most radical, always burns itself out.

The car bombs can not alter the strategic fact that the new Iraqi government is in power. This is our strategic aim.

Now the proof of the superiority of the new consolidated world philosophy:

If you are a typical simple minded conservative, (and here I must pause to apologize to the simple minded conservatives for years I have been tweaking you not realizing just how bad the liberal boobs were until I started monitoring Air America), you might think that military science is an ‘objective’ fact.

Your failure to see the subjective nature of our world has, is, causing much waste in Iraq.

Why are our troops, armed with the most expensive weapons, the best educated in the world, the best paid, the best trained, etc., working on clearing road side bombs?

If you believe in an objective world you say, ‘Because the experts say . . .’ which is not really an answer. I want you to tell me.

Or look at it as a question of market dynamics. The market is so successful in organizing human action just because it takes into account, is the consolidation of, subjective opinions. (Dr. Moynihan: That is what a statistic is, just lots and lots of anecdotes.) Our troops are too expensive to be used in such an unproductive manner. In a market they would not be employed on trivialities no one could afford to use them this way. My father used to say he thought it a good bargain if he could replace one sailor on a ship with eight million dollars worth of machinery. Today the trade off must be in the hundreds of millions.

You must first make a global analysis. Why are we in Iraq? What is the strategic objective? And much more. What is the value of one American life verses the objective? You can not make a risk assessment with out these answers. The idea that your military experts can focus only on the objective military facts is a delusion. Moving on Baghdad is not like the final push on Berlin and that offensive was different than D-Day. The military officer must make a political assessment. You think not, you think that the military officer must never consider the political, only because of your limited “rational” foolish belief in “objectivity” and bureaucracy. There is not objectivity there is only subjectivity.

What if, for example, your experts base their judgments on a draft army? What if they examine all questions as if their army will always be replenished with conscripts? What if this has been their experience? All the battles they have read about? All the prior risk assessments they have made have been based on different “realities?”

What if your experts are as deluded as you, and think that “their” “reality” is “objective?”

How else?

Ask the British? They have a considerable experience with small professional armies. For several hundred years their officers worked quite closely with , . . . ah . . . how to say . . . (times have changed one must be politically correct) . . . indigenous peoples.

Now without listing all the things you did not do up till now let us just look at what you are not doing now.

In making your assessment of what to do you are not saying what HAS to be done to stand up the new government? Nothing else matters. Do not tell me ‘but the experts say’ . . . you have to think for yourself there is no objective standard. Your experts think they have a draft army and everything they do is important.

For example, if a car bomb goes off it is terrible but that is not part of our strategic plan. It does not even enter the discussion. It has nothing to do with us.

Again without going over all the things that should already have been done . . . the Iraqi government must control the terror to show the people it is in charge and can help them. That is the Iraqi government’s objective. But your generals, like you, are still living in a Nineteenth Century Western paradigm of “objectivism.” If the generals tell you ‘we must . . .’ you think, ‘ok, you are the experts, it must be objectively true that we must . . .’ But your generals are as deluded as you. (After MacArthur they fear making personal subjective judgments. They learned the wrong lesson from Mac.)

They too think that they are not allowed to make subjective political judgments. This is how we end up with these SNAFUs. Into the big muddy, or Vi-et-nam. The car bomb goes off and the general thinks, ‘something must be done let’s go men.’ Yes something but by whom? I say the Iraqis. (Now we could talk about transponders on all vehicles, cameras, rolling checkpoints, monitoring of the people’s movements, data bases, even strategic strikes at bomb shops, and terror cells, much can be done, but it is a subjective judgment of whether you go “police” the crime scene or organize police units. Again in market terms where is the most value added?)

Our new consolidated philosophy requires you to think:

“The fight is intractable in part because the U.S. military has used force and not diplomacy, said Abdul Ahmed, a political science analyst at Baghdad University. American officials - who say they won't negotiate with insurgents - have galvanized insurgents and alienated many Iraqis who might have opposed the insurgency, Ahmed said.”

“"It's very easy to use your machine guns ... but it is very difficult to pursue a political solution," he said. "They should take some time to go to Ramadi, to Mosul, to find a peaceful way because violence only pushes the people away from you. ... The United States negotiates with North Korea. Why can't it negotiate with the Iraqi insurgency?"”

Most simple minded conservatives, (the liberals do not think, they only react, this is why we call them knee jerks), will think, ‘who is he to tell us what to do . . .” and you only display again that you have not understood the first thing. Think. Say, ‘Yes, sir, Dr. Ahmed, may the blessings and the peace of the Profit be with you, kind sir, please . . . go ahead, please go to Ramadi and make peace . . .”

Again, our strategic objective is to stand up the government, nothing else is of interest to us. The primacy of our philosophy, now East AND West, is this, first we must make this subjective judgment. It is not objective. We, you and I, we must decide. Think. What is job one? It is not objective we have to do this. Thinking.

I mentioned the British, now let us talk Romans. There was no greater libertarian, no one more committed to human freedom than our dear Ludwig von Mises. Yet even he not only would not disagree with this next point, he said it himself: At the center of the state is the double headed ax. Only the state has the right to kill. But around the state’s ultimate power is a bundle of sticks. (His point was that the market works on an entirely different principle, i.e. voluntary associations of mutual assent.) But it is the state, the law, that makes these other things possible. The Romans delegated the sticks to others. Their concern was to control the ax, from which everything else follows.

In Iraq, the Americans are the double headed ax not the sticks! The sticks, (clearing roadside bombs, visiting Ramadi), these are the sticks, others can do them because they are not vital, the main issue, the central point, the core value, ----- they are not strategic.

They are “not strategic” as an objective “fact”. They are not strategic because I say they are not.

I assert a value judgment.

I do not pretend an objective reality.

I say so.

If I did not say so it would not be “true”. For example:

I say you should not suffer the mentally ill to sleep on the streets. This is not “objective;” it is true because I say so.

I say you should not have allowed the rich to use exclusionary zoning and distort the market. Again not “objective.”

And so on.

The subjective judgment was made in 2002 not to start a “Free Iraq Army.” Even though the Kurds were ready and able. You could have parachuted Mr. Baer into . . . what? Oh, ok, you could have flown him back . . .

Let us not go over what could have been. The Kurds have finally been normalized into the Iraq Army. Finally.

I told you at the time how to control the population and two years later, the transponders, the face scans, (biometric), the data base, the intelligence networks, the prison campuses, the rolling checkpoints, etc. have not been done.

It does not matter because though the new Iraqi government needs to do these things they are not central to our aims.

You have a small professional army dependent on volunteers, you have commanders who are still acting as if they were running a “Nation at War”, or “Total War” army. Note that this is a problem of their subjective judgment about the situational, relative, circumstance they are in.

Think.

Tell your generals to read “Nature, Man, Woman” by Allan Watts.

Do more by doing less.

Listen to the call to prayers. Think of all the Muslims who go to pray, and do not set off car bombs next to children playing in the street, or among women in the market, . . . think of all the rest.

Sit. Watch. Listen. Think.

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Wrong Part V New Ruskin College.com

2005-03-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

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Wrong Part V

Editor’s Notes: 11-19-04
Because time is running out many parts of the site will have to remain incomplete. The next part was to cover how we organize knowledge and how this organization is governed by our genes. Here are some notes:

William F. Buckley, Jr. said, agreeing with someone, (Muggeridge(?)), that if Jesus of Nazareth was not “risen” then “what is the point?” I have always felt that this attitude is a repudiation of Jesus, another betrayal. For either Jesus was a beloved rabbi, who taught love, was persecuted and executed, and whose teachings continued on after his death, in his disciples, “the Church,” or, He was the Christ fulfilling the prophesies, whereby the Lord became man, no longer separate and apart from His people, and resides in us even now. This is His body, this is His blood. The two cases are indistinguishable.

If the Christ is not resurrected in your life, then He is not risen. This is the literal teaching. If you think that the Bible is the literal word of God then how else to interpret His words? “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Unto Me? (et respondens rex dicet illis amen dico vobis quamdiu fecistis uni de his fratribus meis minimis mihi fecistis) Matthew 25:40

Not “objectively” risen so many years ago, but resurrected in this subjective being, now. Why do you look for the living among the dead? (timerent autem et declinarent vultum in terram dixerunt ad illas quid quaeritis viventem cum mortuis ) Luke 24 : 5 Is He dead? This bread, this wine, His body, His blood. Unto Me? Whose body is this? Whose blood is this? Why do you look for the living, (He who lives), among the dead? Rejoice! Z : He lives.

Oh, or are you still waiting for the Messiah? Is that it? Perhaps you think that you are not yet the body of the Christ? (Corpus Christi) Not yet a branch on the vine of Christ? What are you waiting for? You take the bread, but it does not become your body? Is it His body? You drink the wine, does it enter your blood? Is it His blood? Do you believe in the resurrection or not? Are these things not “objective?”

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. (non est Deus mortuorum sed viventium) Matthew 22 :32

Do you not believe in the ever lasting life of the world to come? And again what do you suppose is, where will we find, that ever lasting life? Are you looking up to heaven? Clue: The least of these. Are you looking outside yourself? Unto Me? I bring you good news, the body of Christ is all mankind. The everlasting life: humanity down the generations. And not your children only.

Even he that cannot keep his soul alive.
A seed shall serve him;It shall be counted unto the Lord for His generations.
They shall come and shall declare his righteousnessUnto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it.
--- Psalm 22

Some times the seed falls on fertile earth, sometimes on barren ground. But do you suppose that life is pure chance? Or do you imagine yourself to be the individual seed? The chaff? Roots? Is that what you think? Now who is being solipsistic? More good news: The Corpus Christi is the entire crop, life! Not just one individual puny seed. You continue in the life of the world to come, not in the genes of your children, not some molecule, (why be so limited?), but in the body of the Christ.

You say you believe in the resurrection but I wonder if you really do? You say you believe in the life of the world to come, that the Christ has given us eternal life, redeemed us, but you are still looking outside yourself, to heaven, or somewhere else, as if He had not yet come.

What are you waiting for? Do you not think He is risen? You want an “objective” heaven. And what would you do if you got there? You go before God, kneel, Hallelujah! Ok, Alan Watts asks, then what? Wouldn’t that get a little old? But eternity? Thank God you, and your puny little consciousness wasn’t allowed to plan out the universe.

I mean you are a part of the body of Christ, ok, I accept you as a brother, but I mean, my God, (excuse the expletive), what if we had left things up to you! We would be on our knees for eternity crying out Hallelujah? Do we get coffee breaks? I shouldn’t mock you but really! Thank God! More good news: we do not depend on your limited imagination, He has made other arrangements for us.

Now, do you believe in the life of the world to come? As the bread becomes His body, the wine blood, so too the teaching becomes the Holy Spirit. His teaching, have you received it? Yes? So the Holy Spirit has it entered you? Or are you still waiting for the Messiah? All these things, the resurrection, the life of the world to come, they are arrayed before you, in these objective facts, the bread, the wine, humanity, life, the teaching, and you look about you, up to heaven, and ask, ‘where is He?’ You want an ‘objective proof.’ Barren ground. You see? All alone. I told you that there was no one left.

“The conception of an absolute requirement, whether or not adorned with metaphysical justification, is shared with religion whether it is connected with and absolute ground, that is some idea of a persisting and necessarily existing reality. How far can a demythologized religion go in that direction, and still be called religion? The “ reality" or “ ground" , traditionally thought of picturesquely as “elsewhere", may be seen as available to ordinary cognition, veiled and so on.” (Iris Murdoch, (303)“Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals”)

Just as we saw earlier when discussing morality, you want everything done for you, and are disappointed that you must act, to reconstruct your world, in every minute of your days. You want your moral values to be “objectively True,” made objective by being held in “the mind of God,” so you do not have to act, and be responsible for those acts, and to save you the bother of that moral act of reconstruction. God confers value. You feel your morality is diminished, made less valuable, if it is contingent on you, and your acts, this moral reconstruction of the world. And again I say this fact makes you, your acts, more valuable, important, not less valuable, for if you do not hold the good as good then there is no good.

Iris Murdoch: “God is good.”
Student: What is good?
Iris Murdoch: “Good is good” (Because you “know” it, therefore you know there is a God. The awareness of the good penetrates your consciousness like rays from the All Mighty. Isn’t this a miracle? And to think, this miracle all most past you by unnoticed.)

And now again, you also wanted the resurrection to have been taken care of for you, (thousands of years ago); the Christ risen and sitting at the “right hand” of “God the Father” on His heavenly throne. Everything already taken care of for you, no mess, no bother. As with children, you wanted everything to have already been done, for you.

No. Sorry, you have some chores yet to do. Jesus is not less valuable because you must do unto Jesus, your acts become more valuable, important, because, (just as morality is contingent on you so to the resurrection is contingent on you), Jesus must wait upon you. He has been waiting a good long time hasn’t He? What are you waiting for? Why do you look for the living among the dead? If the Christ is not resurrected in your life, then He is not risen.

He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err. (non est Deus mortuorum sed vivorum vos ergo multum erratis) Mark 12:27

Jesus was a values relativist. As with the others we have considered, He, also, asked us to consider the meaning of our values and how to apply them, and our judgments about them, to our lives.

For example, the objective Law is that one shall not commit adultery, however, Jesus asked us to consider the issue more deeply, subjectively. Objectively, by the standard of the Law, looking at yourself from the outside, you may not have committed adultery, but what about subjectively, Jesus asks?

If God were not looking down on you, looking at you objectively, but what if God were inside of us, what then? What if God resides in us? Looking at us, subjectively? Have you committed adultery subjectively?

Sure, you can place an offering on the alter. This is a commendable act, objectively. But Jesus asks us to consider that notwithstanding this act, if our hearts are wounded by a dispute with our brother, it would be better to forgo the offering and go directly to our brother and make amends. This subjective turmoil deserves precedence over the objective offering.

When Jesus admonishes us to give more garments to the man who takes our coat, does He really suppose that we should have no system of justice? Elsewhere He has asked us to visit those in prison, not that we should tear down the prisons, so we can take it that He accepts a system of law and punishment.

In fact He says that there are a set of values relative to Cesar, and for God there are a different set of values, standards, some of which, as we have just seen, penetrate to our very soul, and are not hidden from God, who will soon reside in us, upon the Resurrection.

Do not appeal to God at the high alter with your offerings to help you in your dispute with your brother. This is to confuse two realms. It is an abuse of God. Go to your brother first. Nor should you try to bribe God with your coins. Do not apply the values of the market place to God.

Nor apply the system of values you have for dealing with criminal conduct in your invocation of God--------

Counselor: So, for example, when you condemned them for not taking action against Saddam Hussein earlier, remember? You said “God Damn you.” That was probably not something Jesus would have approved?

. . . No, . . . Yvonne, dear, . . . probably that would be an example of bringing the Damnation of the All Mighty down to the level of politics. A confusion of different standards. Probably Jesus would not have approved.

Someone may steal your cloak ----

Counselor: Then when you said, “No one cared what was done to me. No one cared what was done to Mr. Bush! God Damn You. God Damn You,” Jesus would not ---

Yes, this is very similar to the first example. I am quite certain Jesus would not have approved. He said:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? (quid autem vides festucam in oculo fratris tui et trabem in oculo tuo non vides) Matthew 7 : 3

So, no, sweetheart, He probably ----

Then when you told Bill O’Reilly, remember you said, “God is manifest, you prick,” this would be another example of something Jesus would not have approved?

(This preaching thing is not as easy as it looks.) No, again, this would be another example of the same thing. Thank you, Yvonne.

Counselor: You are welcome.

Alright class settle down. Let us continue with the lesson.

Someone may ----

Someone may . . . steal your cloak, or strike you on your cheek, but these complaints are not things about which you can expect God to intervene. Do not ask God to strike your adversary, not because God approves of theft or battery, but because you are confusing the realm of Heaven, with that of daily life. There are different values to be applied. Different standards. Relative standards depending on the circumstances.

The objective standard is an eye for an eye. But Jesus advises us not to be too hasty in the simple minded application of this seemingly simple and obvious law. For if applied to our daily lives, Jesus says, God’s standards should result in very different conduct. We would turn the other cheek, we would hand the thief our other garments also.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. (nolite iudicare ut non iudicemini) Matthew 7:1

Jesus is not arguing that we reward thieves and assailants, He is suggesting that we should not appeal to God in a simple minded way as if all were “objective”, we are cautioned not to invoke the absolute, as if it were a fixed absolute value --- a certainty. For we are so far from God that we can scarcely understand God’s judgments let alone manipulate them with our alms and prayers.

And Jesus illustrates just how far from God we are with a series of preposterous statements:

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. (beati qui lugent quoniam ipsi consolabuntur) Matthew 5:5

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (6:28 et de vestimento quid solliciti estis considerate lilia agri quomodo crescunt non laborant nec nent 6:29 dico autem vobis quoniam nec Salomon in omni gloria sua coopertus est sicut unum ex istis) Matthew 6:28:29

Though these are hardly more outlandish than the admonitions to turn the other cheek or that we should reward the thief. Of course we must make clothes, His point is that it is a measure of how far we are from God that we do not emulate the lilies of the field --- we are that far apart.

Ironically, some churchmen take Jesus literally, and actually do believe we should turn the other cheek and reward thieves, wander the woods dressed in lilies. However, they are clueless. Jesus would have used different examples if he had been talking to them. Only the sick need a physician.

But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (euntes autem discite quid est misericordiam volo et non sacrificium non enim veni vocare iustos sed peccatores) Matthew 9:13

He was trying to challenge our set assumptions, our confidence that we know God, or God’s Commandments. For today’s egotists he should have advised them to join the Army or Police, in order to shake them out of their egotistical complacency and self satisfaction. If you do not find His statements paradoxical then you need a different medicine. (I am surprised there has not yet been a lilies of the field clothing line.)

For the pacifist is a kind of egotist. They think that they will always be able to persuade the wrongdoers. Most of us recognize our limits of persuasion and therefore are armed. When asked to condemn soldiers He pointed out the extreme of generosity represented by the soldiery.

He knew perfectly well that the peace maker would not be blessed, but crucified. The meek are not to inherit anytime soon. He is not outlining a program of action, he is illustrating how far we are from God, how inadequate we are compared to His judgment. Therefore we can not say with certainty what God’s judgment would be, as if it were an “objective” fact, therefore our judgments must as a result be tentative, contingent on the situation, and we: humble.

Not that we should not make judgments, but that we should do so thoughtfully, carefully, with discerning awareness of the relative, contingent, situation. As is made more clear:

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: (nolite iudicare et non iudicabimini nolite condemnare et non condemnabimini dimittite et dimittemini) Luke 6:37

There are different standards for different situations. An eye for and eye is the objective standard, yet Jesus asks us not to stop in our judgment, not to be satisfied with mere surface appearances, with the merely “objective”, but to look more deeply. We can not say, ‘he hit me’, or ‘he stole my cloak’, so therefore, God’s absolute condemnation shall fall on him. Beware, for if you take your dispute to God’s court and demand God’s judgment, are you prepared for such an examination yourself? Being so far from God, how could we even imagine what God’s judgment would be?

Ought you not fear God’s judgment? How easy for the objective judgment to slide into the subjective condemnation. Do you really want to take this case to trial? In God’s court? Jesus advises to settle your differences amicably out of court.

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. (esto consentiens adversario tuo cito dum es in via cum eo ne forte tradat te adversarius iudici et iudex tradat te ministro et in carcerem mittaris ) Matthew 25 : 5

God, upon the Resorection, now resides in us, our subjective being, and we must apply the Law to the circumstance, we must interpret, we must think.

And is this not the sin for which God sacrificed His son?

Was this not the original sin? Knowledge?

Lost in our thoughts, our human knowledge, we were thrown out of Eden. Instead of simply existing in the Garden with the other beasts, docilely living in the “objective” world we developed self awareness, knowledge. But see now how God has taken pity on His people, and sent His son to redeem us. To forgive us our sin He sent His son to show us how to think.

His son does not admonish us to return to God’s favor by following the example of the other beasts, and living in ignorance in an objective world. He counsels us to use our minds, to think.

Formerly God could only be understood objectively. There were the Ten Commandments to be followed, objectively. That was enough. Now Jesus tells us that these Commandments must be followed not only objectively but subjectively as well. Not just the letter of the Law but the meaning of the Law as well.

We can no longer manipulate God with these objective acts, offerings at the alter, sitting in the front row of the temple, coins, objects like that, now Jesus admonishes us to serve God in our thoughts, subjectively. We are redeemed the original sin of knowledge not by retreat into thoughtless objectivity, but by attending to our subjective awareness.

The Resurrection of Christ is completed not up in a heavenly sky kingdom but down here on the ground in the thicket of our thoughts, our subjective awareness of God, the Good.

This awareness of the Good is proof of God. God comes to us in our thoughts. Have you been aware of His presence? How many miracles have been missed: Looking in the wrong places, expecting the wrong things --- objects --- signs? Bang! You see, every time. We are in luck . . . see over there, drifting on the wind currents, a sparkling flame. Iris has marked our way in this darkness.

‘But Sir, please, might we not get lost again? The last time we were thrown out of Eden, but we ended up here, a place of woe, yet still, Earth. Considering what might have happened . . . we tremble . . . to think . . . But next time, where will we be thrown next time? God knows.’

Jesus offers us this advise, if we get lost in our thoughts and can remember nothing else, at least remember the two most important Commandments, Love God, Love your neighbors as yourself.

In either case Buckley’s “what is the point?” misses the point in such a profound way that one is sorry for him. To have lived such a long life in such compete darkness . . . he demands magic, what he needs is wisdom.

Dr. Edward O. Wilson has explained this hierarchical need, this demand for an absolute absolute, highest almighty, top of the top, as a function of our genes. Social predators survived to pass on their genes by organizing themselves into hunter organizations, with a leader, a leadership group. Organizations are in our genes.

Hunters have a calculator encoded into their genes, manifested in their brains, that organizes space and time into a geometry that coordinates the overtaking of the prey. Our visual processing centers allow us to focus on the object moving across the field, calculate the speed, direction, etc. However, social predators have encoded whole worlds of meaning that solitary hunters do not. Organizations. Hierarchy.

Our brains are organized, “designed,” to facilitate certain kinds of thinking. Meta principles are distinguished from “subordinate” ideas, just as we instinctively note the leader of a herd and the stragglers. Some ideas “dominate” and others are “submissive.” We look at the world through a lens, a brain, that is millions of years old at least.

Jesus, or any Godhead, has to be on top, most high, the first one, ---- our tissue craves it, demands it. We feel incomplete if the universe is not ordered the way our group is ordered: Leader, and then ranked order “beneath,” a hierarchy of meaning. Our thoughts are in this manner channeled. And all of this is natural. So natural that we do not even notice it. It is the primordial stuff out of which we are made.

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The Debate New Ruskin College

2004-12-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

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Lecture Notes: 12-29-04

The Debate

“. . . ‘the time has come for ordinary Iraqis to realize that they - not the Americans - will ultimately decide who prevails in this conflict” . . . . He warned against allowing the Iraqis to become too dependent on the U.S. military. More independence is what's needed, he said. "That's the only way," Rumsfeld said during a meeting with top U.S. commanders in Tikrit,. . .” --- Rumsfeld Says Iraqis Must Stop Insurgents Saturday December 25, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) (see also Army Navy Club No. 35)

“These insurgents are determined to have no representative government. They want to go back to a tyranny,” Powell told CBS News. “And so the insurgency will continue and the insurgency will have to be defeated by coalition forces.” --- Agence France-Presse --- 43 dead in attacks on security forces by Dhia Hamid in Samarra December 29, 2004

This is the debate: The Iraqis themselves or coalition forces? Now consider this: it is the end of 2004. We first entered Iraq in 2003.

Wouldn’t you have thought that this question would have been resolved by now? Wouldn’t you have thought that a reasonably prudent Commander in Chief, exercising due diligence, would have met with his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense and they would have come to an agreement on this fundamental question of who is responsible for the battle with the terrorists?

Regular visitors here at the College will recollect that we pointed out previously that since this Administration was not willing to do the things that are necessary to win this battle against the terrorists then this administration should turn the command over to the government of Iraq, the then Governing Council.

And after several months of vacillating and deleterious “negotiations” this Administration did finally turn Iraq over to . . . well not the Governing Council . . . this Administration ignominiously abandoned the Governing Council . . . and found a UN diplomat to determine the new leader of Iraq. Why the corrupt UN? Because the gentleman in the oval room thinks that the UN is “legitimate,” unlike the United States and Britain and the allies.

In any event the new government of Iraq was created, after years of delay by this feckless Administration. And one might have thought that this evidenced some strategy; some determination and agreement on the path we were to follow. Now we see that if one had thought so, one would have been wrong.

For proof you have this debate: here you have this pitiful spectacle of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense debating who is responsible for dealing with the terrorists. This nearly two (2) years later. And our Commander in Chief? Oh, he has “faith.” He has “faith” in “constitutional democracy.” He is on his knees asking God’s guidance for he has no idea what to do. His only idea is to have America send yet more troops. Take on a greater share of the burden. Ask for more sacrifice.

So, who should deal with these terrorists? A foreign Christian state, (see also Army Navy Club No. 29), ten thousand miles away, or the people of Iraq who must in any event live or die with the outcome. A decadent “liberal,” (really Post Liberal), society, (which “does not just round up people’), which is unwilling to take the steps necessary to win the battle against the terrorists, or on the other hand should the Iraqi people begin their birth as a free people, like most births, painfully, bloodily?

We see hear the Yale and Harvard educated Mr. Bush, scion of a wealthy powerful family, shifting the costs of establishing the government of Iraq onto the young men from Americas middle and lower classes. Where have we seen this before? The economy!

Our elite found it too painful to make the hard choices about Iraq so they postponed and procrastinated. And now in the event they seek to shift the cost off onto the lower classes. Have them run another 100,000 patrols while the details are worked out, and not by our elite, but worked out by Iraqis on their own schedule. Let them bleed. And doesn’t our national debt climb higher every year also because our elite is unwilling to make the difficult decisions? And don’t the Yales and Harvards also shift their cost off onto the middle and lower classes? And doesn’t this cause inflation to rise, and our interest rates rise, and our Dollar fall?

And see also how foreigners find this scheme agreeable. For example, see how the Iraqi finds this most agreeable. Let the Americans bleed while they debate constitutional niceties and decide how to divide up the oil wealth between them.

American blood is cheap. Blood for oil? Our blood. Their oil.

And the gentleman in the oval room straightens his tie, tugs on his shirt cuff, and postpones, and procrastinates some more. Waiting. Waiting for the election. Waiting for the new constitution. Waiting for the new elections under that new constitution.

Tic tock.

Four more years.

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Betrayal New Ruskin College

2004-12-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

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Lecture Notes: 12-17-04 Betrayal

It has been said that the $7.6 trillion national debt has been deliberately created to control the government. US Senator Moynihan used to refer to David Stockman’s book, The Triumph of Politics, as evidence of this thesis. By blocking taxes and piling up, heaping up, this debt, $26,000 per person, the theory goes, the Republic will be so hobbled that government will be unable to offer assistance to the people.

The burden of simply financing this debt is so great, that an ever increasing share of the taxes is needed for interest payments alone, thereby suffocating the government. In the dynamics of the market economy the burden of taxation falls most heavily on those who are least able to raise their prices in response to the ever increasing costs. The interest payments themselves go to the owners of capital which is first lent to the government then the treasury notes themselves become collateral in further transactions, thus creating a vice in which the people are trapped.

Further pressure is applied to those in the bottom of the economy by importing goods and services from abroad where deflation continues in the labor market as long as the planet’s six billion continue to procreate, a phenomenon which is expected to continue in the near term. President Bush’s oft repeated proposal that anyone should be allowed to offer citizenship to anyone to fill any job at any time, with the sole proviso that the “job” must first be “advertised” is only a formal statement of the current immigration practice. (Notice that Mr. Bush’s policy is a continuation of Reagan’s. Reagan sought to undermine government by piling up the national debt to control the people’s ability to direct their activities through government. Now Mr. Bush would smash the labor market with unlimited immigration cutting off the ability of the people to raise their prices in response to the ever increasing rounds of price rises by the elite.)

Currently the legal immigration from Mexico is set at 170,000 a year while the actual immigration number is estimated, (by Time Magazine), to be three million a year. The steady infusion of labor guarantees downward pressure on labor prices and therefore continued concentration of taxes on those least able to pay. (We have previously proposed that the US agree to take half of Mexico’s increase over the next fifty years. Mexico is expected to double in size by 2050. If the US were to take a million Mexicans a year for the next 50 years the burden on Mexico could be made manageable. (However, the Post Liberal elite prefers “illegals” precisely because they are illegal and can be violated at any time. The better to control the subject people.))

Rarely is it remarked that this downward pressure on labor prices is a consequence of the success of the United States Navy. Navies have controlled history because of the preeminence of economics in human affairs. Ultimately economics decides history. What is economics but the interactions of human beings? Human beings determine history. Why navies then? Because the easiest way to move goods, (the least friction), is to move goods by sea. Navies control the trade routes therefore navies control history.

The downward burden on the people is a result of their success in making free trade possible. The success of the US Navy in holding open the world’s trade routes makes globalization possible and means that the people of the United States are increasingly being forced to lower their prices even as the interest payments on the national debt continue to be redistributed by the market price mechanism in the economy and redirected down onto those with the lowest ability to raise their prices, i.e. those most constrained by foreign goods, services, and the three million workers entering the US every year. The people are caught in a vice.

Betrayal.

From the beginning of time, from the beginning of the market, the wealthy have sought to escape the market, (voluntary relations of mutual consent), and force others to pay them using the power of the state, (coercive relations).

Yet the study of economics reveals that voluntary relations of mutual assent are always more productive than coerced relations. Therefore, not only can this vice on the people be broken, when it is broken there will be a huge increase in productivity. The people are being betrayed by their government because their government has been taken over by a powerful elite that seeks to use government to coerce payments rather than having to participate in the market of mutual assent.

The lending of capital to the government is the most obvious example. However, as soon as the government begins drawing down the debt the increasing productivity gains will create huge gains in the economy to the benefit of the people. The capital lent to the government actually disappears. However, when it is repaid it once again reemerges in the economy. “There is no such thing as capital there are only capital goods,” was the dictum Ludwig von Mises used to hammer into his students heads.

His point was that bankers and financiers, stock brokers, had created the false impression that their bookkeeping activities were the heart of the capitalist economy. He wanted to disabuse his students of this error. Real capital exists only in bricks and mortar, in metal stamping machines, in all the apparatus of the productive economy. Capital is not a share of stock but the underlying assets of the firm. Ultimately capital must be invested in something, some piece of equipment, a productive asset. (Which is why the elite prefer Treasury Notes. They do not want to have to make a commitment to any business scheme. They do not want to be subject to the will of the market. They would rather rely on the IRS to collect their money.) This is why I say that the capital lent to the government disappears. It is no longer part of the productive economy.

However, as soon as the government pays down, say $300 billion in debt, (at that rate it would only take 26 years), there is suddenly $300 billion in new capital that has been created. $300 billion is forced back out into the market where it must meet the needs of the consumers or perish, or at least be redistributed by the market. There will be a huge increase in productivity as this capital is injected back into productive activities.

In a world of 6 billion by all accounts North America is under populated. The problem with the 3 million illegals is that they are illegal. But they are illegal because the Post Liberal elite prefers illegals not because of any natural law that requires them to be illegal. But here you can see but one example of how the economy, the society, is twisted by the elites, who are pursuing their own interests and not the people’s interest.

There is no natural law that limits educational opportunities, or the availability of housing, or the providing of medical care; it is only the actions of government, in all three areas which has so restricted the market and has turned these three areas into the three largest centers of inflation. Just as with taxes, the Post Liberal elite is able to raise its own prices and pass the taxes on to others, so too here, in the spiraling cost of education, medicine and health care, and housing, the elite is able to transfer all of its cost onto the rest of society.

If one points out that government has driven up the cost of education, medicine, housing, out of the reach of the people, the elite is indifferent. Notice that recently we heard the claim that the “blue states” pay most of the federal income tax. Once again the Republicans were so uninformed, (or worse), they did not know how to respond. The wealthy elites in the blue states do pay most of the tax, however, they then redistribute the tax in the form of higher prices. These higher prices are paid by the red states and everyone else in the blue states. This is why they are indifferent to higher prices for housing, education, health care and even higher taxes.

They are so positioned in the economy that they can pass these ever increasing costs onto everyone else. For example, Mr. Gates’ father advocated higher taxes, saying that he thought he was under taxed. However, the Republicans did not know what to say in reply. They should have asked the Gates family to agree not to raise the prices of Microsoft’s products. Then Mr. Gates’ taxes would have some bite.

This is not “sour grapes,” or envy; I am not a communist. To the extent they can pass on their costs in the free market place I am in complete accord. I am pointing out here that these Post Liberal elites use their domination of society and government for their own ends not for those ends most felicitous of the interests of the people.

For example, most of you think that “inflation” is some monetary issue that the Federal Reserve deals with in setting the interest rates. We do not have time to go into this here but it is perhaps enough to explain that Ludwig von Mises argued against the Federal Reserve and regarded it as another example of government intrusion into the economy. For proof just consider one point: When the Federal Reserve raises interest rates they raise them for the entire country. But please consider, does every part of the economy suffer from inflation equally?

Of course not. For example, the laborers have not been adding to inflation, they have not been able to raise their prices. Are the red states leading inflation? No. Who is raising their prices? Yes, of course, the elites are the ones who are raising their prices. This is why they are elite. But, owing to the way the government has organized the economy, the currency, there is no other way of setting interest rates. In the blue states the Post Liberal elite has twisted the power of the state to restrict the economy and force up prices, yet everyone, red states and the rest of the people in the blue states alike must pay the higher interest rates.

The elite in the blue states does not care that their own policies in for example, housing, in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Chicago have ratcheted up inflation by restricting supply. The elite can simply raise their prices in response to increasing prices. And when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to control the overheating economy the elite in these blue states, again, is indifferent.

Why? Because we all have to pay higher interest rates! So the Post Liberal elite uses its control over the state to restrict supply, then they experience appreciation on their capital assets, then when the Federal Reserve raises the interest rate to control the inflation the Post Liberal elite again benefits from the higher interest on its capital. Who suffers? Those at the bottom. Alabama, Mississippi, Okalahoma, Kansas, you know, red states. They have not created the inflation yet they must pay the higher interest. Payments which go to the Post Liberal elite in the blue states.

The blue states may create the inflation with their interference in the economy, but the higher interest rates are paid by red states as well. But we do not all enjoy the same ability to pass on these higher costs. This is the vice they have us in.

However, again, as we say with the national debt, as soon as we wrest control away from the Post Liberal elite there will be huge gains in productivity, and general deflationary pressures across the economy. The elite uses its control of government to force up prices. Take this power away from them and prices will fall. Falling prices with the same or increasing productivity, is called deflation.

So even though world trade may control our ability to raise our prices, we can enjoy an increasing standard of living. How? Efficiency.

Lower the cost of housing, lower the cost of medical care, lower the cost of education. How? Efficiency.

The elite does not care if parts are interchangeable but we do; The elite does not care if our cell phones work with different systems but we do; Or if our auto parts are interchangeable; Or if Microsoft rewrites its proprietary code to crash competitor’s programs; Or if our public schools decline; Or if stem cell research continues apace; Or if buildings are delayed years in litigation; Or if everyone pays the same road tax regardless of whether one lives in San Francisco or Fresno; Or if regulations spiral out of control; Or if the tax code is unintelligible; Or that factory building techniques are banned in housing; This is the vice they have us in.

This is the betrayal.

At one time to be Liberal meant a recognition of the importance of free and open markets. This is why I call our elite Post Liberal. They have given up on free markets, on democracy, the Republic. Their interests are not ours, yet see how they have control of the state and pursue their own aims.

These rich powerful people who have used their power to destroy my life, have, as a class, done the same to the society as a whole. Like some terrible serpent they have intertwined themselves around the state, and they now strangle us.

It does no good to try to reason with them; to explain that total productivity would increase if they would only release their strangle hold; or that they could become even richer in a free market. Ultimately they are not interested even in their own self interest.

Ultimately it is about power.

There was no market reason for Michael Weiner to break into my room and steal my notebook. Interfering with my employment at State Farm and GAB Robins did not put one dollar into Don Imus’ pocket. Mrs. Jack Swanson, Michael Krasney, Ron Owens, all the rest, had no market reason to hector, and vex, and harasse me.

This was none of it, never, was it about the market. Egotism. Power. Viciousness. Yes.

But not the market.

Using the market the people can free themselves from the national debt, then they can free themselves from the Post Liberal elite who use the state to strangle them in this vice of greed and corruption.

Soon I will free myself.

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Smart Chips and F--- you.

2004-12-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

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Lecture Notes: 12-01-04

In our Technical Corrections, at the Max Weber Institute, we considered the importance of biometric information for the establishment of the applicant’s identity. We pointed out that “smart chips” were not important for the establishment of identity. The chip remains with the applicant and so, therefore, it is untrustworthy; because it is subject to being tampered with and its data altered.

In North Korea a scientist has probably already broken the State Department’s code for the new passport chips, (in order to get a bigger food ration for his family).

The only advantage the chip offers is that the clerk at the immigration counter does not have to type in the information, or scan in the printed information on the passport, but can now electronically down load the information from the chip. The only change is a clerical time saving innovation.

Yet to read the news coverage one would think that the chips offers a new level of security. It does not. Forgers must now know electronic forgery yet in some ways this makes forgery easier. It can be forged electronically.

If security is to be increased it can only be done in the database which verifies the information that is collected. In other words it does not matter if the information is scanned from the document, typed in, or draw in electronically from a smart chip, what is needed is a trusted database. The biometric information needs to be taken from the person themselves, not the chip. This bio-scan needs to be checked not against the chip that was in the possession of the applicant but against the trusted database.

But then I do not want to get drawn into this. If the idiots in the media want to report that the “smart chip” is improving security --- fine. If the fools at the State Department can sell this --- ok. The Administration can claim it is making America safe ---- sure.

Who cares? I have given up. 3.5 million are crossing the southern border every year. I do not care. Leave the legal immigration limit from Mexico at 170,000 --- yeah. The Post Liberal elite prefers illegals to citizens. The illegals can be violated and deported if they speak out or object.

President Bush used to say he wanted to let in anyone for any job at any time. After he was roundly ridiculed for this absurd proposal he changed it. But not until he got a 10% increase in the Hispanic vote. (He might have gotten these votes with out making these foolish statements.)

Now Mr. Bush says that anyone can be brought into the country for any job at any time, if, the job is advertised. He has been reelected. Now why is he sounding like an idiot?

Obviously if there is no standard for “advertising” a note in a shop window will do. And what is on the note? Wanted, insurance adjuster, $7.00 an hour. Why not? This is what Mr. Bush now says he wants. And no one will question him. He has driven expectations down so low that he can say the most preposterous things and no one bats an eye.

Earlier this year California’s courts upheld a $122 million judgment against Farmers Insurance for failure to pay overtime. (Bell v. Farmers Ins. Exchange, 115 Cal. App. 4th 715 (2004) Is this the reason the Administration wanted to change the law for overtime?) Mr. Bush says it is alright with him if Farmers replaces the adjusters with people who want to move to the United States. A job and citizenship too!

But I am not going to get involved in any of this either.

3.5 million over the southern border every year, the President says he thinks anyone should be allowed in for any job at any time, ( after it has been “advertised”), and then they put “smart chips” on the passport and think they have made an improvement. ‘See,. . . it is on the littl’chip thing in there, . . . see . . . it is electronic.’

You are all just f . . . . and I do not care. Yeah, screw you too.

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Arrest Don Perata! New Ruskin College.com

2004-11-27T16:35:00.000-08:00

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Lecture Notes: 11-28-04

Previously we have examined the corrupt Metropolitan Transportation Commission in our coverage of the spectacle of the proposed Bay Bridge design which was not able to withstand the maximum foreseeable earthquake, according to the Army Corps of Engineers nor was it able to withstand even a “small car bomb.” (see prior Lecture Notes, September, October, and Technical Corrections at the Max Weber Institute)

Now the Moynihan California New Service, (provided by Cal News, (see at the Moynihan)), reports:

FBI turns focus to BART-Perata link
Hu, senator's other associates profited during retrofit campaign
By Sean Holstege, Oakland Tribune
BART's political efforts on a seismic repair bond are a major focus of a federal political corruption probe into Sen. Don Perata and his associates. In a Nov. 8 subpoena, the U.S. District Court ordered BART to hand over records relating to the work of Perata, his children and their companies. The subpoena also names Perata's college roommate Timothy Staples, Oakland lobbyist Lily Hu, political consultant Sandra Polka and their firms. The federal grand jury wants to know about direct or indirect payments to them. The subpoena highlights 26 BART checks to Hu's political consulting firm Lily Hu & Associates between June 2001 and December 2003.

These seismic repairs refer not to the repair of the bridges, but to the repair of the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), trans bay tunnel. Can you believe it, the tunnel can not withstand the maximum foreseeable earthquake either? No, really?

This is what corruption looks like. Everything has to be built then rebuilt, again and again, cost over runs, incompetence ---- this is the Post Liberal Bay Area. Less than 12% of the people of the Bay Area have incomes sufficient to purchase their homes. 50% of the people of California are worried about the price of housing. Businesses are moving out in record numbers.

This corruption exists because we are a one party state. And where is the Republican Party? Well, for example, just before the election the Chairman of the Republican Party of California called me to let me know the Party’s stance on: Bush? No. On Bonds? No. On the Marin Senator Boxer? No. What was the one issue he contacted me about? Prop 71, the stem cell initiative. He was against it.

And what happened with this one issue he cared enough about to call and let me know his views?

Proposition 71: Stem Cell Research. Funding. Bonds. 6,809,839 / 59.1% Yes votes ...... 4,704,684 / 40.9% No votes

It passed with 59.1% of the vote. That is what I call a mandate! Not 51%. 59.1%!

This is how out of touch the Republican Party is with the people of California, and America. Corruption in the Bay Area. Couldn’t care less. Housing crisis? Who cares.

But boy, those stem cells, why that is “human life,” precious littl’ bit of God given life, right there in that little glass dish. That is what the Chairman of the California Republican Party called to let me know; he wanted me to know the stand he had taken. He lost by 20 points. Dumb ass loser!

Has he asked Mr. Jones why Mr. Jones has all of his money tied up in those “ethanol” plants? I mean shouldn’t Mr. Jones diversify his holdings? Has he really put all his money in those plants? All of it? Risky? Well, yes, risky, unless . . . well, unless you have some inside information. For example if you knew that the State of California was going to continue to require “ethanol” and if you had been given assurances that the State would not be allowing anyone else to come in and under bid you, if, you had something like that, some . . . insurance.

But the Chairman of the Republican Party had nothing to say about a proposed bridge that could not withstand an earthquake, or even a “small car bomb.” Has had nothing to say about the corrupt Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Nothing to say about Perata. Nothing to say about the housing crisis. Nothing to say about the repeated down zoning of the Bay Area by the Post Liberal elite. (A down zoning which has forced people to move further and further out. Which requires longer and longer commutes. Which is why the Post Liberal elite says it needs to put additives in the gas, to stop the pollution, you see, (additives which are not required by federal regulations). Which brings us back to Mr. Jones and his “ethanol” plants. No, the Party has nothing to say about Mr. Jones.

No the Republicans have nothing to say about any of this, . . . but those littl’ bit o’ life in them glass dishes . . . oh, boy, think of that! Littl’ bitty human babies . . .

But then, now that I think about it, why should we cooperate with the FBI’s investigation of the Bay Area’s Post Liberal elite’s corruption. The last time I helped the feds investigate criminals, they leaked my name to the very criminals we were investigating. (see The IRS and the Illegals from the North, at the Moynihan)

A pox on both your houses!

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

No.33 An Odd Aspect

2004-11-26T18:12:00.000-08:00

This is your future:

This is the “odd aspect,” (see Army Navy Club No. 33), of bio-warfare. If the political leader had been shot there would have been outrage. But because the weapon was a virus that acted over a period of days, there is . . . ah, yes, that familiar silence. Listen, . . . you can only hear the sound . . . of the glass grinding into the pavement under the soles of the boots.

www.newruskincollege.com

Prop. 71 @ The Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

2004-10-25T16:21:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Lecture Notes: 10-23-04

Once again our Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger leads California back to the future!

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has stepped out in front of the ordinary politicians and has endorsed Proposition 71.

With the passage of Proposition 71 California will hold its leadership position in the Life Sciences. Because of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s leadership California has a chance to lead the world into the Fifth Day of Creation.

Why have we had to wait so long for the likes of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger? Why couldn’t we have had such leadership over the last decades?

Think how much depends upon this one individual!

Iraq Guerrillas, Regrettable

2004-08-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

Visit the Army Navy Club at the Max Weber Institute at www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Army Navy Club
Item No.: 34

The most common strategic mistake made by inexperienced guerrillas is the attempt to take and hold territory.

The whole point of guerrilla warfare is to develop superior strength at a time and place for an attack and then to disappear back into the “sea” as Mao put it.

Twice now we have seen Iraqi Guerrillas take and hold ground: al Faluja and now again in Najaf. The failure to destroy these exposed forces is regrettable.

full text at www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Bio Warfare Irish Famine Army Navy Club

2004-08-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Army Navy Club at the Max Weber Institute at www.NewRuskinCollege.com
Item No. 36: An odd aspect
08-09-2004

I recommend the Irish Famine, the Potato Blight, to anyone wanting to understand the future of Bio Warfare.

It has often been said that the Irish reluctance to discuss the Famine is because, even today, decades later, there is the sense of “guilt.”

Guilt may sound strange for the “victim,” yet this is because the reader does not fully understand the complexity of the circumstance of vicitmhood, or biological warfare.

If you could watch your sense of strangeness dissolve, you could learn not only about biological warfare, you could grasp the process of your thinking itself.

Why strange? Don’t you think victims can feel guilt? Then you do not understand victimhood. Part of being a victim is the feeling of guilt for having become a victim. (Discussion of examples of victims who feel guilt because of their survival, omitted.)

Imagine yourself in Ireland. Do you suppose everyone is equally suffering starvation? Are you a fool? Do you not suppose that some Irish had food? Money? Do you not think that some survived? Most survived? Did the survivors not know about the suffering of those who starved to death? Think about that. (How many times has the visitor visited this site?)

continued at: www.NewRuskinCollege.com Max Weber Institute Army Navy Club

Selfishness Lecture Notes 7-20 New Ruskin College

2004-07-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

07-20-2004
Technical Correction Number 5:
Vehicle Transponders and Market Allocation of Highways and Roads.

The most common misunderstanding is that the tolls or usage charges are necessarily designed to discourage use. This misunderstanding occurs because the most publicized use of this technology has been to limit traffic in London’s city center. Here the charges were designed to discourage or limit traffic. However, this need not be the case for normal use.

The charges can be made to vary with the value of the use. A lane of highway in an urban area is more valuable than a lane of highway in Nebraska. (No offense Nebraska.) At rush hour many motorists may have wished for another lane, in there direction, however the cost of providing the extra lane in their urban area would be higher than providing another lane on a highway in Nebraska. The value of a highway varies with location and time of use and the user is fairly charged for these variables.

However, as simple gas tax is paid at a constant rate depending on the gas mileage of the user’s vehicle. Whereas the tax charged by metering the transponder can be apportioned to the value consumed or conferred on the user. Even if the transponder metered “use tax” only replaced the gas tax the consumer would be benefited by having the tax assessed, based on the value derived. . . . .

In all of these areas there is a prejudice against the market. Yet, without market forces exercising their influence there is no way of overcoming the selfishness that is naturally the human condition. The elite, secure in their privileged positions are perhaps no more selfish than the rest of us, yet removed from the exigencies of circumstance, they exercise the veto over all proposal for change, in all of these areas, and freed from having to suffer the consequences of their veto, they exercise power without responsibility.    Selfishness

See full text at www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Biometric Data Systems 7-12- NewRuskinCollege.com

2004-07-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

07-12-2004 Technical Correction at the Max Weber Institute at www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Number 4: Biometric Data Systems

Several reporters have described how national identity cards can contain the biometric data and this will allow the verification of the person presenting the card, because the bearer’s identity can be confirmed on the spot by checking his fingerprints, iris, or facial scan to authenticate the card.

What is worrying about this is, if they can get this wrong, something seemingly so simple and obvious, how much else have they gotten wrong?

The identity system is of no use if the information can not be trusted.

. . . continued at Technical Corrections at the Max Weber Institute at www.NewRuskinCollege.com

The enormous benefits of biotechnology: Desert Reclamation

2004-06-29T15:23:00.000-07:00

Max Weber Institute for the Study of the 5th Day of Creation
@ New Ruskin College
Technical Corrections
06-29-2004
Correction Number Two: The enormous benefits of biotechnology: Desert Reclamation.

We have perhaps spent too much time discussing the dangers of biotechnology.

Some may now wonder if it is worth the risk. First of all, for reasons provided elsewhere in New Ruskin College, there is no alternative. The technology is unavoidable.

Secondly, the period of terror risk is greatest now and will decline as our knowledge increases, and that knowledge will allow us to increase our defenses against bio attacks. (Of course the technology will transform human kind and the world but unlike many commentators we here at New Ruskin College welcome everyone of these changes, we hold no sentimental attachment for the human race as we have known it. As for Mother Earth, we look forward to improving her.)

As an example of what can be done with this new technology consider desert reclamation. For all of our existence we have had to fight for our survival. The universe was not engineered for our benefit. We are about to change this. Mother Nature proceeds by an entirely different route from our own engineering. For one thing, Mother Nature, is satisfied, is delighted, by whatever she produces. We on the other hand have certain standards that our creations must meet. They must be beneficial for us. Therefore our creative process is more constrained than is Mother Nature’s.

However, we do not have to try a billion different combinations in order to find the desired outcome. Mother Nature from our perspective is wasteful, where as we can go from step to step just covering what is required to achieve our desired results. We are more efficient.

Deserts are an example of waste. Mother Nature does not so regard them but we do. Deserts are just one example of waste in the natural order. What is the carrying capacity of the planet Earth? All of our estimates, all of our thinking, is based on our history, our experience. But this is just the point. We do not have experience with bio technology. What we regard as the natural limits are about to be blown away.

Nothing has prepared us for the bounty we are about to experience. What is the carrying capacity of a square mile of South Pacific Ocean? How much plankton can it contain. How many fish? We have no idea. The Southern Oceans are a kind of desert. We will very soon be able to engineer the entire biosphere, algae to whales. There are no limits.

Unlike Mother Nature we can skip all the intermediate unwanted states and move directly to the optimal. For example, recently a Salmon has been designed with a gene that allows it to produce a protein that can be metabolized more efficiently. The Salmon grows faster. Same fish, same ocean, same amount of sun light, same inputs (as the engineers say), but a higher output. We have a word for this: ef-fi-cien-cy.

Now think, not just one gene in one fish. How much life can a square mile of ocean hold? There are no limits.

Consider the Sahara Desert. First we design a grass that devotes most of its energy to developing roots. Spread it during the rainy season. Seed the clouds with it. We thus develop a matrix of roots. The seeds go dormant in the summer and start again with the next rain. A layer of bio material develops, grows on its own, all across the Sahara. Each season a newly engineered seed. For example, tubers that devote their energy to absorbing water and holding it inside far months into the summer. Other grasses develop stalks and die off in the summer only to regrow from those stalks in the next rains. Like tree trunks the stalks grow a new ring each rainy season. All the plants are engineered to live with little or no water for most of the year.

With time, the sand storms subside under this growing blanket of biomass. Walk on the desert now and it crunches under your feet. Tubers burst with fresh mushy water. More seasons pass, more grasses are developed, engineered, and behold: savannah.

Place the Sahara under a bank of North South oriented artificial clouds, high up in orbit above the atmosphere, and the heat moderates, the rains come sooner and stay longer. The artificial clouds are a mile wide and 1,000 miles long, each separated from the other by 5 miles, stretching out across the continent of Africa from the Nile to the Atlantic. They cast shadows down on the desert like a giant venetian blind, alternating sun and shadow, moderating the environment. Now after 10 years the Sahara has a top soil base of one to eight feet thick.

Now tell me what is the carrying capacity of the Sahara Desert? The planet Earth?

We have no idea. We have no way of judging this. We have not inhabited such a world since the Garden of Eden.

Next consider man . . .
From: Max Weber Institute for the Study of the 5th Day of Creation
@ New Ruskin College
Technical Corrections
06-29-2004
Correction Number Two:
The enormous benefits of biotechnology: Desert Reclamation.

Item No. 29: race and war 06-17-04 NewRuskinCollege.com

2004-06-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

Army Navy Club NewRuskinCollege.com

Item No. 29: race and war

06-17-04

One of the important features of the Vi-et-nam War which has received little comment is the role of race.

It also serves as an example of the role of “objective thinking” (see “Wrong”).

Because the Americans had decided that “race does not matter”, and this was no where more so than in the American military, which is also typified by “objective thinking” the importance of race in the minds of the people of Vi-et-nam was overlooked. This is typical: if it should not matter then “objectively” it does not matter.

MacNamara was a pioneer in “objective” management. However, he was himself as well as his system of management a perfect example of the limitations of this philosophy.

Though the stated strategy of the U. S. was “attrition”, (if this can be called a strategy), when a young Army Major presented MacNamara with a paper in which the numbers, the population and birthrate etc. were examined and it was proven, in numbers, that the “strategy” could not possibly work, and even though MacNamara had made his reputation as an “objective” manager, had demanded that all management decisions be based on the quantization of the “facts”, here, when shown to a mathematical certainty that the stated strategy could not work ignored the paper. Why? Possibly because the Major was not from M. I. T. or Harvard?

Also with race. Because MacNamara thought “objectively” race does not matter then it could be ignored. The fact is race did matter, like it or not. The Left which should have known told us only that we were racists, never mentioning that racism was an important motivating factor for the other side.

And the Right? Oh, “objectively” race does not matter.

NewRuskinCollege.com

Welcome to the Max Weber Institute Blog

2004-06-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

##### 1 # On the First Day of Creation, the Universe was created, 14 billion years ago.

#### 2 ## On the second day of Creation, four billion years ago, life began on Earth.

### 3 ### On the third day of Creation, three and a half million years ago, hominids first walked on the Earth.

## 4 #### On the Fourth day of Creation, 10,000 years ago, agriculture, the first genetic engineering, began.

# 5 ##### On the Fifth day of Creation, June 5th 2006, the new man, Homo Sapiens Engineerus.