INTL - British Multiculturalism - One Man's Experience

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British Multiculturalism - One Man's Experience
We received a testimonial from one of our readers, of his experiences of the current climate in Britain. We shall call him "Doug" to disguise his identity. In his own words, unedited, this is his account:

Why its time to go

This story starts in Bristol city in the SW of the United Kingdom. In June 2003 I decided to leave that city to return to Scotland the Country of my youth. The reason for that return was simple, I had witnessed a series of events, which had shocked and depressed me.

The worst of these was a serious assault against a student, he was walking home from a night out, he was causing no harm, the area was St Pauls, a notoriously crime ridden area, favoured by immigrants, and Afro Caribbeans. The student was set upon and his mobile stolen, he was left bloodied and unconscious, we went to help but we were no match for the attackers who fled instantly.

The other events in Bristol, which prompted my return North, included the introduction of armed police onto the streets of part of Bristol, this was done to combat the armed gang violence between black gangs. Bristol is the UK's crack capital. These gangs were a mix of Afro Caribbean "Yardies" and Somalian tribesmen, as well as a few indigenous hangers on. People who lived in these areas where subjected to endless robberies and assaults by drug addicts, crackheads etc. I decided that this was not for me. I packed my car and left. As I was leaving I noticed a large queue on the pavement I had seen the queue many times full of people of African and Middle Eastern extraction, they were outside the local Asylum seeker help centre. I paid little attention.

I was originally brought up in the Scottish lowlands a beautiful area of rolling hills and moor land, one of the least populated parts of the UK. On my arrival at my parents house I knew I had made a good decision, I immediately felt at home, amongst the trees and hills.

Anyway after a few months I started to set my mind to careers and money, without which we all know you don't get very far. I had friends in Glasgow a hundred miles North I decided to head up and look at opportunities. I have always liked Glasgow, it was once the richest city in the British Empire (per capita). A place with a chequered history but a good vibrant city. Well after a while I decided to move there, I chose to move to an area in the south side of the city, Pollokshields. This is area was one of the UK's first garden suburbs, massive houses, and beautiful large tenement apartments. I decided to purchase an apartment; it was one of the few areas I could afford given the UK's housing price boom. I had high hopes and was full of ideas and expectation.

It began the first night, the upstairs neighbours began shouting and screaming, a man was hitting his wife, the noise was unbearable, they were Pakistani, the area was home to the largest Pakistani Muslim community in Scotland. I had looked at the area and was bedazzled by the ornate Georgian architecture; I had forgotten to take a look at the more important social dimension.

Pollokshields is large area, E Pollokshileds where I live is majority Pakistani Muslim neighbourhood. I walked the streets I smiled at my neighbours they mostly ignored me. A car drove by one day a youth stuck their head out of a car and shouted, "White bastard" at me. A week later I noticed a young man driving aggressively on to a junction nearly hitting another oncoming motorist, he jumped out of his car shouted "White Bitch" at the driver then sped off. The same week I was walking past my Local Park, I watched as a young boy off about eight was chased from the Park crying by two young UK Pakistanis, I shouted as the boy was obviously very distressed, the other boys looked at me confused, and shouted something in another language I did not understand.

I took all of the above in my stride, I put it down to teething troubles in the "Multicultural garden" It would get better just give it time.

Well a week after that mid March 2004 a young Native Glaswegian boy was abducted, at the end of my street by four Pakistani Muslims, tortured and then burned alive, I won't go into details but as you may know Kriss Donald suffered an horrific death and for no apparent reason whatsoever other than he was white.

It was at this point I knew that I had fallen out of the frying pan and into the fire. My Multicultural fantasies were in tatters. I tried to sell my apartment no body was buying except the Muslims, I tried to rent it, and people loved the flat but the area was a hard sell. Few months later my German neighbours moved to Greece, my only friends in the community, their flat was sold to Muslims, they opened an Islamic School in the apartment, I complained, I was ignored, the whole block of flats became home to mostly Muslims and me, plus one seventy year old lady upstairs! I was stuck!

This week beginning of February 2007 I am finally able to sell up, I will be out of here by May. I have learned a lot, I have lived with the Muslims, I have learned that they have no desire to integrate into European culture or the European value system, I have learned that they have no interest in UK culture or anything else, they have Islam. Islam consumes them, it owns them, and it is them. That is what they are they are Muslim, a Muslim is loyal to Islam, Islam is a theocratic ideology, its goal is the spread of Allah's will, this task is the task of all Muslims. Muslims engage with us the "Kuffar" Not because they want to, but because they have to, if they did not have to they wouldn't.

I have met kind and courteous Muslims, I believe there are many types of people in this world, but Islam cancels this out, it homogenises whole nations, it takes away individual reason and liberty, I see this first hand in the eyes of uneducated Pakistani women who have been brought to Glasgow from the far off mountains of Kashmir. I also see it in the eyes of second and third generation Muslims, who just don't like the West, they live in a world which is ultimately incompatible with European values, they seek solace in a religion which blew out of the desert 1400 yrs ago, they seek solace in Mosques paid for with Wahabist oil dollars, the Muslims are at war with themselves, they want the lifestyle of the West, but they just don't like us! And I have decided that I can't like Islam, like many like-minded people I see it as an unmitigated threat to the values Europe should hold dear.

Now that Tony Blair is about to vacate office, people ask him what he believes his legacy will be. It will not be Iraq, it will be the beginning of a process of the Islamisation of the UK, Balkan Britain is upon us, I have seen it first hand, I have lived a small version of it, and when Britain finally appears out of its economic boom, and there is pressure on jobs, and services, the real effects of Multicultural polarisation will appear. Shattered unconnected communities in competition with each other but with no common value system or identity, unable to join together to achieve a common goal.

The New Labour government has ridden the world economic boom and told us it was their skill which has brought us prosperity, all I see is a Britain awash with disconnected and bitter asylum seekers, some battle hardened, mix with drunken drug addled youth. I also see the rise of superstition of which Islam is a large part.

The policies of the Neo Marxists with their reliance on abstractions such as "Human Rights" are leading us down a very very dangerous path; their international global misery is upon us.

The world is on the move, the invasion of Europe is not a conscious thing on the part of the Muslims and immigrants but it is inevitable, given the pressure on global resources, ideological expansionism in Islam, and the plummeting birth rates amongst indigenous Europeans. I am afraid that people like Tony Blair should heed the cliché statement "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" The West is making a Faustian pact with Islam, and we will pay the price, if things don't change.

I am still looking for a home.

Well these thoughts all came from a place I never imagined I would be, a place I don't feel at home in, namely my own country. The Liberal elites are the real enemy, the Muslims are just doing what they are supposed to do, I don't blame them, but they are not Europeans, and I don't like their values or ideology, because Islam is not a religion in the Western sense it's a theocratic ideological construct, with global ambitions, our leaders neglect this fact at our peril.

I hear the Canadian Rockies are nice this time of year?

• Re-education Camp Director: What's better than a big juicy steak?

Camp Detainees: Nothing is better than a big juicy steak!

Re-education Camp Director: And what's better than nothing?

Camp Detainees: A stale piece of bread is better than nothing!

Re-education Camp Director: Therefore a stale piece of bread is better than a big juicy steak.

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• Joe: You sent a man to a re-education camp for wearing glasses!

Thorne: The revolution is not yet perfect, I will concede that.

- from 'Land of the Blind'

What is particular to Ashtanga yoga practice is what we call vinyasa, which brings together breathing with physical movement. Each posture is connected with a certain breathing sequence, which comes before and after it. This keeps the flow of energy through the spine open. It also safeguards against injury and prevents energy from stagnating in the body. Vinyasa purifies the body, the nervous system, and cultivates the proper energetic field in the body. It is essential to yoga, we believe, and gives people a direct inner experience of their potential. To feel the energy continually flowing through the spine is the effect of vinyasa. But there is nothing that comes instantly. One needs to practice this system for many years—a minimum of five to ten years—to begin to experience these deep subtle changes in the body.

- Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

"The world is not imperfect, or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people – eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present, and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore it seems to me that everything that exists is good – death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me. I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it, and to be glad to belong to it."

-- Herman Hesse, "Siddhartha"

“There are two basic reasons why people commit evil. Some people are simply amoral. They lack sympathy and don’t think there is any morality. To them their victims are like rabbits. They think, if someone is weak or foolish enough to be a victim, they deserve no better. But most evil is committed by people who believe they are doing good.”

- Fred E. Foldvary, "The Origins of Evil"

Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

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Saturday, December 30, 2006

For Whom the Bell Tolls:
Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

The old monster swung from the gallows this morning at 6 am Baghdad time. His Shiite executioners danced around his body.

Saddam Hussain was one of the 20th century's most notorious tyrants, though the death toll he racked up is probably exaggerated by his critics. The reality was bad enough.

The tendency to treat Saddam and Iraq in a historical vacuum, and in isolation from the superpowers, however, has hidden from Americans their own culpability in the horror show that has been Iraq for the past few decades. Initially, the US used the Baath Party as a nationalist foil to the Communists. Then Washington used it against Iran. The welfare of Iraqis themselves appears to have been on no one's mind, either in Washington or in Baghdad.

The British-installed monarchy was overthrown by an officer's coup in 1958, led by Abdul Karim Qasim. The US was extremely upset, and worried that the new regime would not be a reliable oil exporter and that it might leave the Baghdad Pact of 1955, which the US had put together against the Soviet Union (grouping Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Britain and the US). (Qasim did leave the pact in 1959, which according to a US official of that time, deeply alarmed Washington.)

Iraq in the 1940s and 1950s had become an extremely unequal society, with a few thousand (mostly Sunni Arab) families owning half of the good land. On their vast haciendas, poor rural Shiites worked for a pittance. In the 1950s, two new mass parties grew like wildfire, the Communist Party of Iraq and the Arab Baath Socialist Party. They attracted first-generation intellectuals, graduates of the rapidly expanding school system, as well as workers and peasants. The crushing inequalities of Iraq under the monarchy produced widespread anger.

Qasim undertook land reform and founded a new section of Baghdad, in the northeast, which he called Revolution Township, where rural Shiites congregated as they came to the capital seeking work as day laborers (it is now Sadr City, where a majority of Baghdadis live). The US power elite of the time wrongly perceived Qasim as a dangerous radical who coddled the Communists.

1) The first time the US enabled Saddam Hussein came in 1959. In that year, a young Saddam, from the boondock town of Tikrit but living with an uncle in Baghdad, tried to assassinate Qasim. He failed and was wounded in the leg. Saddam had, like many in his generation, joined the Baath Party, which combined socialism, Arab nationalism, and the aspiration for a one-party state.

In 1959, Richard Sale of UPI reports,


' According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim's office in Iraq's Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim's movements.

Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.'



CIA involvement in the 1959 assassination attempt is plausible. Historian David Wise says there is evidence in the US archives that the CIA's "Health Alteration Committee" tried again to have Qasim assassinated in 1960 by "sending the Iraqi leader a poisoned monogrammed handkerchief."

2) After the failed coup attempt, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he attended law school in between bar brawls, and where it is alleged that he retained his CIA connections there, being put on a stipend by the agency via the Egyptian government. He frequently visited US operatives at the Indiana Cafe. Getting him back on his feet in Cairo was the second episode of US aid to Saddam.

3) In February of 1963 the military wing of the Baath Party, which had infiltrated the officer corps and military academy, made a coup against Qasim, whom they killed. There is evidence from Middle Eastern sources, including interviews conducted at the time by historian Hanna Batatu, that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi Communists (who were covert, having infiltrated the government or firms). Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer of the 1960s, alleged that the US played a significant role in this Baath coup and that it was mostly funded "with American money.". Morris's allegation was confirmed to me by an eyewitness with intimate knowledge of the situation, who said that that the CIA station chief in Baghdad gave support to the Baathists in their coup. One other interviewee, who served as a CIA operative in Baghdad in 1964, denied to me the agency's involvement. But he was at the time junior and he was not an eyewitness to the events of 1963, and may not have been told the straight scoop by his colleagues. Note that some high Baathists appear to have been unaware of the CIA involvement, as well. In the murky world of tradecraft, a lot of people, even on the same team, keep each other in the dark. UPI quotes another, or perhaps the same, official, saying that the coup came as a surprise to Langley. In my view, unlikely.

There really is not any controversy about the US having supplied the names of Communists to the Baath, which rooted them out and killed them. Saddam Hussein was brought back from Cairo as an interrogator and quickly rose to become head of Baath Intelligence. So that was his first partnership with the US.

The 1963 Baath government only lasted 8 months, and was overthrown by officers who had been around Qasim. The military wing of the Baath, which was heavily Shiite, was relentlessly pursued by the new government, and was virtually wiped out. The largely Sunni civilian party, however, survived underground.

4) In 1968, the civilian wing of the Baath Party came to power in a second coup. David Morgan of Reuters wrote,

' "In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious protégé in 1979. "It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says. '

As I noted in The Nation, in their book Unholy Babylon, "Darwish and Alexander report assertions of US backing for the 1968 coup, confirmed to me by other journalists who have talked to retired CIA and State Department officials." It was alleged to me by one journalist who had talked to former US government officials with knowledge of this issue that not only did the US support the 1968 Baath coup, but it specifically promoted the Tikritis among the coup-makers, helping them become dominant. These included President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and his cousin Saddam Hussein, who quickly became a power behind the throne.

5) The second Baath regime in Iraq disappointed the Nixon and Ford administrations by reaching out to the tiny remnants of the Communist Party and by developing good relations with the Soviet Union. In response, Nixon supported the Shah's Iran in its attempts to use the Iraqi Kurds to stir up trouble for the Baath Party, of which Saddam Hussein was a behind the scenes leader. As supporting the Kurdish struggle became increasingly expensive, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran decided to abandon the Kurds. He made a deal with the Iraqis at Algiers in 1975, and Saddam immediately ordered an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The US acquiesced in this betrayal of the Kurds, and made no effort to help them monetarily. Kissinger maintained that the whole operation had been the shah's, and the shah suddenly terminated it, leaving the US with no alternative but to acquiesce. But that is not entirely plausible. The operation was supported by the CIA, and the US didn't have to act only through an Iranian surrogate. Kissinger no doubt feared he couldn't get Congress to fund help to the Kurds during the beginnings of the Vietnam syndrome. In any case, the 1975 US about-face helped Saddam consolidate control over northern Iraq.

6) When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he again caught the notice of US officials. The US was engaged in an attempt to contain Khomeinism and the new Islamic Republic. Especially after the US faced attacks from radicalized Shiites in Lebanon linked to Iran, and from the Iraqi Da`wa Party, which engaged in terrorism against the US and French embassies in Kuwait, the Reagan administration determined to deal with Saddam from late 1983, giving him important diplomatic encouragement. Historians are deeply indebted to Joyce Battle's Briefing Book at the National Security Archives, GWU, which presents key documents she sprung through FOIA requests, and which she analyzed for the first time.

I wrote on another occasion,

' Reagan sent Rumsfeld to Baghdad in December 1983. The National Security Archive has posted a brief video of his meeting with Hussein and the latter’s vice president and foreign minister, Tariq Aziz. Rumsfeld was to stress his close relationship with the U.S. president. The State Department summary of Rumsfeld’s meeting with Tariq Aziz stated that “the two agreed the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests: peace in the Gulf, keeping Syria and Iran off balance and less influential, and promoting Egypt’s reintegration into the Arab world.” Aziz asked Rumsfeld to intervene with Washington’s friends to get them to stop selling arms to Iran. Increasing Iraq’s oil exports and a possible pipeline through Saudi Arabia occupied a portion of their conversation.

. . . The State Department, however, issued a press statement on March 5, 1984, condemning Iraqi use of chemical weapons. This statement appears to have been Washington’s way of doing penance for its new alliance.

Unaware of the depths of Reagan administration hypocrisy on the issue, Hussein took the March 5 State Department condemnation extremely seriously, and appears to have suspected that the United States was planning to stab him in the back. Secretary of State George Shultz notes in a briefing for Rumsfeld in spring of 1984 that the Iraqis were extremely confused by concrete U.S. policies . . . "As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up rational analysis and retreat to the line that US policies are basically anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel.”

Rumsfeld had to be sent back to Baghdad for a second meeting, to smooth ruffled Baath feathers. The above-mentioned State Department briefing notes for this discussion remarked that the atmosphere in Baghdad (for Rumsfeld) had worsened . . . the March 5 scolding of Iraq for its use of poison gas had “sharply set back” relations between the two countries.

The relationship was repaired, but on Hussein’s terms. He continued to use chemical weapons and, indeed, vastly expanded their use as Washington winked at Western pharmaceutical firms providing him materiel. The only conclusion one can draw from available evidence is that Rumsfeld was more or less dispatched to mollify Hussein and assure him that his use of chemical weapons was no bar to developing the relationship with the U.S., whatever the State Department spokesman was sent out to say. '



7) The US gave
practical help to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War:


' As former National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher affirmed, “Pursuant to the secret NSDD [National Security Directive], the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing US military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.” The requisite weaponry included cluster bombs. . . '



Richard Sale of UPI also reported that military cooperation intensified:


' During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group. . .

According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days. '



8) The Reagan administration worked behind the scenes to foil Iran's motion of censure against Iraq for using chemical weapons. I wrote at Truthdig:


' The new American alliance might have been a public relations debacle if Iran succeeded in its 1984 attempt to have Iraq directly condemned at the United Nations for use of chemical weapons. As far as possible, Shultz wanted to weasel out of joining such a U.N. condemnation of Iraq. He wrote in a cable that the U.S. delegation to the U.N. “should work to develop general Western position in support of a motion to take ‘no decision’ on Iranian draft resolution on use of chemical weapons by Iraq. If such a motion gets reasonable and broad support and sponsorship, USDEL should vote in favor. Failing Western support for ‘no decision,’ USDEL should abstain.” Shultz in the first instance wanted to protect Hussein from condemnation by a motion of “no decision,” and hoped to get U.S. allies aboard. If that ploy failed and Iraq were to be castigated, he ordered that the U.S. just abstain from the vote. Despite its treaty obligations in this regard, the U.S. was not even to so much as vote for a U.N. resolution on the subject!

Shultz also wanted to throw up smokescreens to take the edge off the Iranian motion, arguing that the U.N. Human Rights Commission was “an inappropriate forum” for consideration of chemical weapons, and stressing that loss of life owing to Iraq’s use of chemicals was “only a part” of the carnage that ensued from a deplorable war. A more lukewarm approach to chemical weapons use by a rogue regime (which referred to the weapons as an “insecticide” for enemy “insects") could not be imagined. In the end, the U.N. resolution condemned the use of chemical weapons but did not name Iraq directly as a perpetrator. '




9) The Reagan administration not only gave significant aid to Saddam, it attempted to recruit other friends for him.


' Teicher adds that the CIA had knowledge of, and U.S. officials encouraged, the provisioning of Iraq with high-powered weaponry by U.S. allies. He adds: “For example, in 1984, the Israelis concluded that Iran was more dangerous than Iraq to Israel’s existence due to the growing Iranian influence and presence in Lebanon. The Israelis approached the United States in a meeting in Jerusalem that I attended with Donald Rumsfeld. Israeli Foreign Minister Ytizhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the United States would deliver a secret offer of Israeli assistance to Iraq. The United States agreed. I traveled with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel’s offer of assistance. Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis’ letter to Hussein.” It might have been hoped that a country that arose in part in response to Nazi uses of poison gas would have been more sensitive about attempting to ally with a regime then actively deploying such a weapon, even against its own people (some gassing of Kurds had already begun). '



10) After the Gulf War of 1991, when Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein, the Bush senior administration sat back and allowed the Baathists to fly helicopter gunships and to massively repress the uprising. President GHW Bush had called on Iraqis to rise up against their dictator, but when they did so he left them in the lurch. This inaction, deriving from a fear that a Shiite-dominated Iraq would ally with Tehran, allowed Saddam to remain in power until 2003.

from Machiavelli, 'The Prince'

"When the duke occupied the Romagna he found it under the rule of weak
masters, who rather plundered their subjects than ruled them, and gave
them more cause for disunion than for union, so that the country was
full of robbery, quarrels, and every kind of violence; and so, wishing
to bring back peace and obedience to authority, he considered it
necessary to give it a good governor. Thereupon he promoted Messer
Ramiro d'Orco [de Lorqua], a swift and cruel man, to whom he gave the
fullest power. This man in a short time restored peace and unity with
the greatest success. Afterwards the duke considered that it was not
advisable to confer such excessive authority, for he had no doubt but
that he would become odious, so he set up a court of judgment in the
country, under a most excellent president, wherein all cities had
their advocates. And because he knew that the past severity had caused
some hatred against himself, so, to clear himself in the minds of the
people, and gain them entirely to himself, he desired to show that, if
any cruelty had been practised, it had not originated with him, but in
the natural sternness of the minister. Under this pretence he took
Ramiro, and one morning caused him to be executed and left on the
piazza at Cesena with the block and a bloody knife at his side. The
barbarity of this spectacle caused the people to be at once satisfied
and dismayed."

In a thread about the value (or lack of value) of "pressure points" in martial arts (Systema), Charles wrote as below:

From my experience as a lawyer, the most permanently damaging or fatal, situation in real life comes not as a result of any pressure point or exotic manuever.
The worst nightmare is simply is a bouncer/drunk/nitwit punching someone who is rendered unconscious and then falls, striking his head on the pavement. I have had 3 clients victimized in that fashion with catastrophic results. And another 2 beaten by police with flashlights and then falling unconscious and striking the back of their head on the ground.
When the victim does not die outright, they lead the rest of their a shell of their former selves.
In my opinion, study this art, or any other, for purposes of self-improvement and union of mind and body. Prisons and jails are full of dangerous men and boys. I doubt if any of them knew pressure points, but they sure knew how to ruin or take the lives of others.
Oh, if it matters 5of the 6 above did not start a fight and in fact did not even know they know their attackers etc. And yes, not one of them has any memory of what happened, bystanders witnesses and videocams filled in the story. I will not discuss these cases more than I have, except to warn you that there are gangs or loosely associated young men who simply enjoy hurting people. Perhaps they did not intend the grievous results, but they intentionally threw savage, full body weight punches. Punches you dont want to even watch on tape.

“When you have robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power. He is free again.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Bless what you call your misfortune. It created the strength of your
beautiful soul.

— Socrates

"Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans."

-Spock

Democratic Party talking heads are already out there talking about how the election results are not only the best thing since sliced bread, not only the biggest political event of the last 200 years, but also an abrupt end to everything that the neo-cons stand for.

According to these characters Bush and the neocons were uniquely responsible for the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, the erosion of civil liberties, the legal threats that they claim point in the direction of martial law or fascism, the economic changes that have resulted in the rich getting richer, and all else that's not right with the world.

Okay...then it's put up or shut up time!

Let's see the Democrats rescind the complete Patriot Act. No tinkering around the edges - the whole thing has got to go.

And while they're at it, let's see them dismantle the 1996 Anti-terrorism and pro Death Penalty Act that Clinton signed.

Let's see them restore the right to habeas corpus.

Let's see them end the use of torture by the US military, CIA, private armies paid for with tax dollars, and countries whose governments are under US control.

Let's see them declare to the world that the US will no longer try to overthrow Castro, Chavez, Ortega or any other progressive leader who stands up to the US government and tries to bring about better conditions for their people.

Let's see them reject every appointment of another war-mongerer that Bush tries to make. Let's see them start with Bush's new Defense Secretary. Filibuster until January and then vote it down.

Let's see them put a litmus test on ALL nominations to the federal courts: either you're going to strike down anti-civil liberties laws or you don't get appointed.

Let's see them immediately withdraw (not redeploy) all US troops from the mideast. Moving them from Iraq to Saudi Arabia or Jordan is simply not enough. Get them out of there.

Let's see them end the blatant imperialism of the last 2 decades. No more US soldiers stationed anywhere outside the US. They should be a defense force. Defense of the people of the US NOT the defense (or offense) for every corporate executive that decides to wave a flag while he steals and exploits from the people in other lands.

Let's see them tie Bush's hands with a law that says the US will never again attack another country in a so-called "preventive" or "pre-emptive" war.

Let's see them cut the US military down to a size that could only be used for defensive purposes - say a 90% cut in the military budget to begin with.

Let's see them end the use of eminent domain. People should feel secure in their homes and that they won't be destroyed by the government for private profit.

Let's see them end the whole regimen of high stakes testing in schools that subjects our young people to a regular racist assault on their futures.

Let's see them end the current abuse of the legal system that results in the arrests of about 900,000 people a year for marijuana with the result that the rich get their records expunged while the poor are faced with reduced economic opportunities due to their police records in addition to jail time.

Let's see them end the stealing under the name of privatization that has been accomplished by Halliburton and their allies. But let's see them also end the stealing by the Democratic allied corporations like the ones building the useless arena in Newark or the shopping center next to Giants Stadium (soon to be renamed with some corporate logo.)

We have a chance to see if there really is a difference between Democrats and Republicans.

But the signs are already out there. Conyers has been told to shut up. And he's obeyed. No more talk of impeachment said Pelosi and she's going to be the new Speaker of the House. (Talk of impeachment benefited the Democrats during the election campaign by making them appear to be anti-Bush, but now reality sets in.)

Somehow, I foresee that rather than any real pro-people changes, we're instead going to see a lot of posturing, spin control, excuse making and blatant lying about why they can't do any of these things...and then they'll ask us to vote for more Democrats in 2008 to "solve" the problem.

Bob

“I made my money by selling too soon.”
– Bernard Baruch

"I'd much rather have a soccer player beside me in a fight than a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The soccer player can dodge and dive."

- Bert Rodriguez

The Ultimate Ensemble is a speculative possible feature of theories of everything (TOEs), suggested by Max Tegmark. Related to the Anthropic principle and Multiverse theories, the Ultimate Ensemble suggests that not only should worlds corresponding to different sets of initial conditions or different physical constants be considered real, but also worlds ruled by altogether different equations. The only postulate in this theory is that all structures that exist mathematically exist also physically. In those mathematical structures complex enough to contain self-aware substructures (SASs), these SASs will subjectively perceive themselves as existing in a physically "real" world. Tegmark observes that this simple theory, which has no free parameters at all and may thus be preferred over all other TOE's by Occam's Razor, is not observationally ruled out.

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

November 02, 2006

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Peak Oil: A Pass/Fail Intelligence Test
by Dan Ferris

You know about peak oil.

That’s the idea that the world is running out of oil, that the price is going sky high as the global supply of oil shrinks to nothing.

It’s going to happen so fast, say true believers, that we won’t have time to develop new alternatives. We’ll be caught with our pants down, and the world will plunge into chaos.

C. J. Campbell, geologist and author of The Coming Oil Crisis, says, “We have come to the end of the first half of the Oil Age.”

As if the Stone Age ended because we ran out of stones.

Peak oil theory is wrong because it demands a repeal of the laws of economics, the simple dynamics of supply and demand. It also endows prognosticators with the ability to see the future, an ability, unfortunately, which no one actually possesses. Finally, like all Malthusian theories, it ignores the fact that every human mouth comes with one human brain attached (and at no extra charge, I might add).

I recently gained a new respect for the folks at Morningstar, who wrote recently (and correctly), “The laws of economics have not been repealed… Canada alone has almost 300 billion barrels in its tar sands, economical to process at prices above $30 per barrel and astonishingly profitable at $70. Ratchet prices up to $40 per barrel and coal-to-liquids (gasoline, diesel, etc.) becomes realistic, providing more than 50 years supply alone. At $70, oil shale – which could supply the world at current consumption levels for 100 years – becomes realistic. Finally, above $80, biomass-to-liquids, an essentially limitless source, becomes economical.”

Peak oil, like every apocalyptic depletion argument, is one of life’s little intelligence tests. If you believe it, you’re stupid and you fail. If you know it’s crap, you’re smart enough to pass. It’s like Y2K. If you moved your family to the hinterlands of Arkansas and predicted violence in the streets, you failed that little test. If you ignored it, you passed.

As for your money, you can take the peak-oil test with your portfolio on the line. Accepting peak-oil nonsense requires ignoring the highly cyclical nature of oil (it was near $80 a couple months ago; now it’s under $60). That, in turn, could lead you to downplay the role of savvy management, like that of, oh… say… ExxonMobil (XOM).

ExxonMobil’s management knows that the company has to make investments work across cycles and in many different pricing environments. That’s why its deepwater Gulf leases only go out to 2008. Management knows the company will get a chance to buy in cheaper at some point. Charley Maxwell’s recent piece in Barron’s is wrong about this. He says they’ll miss out… but Maxwell believes in peak oil, so he fails the test.

ExxonMobil’s management buys to make money, to earn a return on investment, not to indulge fears about paranoid theories. And ExxonMobil has done a better job of earning shareholder returns than most of the companies that now exist or have ever existed.

Since 1950, when it was known as Standard Oil of New Jersey, ExxonMobil has generated average annual shareholder returns of more than 14% a year. More than 5% of that was from dividends. ExxonMobil has raised its dividend every year since 1983. Think about how oil prices hovered in the teens from 1983 to 1998, and you’ll appreciate that dividend record even more. In 1999, when hardly anyone made money in the oil business and a barrel cost about $10, ExxonMobil earned 12.1% on capital. That’s its worst performance: 12.1%. These days, it exceeds 30%. If ExxonMobil can make money at $10 oil, it’s going to be raising its dividend forever.

ExxonMobil’s managers have made it clear that the company doesn’t buy into the peak-oil nonsense. They pass the test.

Good investing,

Dan Ferris

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A LITTLE EXTRA VALUE
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Peak oil isn’t the only fearmongering the financial and political mouthpieces try to ram down your throat. Here’s a smattering of other issues you’re admonished to become paranoid about:

Market crashes
Trade deficits
Foreigners owning “too many” treasury securities
The tapped-out American consumer
Interest-rate hikes (that will kill stocks)
A falling dollar (that will take stocks down with it)
Recession/depression
Hyperinflation
War

All these fears are part of the pervasive idea of the decline of Western civilization, popularized by Nietzsche and others in the 19th century. Ever since then, modern man has always been seen as materialistic and morally bankrupt. Modern people are always displaced, alienated, and isolated.

Arthur Herman wrote a book about all this called The Idea of Decline in Western History. It’s worth a read, and the basic idea is right. Western civilization isn’t in decline. That’s just something people say to sound cool, or to get in with a certain crowd, or succeed in politics, or what have you.

At Extreme Value, we’re finding one bargain after another among large, well-known, extremely well-capitalized companies. It makes no sense to avoid buying great businesses at once-a-decade prices because you think a twice-a-century event might happen.

The only thing you have to fear in the market is fear itself. Get control of your reason, and start making some money.




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Visit www.stansberryresearch.com
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The proof is simplicity itself; if something COULD be done, someone in all of history would have thought of it by now, as they have all, at one time or another, been in the throes of this exact same, sorry economic situation of a huge government needing hugely more money. And although everyone furiously tried everything they could think of, including ruinous taxation, robbing the Jews, the churches or the nobility, and even declaring war on another country to confiscate their wealth so that they could pay some bills, nothing worked. Nothing. Nothing has ever worked. And it won't this time, either.

-MG

"La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid"

(Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderios de LaClos - 1782)

Imperialism And Slavery
By Herbert Spencer


"You shall submit! We are masters and we will make you acknowledge it!" These words express the sentiment which sways the British nation in its dealings with the Boer republics; and this sentiment it is which, definitely displayed in this case, pervades indefinitely the political feeling now manifesting itself as Imperialism. Supremacy, where not clearly imagined, is vaguely present in the background of consciousness. Not the derivation of the word only, but all its uses and associations, imply the thought of predominance - imply a correlative subordination. Actual or potential coercion of others, individuals or communities, is necessarily involved in the conception.

There are those, and unhappily they form the great majority, who think there is something noble (morally as well as historically) in the exercise of command - in the forcing of others to abandon their own wills and fulfil the will of the commander. I am not about to contest this sentiment. I merely say that there are others, unhappily but few, who think it ignoble to bring their fellow creatures into subjection, and who think the noble thing is not only to respect their freedom but also to defend it. Leaving this matter undiscussed, my present purpose is to show those who lean towards Imperialism, that the exercise of mastery inevitably entails on the master himself some form of slavery, more or less pronounced. The uncultured masses, and even the greater part of the cultured, will regard this statement as absurd; and though many who have read history with an eye to essentials rather than trivialities know that this is a paradox in the right sense - that is, true in fact though not seeming true - even they are not fully conscious of the mass of evidence establishing it, and will be all the better for having illustrations recalled. Let me begin with the earliest and simplest, which well serves to symbolize the whole.

Here is a prisoner with hands tied and a cord round his neck (as suggested by figures in Assyrian bas-reliefs) being led home by his savage conqueror, who intends to make him a slave. The one, you say, is captive and the other free? Are you quite sure the other is free? He holds one end of the cord, and unless he means to let his captive escape, he must continue to be fastened by keeping hold of the cord in such way that it cannot easily be detached. He must be himself tied to the captive while the captive is tied to him. In other ways his activities are impeded and certain burdens are imposed on him. A wild animal crosses the track, and he cannot pursue. If he wishes to drink of the adjacent stream, he must tie up his captive lest advantage be taken of his defenceless position. Moreover he has to provide food for both. In various ways, then, he is no longer completely at liberty; and these ways adumbrate in a simple manner the universal truth that the instrumentalities by which the subordination of others is effected, themselves subordinate the victor, the master, or the ruler.

The coincidence in time between the South African war and the recent outburst of Imperialism, illustrates the general truth that militancy and Imperialism are closely allied - are, in fact, different manifestations of the same social condition. It could not, indeed, be otherwise. Subject races or subject societies, do not voluntarily submit themselves to a ruling race or a ruling society: their subjection is nearly always the effect of coercion. An army is the agency which achieved it, and an army must be kept ever ready to maintain it. Unless the supremacy has actual or potential force behind it there is only federation, not Imperialism. Here, however, as above implied, the purpose is not so much to show that an imperial society is necessarily a militant society, as to show that in proportion as liberty is diminished in the societies over which it rules, liberty is diminished within its own organization.

The earliest records furnish an illustration. Whether in the times of the pyramid-builders the power of the Egyptian autocrat, which effected such astounding results, was qualified by an elaborate system of restraints, we have no evidence; but there is proof that in later days he was the slave of the governmental organization.

"The laws subjected every action of his private life to as severe a scrutiny as his behaviour in the administration of affairs. The hours of washing, walking, and all the amusements and occupations of the day, were settled with precision, and the quantity as well as the quality of his food were regulated by law." (Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, Birch's ed. of Wilkinson, vol. I, 166.)
Moreover the relation between enslavement of foreign peoples and enslavement of the nation which conquered them, is shown by an inscription at Karnak, which describes "how bitterly the country was paying the price of its foreign conquests, in its oppression by it standing army." (Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt, ii. 252.)

Turn we now to a society of widely different type but exhibiting the same general truths - that of Sparta. The conquering race, or Spartans proper, who had beneath them the Perici and the Helots, descendants of two subject races, were not only supreme over these but twice became the supreme race of the Peleponnesus [sic - RTL]. What was the price they paid for their "imperial" position? The individual Spartan, master as he was over slaves and semi-slaves, was himself in bondage to the incorporated society of Spartans. Each led the life not which he himself chose but the life dictated by the aggregate of which he formed one unit. And this life was a life of strenuous discipline, leaving no space for culture, or art, or poetry, or other source of pleasure. He exemplified in an extreme degree the Grecian doctrine that the citizen does not belong to himself or to his family but to his city.

If instead of the small and simple community of Sparta we take the vast and complex empire of Rome, we find this essential connexion between imperialism and slavery even more conspicuous. I do not refer to the fact that three-fourths of those who peopled Italy in imperial days were slaves, chained in the fields when at work, chained at night in their dormitories, and those who were porters chained to the doorways - conditions horrible to contemplate - but I refer to the fact that the nominally free part of the community consisted of grades of bondmen. Not only did citizens stand in that bondage implied by military service, complete or partial, under subjection so rigid that an officer was to be dreaded more than an enemy, but those occupied in civil or semi-civil life, were compelled to work for the public. "Everyone was treated in fact as a servant of the State ... the nature of each man's labour was permanently fixed for him." The society was formed of fighting serfs, working serfs, cultivating serfs, official serfs. And then what of the supreme head of this gigantic bureaucracy into which Roman society had grown - the Emperor? He became a puppet of the Pretorian guard, which while a means of safety was a cause of danger. Moreover he was in daily bondage to routine. As Gibbon says, "the emperor was the first slave of the ceremonies he imposed." Thus in a conspicuous manner Rome shows how, as in other cases, a society which enslaves other societies enslaves itself.

The same lesson is taught by those ages of seething confusion - of violence and bloodshed - which the collapse of the Roman empire left: an empire which dwells in the minds of many as something to be admired and emulated - the many who forgive any horrors if only their brute love of mastery is gratified, sympathetically when not actually. Passing over those sanguinary times in which the crimes of Clovis and Fredegonde and Brunehaut were typical, we come in the slow course of things to the emergence of the feudal régime - a régime briefly expressed by the four words, suzerains, vassals, serfs, slaves - a régime which, along with the perpetual struggles for supremacy among local rulers, and consequent chronic militancy, was characterized by the unqualified power of each chief or ruler, count or duke, within his own territory - a graduated bondage of all below him. The established form - "I am your man," uttered by the vassal on his knees with apposed hands, expressed the relation of one grade to another throughout the society; and then, as usual, the master of slaves was himself enslaved by his appliances for maintaining life and power. He had the perpetual burden of arms and coat of mail, and the precautions to be taken now against assassination now against death by poison. And then when we come to the ultimate state in which the subordination of minor rulers by a chief ruler had become complete, and all counts and dukes were vassals of the king, we have not only the bondage entailed on the king by State-business with its unceasing anxieties, but the bondage of ceremonial with its dreary round. Speaking of this in France in the time of Louis le Grand, Madame de Maintenon remarks - "Save those only who fill the highest stations, I know of none more unfortunate than those who envy them. If you could only form an idea of what it is?"
Merely referring to the extreme subjection of the ruler to his appliances for ruling which was reached in Japan, where the god-descended Mikado, imprisoned by the requirements of his sacred state, was debarred from ordinary freedoms, and in whose recluse life there were at one time such penalties as sitting for three hours daily on the throne - passing over, too, the case of China, where, as Prof. Douglas [Online editor's note: probably Robert K. Douglas, turn-of-the-century author of a number of works on China. - RTL] tells us of the emperor "his whole life is one continual round of ceremonial observances," and "from the day in which he ascends the throne to the time when he is carried to his tomb in the Eastern Hills, his hours and almost minutes have special duties appointed to them by the Board of Rites"; we may turn now to the conspicuous example furnished by Russia. Along with that unceasing subjugation of minor nationalities by which its imperialism is displayed, what do we see within its own organization? We have its vast army, to service in which every one is actually or potentially liable; we have an enormous bureaucracy ramifying everywhere and rigidly controlling individual lives; we have an expenditure ever outrunning resources and calling for loans. As a result of the pressure felt personally and pecuniarily, we have secret revolutionary societies, perpetual plots, chronic dread of social explosions; and while everyone is in danger of Siberia, we have the all-powerful head of this enslaved nation in constant fear for his life. Even when he goes to review his troops, rigorous precautions have to be taken by a supplementary army of soldiers, policemen, and spies, some forming an accompanying guard, some lying in wait here and there to prevent possible attacks; while similar precautions, which from time to time fail, have ever to be taken against assassination by explosion, during drives and railway-journeys. What portion of life is not absorbed in government-business and religious observances is taken up in self-preservation.

And now what is the lesson? Is it that in our own case imperialism and slavery, everywhere else and at all times united, are not to be united? Most will say Yes. Nay they will join, as our Poet Laureate [Online editor's note: Alfred Austin. - RTL] lately did in the title to some rhymes, the words "Imperialism and Liberty"; mistaking names for things as of old. Gibbon writes: -
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom." (Decline and Fall, i. 68.)
"Free!" thinks the Englishman. "How can I be other than free if by my vote I share in electing a representative who helps to determine the national transactions, home and foreign?" Delivering a ballot-paper he identifies with the possession of those unrestrained activities which liberty implies; though, to take but one instance, a threatened penalty every day reminds him that his children must be stamped with the State-pattern, not as he wills but as others will.

But let us note how, along with the nominal extension of constitutional freedom, there has been going on actual diminution of it. There is first the fact that the legislative functions of Parliament have been decreasing while the Ministry has been usurping them. Important measures are not now brought forward and carried by private members, but appeal is made to the government to take them up: the making of laws is gradually lapsing into the hands of the executive. And then within the executive itself the tendency is towards placing power in fewer hands. Just as in past times the Cabinet grew out of the Privy Council by a process of restriction, so now a smaller group of ministers is coming to exercise some of the functions of the whole group. Add to which we have subordinate executive bodies, like the Home Office, the Board of Trade, the Board of Education, and the Local Government Board, to which there have been deputed the powers both of making certain kinds of laws and enforcing them: government by administrative order. In like manner by taking for government-purposes more and more of the time which was once available for private members; by the cutting down of debates by the closure; and now by requiring the vote for an entire department to be passed en bloc, without criticism of details; we are shown that while extension of the franchise has been seeming to increase the liberties of citizens, their liberties have been decreased by restricting the spheres of action of their representatives. All these are stages in that concentration of power which is the concomitant of Imperialism.*. And how this tendency works out where militancy becomes active, we are shown by the measures taken in South Africa - the proclamation of martial law by a governor, who thereby becomes in so far a despot, and the temporary suspension of constitutional government: a suspension which many so-called loyalists would make complete.

Passing by this, however, let us note the extent to which the citizen is the servant of the community in disguised ways. Certain ancient usages will best make this clear. During times when complete slavery was mingled with serfdom, the serf, tied to his plot, rendered to his lord or seigneur many dues and services. These services, or corvées, varied, according to the period and the place, from one day's labour to six days' labour in the week - from partial slavery to complete slavery. Labours and exactions of these kinds were most of them in course of time commuted for money: the equivalence between so much tax paid to the lord and so much work done for him, being thus distinctly recognized. Now in so far as the burden is concerned, it comes to the same thing if for the feudal lord we substitute the central government, and for local money-payments we substitute general taxes. The essential question for the citizen is what part of his work goes to the power which rules over him, and what part remains available for satisfying his own wants. Labour demanded by the State is just as much corvée to the State as labour demanded by the feudal lord was corvée to him, though it may not be called so, and though it may be given in money instead of in kind; and to the extent of this corvée each citizen is a serf to the community. Some five years ago M. Guyot [Online editor's note: Yves Guyot, of the French Liberal School. - RTL] calculated that in France, the civil and military expenditure absorbs some 30 per cent. of the national produce, or, in other words, that 90 days annually of the average citizen's labour is given to the State under compulsion.

Though to a smaller extent, what holds in France holds here. Not forgetting the heavy burden of State-corvées which the Imperialism of past days bequeathed to us - the 150 millions of debt incurred for the American war and the 50 millions we took over with the East India Company's possessions, the interest on both of which entails on citizens extra labour annually, let us limit ourselves to the burdens Imperialism now commits us to. >From a statistical authority second to none, I learn that 100 millions of annual expenditure requires from the average citizen the labour of one day in every seventeen, that is to say, nearly eighteen days in the year. As the present permanent expenditure on army and navy plus the interest on the debt recently contracted amounts to about 76 millions, it results that 13 days' labour per annum is thus imposed on the average citizen as corvée. And then there comes the £153,000,000 spent, and to be spent, on the south African and Chinese wars, to which may be added, for all subsequent costs of pensions, repairs, compensations, and re-instatements, a sum which will raise the total to more than £200,000,000. What is the taxation which direct expenditure and interest on loans will entail, the reader may calculate. He has before him the data for an estimate of the extra number of days annually, during which Imperialism will require him to work for the Government - extra number, I say, because to meet the ordinary State-expenditure, there must always be a large number of days spent by him as a State-labourer. Doubtless one who is satisfied by names instead of things, as the Romans were, will think this statement absurd; but he who understands by freedom the ability to use his powers for his own ends, with no greater hindrance than is implied by the like ability of each other citizen, will see that in whatever disguised ways he is obliged to use his powers for State-purposes, he is to that extent a serf of the State; and that as fast as our growing Imperialism augments the amount of such compulsory service, he is to that extent more and more a serf of the State.

And then beyond the roundabout services given by the citizen under the form of direct taxes and under the form of indirect taxes, severally equivalent to so many days' work that would else have elevated the lives of himself and his belongings, there will presently come the actual or potential service as a soldier, demanded by the State to carry out an imperialist policy - a service which, as those in South Africa can tell us, often inflicts under the guise of fine names a slavery harder than that which the negro bears, with the added risk of death.

Even were it possible to bring home to men the extent to which their lives are, and presently will be still more, subordinated to State-requirements, so as to leave them less and less owned by themselves, little effect would be produced. So long as the passion for mastery overrides all others the slavery that goes along with Imperialism will be tolerated. Among men who do not pride themselves on the possession of purely human traits, but on the possession of traits which they have in common withy brutes, and in whose mouths "bull-dog courage" is equivalent to manhood - among people who take their point of honour from the prize-ring, in which the combatant submits to pain, injury, and risk of death, in the determination to prove himself "the better man," no deterrent considerations like the above will have any weight. So long as they continue to conquer other peoples and to hold them in subjection, they will readily merge their personal liberties in the power of the State, and hereafter as heretofore accept the slavery that goes along with Imperialism.

From Facts and Comments (1902) by Herbert Spencer (1820 -1903)

"Socially and psychologically repressed, people are drawn to spectacles ofviolent conflict that allow their accumulated frustrations to explode insocially condoned orgasms of collective pride and hate. Deprived of significantaccomplishments in their own work and leisure, they participate vicariously inmilitary enterprises that have real and undeniable effects. Lacking genuinecommunity, they thrill to the sense of sharing in a common purpose, if only thatof fighting some common enemy, and react angrily against anyone who contradictsthe image of patriotic unanimity."

~ Ken Knabb (Bureau of Public Secrets)