WMail ezine #72 "Farewell Issue"

WMail: The Working Minds Philosophy eZine
newsletter #72 [November 2007]
>+< G.E. Nordell, editor >+<
....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....

==> HOLIDAY GIFTING TIPS: Do not set foot inside Wal-Mart. Do not purchase anything on credit. Do not purchase toys from China. Coal is still a proper gift. Shop Amazon and B&N thru the Working Minds Stores Page.

==> FREE HOLIDAY GIFT: Download & print copies of the "Working Minds Source Document" .doc file (58 pages) and wrap’em up & give one to everybody on your list, for Xmas, Channakuh or Kwanzaah:
http://www.working-minds.com/ebooks/index.htm

==> LAST INVITATION: Check out the new online Introduction To The Landmark Forum [click here] and-or the main Landmark Education website.

==> Naomi Wolf’s book "The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot" is very scary, because her points are very true. Read the write-up on my blog and then buy & read the book.

==> What will I do next? Looks like it is time to get the “Working Minds” book manuscript box and re-key it onto the hard-drive – Don’t ask! – and then publish it, probably via iUniverse, like I did with the “Backlot Requiem” detective novel. I will save this email address book and let everyone hereon know when the new book is available.

==> JOIN THE BOYCOTT: No taxation without representation!! Since Dubya’s administration does the bidding of the corporations (the definition of fascism), there is no legitimate reason to deliver taxes to his government. Visit the www.BoycottW9.org website for instructions on witholding tax monies until Bush & Cheney are impeached & imprisoned.

....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....

------------------------------
F a r e w e l l    I s s u e
------------------------------
The WMail ezine (philosophy and activism newsletter) is shutting down, as-of this issue. The mission of the Working Minds Philosophy of Empowerment website will continue, by moving to other venues.

The seventy-two issues produced over the last eight years are archived on the WM website in three forms:

• The essays are posted as individual pages and are listed in numerical order at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm and also listed by topic at http://www.working-minds.com/WMtopics.htm

• The full issues – essay, quotes & news factoids – are posted by year and also listed in reverse order at http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm

• The quotations are posted alphabetically by author at
http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

* *          * *          * *          * *
Further essays that I decide to communicate to the world will be posted to my blog – http://www.DatelineChamesa.com [est. November 2005] – and-or to mass-distribution sites such as OpEdNews.

The quotations were an extremely popular feature of the ezine. I will be posting occasional handfuls of quotations on the blog, and then adding them to the WMquotes pages.

You can set up a free subscription to OpEdNews [click here] for a wide range of non-mainstream news and commentary.

You can also subscribe to notices of all updates to my blog by keying your email address in the form/box provided there by FeedBlitz. (What will happen is subscribers receive an email within roughly 24 hours after I post new content.)

* *          * *          * *          * *
The long hiatus since WMail Issue #71 came about due to several technical problems that may or may not be resolved. My website host in New York and my I.S.P. in Vermont each took no responsibility for the problem; eventually I figured out that the email server in Virginia was involved, the owners of which referred me back to the host & ISP! Then I had to clear up records in Australia and France – round and round we went.

The other key factor in ending publication of the WMail ezine, as such, is that when I asked in the February & March issues for tales of actions taken by readers based on content of the ezine (for a planned Eighth Anniversary Issue) NOT ONE READER RESPONDED.

The hours that it took to send out 1500 or so emails per ezine issue was not producing (any known) results, so the move to other forms of mass distribution has the potential of reaching many more individuals (and with less effort).

The plan is to post updates on my blog over each month, with the essay and a handful of quotations and more-timely bunches of news factoids posted on different days, in whatever order they occur to me.

* *          * *          * *          * *
I am quite proud of the content of WMail, and am glad for the many interactions with friend and foe alike. I have had readers of many, many stripes, and from too many countries to count, including Nepal; there were also readers with U.S. military and State Department and Halliburton email addresses.

I am pleased that my readership increased over time. In fact, during the research on Joe Hill and the I.W.W. labor history page at Spirit of America, I found that the hundred-year-old I.W.W. union has only 1250 members world wide: the WMail readership was larger than the famous ‘Wobblies’ labor union!

* *          * *          * *          * *
So. The end of the ezine is a good time to re-specify the many Serious Issues of Our Time, which have become bigger and scarier over the last eight years.

• The fascist takeover of the U.S. government. (I expect that Presidential Directive 51 and the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and the existence of Blackwater Worldwide are preparation for suspension of Con¬stitutional government here and replacement with martial law and a totalitarian dictatorship.)

• The pending unprovoked attack on Iran.

• Actual elections in 2008 (unless canceled).

• The U.S. National Debt (the United States is bankrupt) and the imminent economic meltdown desired by the Bush-P.N.A.C. crime family.

• Global warming, which is escalating beyond even Al Gore’s prognosis in “An Inconvenient Truth”.

• The absence of open political dialogue in America. (Monopo¬lies own most of the television and radio and newspaper indus¬tries; Air America Radio has been shut down in San Diego, Sacramento, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, and Indiana.)

• Your children are unsafe on the streets, in the schools and in their homes. Their education is ludicrous. They are bombarded with propaganda and injunctions to consume. And they cannot expect or imagine a better life than their parents.

• The country is flooded with illegal immigrants, who work as slaves for illegal employers, the corporatist rulers of America who worship the Bottom Line and are exempt from the Rule of Law.

• N.A.F.T.A. & C.A.F.T.A. and the end of U.S. sovereignty.

* *          * *          * *          * *
The only action that might possibly prevent the intentions of the P.N.A.C.-Federalist-fascist conspiracy and the globalized war-profiteer slave-labor cartel is removal by impeachment of their puppets in the White House – as required in the Constitution, as designed by the Founding Fathers. The scared-rabbit Democratic Party jumps when our war-monger President says to, and the American People are tired and disgusted and desperate. Every member in Congress is subject to replacement in November 2008 – IF elections do indeed take place.

We are all in this together, including the closed-minded and the oblivious sheeple and the wise and the ‘off-grid’ pioneers. The Greens and the Commies and the Quakers, and the gung-ho military serving their various countries. The lame and the halt and the blind. The active and the passive and the connected and the loners and the lonesome.

No one will escape Dubya’s apocalyptic intentions.

“Reason is the only frontier left.” — G.E. Nordell

[copyright 2007 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....WM....

Thanks, George!

A few things that we can thank President Bush for providing America:

A barrel of crude oil was $15 in 1998 (Clinton administration), rose to $60 per barrel in 2005 (due to IraqNam), and at the end of 2007 is just under $100 per barrel.

The Canadian dollar reached a 47-year high against the falling U.S. dollar in October.

Yesterday, the dollar reached the lowest rate ever against the British pound ($2.061) and the euro ($1.4750).

The U.S. National Debt is now $9.130 trillion – plus expenses for IraqNam not yet booked.

Barry Bonds Didn't Kill Anybody

Baseball home-run star Barry Bonds was indicted yesterday in San Francisco by the U.S. Attorney & a federal grand jury for lying in sworn testimony to Congress, and if convicted, he could get 30 years in prison.

No opinion on that sports & legal matter, but note that IF Barry Bonds took steroids, nobody got killed.

So that leaves us wondering why the U.S. Attorney & a federal grand jury in Washington, DC have NOT indicted the following for their perjured testimony, which mostly involved the deaths of large numbers of people in America and elsewhere.

George W. Bush

Dick Cheney

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

former Secretary of State Colin Powell

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff

Michael D. Brown, disgraced former head of F.E.M.A.

new Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey

Alberto Gonzales, disgraced former Attorney General

Karl Rove

Erik Prince, the head of Blackwater Worldwide

Gen. David Petraeus

... and so-o-o many others in the Bush administration

November Quotations

"Sir, he who would earn his bread writing books must have the assurance of a duke, the wit of a courtier, and the guts of a burglar."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]

"The situation is fluid."
~~ radio talk show host Stacy Taylor

"Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood; think big.”
~~ Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham [1846-1912]

"What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others."
~~ Analects of Confucius

"Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well."
~~ Epictetus [55?–135? C.E.]

"Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear."
~~ Upanishads

"America's mainstream media have died. They were infected and killed by corporatism."
~~ Rob Kall, founder of OpEdNews

"The real leader has no need to lead, he is content to point the way."
~~ Henry Miller [1891-1980]

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"The dark night of fascism is descending upon America."
~~ Tom Wolfe (2007)

"Growing old is mandatory / Growing up is optional"
~~ t-shirt

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809]

"Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending."
~~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-82]

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."
~~ John Muir [1838-1914]

"Voluntary simplicity is a high value."
~~ radio talk show host Thom Hartmann

"Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility."
~~ Norman Cousins

"Those believing [that] they have not voted are mistaken, for their indifference affects all our futures."
~~ M.A. Denck

"Freedom is when the people speak. Democracy is when the govern- ment listens."
~~ Alistair Farrugia

"The only title in our democracy that is superior to that of President is that of citizen."
~~ Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis [1856-1941]

"An intellectual is someone who can find something more interesting
than sex."
~~ Anonymous

"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."
~~ Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black [1886-1971]

"The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."
~~ Frederick Douglass [1818-95]

"Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely."
~~ Sen. Robert M. 'Fighting Bob' La Follette [1855-1925]

"Man does not live on enchiladas alone."
~~ New Mexico author Rudolfo Anaya (in "Zia Summer")

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it."
~~ Edward R. Murrow [1908-65]

"The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject."
~~ Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.]

"I can't name a writer who's had a more perfect life. My books are all in print, I'm in all the school libraries, and when I go places I get the applause at the start of my speech."
~~ Ray Bradbury

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as I'm the dictator. Heh, heh, heh."
~~ George W. Bush (speech on 18 December 2000)

"All's fair in love and business."
~~ Archie Goodwin character, written by Rex Stout [1886-85]

"A newspaper that is true to its purpose concerns itself not only with the way things are but with the way [that] they ought to be."
~~ Joseph Pulitzer [1847-1911]

"There are times when you just have to p*ss off everybody in order to get something constructive done."
~~ Alj Mary of Phoenix, AZ

{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}

Naomi Wolf's book "The End of America"

Journalist Naomi Wolf began research on totalitarian regimes of the XXth Century, and distinguished a pattern of Ten Steps that each of them used to gain power. The countries & regimes included Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, Soviet Russia, and various 'banana republics' in South America and elsewhere. The actions of the Bush Administration have brought about conditions both similar and dissimilar to the cited totalrian regimes of the past.

She reports the historical events, present problems, and speaks urgently on the need to prevent Bush from the final act of decalring himself 'unitary executive' {i.e. dictator).

Her book on the matter "The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot" was published by Chelsea Green in September, and is already a New York Times bestseller.

The Ten Steps of the Fascist Shift are:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy (worldwide terrorism).

2. Create a gulag (such as the Guantanamo prison & Halliburton's U.S. concentration camps).

3. Develop a thug caste (Blackwater, et al).

4. Set up an internal surveillance system (N.S.A. wiretaps without F.I.S.A. warrants since February 2001, for starters).

5. Harass citizens' groups (protesters such as Code Pink, animal rights groups).

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release (the 'no-fly' list).

7. Target key individuals (scientists, academics, journalists).

8. Control the press (Rupert Murdoch, Clear Channel).

9. Dissent equals treason (Limp Rushbaugh & Tom Tancredo & other idiots all day long, plus the Military Commissions Act of 2006).

10. Suspend the rule of law (a thousand presidential signing statements, elimination of habeas corpus, legalization of posse commitatus).

"The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot" [2007] by Naomi Wolf Chelsea Green 8¼x5¼ pb [9/2007] for $11.16 publisher's bookpage American Freedom Campaign website

October Quotations

"In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."
~~ Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"Pleasure can be based on illusion, but happiness rests on reality."
~~ Nicolas Chamfort [1741-94]

"The life that awaits after death is infinitely more tiresome than this one."
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]

"All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."
~~ Spinoza [1632-77]

"When there is no joy there can be no courage, and without courage all other virtues are useless."
~~ Edward Abbey [1927-89]

"The poets lie too much."
~~ poet Robinson Jeffers [1887-1962]

"Fascists are inferior people who believe it when somebody tells them [that] they are superior."
~~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]

Nice bumper sticker: Who Would Jesus Bomb?

"Life is plenty good."
~~ Charlie Chan, as written by Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933]

"Consequent to a time of War ... the life of Man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
~~ Thomas Hobbes [1588-1679] (in "Leviathan" 1651)

"It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think [that] you were born that way.”
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"A better day is coming."
~~ Michael Moore

"I hate how the white masters of the universe have squeezed and exploited every last square inch of earth for every penny [that] they can get. There's nothing left, nothing [that] they haven't ruined."
~~ Robert Westbrook

"And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
~~ full text of the famous Dictum of Lord Acton [1834-1902]

"It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty."
~~ John C. Calhoun [1782-1850], in Senate speech 1848

"If the government has nothing to hide, why is it hiding everything?"
~~ USAF LtCol. Robert Bowman

"Happiness consists in realizing [that] it is all a great strange dream."
~~ Jack Kerouac [1922-69]

"Nothing exists until it is measured."
~~ physicist Niels Bohr [1885-1962]

"A lie is profanity ... A lie is the worst thing in the world. Art is the ability to tell the truth."
~~ Richard Pryor [1940-2005]

"None of the world's problems will have a solution until the world's individuals become thoroughly self-educated."
~~ R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970]

"Small people talk of other people, average people talk of things, great people talk of ideas."
~~ Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962]
"Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine."
~~ Fran Lebowitz

"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy. These are not our reliance against tyranny. All of those may be turned against us without making us weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defence is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65], in 1858

"The task of my generation is a separation of corporation and state."
~~ John Laesch, 2008 candidate for Congress in Illinois

"A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom."
~~ Bob Dylan

"The most effective idealist is one who is nine-tenths entertainer."
~~ silent movie star Fred C. Thomson [1890-1928]

"63% of U.S. corporations paid no federal taxes last year."
~~ Robert Kennedy, Jr. (2007)

"The clearest way into the universe is thru a forest wilderness."
~~ John Muir [1838-1914]

"The Bush administration has taken politics from the gutter into the sewers."
~~ Stephen H. Weentland of Houston, TX

"With democrats, it's often a struggle to get them to take their own side in an argument."
~~ Will Durst

"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story."
~~ Fitzgerald (in "The Last Tycoon")

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
~~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Like virtue, adventure is its own reward."
~~ James D. Doss

"A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done."
~~ Fred Allen [1894-1956]

"[The Bush] administration has taken a wrecking ball to the very foundations of our democracy."
~~ Al Gore, Jr. (August 2007)

"The road to hell is not paved with good intentions, but with self-justification."
~~ D.R. Meredith

"The class warfare that is being waged by the great rich against the greater majority is not just a slogan. It is as heartless as terrorism, as real as death, and expanding in scope day by day."
~~ Owen Williamson

"Integrity needs no rules."
~~ Albert Camus [1913-60]

"You can't fix stupid."
~~ Ron White

"At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done.
Then they begin to hope [That] it can be done.
Then they see [that] it can be done.
Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago."
~~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

"The usurpation on the part of the Executive of the conduct of foreign relations, which results in Congress blindly and ignorantly following the course dictated by the President, instead of itself declaring the war policy, is fundamentally the cause of our being in this war."
~~ Sen. Robert 'Fighting Bob' La Follette, in June 1917

"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm."
~~ Walter Benjamin [1892-1940]

{many other such quotations are posted
on the Working Minds website}

October News Factoids

GAS/PETROL PRICE GOUGING
Lots of activity on the internet about boycotting Exxon-Mobil as a protest against price-gouging by the Oil Cartel. Better to boycott them all: Exxon-Mobil, Conoco-Phillips 66, B.P.-Shell, Chevron-Texaco-Unocal, and Wal-Mart – just do not buy gas there. That leaves Valero-Shamrock & Fina and others, plus your local "Bob's Gas" operations.

Profits of U.S. oil companies in the last six years were $477 BILLION!

TALK RADIO
Conservative talk radio (and worse: the vast right-wing extremism talk radio onslaught) is 89% of U.S. airtime, progressive talk only 10% as-of May 2007. What is curious about this is that the Radio-TV Cartel is in a panic about the Fairness Doctrine chimera, which no one is actually advocating.

Clear Channel is indeed 'flipping' K.L.S.D. in San Diego to a sports talk format (so that there will be no station for Democrats to purchase ads during the real 2008 election cycle).
Save K.L.S.D. website: www.saveklsd.com

CLASS WAR
The number of individuals worth one million dollars rose 8% in the last year worldwide.

Less than 10% of income in America is taxed for Social Security.

2007 wages & salaries in the U.S are at the lowest portion of G.D.P. since 1929.

Americans now owe $850 BILLION in credit card debt, which is $9,659 for the average household. == per Mother Jones Magazine (Sept-Oct 2007 issue)

The number of foreclosure filings reported in the U.S. in July 2007 jumped 93 percent from July of 2006 and rose 9 percent from June 2007.

ENVIRONMENT
"This summer, Canada's fabled Northwest Passage – the shortest sea route from Europe to the Pacific – was free of obstructing ice for the first time in recorded history." == Time Magazine, September 2007

The United States provided funding of $159 million last year for research on solar technology versus $303 million for research on nuclear energy and $427 million for research on coal energy. == Time Magazine, July 2007

The United Nations Integovernmental Panel on Climate Change says [that] "man-made global warming is unequivocal", in a new report that confirms fears that global weather extremes are now becoming the norm across the planet. (August 2007)

WAR GAMES
Seventy percent of the 2006 C.I.A. budget for intelligence work was paid to private companies.

The U.S. Navy has stopped training Navy personnel for many jobs and has outsourced operation of the nuclear propulsion on our warships to mercenaries such as Halliburton & Blackwater.

HEALTHCARE
"While the U.S. population grew 13% between 1993 and 2003, the amount of prescription drugs [that] we bought went up 70% over the same period."
== columnist Cecil Adams

THE NATION
77,000 highway bridges across the U.S. are classified as 'structurally deficient' or 'functionally obsolete', which is 25% – a serious infrastructure backlog caused by the long-term obstruction of highway funding bills by Republican politicianss under orders from Gingrich, DeLay & Hastert

Good illegal immigration primer website at www.illegalaliens.us

U.S. Supreme Court Decision

This afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Al Gore did NOT win the Nobel Peace Prize, that it was instead won by George W. Bush.

WMail ezine Final Issue

The WMail ezine / newsletter of the Working Minds Philosophy of Empowerment began in the Summer of 2000, and has delivered 71 issues over the seven years. The last issue will be going out this month, as soon as I re-code that portion of the WM website.

The mission of the Working Minds Philosophy and the websites will continue by posting essays
on the Dateline Chamesa blog {your free subscription there}
and to wider distribution services such as
Op Ed News {your free subscription there}.

Further essays will also be posted on the website as another numbered entry on the WM Essays Pages.

Stock Market Casino

An unknown investor (or fund or manager) is betting a billion dollars that the Dow-Jones Eurostoxx 50 Index will plunge by 30% before September 21 (expiration of the e-trades).

The original 245,000 'put' trades were set up on Tuesday & Wednesday of this week, and many others followed once the word got out.

A similar trading scheme involving airline stocks timed for September 11, 2001 has still not been fully investigated, thus providing cause for alarm.

{For background on the topic, see WMail ezine essay #18 'The Stock Market Casino'}

Open Letter To Congress

REASONS TO IMPEACH

1) VIOLATING THE OATH OF OFFICE: Abject failure to ‘uphold and defend the Constitution’; promotion & assumption of Unitary Executive (dictator) privileges; 800-plus signing statements; cancellation of habeas corpus & posse comitatus laws and other Constitutional provisions; illegal wiretapping, which began before September 11.

2) TREASON: Intentionally revealing the identity of the covert C.I.A. operation Brewster Jennings, and its chief agent, Valerie Plame Wilson – resulting in the deaths of foreign agents, and in the end of C.I.A. data-gathering on W.M.D. in the Middle East.

3) WAR PROFITEERING, which Harry Truman said is treason.

4) INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES: Invading a sovereign nation; blatant violations of the Geneva Convention; torture and murder of prisoners.

5) U.S. WAR CRIMES: Torture of innocent civilians; perpetual imprisonment of civilians at Guantanamo; rendering to ‘black site’ facilities; mistreatment of veterans and active military; abuse of National Guard and Reserve and active duty military personnel (placed in harm’s way without adequate training or equipment, redeployed without proper rest).

6) BANKRUPTING THE COUNTRY: The official National Debt is now close to nine trillion dollars, an increase of 56% by Bush.

7) BEARING FALSE WITNESS: Formal and public falsification of information given to Congress and to the American people; a string of cover-ups, and then cover-ups of the cover-ups.

8) ELECTION FRAUD, including targeted voter disenfranchisement.

9) THE KATRINA DISASTER

10) STACKING THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM: Using un-Constitutional provisions of the Patriot Act to appoint federal judges and U.S. attorneys without the ‘advice and consent’ of Congress.

11) DAMAGE TO THE ENVIRONMENT: Denial of the facts of global warming; muzzling of scientists; sell-off of natural resources; reversal of environmental protection laws; closing of the E.P.A. library; appointment of industry executives to oversight bodies.

**     **     **     **
          Part of the neo-con denial of George Dubya Bush’s blatant psychopathy is to say that the impeachment process takes too long, that before Congress can get that job done, a new occupant of the White House will replace Bush in January 2009.
          Hogwash!

          The historic reality is that the G.O.P.’s witch-hunt is what took a long time, because there were no crimes by Bill & Hillary to prosecute. The special prosecutor spent $60 million and found nothing! After manipulating the situation so that Clinton lied about having sex ‘with that woman’, the actual process of impeachment took a mere two months, and the end result was that the U.S. Senate found Clinton not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

          If the 110th Congress manages to find the cojones to do their sworn duty, our criminal President and Vice President and their mob of fascist freedom-haters can be sent packing – either to prison or to exile – before 2007 ends.
          After regime change, America can then get to work fixing the damage done by the Bush administration.

**     **     **     **
Please copy the above into the online message form for your Congressperson and both Senators for your state.
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Insult To Grumpy Americans

McDonald's and other fastfood chains have the Happy Meal, Star Meal, et cetera for kids. So how come equal attention is not given to all the members of the Grumpy-American community? When enough grumpy activists ask for the Grumpy Meal at each visit to any chain outlet, we will be given our due – a fastfood meal with OUR name on it!

George W. Bush Über Alles

Well, maybe there won't even BE an election in 2008.

On 9 May 2007, President Bush signed a directive giving himself the power to run the entire U.S. government, single-handed.

Yup, you can call it the 'Dictatorship Enabling Act of 2007'.

The official title is "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive {N.S.P.D.-51 and H.S.P.D.-20}" and the link below is to the White House's oh-so-very-quiet press release.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

What can you do about this? One option is joining the Working Minds 'Boycott W-9 Project
http://www.boycottW9.org

WMail #70: "The Cage"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "The Cage", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay70.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2007b.htm#70

the topic of the last issue was "Summer Solution - Impeachment", and the 72nd issue will be on the topic "Fashion"


each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm
quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

World Trade Center Conspiracy Disproved

All that conspiracy talk about the attack on Sept. 11 by two hijacked airplanes on the World Trade Center in New York City – about how the Twin Towers could not have simply collapsed from the planes, that jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel – is completely disproven by the tanker truck that burst into flames on the approach road on the Bay Bridge in Oakland, California around 4 a.m. on April 29th. Heck, it was just plain gasoline/petrol and not even jet fuel!

Apply enough heat for a long enough time and steel melts: the Bay Bridge collapsed and that proves that the same is easily true as well for the W.T.C.

Who Killed Julius Caesar?

George W. Bush has committed hundreds of crimes while in office as President of the U.S.A. Aside from the Oil War and the obliteration of Constitutional law, perhaps Bush's most heinous single criminal act was ordering others to reveal the identity of a covert agent of the C.I.A., Valerie Plame Wilson.

Bush's co-conspirators include Karl Rove, VP Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Richard Armitage, Ari Fleischer, and Alberto Gonzalez – all are guilty of conspiracy and-or treason. Several journalists were involved – Bob Woodward, Walter Pincus, Judith Miller, Robert Novak, David Gregory – and their individual culpability ranges from bystander/victim to traitor.

The neo-fascist P.N.A.C. machine forced Armitage to confirm in September 2006 that he had revealed Plame's identity to Woodward in June 2003 and to Novak in July 2003, and thus he was first, though he may not have known that Plame was a covert agent. (Armitage is now a board member at the ConocoPhillips oil company, and also a lobbyist.)

The spin-meisters then spread the bogus excuse that since Armitage was the first conspirator to reveal Plame's identity, none of the other conspirators committed any crime.

Wrong. Very wrong.

(It is beyond tedious to have to refute each and every lame 'my dog ate my homework' excuse put forth from the P.N.A.C. machine, one after the other, ad infinitum, ad nauseum – but reality must be defended from the never-ending propaganda onslaught. These thousands of dastardly crimes demand prosecution.)

Caesar's Assassination
The assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar is the proper analogy for the outing of Plame.

The story that is taught as Official History is that Caesar was acting a lot like Dubya – they both match the definition of tyrant – and so about 60 members of the Roman Senate surrounded Ceasar and stabbed him to death on the Ides of March in the year 44 B.C.E. Historians seem to agree that Caesar's body sustained 23 stab wounds.

If there was a 'C.S.I.-Ancient Rome' team to examine the evidence, they would have had a tough time pinpointing which stab wound caused the death of Caesar. However, trying to name the one toga-draped politician who murdered Caesar is both futile and needless.

The fact is that each of the 23 politicians who were successful in stabbing Caesar committed an act of first degree murder, and the other 37 Senators aided and abetted (at minimum).

Back To Bush and PlameGate
Each and every neo-fascist string-puller or puppet committed an Act of Treason when they spoke the name of an active covert C.I.A. spy to any person who had neither proper security clearance nor a legitimate (U.S. national security-related) Need To Know.

• Plame's career at the C.I.A. was stopped dead in its tracks.
• Her brass-plate front company Brewster Jennings was closed down on the day that Novak's mentioned her name & job in his widely-syndicated column.
• Once the name and purpose of Brewster Jennings became public, foreign agents were tortured and killed, and others were placed in fear of discovery and subsequent execution for treason against their own country.
• Most significantly, Plame's operation for gathering intelligence on nuclear weapons and W.M.D. in the Middle East evaporated overnight – a boon to the war-mongers who reap profits from the Oil War in Iraq.

Who committed treason in the PlameGate event?
Dubya gave the order to Cheney, who passed that order on to Libby – per the memo in Dick Cheney's handwriting entered as evidence in the recent trial that convicted Libby of perjury. Armitage was merely the first to obey that order. Rove committed multiple acts of treason by speaking about Plame with several reporters. Novak committed treason twice: in revealing Plame's identity and job on 14 July 2003, and then again in revealing the existence and purpose of Brewster Jennings on 10 October 2003. (Miller and Pincus kept their mouths shut; both have had their reputations damaged; Miller lost her job.)

Just like the stabbers of Caesar, they all did the deed: Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Armitage, Novak, Gonzalez and any other government official who gave out classified information for political retaliation against Ambassador Joe Wilson and his C.I.A.-agent wife.

Impeachment is way overdue.

TreasonGate Timeline at Working Minds website

WMail #69: "Summer Solution"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Summer Solution", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay69.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2007a.htm#69

the topic of the last issue was "The Distinction LOYALTY", and the April issue will be on the topic "The Cage"


each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm
quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

Coming Soon: Martial Law!

The Bush administration suspended posse comitatus (preventing use of the military as law enforcement inside the U.S.) shortly after Sept. 11. They snuck suspension of habeas corpus into the Dept. of Defense Appropriations Act of 2006. And, oh yeah, Halliburton is building U.S. concentration camps. These changes are part of a plan for martial law and Der Führer Bush’s self-appointment as P.N.A.C.’s ‘unitary executive’ as soon as he starts World War III.

{Bush defenders: What other conclusions can be made as to the purpose of these subversions of the U.S. Constitution?]

WMail #68: "The Distinction LOYALTY"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "The Distinction LOYALTY", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay68.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2007a.htm#68

the topic of the last issue was "The Distinction POWER", and the March issue will be on the topic "The Cage"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm
quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

President John McCain

On 29 January 2007, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby's lawyers admitted into evidence a note in Dick Cheney's handwriting stating that 'The Pres' gave the order to reveal covert C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame's identity.

{Déjà vu: Bush & Cheney & Rove & Libby & others committed crimes (including treason), and then botched the cover-up !!}

As Congress moves closer to voting to issue a multi-offense Bill of Impeachment:

First Option:
Bush 43 resigns in disgrace, and Cheney becomes President #44; Cheney appoints boot-licker Sen. John McCain as VP; Pres. Cheney then resigns, setting up President #45 McCain to run in 2008 as incumbent.

Second Option:
Cheney resigns in disgrace, and Bush appoints boot-licker McCain as VP; Bush 43 then resigns, setting up President #44 McCain to run in 2008 as incumbent.

NOTE 1: Candidates for McCain's VP include 'Traitor Joe' Lieberman, Condi Rice, and Mitt Romney.
NOTE 2: McCain won't be able to wait until after the November 2008 election to pardon Bush, Cheney, Rove et al, and doing so before the election will deliver the Presidency to the Democrat.

WMail #67: "The Distinction POWER"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online
the essay topic is "The Distinction POWER", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay67.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2007a.htm#67
the topic of the last issue was "Cooling The Planet", and the February issue will be on the topic "The Distinction LOYALTY"

each issue is posted online &ndash; see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm and the essays are also posted separately – see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm; quotations are posted by author at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm
sign up for the free ezine via email here

Calling All Patriots!

Patriots despise George W. Bush because he has shredded the Constitution. Your children and grandchaildren are no longer free, and I don't mean because of the skyrocketing National Debt. America ceased to be a democracy (or even a republic) on the day that G.W.B. became the President. The United States of America is run by an insane, neo-fascist cabal and this former bastion of Freedom has morphed into a non-benevolent dictatorship.

http://www.boycottW9.org

WAR NEWS: Iraq oil give-away

The Iraq oil fields are now producing at 55% of pre-invasion levels. Meanwhile, U.S. & British oil companies are pushing legislation thru the Iraq parliament that gives them a tax-free, no-bid, 30-year irrevocable deal to exploit the Iraq oil fields.

Mission accomplished !!

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132574.ece

Solution To Local Gang Problem

Valencia County News-Bulletin
Saturday 30 December 2006
Opinion / Letters [page 5A]

Churches must take a stand against gangs
The crime rate in Valencia County is the result of widespread tolerance of the gang ethos. There is not one clergyperson in the county, for example, who has taken a real stand against gang members (beyond verbal tsk-tsk-ing).

Virtually all the churches here are Bible-based, and the First Commandment states that no one shall have any allegiance higher than the Judeo-Christian God. Allegiance to a gang is in conflict with the First Commandment.

When the pastors and priests of Valencia County enforce a policy that no one holding allegiance to any gang can participate in, say, communion or confession, then the gang problem will be gone.

Gary E. Nordell
Belén, New Mexico

WMail #66: "Cooling The Planet"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Cooling The Planet", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay66.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006d.htm#66

the topic of the last issue was "Being Thankful (Post-Election)", and the January issue will be on the topic "The Distinction Power"

each issue is posted online – see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm and the essays are also posted separately – see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm; quotations are posted by author at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

WMail #65: "Being Thankful (Post-Election)"

the November issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Being Thankful", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay65.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006d.htm#65

the December issue will be on the topic "Cooling The Planet".

the October issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the last issue's essay topic was "The War In Iran", and it is posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay64.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006c.htm#64

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author –
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free WMail ezine via email here

Xmas Gifts For Republicans

The Republican Party may have gotten its collective feelings hurt from the election, so we should take care this holiday season to give them distinctive and personally relevant Xmas gifts.

★ G.O.P. Party Mix: a colorful mix of OxyContin, meth & Viagra in a large brandy snifter

★ A personal paper shredder, useful at home and in the office

★ A book on international extradition law

★ "I'm really a Democrat" bumper sticker

★ The book "Federal Prison On $50 A Day"

★ A drug/alcohol rehab media kit

★ Audio tape of "A Book of 1000 Excuses"

★ PhotoShop graphic (8" by 10") of the giftee shaking hands with Bono, and another with an arm around Al Gore

★ T-shirt set: on the front of each is either the Enron or Halliburton logo or the Iraq flag or the G.O.P. elephant, and on the back of each it says "I'm with stupid"

★ The book "Oversight For Dummies"

Martial Law?

Whether today's national election restores Constitutional rule or not may be moot.

If the Democrats win enough seats in Congress to reorganize with themselves as the majority party, there is still something like 60 days before that happens.

Dubya has enough followers behind the fascist P.N.A.C. agenda that he might be fool enough to declare martial law across America before January. Whichever way the election goes: if the Dems win, Dubya is in a corner; if the G.O.P. wins, the fascists have free rein. Any excuse, such as an airplane hijacking or truck bombing, up to Pearl Harbor Three, is all Dubya needs – as his only possible escape from impeachment and charges of treason, illegal spying, war profiteering, embezzlement, and a string of further felony crimes.

The key element here is Karl Rove's promise of 'boots on the ground' during the 72-hour lead-up to Election Day 2006. Rove reported sending 13,000 loyal 'field workers' to deliver Republican voters to precinct sites in Montana. Someone on progressive talk radio remarked yesterday that Montana doesn't have that many hotel rooms!

So what if 'boots on the ground' is literal? Let us not forget the Halliburton-built concentration camps: good locations for housing and feeding – and arming? – a legion of brownshirt minions. Scattered across America, some in every state, ready to fan out once martial law is declared.

Sure hope that this prediction fails to come true ...
However, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance," and America has not been vigilant.

see Halliburton-K.B.R.'s smug press release dated 24 January 2006

Rumsfeld sold nukes to North Korea

Donald Rumsfeld, current U.S. Secretary of War, was on the board of the company that contracted for two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea in 2000. He left that position to join the Bush administration. The company is A.B.B., headquartered in Zurich; the contract was for $200 million; the reactors are capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,952289,00.html

Dubya gave North Korea $95 million in April 2002 for their nuclear program, and at the same time waived inspections that were agreed to under the 1994 Agreed Framework, as set up by the Clinton administration.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1908571.stm

WMail #64: "The War In Iran"

the October issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "The War In Iran", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay64.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006c.htm#64

the November issue will be commentary on the election results.

the last issue's essay topic was "Bush & Blackmail", and it is posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay63.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006c.htm#63

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author –
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free WMail ezine via email here

FoleyGate: The Beginning of The End

While hoping to celebrate passage of the un-Constitutional 'Detain War Protestors Whenever We Want To Act' last Friday, the Republican Party has instead been forced to blow sanctimonious smoke at the American people over long-covered-up sex crimes within the Congressional Page Program.

A.B.C. News revealed the existence of a months-old complaint by a Congressional page about emails and instant messages from Congressman Mark Foley [R-FL]. The texts by Foley include explicit sexual content; the page is a 16-year-old male.

Congressman Foley immediately resigned from Congress early Friday. This leaves open his seat in Congress as well as his seat as co-chair of the House Caucus On Missing & Exploited Children {no kidding!}.

The emails were reported to Congress in July, then to the office of the House Speaker, then to the F.B.I., then to two Florida newspapers [St. Petersburg Times & Miami Herald], who all did nothing about the matter; finally, ABC reported the story at the end of September.

House Majority Leader John Boehner [R-OH] admitted that he was told of the problem six months ago; he reported the matter to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert [R-IL], who already knew about it at that time.

Nobody in Congress informed the police or the F.B.I. about the crimes, which are felonies.

Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington forwarded copies of the original emails to the F.B.I. in July 2006; the F.B.I. took no action.

It was policy at Congress for at least five years to warn new pages about Foley's practice of being 'overly attentive' to teen pages.

The F.B.I. has begun an investigation, and several politicians have already asked for an independent investigation by the U.S. Attorney General. (Cynics suggest that as soon as any investigation begins, the culprits will be 'required' to refrain from further comment 'because of the on-going investigation'.)

There are reports of recent checks for up to $100,000 paid to the R.N.C. or R.C.C.C. by Foley, which look a lot like a bribe to keep quiet.

Besides the actual crimes by Foley, he and Hastert and Boehner are liable for Federal charges of conspiracy (before and after the fact). Others already known to be involved include Congressmen Thomas Reynolds [R-NY] & chairman of the Page Board John Shimkus [R-IL], and Rodney Alexander [R-LA], who sponsored one of the page victims. Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds, Shimkus & Alexander are already given the title 'The Foley Five'.

The actual purpose of the cover-up was to retain Foley's congressional seat for the G.O.P., at the cost of further exploitation of under-age boys. (Other victims have come forward already.)

WMail #63: "Bush & Blackmail"

the September issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Bush & Blackmail", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay63.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006c.htm#63

the October issue will be on the topic "The War In Iran"

the last issue was the Third All-Quotes Issue, along with a few news & comments items, and the issue is posted at
http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006c.htm#62

previous All-Quotes issues were WMail Issue #36 [October 2003] and WMail Issue #43 [May 2004]

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author –
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

War News: Attacking Iran

In December of 2004, the White House ordered the Pentagon to design plans for the invasion of Iran.

Leaves were abruptly cancelled for sailors last weekend at Norfolk Naval Station, in order to prepare the U.S.S Dwight D. Eisenhower [CVN-69] for immediate deployment to the Persian Gulf. The super-carrier ‘Ike’ and its support ships carry ‘tactical nukes’ capable of delivery to targets in Iran.

The fleet is expected to arrive by mid-October [i.e. before the November U.S. elections].

UPDATE 11 October: Navy officers aboard the 'Ike' have expressed concern via emails to family & friends about going to the Middle East without a declaration of war by Congress – What will they do if Dubya orders them to attack without Congressional clearance?; in other conversations, folks are concerned that the 'Ike' is intended as a lure for an attack ala the 'Gulf of Tonkin incident' of August 1964

wanted poster 2006

Be very scared. And very angry.

The U.S. National Debt is now $8,521,310,000,000.

Not scared by that? The annual interest on that amount (at a ballpark 10%) comes to 850 BILLION dollars – compare that to the cost of the Iraq War, which is 'only' 310 billion dollars over three years. (So far, of course: this does not include off-budget costs, which could reach 2 trillion dollars.)

That interest money is being paid to the Oligarchy in America, from whom we receive no benefit, except their mis-management of everything. This is basically extortion money.

The personal share of the National Debt of U.S. citizens can be computed two ways:

1) Dividing by the current population of 300 million, this comes to $28,400 per person.

This figure has earned the term 'Birth Tax', because every newborn American is saddled with this debt at the moment that they draw their first breath.

So, a family of four owes $113,600. A married couple without children owes $56,800.

2) Dividing by the number of individual taxpayers (135 million), this comes to $63,120 per taxpayer.

In this computation, a family of four owes $126,240. But what is also true is that a married couple with no children likewise owes $126,240.

Nobody who voted for George Bush is exempt. Nobody who voted for John Kerry is exempt. Nobody who stuck their head in the sand and failed their duty as a citizen by not voting at all is exempt. Nobody in diapers is exempt. Nobody in a nursing home is exempt.

And nobody reading this who lives in the U.S.A. is exempt.

Now are you scared? But more importantly, you should be angry.

The Oligarchy has the money, and you all have the debt. And your children and grandchildren ...

Bush 43 is 'The Toxic President'

•• He increased the National Debt by 49% – a dollar amount larger than the prior 42 presidents combined.

•• He has destroyed America's reputation as any kind of Beacon of Freedom.

•• The entire world is mad at the U.S.A. for starting the War in the Middle East.

•• He refuses to comply with the Kyoto Treaty, and in fact supports pollution at every hand.

•• The average worker earns less, healthcare is a farce, and corporate executives are over-paid pirates.

•• War-profiteering abounds, and money for Katrina relief went to corporations – NOT to residents of the Gulf Coast.

•• The treasonous act of outing Valerie Plame and Brewster-Jennings destroyed the C.I.A.'s trust among the intelligence community.

•• Felonious wire-taps and secret data-mining schemes cause fear of expression among all Americans.

Regime change in November 2006 !!
Impeachment starts in January 2007 ...

WMail #62: Third All-Quotes Issue

the August issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the content is the Third All-Quotes Issue, along with a few news & comments items, and the issue is posted at
http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006c.htm#62

previous All-Quotes issues were WMail Issue #36 [October 2003] and WMail Issue #43 [May 2004]

the topic of the prior issue was "Non-Monetary Economics", and the September issue topic will be "Bush & Blackmail"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author –
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

London Terrorists

Various Letters to the Editor about the recent arrests of terrorist plotters in London were opining absent quite a few facts.

1) Dubya was briefed on the matter on the Friday before the Monday announcement (as well as on Saturday & Sunday).

2) Cheney & the talking heads spent the weekend spewing bilge on TV about the Democrats being 'soft on terror'.

3) The following weekend's interview shows were used to connect British police work (wrongly) to the Bush administration's illegal & un-Constitutional wiretaps & data-mining.

4) Dubya's claim for credit in making the arrests has no basis.

5) Although the Brits cooperated in announcing the arrests on the day before the Connecticut primary, the police are upset that they were forced to close in on the terrorist cell prematurely – it will be difficult to convict them because (a) they had not purchased airline tickets, and (b) they had not gotten their passports or visas.

Dubya's Third Term

Dubya's photo-op yesterday with Rockey Vaccarella of Louisiana was a fake, and quite scary.

1) Rockey was towing an 'honorary' F.E.M.A. trailer.
2) Rockey announced the trip beforehand.
3) Rockey is a Republican candidate for office in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
4) The script, probably written by Karl Rove, included Rockey's gushing wish that Dubya would have another four years to 'help' victims of Hurricane Katrina (conveniently avoiding the fact that Dubya caused the flooding & subsequent F.E.M.A. fiasco).
5) The 22nd Amendment, passed in 1951, limits the president to two terms.

The scary part is that Dubya will have a big problem running for a third term as an impeached felon, so this trial balloon from Rove points to a pre-emptive declaration making Bush 43 the first fascist dictator of the United States, with his 'third term' being permanent.

Expect this to happen shortly after the Democratic victories in November 2006 and before the Democratic House & Senate convene in January 2007.

WMail #61: "Non-Monetary Economics"

the July issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Non-Monetary Economics", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay61.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006b.htm#61

the topic of the prior issue was "Climate & Politics", and the August issue topic is still to be determined

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author –
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

economics tidbits #3

The current U.S. consumer & government debt is now $41 trillion; this combined debt has increased more in the last 16 years than in the previous 200 years.
— gold-merchant interviewed July 2006 on Ed Schultz radio show

"Taxation above 19% shrinks government and taxation below 19% makes government grow."
— Jonathan Rauch, in Atlantic Monthly June 2006

"95% of Fortune 500 companies pay less than 5% in taxes."
— David Sirota

"Cut and run? The Republican policy is to cut taxes for the wealthy and run up the National Debt."
— G.E. Nordell

WMail #60: "Climate & Politics"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Climate & Politics", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay60.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006b.htm#60

the topic of the last issue was "The Distinction Source", and the July issue topic is still to be determined

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

WMail #59: "The Distinction Source"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "The Distinction Source", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay59.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006b.htm#59

the topic of the last issue was "The 51% Solution", and the June issue will be on the topic "Climate & Politics"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

new Albuquerque, New Mexico movie studios

Heard today about the recent news of a movie studio deal for the westside of Albuquerque, NM.

It turns out the Albuquerque Journal newspaper printed an article on May 20 that the involved parties are not willing to verify. The facts from public documents are that the independent City of Rio Rancho is developing a huge government & shopping & sports complex called City Center, and that Lion's Gate Entertainment {site requires Flash} has been making deals with local entities for 52.8 acres just north of City Center, for construction of a first phase of 'three sound stages, two backlots, and production offices'. The plan projects five permanent employees and as many as 400 local full-time jobs (crafts people, security, production workers, etc.).

A studio facility is also planned for the 27-acre property where the long-unused Santa Fe Railroad shop facilities are located, in the Barelas barrio area (also known as Mesa del Sol) south of Downtown Albuquerque. Partners in that deal, announced in October 2005, are Pacifica Ventures (owners of Culver Studios in Los Angeles), Digital Media Group, and local developer Union Development Corp. The mixed-use project will include six sound stages, a unique 200,000 sq-ft indoor backlot, and office & retail & housing space.

UPDATE July 25:
Albuquerque [NM] Tribune July 24 article
Hollywood studio spotlights Mesa del Sol plans
Albuquerque [NM] Journal July 25 article
Albuquerque Studios Work Gets Started

UPDATE June 2007:
The Albuquerque Studios facility is open for business.

UPDATE Nov 2008:The deal for a Lionsgate Studio to be built in Rio Rancho is officially expired.

Above The Law

The evidence that George Dubya Bush and his co-conspirators are and have been holding themselves above the law is mounting:

The New York Times first revealed the N.S.A. program of warrantless wiretapping of U.S. phone calls & data-mining of phone company records in December 2005.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy

More indictments are pending by Special Prosecutor Patrick 'Bulldog' Fitzgerald in the Valerie Plame C.I.A. leak 'Treasongate' scandal.
Working Minds Timeline of the TreasonGate Cover-Up

Bush on May 5th quietly issued a presidential memorandum that was published on May 14th under the innocuous title "Assignment of Function Relating to Granting of Authority for Issuance of Certain Directives: Memorandum for the Director of National Intelligence". The memo gives 'executive power' to Director of National Intellligence John Negroponte to absolve any corporation from requirements to file reports to the S.E.C. or I.R.S. in the name of 'national security'. The existence of this shadow power move was revealed by
Business Week Online on May 23rd.

On April 30th, the Boston Globe published its research detailing the 750+ signing statements issued by Bush, saying that he will not enforce or obey those laws as passed by Congress.
www.boston.com/.../2006/04/30/bush ...

The Federal Reserve discontinued publication of the M3 monetary aggregate report in February 2006. The M3 Report was the primary indicator of the size of the money supply, i.e. the amount of money in circulation. The value of the M3 doubled in the prior 9 years, which no other part of the economy has matched – a certain cause of inflation. (The fiscally irresponsible Bush administration has also doubled the U.S. National Debt since he took office.) It is natural to presume that the M3 report was eliminated so that further inflationary moves will be hidden from public view.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/20060330/h6.txt

Working Minds 'Stopping George Dubya Bush' Page

economics tidbits #2

"In 2005, there were 9 million American millionaires, a 62% increase since 2002." — Mother Jones Magazine May/June 2006

"Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage has fallen 42% since its peak in 1968." — Mother Jones Magazine May/June 2006

"Two-parent families are spending 16% more time at work, or 500 hours a year, than they did in 1979." — The Nation May 2006

Due to the rise in metal prices (especially zinc), the cost of making a U.S. penny is now 1.4 cents and the cost of making a nickel is now 5.73 cents.

U.S. Elections of 2006

Most U.S. local & state primary elections are June 6th; the national/general election is November 6th.

Any U.S. citizen who does not vote in the 2006 Primary and 2006 General Elections surrenders the right to call him-/herself an American.

It is time to take the country back from the Carlisle Group, Halliburton, Kellogg-Brown-Root 'petroleum industrial complex' that pulls the strings attached to mouthpiece-puppet George Dubya Bush.

The impeachment of Bush & Cheney hinges on the people's will, expressed in the June 2006 Primary Elections – replacing all G.O.P. candidates and fellow-traveling Democrats – and in the November 2006 General Elections.

Your country is calling for action, for a New Revolution, for a stand to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution against the fascists running the Bush Administration.

A new 2006 U.S. National Elections Page has been added on the Working Minds website; it will be updated regularly.

Rove indicted

word is out that on Friday {May 12th} Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald handed warrants to Karl Rove's lawyers specifying indictments of Rove for perjury and obstruction of justice

update May 27: nothing has since happened on this, which seems to be connected to the indictment itself being secret; no 'U.S. vs. Rove' case was filed that day, but there is a 'Sealed vs. Sealed' filing; what is going on? conjecture has it that Fitzgerald's boss ordered the secrecy

update June 13: Rove's lawyer stated that Rove will not be prosecuted, based on a letter from Fitzgerald; Fitzgerald's office declined to confirm or deny the statement.

wholesale price of gas

According to the governor of Montana, he and the governers of Wyoming and North Dakota set up a coalition and met with in-state oil producers to ramp up production of crude oil a couple weeks ago. The producers agreed. Turned out the bottleneck up there is the pipeline to the refineries.

The pipeline people offered the independent American oil producers $32 a barrel! – during a time when crude oil on the world market is over $70 a barrel.

Price-gouging is a fact. And Gov. Schweitzer has asked his Attorney General to investigate: see PDF file of memo.

(based on an interview with Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, heard on the Ed Schultz radio show Thursday 4 May 2006)

price of gas + boycott

the average price of gas/petrol when George Bush was anointed President was $1.46 per gallon; the current price (5 years later) is an average of $2.91 per gallon, an increase of 100% [from the A.A.A. in April 2006]

while many pooh-pooh the idea or effectiveness of a boycott, the chain emails in support of a boycott of Exxon-Mobil are an angry response to the unconscionable windfall profits that Exxon-Mobil and the others of the U.S. oil monopoly have taken out of your pocket

the bottom line about the boycott is that it won't hurt to drive past Exxon-Mobil's retail locations and buy from another brand – the message may get delivered if enough join in; the Valero-Shamrock C-store in my town keeps their pump price several cents lower than the others, so Shamrock is my usual fill up anyway

drugs and execution

most current methods of execution are rough on the recipient, which is not a surprise since the purpose is to kill the person sentenced to death by the legal system; the newer methods of execution by injection are hardly better than electrocution or hanging or the firing squad (drawing and quartering has been out of favor for a while)

here's a better method for execution of criminals: inject them with heroin, which is a natural substance for which the human body has receptors, which is why getting hooked is so difficult to undo

the use of heroin for executions has two benefits over the other methods: first, the experience for the executee will be rather pleasant, actually, and the overdose no less lethal, which removes the complaints about cruelty

secondly, kids and others considering or being pressured to try a little 'pop' of heroin – no big deal, you can quit any time, no real harm done – will be clear that heroin is used to execute criminals because heroin is very, very lethal

June 2nd Bomb Testing

Hidden from public knowledge until a few days ago, the Pentagon is preparing to test a gigantic open-air explosion at the Nevada Test Site, location of most of America's prior nuclear testing. The explosion in Area 16 of Yucca Flat is expected to create a mushroom cloud visible from Las Vegas. The 'bomb' is being constructed of chemical fertilizer and diesel fuel, the same ingredients as the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, placed into a 30-foot deep hole.

The code name for the test is 'Divine Strake'; the name alone is enough to make anyone worried. ('Strake' is the term for a plank on the hull of a ship or boat, as in the lapstrake hulls of Viking sailing ships; modern usage is for certain devices on an aircraft fuselage to increase air-speed.)

The Nevada Test Site is located roughly 65 miles (north & west) from Las Vegas and roughly 35 miles (south & east) from the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility – the tunnels intended to house spent fuel rods from nuclear energy plants along with all manner of other radioactive waste for all of eternity.

DETAILS

The explosion is rated at 700 tons, which is 700 times larger than the biggest conventional (non-nuclear) bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

The maximum payload of the workhorse B-52 bomber is only 35 tons, the C-5A cargo plane carries only 145 tons, so there is no way to deliver such a gigantic conventional bomb.

The explosion is expected to stir up kilotons of dust & dirt, likely containing radioactive fallout from all those Cold War nuclear experiments – which is of course denied by the Pentagon.

CONCLUSIONS

This test is using conventional weapons to see how much damage will occur from a small 'tactical' nuclear weapon, as is planned for Dubya's upcoming unprovoked assault on Iran.

You can expect that the attack on Iran will be timed to skew the Congressional elections in November, and the term 'October Surprise' (invented by 'Tricky Dicky' Nixon) is most apt.

SIDE NOTE
When George Dubya Bush was a child, he took pleasure in stuffing firecrackers up the anus of live frogs and then lighting the firecracker. 'Divine Strake' is more of the same pathology.

UPDATE May 10
Members of the Shoshone Tribe and others living east of the Nevada Test Site – 'downwinders' – filed suit in Las Vegas federal court to halt the 'Divine Strake' bomb test; the test has been postponed until June 23rd. The protest group is the Western Shoshone Defense Project.

UPDATE May 27
The National Nuclear Security Administration has buckled, since they cannot provide evidence to back up the Finding of No Significant Impact for the proposed mock atomic test. 'Divine Strake' is indefinitely postponed until a revised Environmental Impact Report can be produced.

UPDATE August 3
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency announced that the 'Divine Strake' non-atomic bomb test is postponed until at least 2007, possibly in a different location.

{For a historical perspective on America's atomic past,
visit the Atomic U.S.A. Page at Spirit of America Bookstore}

TreasonGate Timeline updated

The first version of the Working Minds TreasonGate Cover-Up Timeline was included in Issue #53 [July 2005] of the Working Minds 'WMail' ezine, and also posted online as Essay #53.

As subsequent events reveal more pieces of the cover-up, this new page will be the location of ongoing updates regarding George Dubya's path to impeachment!

The page http://www.working-minds.com/TreasonGate.htm was updated this week.

WMail #58: "The 51% Solution"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "The 51% Solution", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay58.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006a.htm#58

the topic of the last issue was "Civil Disobedience", and the May issue will be on the topic "The Distinction Source"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

feature film "Black Billy"

started the Landmark Education seminar on Creativity (for the 4th or 5th time) on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I wrote the outline for a movie; (any day that I write is an excellent day, the days in between are just days in between)

New Mexico has a unique attitude about their outlaws and lawmen – Billy the Kid, the Lincoln County Wars, Elfego Baca, Blackjack Ketchum, the Bowdres – that shows up in the local media etc, an attitude of mostly pride, some nostalgia, and overall 'this is what New Mexicans are like'

I'll call this screenplay "Black Billy" because it is a noir Western tale, with the noir structure and the noir stance of inevitable doom: there is nothing Billy can do to prevent his too-certain fate, and he knows it — think Peckinpah

WMail #57: "Civil Disobedience"

the latest issue of the free WMail 'Working Minds' philosophy & activism email newsletter is sent out, and also posted online

the essay topic is "Civil Disobedience", posted online at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay57.htm; the full issue includes news & comments and a couple dozen quotations, and that is posted at http://www.working-minds.com/WM2006a.htm#57

the topic of the last issue was "State of Emergency", and the April issue will be on the topic "The 51% Solution"

each issue is posted online –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm;
and the essays are also posted separately –
see http://www.working-minds.com/WMessays.htm;
the quotations are posted by author
at http://www.working-minds.com/WMquotes.htm

sign up for the free ezine via email here

economic tidbits #1

"The number of people living in extreme poverty [in America] is the highest ever recorded since the census Bureau began tracking such data three decades ago."
— Eyal Press, in The Nation Magazine

"American households experienced negative savings [in 2005] – they spent $42 billion more than they earned – for the first time since 1933, the depths of the Great Depression."
— William Greider in The Nation Magazine (20 Feb 2006 issue)

"The personal savings rate in 2005 [was] minus 0.5%, the first year since the Great Depression that Americans spent more than they made."
— Time Magazine (13 Feb 2006 issue)

"The number of manufacturing jobs in the United States has fallen all the way back to the level it was in 1945."
— Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky [Dem IL]

"By most conventional measures, especially job growth, the Bush years have been the worst of any president in the last fifty years ... Since the recession ended at the end of 2001, corporate profits are up 81 percent, while the wages that corporations pay their employees are up just 18%, a ratio of over four to one ... We're some ten million jobs below where we should be, based on historical averages."
— Doug Henwood, The Left Business Observer [est. 1986]
& The Washington Spectator

Working Minds 'Boycott W-9 Project'

The Forces of Endarkenment are on the brink of provoking Pearl Harbor III sometime in 2006. (September 11 was the curiously convenient Second Pearl Harbor.)

While we may have 'nothing to fear but fear itself', events around the world and within America are cause for great concern, frustration and worry. Detention camps are being built across America by Halliburton, war plans move forward for air attacks on Iran, the Rangel-Hollings Bill lurks offstage, the budget deficit sets records, the National Debt has risen beyond legal levels, and Americans are losing jobs and trying to survive on their equity or meager savings.

Folks who pay attention to non-propaganda news sources are looking for ways to act, to restore Constitutional powers to Congress (such as oversight), and to halt the lies & deceit & unwarranted secrecy, the war crimes and bribery, the greed & torture & death, the widespread abuse of power that is the stock in trade of the Bush Administration.

The new 'Working Minds Boycott W-9 Project' includes steps to take back your power, to assert your freedom as an Individual, to voice your disgust & disdain & disapproval of the way that America is headed – leaping and bounding toward an economic tsunami, toward widespread religious wars, toward ecological disaster, toward the sale of America and Americans to the lowest bidder.

The new website URL is http://www.BoycottW9.org
(which redirects to http://www.working-minds.com/boycottW9.htm )

Visit the site & begin your participation in the boycott ...
then copy & paste this to everyone in your address book

Fight tyranny: Regime change in November 2006 !!

boycott the Oligarchy

this new website includes simple steps for bringing the Bush-Cheney-Rove Imperial Presidency to account for their treasonous disregard for the U.S. Constitution & its guarantees of privacy, representational government & due process

http://www.boycottW9.org
which redirects to http://www.working-minds.com/boycottW9.htm

Regime change in November 2006 !!

Google™ has a philosophy

The Google philosophy:
1. Focus on the user and all else will follow
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well
3. Fast is better than slow
4. Democracy on the web works
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer
6. You can make monëy without doing evil
7. There is always more information out there
8. The need for information crosses all borders
9. You can be serious without a suit
10. Great just isn't good enough
                   {{ from their website }}

Monopolies Я Us (part 2)

BROADCAST MEDIA INDUSTRY
"Five conservative companies own 90% of the media in America." — per talk show host Ed Schultz

---

PERSONAL COMPUTER INDUSTRY
Microsoft has 90% of the personal computer market, though hundreds of other vendors make the products & get the revenue. Poor Apple/Mac is still only 10% of the PC market; their main business is now the fantastically successful iPod.

---

PETROLEUM INDUSTRY
As for the U.S. petroleum monopoly, five companies control 56.3% of the market and the top ten companies own 83.3% (per January 2006 Senate testimony by Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen).

The breakdown for 2004 is as follows:
Conoco-Phillips et al 13%
Valero-Shamrock 12.8%
Exxon-Mobil 11.9%
Shell et al 9.8%
B.P. 8.8%
Chevron-Texaco-Unocal 5.9%
Citgo 5.8%
Marathon 5.5%
Sunoco 5.3%
Koch-Flint Hills 4.5%
... for a total of 83.3%, leaving independent oil companies with only 16.7% !!

another smoking gun

On February 2nd, U.K.'s Channel 4 News released the story of their having a copy of the classified transcript of the 31 January 2003 meeting of President Bush & British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House, where they agreed to provoke Saddam Hussein into military action that would justify an invasion of Iraq.

Portions of the classified transcript are online at http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=1661

Bush said that "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another {U.N.} resolution and would 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway."

Blair responded that he is "solidly with the President and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam."

Extra credit question: How many times did you hear/see a report on this news item broadcast over the major media in the last week?