Basic Reality (or "How Reality Really Works")

     We've all seen movies or read stories based on the premise, "What if everything you believed about the world was a lie?"  Well, guess what?  In searching for a way to teach my students critical thinking skills (when nothing else I had tried seemed to work), I came to the realization that the movie premise applies to the world as we thought we knew it.
     One of the barriers to critical thinking skills is, as one of the characters in The Truman Show said, "We accept the reality with which we are presented."  

     Below, and in no particular order, is a list of more than sixty observations that contradict what most of us have been told about the world around us.  For some of these points, you're likely to say, "Oh, I'd never thought of that; but, come to think of it, it's true!"  For others, you may say, "No, that can't be true!"  As for those of you who already see the world as it really is, you may yet find something useful in this article.
     Before you read the observations, you may benefit from watching the following trailer for The Truman Show or click on the link to watch it on You Tube:

 (link)

1. The essence of profundity is a keen grasp of the obvious.

2. The two most obvious facts of economics: You can’t have what is not produced; and you can't give what you don't have. Once you have a keen grasp of those two facts, you know half of all there is to know about economics, and far more than most politicians and government economic planners.

3. The GDP is a poor measure of economic or prosperity. The GDP measures only money spent. It doesn’t measure value received.  Does a person who buys a month's worth of TV dinners really get more value than the person who buys a few packets of heritage seeds and plants a garden?

4. No matter how large or small a project is, the most effective way to plan it is by asking six questions and answering them in detail. They are 1.) What do you want to do? 2.) What resources do you need? 3.) How will you get them? 4.) What steps (in reverse order) must you take to accomplish this task? 5.) What can go wrong, and how will you deal with it? 6.) How can you improve upon the project?

5. Minor mistakes can be caused by carelessness or ignorance. Major disasters are almost always caused by inadequately designed systems. A rotten barrel is more likely to spoil the apples than the other way around.  What about the Normal Disaster Theory?  The sinking of the Titanic is a perfect example.  The iceberg alone could not have sunk the Titanic and cost more than a thousand lives.  The sinking was caused or made worse by more than a half dozen things that went wrong.  Most of them point back to the belief that the Titanic was unsinkable.  That belief started a series of events that made it a disaster waiting to happen.

6. Invention is the mother of necessity. Look at the air conditioner.

7. The main function of a newspaper is to sell advertising. (Link for #7 and #8 here, here, here, and here.)

8. A newspaper reporter’s job is to tell you what somebody else has told him. It’s not his job to find out if it’s true—that’s an investigative reporter’s job. Very few newspaper reporters are investigative reporters.

9. Politicians and bureaucrats don’t understand issues that affect your life as well as you understand them.

10. Most politicians are stupid.

11. Politicians don’t get elected because they understand the issues. They get elected because they’re good actors and salesmen.

12. The biggest difference between an actor and a congressman is that actors sometimes take a break from acting and enter the world of reality. Congressmen never stop acting.

13. Here’s another difference: When congressmen go on a fact-finding junket to a trouble spot, he talks only with other politicians, with businessmen, and other big shots—usually the very people who started the trouble, who profit from the trouble, and who benefit from continuing it. Actors make it a point to talk with real people: the ones who suffer from the trouble, and the ones who are actively seeking solutions. (Example: Congressmen “learn” about hunger by attending a feast and listen to a well-fed popinjay tell his version of the problem. Actors talk to hungry people and the groups who are trying to get them fed.) (Link)

14. The boundary lines on a map don’t tell you anything about the people who live within the boundaries. Social, economic, ethnic, cultural, and other differences are rarely found on a political map.  (See also #44 and #45.)

15. Most modern wars are fought because of boundary lines on a map. People are rarely willing to go out and kill other people unless they’re first convinced that the other people are somehow “different” from them.

16. Everyone is my superior in that I may learn from him. That’s also true of the workings of nature.  Think of the rainforest folk who scale and clean fish in the nearest river.  Are our rivers clean enough for us to do that?  Why not?  What do the rainforest people know that we don't?

17. Medical schools are extended infomercials for the drug industry.  (Link)

18. The Food and Drug Administration makes it more difficult to get healthy foods, natural food supplements, and natural medicines on the market than junk food, artificial “vitamins,” and harmful drugs. As a rule of thumb, the healthier it is to put it in your mouth, the harder it is to get FDA approval.

19. One third of all new drugs come from natural sources. Once the new drugs are approved, the natural sources from which they're derived are officially condemned as quackery.

20. Most diets cause people to gain weight.  That's because the body was designed to compensate for periods of famine.  The result of self starvation is that the body's metabolism slows down, causing they body to burn calories at a slower rate.  When you start eating again, as you must, you gain weight.

21. You can raise your standard of living, improve your health, spend less money, and protect the environment, all at the same time. No other strategy works.  (Link)

22. Advertising is the art of making corporate propaganda look like revealed truth. Advertisers “sell” a benefit and then try to convince you that the only way you can get that benefit is by buying their product or service. Most people are trapped in the thought that they have to buy either that product or another brand almost just like it. People are better off not letting advertisers limit their options. Instead of asking, “Which brand should I buy?” they’re better off asking, “What benefit do I want, and what’s the best way of getting it?” (Link)

23. Most wars are rackets. War is the only racket in which profits are measured in dollars, and losses are measured in lives. It’s highly profitable because the people who make the profits are not the ones who are losing their lives.

24. When uncivilized people make war, they fight for land, water, or something else they need. Civilized people fight for corporations and banks, but they’re told that they’re fighting for abstract nouns.

25. Politicians are the world’s foremost criminal class.

26. Government and governmental authority exist only to the extent that people agree that they exist. (Link)  The jury system proves it.

27. “The government wouldn’t lie to us,” is technically true. Abstract constructs are incapable of lying or telling the truth. When we speak of government in concrete terms, we speak of politicians and bureaucrats. Politicians and bureaucrats will lie like bed wetters.

28. Almost every major terrorist act of this century has been a false flag.

29. Every major terrorist group in the world today was created by its supposed enemies.

30. There is no correlation between homicide rates and the percentage of Muslims in a population. (Link)

31. Every major claim of the 911 Commission has been disproven. (Links for 27, 28, 29, and 31 here)

32. A conspiracy theorist is someone who believes that human events are caused by humans. The opposite of a conspiracy theorist is an excrement theorist: someone who believes that crap just happens.

33. Civilization as we know it was founded by criminal psychopaths. The history of the struggle for freedom is a history of struggles between normal people and criminal psychopaths. (Link)  Here’s a case in point: King John, who signed the Magna Carta, was the same John who was the criminal psychopath in the Robin Hood stories. The Magna Carta benefited no one other than the “nobles” who forced John to sign it.

34. The biggest difference between a criminal gang boss and a king is how early his family started robbing and killing people.

35. “Of noble blood” is just a snobbish way of saying “inbred.”

36. With few exceptions, most great men are bad men.

37. Most or all opportunities start out as problems. Most opportunities are missed because they look more like problems.

38. There are two kinds of people who address problems: opportunity seekers and problem solvers. Opportunity seekers look for the opportunity that each problem presents. Once the opportunity is grasped, the problem automatically goes away. Problem solvers destroy the opportunity by trying to solve the problem.

39. Politicians and bureaucrats make lousy problem solvers. Either they fail to see the opportunities that problems present, or they see only the opportunities that will benefit themselves.

40. Every politician is some kind of horse, and some can be more than one kind. Most politicians are either workhorses or show horses. Workhorses do 90% of the work and get 10% of the credit. Show horses do 10% of the work and get 90% of the credit.

41. Most show horses are incompetent because they fail to realize or care that every political issue is a human need. To show horses, every political issue is a public relations opportunity. When their popularity drops through the floor, they don’t make changes in their policies; they make changes in their public relations campaign.

42. Wearing the logo of a famous corporation on your doesn’t make you a worthier person. It shows only that you’re gullible, shallow, and vain. What else would you call someone who thinks that he's more worthy of respect by paying twice as much for an article of as it's really worth just to pay for the privilege of giving a giant corporation free advertising?

43. Modern banking is a criminal racket. Bankers create debtors by creating money out of thin air. They take something that has no intrinsic value, and loan it to someone to buy something that does have value. The debtor must then “repay” the loan not with money the debtor creates out of thin air but with money he has worked to earn. If he doesn’t, he loses both his property and the value of the payments he has already made. At this point, the banker now has the full value of the property plus payments for the property, while the property owner is the only one who has really lost anything. The banker then seeks taxpayer “reimbursement” for the banker’s non-existent “losses.” Indirectly, the “reimbursement” comes from the former property owner and from other taxpayers. Sharia (Muslim) banking is the only honest banking, and it’s the only banking that’s obedient to the Holy Scriptures of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths.  (Link)

44. The nation state is largely a myth perpetuated by the powers that be. Political boundaries aren’t based on cultural, ethnic, economic, or other such differences; they’re based on political power.

45. The powers that be would have us believe that the only alternative to the artificially contrived “nation” state is the artificially contrived global state. We have another: the nation trans-state. Under the nation trans-state idea, the rights of the individual reign supreme. The highest unit of government is the family, followed by the community, the “nation” (people’s group), and the world. Political boundaries—which are incorrectly called national boundaries—would have value only in the political sphere. In a world of less government control over human activities, a nation can exist across state boundaries. In many places in the world (such as the single metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan; and nearby Windsor, Ontario) this has already happened.

46. Most election campaigns are rackets because voters let the candidates decide what the issues are. This is like letting each student decide the questions on his exam. The voters should decide what the issues are, and rate the candidates more on what they do than on what they say.

47. In most cases, when a politician listens to a voter express his concerns, he looks for the voter’s “hot button.” Once he thinks he has found it, he reaches into his store of sound bites and recites whatever he thinks will make him look good to the voter.

48. The only strategic voting that works is to vote for the person you favor, regardless of whether you think he has a chance of winning. Each election is a prelude to the next election. If you vote for the lesser of two evils rather than vote for a third candidate whom you favor, you’ll be offered more evil in the next election and less of what you favor.  (Link)

49. Candidates don’t win elections by having a higher favorability rating. They win by getting more supporters to the polls—but only the votes are honestly counted.

50. Calories are not all alike. The body burns up calories to the extent that the energy is needed to assimilate the calories and store them as fat. Calories from carbohydrates must be transformed into simple sugars and then into fat before the fat can be stored somewhere in the body. Calories from fat don’t need to be transformed into fat.

51. If you think that it’s inconvenient to buy your groceries from the traditional market, ask yourself one question: Which is more convenient: going to the traditional market to get food for your health or going to the doctor to get drugs for your illnesses?

52. Computer games are a form of education. The most popular computer games employ successful educational strategies such as “meaningful input,” “magic circle,” and “scaffolding.” “Meaningful input” means simply that students learn better when the material is important to them. “Magic circle” means that the normal rules don’t apply; rather than there being a serious consequence for failure, failure is a learning tool for success. Scaffolding is a step-by-step learning method that leads to increasingly challenging levels, especially if they lead the student to independent study. These are only a few of the valuable learning strategies used by designers of computer games.
53. Most science fiction movies are social or political allegories.  Most horror movies and soap operas are morality plays.  Soap operas are also opportunities for women to work out their personal issues.  Action adventure movies are soap operas for men, except that the therapy is in the subplot.  This device allows men to kid themselves into thinking that they don't need movies to help them to work out their issues.

 54. Just about all of us agree that Kim Jong-il looks clownish in his platform shoes, hokey costume, and puffed-up hairstyle that's supposed to make him look taller.  What about and the so-called royal family?  Setting aside what you were conditioned to believe, just look at the photo above.  Doesn't that whole pack of useless feeders look clownish?
55.  Liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have much more in common with each other than any of them have in common with "neo-conservatives," "neo-liberals," or the global elite.  Christians, Jews, Muslims, and the people of other faiths have more in common with each other than any of them have with the global elite and their "neo" stooges.  The only way the global elite can exploit the rest of us is by keeping us divided against one another.  The solution should be obvious.  (Links here, here, and here.)
56.  Maybe that sounds fine, but how do you unite people who have been conditioned to mistrust each other?  (Links here, here, and here.)
57.  Congressmen as not as transparent as NASCAR (stock car) drivers.  If they were, they would wear jumpsuits with patches to let everyone know who their corporate sponsors are.
58.  If everyone "knows" something, but no one knows how they know it, it's probably false.
59.  If you desire to know the truth, your most valuable mindset is uncertainty.  As soon as you become certain of your position, you stop questioning and stop learning.
60. You can't fight corporations, banks, or government agencies, because they don't exist except as abstract constructs on which people have agreed.  Once you have named names such as Hugh Grant (who, as top boss of Monsanto, has put more toxins in people's food than Lucrezia Borgia ever dreamed of doing), Dick Cheney (criminal fraudster, mass murderer of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, and war profiteer), and Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs's top Grendel, who robbed the American people of hundreds of billions of dollars), then you have a vulnerable target.  (Thanks to Pat in Colorado for that one.)
61. A rogue state is any sovereign government that's considered an obstacle to the globalist agenda.
62.  A friend asked me where I found the time in my hectic schedule to write all this.  The answer is another lesson in basic reality.  It really is possible to "save time in a bottle," and it's not just a 1970's musician's fantasy.  When you're standing in line for a long time, do you ever wish you could save that wasted time for future use?  Well, you can't, but you can do something just as good.  You can transfer future activities to the present.  When I could not make notes, I would bounce ideas around in my head.  By the time I had a minute or so to write things down, the ideas were already fully formed and required no further time for thought. Between the day I posted this blog and the hour I send it to my contact list, I added a few more thoughts, usually a thought at a time.  (It goes back to point # 22: Ask yourself, "What benefit do I want, and what's the best way to go about getting it?)

Tha Phantom Victims of 911, Part 2

     In the first part of this series, I presented an edited version of an interview with Phil Jayhan and Larry Williams.  On those audio clips, Jayhan and Williams point out that there were an inordinate number of millionaires, billionaires, and other politically well-connected individuals on the that allegedly were hijacked on September 11, 2001.   I pointed out that they made errors in logic in that they assumed that, if the deaths on the airliners were faked, the deaths at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center must also have been faked.  

     From what I've read of the Let's Roll Forums since then, there's reason to suspect that Let's Roll Forums is part of an MSM disinformation campaign.   Whether the suspicion is correct, however, doesn't disqualify information that they present.  Most of what disinformation agents present is true because an abundance of true statements tends to give credibility to the lies they tell.  Even Hitler was quoted as saying, "Tell the truth as often as you can; so that, when you lie, you're more likely to be believed."

     Regardless of whether Let's Roll Forums is a disinfo site or a sincere effort to uncover the truth, it's the reader who bears responsibility for assigning credibility.  When I presented the first part of this series, I admitted that I hadn't investigated their claims but saw their claims as important enough to pass along to you for your consideration.

     Today, I'm presenting the rest of the clips I developed from their four-hour-long, two interviews.  In the first of these, they suggest that flight attendants Carolyn Mayer Beug and Barbara Arestegui did not exist. 

      In the next clip, they point to several anomalies concerning Mark Bingham and Todd Beamer, supposedly on Flight 93.  You're probably familiar with several.  Jayhan and Williams point to yet another: the peculiar behavior of Bingham's "mother" on Good Morning, America.  They way they put it, she smiled all the way through the interview, "looking more like a nervous actress than a grieving mother."  Here's a link so you can judge for yourself. (link)

     Jayhan and Williams also point to facial similarities among many of the supposed 911 victims.  In the absence of other evidence, physical similarities prove nothing, but they do tend to support other evidence.  I checked the photos in a lot of sources other than Let's Roll Forums and found the similarities fascinating.

     The following audio clip is particularly compelling.  Gwendolyn Briley Strand, who claimed in a "documentary" called The Falling Man that her brother was killed at the World Trade Center, was in fact a paid actress.   I checked her web site and verified Jayhan's claims concerning her.
     It's surprising just how many people in the acting profession, and how many false witnesses (such as the "Harley Guy") have been wheeled out to support the official conspiracy theory concerning 911.

     Finally, there's the "911 Memorial Wall," as it is called.  That's the curious event of more than a thousand people spontaneously attaching "lost dog" style, have-you-seen-my-relative posters, contrary to common sense.  Oddly enough, most of them used the same kind of tape.
     From this observation, Jayhan and Williams take the position that very few people actually died at the World Trade Center that day.  That's where I definitely part company with their conclusions.  
     They present compelling evidence that fewer people died than was stated.  It doesn't naturally follow that no more than a few dozen people (my take on their remarks) died.  Judging from what evidence had to be presented for 1,600 of the death certificates issued that day, I'm convinced that at least that many people died in the attacks, mostly at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

     That's the last of the audio clips I've edited from four hours of interviews, but it's not likely to be the last of my remarks concerning the phantom victims of 911.  

     As far as justice is concerned, we blew it on the Kennedy Assassination.  Over the last 47 years, it has faded from a criminal case to a historical curiosity.  In those days, though, there was no Internet, and communication was slower.  

     Let's Roll Forums tends to steer clear of certain lines of inquiry that may be productive.  We shouldn't.  As long as the Internet remains free, and the citizens remain active and interested, we have the prospect of bringing the 911 criminals to justice.
Back to "The Phantom Victims of 9/11: Part 1"

 Other September 11, 2001, articles in this blog   
    

The Phantom Victims of 911

     In a previous article ("What Happened to Flight 77's Passengers?"), I presented compelling evidence that one of Flight 77's alleged passengers was still alive and had assumed a new identity.  In yet another article ("The Lion, the Witch, and the World Trade Center"), I proved beyond any reasonable doubt that some, and possibly all, of the videos of planes hitting the World Trade Center were computer-generated fakes.

     If no planes hit the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, then there were no passengers to be killed at the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.  What happened to the passengers?

     In an attempt to answer that question, at least in part, I've spent the past few weeks editing four hours of audio clips down to less than one hour.  I found them on a web site called Let's Roll Forums.  Jim Fetzer the host of a radio  program called The Real Deal interviews Phil Jayhan and Larry Williams, researchers for Let's Roll Forums.  

     In the following clip, they offer curious facts concerning alleged Flight 11 passenger (and billionaire donor to political causes) Sonia Morales Puopolo.   They repeat themselves in parts of the clips because my edited versions of the clips came from two interviews held a week apart.

     The researchers interviewed here take the position that some of the "victims" never existed, some faked their deaths and assumed new identities, some (Daniel Lewin comes to mind) were spies who were being reassigned, some had already died, and other fit other profiles.

     I believe that the researchers overstate their position by suggesting that very few people actually died in the faked 911 "attacks."  My take on their research is that at least 1,600 (out of the official count of almost 3,000) were killed that day, mostly at the World Trade Center towers and Building 7.  Jayhan and Williams seem to suggest that the actual victims number in the dozens at most.

     Regardless of the count, we agree that there were probably very many fake victims among the real ones.

     Don't accept or reject their ideas as complete packages.  Jayhan and Williams are researchers who have found something important and admit that they are still searching for answers, the same as many of the rest of us.  As likely as not, they are partly right, though they're likely mistaken in some areas. 

     Over the next few days, I intend to upload all of my edited versions of the interviews.  I encourage you to check out some of the articles on Let's Roll Forums.  If you do, do so with awareness that Let's Roll Forums is a collection of researchers who are bouncing facts and ideas around, sifting through them as well as they can, and who often disagree with one another.  They don't pretend to have definitive answers.  

     The search for truth and justice continues.  In the search for truth, skepticism is one of your most effective allies. 
Forward to "The Phantom Victims of 9/11: Part 2"

 Other September 11, 2001, articles in this blog   

     

Osama bin Laden was under House Arrest

     If you were the world's most wanted criminal and had to be able to flee at a moment's notice, how would anyone get that "moment's notice" to you? We're told that Osama bin Laden was living completely off the grid, with neither telephone nor Internet connection. (link)

     Wasn't bin Laden in need of frequent kidney dialysis? How would he reach a doctor in case of emergency, and why couldn't he be tracked down by way of doctors who gave house calls for dialysis treatment?

     If he was living completely off the grid, how did he contact his henchmen all over the world to do their dastardly deeds? The way I hear it, he put out more videos, audios, and other electronic messages than a rock star. His henchmen were everywhere, taking directions from him: in tourist areas, in synagogues, and under children's beds at night or in their closets, to mention a few.

     According to Michael Bunker, the author of Surviving off the Grid, it wasn't possible for bin Laden to do all he was accused of doing and still be off the grid, unless he had major help from high-level sources in government.  (link)

     Bunker's explanation fits most, but not all, the known facts. His theory doesn't answer my next question: Would the world's most dangerous terrorist be unarmed?

     Another explanation better fits the facts as we know the facts. Osama bin Laden was under house arrest and was killed at the most politically opportune time. As for the failure of Pakistan's intelligence service ISI to find bin Laden, the ISI had thought that he was dead. In a David Frost interview conducted shortly before the death of Benazir Bhutto, she mentioned that bin Laden had been murdered a few years earlier. Thus, the ISI had no reason to look for bin Laden.  (video)

     Let's take a quick look at the history of Osama bin Laden.

     The bin Laden family has close economic and political ties to the family of George H. W. Bush.

     The economic connection comes by way of the Carlyle Group, a global asset management fund founded in 1987 by William Conway, Daniel D'Aniello, and David Rubenstein. The Bush family are major investors, as were (until after 2001) the bin Laden family. The Bush and bin Laden families also shared ventures in the oil business.  There are yet other shared business connections between the two families.
     With Central Intelligence Agency funding and guidance, bin Laden left college in 1979 to become a leader in the mujahideen fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He continued to be a CIA asset throughout the Ronald Reagan Administration, at least until 1989. Bear in mind that then-Vice President Bush had been a CIA director and maintained close ties to the Agency. Regardless of whether al Qaeda exists as an organization, or a database, or in some other form, there's no question but that it was—and possibly still is—a CIA operation.

     During that same period—that is, from 1979 through 1989—the U.S. government created, funded, and guided the Taliban. Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski openly boasted about having created the Taliban. Brzezinski is now a top foreign policy adviser for Barack Obama.

     Did Osama bin Laden continue in his role as a CIA asset?

     In 1997, a neoconservative think tank called the Project for the New American Century described a vision for the future that reads eerily like a blueprint for the world as we've seen it since September 11, 2001. They lamented that their dream would be very slow becoming a reality unless they were blessed with "a new Pearl Harbor." They got their wish on September 11, 2001.  For the free PDF download of the PNAC blueprint, click here.

     In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who had created the Taliban, laid out a strategy for world conquest in his book The Grand Chessboard. Of course, none of this strategy could become more than a pipe dream absent the "new Pearl Harbor."  He, too, got his wish. Are we to believe that all this time, money, and energy was spent on mere fantasies that coincidentally became realities? Is that the way that highly intelligent, educated, rich, and otherwise successful people spend their resources?  For the free PDF download of The Grand Chessboard, .click here.

     I won't go into the issues surrounding Insider complicity in the events of September 11, 2001. There are plenty of other articles and sites that make a solid case for this accusation.

     Given all these facts, and given the strong indicators that bin Laden enjoyed the protection of powerful Insiders, there is more than ample reason to suspect that bin Laden continued to be under the control of intelligence agencies. The high level of security surrounding his compound in Pakistan wasn't just to keep people out; it was also to keep bin Laden in.

     A final question remains: Why was Osama bin Laden killed?

     Only two days before the raid, Barack Obama and NATO were taking flak for a raid in Libya—the one in which the son and grandchildren of Moammar Gadhafi were killed. Under international law, it's a war crime to target civilians for a military attack. When a United States SEAL team did the same thing to Osama bin Laden, most people thought it was great, and the murder of Gadhafi's grandchildren slipped down a memory hole.

     What a dashing way to begin a presidential election campaign!
(Note: A person writing to the Huffington Post seems to have scooped me on this one because I was a bit slow in completing this article.  On May 2, a writer called Nastywolf commented that he suspected that Pakistan had been keeping bin Laden under house arrest and was hoping to hold him for some opportune moment; but that the U.S. "stepped in and ruined their game." (link) The theory that the U.S. and Pakistan were doublecrossing each other in this matter is interesting indeed.)

The Issue is Still the Birth Certificate

     Mr. Obama recently handed the birthers a tremendous opportunity—if they're smart enough to take it. Yes, I'm referring to the official-looking document that appears to be the long-form birth certificate that he'd spent three years and more than $2,000,000 trying to hide.

     For the past few weeks, I was encouraged by attempts by state legislatures to require presidential candidates to show proof that they were "natural-born citizens" of the United States. After all, the Constitution reserves to the states the power to choose electors who, in turn, elect the President. Before the 1830's, state legislatures chose the electors. Since the 1830's, all states adopted a policy of allowing voters to choose the electors. Regardless of which method is used, it's officially the states that choose the electors.

     Only a few days ago, I was cautioning some birthers about the approach they were taking to the issue. To these people—probably Internet trolls and not real birthers—the issue was all about Obama's birth certificate. I advised the real birthers in the group not to be taken in by this tactic.

     By focusing on the reasonableness of the bill itself—that is, the bill that would require all presidential candidates, and not just Obama, to show proof of natural-born citizenship, they would be on solid ground. By allowing Obama's birth certificate to become the issue, they would be accepting two disadvantages:

1. They would be turning the bills into a referendum on Obama. In so doing, they would alienate a lot of Democrats who might otherwise support the bill.

2. They would be placing themselves in the position of having to prove that Obama's long-form birth certificate doesn't exist. Of course, it's impossible to prove a negative.

     Now that Mr. Obama has produced a convincing document (whether paper or virtual, real or forged), where do we go from here?

     If the issue is all about Obama, the birther movement is dead—not just for now, but forever. Let's suppose that it's later discovered and proven that the birth certificate is a forgery. It's next to impossible to restart a movement after it has been declared dead. Like grandfather's clock, it's “stopped short, never to go again.”

     As soon as Donald Trump started making noises about running for President, I smelled a rat. Just as Ross Perot was a stalking horse for Bill Clinton in 1992, Donald Trump smells like a stalking horse for Barack Obama in 2012.

     Then there was the video clip of Donald Trump playing the foil for a small group of Obama supporters. In seconds, they had made the birth certificate issue a referendum on Obama, and Trump let them. Smart people don't make stupid mistakes like that. That's when I knew that Donald Trump was a Trojan horse in the birther movement.

     Obama claims that he was able to present his birth certificate only because he had convinced the hospital and the State of Hawaii to waive a law forbidding its release.  It may or not be true that there is such a law, but think about it for a moment.  Is there a law forbidding Obama from releasing his copy of it?  Of course not.

     So how is it an advantage to birthers that Mr. Obama has shown something that looks like a birth certificate? As I said, it's an advantage only if the birthers are smart enough to seize the advantage.

     There are only two possibilities: Either the legislative approach to the issue is a partisan issue, and it has been "thrust deep, deep and forever into some nameless and ordinary grave;" or it's a non-partisan issue and very much alive.

     Since it can no longer be framed a referendum on Obama, it's no longer controversial, and it's no longer a partisan issue. A lot of Democrats and other Obama supporters may be convinced to support the so-called "birther bills." The question of whether the Obama birth certificate is genuine can go into stealth mode until the bills are passed.

Obama's handlers no doubt are hoping that the birther bills, defined as referenda on Obama, will go away now that he has produced the much-demanded document. Instead, we should frame the bills as commonsense measures to avoid the kind of wrangling we've been suffering over the birther debate. If we do, we may find that Mr. Obama has painted himself into a corner.

     Thank you, Mr. Obama.

At Auschwitz, Boy Scouts were Prepared

     You probably never expected to hear that Hitler had teenagers arrested on the charge of being Boy Scouts. You probably never expected to hear than many were sent to death camps on that very charge.
     There are two kinds of Holocaust deniers: those who deny that it happened and those who deny than more than two thirds of it happened. Both types of Holocaust deniers act from cynical political motives.

     No doubt you've heard that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Actually, nine million people were killed in the Holocaust. Hitler's three million other targets for extermination were labor unionists, communists, homosexuals, physically handicapped persons, mentally handicapped persons, Christian ministers who refused to propagandize for the Nazis, and Boy Scouts. If you read the Boy Scout Oath and the Twelve Points of Scout Law, you can see why the Nazis would consider Boy Scouts a security risk.

     When Kazimierz Piechowski was ten years old, he joined the Boy Scouts in his native Poland. His mother wept for joy.

     Fast forward to September 6, 1939.

     Only five days after Hitler's troops invaded Poland, the Nazis began shooting Boy Scouts in the streets. Piechowski and some other Boy Scouts tried to escape across the border into Hungary, but they were caught and sent to the Auschwitz death camp.

     Once ensconced in the death camp, they found that other Boy Scouts in the camp had already formed a resistance movement. Those who could speak German found jobs in the motor pool, documents office, and other parts of the camp.

     Piechowski’s job was less appealing. He and another boy had the responsibility of loading naked corpses onto a cart to be hauled to the crematorium. He later got a job in the supply warehouse.

     Two years to the day after Piechowski had entered Auschwitz, he learned that a friend of his—also a Boy Scout—was scheduled for execution. From that day, three Boy Scouts and a Catholic priest hurriedly laid plans to escape.

     The Boy Scout motto, "Be prepared," took on a new dimension.  Piechowski managed to steal some SS uniforms and even guns and ammunition. A Boy Scout who worked in the motor pool actually stole the Auschwitz commandant's car.  

     They had no pass to get through the gate, but desperation gave them plenty of brass. Piechowski, dressed in the uniform of an SS lieutenant, threatened the guard and was allowed through the gate.

     He later joined the Polish Resistance. When the communists took over Poland, Piechowski was arrested again—this time for being a member of the Polish Resistance. He was 33 years old when he finally got out of prison.

     Kazimierz Piechowski is now 91 years old, and he often speaks to Boy Scout groups about his experiences. When asked if it bothered him to relive his experiences, he replies, "I am a Scout, so I have to do my duty—and be cheerful and merry. And I will be a Scout to the end of my life."



     Kazimierz Piechowski's  story is worth reading in full:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/11/i-escaped-from-auschwitz

End Game for Taiwan? Part 2: Threats to Taiwan's Sovereignty

     In 2004, Chen Sui-bian was re-elected, and KMT supporters (shall we say) “gave the appearance of” trying to get him to resign on charges of corruption. I’ve never liked Chen Sui-bian, and I do believe that he was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. He reminds me of the fence that was so crooked that, when a pig tried to jump through a hole in the fence, he kept landing on the same side of the fence. Nonetheless, if find the accusations ironic coming from the KMT.

     Cross-strait politics can be quite surreal.  Beijing has no objection to the KMT claiming that their regime governs not only Taiwan but all of China, Mongolia (including Outer Mongolia, which is independent of both China and Taiwan), Tibet, East Turkestan,  and Hong Kong; but they fly into paroxysms of rage when a Taiwanese politician claims that Taiwan governs only Taiwan.  

     There's a simple explanation for this.  (Maybe you've seen the Keebler cookies commercials.)  If a marketer of junk food were to claim that his cookies were healthy for you, the Food and Drug Administration would attack them with the full force of the law.  That's because they fear that somebody might believe that it's true.  On the other hand, Keebler can get away with saying that their cookies are baked by elves in hollow trees, because no one could possibly believe it.  It's the same way with claims of Taiwan independence versus claims of a vast "Chinese" empire with Taipei as its capital city.

     In politics, there are many kinds of horses. Some are show horses; some are work horses; and some Trojan horses; some are a horse of a different color. Chen Sui-bian was a race horse. He conducted his administration as if it were a race for public office; it was a public office he had already won. For eight wasted years, he pulled stunts to rally the party faithful and little else. His divisive stunts served only to solidify support from his core supporters, alienate potential supporters, and do little or nothing to deepen Taiwan’s sovereignty.

     In 2008, Chinese native Ma Ying-jeou’s campaign for the presidency was so image-driven that would put Nike and Amway to shame. Ma was elected president of Taiwan and the fantasy of Ma being president of all of China, Tibet, and so on, reached ultra-surrealistic proportions. That is, when no Chinese were around.

     I’m sure you’ve seen five-year-olds playing games of make believe. In their world of make believe, a child can be—well—the emperor of China, and other children can be other members of royalty. As soon as an adult enters the room, the fantasy disappears.

     That’s what happens when even a lowly Chinese official comes to Taiwan. ROC flags disappear, music stores playing songs in the Taiwanese language are forced to close, Taiwanese demonstrators are relocated to a spot well out of sight, and President Ma suddenly becomes “Mr. Ma” to his guest. His guest, who is less than nobody back in his native China, received the red carpet treatment in Taiwan. Taiwan’s highest government official becomes subservient to China’s lowest government official.

     Over the past few years, Ma has made around fifteen secret agreements with China. More publicly, the KMT-controlled legislature approved an agreement called ECFA, which gives Beijing substantial control over Taiwan’s export economy. Ma excused his actions by claiming that the agreement was economic rather than political. Of course, we all know that control over a vast segment of a nation’s economy amounts to control over that nation.

     During the 2008 campaign, Ma had promised not to enter political negotiations with Beijing during his first term of office. On the other hand, Ma’s promises have never seemed an impediment to Ma, and neither has public opinion. He once said that he didn’t have to listen to public opinion because the voters had given him a mandate (58%).

     Originally, the 2012 presidential election was scheduled for March 2012.  The Chinese Nationalist Party is now making noises about holding the election on Robert E. Lee's birthday, January 19.  

     The excuse given for the change is that it would save the taxpayers NT$500,000  (about US$17,000) to hold both the December 2011 legislative elections and the 2012 presidential election on the same day.  

     Left unmentioned is that Sometime-president Ma is also proposing to raise the salaries of government bureaucrats (the most likely KMT supporters) a total of NT$2 billion, during a time when wages for the rest of Taiwan have remained nearly stagnant for ten years.  Left unmentioned, is that young people (the most likely DPP supporters) reaching voting age between January and March will not be allowed to vote.  Left unmentioned is that combining the two elections would attract more lukewarm voters (the most likely KMT supporters).

     Ma spent several years promoting the expansion of a major polluting petrochemical plant in a wetlands area, against the wishes of people living in the area.  Now that it has become a major issue in the 2012 campaign, Ma has come out against the plant.  No problem.  When he loses the 2012 election, he'll have four months to change all that.

     There is also a movement afoot to allow absentee voting for businessmen in China.  Given  Beijing's desire to control Taiwan at all costs, this is an open invitation to voter fraud.

     The January 2012 presidential election is only nine months away. Ma’s popularity is below that of either of his potential opponents, and it’s continuing to drop. Small wonder, then, that Beijing is now pressuring Ma to enter political negotiations with them. That’s shorthand for surrendering Taiwan to Beijing before Ma is booted out of office.  With more than four months between the election and the inauguration of the next president, Ma Ying-jeou will be at liberty to pull all manner of shenanigans at the expense of Taiwan's hard-won freedoms.

     The KMT-controlled legislature has consistently blocked Taiwan’s purchases of defensive weapons, for the past ten years. (Only now, after the KMT has lost most of the bi-elections, and with the presidential election less than a year away , the KMT is making a show of bidding for purchases.) As a result, Beijing now has the military capability to invade and take over Taiwan. All Beijing lacks is a pretext.

     If Ma and his KMT revert to type, one of three things may happen. Either they will rush to turn over Taiwan to China before the January 2012 election, or they will presume to turn over Taiwan after the election but before President-elect Tsai Ying-wen is inaugurated president, or they will riot as they did in 2000 and give the Chicoms the pretext that they’re invading Taiwan to restore order. They didn’t have the military capability to take over Taiwan in 2000. Thanks to KMT blockages of Taiwanese arms purchases, they now have that capability.

     In any of those three scenarios, it would be hard to imagine the KMT not arranging to maintain perpetual rule over Taiwan with Beijing’s blessing and guidance. Only the vigilance and will of the Taiwanese can prevent any of these scenarios from becoming a reality.