Richard's Blog

As for me, I am in favor of granting the Old South its independence from the United States of America.  [See email from Human Events below.]  The argument here is that there is a lot of myth and that the reality about the South was different.  The reality was that 95% of the slaves were owned by 3% of the population.  ( http://vaudc.org/confed_vets.html  )  The poor boys from the South who fought and died had no financial stake in the war’s outcome.  Not much different from today’s wars.  The rich prosper through profiteering while the average folk die, suffer life-altering injuries, and pay for the war through increased taxes and reduced social services.  (Iraq comes to mind.)  [Parenthetically, I had two relatives fight for the Confederacy.  They were brothers and they both died at Shiloh.]

Excerpt from Human Events Email:

Tags: Human Events, Old South

     The Texas School Board of Education’s efforts to demote and downgrade Thomas Jefferson in terms of his contributing importance to this nation has made me the center of attention in some circles here on the San Francisco Peninsula.  Some know that I’m a 6th generation Texan who had an ancestor who died at the Alamo (William Depriest Sutherland), whose great-great grandfather (William Menefee) helped write the Texas Declaration of Independence, and whose other great-great grandfather (Major George Sutherland, father of William) fought with Houston at San Jacinto.  I also have graduate degrees from the Univ. of Southern California and Harvard, as well as a J.D. from Harvard Law.  It is presumed, therefore, that I know something.  Particularly so since I am descended from the Adamses of Massachusetts on my mother’s side, and it was John Adams who proudly signed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797, where Article 11 expressly states, in part:  “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion . . . .”  So, one of the questions put to me is this:  How does this attempt in Texas by these radical  fundamentalist religious and political ideologues on the Texas School Board of Education to marginalize and misrepresent Thomas Jefferson’s importance to our republic differ from the misinformation disseminated by Hitler’s Nazi Party against Jews in the 1930′s?  What is to be made of the attempt to “Christianize” American government, when such is directly contrary to our Constitution?  Are both not intellectually and factually dishonest, they ask?  Frankly, I don’t know how to answer the question.  Can I get some help?  Is the cell at work on the Texas School Board of Education similar to the communist cells that worked in this country at the height of the Cold War?

There is a movement afoot within and without the ranks of the National Rifle Association that claims that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees each individual the right to bear arms.  Does a plain reading of the Second Amendment inescapably lead to this conclusion?  The Second Amendment states:  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  At first blush, it would appear that the Founding Fathers had in mind a group activity that would protect a “free State.”  They would do this by ensuring that there were arms available to be used by the Militia. 

     A visit to Concord, Massachusetts or Williamsburg, Virginia helps to understand what the Founding Fathers had in mind when talking about a Militia.  In both of those towns, there was a store house where the guns and gun powder were kept.  In fact, the British marched on Concord to seize the weapons and powder stored in the store house located in the middle of town.  This is the incident that gave rise to Paul Revere’s famous ride.  The British also tried to capture the store house at Williamsburg.  These Arms were for the use of the Militia. 

     No one is going to take serious issue with the ability of the Founding Fathers to use the English language in order to express their intentions.  After all, they wrote these words:  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  Should we take at face value what they wrote in the Constitution that they drafted and handed down to us?  I think so.

     So, if the Founding Fathers had wanted to ensure that each individual had the right to own and brandish firearms, wouldn’t they have said so?  Being masters of the English language, wouldn’t they have said something like this instead of what they did say:  “The right of each and every individual to own and keep firearms for his individual use, enjoyment and protection, shall not be infringed.”

     But, they didn’t say that.  Clearly their focus was on group safety and the right of the group to keep arms in order to protect the State.  That’s what they say.  If there are those who want to modify the 2nd Amendment to say something else, then a Constitutional Amendment would be the proper route to follow.  But, prior to that, there is no express grant in the Constitution for an individual to own, possess or use firearms.

The H1N1 virus has been around since at least 1918.  It keeps cropping up from time to time, slightly altered because of evolutionary activity, but basically the same.  The present-day activities of The Tea Party movement brings the activities of The Know Nothing Party to mind.  Both were/are nativist and a large segment was/is racist and provincial in the extreme.  The following is from Wikipedia:

Texas is now entering a new Dark Age, where superstition and religion trump science and rational thought.  Is Thomas Jefferson an important American political thinker?  How much more of a stupid question can there be?  But, in Texas, he isn’t important.  Thomas Aquinas is a more important political thinker.  Duh?  Father help them because they are totally clueless.  This from a recent post by David Knowles of AOL News.

(March 12) — Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas Board of Education.

The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers.

According to Texas Freedom Network, a group that opposes many of the changes put in place by the Board of Education, the original curriculum asked students to “explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.”

AP

The Texas Board of Education is dropping President Thomas Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers.

That emphasis did not sit well with board member Cynthia Dunbar, who, during Friday’s meeting, explained the rationale for changing it. “The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Dunbar said.

The new standard, passed at the meeting in a 10-5 vote, now reads, “Explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.”

By dropping mention of revolution, and substituting figures such as Aquinas and Calvin for Jefferson, Texas Freedom Network argues, the board had chosen to embrace religious teachings over those of Jefferson, the man who coined the phrase “separation between church and state.”

According to USA Today, the board also voted to strike the word “democratic” from references to the U.S. form of government, replacing it with the term “constitutional republic.” Texas textbooks will contain references to “laws of nature and nature’s God” in passages that discuss major political ideas.

The board decided to use the words “free enterprise” when describing the U.S. economic system rather than words such as “capitalism,” “capitalist” and “free market,” which it deemed to have a negative connotation.

Serving 4.7 million students, Texas accounts for a large percentage of the textbook market, and the new standards may influence what is taught in the rest of the country.

And, by now you’ve no doubt seen Karl Rove’s pronouncement that he is proud that we waterboarded suspected terrorists.  It is this mentality that we now see in Liz Cheney.  It is the same mentality that allowed the Southern Christian slave master to torture and kill obstreperous slaves.  It is the same mentality that allowed the barber, the butcher and the baker to operate the ovens and gas chambers that killed so many in World War II Nazi concentration camps. 

Rove and Cheney just don’t get it.  One of the most remarkable aspects of the American justice system is the presumption of innocence and our 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination.  When we see people such as Rove and Cheney, a trained lawyer no less, advocating extreme measures being applied to suspects, they have missed the entire genius of the American system.  These rights are in place expressly to prevent the kinds of things that Rove and Cheney advocate.  Their educations have been a total and dismal waste in terms of understanding what our Founding Fathers envisioned and risked so much for in order to benefit posterity.

Tags: Cheney, Founding Fathers, innocence, Nazi, posterity, Rove, torture, waterboarding

My wife, daughter and I have just completed a trip to Charleston, South Carolina and nearby Boone Hall Plantation, a plantation that near the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 had as many as 250 slaves working the fields and making bricks.   In old Charleston, we visited the site where slaves were auctioned off to the highest bidder.  The site is now a museum.  One interesting fact that I learned there stands out – 95% of the slaves were owned by 3% of the white population.  To think of the hundreds of thousands of poor white Southern boys who either died or who suffered grievous wounds fighting a war in which they had absolutely no economic stake.  In fact, but for the slave system run by the elite, their lives arguably woud have been much, much better.

     Fast forward to the 21st century.  Nothing has changed.  George Bush and his chicken hawks devise a war that puts hundreds of billions of dollars into the hands of the war profiteers while the blood and flesh of average young men and women are wasted in the Iraqi desert.  Add to that the plundering and gang raping of the American economy by the Republican Wall Streeters and we have the cycle come full circle.  The top echelon continues to exploit and plunder the hapless and misinformed masses.

     I grew up in Texas, a 6th generation Texan.  My ancestors fought in the Texas War of Independence in 1836.  My uncle, William Depriest Sutherland, died fighting at the Alamo at the age of 18.  Later, I lost two relatives at Shiloh.  They died fighting for the Confederacy.  And, for what?  So that the elite 3% could continue to own slaves?  They died in vain.  And so have the men and women who have died in Iraq, to say nothing about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died at the hands of the chicken hawks – Bush and company.

     I think about all of the battles that have been fought over the past several millenia – from ancient Greece, Persia, Babylon, Rome, Egypt, China, Germany, Japan and many, many other wars, including our own Civil War.  All of those common soldiers died for what?  Nothing remains of what they fought for, but they sure as hell are dead.  As I approach 70 years of age, I grow less and less tolerant for those who would waste lives and livelihoods for the benefit of the few.  But, I fear that there is no end in sight.  Even now common Americans are persuaded to vote against their own best social and economic interests.

Tags: chicken hawks, exploitation, hypocrisy, race, Religion

How do we know what isn’t so? I want to recommend two books that address the problem of sorting through things in order to arrive at the truth of something. Thomas Kida has authored “Don’t Believe Everything You Think: the 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking.” Thomas Gilovich has authored “How we Know What Isn’t So: The Fallability of Human Reason in Everyday Life.” Both are available from Amazon.com for about $5 each.
The observations made in those two books apply to the conservative Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities as much as the rest of the world. We need leaders who will look at their own beliefs with the same critical eye that they turn on the “liberal media.” I’ve never found a book like these two in the conservative community. Mr. Gilovich, by the way, is not a Christian. Why can’t I find Christian leaders who will take a stand for self-criticism like Mr. Gilovich does in the secular world?

Tags: Are we kidding ourselves?

Published on Friday, January 1, 2010 by alternative news website CommonDreams.org
The Real Top 10 News Stories of the Past Decade
by Robert Freeman

The media are awash with talking heads bloviating about the top stories of the last decade. The wired-in society. The growth of organic food. The new frugality. This is the ritual that reveals their true function in the culture: pacification. It’s their way of signaling the masses that Bigger Thinkers are looking after things, so go back to your Wii or Survivor or Facebook reveries.

The amazing thing is how little is ever mentioned about the stories that really mattered, those that affected the very nature of our society, its institutions, and the relation of the people to their state and society. Those stories paint a picture of danger, of a people who have lost control of their government and the corporations that own it. But you’ll hear nary a word about such difficult truths from any storyteller in the conventional media.

So here, in no particular order, are my Top Ten Stories of the Naughties, the ones that really matter.

1. Iraq was all premised on lies, yet we’re still there. Saddam Hussein wasn’t pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction. He wasn’t involved in 9/11. He wasn’t engaged with Al Qaeda. We know all these things. And we know they were false at the time they were proffered. Yet, there we are, with no intent to leave, our very presence spitting in the face of International Law and the international community we so unctuously pretend to respect. [To read a newspaper editorial showing the blatant lies of top US leaders used to promote war in Iraq, click here]
2. The fact that 2/3 of all economic growth went to top 1%. John Kennedy’s social contract had a rising tide lifting all boats. But over the last decade 2/3 of all economic growth has gone to the top 1% of income earners. Meanwhile the middle class has suffered a $13 trillion writedown in wealth as a result of the housing collapse. The banking bailout and the health care “reform” debate showed as never before the extent to which corporations have captured government and use it to redirect national wealth to themselves and their owners. [For revealing media reports on startling income inequality, click here]
3. The Global War on Terror [GWOT]. Or more specifically, the ease with which the “GWOT” has replaced the Cold War as the justification for the ever-increasing militarization of society. What happened to the post-Cold War “Peace Dividend”? The U.S. continues to spend more on the military than all the rest of the world combined. It continues to maintain over 700 military bases around the world. And it continues to manufacture excuses for foreign interventions whenever weapons makers and military logistics companies need more profits — which is forever. [For a top U.S. general's highly revealing two-page essay exposing the roots of war, click here]
4. Bush knew of 9/11 long before it actually happened. Three years before Bush took office, the neo-cons’ Project For a New American Century called for a “new Pearl Harbor” to galvanize the nation into a war to seize Middle East oil. And even before the event itself, Bush-as-president was warned dozens of times of the imminent attack, the most notorious being the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Amazingly nothing was done to prevent the attack. But even less is it advertised that Bush knew. [For more powerful information on this, click here to read the two-page summary of major media reports with links raising serious questions about 9/11]
5. The surrender of civil liberties. Despite the Fourth Amendment supposedly protecting us against unreasonable searches and seizures, the government can now read your email and listen to your phone calls without any probable cause. The Obama administration has gone to court to prevent the re-institution of Habeas Corpus, suspended during the Bush administration. We are much less free, much less protected from brutalization by our own government than we were just ten years ago. [For key major media articles revealing major erosion of privacy, click here]
6. The Supreme Court hijacking the 2000 presidential election. This isn’t even a historical controversy anymore. Al Gore won the national popular vote by 570,000. And we now know he would have won the Florida vote as well if the vote counting had not been stopped by the Supreme Court. This was literally a right wing judicial coup d’ etat, so it’s understandable that it’s never mentioned in the “right” kind of circles. [For more critical information on this, read a BBC reporter's story available here]
7. The Neo-Feudalization of the American economy. The top 1% of wealth holders own 41% of all the assets in the country while the bottom 40% own absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, workers are saddled with $12 trillion of national debt, an effective indentured servitude that will bind them to their corporate masters for the rest of their lives. This is the working definition of feudalism, where the rich own everything and everybody else has nothing but their proffered labor and their obligations to their masters. The Hapsburgs, the Tudors, and the Bourbons would be jealous. [For intriguing major media articles on powerful secret societies intent on keeping the rich in power, click here]
8. The failure of “the free market” to sustain prosperity. The “free market” has long been an ideological dodge used to resist real government regulation of the economy. Still, the ideal was supposed to deliver prosperity in a stable, sustainable matter. Now we have the greatest global economic collapse since the Great Depression, with the government transferring $11 trillion to the banks to cover their sociopathically greedy bets that went bust. All in the name of deregulation, with future regulation vigorously resisted. Is this a deranged country or what? [For amazing media articles showing blatant greed, secrecy, and manipulation by top banks and bankers, click here]
9. The collapse of the media. We once imagined it would guard the hen house. Yet that was an anomaly, a freak event around Vietnam and Watergate when it slipped its leash. Since then, sixty independent media outlets have consolidated into five, all retailing the ideology of the powerful, the perpetrators, laundering their lies, covering up the truth, and harassing the truth tellers. In every story mentioned above, the mainstream media have worked to ensure that the people didn’t know the truth about the forfeiture of their government, their wealth, their security, and their rights. [For concise summaries of 20 award-winning journalists revealing how vitally important news stories are shut down by corporate media ownership, click here]
10. The meaninglessness of elections. This is the most embittering revelation of all. Despite the greatest electoral majority since Johnson crushed Goldwater in ’64, Barrack Obama has betrayed everything he ran on. In nearly every case where he had the opportunity to confront power — in financial bailouts, financial regulation, health care, wars and military spending, utilities and global warming, national surveillance — Obama has sided with the rich and powerful against the interests of the American people. He has probably engendered more cynicism, more disaffection with government than any president since Richard Nixon. It will deal a staggering blow to the hopes of mobilizing masses of people again for a real takeback of government. And he’s not even one year into it. [To understand why this has happened and what you can do to make a difference, click here]
    History paints decades with broad brushes – the Roaring Twenties, The Depression, World War II. Historians will look back on the Naughts as the time when Americans Lost Their Country. It was the decade when all the institutions that they believed would protect them – the media, the courts, Congress, the market, a messianic new president – in fact betrayed them. It will forever more be a different country.

Robert Freeman writes on history, economics, and education. Email to: robertfreeman10@yahoo.com.