Commentary Articles

America The Narcissist

(category: Commentary, Word count: 475)
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The majority of worldwide respondents to the last two global Pew enter surveys (in 2002 and 2006) regarded the United States as the greatest menace to world peace - far greater than the likes of Iraq or China. Thinkers and scholars as diverse as Christopher Lasch in "The Cultural Narcissist" and Theodore Millon in "Personality Disorders of Everyday Life" have singled out the United States as the quintessential narcissistic society.

This pathology can be traced back and attributed to a confluence of historical events and processes, the equivalents of trauma and abuse in an individual's early childhood.

The United States of America started out as a series of loosely connected, remote, savage, and negligible colonial outposts. The denizens of these settlements were former victims of religious persecution, indentured servants, lapsed nobility, and other refugees. Their Declaration of Independence reads like a maudlin list of grievances coupled with desperate protestations of love and loyalty to their abuser, the King of Britain.

The inhabitants of the colonies defended against their perceived helplessness and very real inferiority with compensatory, imagined, and feigned superiority and fantasies of omnipotence. Hence the rough, immutable kernel of American narcissism.

The United States was (until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s) and still is, in some important respects, a pre-Enlightenment, white supremacist society. It is rife with superstition, prejudice, conspicuous religiosity, intolerance, philistinism, and lack of social solidarity. Its religiosity is overt, aggressive, virulent and ubiquitous. It is replete with an eschatology, which involves a changing cast of demonized "enemies", both political and cultural.

Americans' religion is a manifestation of their "Chosen People Syndrome". They are missionary, messianic, zealous, fanatical, and nauseatingly self-righteous, bigoted, and hypocritical. This is especially discernible in the double-speak and double-standard that underlies American foreign policy.

American altruism is misanthropic and compulsive. They often give merely in order to control, manipulate, and sadistically humiliate the recipients.

Narcissism is frequently comorbid with paranoia. Americans cultivate and nurture a siege mentality which leads to violent acting out and unbridled jingoism. Their persecutory delusions sit well with their adherence to social Darwinism (natural selection of the fittest, let the weaker fall by the wayside, might is right, etc.).

Consequently, the United states always finds itself in company with the least palatable regimes in the world: together with Nazi Germany it had a working eugenics program, together with the likes of Saudi Arabia it executes its prisoners, it was the last developed nation to abolish slavery, alone with South Africa it had instituted official apartheid in a vast swathe of its territory.

Add to this volatile mix an ethos of malignant individualism, racism both latent and overt, a trampling, "no holds barred" ambitiousness, competitiveness, frontier violence-based morality, and proud simple-mindedness - and an ominous portrait of the United States as a deeply disturbed polity emerges.

Islamic Intolerance

(category: Commentary, Word count: 659)
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Islamic apologists keep telling us that the religion of Islam is a kind, tolerante and peaceful religion. Every time a woman is stoned or someone is beheaded or a homicide bomber blows up a bus or restaurant filled with innocent people, we are told that it is the work of Islamic fanatics and that true followers of Islam do not agree with these things.

Now we find out that in Afganistan, a country that is 99% Muslim, a man is being tried under Sharia (Islamic law) for apostasy, and if convicted, will face the death penalty.

What did this man do that was so horrible, so against the Islamic faith? He converted to Christianity, that's the terrible thing that he did. This is apparently one of the worst things a Muslim can do. He chose to give up the Islamic faith and therefore is so evil that he deserves to be put to death. He can be spared, however, if he agrees to become a Muslim again.

The Hadith (which is said to be the body of quotes attributed to Muhammad), Sahih Bukhari Vol. 9, book 84, number 57, has been interpreted as saying "Kill whoever changes his religion", so the Sharia court judge is proposing to do just that.

The Torah in Deuteronomy 13:6-10 has been interpreted as saying about apostastics "But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage." yet I don't believe that any Israeli judge would ever even consider attempting to hand down any type of criminal sentence for apostasy.

If the Islamic religion is so kind, tolerant and peaceful, why are it's laws interpreted in such a barbaric and intolerant way by so many followers. I realize that not all Muslim countries follow Sharia law and that of those that do, not all are so fanatical. However, many Muslim countries do still practice amputation of one/both hand(s) for theft, stoning for adultery, and execution for apostasy. Other countries, including Iraq, that did not, in the past, follow Sharia law are now talking about setting up Sharia courts.

I also realize that not all Muslims interpret Islamic law the same way. Islamic law like any other body of laws is subject to interpretation and therefore can be interpreted liberally, moderately or fundamentally. The problem is that while some Muslims interpret Islamic law liberally or moderately, it seems that a large majority of the Muslims in the Arabic world interpret the law fundamentally (at least as it pertains to women and non believers).

Afganistan's constitution guarentees freedom of religion, however, in an interview, Afganistan's Foreign Minister stated that the government had "nothing to do" with the court case. He further stated that he hoped there would be a "satisfactory result" to the case. To me, this seems that he was saying that the Sharia court is not bound by Afgani law and can do as it pleases, thereby making the Afgani constitution worthless. It further leads to the belief that Afganistan is a democracy on paper only and is actually ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. These fundamentalists may not be as bad as the Taliban but, so far, they do not seem to be much better.

There are many religious groups that believe that apostasy is wrong and that their religion is the only true religion. However, I know of no country, in this day and age, other than certain Muslim countries, that would sentence a person to death for changing his or her religious beliefs. Such things did happen in the past, look at the Spanish inquisition, but are now considered repugnant.

The New Politics

(category: Commentary, Word count: 262)
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Politics, in all its forms, is bankrupt. The notion that we can safely and successfully hand over the management of our daily lives and the setting of priorities to a political class or elite is thoroughly discredited. Politicians cannot be trusted, regardless of the system in which they operate. No set of constraints, checks, and balances, is proved to work and mitigate their unconscionable acts and the pernicious effects these have on our welfare and longevity.

Ideologies - from the benign to the malign and from the divine to the pedestrian - have driven the gullible human race to the verge of annihilation and back. Participatory democracies have degenerated everywhere into venal plutocracies. Socialism and its poisoned fruits - Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism - have wrought misery on a scale unprecedented even by medieval standards. Only Fascism and Nazism compare with them unfavorably. The idea of the nation-state culminated in the Yugoslav succession wars.

People are voting with their feet. Most elections draw to the ballot boxes and the polling stations less than half the electorate.

Three models seem to be emerging as the dominant forms of future politics:

I. Anarchism, both destructive (international terrorism, for example) and constructive (the Internet, for instance).

II. Participatory democracy, both destructive (mob rule and coups) and constructive (people power, especially in Asia and Latin America).

III. In certain countries, mainly in the West, a disenchanted and uninterested citizenry will relegate power and vest it in various oligrachies, forfeiting its decision-making prerogatives altogether and permanently in return for material welfare and personal safety.

Contenders For Iraq And The Potential For Civil War

(category: Commentary, Word count: 571)
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Iraq stands at the junction of three different and competing cultures for the control of the country. Kurds, Shia and Sunni Arabs all want to control their own affairs and that of the Iraqi state. Since each of them have their own distinct identity and their own supporters the potential for conflict is great.

The first group entails the Kurdish people who have developed an independent living arrangement for their 25 million people spread among Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Despite not having their own state they do have their own government, schools and military. They are in effect a state without borders and without international legitimacy. Their race for statehood started in 1920 during World War I when President Woodrow Wilson promised them independence in return for support. The Treaty of Sevres was to have accomplished this. However, when the Ottoman Empire was reformed into Turkey the Kurdish people lost their legitimacy.

Sunni Arabs make up the second group of contenders for Iraq. Even though they are slightly outnumbered by the Shia in Iraq they are major contenders for the country because 95% of the 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide are Sunni. They are the orthodox Muslims with a level of legitimacy unseen by the other groups. In recent times there has been a surge of calls for the reforming of an Islamic state and leader (Caliph). Therefore the Sunni insurgents are supported by other Muslims with weapons, money and recruits. Throughout Chechnya (Caucasian), Afghanistan (Indian), and Iraq (Arab) you are beginning to find coordination of tactics and recruits. It is becoming common to see Muslims from different nationalities fighting along side of each other because they have the same vision for Islamic independence.

The final group is the Shia which represents approximately 3% of all Muslims worldwide. The Shia became famed with the Iranian revolution which is one of the first Shia Muslim states. Iran is actively supporting the Shia in Iraq and trying to export their revolutionary ideas throughout the region. As we can tell from the past rhetoric between the U.S. and Iran that they are not supports of American democracy and make every attempt to thwart it. Due to sanctions and rigorous development Iran has developed their own military industry that is sophisticated. If these weapons show up in Iraq there is likely to be great bloodshed.

Iraq is a country on the verge of civil war. The three contending groups each have their own particular strength. The Kurds have a pre-established governmental institutions and military, the Sunnis have the support of the wider Muslim people and the Shia has the staunchly anti-American Iran. If the U.S. looses control of Iraq or withdraws from it in the near future it is unlikely that the country will be able to withstand a civil war where each group has a highly concentrated region. The end of civil war could potentially mean three distinct countries all competing for Iraq's oil reserves. It is also likely that such a war will not be easily quenched and may produce one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Once started it is wholly possible that Sunni countries will begin to get involved against their Iranian rivals. All of them will be against any Western influence and are unlikely to heed any calls of quiet until they have exhausted their resources.

The Tax Policy Charade

(category: Commentary, Word count: 721)
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Tax policy discussions are meant to do what? Arrive at a rational policy, or garner votes. I think it is the latter. What is lost in all the debate over tax increases versus tax cuts, is science. Contrary to what most people may think, there is some scientific study of taxation.

Applying The Laffer Curve To Tax Policy

Invented by Arthur Laffer, the Laffer curve shows the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue collected. It demonstrates a simple principle that very few people understand, but one that is crucial to proper governance. It is the idea that as you raise taxes, you reach some point where actual revenues collected begin to drop.

This is perfectly logical, and you can understand it at the extremes. If the government took 95% of your income in taxes after the first $10,000, would you work much after that? Do they get any more taxes if you don't work more? No. More money will actually be collected if they take a lower percentage, right?

Now add to this the fact that every dollar the government takes can't be invested into new businesses or the expansion of existing businesses. New business investment means new income, and therefore more taxes. This isn't hypothetical - you can't invest what has been taken away from you. A friend of mine put off hiring employees and expanding his business for a long time because of a state business tax that would dramatically increase his taxes if he hired help.

That was a truly perverse tax policy, but any raising of taxes has to at some point cause a lowering of profits to the point where less is actually collected in taxes. There obviously has to be a point of diminishing returns. Where is it?

The science isn't that exact yet, but the principle is clear. The top of the curve seems to be somewhere around 15% to 25% as a total tax burden (federal, state and local). What this means is that if tax rates go higher than that 15% to 25%, the curve goes down; the government actually collects less money.

This isn't a republican or democratic issue. When Kennedy lowered tax rates and when Reagan did so (from a high of 70%!), tax revenues soared. The fact that under Reagan the government spent even faster than the rising revenues is another issue, but the lesson was clear: the Laffer Curve is an accurate description of tax rates and tax revenue.

In other words even if a political party or a society wants all sorts of social welfare programs, they have to realize that there is an ideal rate of taxation to get the most money to pay for these programs. Tax more heavily, and you get less, not more. This is the reality, whether people like it or not.

The Politics Of Tax Policy

Quite often, people don't like this reality, and politics trumps science. For example, wealthy people are often taxed at rates that have them spending more time looking for loopholes than ways to make more taxable income. This lowers production, and so lowers the potential taxes collected. If your friends don't get it when you explain this, point out that 20% of a million is more than 50% of three hundred thousand, so production matters - not just higher tax rates.

What happens if we recognize this? Will a politician explain that the government can collect more taxes from the wealthy if the rates are lowered? When they try, they lose votes. Long term there is real hope, because the principle is actually easy to understand. Short term it is politically difficult to say you want to lower taxes on the wealthy to a scientifically determined rate of greatest efficiency.

Many people want to believe that the rich can be taxed enough to pay for anything we want. The reality is that if most of the income of the wealthy was taken it would fund government for only a few weeks. There are more middle class than wealthy people, and more total income there, so that is where most taxes have to come from. Voter's don't know this or don't like this, and politicians tell them what they want to hear. Hence the tax policy charade.

Bush S Holy Cronies Have Feet Of Clay

(category: Commentary, Word count: 2105)
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DETROIT - Deception, arrogance, greed, hubris, corruption, incompetence and isolation - the seven deadly sins of political life - snared President George W. Bush and his cronies long ago. That's how they gained and maintain power.

While praying and thumbing their Bibles, loudly proclaiming their virtue and righteousness, the faith-based Busheviks claim to be the chosen and anointed, carrying out God's work on earth. In fact and in deed, they behave like the devil's disciples.

Now, with inspired irony, the sins they've served so well are their undoing. George W. Bush and his servants are being singed with the fires of political damnation, and they know an inferno is coming. Alone and naked in their sinfulness, they shiver in fear in the face of truth and justice. The evil empire is crumbling. Praise the Lord!

Bush's speechwriters use apocalyptic incantations all the time. Words like "evil" and "hate" roll off his smirking lips with relish. Forgive me, the style is contagious.

Bush's war in Iraq, his supreme deception, is a certain failure and the only uncertainty is how much more blood will be shed before the inevitable withdrawal. Now, polls show, only one-third of the American people support the war and most recognize the great lie Bush sold when he conflated Saddam Hussein's Iraq with al-Qaeda terrorism and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bush's plan to march into the heart of Islam with our British allies and then expect democracy to blossom in the Middle East has proven to be one of the most monstrously bad ideas in our nation's history. That aggression has made us despised around the world.

An advisory panel to the State Department has concluded, "America's image and reputation abroad could hardly be worse." Bush's old friend and former flack, Karen Hughes, just returned from a mission to improve the U.S. image in the Muslim world and show them what swell folks we really are.

Hughes, who is now undersecretary of state and responsible for public diplomacy, made her first venture into the Middle East, with disastrous results.

Hughes, with no foreign policy experience, made a feeble attempt to cozy up to our critics. She told women activists in Istanbul how wrenching it was for Bush to decide to invade Iraq.

Hughes told the gathering that "no one likes war," but "to preserve peace sometimes my country believes war is necessary." Unlike the handpicked town meetings the White House typically arranges, the Turkish women didn't smile and cheer on cue.

Feray Salman, a human rights advocate, stood up and told Hughes, "War is not necessary for peace." Salman scoffed at the notion of imposing democracy through war: "We can never, ever export democracy and freedom from one country to another."

This week, Bush plans yet another speech to explain how well his arrogant vision for Iraq is working and how much safer our nation is.

Hughes began her diplomatic road show in Cairo, where she tried to sell Bush's pipe dreams for the Middle East. Her amateurism showed as she told the Egyptians, "Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith plays in Americans' lives." That must have been reassuring for the Muslim audience.

Hughes said, "Terrorists, their policies force young people, other people's daughters and sons, to strap on bombs and blow themselves up."

Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist who's done extensive research on the motives of suicide terrorists, says Hughes is way off the mark and that her trip actually comforts terrorists. Pape told the Guardian's Sidney Blumenthal, "If you set out to help bin Laden, you could not have done it better than Hughes."

Pape rejects the view that suicide terrorism naturally flows from Islamic fundamentalism. He argues that outside intervention and specific circumstances set the stage. Pape told Blumenthal, "Of the key conditions that lead to suicide terrorism in particular, there must be, first, the presence of foreign combat forces on the territory that the terrorists prize. The second condition is a religious difference between the combat forces and local community. The religious difference matters in that it enables terrorist leaders to paint foreign forces as being driven by religious goals. If you read Osama's speeches, they begin with descriptions of the U.S. occupation of the Arabian Peninsula, driven by our religious goals, and that it is our religious purpose that must be confronted. That argument is incredibly powerful, not only to religious Muslims, but secular Muslims. Everything Hughes says makes their case."

Not to be outdone by the State Department, Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department continues to aid and abet terrorists and provide them with young recruits. More evidence of prisoner torture in Iraq is emerging, showing the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not isolated.

Army Capt. Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne Division and two sergeants have come forward to report that members of their unit routinely beat, abused and tortured Iraqi detainees. Fishback, a West Point graduate, says he tried for more than a year to get his superiors to listen, but only got their attention when he brought his complaints to Human Rights Watch and members of Congress.

More photos of the abuses at Abu Ghraib may soon be made public after a federal judge ruled the Pentagon could no longer censor them. Gen. Richard Myers, the freshly departed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had argued in court papers that releasing the photographs would aid al-Qaeda recruitment, weaken the shaky governments in Afghanistan and Iraq and incite riots against American troops. The judge correctly ruled the photos are the best evidence of what happened at the notorious prison.

Myers was a shameless toady who would parrot any lines the Busheviks fed him. He did great and lasting harm to the U.S. military. He will be remembered as the most thoroughly compromised and politicized commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He should expect a big medal from Bush and a job with some military contractor.

Vice President Dick Cheney is worried about more than his health problems these days. His chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has now been named as the source New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to prison to protect. Miller got out of the slammer last Thursday after doing a 12-week stretch.

"I was a journalist doing my job protecting my source until my source freed me to perform my civic duty to testify," Miller said after testifying before a federal grand jury.

Put aside for a moment the arguments about the need for a federal shield law to protect reporters from being compelled to reveal their sources. That's a First Amendment issue that merits another column. But let's focus for now on why Cheney and his henchmen sought out Judy Miller to share their information about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. The Busheviks outed Plame to retaliate against her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. He blew the lid off the Bush administration's infamous deception that Iraq was shopping for enriched uranium in Niger, Africa. Cheney loved that big lie and repeated it often. Bush used it in a State of the Union address.

Wilson found the truth and had the guts to tell the world. Retaliation came in an act of treason.

Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, masters in treachery - another cardinal political sin - leaked to reporters Plame's CIA connection and the suggestion that she engineered her husband's assignment to check out the Niger story. Rove and Libby may soon be indicted. Condi Rice is also up to her designer boot tops in the scandal.

Libby and Rove believed Judy Miller, a faithful lapdog, would help their cause. They threw her the Plame-CIA bone, expecting she'd use it. Since Miller had been so reliable in peddling a bundle of Bush administration lies to make the case for war with Iraq, they expected her continued loyalty.

Miller's pre-invasion reporting - largely based on leaks from Cheney's office and the word of Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi expatriate and notorious liar - described Iraq as having huge arsenals of deadly weapons.

Miller's "exclusives" were spattered all over the front pages of the Times. The inflammatory reports led the march to war. They were also horribly wrong. The paper has since apologized for some of that coverage. Miller never has.

Others in the mainstream corporate media picked up on Miller's dead-wrong stories. NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, would pounce on Miller's crap and, night after night, repeat the lies Cheney's boys had crafted. From Chalabi to Cheney to Libby to Miller to Mitchell and on to a huge television audience, the great deceptions echoed.

In a recent interview on "Real Time with Bill Maher," Mitchell admitted reporters did little to question Bush's rush to war. "And since 9/11 and after 9/11, there was a sort of rallying around - an understandable sort of patriotic effect - and I think reporters were less challenging," Mitchell said. No kidding.

When Bush's people couldn't co-opt reporters, they did it the old-fashioned way - they bribed them. Federal auditors say the administration broke the law when it paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and others to churn out favorable news coverage about Bush's education policies and the No Child Left Behind Act.

I'm sure House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who's on a leadership sabbatical following his indictment on charges of conspiring to violate Texas election laws, would see no problem in using public funds for political propaganda. DeLay looks up at the gutter. For years, he has literally sold his radical Republicans in the House to the highest corporate bidders.

Over in the Senate, Majority Leader Dr. Bill "Dirty Hands" Frist keeps lying about his blind trust that managed to have 20/20 vision when it came to unloading his stock that was about to tank.

Frist is a fraud, a Martha Stewart in drag, a greedy manipulator who should have had his medical license yanked for the public health policies he's fostered that leave 45 million Americans without health insurance. He uses his public position to protect private hospitals - shocking as that is - and the usual suspect drug and insurance companies.

In these trying, sin-laced times, Bush and his crowd usually would turn to the holy trinity of radical Republican (RR) virtue for grace and salvation - Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Bill Bennett. But alas, the liberals have done them wrong and caused great consternation.

Rush is frantically fighting prosecutors seeking his medical records and the sources of his illegal drugs.

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, whose phone sex aggression caused great harm to a female subordinate and cost Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.'s shareholders millions of dollars, is dueling with another demon. Media Matters for America, a Web site that reviews media accuracy, has found Mr. O'Reilly spins lies, deceptions and distortions at the pace of a 9-year-old in Bangladesh making shirts for Wal-Mart. O'Reilly is a serial liar, plain and simple. Those who listen to him expecting the truth don't get it.

Bill Bennett - the RR's chief custodian of virtue, Ronald Reagan's secretary of education and Bush the Elder's drug czar - is on a new high after revelations about his gambling addiction. Bennett admits he had a long-term affair with the one-armed bandits in Vegas, dropping millions in coins, pumping and stroking the machines for fleeting gratification. It's my money, he said, money made preaching virtue.

But now Bennett, our vicar of virtue, has a new theory, which he preached on his radio show. He sees abortion as reprehensible, but says it might have some societal benefits.

"I do know that it's true if you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in the country, and your crime rate would go down," Bennett said.

When the heat followed, the flip-lipped Bennett whined he was quoted out of context and what he said was only a "thought experiment."

My thought experiment is that Bennett, George W. Bush and their ilk reflect on their own sins and leave public virtue to others.

--------------------------–

Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Oct. 4 2005

Knowledge And Power

(category: Commentary, Word count: 1838)
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"Knowledge is Power" goes the old German adage. But power, as any schoolboy knows, always has negative and positive sides to it. Information exhibits the same duality: properly provided, it is a positive power of unequalled strength. Improperly disseminated and presented, it is nothing short of destructive. The management of the structure, content, provision and dissemination of information is, therefore, of paramount importance to a nation, especially if it is in its infancy (as an independent state).

Information has four dimensions and five axes of dissemination, some vertical and some horizontal.

The four dimensions are:

Structure - information can come in various physical forms and poured into different kinds of vessels and carriers. It can be continuous or segmented, cyclical (periodic) or punctuated, repetitive or new, etc. The structure often determines what of the information (if at all) will be remembered and how. It encompasses not only the mode of presentation, but also the modules and the rules of interaction between them (the hermeneutic principles, the rules of structural interpretation, which is the result of spatial, syntactic and grammatical conjunction).

Content - This incorporates both ontological and epistemological elements. In other words: both "hard" data, which should, in principle, be verifiable through the employment of objective, scientific, methods - and "soft" data, the interpretation offered with the hard data. The soft data is a derivative of a "message", in the broader sense of the term. A message comprises both world-view (theory) and an action and direction-inducing element.

Provision - The intentional input of structured content into information channels. The timing of this action, the quantities of data fed into the channels, their qualities - all are part of the equation of provision.

Dissemination - More commonly known as media or information channels. The channels which bridge between the information providers and the information consumers. Some channels are merely technical and then the relevant things to discuss would be technical: bandwidth, noise to signal ratios and the like. Other channels are metaphorical and then the relevant determinants would be their effectiveness in conveying content to targeted consumers.

In the economic realm, there are five important axes of dissemination:

From Government to the Market - the Market here being the "Hidden Hand", the mechanism which allocates resources in adherence to market signals (for instance, in accordance with prices). The Government intervenes to correct market failures, or to influence the allocation of resources in favour or against the interests of a defined group of people. The more transparent and accountable the actions of the Government, the less distortion in the allocation of resources and the less resulting inefficiency. The Government should declare its intentions and actions in advance whenever possible, then it should act through public, open tenders, report often to regulatory and legislative bodies and to the public and so on. The more information provided by this major economic player (the most dominant in most countries) - the more smoothly and efficaciously the Market will operate. The converse, unfortunately, is also true. The less open the government, the more latent its intents, the more shadowy its operations - the more cumbersome the bureaucracy, the less functioning the market.

From Government to the Firms - The same principles that apply to the desirable interaction between Government and Market, apply here. The Government should disseminate information to firms in its territory (and out of it) accurately, equitably and speedily. Any delay or distortion in the information, or preference of one recipient over another - will thwart the efficient allocation of economic resources.

From Government to the World - The "World" here being multilateral institutions, foreign governments, foreign investors, foreign competitors and the economic players in general providing that they are outside the territory of the information disseminating Government. Again, any delay, or abstention in the dissemination of information as well as its distortion (disinformation and misinformation) will result in economic outcomes worse that could have been achieved by a free, prompt, precise and equitable (=equally available) dissemination of said information. This is true even where commercial secrets are involved! It has been proven time and again that when commercial information is kept secret - the firm (or Government) that keeps it hidden is HARMED. The most famous examples are Apple (which kept its operating system a well-guarded secret) and IBM (which did not), Microsoft (which kept its operating system open to developers of software) and other software companies (which did not). Recently, Netscape has decided to provide its source code (the most important commercial secret of any software company) free of charge to application developers. Synergy based on openness seemed to have won over old habits. A free, unhampered, unbiased flow of information is a major point of attraction to foreign investors and a brawny point with the likes of the IMF and the World Bank. The former, for instance, lends money more easily to countries, which maintain a reasonably reliable outflow of national statistics.

From Firms to the World - The virtues of corporate transparency and of the application of the properly revealing International Accounting Standards (IAS, GAAP, or others) need no evidencing. Today, it is virtually impossible to raise money, to export, to import, to form joint ventures, to obtain credits, or to otherwise collaborate internationally without the existence of full, unmitigated disclosure. The modern firm (if it wishes to interact globally) must open itself up completely and provide timely, full and accurate information to all. This is a legal must for public and listed firms the world over (though standards vary). Transparent accounting practices, clear ownership structure, available track record and historical performance records - are sine qua non in today's financing world.

From Firms to Firms - This is really a subset of the previous axis of dissemination. Its distinction is that while the former is concerned with multilateral, international interactions - this axis is more inwardly oriented and deals with the goings-on between firms in the same territory. Here, the desirability of full disclosure is even stronger. A firm that fails to provide information about itself to firms on its turf, will likely fall prey to vicious rumours and informative manipulations by its competitors.

Positive information is characterized by four qualities:

Transparency - Knowing the sources of the information, the methods by which it was obtained, the confirmation that none of it was unnecessarily suppressed (some would argue that there is no "necessary suppression") - constitutes the main edifice of transparency. The datum or information can be true, but if it is not perceived to be transparent - it will not be considered reliable. Think about an anonymous (=non-transparent) letter versus a signed letter - the latter will be more readily relied upon (subject to the reliability of the author, of course).

Reliability - is the direct result of transparency. Acquaintance with the source of information (including its history) and with the methods of its provision and dissemination will determine the level of reliability that we will attach to it. How balanced is it? Is the source prejudiced or in any way an interested, biased, party? Was the information "force-fed" by the Government, was the media coerced to publish it by a major advertiser, was the journalist arrested after the publication? The circumstances surrounding the datum are as important as its content. The context of a piece of information is of no less consequence that the information contained in it. Above all, to be judged reliable, the information must "reflect" reality. I mean reflection not in the basic sense: a one to one mapping of the reflected. I intend it more as a resonance, a vibration in tune with the piece of the real world that it relates to. People say: "This sounds true" and the word "sounds" should be emphasized.

Comprehensiveness - Information will not be considered transparent, nor will it be judged reliable if it is partial. It must incorporate all the aspects of the world to which it relates, or else state explicitly what has been omitted and why (which is tantamount to including it, in the first place). A bit of information is embedded in a context and constantly interacts with it. Additionally, its various modules and content elements consistently and constantly interact with each other. A missing part implies ignorance of interactions and epiphenomena, which might crucially alter the interpretation of the information. Partiality renders information valueless. Needless to say, that I am talking about RELEVANT parts of the information. There are many other segments of it, which are omitted because their influence is negligible (the idealization process), or because it is so great that they are common knowledge.

Organization - This, arguably, is the most important aspect of information. It is what makes information comprehensible. It includes the spatial and temporal (historic) context of the information, its interactions with its context, its inner interactions, as we described earlier, its structure, the rules of decision (grammar and syntax) and the rules of interpretation (semantics, etc.) to be applied. A worldview is provided, a theory into which the information fits. Embedded in this theory, it allows for predictions to be made in order to falsify the theory (or to prove it). Information cannot be understood in the absence of such a worldview. Such a worldview can be scientific, or religious - but it can also be ideological (Capitalism, Socialism), or related to an image which an entity wishes to project. An image is a theory about a person or a group of people. It is both supported by information - and supports it. It is a shorthand version of all the pertinent data, a stereotype in reverse.

There is no difference in the application of these rules to information and to interpretation (which is really information that relates to other information instead of relating to the World). Both categories can be formal and informal. Formal information is information that designates itself as such (carries a sign: "I am information"). It includes official publications by various bodies (accountants, corporations, The Bureau of Statistics, news bulletins, all the media, the Internet, various databases, whether in digitized format or in hard copy).

Informal information is information, which is not permanently captured or is captured without the intention of generating formal information (=without the pretence: "I am information"). Any verbal communication belongs here (rumours, gossip, general knowledge, background dormant data, etc.).

The modern world is glutted by information, formal and informal, partial and comprehensive, out of context and with interpretation. There are no conceptual, mental, or philosophically rigorous distinctions today between information and what it denotes or stands for. Actors are often mistaken for their roles, wars are fought on television, fictitious TV celebrities become real. That which has no information presence might as well have no real life existence. An entity - person, group of people, a nation - which does not engage in structuring content, providing and disseminating it - actively engages, therefore, in its own, slow, disappearance.

Martial Law Stops At The Nh Border An Sof Soldier Visits The Free State Project

(category: Commentary, Word count: 1917)
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It was the major question on my mind. I was looking forward to putting the notion on the table. I wanted to canvass a representative cross section of folks who are members and organizers of the Free State Project (http://www.freestateproject.org) and live in the state of New Hampshire. I got the chance to see New Hampshire and mingle with the local FSPers on Friday, August 5th at a barbeque thrown by Margot Keyes, the FSP Welcome Wagon Coordinator. It was wonderful to find myself in the middle of a crowd that valued individual Freedom as much as I do.

These are the kind of people who walk their talk. They've pull up their stakes, packed up their families and moved across the country to live in a tiny little burg on the East Coast simply because they hunger to be...FREE! Think about that for a minute - people in America are picking up and moving somewhere else because they want to be FREE!

I know that feeling well.

I'm one of those people that feel the chains of oppression quickly tightening around the throat of Lady Liberty. And I will be moving to New Hampshire in the spring of 2006. I'm in the middle of shifting my livelihood from a military/government based career to a private practice in transpersonal hypnosis.

I've been eager to see New Hampshire for a long time now. And in view of everything going on with the acceleration of draconian police powers in this country since 9-11, I've been eager to corner the locals here and pop the question. This is what I've wanted to know: if "terrorist" nukes go off in this country, the next 9-11, and the White House makes good on its new love affair with coast-to-coast martial law - how will New Hampshire react?

Will the New Hampshire state legislature play ball? Will they march lock-step with all the other state governments down the primrose path to the New World Order? Or will they keep their cools? Will they refuse to recognize the Feds authority to place New Hampshire under martial law?

Which way will this tiny, rascally New England state sway?

Everybody I presented this scenario to didn't hesitate to offer their opinion on what the outcome of such an event would be.

New Hampshire will tell the Federal Government to go pound sand.

And that was music to my ears.

The words "freedom" and "America" have become an oxymoron when combined together for no longer are the one synonymous with the other. Freedom is a buzzword politicians use to describe a cascading consolidation into collectivist tyranny that more resembles Orwellian doublespeak than accurate communication.

I have spent the last 18 months living in Arlington, Virginia and working in the Pentagon at the Army Operations Center in support of ONE/OIF/OEF. I've spent my off time venturing into the District of Corruption to observe the national monuments, take in the Smithsonian and quietly...keep an eye on the emerging Total Surveillance Society.

Honestly, I couldn't spit in any direction anywhere in this town and not hit some cop in a Darth Vader uniform toting an MP-5 or a surveillance camera or both. I was sitting on the waterfront in Georgetown with friends I work with from Crisis Action Team 4, it was early on a Friday evening in June and the sky was literally swarming overhead with police helicopters - not Bell Jet Rangers, no. These cops are flying military Blackhawk helicopters with "POLICE" in yellow lettering on the tail boom. The establishment we were at was a very popular gathering spot for the Beautiful People in D.C. There were several private yachts tied up to the pier, the money and booze was flowing, the women looked like extremely high-priced call girls or Hollywood actresses - there really isn't a difference anymore. They were all laughing and laying that plastic phony friendship act on each other and they were all completely oblivious to the obvious.

There are surveillance cameras everywhere watching them.

Military hardware was orbiting overhead manned by cops with gunners standing in the open doors. On the river, extremely high powered speedboats with POLICE painted prominently on both sides of the hull race up and down the waterway with cops and machine guns eying everyone and everything like a target, like raw meat.

And these people on the waterfront, in their trendy clothes and fake tans, were partying.

The Police State is no longer an event that might transpire in the near future. It is here now. The Rubicon has been crossed. America is no longer a free country. America is occupied.

By cops and spies and corporate criminals getting rich off the sellout.

And yet, in the midst of this birthing of the United Police States of America, surrounded on all sides by bastions of Leftist Commie Liberalism sits the tiny red-headed stepchild of the East Coast: New Hampshire.

I have been observing New Hampshire from afar ever since I joined up with the Free State Project as a member right after New Hampshire was chosen as the libertarian migration state of choice out of a ballot numbering 10 states. I was in Colorado at the time and Wyoming was the number two runner up in the vote. The libertarian writer and publisher known as Boston Tea Party (Kenneth Royce) was originally a strong endorser of the Free State Project before the membership put the state to migrate to to a vote. New Hampshire won out by 266 votes over second place holder Wyoming - Kenneth Royce's ideal spot for libertarian migration.

In the wake of New Hampshire's win, Royce became a venomous critic of the Free State Project, its leadership, and called into question its voting methods for determining a winner - insinuating that New Hampshire was always the target state of choice and that voting tallies were somehow rigged to guarantee a New Hampshire win.

I have read Royce's lengthy essay on why Wyoming is the better choice than New Hampshire for the Free State Project and was almost persuaded to see it his way. But then I realized that within the same time frame Royce was pushing his new "novel" about a Free State style revolution that used Wyoming as its base - New Hampshire had beat out Wyoming fair and square in a vote among libertarians.

I monitor Royce's Free State Wyoming page from time to time and nothing ever seems to change or update there. The home page now sports a new announcement for the month of August, 2005. Prior to that, the last update was some time in early 2004. There is no real news about the project on this page. No head counts. No organization per se - beyond that of the great founder of the movement itself, Boston T. Party and, of course, his ever faithful web mistress, Lady Liberty. The most pressing order of business at the FSW right now is admonishing visitors to buy a Free State Wyoming silver coin! There are only 40 left! And, of course, Molan Labe! - the novel that started it all is now being considered with 12 other libertarian sci-fi novels for the Prometheus Award. This page is all about Boston T. Party. There is no movement beyond the fictional one in his novel. There is no forward momentum. Nothing is moving forward. Wyoming is a dead duck on a motionless pond. With a hell wind blowing through its entire southern region.

Royce exemplifies to a tee what is wrong with libertarian politics on the whole and why libertarians can't seem to elect the local dog catcher to office let alone a governor or president.

Libertarians are like herding cats. And as long as they insist upon being so darned independent that nothing can get done, the collectivists will continually out flank them.

The libertarians need to learn how to stop endlessly whining about non-issues, figure out what they all have in common, and work as teams in making that happen. Until that happens, libertarians will be the third largest political party in America without even a local dog catcher to show for their efforts.

I know that is a kick in the teeth but, hey, it has to be said.

It's ironic or maybe its destiny, the tendency for things to come full circle, that the first piece of ground taken and secured again in the name of Liberty is right smack in the middle of where it all began 229 years ago, in the heart of New England - that tiny, rascally independent state of New Hampshire. A place where the peoples' right to revolution is enshrined in the state constitution. A place where the proud tradition of local control in the form of town hall meetings has continued in an unbroken chain since Colonial times to the present. A place where the tax collector gets beat like a gong and run out of the state on a rail. A place where the state legislature is run by civilians, not career politicians - paid a mere $200 a year for their services. That's a pay scale that needs to be put into effect immediately at the national level.

Just being in New Hampshire was being zapped to another universe, a universe where people come and go as they please, do as they please, where there isn't a cop everywhere you look and you aren't under surveillance from every street corner. I stayed in Concord, the state capital, during my quick visit to meet up with members of the FSP. I went to visit the capital building while I was taking in the sites.

Imagine my shock when I walked in the front door of the CAPITAL BUILDING and wasn't immediately surrounded by black-clad storm troopers with badges, forced to empty my pockets for search, having my body probed with metal detector wands and having my picture taken for computer biometric comparison to known "enemies of the State." There were NO metal detectors. NO cops. Just an elderly retiree security guard who was eager to tell me about the unique place the state of New Hampshire occupies in Revolutionary American history.

Wow.

I then proceeded to wander around the capital building, touring the chambers of the senate and the representatives - all without once being stopped, questioned, photographed or prevented from proceeding at all. Here, the government is the property of the people! Imagine that! What a subversive idea! I saw the governor's office and if the man had been in the office at the time, I probably could have walked right in and had a little chit chat with the guy.

Try doing that ANYWHERE outside of New Hampshire. But to do that, you'd have to get into the state capital building first and getting in without being bodily violated by members of law enforcement would be unheard of.

As a writer, a soldier sworn to defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies foreign or domestic, and an American citizen, I am very gravely concerned with the direction this country is taking.

Trust me, if you live outside of New Hampshire, you really don't know what being free feels like.

The police state isn't coming. It's already here.

America Beware Hillary Clinton May Run For President

(category: Commentary, Word count: 794)
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America is the greatest country in the world. Our citizens are caring, generous, trusting and forgiving. Those are some of the traits that make our country so great and so strong. Those traits can also be some of our biggest weaknesses. We are always willing to give people a second, third or even a fourth chance. We want to believe in the goodness of others even when they have shown us time and again that they are not good. We are always ready to give others the benefit of the doubt. Because of the foregoing, we get taken advantage of over and over again. We believe that France is our friend and ally, even though it has proved, time and again, it cares only about itself. The cold war is allegedly over and we call Russia our ally, even though they try to sabotage almost everything we get involved with and even though they constantly support our enemies. We call China our friend and trading partner, even though the leaders of China would like nothing better than to oversee the demise of the United States. Some of us cheer at the thought that, Hillary Clinton might be our next President, even though, in my opinion, she cares nothing about the United States or it's citizens.

In my opinion (Note: These are all strictly my opinions. I am not not an expert and I don't know everything.), Hillary Clinton, cares for nothing, other than her own desires for power over the rest of us, and I don't trust her any further than I can throw the White House. She is very intelligent, probably far more intelligent than I am, and she can be very charming when she wants to. She talks the talk, but I have never seen her walk the walk. She talks about dealing with the rights of women, but as far as I can tell, she has never done anything other than talk. She talks about helping minorities, but again, the only thing, that I can tell that she has done is talk about it. She talks about supporting the war effort, however, she always adds a 'but' to her statements and by the time she gets through explaining the 'but' you don't know what she really thinks. She seems to leave everthing open to interpretation. The only person, that I know of, that is better at 'doublespeak' than she is, is her husband.

If Hillary Clinton runs for the Presidency, she will have liberals voting for her because they will believe that she is a liberal, not as liberal as they are, but liberal enough. She will have moderates voting for her because they will believe that she is a moderate, not as moderate as they are but moderate enough. She will have some conservatives voting for her because they will believe that she is a conservative, not as conservative as they are but conservative enough. Some people will vote for her solely because she is a Democrat and others will vote for her solely because she is a woman. No one, however, will really know what she truly believes in or stands for. I believe that no one can know because, the only thing that she believes in or stands for is herself.

Hillary Clinton, in many ways, reminds me of President Nixon. The main difference, as far as I can see, is that she is better at hiding her arrogance, ruthlessness, lack of respect for the American people, etc., than he was and she is smoother and much better at fooling the American people into believing that she stands for whatever they stand for, no matter what they stand for. Additionally, she probably will not be foolish enough to tape her White House conversations.

She also reminds me, very much, of her husband, except that she appears to be smarter, considerably more ruthless and I doubt if she is a womanizer. She is, however, just as good at fooling the people, just as good at taking credit for good things done by others, just as good at laying the blame for bad things, that she may have done, on others and just as hungry for power.

I believe that if Mrs. Clinton does run for the Presidency, she will make whatever behind the scenes deals that she has to, make any promises that she has to and step on any people that she has to in order to assure herself a place in history as America's fourty fourth President. I also believe that when she leaves office she will, like her husband, leave this country is worse shape than, it was in, when she took office.

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