This will be a site to record my thoughts and musings as they occur. A 'vanity' blog or website. Postings will be sporadic as the nature of this site is not a conversation with others, but a monolog to help me in troubled times.
To Those who find good ideas, they are free for theft so long as attribution is given. They are to be *built upon* not used to demean and tear down. Ideas I present I do not declare to be *good* or *perfect* merely *better* or *different*.
Welcome one and all to Tranantionalist University, where the very best is done to have each of our student-citizens become the best they can be for world happiness! I am glad you could all make it today for this first day of Orientation to Transnationalist U! Today we will start the basic sorting out process so as to better adjust your schedules for the upcoming academic year. Your Residence Advisors are here to make sure that each of you properly adjusts to the campus and the world as a whole, and as part of that each one of you will get a personalized treatment program designed specifically to you. Isn't that grand?
Any questions before we begin? No? Wonderful! Our orientation program is based on the highly successful University of Delaware program, and I am sure that it will work out wonderfully here. Now let us take a look at the outline for the orientation program and for that would everyone turn to page one of their booklet? This outlook is taken from John Fonte's review of Transnational Progressivism, and we will be utilizing it to help each of you out to understand your place in the New World Order. First up:
The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.
Such wonderful insight! Each of you is predestined based on what you are, not what you want to become and for that we look to such identifiers as race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. So, to start with each of you has a race and the RA's will start putting chits in front of each of you. Each chit is to help describe how much help you need in adjusting to your racial conditions. Now I see that many of you are from the White Privileged Class and you will be needing the most help. Each of you has had an easy life based on your race and here at TU we make sure that every person becomes exactly equal to every other and then understand that their priveleges are garnered on the backs of others.
Remember Fonte's words on this:
A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy.
So all of you that have come from oppressor groups, even unknowingly, must unlearn your values of privilege.
Ah, I see some querulous looks from many of you! If you are Asian you also get a number of chits because you come from an ethnic background of privilege that puts forward that you must work hard to succeed. We can't have that, here at TU, and so you get almost as many chits as the Whites do. Hispanic individuals also get a number of chits, although far fewer, for supportive family structures, which really does give you more societal flexibility and that comes at the expense of those without that. We hope that by the end of this year you will know that race is just an oppressor group identifier.
With those chits handed out would everyone from NAFTA areas, Europe, Russia, Israel, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Iceland, Scandinavia and India please raise your hands? Good! You are getting chits for coming from more privileged communities that have ability to advance, and so you will need equal treatment sessions so as to have you work hard and reversing those privileged mind sets.
Next are those from S.E. Asia, MesoAmerica, South America and the Middle East. Wonderful, you get chits coming from cultural backgrounds generally more affluent or able than the underprivileged areas of the world.
Ok, will those who consider themselves to be sexually 'straight' please raise their hands? Don't be shy, now! Ah, yes I can see that some of you are getting quite a pile of chits in front of you, but don't worry we are able to handle any sort of treatment program. Will all Bisexuals raise their hands, and please, you are amongst *friends*. Lovely! Remember that any dating goes strictly by the reference system that you will each get at the end of the orientation and must be strictly adhered to. Luckily the color-coded numerical value system will help you find those you can date at a glance! Of course your first year will only have you paired up with those unsuitable to you so as to have 'encounter sessions' so that you may learn of their sorrows with a suitable practitioner present to carefully explain things to you.
As you know we have limited seating available for most courses and we must ensure that all courses have proportionate attendance. This chit system will help work out exactly which courses you will have to attend to ensure harmony across TU and that all professions have an exactly equal and identical mix of individuals in them. We do follow Fonte's prescription exactly on this count as society must have equal representation in the exact same proportion of all backgrounds as they are in society as, currently, there is a poor mix and under representation of some groups in our society, especially in government:
Group proportionalism as the goal of "fairness." Transnational progressivism assumes that "victim" groups should be represented in all professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population. If not, there is a problem of "underrepresentation."
Luckily we have taken all of your proposed majors and adjusted them to fit the current representation in society, so that everyone gets equal representation no matter what their skills are!
To help everyone out we have some basic orientation course requirements, which you will find in the packet in front of you. TU takes pride in presenting the Paul Krugman economics of disaster course as well as the Maureen Dowd literature course for first year students! In most other universities these are graduate level requirements, but here at TU only the the loftiest of ideals is held and we are sure that new students can easily take in the work of these masters of their art. Also on the first year is the Noam Chomsky political science for the uneducated course, which really should be taught in high school, but remains a part of no curriculum to date. We will have various reporters from AP, Reuters, New York Times, Washington Post and other luminary publications to teach basic math with imaginary number theory. We find that this should give any student a good concept of how to properly create ideas and present them no matter what the subject matter.
Some of you may wonder at the courses, but they are done to break the domination of specialists in those areas. Why should those with great study in math be the ones to dictate what math is? Reporters use math every day and have proven just as inventive as any mathematics scholar of the past in their use of number theory. This idea of dominance by actually having studied a subject is one we are looking to end at TU, so that anyone can talk on any subject and be an *expert*.
Also in the packet is your social awareness goal outline. Each of you has gotten a randomly printed societal ill that you will be expected to learn and become a socially conscious advocate for. The choices come from a mix of gender/race/species so that a chance is given even to those that are not humanoid to be given a fair shake by society. An example of this would be: Gay Black Whales. If you had that, then it would be your assignment to learn about that sub-group, its problems and then write advocacy letters to Congress and State Legislators every month to advocate societal adjustment to help that underprivileged group. We do this to follow the wisdom as seen by Fonte:
The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities in major institutions if these institutions continue to reflect the worldview of the "dominant" culture. Instead, the distinct worldviews of ethnic, gender, and linguistic minorities must be represented within these institutions.
Our current ideas of what society is and the multi-species participation in society is not well understood and each of you will help in breaking out mental bonds in developing the broadest possible view of a fair society.
Also in the packet is the school calendar and you will see various days and weeks marked out with special significance. When a day, week or month appears that has a celebration of a different culture, you will need to dress and act in full accordance with that culture. Each one has a small pamphlet that is waiting for you in your quarters, so that you may adjust your attire, attitude and attend various ceremonies that go with each culture. A special tribute to African Women's Awareness day will be having 10% of the female population go through the circumcision process so as to learn the primitive joys of that procedure. The next day is the New Guinean rights of passage for men which will feature ritual scarification across the groin and back, so that you can carry a grand remembrance of that culture with you the rest of your life!
This is done in accordance with Fonte's outlook for Transnational Progressivism:
The "demographic imperative." The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the U. S. as millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures enter American life. The traditional paradigm based on the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is obsolete and must be changed to a framework that promotes "diversity," defined as group proportionalism.
Also note that there will be religious ceremonies for each of those periods that have mandatory attendance or there will be ritualized punishment aligned to that cultural outlook so as to understand the glorious diversity of societal views on punishment.
Of special note is Democracy Awareness Month, for special courses in fair democracy by group alignment. This special series of courses will feature numerous speakers from across the diverse cultures of America, like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Randy Cunningham, and special speakers from MECHa. Our democratic ideals need to be better aligned with group negotiation and no group need be left out of our diverse culture in America when it comes to power sharing.
The redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals." Transnational progressives have been altering the definition of "democracy" from that of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James Banks, one of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that "to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power." Hence, American democracy is not authentic; real democracy will come when the different "peoples" that live within America "share power" as groups.
Really this is our guiding light at TU and we are so proud of our pioneers at Delaware for pointing the right way for this! Part of this outreach program during Democracy Awareness Month will be a letter writing campaign to all members of Congress in this, so as to further strengthen our solidarity with all groups throughout the world. This will help us to remove the concept of a dominant culture in America and experience the grandness of groups living just as they want side-by-side with other groups and not have to worry about such things as immigration procedures. By our actions we hope to help deconstruct the dominant culture basis and put all cultures on an equal footing for proportionate representation by their culture type so that TRUE democracy will be seen first in America and then everywhere:
Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols of democratic nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a UK government report denounced the concept of "Britishness" and declared that British history needed to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned." In the U.S., the proposed "National History Standards," recommended altering the traditional historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined as a multicultural "convergence" of three civilizations—Amerindian, West African, and European. In Israel, a "post-Zionist" intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book , in which he deemphasized "sovereignty" and called for regional "elected central bodies," a type of Middle Eastern EU.
To help us to identify what this is like, you will have notice that the entire campus is situated so that even graduate students live on-campus, so as to give you a better peer group identification basis. We like to think of this in the term that Hillary Clinton thought about it, and make our little spot on earth part of the Global Village by making a small Village right here where all live where they are assigned to better experience that global diversity.
As part of this new Village we have thought that it best to eliminate cultural designators so that each student can approach each other on a fair and non-dominant culture basis. With our deep research on the subject, we have given you each a badge and identification card for the Village that has a non-discriminatory number on it. When you are in the Village or even off campus, you will address everyone by their number, not their name, so that we can help in removing all individual distinctions of class, ethnic heritage and background in out appreciation of the global culture that we are all to be a part of. As you can see my badge is that of Number 2, and I fully believe that with effort the entire planet can become just like our Village here, as seen by Fonte:
Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. In an important academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak asks hopefully "Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political thought?"
Our ability to be one humanity with slight differences in a power sharing arrangement will help to let everyone know where they stand in the world for all of their lives, so that they will have meaning and direction at all times! With this lovely Global Village will come the need for Global Government, which we practice here at TU with our Village Administration. Those with assigned jobs will be running it and those that are students are to live in the glorious life provided by the Village Administration.
Now, before each of you takes your chits to get your work schedules and class schedules, and then see your assigned rooms, are there any questions?
*The speaker looks around.*
Yes? You in the back, do you have a question?
'Yes, Ma'am, I do.'
Oh, my! What is the question?
'Who is Number One? Who runs this place?'
Ah, you are Number.... Six?
'I am not a number, I am a Free Man.'
And so the fight of the Individual to BE Individual continues to this day.
Sphere: Related Content
We have heard a lot over the past few years about how first Afghanistan was going to be a 'quagmire' for military forces from the US and its Coalition there. Unfortunately the US, out of need due to inability to get large forces to Afghanistan, put in tiny forces with large throw-weight via airpower. For the first time since Alexander the Great used a small forces concept to move through the region, a foreign power has replicated that success. The nasty Afghan winter didn't show up, and when it finally *did*, a few years later, it was Canadian forces that went on the winter offensive... possibly for the first time *ever* in Afghanistan. Mind you that was counter-insurgency (COIN) work, not battlefield fighting. Still, the effects this year have been startling and built upon that success.
Then comes Iraq, the mother of all quagmires, apparently. The US had not fielded a similar size force for a few decades, and it did not have the deep manpower reserves of the previous forces in Vietnam, Korea, WWII and WWI. The force size was equivalent to that used in the Philippine-American war and with similar, almost eerily prescient, results: the main opposition collapsed quickly and the US was put into a COIN role for which it was unprepared. In the 1901-10 era of that previous COIN, the armed forces sustained more casualties from tropical diseases than from combat, and yet won through. That effort took a few years to get oriented, understand the societal milieu and then address it. There are *still* those in Mindanao that have hard feelings about not getting a separate Republic once the US left. Nearly a century of hard feelings and grudge, though softened over time, held because of the outlook that folks should work together in a Nation and not be Balkanized. So much for thanks on the multi-culti side of things: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Americans, not bothering to learn any history of their Nation in wartime, have forgotten that experience, thus we have the same sort of editors, writers, thinkers and such decrying the venture in Iraq as they did the Philippines. Pretty much the same verbiage about 'American Empire' and 'lost cause' overseas. The 'Yellow Journalists' didn't put much of that out, but the 'respectible' elite newspapers and journals did, which also brings out an eerie tone of the modern era, save that there is no Nationalist media in the US anymore. So when the complaining and moaning about a 'quagmire in Iraq' started, one could only look to the modern re-orientation of combat forces to COIN and see the same parallel a century previous to this. The US Army, in particular, takes time to get its bearings when put down in a strange land to fight. It is the main battle force of the US and was once designed to take out the Soviet Union. The US Marine Corps., used to having to go anywhere and do anything on a moment's notice, held their history and training together on COIN, although it, too, needed a bit of updating for the modern era.
By not having a conscript military, the US invests its time and energy on those volunteering to take up military work as a profession. That is not understood *as* a profession by the other professional classes in America, and those classes tend to devolve military work as 'shooting and killing' only. That does happen, yes, and military conflict requires that the wilingness to counter an enemy with brutal means must be done for survival of one's own forces and to reach the goals of the Nation in such a conflict. Denigration of all other professional classes, but particularly in academia, has lowered the ability of the US population to understand military work and how it works. Without knowing the 'why' it is done the way it is, and 'how' things are achieved not *just* by killing, nearly an entire generation of Americans are left with very little concept of the utility and necessity of military power.
While the various critics and naysayers and pontificators put forward that Iraq was a 'quagmire' they refused to review or address the underlying structural changes going on in the armed forces due to the small forces victory in Afghanistan (a direct attribute of mountain warfare views) and within the US Army for Iraq. One thing that left many people scratching their heads is *why* Gen. Petraeus was taken out of the active combat theater and put at a 'desk job'. The man was *successful*, and that is his reward? So a bit of background before getting to the three groups stuck in an Iraqi quagmire is necessary.
Gen. Petraeus was sent to the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). There he not only re-wrote the COIN concept and re-designed it, but he was in the #1 spot to give it the widest application possible. TRADOC drafts and creates all training and doctrine for the US Army and, as such, when Gen. Petraeus had a new COIN doctrine, it was immediately taken up and *applied* to training. Some of the other things going on at the time were also picked up and inculcated, such as the logistics force using high speed comms back to stateside training facilities to tell what sort of attacks they were seeing and good ways to counter them. That tactical knowledge was picked up at the training centers, examined, then put into real-time situations so that new methods and appraoches for combat protection could be designed. That was impossible before the late 1990's and came into its own during the early years of Iraq. Training shifted heavily from generic Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) to Iraq and Afghanistan specific training on how to deal with locals, language, religion and the differences in the MOUT situations and traditional combat in both areas.
The lesson is clear: the US Army kicks extremely successful individuals up to have the highest influence possible so as to spread success. It is not in his advanced degrees that Gen. Petraeus got put into TRADOC, it was for his ability to apply his knowledge and craft a successful strategic and tactical view for COIN that did that. His reward was to be the man to implement that across the entire theater of operations in Iraq. That is a merit-based reward system, not a nepotism or educational level based one. The US Army uses that, because success has a quantifiable meaning in successful operations and lives *saved* by not having to fight unnecessarily when other means will allow one to win. For all the modern aspects of this, the time scale is nearly the same in Iraq as it was in the Philippines with almost the same force size, the only difference being that in Iraq the native population is huge compared to the Philippines circa 1901.
Thus the three organizations that can't adapt to Iraq are now stuck in their own quagmires:
1) Mainstream Media (MSM) - We have learned over the last 6 years that anyone who has outprocessed before Afghanistan has no idea how the modern military works. Afghanistan is mountain warfare and highland warfare, even going into 'out of oxygen' warfare at very high altitudes. The long, hard lessons learned over centuries by Persians, British, Germans and Russians is that you do not take large forces through mountain terrain without securing the terrain via small force action *first*. Not only Afghanistan, but the rugged terrain of the Balkans and the Alps (alpine warfare), all lead to this one conclusion: large armies get stuck in unsecured mountain terrain and require the use of very small, very well adapted units to dislodge fighters. In Iraq the entire utilization of TRADOC and shifting the learning basis of the armed forces remains, to this day, unspoken and unresearched by the MSM.
By not giving the US population any idea of how COIN works and *why* it can fail and *how* it can fail, every single critic that has faulted the work of the armed forces, but particularly the US Army, has slandered them. For the first time in recorded history the Media is trying to fight the last war and the Army has adapted faster than the Media. Successful COIN work does not mean an *end* to the insurgency over-night: insurgencies will often drag on for a decade or two after it has lost any foothold in society. In this ignorance the US Academic professional class has shown their ineptitude and inability to actually move away from ideology and understand the use and utilization of force and the outcomes of same. Not only does academia not prepare students for 'real world jobs' it does not prepare them for the actual world itself. Together the aged retirees, hidebound media and ivory tower academics have joined forces to sink into a losing fight. They are now stuck in a quagmire of their own stupidity, and those unable to part with them when they spout nonsense are likewise stuck in that.
The difference between ignorance and stupidity, is that the first is cureable.
2) Al Qaeda - Yes, the nasty terrorists have found that they do not know how to counter small force mountain warfare forces nor how to counter large scale forces on flat terrain as part of an insurgency. By starting with outdated tactics and then trying to out-adapt their foes, the al Qaeda based insurgency has come face to face with a military force that not only adapts faster than the now defunct Red Army, but faster than most politicians, not to speak of terrorists. Terrorists waging illegitimate warfare lack the necessary infrastructure to maintain high levels of training and combat effectiveness over time. They can devise successful tactics, like how to create newer IEDs, but the application and utilization of those for a higher concern is scattered at best. Without donning uniforms, forming an organizational infrastructure, and inculcating the utilization of tactics to higher strategic goals, al Qaeda has learned 'the old fashioned way': did you survive trying something new? Did it work? Can we get you out of here to teach anyone else?
Bin Laden, himself, in his latest audiotape, now puts it out for all to hear, as seen at Strategypage (H/t - Instapundit):
October 27, 2007: On October 22nd, Osama bin Laden admitted that al Qaeda had lost its war in Iraq. In an audiotape speech titled "Message to the people of Iraq," bin Laden complains of disunity and poor use of resources. He admits that al Qaeda made mistakes, and that all Sunni Arabs must unite to defeat the foreigners and Shia Moslems. What bin Laden is most upset about is the large number of Sunni Arab terrorists who have switched sides in Iraq. This has actually been going on for a while. Tribal leaders and warlords in the west (Anbar province) have been turning on terrorist groups, especially al Qaeda, for several years. While bin Laden appeals for unity, he shows only a superficial appreciation of what is actually going on in Iraq.
Remember, just a couple of years ago Iraq was going to be where the infidel Americans were routed and the new Caliphate would begin. His knowledge of Iraq appears to be about the level of the MSM. He needs better INTEL and isn't getting it, just like the MSM.
Al Qaeda actually *does* have a force doctrine manual called The Management of Savagery, which puts forward a relatively straightforward concept of winning a terrorist started conflict on a global scale. The first is to find weak Nations and target ethnic or religious sub-populations, utilizing cash to gain acceptance and start destabilizing the Nation. Step two is to utilize violence to cause internal disorder and disarray, and do that so as to drive supporters to you. Third is to bring civil war to the Nation involved and to spread the instability to other groups in the Nation, utilizing backing now intra-Nation to do so. While doing that, spread instability across borders so as to make the problem more regional or more dispersed, depending on where target populations are located. Once an area is out of control of a government, institute Sharia law and schools and exploit the region to spread influence, back at step one.
Wash, rinse, repeat. In Iraq the al Qaeda organization had the Ansar affiliate that it sent Zarqawi to. Especially in Diyala province, but elsewhere, al Qaeda had existing ties and strengthened them after the US invasion of Iraq, this was Step One. At that point, to get funds to go after an extremely able opponent, ties with the ex-Ba'athist regime were made and al Qaeda settled down to brewing a civil war, this was Step Two. A funny thing happened on their way to Step Three: they ended up not being able to adjust their 'rough and ready' outlook to the highly tribal centered views of Iraq. Unlike in other parts of the Middle East or Africa, the Iraqis take their tribes damned seriously and killing tribal elders and force-marrying their daughters is a big 'no-no'. Zarqawi's tactics did not get directed just at the government, but at anyone that disagreed with him, which included his own power base in Iraq. By AUG-SEP 2006 the tribes started turning on al Qaeda and the 'managing of the savages' soon became the savages managing *them*, usually in lethal ways.
For the sophistication of their terrorist operations, al Qaeda has proven to be less adaptable *with* Arabs to the differences in Arab populations than the US Army has been with outsiders. That should have been a trump card for al Qaeda: ethnically known and religiously affiliated views should trump outsiders each and every time it is done. By being hidebound on societal tactics, al Qaeda started losing its tactical edge in the insurgency, to the point where their Ba'athist backers are starting to go after them, too. It appears that after shooting at *everyone* for so long, al Qaeda has the new experience of having *everyone* shoot at them.
3) Iran - Being a neighbor, Iran is stuck with Iraq but not the way that Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are. Iran is looking not only to extend its hegemony to include Iraq, but also is growing desperate for sustainment of its petroleum cash flow. By 60% of the Iraqi population being Shia and having ties to the Shia community, many MSM pundits and academia put forth that it is 'natural' that Iran will gain the upper hand. Unfortunately they are not dealing with the actual hatred of the Iranian regime by a large number of Shia in Iraq. One of the largest communities to send *volunteers* for Saddam during the Iran/Iraq War was the Shia community, and they volunteered in droves. That, alone, has to say something about the strength of feelings there. Worse for Iran is that they are Persians and some 80% of Iraq is Arab, and they are not treating their Arab community(nor indeed any ethnic minority) well in Iran which their cousins over the border hear about directly. Iran also does not have the strong tribal affiliation set-up as seen in Iraq, which is also playing against their main pawn, Moqtada al-Sadr.
In trying to counter each of these things Iran is stumbling, and badly, in setting up a Hezbollah affiliate in Iraq. The strong differences between the elder Iraqi cleric, Ali al-Sistani, and Iran creates a strong religious outlook in opposition to Iran. Moqtada al-Sadr is proving not to be his father's son and only has a great ability for self-survival and a limited one for organizational capability. His clashes with the Badr Brigades (also supported by Iran) have proven to be a continuing source of heartache for both, and causing growing resentment in the general Shia population towards both. In trying to stir up dissension in the Shia community so as to exploit that, Iran is facing a community that is uniting against the Iranian pawns.
This is not in the standard playbook of Iran, which puts forward a multi-decade view for radical support. Really you want one, centralized and focused oranization to destabilize a country, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, not two that are quarreling with each other. So the only remedy is to send in your OWN forces under cover and... well, they are having problems now that native Persians are getting picked up in Iraq, which is causing further grief in the population with Iran, Badr organization and al-Sadr's JaM. Apparently a force to do the *right thing* and attack Americans is hitting other folks a bit more than planned, clashing with other front organizations and having problems gaining any new recruits to the cause. After that, shifting attacks against the government has proven to be a nasty surprise for Iran as the New Iraqi Army is now the lead element in Basra and a few other points along the border, and instead of al-Sadr destabilizing things by pulling out of the Shia dominated government, that government is now performing hard and fast outreach to the Sunni Arabs and Kurds. By supporting local 'concerned citizens' or 'police auxiliaries' or 'neighborhood watches', the Shia government is demonstrating that it understands and legitimizes the need for self-protection under National auspices. Yes, Iraqi Nationalism that is *not* Ba'athist Nationalism is the outcome of Iran's opportunistic support for insurgents. And the New Iraqi Army has picked up widespread Sunni Arab support after being seen, not as oppressors as many in the MSM and punditry predicted, but as helping to quell instability and stand up local government.
To make the New Iraqi Army less effective, Iran wanted to ensure that the Badr organization was pulled into it, lock, stock and barrel. Some parts were, indeed, pulled in... but the INTEL work of the US to find those with close attachment to Iran and helping the Iraqis to form their own martial justice system, has proven to be something that was unexpected by Iran. Arabs policing themselves in an Army! Even the Turks have problems with that! While it is no 'magic wand' to weed out the bad actors, it ensures that ALL bad actors have equal expectations of justice. Trying to counter corruption before it starts in the New Iraqi Army is the leading challenge of the Coalition. Getting it to stick is challenge two. Iran was, clearly, not expecting this, and thought that just like Lebanon, getting a few capable and competent turn-coats into the New Iraqi Army to destabilize and discredit it would be *easy*. The New Iraqi Army is only *majority* Shia Arab and includes all ethnicities, religions and outlooks in Iraq, and while there is common corruption rampant in the Middle East, the soldiers in the IA recognize that treating their own soldiers with respect and dignity, supplying them properly and building up esprit de corps is a long-term winner.
Clearly, Iran expected to operate a catspaw insider force and discredit the IA, Iraqi Police and Iraqi Government. Instead they are creating resentment of the interference, causing tribal strife to the point where the southern tribes are now starting to do as was done in Anbar, and, even worse, is that the IA is proving to be as effective as the Peshmerga, which have repulsed a few military operations from Iran into Iraq already. Trying to stir up ethnic differences and religious problems, exploit them and then gain power is similar to what al Qaeda does, although Iran has lots more money. Then there is the 'backflow' of money and help going to Baluchs, Arabs, Kurds and Azeris in Iran, which was absolutely not expected.
Each of these three have losing outlooks with regards to Iraq. And while the American people can't do much else about al Qaeda and Iran, because our government refuses to recognize them for the problems they are, we can and *should* start to hold the MSM, pundit class and academia heavily responsible for being so ill-adapted to the modern world that they can no longer describe it accurately.
Or at all, and just make up stories to fit their outlooks.
With the MSM Americans can vote by changing the channel or finding more reliable individuals for their information. As for academia, that is up to parents to decide on their actual support for school systems and higher education and its utility when Leftist ideology is stuck in a quagmire of its own making. As individuals and a society, we can and should hold academia and the media up to scrutiny and then vote to remove their support from government. Local seems to work best, and it is past time to get the Federal side out of local affairs so that the media and education can reflect society, not attempt to remake it.
Sphere: Related Content
As some of you may know I am a user of Exubera, the inhaled insulin product. I have written about this previously in:
Stem cells..."A cure is just around the corner" - and pointing out that good and useful treatement for a condition would be worth a lot without looking for a quixotic cure and no better treatment.
Today I have some other news from Pfizer, which I was just made aware of, and I will give you the posting on their website for Exubera so that you may read it.
Yes, inhaled powdered insulin is: safe, effective and shows ill effects in very very few people. Pfizer couldn't figure out how to market an insulin product that did not require needles! Ah, the joys of marketing!
Now, how did they tell this to the company that helped develop this product with them? The following is from Nektar Therapeutics, that self-same company, and do take a gander so you can realize the absolute class that Pfizer has, and I will strip out some of the marketing and legal material about how this press release is not to be used for investment and what other great stuff we are working on:
Nektar Therapeutics Issues Statement on Exubera October 18, 2007
SAN CARLOS, Calif., Oct 18, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Nektar Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NKTR) issued a statement today in response to Pfizer's announcement this morning to exit Exubera, the inhaled insulin product to treat diabetes.
"We first learned this morning of Pfizer's decision to walk away from Exubera from their press release," said Howard W. Robin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nektar Therapeutics. "Nektar has been very disappointed in Pfizer's performance in marketing Exubera. Pfizer has publicly acknowledged its organizational difficulties and resulting poor performance in launching Exubera. This has culminated in their announcement today. We are evaluating all of our options with respect to Pfizer's Exubera announcement to protect the interests of Nektar. We continue to believe Exubera is an important advancement for diabetic patients."
Nektar's business has multiple sources of revenue, important partnerships for products on the market and in development, and a diverse pipeline of innovative new proprietary therapies.
The company continues to develop NKTR-102 (PEG-irinotecan) for the treatment of solid tumors, NKTR-118 (PEG-naloxol) to treat opioid bowel dysfunction, and a number of other innovative PEGylation-based product candidates. In addition, progress is being made in the co-development of NKTR-061 (inhaled amikacin) to treat Gram-negative pneumonias with Bayer Schering Pharma AG. Nektar also has a number of other inhaled anti-infective programs in development.
There, just enough to let you know what they are doing without too much marketing material, just enough to show you that they know what they are doing.
Now, I will tell you how they marketed this stuff, in case you missed the ads. It was marketed to generally older, Type II diabetics, those depending on glucophages and oral means, with some injected insulin here and there to help them out. Type I diabetics (aka Juvenile Diabetes although that is only a major population not a true description) were left out in the cold. Those are the folks who need to manage their insulin use and compensate for meals.
Type II diabetics will have a widely varying use of human insulin (fast acting, real insulin, not basal metabolism insulin with slow absorption) that varies from NONE (those that utilize exercise) to a few units per meal. In general Type II is managed with glucophages, basal metabolism insulin or small amounts of fast acting insulin depending on individual, of course.
Type I diabetics, generally, will have a vanishingly small population that can get by on just basal insulin alone, and require faster acting insulin at each meal and *between* meals. That amount of need means that the average use is higher, per meal and much higher per day than Type II diabetics.
So, did Pfizer market the stuff to the high use or low use population?
Yes the LOW USE POPULATION! Those that don't need it as much! Isn't that lovely?
Then they did something even more asinine: they set the amount used by WEIGHT. Now, far be it from me to point out that different people have different metabolisms at the same weight. Ok, I will point that out. So that starts off on a bad footing right *there*.
Now if you are a Type I diabetic and actually get this stuff prescribed for you, the idea is to eliminate as many injections per day of the fast acting insulin (lispro/humalog) with Exubera. Weight makes ZERO play in this. There are exactly two variables that determine the dosing and (Pfizer if you are reading this pay attention) they are:
1) Blood Glucose level pre-meal: if you have a goal of a BG of 120 mg/dl and you are adjusting at, say, per every 25 mg/dl above that with 1U lispro, you want to use Exubera to replace that. I found that 1mg blister of Exubera does this just fine. Other goals and adjustment amounts will vary by individual, but this works for me.
2) Net carbohydrates per meal: here the adjustment is by net carbs (total carbs - fiber carbs = net carbs) and the divisor for that. So if you take 1U humalog per every 10 net carbs, then a basic two slice of bread sandwich is usually 30 net carbs or 3U humalog. And, yes, the 3mg blister of Exubera works just fine for this.
This is absolutely critical for Type I diabetics and you know what this does to doctors trying to PRESCRIBE Exubera? How about insurance companies where the company is telling them that people should only use this stuff by WEIGHT at set amounts?
Are we starting to get the picture here?
Yes, this is an absolute nightmare. Pfizer made this worse by only providing two box types as 'sets': one box with 90 blisters of 1mg and one box with 90 blisters of 3mg, and a set with two of the 1mg and and one of 3mg. No matter how you juggle this stuff, even by their OWN WEIGHT CHARTS you would always be running low on either the 3mg or 1mg and have excess of the other left and the INSURANCE companies didn't like that. I fell sorry for the folks with leftover 3mg blisters as there isn't much you can do with those... I was able to finally learn how to compensate 1mg for 3mg blisters (and, contrary to Pfizer it is not 'overdosing' at 3:1 and, in fact, I found 4 x 1mg = 1 x 3mg).
So they had very few people getting the stuff? And they wonder *why*?
So here is the rundown of the failures of Pfizer:
1) Not marketing to the right niche - In theory there are a lot more Type II diabetics than Type I's, so this should work out, but, in fact, for steady and high use you want to get as much of the smaller population on the bandwagon FIRST. Steady and increasing production as folks see it used and are convinced of its safety, especially by those using it the most and you will have a larger win with the larger population over time.
2) Not targeting the product use - Not only did Pfizer get the dosage information incorrect, but did not consider the actual use of humalog insulin by diabetics and the fact that Exubera, being honest-to-god crystallized human insulin, REPLACES IT COMPLETELY. No more injections for anything but basal insulin!
3) Not figuring out there would be deviation from their incorrectly set guidelines - Insurance companies are brittle things and you can't get BUYERS if you are restrictive in your GUIDANCE for use. Because GUIDANCE becomes the ONLY think insurance companies will use. By keeping rigid guidance Pfizer killed off the ability of patients to get ENOUGH of this stuff through their insurance companies. Thus, fewer than expected sales.
4) What is the one category of diabetic that is an absolute, hands-down sale? Pediatric use. The marketing to that? ZERO. Children do not like injections, in case Pfizer missed the clue bus there. If you give children a neat way to take medication that is painless they will USE IT. Parents will be HAPPY and only worry about the basal injection. Yes it would have meant a 6 month trial, most likely. After 6 years of trials? Why this stuff was not in every endocrinologist's office that has patients between 5-18 is beyond me. The word is: hotcakes.
5) Missing the actual way humalog is used - I have another clue for Pfizer: bolus (the BG balancing injection) is only ONE part of the use of humalog insulin. You might have considered the carb compensation community and issued different guidelines.
6) Packaging - This should have been the hands-down easiest thing to address. Break up the freaking 'sets' and let pharmacies sell the Exubera by the blister pack box. That way doctors could prescribe this stuff more exactly for their patients instead of having to argue with freaking insurance companies all the time. Put the bi-monthly aerator as something that gets dropped in FOR FREE, two per month and charge an extra few bucks on the separate boxes. Doctors then know patients get those without charge, pharmacies see that patients get those as a 'drop-in' with nice smiley face from Pfizer, and Pfizer makes sure that they have long-term happy patients that will buy the stuff to replace all their humalog.
Basically Pfizer screwed up and badly on their marketing department, packaging and market niche concepts. The proper term is a CF, and those in the military or civilian DoD should know it quite well. By doing a couple of things wrong, everything fails simultaneously.
Now I will scramble around to get the last of the production to the end of the year and do my best to continue using this until Eli Lilly comes out with their inhaled insulin.
Dear Nektar - I am sorry you got partnered with such a group if idiots like the folks at Pfizer. If you can rescue this product, may I suggest seeing if you can get the production equipment shifted to a generic manufacturer or cross-license this to another company that can get its hands on the production line at Pfizer and actually have a CLUE as to how this stuff should be marketed?
It is the greatest product I have run across since becoming a Type I diabetic in 1983.
Dear Prizer - Please fire your marketing department and get some folks in that know what they are doing, at least in the diabetes area. You have some really nice products. The folks in charge of it seem to be out to ruin that portion of the company. You could do worse than actually LISTENING to your service reps seeing doctors as I know that my doctor has been giving you an earful monthly, if not more often. Some people who LISTEN and TAKE NOTES would help.
Sphere: Related Content
Peter Paul, convicted felon on various business deals in his past, a man who broke his parole and was jailed for that, served his time. I make no bones about it, he is, perhaps, not the nicest man on planet earth, but then, he isn't ordering folks to fly aircraft into buildings, either. He is what we would call a crook and now ex-con.
His crimes include trying to swindle the Cuban government on coffee deals, got caught up in a counter-narcotics monitoring program and wasn't able to sink the ship carrying the coffee... and yet was still able to get the cash from Cuba. Can't really say if the US DEA planted cocaine on him or not, but while on parole skipped out, got caught and served his sentence for 3 years out of 8. He also tried his hand, after getting out, on working a commemerative plate deal for the bicentennial of the US Constitution, on the basic buy low, get things engraved on the cheap and sell high. That deal just went under, the company bankrupt. After that he somehow hooked up with Stan Lee of Marvel Comics fame and the rest, as they say, was wheeling and dealing.
Stan Lee, no slouch on the business end of things, knew which way is up and was looking to get Stan Lee Media off to a rip-roaring start. Starting with little in the way of funding, the need to get a prominent person to figurehead the organization was seen as a high priority. That is where the Clintons come in, with Bill still in office and Hillary running for Senate. That deal was a straight up sort of thing often seen in the media: ingratiate yourself to get said endorsements and a titular job with modest ongoing payments and everyone wins. So would begin the start of the Hillary Clinton for Senate campaign cover-up which would start with a Hollywood Gala tribute to the Clintons for Bill's retirement from President. Luckily it was caught on videotape and Peter Paul is suing for what happened afterwards, and Mr. Paul is making a production out of it, new media style. It is worth a gander to say the least.
It is well worth the time it takes to watch it, but if not I will be handing out a few points as we go along. But keep this in mind: to get to the backer that was attracted to SLM, Tendo Oto from Japan, Hillary Clinton would, in the space of a couple of days, go from saying how wonderful Peter Paul, et. al. are and such great backers to.... 'Peter Paul? Who is Peter Paul?' Of course Peter Paul also had the stock price of SLM artificially inflated to get Oto interested, but that, as they say, is another story.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former finance director has been indicted on charges of filing fictitious reports that misstated contributions for a Hollywood fund-raiser for the senator.
The indictment charges David Rosen with four counts of filing false reports with the Federal Election Commission. The charges focus on an Aug. 12, 2000, dinner and concert supported by more than $1.1 million in "in-kind contributions" – goods and services provided for free or below cost. The event was estimated to cost more than $1.2 million.
Rosen is the second figure involved in organizing the soiree for Clinton to become entangled in legal problems as a result.
Aaron Tonken is currently in prison for his role in organizing the event – a tribute to then-President Bill Clinton and starring Cher, Patti LaBelle, Sugar Ray, Toni Braxton, Melissa Etheridge, Michael Bolton, Paul Anka and Diana Ross.
[..]
In addition to his Clinton effort, Rosen has raised money for several other high-profile Democratic candidates, including former presidential hopeful Wesley Clark. Most recently, he was named to the fund-raising team of Donnie Fowler, a candidate for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship.
Tonken, 34 at the time of the 2000 fund-raiser, basked in his role in organizing the fund-raiser, never imaging he'd be facing down government investigators within a couple of years.
Writes Tonken in describing the departure of the Clintons the night of the gala: "Just before they got into the limo, I handed the president gifts from me, Stan Lee and Peter Paul: for him, a custom humidor and a handmade gold watch worth tens of thousands; for Hillary, a necklace that cost eight grand. The first lady disliked it and later sent it back.
"Before my car arrived, I had my last fond glimpses of this gathering of the rich and famous. I watched them drive off into the night. I may have been the ultimate outsider growing up, but not any more. Now I was in, and they were my people.
"But not for long. In less than three years I'd be busted. Instead of chronicling my stunning successes, Variety's Army Archerd would be writing about my criminal misdeeds; I'd be talking not to presidents and movie stars, but to the FBI and other federal agencies, handing over more than two dozen boxes of letters, e-mails, receipts and invoices, cooperating as the government pursued a multifaceted investigation into the corruption that lay hidden behind all the glitter."
Tonken pleaded guilty last year to one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud in hopes of ultimately getting a lesser prison sentence. Instead, he was sentenced to 63 months in prison and ordered to pay $3.79 million to donors and event underwriters whom he bilked.
He clearly implicated Rosen.
"David Rosen, Hillary Clinton's director of finance, worked out of our offices and knew about every dime that was being spent," he writes. "More than that, he participated in the spending."
In his account of his dealings with Hillary, Tonken mentions how grateful she had been to him for all his help with her campaign. But how much did she know about the financial skullduggery?
"One thing about Hillary, she was very attentive to the little details," he writes. "I believe she is genuinely considerate in that way. The very next day [after the Hollywood fund-raiser], she sent me a thank-you note, partially handwritten, in which she said: 'Your ongoing support of my Senate candidacy is especially important to me, and I am grateful for your continued friendship.'
"Take a good, long look at the first half of that last sentence. I did, and it made me wonder: Did she really know what was going on? I think David Rosen knew; I think [longtime aide] Kelly Craighead knew; I think [fund-raiser] Jim Levin knew. But Hillary? It was very possible that they hid it from her. In a way, that was their job. Protect the candidate.
"That was all about to change."
Not only did Peter Paul get thank you notes from each of the Clintons and autographed photos,
but Mr. Tonken also got that lovely letter for all of his hard work on the gala which, really, Hillary just can't remember working on... luckily Mr. Paul got the teleconference with himself, Stan Lee, Hillary Clinton and other staff members recorded for posterity. Hillary Clinton not only knew what was going on with the Gala, but she got weekly updates from her staff and forwarded suggestions to the organizers.
But she would be 'friends' with Mr. Tonken and a very close 'friend' of Peter Paul. And do remember Peter Paul is no 'babe in the woods' when dealing with rough characters... although Mr. Tonken was, the poor, naive soul. Stan Lee, of course, knows how to deal with rough folks in New York and how to protect himself. Still, you do have to wonder 'What Would Spiderman Do?'
"You know, I'm going to start thanking the woman who cleans the restroom in the building I work in. I'm going to start thinking of her as a human being" -Hillary Clinton (From the book "The Case Against Hillary Clinton" by Peggy Noonan, p. 55)
Profile of the Sociopath Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
This will be my first and most important mission as President -- one I believe I have the strength and experience to complete. Today, I want to lay out my three point plan for how I would achieve this -- how, as President, I would bring our troops home, work to bring stability to the region, and replace a military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq's future and America's national security interests.
Yes, those American troops can only cause problems... mind you it was her 'co-president' husband who was elected that said this:
BRUSSELS, Dec. 23, 1997 – During a preholiday visit to Bosnia Dec. 22 President Clinton told American troops thanks to their efforts, the Balkan nation is no longer "the powder keg at the heart of Europe."
"We gave you a mission and you delivered," Clinton told members of the Army's 1st Armored Division and 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "What you are doing for your country is a good and noble thing," he said. "You are doing it well, and we are grateful."
"They made an agreement at Dayton that we are doing our dead level best to help them enforce," Clinton said. The United States is determined not only to do its part, but also expects the Bosnians to theirs, he said.
The president told American troops at Eagle Base the young Muslims, Serbs and Croats he met in Sarajevo all want peace. "It was like a chorus," Clinton said, "They said, 'Stay just a little longer. We don't understand why we're supposed to hate each other. We don't want that kind of future. Please stay.'"
Clinton's visit came four days after he announced U.S. forces will participate in a follow-on peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. "In spite of all you have done," he said in Tuzla, "I think it is imperative that we not stop until the peace here has a life of its own, until it can endure without us. We have worked too hard to let this go."
Mind you she did vote for the first, but on the early bit in Bosnia? Well, what could she have done for that? I mean only 'co-president' unelected, after all:
On March 21, 1999, Hillary expressed her views by phone to the President: “I urged him to bomb.” The Clintons argued the issue over the next few days. [The President expressed] what-ifs: What if bombing promoted more executions? What if it took apart the NATO alliance? Hillary responded, “You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?” The next day the President declared that force was necessary.
From Hillary's Choiceby Gail Sheehy. Apparently, in that 'peace keeping' concept, Hillary had a lot of say in that, too. But it *was* her choice. Both times. It is almost as if Bill Clinton was being a bit dominated or something.
From a WaPo article right after the Lewinsky Affair hit the fan by Kevin Merida, 20 SEP 1998, italics in the original:
The instinct is to try to read her facial expressions, to pore over her public persona for clues about her emotional being. What did it mean when she patted the president gently on the back when a reporter asked whether he had considered resigning? Was her embrace of him at a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser warm or cool? When she whispers to him or brushes her hand across his pant leg, are those gestures of forgiveness or carefully scripted acts meant to convey an impression?
At last week's state dinner for Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel, it was Mrs. Clinton who was the brightest social light in the room, partying as if it were November 1992 and they had just won the White House. She danced three times with her mate, fast and slow, starring for the world as the happily married woman. She was much more animated, in command and energetic than her husband as the night wore on. Typically, it's the president who gabs away while the first lady tugs on his arm to end the evening.
Of course, it was the first big social event since the Starr report dropped, and amateur behavioral scientists were sure to search for cracks in the first couple's chemistry. So perhaps Hillary Clinton decided early on she would not show a crack. Or perhaps she wanted and needed to have some fun.
Yes she does seem to thrive on the problems of her husband, almost energized by it.
From Vanity Fair magazine, excerpt of For Love of Politics - Bill and Hillary Clinton by Sally Bedell Smith, article NOV 2007:
Yet Hillary always had an undercurrent of competition with Al Gore that burst into the open from time to time. One day, when Gore and his team presented their plans for improving government efficiency, Bill asked so many questions that the meeting ran a half-hour too long. As a result, Bill was late for a session in the White House Residence with Hillary and her health-care advisers. Feeling snubbed, Hillary lectured her husband on the importance of health care. Bill "retreated a bit," recalled a participant. "It took five minutes to get through that situation.… She was not pleased."
Yes, Bill Clinton did have some power issues in their 'co-presidency'. Mind you Hillary was given a job to do by the President, and in that role she is not his wife, but carrying out the duties assigned to her. Yet she felt personally snubbed, when it was the business of the President to ensure that he understood issues and programs that he might be backing.
"Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush's] tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." (Hillary grandstanding at a fund raising speech in San Francisco; SFGate.com 6/28/2004.)
Profile of the Sociopath Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."
From Newsday22 FEB 2006, Sen. Clinton on school vouchers:
"First family that comes and says 'I want to send my daughter to St. Peter's Roman Catholic School' and you say 'Great, wonderful school, here's your voucher,'" Clinton said. "Next parent that comes and says, 'I want to send my child to the school of the Church of the White Supremacist ...' The parent says, 'The way that I read Genesis, Cain was marked, therefore I believe in white supremacy. ... You gave it to a Catholic parent, you gave it to a Jewish parent, under the Constitution, you can't discriminate against me.'"
As an adoring, if somewhat puzzled, audience of Bronx activists looked on, Clinton added, "So what if the next parent comes and says, 'I want to send my child to the School of the Jihad? ... I won't stand for it."
Fine, fine talk from a woman that was able to send her own daughter to a private school. And she does know that no school would open that would openly preach treason against the United States. Of course parents can't decide where to send their children to school or even homeschool. Hillary won't stand for that.
After telling an audience that young people today "think work is a four-letter word," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she apologized to her daughter.
"I said, 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to convey the impression that you don't work hard,'" Clinton said Sunday in a commencement address at Long Island University. "I just want to set the bar high, because we are in a competition for the future."
Clinton spoke to more than 2,000 graduates days after she criticized young people at a gathering of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. In those remarks, she said young people have a sense of entitlement after growing up in a "culture that has a premium on instant gratification."
Amazing how it comes out that everyone else gets the 'high bar' and then realizes she has just insulted her own daughter because her daughter TOLD HER SO. Of course that is her right to criticize everyone with a broad brush, now, isn't. Let us hope Chelsea never becomes part of a 'Vast Right Wing Conspiracy'.
From Vanity Fair magazine, excerpt of For Love of Politics - Bill and Hillary Clinton by Sally Bedell Smith, article NOV 2007:
The turning point in Hillary's political life came on November 6, 1998, when New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said he would not run for a fifth term. New York congressman Charles Rangel, who had already been pushing Hillary to enter the race, called that evening and said, "I sure hope you'll consider running, because I think you could win." Bill later wrote that he thought it "sounded like a pretty good idea," although Hillary said she told Rangel that she was "honored" but "not interested" and that she considered the idea "absurd." Yet the same day, Mandy Grunwald, a key adviser to Hillary, called the Moynihans to assess their reaction to a Senate bid by Hillary. They both thought it was a bad idea, because she didn't know the state and hadn't shown any interest in its issues or needs.
The Moynihan seat had in fact been on the Clintons' radar for months. Shortly after the midterm election, Hillary and her longtime adviser Harold Ickes signaled that interest by inviting a group of friends to have dinner and talk about her prospects. "It was a very pragmatic political discussion," recalled Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala. "I told her not to run, that she was an outsider, had never lived in New York. We talked about the Bobby Kennedy thing, and her response was that she was looking at the polls. She said that, based on Kennedy's experience [winning a Senate seat as a newcomer to the state in 1964, after he had served as attorney general for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson], New Yorkers were welcoming." By Bill's account, Hillary made up her mind only days after Moynihan announced his retirement. Once she had spent time "looking around and talking to people," she said, "Okay, I want to do it. So here we go."
[..]
Before Hillary officially established her exploratory committee, she began directly competing with the vice president for money, sometimes even at his own fund-raising events. When Tipper's friend Melinda Blinken and a group of women planned a Gore fund-raiser in Los Angeles, Hillary insisted on being invited—over the objections of the event's organizers. Hillary then shocked the vice president's supporters by soliciting donations for herself in front of Tipper.
At a White House reception in late July for the winners of the Women's World Cup soccer championship, Hillary singled out "my dear friend Tipper Gore" as "a great athlete in her time." But by then Hillary had privately frozen out Tipper, who had given her steadfast support during the Lewinsky ordeal. Hillary never made clear her reasons for the snub, which became apparent once she started running for the Senate. Tipper was reported to be stunned, believing she had been cast aside because she was no longer useful.
Well, Tipper Gore wasn't useful to Hillary any more - her husband was competing for *money* and air time from Bill. Hillary's objectives were far more important than friendship, apparently.
From Dick Morris and Eileen McGann article at Townhall.com No one dare criticize Hillary Clinton, 21 FEB 2007:
Not even supporters of Hillary’s opponents are allowed to disparage her. If they do, the wrath of Hillary surfaces and it is not a pretty sight.
The latest sinner is Hollywood superstar David Geffen. Geffen used to be an avid supporter of the Clintons – he raised over $18 million for them in the past. But no more. Now the Dreamworld founder is backing Obama – and he’s not afraid to say so.
That’s why Hillary wants him banished to political Siberia.
Geffen gave an interview to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Here’s a few tidbits from him that apparently rankled Hillary:
“...I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together.”
“Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. “
“It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t,”
Geffen also call Bill Clinton “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”
Hillary was outraged at what she called these ‘vicious’ and ‘personal’ attacks against her and her husband by Geffen.
Vicious? Those comments were vicious?
Yes, to Hillary, they were. So, the Clinton camp wasted no time in trotting out Howard Wolfson to once again defend the honor of the heiress apparent and call for Geffen’s head. This time even an apology wouldn’t be enough: Hillary demanded that Obama dump Geffen and return the $1.3 million that he raised for Obama because of Geffen’s negative comments about the frontrunner and her husband.
That would make things a lot easier for Hillary, wouldn’t it? In the world according to Hillary, there’s no place in politics for anyone who doesn’t love her and Bill.
Remember, people who supported her in the past and dare to offer *any* criticism are the targets. Hillary is more important than what *you* believe.
"If you want to remain on this detail, get your f**king ass over here and grab those bags!" (From the book "The First Partner" p. 259 - Hillary to a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)
"Put this on the ground! I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need those sunglasses. We need to go back!" (From the book "Dereliction of Duty" p. 71-72 - Hillary to Marine One helicopter pilot to turn back while en route to Air Force One.)
Profile of the Sociopath Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
Now here is a common problem that many Upon the Hill have, but Senators seem to get it worse than most. Sen. Clinton, however, has got this one pretty bad, as witness this bit given to us by USA Today on 11 APR 2007:
FORT DRUM, N.Y. — One by one, their eyes on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, more than 40 soldiers recited a somber roll call: name, rank, company and where in Iraq or Afghanistan they had been wounded.
Later, after hearing their tales of chaos, confusion and shabby treatment by the military health care system, Clinton vowed to send her own staff here to help.
"These young men go off to war. They are motivated. They have volunteered. … And then we turn around and don't take care of them," Clinton told USA TODAY late Tuesday. "It's outrageous. I don't know how people sleep at night. I don't get it."
Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has spent the week highlighting the medical needs of soldiers and veterans leading up to a hearing today on their problems by her committee and the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. Her appearances underscored her dual role these days as a Democratic senator from New York and a presidential candidate seeking to be the nation's first female commander in chief.
[..]
She chatted with disabled veterans at their bedsides. She heard wounded soldiers here talk about problems in getting treatment and information, negotiating a chaotic bureaucracy, coping with denials of disability and life insurance claims, and making sure their records — and even they themselves — do not get lost in the system.
Clinton marveled at some tales and shuddered at others. "This has got to get fixed," she said at a tightly controlled meeting where military authorities didn't allow soldiers to be identified or quoted.
Later, she ripped into the Bush administration for talking up the troops but skimping on people, money and equipment. "To me, all this talk about 'We're going to go to war and we're going to demonstrate freedom and we're going to promote democracy and we're going to support our troops' — where's the reality?" she demanded. "The reality is what we do to take care of these people who are serving us and doing the mission that they are ordered to do."
Apparently Sen. Clinton has never bothered to read her job description. You do *know* that members of Congress have a job description, right? Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution:
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Amazing how much power we give to Congress to do all of those things. A great job, if you can get it...which Sen. Clinton *did*. Mind you almost all Congresscritters are mendacious on this point, but that doesn't keep them from trying to shift blame from where it belongs to someone else.
And the best part of that article was yet to come. Remember she does know who does what in the government:
Hospital aides raced to get pictures taken with her. A meeting with 12 soldiers at Fort Drum turned into a meeting with nearly four times that many — and they lined the hall afterward to shake her hand. "Defending our country is the paramount job" of a commander in chief, Clinton said in the interview. "I think I'm equipped for that job, but I think that I also have to make the case because a woman has never been president."
In reality she could start getting things done right where she is... and NOT send her staff as personal lackeys to do what she feels bad about. Of course she knows that it is not the President that makes all the bureaucracy. It is Congress... and she is on the Armed Services Committee and the prime CAUSE of the bureaucracy. But to acknowledge that would be truthful and admitting her own failure in the process. Best to blame someone who has no power over it.
Then there is how she ran her 2000 Senate campaign, beyond the Gala event, again from VF book excerpt:
Hillary's rather joyless politicking was belied by her girlish campaign slogan, "hillary!" Besides creating the illusion of liveliness in an otherwise colorless campaign, the punchy catchword severed the candidate from the Clinton name and became the latest version of an evolving political brand that began with "Hillary Rodham" during Bill's first term as governor, shifted to "Hillary Clinton" to placate an Arkansas electorate irked by her feminism, and then to "Hillary Rodham Clinton" as First Lady.
Bill was remarkably philosophical and compliant about his diminished place in her political identity. "Trashing me is fine if it helps Hillary," Bill told aide Sidney Blumenthal, who observed, "He just wanted her to win."
Amazing how she tried to have folks forget the 'co-presidency' so quickly, and she did succeed to a large extent. This is 'triangulation' and she is willing to step away from anything in her past that might be a stumbling block to her future. Just who is Hillary Clinton to herself? Whatever she says it is, and she devoutly believes that as it changes again and again.
But she still can't catch a break with suburban women. It isn't only her hunger for the job; she just doesn't come across as genuine. It is hard for people to tell what's true when you can't talk about the things most important to you and have to put a smiley face on one of the toughest political marriages in history. When she says she felt like a newlywed unpacking boxes in Chappaqua, it rings hollow. Does she really relish the prospect of rattling around in the huge empty house on her own? When she says, "It takes a village," doesn't she really mean "It takes mandatory universal health care, if only you people had listened"? When she shook so many hands in the Puerto Rican Day parade that veins were bulging in her wrist, all the while earnestly asking "How are you?," it sounded tinny, like a hotel operator inquiring "How can I direct your call?" Gail Sheehy reported that after that somber walk across the White House lawn, the one after the President was forced to admit he'd had sex with "that woman," the Clintons actually laughed and joked on the plane all the way to Martha's Vineyard.
Many Democrats in the hall have given up trying to figure out what's real and what's Memorex. Several weeks ago, Hillary told Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times that she had, after all, been quite active behind the scenes of the Administration. I tend to believe that's true, but the truth is closed off to Hillary after six years of denying that she ever set foot in the West Wing, preferring to concern herself with preserving historic sites, fussing over state dinners and writing a book on entertaining. You can have only so many guises.
Apparently 'authentic Hillary Clinton' is a contradiction in terms.
"It's been said, and I think it's accurate, that my husband was obsessed by terrorism in general and al-Qaida in particular." (Hillary telling a post-9/11 world what a 'great' commander in chief her husband was; Dateline, NBC 4/16/2004.)
Profile of the Sociopath Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
Dear, me! Are we back to Peter Paul and Aaron Tonken *again*? Ok, if that's the case lets hit on the amoral side of Peter Paul & Co. so you can get a feel that there is ruthless and then there is *ruthless*:
Rosen said he met Tonken and Paul in June 2000, when Paul agreed to underwrite a lunch in L.A. for Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. Days later, Tonken flew to Chicago to attend another fundraiser, and again brought Newton-John to sing. Afterward Tonken met with two of the president and first lady's close associates: Kelly Craighead, a White House employee who was the first lady's trip director, and James Levin, a Chicago businessman who socialized with the president. Levin later told FBI investigators and federal prosecutors that Craighead had asked him to help get a feel for whether Tonken was on the level.
Over drinks, Tonken said he wanted to produce a big Hollywood salute to the president on the eve of the upcoming Democratic National Convention. According to Tonken, Levin urged him to consider making the event a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. Levin did not respond to requests for an interview for this article.
Tonken returned to Los Angeles and tried to convince Paul that they could produce the gala for $500,000. Paul predicted it would cost more, but in the end, he agreed to help fund it -- if he got what he wanted out of it.
Levin flew to California to meet Paul, he later told federal investigators, then on to Washington to discuss the proposed fundraiser with the president.
"After discussing it with Levin, President Clinton agreed to be involved in the event," an FBI report on the agents' interview with Levin said.
Rosen worried that there wasn't enough time left to plan and execute a big Hollywood bash involving many celebrities, he said. Even a modest "parlor party" in a donor's home can take more than a month to plan and execute, and the convention was about five weeks away. But Rosen's instructions came down from on high, he said: Do the Hollywood event with Paul and Tonken.
Nobody warned Rosen that his new partners had such colorful pasts, he said. To avoid embarrassing liaisons, Rosen said, Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign staff submitted a donor's name to a three-member vetting committee of high-ranking campaign officials. The campaign also forwarded the name to the Washington law firm of Ryan, Phillips, Utrecht & MacKinnon to be further researched, he said. Donors preparing to host an event -- and emblazon their name on the invitations -- received the closest scrutiny, Rosen said.
Tonken and Paul were vetted and passed, Rosen said. The instructions he received regarding Paul, he said, were: "No remarkable information found. Proceed."
"The vetting process failed," Rosen said in an interview. "I was put in harm's way."
David Kendall, the Clintons' lawyer, said in an interview that the campaign's law firm simply ran Paul's name through LexisNexis, the electronic database of news articles and public records, and found no mention of his convictions.
Paul is scornful. Even if vetters for the campaign erred, the Secret Service, charged with protecting the president, wouldn't have, he said. "How ridiculous would that be?" Paul asked. "They had my Social Security number in February of 2000." Kendall counters that the Secret Service didn't work for or report to the Senate campaign.
The vetting process had at least one built-in flaw. Levin, the presidential pal asked to watch out for the Clintons' interests, later entered an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to defrauding the Chicago Public Schools in a bribery, minority-contracting fraud and bid-rigging scheme, court records show. At the time he was assessing Tonken's character, Levin was cheating schoolchildren by overbilling the public school hundreds of thousands of dollars for snow removal. President Clinton so relied on Levin's judgment, Levin later testified, that he asked the businessman to fly to Los Angeles and be his eyes and ears as gala plans unfolded.
Paul alleged in his civil suit against the Clintons, which is still pending, that Levin came to L.A. to broker a deal in which Clinton would serve on Stan Lee Media's board after he left office in exchange for $16.5 million in cash and company stockLevin acknowledged in his FBI interview that Paul discussed wanting the president to work for Stan Lee Media. But Levin said he never brokered a deal between Paul and the president.
Paul, who delights in pointing out that he couldn't have cared less if Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate, insists he wouldn't have spent one penny on the gala unless there was something in it for him. "I could have bought a boat," Paul said in an interview. "I could have bought a plane. Instead, I tried to buy the services of an ex-president as legally as possible."
That from a 04 OCT 2006 WaPo story House of Cards, YMMV. Yes, absolutely amoral to put a staff member like Rosen, who also had a 'colorful' past, to work in the line of fire knowing that any stray bullets or court cases would hit HIM first. It was a scam, of course, by all involved and all-around, and yet a young player like Rosen was dazzled by it, going from a bit of hustling amongst the Hollywood stars to hustling for the Clintons:
"This is one of the finest hotels in Beverly Hills," Rosen recalled Tonken telling him as they sat on plush cushions in the lobby. "I want you to stay here . . . I want to do this for you. You are going to be working so hard on this event. Please let me do this for you."
Rosen was getting the full Tonken treatment. "He's an incredibly convincing guy," Rosen recalled. "He's kind of a pig. He's a guy who might have bare feet in the Beverly Hills Hotel and order a sundae in the lobby. He is slovenly. He is rude. But there is something endearing about this guy that's hard to put your finger on. He was so good at knowing what you were thinking. If somebody was lonely or needed something, he knew. He was incredible the way he would worm his way into people's lives in a very deep, personal way."
Prosecutors would later argue unsuccessfully that Rosen's use of the luxury hotel and car should have been reported to federal election officials as a contribution to Hillary Clinton's campaign. Rosen contended that he viewed them as personal gifts. "I thought he was my friend," Rosen said. "It was a con."
It was no con, Tonken said in an interview; it was politics as usual. "It's called buying access," Tonken said. "I was able to get Mrs. Clinton on the phone when I wanted. Mrs. Clinton was wonderful to me, engaging and warm. It all seemed sincere at the time. I'm sure she did it because everyone was whispering in her ear: 'Money! See him!'"
The Hollywood gala was shaping up as $1,000-a-ticket concert followed by a $25,000 per-couple dinner with the Clintons. Stan Lee Media was the official underwriter, although Paul would later claim in his lawsuit that he paid personally.
Under federal election law at that time, individuals were prohibited from donating more than $2,000 to a specific candidate. That was commonly known as "hard money" and could go directly toward paying campaign expenses, such as buying TV time to tout the candidate explicitly. Campaigns also benefited indirectly from "soft money." That was money donors gave to more general entities that promoted parties, platforms or get-out-the-vote drives; it was exempt from the $2,000 limit.
The Hollywood gala was being sponsored by New York Senate 2000 Committee, a joint fundraising venture authorized by the Clinton for U.S. Senate Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the New York State Democratic Committee. Gala ticket sales would benefit all three, with the "hard money" going to the Clinton campaign. Any goods or services donated to produce the gala -- from erecting a stage to hiring an orchestra -- were required to be reported to the Federal Election Commission as a political contribution. Theoretically, running up expenses could result in less hard money being available to the Clinton campaign after all the divvying was done. But given the complex accounting that results from federal election law, it was almost impossible to know that in advance.
Anyone hoping to hold down gala expenses, just to be prudent, had to reckon with Tonken, the big spender, who was in charge of lining up celebrity guests and performers. To entice some stars to participate, Tonken, as usual, threw money at them: cash, trips, gifts, perks. "The money spout was fully open," Tonken wrote in his memoir.
As the gala neared, Tonken was spending so much money so fast that even he lost track of it, he said. Cher would come only if Tonken sent a sizable private jet, a Gulfstream III or IV, to ferry her, Tonken said. So he did, at a cost of at least $30,000.
Yes, it is this sort of thing that *also* gets to become 'contributions' under the FEC. Open the money spout to get more money... lots more money, and all for the benefit of Hillary Clinton, Stan Lee Media and the fun and frivolity of all involved. All of it contributions. Soon that would catch up with Peter Paul, Hillary Clinton and all the rest. Two days:
The next day, Grove published a new item: Federal Election Commission records showed Paul had personally donated $2,000, the maximum allowed, to the first lady's Senate campaign. A campaign spokesman quickly announced that, in light of revelations about Paul's criminal history, the campaign was sending Paul his $2,000 back.
Nobody mentioned returning the mega-bucks that the company Paul co-founded had supposedly just spent underwriting the gala.
Despite the embarrassing publicity, Paul did get nice thank-you notes from the president and the first lady. "Thank you so very much for hosting Saturday night's tribute to the President and for everything you did to make it the great occasion that it was," Hillary Clinton wrote. "We will remember it always."
Paul would make sure she didn't forget.
Over the next several weeks, Paul later claimed, he spoke to both Tonken and then-DNC Chairman Ed Rendell about getting a presidential pardon for his past felony convictions. Paul made the allegation in his original suit against the Clintons, but omitted it from an amended version. When Rendell telephoned to ask for a $200,000 contribution for the National Constitutional Center in Philadelphia, Paul asked about the status of his pardon request, Paul said. According to Paul's original lawsuit, Rendell said he was working on it. Rendell, now governor of Pennsylvania, declined to comment for this article.
Paul had been invited to the White House to attend the last state dinner of Clinton's presidency, the black-tie India State Dinner. Given the publicity about his criminal history, Levin suggested it would be better if Paul didn't attend, Paul said. By contrast, Tonken was not only invited to the India State Dinner, he said, but the Clintons were effusive in their thanks, leaving him personal phone messages, sending him letters and gifts. "I have presidential cufflinks," Tonken said.
Amazing how fast the influence suddenly wanes when the FEC gets involved. Yes, this is the same Rendell now caught up in the Hsuperb happenings this go-around. Mr. Rosen would be acquitted of charges against him, but Levin has been found guilty of defrauding the Chicago Public Schools... and the jury in the Rosen trial basically said: 'everyone is lying'.
Plus putting a young wheeler/dealer type like Rosen into the line of fire knowing that Levin, Paul and Tonken would make swiss cheese look solid is something that he was not prepared for. Of course Peter Paul wasn't prepared for it either, and only your friends get a really good chance at stabbing you in the back.
Just what we have come to expect from those around the Clintons.
Mind you she had already stabbed Tipper Gore in the back, and belittled Bill by going to become HILLARY! Too bad Paul, Rosen, et. al. had learned that, but this wasn't the entertainment business or standard con job. This was politics.
"I have to admit that a good deal of what my husband and I have learned [about Islam] has come from our daughter." (TruthInMedia.org 8/8/1999 - Hillary at a White House function, proudly tells some Muslim groups she is gaining a greater appreciation of Islam because Chelsea was then taking a class on the "religion of peace")
Profile of the Sociopath Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
"My strong feelings about divorce and its effects on children have caused me to bite my tongue more then a few times during my own marriage and to think about what I could do to be a better wife and partner. " It Takes A Village by Hillary Clinton, Simon & Schuster, 1996.
The Democratic National Convention, 27 AUG 1996, Hillary Clinton at the podium:
But we are all responsible for ensuring that children are raised in a nation that doesn't just talk about family values, but acts in ways that values families. Just think - as Christopher Reeve so eloquently reminded us last night, we are all part of one family - the American family. And each one of us has value. Each child who comes into this world should feel special - every boy and every girl.
....
But today, too many new mothers are asked to get up and get out after 24 hours, and that is just not enough time for many new mothers and babies. That's why the president is right to support a bill that would prohibit the practice of forcing mothers and babies to leave the hospital in less than 48 hours.
That's also why more hospitals ought to install 24-hour hotlines to answer questions once new mothers and fathers get home. That's why home nurses can make such a difference to parents who may not have grandparents or aunts and uncles around to help. We have to do whatever it takes to help parents meet their responsibilities at home and at work. The very first piece of legislation that my husband signed into law had been vetoed twice - the Family and Medical Leave Law.
It is interesting that there has been no hue and cry to get more FMLA, but Hillary wants to give more of it if she is elected President. And more Hillarycare for everyone, so that no one goes without government oversight. She is so kind and gentle, just wants to make all the decisions for you, so you don't have to bother yourself with them. Strange as it may seem, I always thought that it was parents that raised children, as villages are damned poor ways of doing that where everyone looks after everything, making it so that very few actually look after anything. That FMLA actually removes some flexibility and 'niceness' from those places that actually used to just let folks have a day off or three to tend to 'family matters' without having to fill out paperwork. No, lets add IN paperwork and remove flexibility from workplaces. Everyone will be so much better with mandated concepts.
Actually, I doubt that anyone is *forcing* mothers and babies to leave after 24 hours from hospitals. They may make the economic decision that they do not want to pay full price if their health plan doesn't cover more than 24 hours, but whose fault is that? Not government's. Not the Nation's. No, that belongs to the parents involved: they are adults, after all. If they wanted a health plan to cover more, they should have chosen one... but that involves that dreaded 'choice' concept.
That same concept that allows hospitals to have 'hotlines' or NOT. But don't worry, Hillary will make *that* decision in her kindly way. Don't mind the extra burden to hospitals and that increased chance of getting sued if the wrong answer is given on a hotline. It won't cost you *much*, just increased overall cost of the entire healthcare system to absorb the cost of a little used 'resource' that NO ONE is asking for.
I'm sure that Hillary, in the kindness of her heart, does mean each and every one of the things she holds forth as important. It will get her elected! Of *course* it is important!
From Advocate.com article The Object of Our Affectionby Sean Kennedy, 09 OCT 2007, looking at Hillary Clinton's support of the LGBT community and Gay Marriage in particular:
But when I suggest that her “personal position” is actually not her position at all, she quickly interrupts me, sitting up in her chair with a start. “I don’t think that would be fair,” she says. “Because, you know, I would tell you that. This is an issue -- I’m much older than you are -- and this is an issue that I’ve had very few years of my life to think about when you really look at it, when you compare it to a whole life span. I am where I am right now, and it is a position that I come to authentically. But it is also one that has enormous room and support both in my heart and in my work to try to move the agenda of equality and civil unions forward.”
It’s anyone’s guess how Clinton really feels -- maybe she is legitimately wrestling with same-sex marriage, who knows? -- but her supporters are more than willing to play her game. Later that night at the Abbey, after Clinton has come and gone, delivering her stump speech to a thunderous ovation, I talk to two clean-cut professional guys in their 30s. Police officers are still patrolling the closed-off street outside, and as the sign-holding demonstrators -- antiabortion activists, “Impeach Bush” types, Hillary fans -- start to pack up, the men cite the usual reason for supporting her: her experience. But they also tell me they’re disappointed by her position on marriage equality.
She plays games with her actual feelings, projects what she thinks her audience wants to feel but says something quite different. It is not just those in the 'straight' community who have some uneasiness over Sen. Clinton's ability to mask her own emotions and feel that there is something deeply missing from her as a person.
Of course those in the LGBT community are not alone feeling how sincere Hillary is... just ask Peter Paul or Aaron Rosen. Such lovely letters and signed pictures, and presentations, especially to Mr. Paul, about how such a wonderful friend he is. Right up to the FEC investigation. Just ask Al Gore, as seen from the VF book excerpt:
In any number of ways, the Gore campaign found itself in a contest with Hillary's campaign. One of the most dramatic examples occurred in September as the Federal Trade Commission prepared to release a report on violence in the media. The agency's million-dollar study showed that entertainment companies were marketing violent movies, video games, and music to children under 18. Under ordinary circumstances, a vice president running for the presidency would have first call on publicizing the report. But Hillary insisted she should handle the rollout because she had already called for a universal ratings system. "It was a key point of her Senate campaign," said Bruce Reed. "The president had singled her out for that in the 2000 State of the Union, so the finding of the F.T.C. was directly relevant to her campaign. The vice president's campaign had concluded that cultural issues were hurting him, and they were dying to announce the report as well."
After "several painful days of negotiations," administration officials "thought we had a resolution that served everyone," said Reed. The F.T.C. would release the report on Monday, September 11, followed by a comment from Gore, and then a separate one from the Clintons at a campaign event in New York. This strategy did not sit well with Gore and Lieberman, who decided to break the news on their own by inviting a reporter from The New York Times to the vice president's residence on Sunday for an interview to be published Monday. "Every day was like that," Reed said. "It was a typical example of how people who had known and trusted each other a long time would do things they otherwise wouldn't have done."
They really should have known and trusted each other, but by having any level of competition against Hillary, Al Gore would know what it was like to be her non-trusted, non-friend.
A right-wing network was after his presidency...including perverting the Constitution." (To Barbara Walters about the Republicans who impeached her husband; 20/20, ABC 6/8/2003.)
"What are you doing inviting these people into my home? These people are our enemies! They are trying to destroy us!" (From the book "The Survivor" by John Harris, p. 99 - Hillary screaming to an aide, when she found out that some Republicans had been invited to the Clinton White House)
Profile of the Sociopath Incapacity for Love
Ah, how easy it is to fall in love...
I remember visiting a maternity hospital in Brazil, where they had integrated family planning and reproductive health into their maternal and health services.
I saw mothers standing in the crowded hallways, cradling their newborns, waiting for well-baby appointments. Young women waiting for their prenatal appointments. Infants getting immunized. I saw parents getting the information they needed to make wise choices about planning their families. And I also saw wards of women who were there because they had not received quality health care. Many had, however, received self-induced or back-alley abortions.
I spoke to a number of mothers who told me that for the first time they could adequately care for the children they had. I learned about how rates of maternal mortality and abortion decreased because women received health care they needed in a timely fashion. And I fell in love with the Minister of Health for the state I was visiting when he said what everyone knows, and that is he intended to bring to poor women the same access to family planning services that well-to-do women take for granted.
That from First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks at NARAL Anniversary Luncheon, Washington, D.C., January 22, 1999. Such a far away love... so easy to keep at a distance. Mind you it was falling in love to make a political point, so one does wonder how deeply it was felt.
Of course one also has such feelings for teachers:
Thank you. Thank you very, very much. You know I have been privileged and honored to speak at many events throughout our country and even around the world. I have been introduced by many distinguished men and women from one end of the world to the other. I don't know that I have ever been introduced by anyone for whom I have greater admiration and love than Johanna, and I don't know that anyone has ever been as effective in delivering an introduction that makes us all stop and think. There is a little bit of caution I would advise if someone who has known you for 33 years, who's as smart as Johanna is, introduces you. Take notes, because you are going to learn something that will be beneficial as you move forward to navigate your way. I want to thank Johanna because I am really here because of her. I have heard about the wonderful work that is done here at the Massachusetts College of Arts for many years -- ever since she began teaching here part time and then when she assumed full-time responsibilities. She wrote me back in July of 1997 to tell me about the 125 years that would be celebrated tonight, and asked if I would please be part of that celebration. Of course I was honored to say yes.
From First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts, December 5, 1998. Remember, no higher than the love for Bill or Chelsea.
One of the interesting things researching this article is the absolute lack of Hillary's demonstration of love for, really, anyone. Getting those two, apparently surficial, quotes above is part of a lack of Hillary Clinton's online record of actually loving Bill and Chelsea. Not her *recent* record, but heading back into her previous campaigns and time as First Lady. As a relatively introspective individual myself I don't parade such around, either... but then I am not in politics, where such things as a few demonstrations of such is necessary.
Sally Bedell Smith has a few paragraphs on this from that book excerpt on the Clintons and they are telling:
The prospect of teaming up in another race had a salutary effect on the Clintons' relationship by shifting their conversation to safe ground, away from the personal issues they had been grappling with in couples therapy. "Bill and I were talking again about matters other than the future of our relationship," Hillary later wrote. "We both began to relax. He was anxious to be helpful, and I welcomed his expertise." Susan Thomases observed, "She always had enormous respect and affection for him in the political context. He was always the strategist for himself and for her."
[..]
Between April and November 2000, Bill raised more than $5 million for Hillary at 34 events designated for her Senate race, half of which she actually attended. Variously calling himself "surrogate in chief," "cheerleader in chief," and "spouse in chief," he unabashedly solicited contributions, even when Hillary wasn't the headliner. At a dinner for Democratic congressional candidates in Brentwood, California, he said, "A lot of you have given to Hillary. If you haven't, I hope you will."
The Clintons had made a great effort during the 1996 campaign and afterward to minimize Hillary's co-presidential role, but now Bill was spinning a different story of her "breathtaking range" of activities in domestic and foreign policy, which included a "significant contribution to the Irish peace process." But he declined to touch on her back-channel operations and pervasive influence over personnel, notably her deep involvement in the political vetting of candidates for the federal bench and U.S.-attorney positions.
The president so immersed himself in Hillary's campaign that it became an extension of himself. In some ways, their relationship had come to resemble a co-dependency more than a co-presidency. Not surprisingly, Bill and Hillary remained in harmony over the issues. But he also believed that his enemies had "transferred all their anger to her now." As he told a group of supporters in Miami, "I think half of them think it's their last chance at me."
From co-presidency to co-dependency, which pretty much describes a relationship built on limited grounds of mutual acceptance. But remember, she *does* love him:
HILLARY CLINTON: You know, I'm not sitting here as some little woman standin' by man like Tammy Wynette. I'm sitting here because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he's been through and what we've been through together.
Hillary's formula for defending herself and Bill had always been to challenge their accusers to prove their charges. In sexual cases, it always boiled down to his word against her word and no proof was possible.
Did Hillary believe her husband's denials? Come on. Get real. If Winona Ryder were caught running out of Bloomingdale's clutching an Armani dress with neither a receipt nor a bag, would you assume she hadn't shoplifted?
When Bill told Hillary that all he was doing with Monica was "ministering to a troubled young girl," how on earth was the First Lady supposed to believe him? When he added that she was blackmailing him, demanding that he have sex with her, or she'd go public claiming to have had sex with him, could a reasonable, sane person possibly buy his story? No.
Yet in her new book Hillary insists she had no inkling that her husband had lied to her about Monica until the day before his grand-jury testimony.
To buy this latest episode of Hillary's Fables, you'd have to accept that she believed him even after semen was found on Monica's blue dress — and after the FBI took a sample of his DNA, two weeks before his grand-jury testimony.
You'd have to be a fool to buy all that. As I told the grand jury, Bill Clinton was truthful, if abstruse, with me in late January, 1998, when the story first came out about his affair with Monica. "Ever since I got to the White House I've had to shut myself down, sexually I mean," he said. "But I screwed up with this girl. I didn't do what they said I did, but I did do something and I may have done enough so that I can't prove my innocence."
It took me months to deduce from the public evidence that this circumlocution was intended to deny sexual intercourse but affirm oral sex. But if he told me, he probably told his wife way back then.
The fact is that Hillary and Bill have had a relationship based on a sick cycle of accusation-denial-admission-reward for decades. He is accused of an affair. He denies it. He admits it when he has no choice. Hillary forgives him and then Bill showers gifts upon her in gratitude. For putting up with Gennifer Flowers and going on 60 Minutes to "stand by her man," she got control of health-care policy. For Monica, she got a Senate seat. Some guys give necklaces, some give Senate seats.
"Come on Bill, put your dick up! You can't f**k her here!!" (From the book "Inside The White House" by Ronald Kessler, p. 243 - Hillary to Gov. Clinton when she spots him talking with an attractive female at an Arkansas political rally)
"I am a fan of the social policies that you find in Europe" Hillary in 1996 From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 76 - Hillary in 1996)
Profile of the Sociopath Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
As if living with Bill Clinton wasn't enough!
From Hillary’s Choice by Gail Sheehy, p.345 Dec 9, 1999 at On The Issues:
On March 21, 1999, Hillary expressed her views by phone to the President: “I urged him to bomb.” The Clintons argued the issue over the next few days. [The President expressed] what-ifs: What if bombing promoted more executions? What if it took apart the NATO alliance? Hillary responded, “You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?” The next day the President declared that force was necessary.
The quick, sure and explosive method of handling foreign problems, obviously.
For stimulation, however, one can't go to much beyond working with Organized Crime! Yes one of the best ways to get a 'stimulating' and rewarding life is to associate with those in the underworld. And members of foreign military organizations like the People's Liberation Army (PLA). And your standard sleazy operators. Here are a few of the more interesting individuals the Clintons have been involved with:
1) Chen Kai-kit (Source: Bertil Lintner's Crime, Business and Polics in Asia): Part of the Chinagate/Donorgate scandal and part of the Macau Triads, associated with a representative from North Korea, and front man for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China for the purchase of the CV Varyag. He, his wife and six others are accused of skimming money off of Guangnan Holdings, an insolvent food conglomerate and planning to defraud the Standard Chartered Bank of London via bogus loans.
2) Johnny Chung: Part of the Chinagate/Donorgate scandal, pled guilty of contributing $18,000 to the Clinton 1996 Re-Election campaign (Source: WND article 10 FEB 2004) who was under orders from the head of the PLA, Chinese General Ji. Mr. Chung also worked to place contracts with LORAL Corp. for satellite work for Liu Ju-Yuan the minister of China Aerospace Corporation and Bill Clinton signed a waiver over the objections of DoD to allow that to happen (Source: GlobalSecurity's NYT document cache). Somehow the rocket just didn't make it to orbit and the Chinese got much better missile guidance technology out of the deal. Remember that this is the era of the 'co-presidency'.
Johnny Chung
3) Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie (Source: FrontPageMag 09 MAR 2007): Friend of Bill from Arkansas, restaurateur, owner of Daihatsu International Trading, and member of the Taiwanese Four Seas Triad which works with the PLA. Contributed Triad funds and funds from Ng Lapseng to various of Bill Clinton's campaigns and his defense fund for the Paula Jones investigation. In exchange Trie got appointed to the U.S.-Pacific Trade and Investment Policy, which Bill was gracious enough to expand to allow him to sit on the Committee.
On April 4, 1996, at a White House meeting, Mrs. Clinton, when pressed to recall her involvement with Trie, according to a Senate committee report, did not recognize his name. Then, quickly, she changed her mind, recalling him as "the owner of a restaurant in Little Rock."
[..]
At a February 15, 1995 DNC dinner held in honor of fundraisers, Trie sat at the First Lady's table.
4) Ng Lapseng (Source: FrontPageMag 09 MAR 2007): Business partner of Charlie Trie via the Four Seas Triad. Ng Lapseng would contribute money to the 1996 Clinton Re-Election campaign from his Macau based brothel.
Ng Lapseng
5) Wang Jun (Source: FrontPageMag 09 MAR 2007): Head of Poly Technologies, the largest Chinese arms exporter, that had a White House 'coffee' with the Clintons arranged by Charlie Trie. The Administration had granted his company to sell 100,000 semi-automatic rifles and lots of ammo to a Detroit based company China Jiang An. Mr. Jun's visit was also arranged with (Source:GlobalSecurity) Ernest Green, managing director of the Washington, D.C. office of Lehman Brothers and a prominent DNC fundraiser. Wang is also the head of China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC), a financial and industrial conglomerate controlled by the Chinese government. Congressman Curt Weldon would report on 14 JUN 1999 that Mr. Jun had made $600K in illegal contributions to the DNC and had been indicted on attempting to smuggle 2,000 Chinese made AK-47s into the US.
6) John Huang (Source: FrontPageMag 09 MAR 2007): Ex-President of the Lippo Group owned by the Riady family, friend of Al Gore (Source: FindArticles Human Events, 06 OCT 2000 cache), contributor to the DNC, introduced the head of Chinese government owned China Resources to the White House on 24 SEP 1993, and contributed $100,000 to the Clinton Inaugural committee so as to land a spot in the White House in the Commerce Dept. Huang would be briefed by the CIA and had access to sensitive sources at the CIA and White House. After leaving the White House he would become the DNC's Vice-Chairman for Finance. He was involved with Wang Jun and Poly technologies and behind the AK-47 smuggling operation, where a Red China vessel from COSCO was involved. The AK-47s were to be sold to Los Angeles street gangs. The Lippo Group co-owned the bank through which Poly Technologies was funding the smuggling operation.
Hillary's personal intervention was instrumental to Huang getting the job, argue Timperlake and Triplett; indeed, it was "common knowledge" among Commerce Department officials. Huang's boss, Jeff Garten, would testify later that Huang was "totally unqualified" for the job, and should be "walled off" in particular from China issues.
7) James Riady (Source: FrontPageMag 09 MAR 2007): Manager of Worthen Bank that had been bailed out by Mochtar Riady and Jackson Stephens, donate $475,000 to the DNC, made an illegal foreign funds contribution in 1992, ran Worthen Bank into the ground, purchased the Bank of Trade in California, federal regulators issued cease and desist orders to Riady for violating money laundering and hazardous lending statutes. Friend of Bill Clinton, Webster Hubbell. Made overbilling payments to the Rose Law Firm via Webster Hubbell. The Lippo Bank had close connections to Red China.
8) William Cravens (Source: Charles Smith, WND article 12 JAN 1999): Friend of Bill Clinton, associate of James Riady, worked at Worthen Bank, became CEO of Systematics (an AK computer company owned by Jackson Stephens). Systematics hired the Rose Law Firm to perform special legal work under William Cravens. One of those contracts involved the NSA.
It was also reported that Mrs. Clinton hired Systematics to secure computer records from the Rose Office accounting systems, including data on the now infamous Whitewater land deals and the Riady holdings in the Worthen bank.
Cravens left Systematics for ENTERGY Group, headed by Edwin Lupeburger. Entergy's Lupeburger was on a trade trip with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown to China and was able to sign a $2 billion contract with Red China to build a 1200MW powerplant at Datong with the help of financial backing via Ron Brown. With involvement of the Lippo Bank the Chinese would rename it "Lippo Entergy Datong Power Plant". Entergy had paid $80,000 to the Democratic Party so as to get the plum assignment on the plane with Ron Brown.
Additional testimony before Sen. Fred Thompson's committee shows that the Lippo Group is a joint venture of China Resources, a trading and holding company "wholly owned" by the Chinese communist government and used as a front for Chinese espionage operations.
The Commerce Dept. would make false denials that there was no connection between the Datong Power Plant and PLA (Source: Charles Smith, WNT article, 28 JAN 1999).
9) Roger Tamraz (Source: Kenneth Timmerman 01 MAY 1997 American Spectator article): Son of an Egyptian millionaire, worked at Kidder Peabody, founded First Arabian Corporation investment bank, backed by the brother of Saudi King Faisal's favorite wife Sheikh Kamal Adham (al-Turki), established ties with Prince Abdullah bin Musaid bin Abdul Rahman, ties with Sheikh Salem bin Ladin and Ghaith Pharaon who would later join BCCI. Tamraz would step in with Saudi backing to gain control of some of the US banks that BCCI had controlled. by 1995 Tamraz was donating large amounts of funds to the DNC and Democratic Party of Virginia. Tamraz was able to do so via purchase of some northern Italian gas stations and a refinery, which would be bought out by Libya, then taking the Tamoil name and incorporating in the US. He would attend four of the Clinton White House 'coffees' seeking help on various business deals with the bulk of his money being pledged by Red China. During this period he was also avoiding Interpol which had warrants out on him from Lebanon and an earlier bank deal.
10) Jorge Cabrera (Source: Don Van Natta, Jr. 04 APR 1997, NYT): Drug smuggler who was asked by Vivian Mannerud, a Democratic fundraiser, to give money to the 1996 Clinton re-election campaign. He was asked to do so from the Copacabana Hotel... in Cuba. Within two weeks he was meeting with Al Gore and Hillary Clinton and sponsoring a fundraising dinner to the tune of $20,000. This would later be found to be an 'improper donation'. Later Mr. Cabrera would be arrested for cocaine smuggling for having brough 6 tons of cocaine into the US illegally. Still, he would receive an invitation to the Clinton inauguration... presumably while in jail.
Jorge Cabrera
It is hard to imagine anyone *not* getting stimulated by this sort of company!
Gateway Pundit has a nice roundup of various verbal outbursts from Hillary Clinton which I will add a few of the more 'stimulating' ones:
"Where is the G-damn f**king flag? I want the G-damn f**king flag up every f**king morning at f**king sunrise." (From the book "Inside The White House" by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 - Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor's mansion on Labor Day, 1991)
"Where's the miserable c*ck sucker?" (From the book "The Truth About Hillary" by Edward Klein, p. 5 - Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer)
"Get f**ked! Get the f**k out of my way!!! Get out of my face!!!"(From the book "Hillary's Scheme" p. 89 - Hillary's various comments to her Secret Service detail agents.)
Profile of the Sociopath Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
Beyond snubbing Tipper Gore, fundraising for herself at Al Gore's fundraisers, setting up Aaron Rosen and Peter Paul to take the fall for FEC violations, forgetting that her daughter was in that large group called 'young people' that she characterized as lazy...
But then there is Bill. Again from the Dick Morris column at NRO:
Bill Clinton had been a serial adulterer for their entire marriage, as everybody with half a brain knows.
In 1988, he called me and said that he and Hillary were considering divorce and he had to get away from her for a while. I offered him my house in Key West, Fla.
Right before the 60 Minutes show during the 1992 campaign, he called for my advice and I suggested that he admit and apologize for the adultery with Flowers and he said "If I did that, I'd have to find a new place to live."
In 1995, reviewing his testimony in the fraud trial of Susan McDougal, he asked me how he should handle his "relationship" with her. I said: "If you had sex with her, admit it. Don't perjure yourself. We can always undo the political damage, but we can't undo the legal damage." He nodded.
For Hillary to pretend injured innocence at this point has only one motive: She needs to somehow justify her strident public defense of her husband.
She can't admit the truth: that she defended him because she didn't want him forced from office — ending both their political careers — because he'd been unfaithful to her.
Hillary, give us a break.
That does make the point about 'callous' I should think.
"We just can't trust the American people to make those types of choices.... Government has to make those choices for people" (From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p 20 - Hillary to Rep. Dennis Hastert in 1993 discussing her expensive, disastrous taxpayer-funded health care plan)
"You f**king idiot." (From the book "Crossfire" p. 84 - Hillary to a State Trooper who was driving her to an event.)
F**k off! It's enough that I have to see you shit-kickers every day, I'm not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*damn job and keep your mouth shut." (From the book "American Evita" by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 - Hillary to her State Trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with "Good morning.")
Profile of the Sociopath Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
Perhaps the Dick Morris view of Bill and Hillary could go here, too... it does fit well enough.
Hill Mocks Rudy. Hillary isn't the only one coming out with a "tell-all" memoir. Clinton hatchet-man Sidney Blumenthal has written The Clinton Wars, detailing his years advising President Clinton and the then-First Lady. The New York Daily News got an advance copy and revealed that Hillary "suggested that the personal life of one-time opponent Rudy Giuliani was better suited for the stage at Lincoln Center than the floor of the Senate." According to Blumenthal, Hillary noted that Giuliani's withdrawal from the 2000 New York Senate race, caused by the public airing of his split with his wife, his romance with Judith Nathan, and his battle with cancer, was definitely suitable for an opera aficionado like Rudy. Quipped Hill, "Now I know why he likes opera."
From an article in 23 APR 2000 comes a look at Hillary Clinton loves a good fight, by Avi A. T. Bahadoor and Aubrey Immelman, College of St. Benedict and St. John's University:
For example, the New York Daily News last December reported that sometimes "glimpses of volcanic anger bubble to the surface," noting an incident during the 1992 presidential campaign when Clinton "banged her Bible in anger on her limo seat one Sunday when Secret Service agents took a less-than-direct route to church for security reasons."
Mind you the authors of the article laud Hillary's 'dominant personality' and cite many nice texts on why her personality, but yet seem to miss the bigger picture.
William Safire would look at the Travelgate story with Mrs. Clinton and her influence on 29 FEB 1996 looking at 18 USC 1001 and its applicability to the White House Travel Office:
Travelgate, at first, was dismissed as a mere embarrassment. Hillary Clinton, as a favor to Hollywood friends, told her staff to get rid of the people who ran the White House Travel Office; to justify the spoils system, the F.B.I. and Justice Department were used to besmear and harass the innocent targets.
When some of us hollered at this abuse of power, the First Lady hastily dissociated herself from it. When Congress asked its General Accounting Office to investigate, Hillary Clinton washed her hands of it in writing:
"Mrs. Clinton does not know the origin of the decision to remove the White House Travel Office employees," she responded through her lawyer. ". . . she had no role in the decision to terminate the employees. Mrs. Clinton did not direct that any action be taken by anyone with regard to the Travel Office, other than expressing an interest in receiving information about the review."
Untrue. Years later, and only because Republicans took control of Congress, a memo from David Watkins, the aide who carried out Mrs. Clinton's wishes, was forced to the surface: Contrary to what he told the G.A.O. in 1993, Watkins's notes quoted the First Lady saying: "We need those people out -- We need our people in. We need the slots." He told the F.B.I. that he wrote the firing memo just after chief of staff Mac McLarty told him "the matter was in the forefront of Hillary Clinton's mind."
This stark refutation of the First Lady's response was corroborated by contemporaneous notes, taken by a Gore aide, of Susan Thomases telling McLarty "Hillary wants those people fired." McLarty's own Travel Office notes drive the final nail in this coffin: "May 16 -- HRC pressure."
[..]
Here's Justice's dilemma: If it goes after David Watkins on 1001, it has no excuse for failing to prosecute Hillary Clinton for the same crime. With weeks to respond and with benefit of counsel, she intentionally and materially misled a government agency with her absolute claim of "no role."
In her exquisitely lawyered answers to Congress, which the White House will soon release in the dead of night, she will pretend her unrelenting, intimidating demands were mere passive interest. Let's read Mrs. Clinton's defense for common-sense believability, as a jury would. Then let's enforce 1001 or repeal it.
Mr. Safire would then reiterate this column along with the fact that President Clinton threatened to 'punch him in the nose' if he weren't in office. Robert W. Ray was assigned to look into the Travelgate scandal and on 19 OCT 2000 Neil A Lewis from the NYT would report on it thusly:
In his final report about the firing of seven longtime employees of the White House travel office released today, Robert W. Ray, the independent counsel, asserted that Hillary Rodham Clinton had given ''factually false'' sworn testimony when she minimized her role in the incident.
The disclosure of the 243-page report added several details about Mrs. Clinton's role, but its terse conclusions were announced last June when Mr. Ray said there was insufficient evidence to seek criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton.
For the first time, Mr. Ray disclosed parts of Mrs. Clinton's 1995 deposition he now says are demonstrably false. The report also discloses some of the grand jury testimony of others who spoke to Mrs. Clinton about the travel office.
Mr. Ray said, as he had in June, that Mrs. Clinton had played a far greater role in the dismissals than she had admitted. The report cited evidence that she had repeatedly expressed concerns about the travel office to White House officials who eventually fired the employees as a result of what they had perceived to be pressure from her to do so.
But in her first detailed rebuttal to Mr. Ray, Mrs. Clinton insisted through her lawyer that she had always testified accurately and fully about her role in the deliberations that led to the dismissal of the seven travel office employees in May 1993. The workers were replaced with people the Clintons knew.
Mrs. Clinton's rebuttal was made in an appendix to the report released today and was signed by her lawyer, David E. Kendall. In essence, Mrs. Clinton said she had expressed legitimate concerns about how the office was run and had not intended for her comments to be taken as the equivalent of orders to fire the travel office employees.
But the real kicker, and something to remember about the Clintons as a team, comes up near the end of the article:
The underlying issue in the dispute between the independent counsel and Mrs. Clinton is Mr. Ray's assertion that she had a role in the firings, despite her insistence in sworn statements that she did not. Mr. Ray cited eight conversations she had with senior White House employees expressing serious concerns about retaining the travel office staff.
The report said: ''It is, in the independent counsel's judgment beyond peradventure that as a matter of historical fact, Mrs. Clinton's input into the process was a significant -- if not the significant -- factor influencing the pace of events in the travel office firings and the ultimate decision to fire the employees. Accordingly, the independent counsel concludes that Mr. Clinton's sworn testimony that she had no input into Watkins's decision or role in the travel office firings is factually inaccurate.''
In the rebuttal, Mr. Kendall argued on Mrs. Clinton's behalf that Mr. Ray has misinterpreted her statements and that the sides disagreed over the meaning of the word ''role'' when she was questioned.
The meaning of the word? Do we all remember that disputing what the word "is" meant? Apparently the meaning of the word "role" is a bit too difficult to do for Hillary.
"You sold out, you mother f**ker! You sold out!" From the book "Inside" by Joseph Califano, p. 213 - Hillary yelling at Democrat lawyer.)
"Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Don't come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f**king do as I say, Okay!!!?" (From the book "Unlimited Access", by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 - Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)
Profile of the Sociopath Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.
From an article looking at the letters between Hillary Rodham and John Peavoy in the NYT, 28 JUL 2007:
“Since Xmas vacation, I’ve gone through three and a half metamorphoses and am beginning to feel as though there is a smorgasbord of personalities spread before me,” Ms. Rodham wrote to Mr. Peavoy in April 1967. “So far, I’ve used alienated academic, involved pseudo-hippie, educational and social reformer and one-half of withdrawn simplicity.”
[..]
“Sunday was lethargic from the beginning as I wallowed in a morass of general and specific dislike and pity for most people but me especially,” Ms. Rodham reported in a letter postmarked Oct. 3, 1967.
[..]
“Can you be a misanthrope and still love or enjoy some individuals?” Ms. Rodham wrote in an April 1967 letter. “How about a compassionate misanthrope?”
As the article notes, you do tend to see this sort of thing from young adults.
"Why do I have to keep proving to people that I am not a liar?!" (From the book "The Survivor," by John Harris, p. 382 - Hillary in her 2000 Senate campaign)
Profile of the Sociopath Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
1. Remember the story she told about studying The Wall Street Journal to explain her 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading? We now know that was a lie told to turn aside accusations that as the Governor's wife she profited corruptly, her account being run by a lawyer for state poultry interests through a disreputable broker.
She lied for good reason: To admit otherwise would be to confess taking, and paying taxes on, what some think amounted to a $100,000 bribe.
2. The abuse of Presidential power known as Travelgate elicited another series of lies. She induced a White House lawyer to assert flatly to investigators that Mrs. Clinton did not order the firing of White House travel aides, who were then harassed by the F.B.I. and Justice Department to justify patronage replacement by Mrs. Clinton's cronies.
Now we know, from a memo long concealed from investigators, that there would be "hell to pay" if the furious First Lady's desires were scorned. The career of the lawyer who transmitted Hillary's lie to authorities is now in jeopardy. Again, she lied with good reason: to avoid being identified as a vindictive political power player who used the F.B.I. to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage.
3. In the aftermath of the apparent suicide of her former partner and closest confidant, White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, she ordered the overturn of an agreement to allow the Justice Department to examine the files in the dead man's office. Her closest friends and aides, under oath, have been blatantly disremembering this likely obstruction of justice, and may have to pay for supporting Hillary's lie with jail terms.
Again, the lying was not irrational. Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster's White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for two years -- in Hillary's closet, in Web Hubbell's basement before his felony conviction, in the President's secretary's personal files -- before some were forced out last week.
Why the White House concealment? For good reason: The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S.& L., and indicate she may have conspired with Web Hubbell's father-in-law to make a sham land deal that cost taxpayers $3 million.
Why the belated release of some of the incriminating evidence? Not because it mysteriously turned up in offices previously searched. Certainly not because Hillary Clinton and her new hang-tough White House counsel want to respond fully to lawful subpoenas.
One reason for the Friday-night dribble of evidence from the White House is the discovery by the F.B.I. of copies of some of those records elsewhere. When Clinton witnesses are asked about specific items in "lost" records -- which investigators have -- the White House "finds" its copy and releases it. By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank regulators.
Another reason for recent revelations is the imminent turning of former aides and partners of Hillary against her; they were willing to cover her lying when it advanced their careers, but are inclined to listen to their own lawyers when faced with perjury indictments.
Therefore, ask not "Why didn't she just come clean at the beginning?" She had good reasons to lie; she is in the longtime habit of lying; and she has never been called to account for lying herself or in suborning lying in her aides and friends.
From a WaPo article right after the Lewinsky Affair hit the fan by Kevin Merida, 20 SEP 1998, italics in the original:
Part of this is her natural inclination to fight rather than fold. Her critics often seize on this aspect of her personality when issuing their harsh assessments. They see her as a cold, calculating political animal whose partisan edge is much sharper than her husband's.
Back in January, for instance, she went on national television to defend Clinton against allegations of infidelity and blamed his predicament on a "politically motivated" prosecutor allied with a "vast right-wing conspiracy." Even after the president was forced to admit he had lied about his affair with Lewinsky, Hillary Clinton was among those in the White House who encouraged him to challenge Starr's motivations in his televised apology. This strategy only deepened Clinton's woes, drawing criticism across party lines that he had not been sufficiently remorseful.
While Clinton later admitted he blundered, the first lady has not retreated.
[..]
Whatever tensions exist between the White House and the independent counsel's office, Starr's report locates Hillary Clinton squarely in the text of her husband's misadventures.
The report chronicles Lewinsky's recollections of having sexual encounters with Clinton on occasions when the first lady was in far-flung locations, such as Las Vegas or Ireland. It reports the president telling Lewinsky that he had "hundreds of affairs" before he turned 40. It quotes the president suggesting to Lewinsky that he "might be alone in three years." It even prints Clinton's alleged remark after having oral sex with Lewinsky "that he hadn't had that in a long time."
A Washington Post reconstruction of Hillary Clinton's schedule shows that the president had several of his alleged sexual experiences with Lewinsky just before or just after being with the first lady. On the evening of Jan. 21, 1996, for example, the Starr report says Lewinsky and Clinton engaged in a sexual act outside the Oval Office study. Earlier, Clinton and the first lady were given a private tour of the Johannes Vermeer exhibit at the National Gallery of Art.
Clinton's reckless disregard for the first lady's sensibilities has especially infuriated some of the president's female supporters.
[..]
There is something eerily familiar about the spot Hillary Clinton, at age 50, finds herself occupying. This keeps happening to her – ever since she drove to Fayetteville from the East Coast to help Bill Clinton campaign for an Arkansas congressional seat in 1974. She was still a girlfriend then, but her husband-to-be was already juggling multiple women, which was a source of frustration to campaign aides who were trying to prevent him from self-destructing, according to David Maraniss's biography of Clinton, "First in His Class."
She has been pelted with so many allegations of his unfaithfulness over the past quarter-century that it is difficult to fathom that anything about him would surprise her now.
"Two things keep Hillary with him," says Betsey Wright, a former Clinton troubleshooter in Arkansas who befriended the two in 1972. "One is her deep love for him. And two is the feeling that she is a better person – they are better people – because they have each other."
Hillary Clinton made a difficult calculation when she married the young politician in 1975 – that she could find happiness by intertwining her ambitions with his and sharing the rewards. Now, as the Clinton presidency continues to unravel, and by extension her own dreams, the public is rendering its own verdict.
That question of 'why does she stay with him?' does appear before. No, she is no Tammy Wynette. Nor is it something that is laudible to stand by someone like Bill, unless you get something else from it. Hillary does put forward that she is a better person with Bill than without, it is true, but the need to go through the emergency situations again and again do not point to being a 'better person', just someone who has taken to acting in emergency situations due to the failings of their spouse.
In the past, she had seemed to believe that the only public face that would work for her would be a tough and confrontational one. Charm wouldn't work. In 1993, Dick Morris, President Clinton's longtime adviser, had urged her to soften her image. "One of the most appealing things about public figures is when they lead with their vulnerabilities," Morris said. "They talk about their defects and people cut them a lot of slack." He cited Eleanor Roosevelt's shyness, or even Ronald Reagan's jokes about his poor memory. Defects and weaknesses can be assets, he argued.
"I can't think of any," Hillary had said. "I'm not good at that. What do you want me to do?"
She was unsure of her role. As the family's lawyer and investor she had screwed up Whitewater and then in 1994 she had lost what was supposed to be the crown jewel of her husband's presidency: health care reform.
"I'm just confused," she told Morris at the time. "I don't know what works or what doesn't work. I don't know why this is happening. I'm just so confused."
But Mrs. Clinton's scandal-managing role continued. By the summer of 1995, Whitewater was causing her real anguish. In Newsweek that August, Joe Klein wrote that the scandal had exposed the character of the Clintons. "They are the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of the Baby Boom Political Elite." The Buchanans were the 1920s-style careless people of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."
"They smashed up lives and didn't notice," Klein wrote.
He laid out in harsh terms how Hillary's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, had broken down in tears while testifying the previous week at the hearings chaired by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato. Williams was saddled with large legal bills, virtually abandoned by her patrons in the White House. "How could the first lady allow her chief of staff to spend $140,000 on legal fees?" Klein asked. "Why hasn't she come forward and said, 'Stop torturing my staff. This isn't about them. I'll testify. I'll make all documents available. I'll sit here and answer your stupid, salacious questions until Inauguration Day, if need be'?"
"You show people what you're willing to fight for when you fight your friends." (From the book "The Agenda" by Bob Woodward, ch. 14)
Profile of the Sociopath Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.
Part of all of this is the acting out on public stage, not, necessarily, the private one. Bill's sexual escapades, Hillary's leap to defend and the rush of sudden, sympathetic spotlight and folks asking 'how could she stay married to a man like that?' This publicity, in case it has been missed, is part of the point of the thrill seeking - to put up their problems in ways that will be found out and then act out the great drama over and over again. Bill and Hillary have their roles in this, and those that report on it help them both to utilize that.
Hillary was sobbing when she called Jane Sherburne, the White House attorney in charge of scandal management.
Had Jane read the Klein column?
Yes.
"It's killing me to let this happen," Hillary said. She wanted to testify, to make it better, to take care of it. "Every bone in my body tells me that's what I should do."
She could not stand by and let Maggie be hurt so, have others dragged in.
"How is Maggie?"
Sherburne said they both knew Maggie was both vulnerable and tough. She was willing to throw herself in front of any train and get beat up.
Hillary's voice caught and she gasped in short breaths.
Testifying, Sherburne said, would be a mixed blessing. It would be such a sensation. The pure spectacle of the first lady appearing before Congress would overshadow anything she said. Were there words she could say that would resolve the issues and answer all the questions? They would always find more questions.
"I got to do this," Hillary said, gaining strength, taking deeper, measured breaths. "I'm going to do it."
The Clintons' personal lawyer, David Kendall, was against it, they both knew – vehemently opposed in the midst of independent counsel Ken Starr's grand jury investigation of Whitewater. Public testimony by the first lady before D'Amato's committee might play into the Republicans' hands. There would be rounds of questions with all the Republican senators homing in. Potentially very ugly.
"Am I really that powerless?" Mrs. Clinton asked. The portrait of her as heartless and selfish was tearing her apart. It was awful to stand silently by as those she cared about were being hurt, she said.
Sherburne said her testimony would have multiple legal ramifications. What about Starr, his investigation and grand juries? Politically, how would D'Amato and the other Republicans handle her? Her husband's reelection bid was a little more than a year off. The basic strategy on Whitewater was to calm the waters, avoid confrontation, minimize news coverage.
Sobbing again, Hillary said her parents had always told her not to be guided by the opinions of others. "You have to live with yourself." Well, now the law and politics had cornered her. It wasn't a matter of appearances – appearing cold and indifferent to her friends and staff. If she stood by silently she would be that person they accused her of being.
"That is not who I am!" Hillary said, crying, pleading. "I take care of people."
Sherburne realized that Hillary had become the person she, at all costs, did not want to be. It was not simply a loss of identity. It was worse. She seemed to have fully realized the price that had been paid, and the identity that had been lost. She had become the person she hated.
Bob Woodward is a case in point on this, the man who goes after deathbed confessions and such, always getting the 'inside story' no matter how really 'inside' it is. But the great play of the Clintons he does put together well, if in a limited fashion. The crying, questioning, and dramatics all have been seen before Lewinsky in one form or another, and both the Clintons had been through this sort of thing before. They keep on doing that all the way up to the end of Bill's Presidency. Strange how that ends when he is no longer in the limelight, isn't it?
And part of the acting out can also be seen in the sort of things that Hillary pushes at the public in the way of her positions and 'plans'.
Profile of the Sociopath Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
Clinton recently floated the idea of issuing a $5,000 bond to each baby born in the United States to help pay for college and a first home, but it immediately inspired Republican ridicule and she quickly said she would not implement the proposal.
She defended that decision yesterday, saying she is focusing on proposals with more political support and she is not formally proposing anything she can't fund without increasing the deficit: "I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all."
Yes, Hillary has always had *lots* of ideas. Just no plan to unite them. Even the big bucket of Federal Government would have to be expanded quite some bit to start to float her ideas.
There you go, taking those evil, nasty profits from oil companies and "put them into a strategic energy fund". Sort of like Social Security, save that we will all pay more for gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, lubricating grease, diesel fuel, methane derived from oil, hydrogen derived from oil... and probably just as well thought out and *run* as Social Security is. That only takes, what is it these days? Just how *much* do you pay in FISA? And do you really expect to live long enough to get the money paid in, with interest if you had put it into any investment vehicle in the private sector, out? Don't worry, those profits just aren't *right*.
San Francisco Chronicle web archive article presented 28 JUN 2004 with thanks to the Wayback Machine:
Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.
"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
Yes, that money you make, don't worry, you won't be needing it... this is for your own good! Government knows better than you on how to spend your money. One of the unknown things in America is that you can actually *donate* money to the Treasury! Strange, but true! If rich folks felt they weren't doing their share, they can just send more cash. You won't hear that from Hillary, or any other candidate come to think of it.
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity.
The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an ownership society really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor.
"I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."
That means pairing growth with fairness, she said, to ensure that the middle-class succeeds in the global economy, not just corporate CEOs.
"There is no greater force for economic growth than free markets. But markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed," she said. "Fairness doesn't just happen. It requires the right government policies."
Clinton spoke at the Manchester School of Technology, which trains high school students for careers in the construction, automotive, graphic arts and other industries. The school highlighted one of the nine goals she outlined: increasing support for alternative schools and community colleges.
"We have sent a message to our young people that if you don't go to college ... that you're thought less of in America. We have to stop this," she said.
Government will make things 'fairer'? And as to the 'global community' the middle class in America is by far the most successful group, by numbers, of any other people on this planet. And letting government decide about markets outside of breaking up monopolies is about the most insane idea around, right out of President Woodrow Wilson's era where he wanted to have government decide on how much of each market each industry should have. There is no 'crisis' there nor need to make things 'fairer'. Unless you are looking to make everyone equally poor, of course. Worked for the Soviet Union!
Then there is health care, the Hillary Clinton 'cause' since her co-presidency started with Bill. Her latest version of HillaryCare but this bit of worrying forgets the one, all-important, major concept that was presented earlier: this is something CONGRESS DOES. If Sen. Clinton wants *this* she can very well do that from her seat in the US Senate.
This is yet another heart-tugging go-around for Hillary Clinton, putting forth that the President has any power beyond 'the bully pulpit' for getting legislation passed. She would not have such power, as she found in 1993 when her first version of HillaryCare went forward into a brick wall called Congress. But then that would be doing her job...not acting out a part to make it seem as if the President can do more than the office allows. Not that this would set up another cycle of reports, inquiries, Congressional Hearings, 'outreach' programs and television commercials just like last time. Does America really need to repeat that *again* and be the subject of Hillary Clinton's browbeating in her passive-aggressive style?
But the worst part of Hillary Clinton's acting out is in child care and raising children. Her little book It Takes a Village offers all sorts of wonderful things that society could do to help parents raise children. Such a lovely and pastoral ideal, just like the small, poor, hard scrabble African villages it comes from, where there is no indoor plumbing, little lighting, and subsistence agriculture. There, of course, older folks that can't get around much do get to do a lot of child rearing and watching out for as the parents are busy trying to keep everyone alive. If implemented in today's society, that would mean getting the retired off the golf courses, putting them in nice little suits, giving them teaching classes and then sending them out to nanny at everyone, everywhere, gratis. Luckily, that doesn't scale well, so it can't be done, besides all those retired voters don't want to do that. Then comes Hillary Clinton's view of what the impact of childhood *is*, for that I will turn to a FindArticles cache from Reason, APR 1996 by Gwen J. Broude:
On Clinton's reading of developmental psychology, the first three or so years of life are "not just important; they are more crucial to shaping children than any other time." Further, young children are influenced for good or bad by virtually anything that happens in their presence. "From the way that we touch them and our tone of voice when we bathe or change them," she writes, "they sense whether we enjoy their company, whether we are paying attention or just going through the motions, whether we are listening."
Stress in parents "may create feelings of helplessness that lead to later developmental problems." Children need "gentle, intimate, consistent contact" from caretakers, and structured, ritualized, but also "unhurried" time. The early years are crucial to later development in part because it is then that the brain is most receptive to input, or "food," from the environment. "Brain research teaches us that feeling safe and protected is essential to healthy neurological development," Clinton claims. After that, "brain cells and synapses begin to wither away, so that the child learns more slowly."
"Children who are subjected to constant comparisons," writes Clinton, "may lose heart in their pursuit of a developmental task or abandon it altogether." Youngsters learn what they see and hear. Children also come equipped with certain predispositions. They ask all kinds of questions about God; for instance, what does God look like, why does God let people do bad things, and does God care whether we squash a bug. From this we can conclude that "the potential for spirituality seems to be there from the beginning." A baby will cry in the presence of another crying infant. From this we can infer that newborns have "empathy" for the suffering of others from the start. Mostly, however, who a child becomes is a product of what "the village" offers. The child that emerges from Clinton's reading of the developmental literature is vulnerable, even fragile, especially sensitive to early impressions. And impressions matter because this is a child who is mainly a product of its environment.
Is this the profile of childhood that emerges from developmental experts? It Takes a Village accurately points to the kinds of child-rearing environments recommended by developmentalists as most likely to produce a thriving child and a competent, self-sufficient, confident, productive adult. It is better to have two parents, one of each sex. It is better to set limits but also high expectations, to emphasize rationality, and to take the child's opinions into account. Consistency is better than inconsistency. And so on. But although the profile of better and worse child-rearing strategies portrayed in It Takes a Village remains loyal enough to what developmentalists tell us, the profile of the child does not.
When I was in college in the 1960s, I learned the Margaret Mead version of human development. On this view, human nature is infinitely malleable, and culture determines how any child will turn out. This sounds a lot like Clinton's account of children, and so it is unsurprising that Mead and her contemporaries make scattered appearances throughout the book. By the time I began to teach developmental psychology in the 1970s, however, a new model of development was emerging, and this is the model that characterizes developmental psychology today. On this view, children are resilient, able to withstand even large variations in their treatment while still remaining on track. Developmental outcomes are understood to be significantly influenced by the inborn traits of children themselves. The idea that a person's developmental fate is sealed by three or four years of age has given way to the notion of ongoing plasticity. Brains continue to adapt to environmental input throughout life, and so, therefore, do the psychological processes that brains underwrite.
Yes, the view of Hillary and children 'imprinted' with their earliest experiences sounds not like Margaret Mead but L. Ron Hubbard and his idea of 'engrams'. Here is a bit from Wikipedia that looks about right from my scratching knowledge of the Scientologists:
Dianetics defines an engram as "a mental image picture which is a recording of a time of physical pain and unconsciousness. It must by definition have impact or injury as part of its content."[2] Engrams are said to contain all of the perception and experience of any memory but are not easily available to an individual because they are overlaid with some kind of pain. A goal of Dianetics is to assist a person in confronting such memories and thus to bring the memory into full consciousness.
Actually the 'pain' portion of it is something that Hubbard stressed about childhood development if I remember correctly from reading Isaac Asimov's various autobiographical works. Basically, this is a cult idea to try and utilize the 'bad memories' that will forever twist lives from the moment of birth onwards to gain control of parents and those with little ability to understand their own lives. Wrap it all up in engrams and blame it on someone else!
Which is what Hillary Clinton is trying to do with her Village concept, and to expand intervention in child rearing so the government gets a full and influential say in how parents raise children. Child development specialists would help each and every parent, keep tabs on them and indoctrinate their children on the way the 'world really works' and to report on anything bad going on at home. That is because so many families are in 'crisis' that children just need to report on that and then be taken away from their parents while 'crisis management specialists' move in to counsel the 'family'.
And that is acting out against children and families at its highest form.
"We are at a stage in history in which remolding society is one of the great challenges facing all of us in the West." (From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p 119 - During her 1993 commencement address at the University of Texas)
"The only way to make a difference is to acquire power" (From the book "I've Always Been A Yankee Fan" by Thomas D. Kuiper, p 68 - Hillary to a friend before starting law school.)
Profile of the Sociopath Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.
This list doesn't seem to end, does it? But here we get back to much put up in the 'Need for Stimulation' part, yet again. And Hillary, like most politicians, has changed her image and life story. The question is in her believing that the re-packagings are actually reflective of who she was or not. We saw that a bit before with the changing of her name to reflect where she was. First from Hillary Rodham to Hillary Clinton for AK voters, then to Hillary Rodham Clinton for First Lady and then to Hillary! on the Senate stump.
Clinton shapes tough and tender image in '08 race Senator's new style: nurturing warrior By Mark Leibovich, The New York Times on 3/7/07 BERLIN, N.H. - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton signs autographs meticulously, drawing out each line and curve of "H-i-l-l-a-r-y," "R-o-d-h-a-m" and "C-l-i-n-t-o-n." She leaves no stray lines or wayward marks.
Precise, neatly written name and 'nurturing warrior'. An attempt to whitewash her past, clean it out, spell out her own name separately from previous times and hope to hell we forget everything she has done since joining up with Bill. A bit more from Mr. Leibovich:
"I'm Hillary Clinton, and I'm running for president," she says at campaign appearances. Lamenting that her public image has been distorted by caricature, she often says, "I may be the most famous person you don't really know." In the cliche of contemporary politics, Clinton is "reintroducing herself to the American people."
She is, in this latest unveiling, the Nurturing Warrior. She displays a cozy acquaintance ("Let's chat") and leaderly confidence ("I'm in it to win it").
She is a tea-sipping girlfriend who vows to "deck" anyone who attacks her; a giggly mom who invokes old Girl Scout songs and refuses to apologize for voting for the Iraq war resolution in 2002. Her aim, of course, is to show that she is tough enough to lead Americans in wartime but tender enough to understand their burdens.
Unfortunately I don't think it is possible to actually caricature Hillary Clinton beyond what she has done in her life. In trying to 're-introduce herself' she has, unfortunately for her, brought her personality and outlook along with her. Thus, in this nice, neat, clean, combative style, we also see the sleaze of the 'new' benefactors that seem a lot like the old ones. Here are a few of the current list of contributors, some convicted of FEC fraud and others still embroiled in their contribution schemes:
1) Norman Hsu: This man really needs little in the way of introduction, but his connections go all the way back to the Wo Hop To Triad in San Francisco. We know that from ABC7 News story on 07 SEP 2007 and Hsu's connections to Raymond Kwok Chow (aka "Shrimp Boy") who was working with Peter Chong to form up a National Triad syndicate called Tien Ha Wui (The Whole Earth Association)(Source: USDOJ NDIC JAN 2001 Archive. From SFGate on 08 APR 2006 we also get the connections, such as they are, between "Shrimp Boy" and local Tong leader Allan Leung's murder. So Mr. Hsu was running in rough company while running his 'garment business' of which no one can find any actual businesses he ran. All the companies, to date, have turned out to be 'paper companies' buying, selling and producing nothing. That does bring up where Mr. Hsu actually gets his money from and where he has been hiding out for most of the last 15 years after his conviction on fraud charges in CA in 1992. Norman Hsu was on the New School Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors for the Eugene Lang College in New School, which has ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey as its head. Mr. Hsu has been hobnobbing and throwing money at select Democratic candidates for a couple of years and his apparent lack of any source of income, beyond defrauding some investors, is perplexing.
2) Abdul Rehman Jinnah: After contributing $30,000 to Hillary's campaign (Source: NY Post article 04 MAR 2007) he took it on the lam for Pakistan. He is also cited as contributing $50,000 to Sen. Barbara Boxer and giving money to a number of other campaigns. He was also part of the Millenium Council starte by Bill Clinton in 2000, so the connections here start to overlap in time with the previous Clinton era scandals.
3) Sant Singh Chatwal: A famous Hotelier and Trustee of the William J. Clinton Foundation. Sant Chatwal's son, Vikram, is more the playboy type and the lavish wedding for him was written widely about in India. A Rediff India Abroad article of 15 JUN 2007 points to an opposition paper by Sen. Barack Obama on the activities of the Chatwal family:
The three page 'opposition research paper', titled Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)'s Personal Financial and Political Ties, which has begun circulating in the blogosphere, criticises the Clintons' links to India in an effort and attacks her record on outsourcing, and on protecting American jobs.
The D-Punjab reference apparently refers to a joke Senator Clinton made last year, at a fund-raiser hosted by New York-based hotelier and top Democratic fund-raiser Sant Singh Chatwal. 'I can certainly run for the Senate seat in Punjab and win easily,' she had said on that occasion.
The document references the Clintons' recently released financial disclosure forms, to underline former President Bill Clinton's acceptance of $300,000 for paid speeches from Cisco Systems, a company that, the document notes, has 'shifted hundreds of jobs from America to India.'
It further says Hillary Clinton accepted almost $60,000 in contributions from employees of Cisco Systems, 'which laid off American workers to hire Indian techies.'
Beyond the money from Indian workers, Chatwal also has some securities and banking fraud investigations against him. While his successful hotel chains are lucrative, they are not *that* lucrative to the point of repaying the millions of dollars siphoned out of banks.
4) Hassan Nemazee: A Forbes article from 1999 points out the financial connections he used to become the US Ambassador to Argentina. Nemazee was involved in the financial swindles of Ivan Boesky, and involved in equity management of the CALPERS fund for California State Employee Retirement. He was also invited to the 01 NOV 1995 White House 'coffee' along with Sumner Redstone of Viacom, David A. Jones of Humana, Donald Fowler DNC National Chairman, Sen. Chris Dodd, and Jon S. Corzine, Senor Partner and Chairman of Goldman Sachs & Co. He was also involved in other equities problems, but was able to keep out of jail and get himself naturalized as a Citizen in 1996. In just three years he would be considered by Bill Clinton for the Ambassador's slot in Argentina. What was not brought out during this time was Mr. Nemazee's lobbying to get trade sanctions removed from Iran. That and his support for Iran makes the appointment to the Argentine Embassy a bit of a slap in the face to the Argentinians, considering the involvment of Iran, Monzer al-Kassar and Imad Mugniyah in the 1992 Israeli Embassy and 1994 AMIA Jewish Cultural Center Hezbollah bombings.
But it is nice to know that Hillary has remade herself, once more, to extend an open hand of help beyond the People's Liberation Army of Red China to whoever the backers of Hsu are, and corrupt Hoteliers and investment brokers, the latter of which is fronting for Iran.
So here is the rest of the Sociopath list of characteristics that have helped me to see Hillary Rodham Clinton in a whole, new light. After which a few closing thoughts.
Other Related Qualities:
Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
Authoritarian
Secretive
Paranoid
Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
Conventional appearance
Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life
Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
Incapable of real human attachment to another
Unable to feel remorse or guilt
Extreme narcissism and grandiose
May state readily that their goal is to rule the world
(The above traits are based on the psychopathy checklists of H. Cleckley and R. Hare.)
Needless to say, I am not in the psychological nor psychiatric areas of study. Looking at individuals in this way is not what I usually do, nor am I skilled at it: our society has tended to want to psychoanalyze everything with pop-phrases that become worn out, over-used and overblown. One of the easiest throw-aways is to just say that someone is 'manic-depressive' or 'paranoid' or 'schizophrenic', and with that label dismiss them. No one aspect of anyone's life can guide this sort of thing, and using such in a quick and easy fashion tells very little about the individual one labels and much about yourself. I do such things so rarely because that devalues my respect for the rest of humanity and for myself. Also, I want to make sure that there is some actual foundation for such, beyond a petty dispute over some bit of ideology or outlook.
With politicians the problem becomes very difficult as many traits are needed to actually enter politics. It was easy, just a decade ago, to 're-start' your political career on a new path, and only have minor questions about your past outlooks arise. Today, however, that is impossible: the internet does not forget and the information becomes more readily available and more easily over time. You cannot leave your past behind in politics and when you begin to vary greatly from election to election question arise and deep ones. That quick and easy era where one speech and outlook could be given to a local union meeting and one with exact opposite outlook given to a business group is gone. With so much in the public arena such deceit will last shorter and shorter in politics. As a People we now cut almost no slack for 'changing positions', 'waffling' and 'flip-flopping' without hard and deep reasons given by the candidate that shows the candidate has some ability *to* reason and some foundation that they stand upon that allows wide variation between views.
When I started to relate the Peter Paul video to my lady, and gave her the outlines of how Hillary Clinton had turned viciously on a supporter that had donated over a million dollars and how, in the world of politics, you just *don't* do that, especially if they are a 'friend', she said, knowing Hillary Clinton's history: this describes a sociopath. Peter Paul was not an individual to Hillary Clinton, but a money donation object that had become troublesome. Bill Clinton got Interpol on his case via other means to have Mr. Paul put in the worst jail in Brazil since he had fled there to try and fight his court cases. Only by having a wife that cared for him was he found and rescued from that hell. I do not particularly like Peter Paul, although I do admire his spirit of adventure even when it turns to such things as swindling the Cuban Government. But, even when he showed his ability to go on the lam during probation, he did serve out his time and debt to society. He lived in a wheeler-dealer world and was looking for the 'big time' beyond Hollywood. He thought he was getting a 'straight up' player with Bill and Hillary Clinton: buying name and influence that would take little out of Bill's time and yield much for the company he had joined.
Instead he got Hillary Clinton, willing to sacrifice anyone to not be seen as part of that deal and to erase her fingerprints from it. This isn't the first time for that, as this article shows: it is a pattern of activity going back before the Presidency and extending to the present. In the great drama plays of the Clintons, Peter Paul became a bit actor to be shoved aside one his money making potential was gone and he became an election negative. The Clintons have done that to bigger fish and gotten away unscathed, by and large, even trading missile and guidance technology to Red China: they stonewalled Sen. Fred Thompson and convinced him to quit lest some other Republicans get very hard questions about their finances put out. And that worked. It is also beyond 'hardball politics', it is putting the security of the very Nation at risk for cash and power.
In putting this article together I was shocked at how much I had read previously and forgotten. I am, in truth, not an avid fan of politics, but voracious reading when I was well meant that newspapers, magazines, television programs of various sorts were pulled in. Much of this I had heard about if not read or seen directly, yet the level of misdirection and emotional manipulation by the Clinton Machine has been such that the full import of what went on has never come to my conscious attention. Bill and Hillary Clinton have successfully compartmentalized each and every problem, to try and isolate them from each other and distract from the larger pattern of work they have done together. This has been a conscious and direct means on their part: this is a plan of how to address problems, not just making an excuse or 'viable alternative' up here or there. Those that follow them and take in these excuses piecemeal have been part of this, and they repeat the individual excuses unquestioningly. And the great majority of Americans without being attuned to something being done over nearly two decades are not taught the attention span to examine such events.
We are told to forget this or that 'minor' scandal. It is nothing! Only 'partisans' would harp on it!
Just forget them all so that a new message can be re-crafted and the politician re-born.
That era is over.
The internet as a whole never forgets, the data stores and information increases at a very high rate of speed. Older, analog data is digitized and becomes available and the common public events gain greater scope and depth over time. One can, indeed, forget the details of a scandal, but if you forget that there *was* a scandal, then re-discovery becomes a shock: you have been manipulated and deeply so. Even worse when it is a consistent pattern stretching over decades.
As I am fond of pointing out: these things need not be a 'conspiracy', methods of operation are well and good enough to create such things. But it is utilizing those methods and expecting them to continue working as the information foundation for civilization changes that is now coming home to roost. For the Clintons the way their personalities intertwine lead to that method coming forward, and consciously as they laugh together the day after a scandal breaks, and then step on the public stage to go through all the emotional turmoil and wear the audience out so that the actual basis for the scandal is forgotten. By draining the emotions of the public, the actual impact of the events is diminished.
That pattern, interior to the Clintons, and how they treat those around them and the Nation as a whole fits a pattern described described for sociopaths. Instead of the targets being directly sexual, although sex does play a role in the patterning if not the overall pattern, the goal is something far nastier: to so abuse the Nation that power is slowly given up as our emotions are worn down as every scandal becomes meaningless due the melodrama around it. Each and every thing done to wear down the public's attention and resistance comes with attempts to give more and deeper power to government to rule, not govern. That goal may not be conscious, but it is the direction of all of this. And we can see the discards of the Clintons, those that are no longer useful in their role as objects for them, to see what is in store for the Nation.
I leave that analysis for those that wander through. I have looked and read and experienced and put it together as best I can. It took a long, long time to compile, and I did try to get views not only of critics but directly of those involved, which is often hard with Hillary being so tight lipped. It is far too easy to discount each piece with flip and easy lines, but if you do that over and over and over then that, in itself is a pattern working on you to stop caring, stop thinking and forget. I refuse to do that, and hard answers on most of this material has never been put out and the events, themselves unexplained.
As The Prisoner has said: "I will not pushed, filed, indexed, stamped, briefed, de-briefed or numbered. My life is my own."
Accept the pushing and soon you are not even an object, you are a number.
I will no longer be pushed by the Clintons or anyone in politics anymore.
Sphere: Related Content
From the GlobalSecurity page on the town of Hama, Syria:
By 1997 some reports suggested that China had assisted Syria in the modernization of Scud-B missiles, with North Korea and Iran (with Chinese assistance) participating in constructing underground facilities near Aleppo and Hama for the joint production of Scud-C missiles (under North Korean technology and M-9 missiles under Chinese technology).
Four chemical weapons production sites have been identified, one located just north of Damascus, and the second near the industrial city of Homs. The third, in Hama, is believed to be producing VX agents in addition to sarin and tabun.
The first and by far only Syrian employment of a chemical warfare agent took place in 1982, in a conflict between Islamic insurgents of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Shiite Muslim sect, which with just a tenth the country's population had ruled Syria for three decades under the late President Hafez al-Assad. The lethal cyanide gas used by the Syrian regime in the slaughter of Sunni residents of the city of Hama. In February 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood ambushed government forces who were searching for dissidents in Hama. Several thousand Syrian troops, supported by armor and artillery, moved into the city and crushed the insurgents during two weeks of bloodshed. When the fighting was over, perhaps as many as 7,000 to 35,000 people lay dead, including an estimated 1,000 soldiers. In addition, large sections of Hamah's old city were destroyed.
Note that the targets of the CW attack were the Sunni population supporting the Muslim Brotherhood based insurgents. They were seen as threatening the Alawite based regime of Assad in 1982, a regime that was aligning itself with Iran and would produce Hezbollah. Isn't it lovely that Ba'athist regimes see their own populations as worth of targeting? First Hama and then Saddam Hussein with the Kurds.
Previously I have done a much longer piece of work on the Muslim Brotherhood, and its long ranging goals and plans, when I looked at Rep. Steny Hoyer trying to find moderates amongst terrorists. In that review one of the most problematical things to come out was the beginning of Saudi funding for the MB to destabilize the Nasser regime. That was done as Arab Nationalism was seen as a threat by the Wahabbi nation of Saudi Arabia, to Islam being the unifying force in the Middle East and the world. To counter that, the previous Muslim Brotherhood was funded and received training and schooling by Saudi sponsored clerics and the already radical student organization began to gain in power and radicalize further. And that 'insurgent group' in Hama, Syria?
That organization is the 'armed wing' of the Muslim Brotherhood: HAMAS, which was founded in 1967. HAMAS is a direct affiliation group with the MB and a number of individuals from the MB move to the Palestinian areas to further spread the money and the radicalism of that organization. That said, HAMAS, itself, is willing to take in donations from any source, and utilizes a distributed network of organizations to do that. GlobalSecurity sums that up with their view on HAMAS funding:
3. The Financial Assistance Infrastructure
The Hamas has an extensive network of financial sources, operating within the framework of Dawa activity, with a total value of tens of millions of dollars a year.
Gulf States - A considerable proportion of the aforementioned funds originate from various sources in the Gulf States (The Gulf Cooperation Council States). Most of the funding is from Saudi Arabian sources, with a total value of $12 million a year.
Iran - Its contribution is estimated at $3 million a year.
Charitable associations in the Territories - Funds are raised for the Hamas through the mosques (a convenient domain for fundraising and recruitment of members) and through charity associations and foundations.
Charity associations overseas.
Fundraising abroad and in the territories.
It is not possible to separate the Dawa activities conducted for humanitarian purposes from the direct and indirect funding of terrorism: All the monies flow into a common fund, and are then channeled to the relevant activities, in accordance with needs and in coordination with the functions of the organization in the territories and abroad. The monies are transferred using the following means: bank transfers, moneychangers, private money services, unofficial networks for the transfer of funds and "unsuspecting" assistants. Thus, in view of the great difficulty in tracing the source of the money, its address and the motives behind the transfer of funds, it is essential that a strict and vigilant approach be adopted towards the entire fundraising network, operating within the framework of Dawa activity.
For all that it is an outgrowth of Saudi sponsorship, HAMAS takes in money from Iran. There is some level of cross-training between Hezbollah and HAMAS and some utilization of foreign affiliates by them, also. Anyone who contributes to Palestinian organizations affiliated with HAMAS is contributing to a pool of resources money divided up as HAMAS sees fit: there is no 'special category' for humanitarian relief.
Beyond that the Muslim Brotherhood runs its *own* set of charities as front organizations for their wider spread of Islam, both via terrorism and through undermining legitimate Islamic associations not only in the Middle East, but globally. This has not been mere idle work, either, of 'spreading the word' but has had plain and dangerous consequences for decades. The House Republican Research Committee on 10 AUG 1992 looked at the case of Sudan and the overthrow of its democratic government by Islamic extremists that had just happened the previous year:
Thus, Iraq realized that Iran and Syria constituted the key to any long-term importation of military assistance, crucial to keeping Saddam Hussein in power. The use of Iran and Syria as the ports of entry for all forms of sanction-busting imports remains beneficial to Iraq because there is no Western oversight in these countries and both are hostile to the US and in cooperation with all international bodies. In pursuing this option, Baghdad is fully aware of the extremely high strategic price it has to pay for securing these lines of communication.
In the meantime, Sudan has emerged as an instrumental intermediary in the negotiation of the new Iran-Iraq strategic deal. During the Gulf Crisis, Sudan was one of Iraq's closest allies and, in fact, a large Iraqi expeditionary force for the seizure of Islam's Holy Shrines in the Hijaz and the blocking of the Red Sea was deployed there. This was the outgrowth of the coming to power, in 1991, of Hassan al-Turabi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who transformed Sudan into an Islamic Republic, thereby naturally shifting its allegiance to Iran in the process.
Thus, in due course, the first meaningful contacts between Iran and Iraq were revived in Khartoum in April 1991. Iranian officials discussed issues concerning cross-border trade with Iraqi intelligence officials concealed among representatives of an Iraqi Trade Union delegation then participating in a conference in Khartoum. In these discussions, Sa'ad al-Takriti emerged as a major figure in the Sudanese-Iranian-Iraqi negotiations. A longtime colleague of al-Turabi, Sa'ad al-Takriti was involved in such clandestine operations as the financing of the Egyptian Islamlist networks via Sudan.
The ability of Saddam to use his influence to go around sanctions also gave rise to routes for the Muslim Brotherhood to expand its influence and Hassan al-Turabi would be key in this as he had been in past work for the Brotherhood. Also note that Sa'ad al-Takriti from Iraq would be the financial go-between for Saddam Hussein. This, in 1991-2 just after the First Gulf War had ended. Also in the time period of Saddam putting down the Shia uprising in Iraq, to the tune of 300,000 dead. Apparently Iran didn't care about that, over much and worked with Saddam to ensure that inspection regimes would be thwarted via ports in Syria and Iran.
On 01 FEB 1993 would come this further review of the extent of MB influence in Pakistan:
TASK FORCE ON TERRORISM & UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE House Republican Research Committee (Chairman: Bill McCollum, Florida) February 1, 1993
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Inversely, the Jammu and Kashmir Students Liberation Front [JKSLF] has transformed into an Islamist organization, now calling itself Ikhwan al- Muslimeen [Muslim Brothers], and is rapidly expanding. Its leader, Hilal Ahmad Beig, is currently at the forefront of the struggle for "the Islamization of Kashmir."Beig is also in command of the armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood of Kashmir which is increasing its involvement in terrorism.
[..]
For example, some 30-35 Libyan expert terrorist trainers arrived in Peshawar in November 1991 with the declared objective "to train national liberation forces" in mujahideen camps, mainly those of Gulbaddin and Sayyaf. By March 1992, now in a Sayyaf camp in the Kana area, Nangarhar Province, these Libyans became devout Islamists and joined the Muslim Brotherhood under the leadership of Shaykh Nur-ad-Din.
It is noteworthy that the Armed Islamic Movement also player a major role in the consolidation of the capabilities of the Islamist terrorists. In the spring of 1991, 18 Kashmiri Islamists were accepted for about 6 months of highly specialized terrorist training in Sudan under the personal supervision of the Sudanese leaders Turabi and Mustafa Uthman. By then, AIM's leader, al- Turabi, had already visited Pakistan and Afghanistan in September 1991 to coordinate terrorist support activities.
Indeed, Jama'at-i Islami (Pakistan), Hizb-i Islami and Jamiat-i Islami (Afghanistan) and Hizb-ul Mujahideen (Kashmir) had all become members of the Turabi-led Popular International Organization [PIO], and, in this capacity, provided assistance to, and closely cooperated with, Islamists from Egypt, the HizbAllah in Lebanon, FIS in Algeria, and NIF in Sudan. PIO members exchanged experts and cooperated in joint support and training activities. Meanwhile, Turabi also worked to expand the international relations and mutual cooperation of the terrorist infrastructure in Sudan. Thus, by late-November 1991, Turabi had consolidated arrangements for the exchange and dispatch of trainees to Islamist, mainly Muslim Brotherhood, sites in Peshawar.
[There is another Hassan Turabi in Pakistan: Secretary General Tehrik-e-Jafriya Pakistan Allama Hassan Turabi, who was killed in 2003 by a splinter group and was Shia affiliated with Iran]
Of note is al-Turabi on the coordination of actitivies front, again, this time arranging wider networking in Pakistan for the MB. This semi-umbrella organization would mark the first crossing of Islamic radical terrorist organizations over sectarian lines. That list of organizations and backers that al-Turabi put together is quite astounding: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan. The extended structure of this organization would be recognized by one Ayman al-Zawahiri and his followers in the Muslim Brotherhood. Before al Qaeda, there was this base already in formation and it is not centered on al Qaeda, but on the Muslim Brotherhood.
A network structure like this, as represented by al-Turabi and his dealings with high level individuals in multiple Nations, points to one major problem in our current understanding of terrorism and the current problems attacking it: al Qaeda is not the source of internetworking on the Islamic side of things, but a direct operations management group. While al Qaeda has its own funding sources, derived from multiple organizations that it has helped set up, the main backing for it on the ideological and human capital side is from Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Turabi would have long standing problems staying in the halls of power in Sudan and by 2000 the government had changed hands to a less extremist Islamic group, although it still looked to wage jihad in its southern provinces. Turabi would then be under house arrest from 2001-03 in Sudan then charged with offenses against the State of Sudan in 2004 for plotting a coup. But for those looking to cast aspersions and blame for Darfur, one need step no further than al-Turabi, as seen by this Congressional Research Service 2004 document Sudan: the Crisis in Darfur:
The Current Crisis. At the core of the current conflict is a struggle for control of resources. The largely nomadic Arab ethnic groups often venture into the traditionally farming communities of Darfur for water and grazing, often triggering armed conflict between the two groups. Darfur is home to an estimated 7 million people and has more than 30 ethnic groups, although these groups fall into two major categories: African and Arab. Both communities are Muslim, and years of intermarriages have made racial distinctions impossible. Fighting over resources is one of several factors that has led to intense infighting in Darfur over the years. Many observers believe that the NIF government has systematically and deliberately pursued a policy of discrimination against and marginalization of the African communities in Darfur, and has given support to the Arab militia to suppress non-Arabs, whom it considers a threat to its hold on power. In 2000, with the ouster of the founder of the NIF, Hassan al-Turabi, and a split within the Islamist Movement, the government imposed a state of emergency and used its new authority to crack down on dissidents in Darfur. By 2002, a little known self defense force of a largely Fur-dominated group emerged as the SLA, challenging government forces in Darfur.
With the NIF regime internally in turmoil and mounting international pressure to end the North-South conflict, the SLA and JEM were able to gain the upper hand in the initial phase of the conflict against government forces in early 2003, and appear well prepared and armed. The rebels also enjoyed the support of the local population as well as officers and soldiers in the Sudanese army. A significant number of senior officers and soldiers in the Sudanese armed forces comes from Darfur. The SLA benefitted from outside support, including from fellow Zaghawa in Chad and financial support from Darfur businessmen in the Persian Gulf. The government of Sudan has accused Eritrea and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) of providing support to the SLA. The government of Sudan also accuses the founder of the NIF, Hassan al-Turabi, of having links with JEM. Some observers say that Turabi, through his supporters, provides political and financial support to JEM. In late March 2004, Turabi, along with a number of senior army officers, was arrested. The government claimed that Turabi was behind an attempted coup, although officials in Khartoum seemed to back away from that claim by mid-April 2004.
Yes, yet another set of groups, factions and increasing unrest and killing and the source of it? Mr. Turabi! So handy to have armed factions with ex-Army officers running around to make the government back down on charges against you, isn't it? Apparently the 'Crisis in Darfur' is a manufactured one by Mr. Turabi, using some socio-ethnic problems and expanding upon them with cash from his donor base across the Middle East and Pakistan. Apparently trying to outlaw Turabi's party and get peace started has had its own history, starting in 2005, and still not coming to a conclusion much of anywhere. Outmanned and outgunned, with bin Laden threatening jihad against the UN if it tries to do anything... there are some difficulties in this entire business and the Leftists wanting to 'do something in Darfur' had best look to Iraq and Afghanistan for what will be found there. Save that the socio-ethnic differences are a world away from those two Nations and Darfur has complexities that not only cross borders, but are directly influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. Still, if the Left will own up to that and take on the MB...
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD A. CLARKE BEFORE THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES March 24, 2004
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4. Sudan: While bin Ladin was in Sudan, he was hosted by its leader, Hasan Turabi. Under Turabi, Sudan had become a safe haven for many terrorist groups, but bin Ladin had special status. He funded many development programs such as roads and dined often with Turabi and his family. Turabi and bin Ladin were ideological brethren. Following the assassination attempt on Egyptian President Mubarek, the US and Egypt successfully proposed UN sanctions on Sudan because of its support of terrorism. Because of the growing economic damage to Sudan due to its support of terrorism, bin Ladin offered to move to Afghanistan. Sudan at no time detained him, nor was there ever a credible offer by Sudan to arrest and render him. This is in contrast to Sudan’s arrest of the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, who the Sudanese then handed over in chains to French authorities.
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Notice the discrimination between Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden? Turabi would cooperate with other organizations and operators, but Islamic forms of terrorism to meet his long term views was what he supported. That move by Osama in the early 1990's back to Afghanistan was a critical one, in which the organizations started by Turabi in Pakistan would play a major role in the outcome of events in Afghanistan with bin Laden helping to coordinate there. This is part of the MB method of operation: when it is necessary to further its agenda, it will cooperate with nearly anyone, but when it comes to defending something, only those of the MB get defended.
This has been how HAMAS has viewed the world from early on, where it would cooperate with PLO for a period of time, but slowly shift to undermine the PLO and seek to gain key support not only in the Palestinian territories but outside of the MB itself. Its support from the Gulf States stems from local activism and outreach for support there, not only in monetary means (via charities and other front organizations) but also for skilled personnel. The work with Iran, on the other side of the sectarian divide, should set us straight on how Islamic terror groups operate: they are not independent but inter-dependent, they cross support each other while having their own aims. HAMAS, in particular, has had some run-ins with Hezbollah (backed by Syria and Iran) but is able to get support from Iran, also. This may be due more to final geographic placement with the PLO driven from southern Lebanon than anything else, but the shared goal leads to support from 'the other side'.
Finally there are charities and fundraising strictly by HAMAS or in coordination with MB. Together the front groups from these combined organizations is global, with no continent without some small charitable front or company to funnel funds to them. While funds from Palestinians is large, the overseas support is also important not for the cash, but the logistical support from other countries. Wherever a company or charity can find a perch, that opens another conduit for supplies to MB and HAMAS.
While Turabi in Sudan has lessened in his direct power over organizations inside Sudan, his ability to utilize his contacts still remains present, which is why al Qaeda has been shifting some training and support to Sudan. The early 1990's contacts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, along with Kasmiri Islamic groups, allows the slow funneling of personnel and funds from those areas to Turabi from al Qaeda. The inherent difficulty of tracing out those webs of contacts is a major concern and of prime importance to the West. If al Qaeda is spinning up a different training base outside of the Waziristan area of Pakistan, and it is not northwards into the southern 'stans around Russia, then Africa makes the sensible destination. Part of that deals with the existing infrastructure that al Qaeda had there and may still have from the early 1990's.
In the West we are not used to dealing with organizational structures like this: it is not structured as a private organization with chairpersons and rules of order, nor is it like an investor run organization with elected board and CEO, nor is it 'team' with coach and players. This distributed organizational type has been put down as a 'franchise' operation, but it really isn't that, either, as the various local cell groups are self-sufficient and self-guiding. Entire organizations, such as Abu Sayyaf are 'allied' to al Qaeda but not part of al Qaeda, although funding, support and personnel are shared between them. That local organization structure geared towards similar, local goals, but via local means and only cooperating on larger projects to keep the 'al Qaeda brand label' operates more along the lines of a consortium or conglomerate organization.
OPEC, as a general consortium, is delimited by Oil Producing Exporting Countries and have guidelines for production and quality of product. When a Nation or Nation runs afoul of the consortium, it utilizes concerted action to support things like price minimums and maximums, and to cut off supply if they believe it to be in their best interest. What has undermined OPEC is that not oil exporting countries take part in the organization and the global oil market from all producers has removed much of the bite of OPEC. In fact OPEC is now facing one member, Iran, that no longer meets export quotas and is causing other parts of OPEC (mostly Saudi Arabia) to export its reserves faster. The inability to meet contract quotas may force OPEC to expel Iran and put it onto the global market and its price fluctuations as it no longer meets up to OPEC expectations. While some may see this as a loss for OPEC, it is a stabilizing outlook for it, so that it can maintain reputable cohesion over its supply goals. When it becomes untrustworthy, then a marketplace cost can be seen in lower contract pricing or even shifting away from long term contracts to short-term or 'spot' contracts for all of the organization.
On the conglomerate side, any company that has a large number of loosely related or unrelated subsidiary companies serves as an example for this. Conglomerates run by utilizing overall management practices that bring continuity across a wide array of products and utilize that control to inter-market and co-market loosely related products. Often conglomerates will not even go that far and will be a management expertise controlling agent amongst many companies that were either bought out (due to failings or needed strength in the conglomerate) or spun up from research on new ideas to attack markets within the conglomerate's own multi-company structure. While the local brand gets top name, one will often see 'a subsidiary of...' or 'part of X family of companies' or similar branding. Here the attempt to show quality of output via management control is a prime concern.
I would argue that instead of 'franchises' (which can be part of a company in a conglomerate structure) that al Qaeda acts as a loose conglomerate organization providing larger expertise base not only for the affiliated sub-organizations, but facilitating training and cooperation between them. The al Qaeda management outlook, that of radical salafist Islam derived from the Muslim Brotherhood and Ayman al-Zawahiri, allows not only larger organizational efforts by al Qaeda (such as the African Embassy Bombings or 9/11) but also more lethal localized organizational efforts (Madrid Bombings and London Bombings). The organizations beyond al Qaeda involved in these, including ones from Algeria, Germany, Britain, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, allowed a wide array of talent to be utilized in a distributed fashion. As an example: GIA, from Algeria, not only attempted the multiple millenium bombings that were stopped, but also operates a criminal operation in North America (mostly out of Montreal) that allowed it to 'case' sites without notice. While al Qaeda's direct fingerprints on the attack are not on this, the overall structure of attempting multiple, near simultaneous attacks is an al Qaeda trademark (one that they lifted from Aum Shinrikyo).
Almost all other terrorist organizations, with the exception of Hezbollah and HAMAS, do not have this level of sophistication and coordination, and neither of those has the highly adaptable al Qaeda distant cell spin-up cycle via remote training ability that is also an al Qaeda hallmark (as opposed to trademark, as it is a method of operation that is replicated, but not very well). The trademark type attacks of al Qaeda, when not as an active resistance movement, is that of long-term plans, study of targets, screening out personnel and targets, working out distributed surveillance, then getting an attack organization put together for the actual one-time 'event', and then sending a limited exposure 'clean-up' crew to try and get rid of any major back-traces to them. While not greatly successful in the 9/11 attacks on the final part, they were much more capable of erasing their ties to London and Madrid, while emphasizing their ties to the African Embassy bombings. In outlook this is using a sprinkling of 'professionals' or dedicated operatives to leaven a larger number of 'amateurs' or single-use personnel for greater projects.
Between the USSR retiring from Afghanistan to disintegrate at home and 2001, what al Qaeda started to lose was field combat operatives. The distribution of same for other works (Bojinka, Riyadh bombing, African Embassy Bombings, Yemen infrastructure during its civil war then for the USS The Sullivans botched attack and the USS Cole attack) or lending them out to other organizations for more localized training (Abu Sayyaf, Moros, various Kasmiri groups, Ansar organization) all shifted key combat experienced personnel outwards so that when the US retaliation to 9/11 hit, al Qaeda had very little to counter with. Part of that was the same problem Saddam had in Iraq: the US did the unexpected and did not dither. By being unable to bring highly experienced personnel closer to operational centers, they were left exposed and over the next two years they were picked off. The Taliban lost Afghanistan due to asymmetrical warfare turned against them (precision airpower enabling the relatively weak northern alliance to triumph) and al Qaeda lost face by not being able to do *anything* to stop this as the US did not go through a long 'build-up' and 'deployment', but acted in a wholly opportunistic fashion to bring the regime down. The last of the highly experienced terrorists in field capable areas, were then sent to reinforce local cells (Morocco, Germany, Britain, Iraq, Sudan) so as to distribute lethality and expertise.
At the very top of al Qaeda there are mutiple councils to oversee the overall operations of the organization. The Security, Intelligence, Media, Recruitment/Training and Finance ones are the most well known, along with their 'spiritual advisor' system and COINTEL organizations. In each of these areas some of the most skilled operatives of al Qaeda have been lost: trusted couriers, skilled and inventive bomb makers, combat veterans, financial advisors, funding personnel, recruitment personnel, trainers (and 'train the trainers'), cyber operations specialists and media have all suffered heavy setbacks in the years since 9/11. When these individuals with skills in clandestine operations, person-to-person finance, acquisition networks, distribution networks and overall security and COINTEL are lost (often taken alive with large data stores), then al Qaeda has a serious erosion in their ability to operate in the way it did pre-9/11. Even worse is that in Afghanistan and Iraq there has been no opportunity to train up and get skilled replacements for those lost. The 'street fighting' smarts of al Qaeda were mostly gone by 2004-05, putting Zarqawi in charge of operations in Iraq (and utilizing his network in Europe) demonstrated lack of long-range planning and cohesive strategy. The pleas from local organizational cells (the 'sheikhs') in Iraq and bin Laden's response to them, points to this problem and the counter-productive strategy of Zarqawi that was geared towards societies with lower amounts of local cohesion (African tribes are nothing like Iraqi tribes, nor are the tribes in Jordan quite as cohesive as those in Iraq, either).
By not knowing how to adjust his fighting style, and being unwilling to shift from a strategy of 'killing your way to obedience', Zarqawi started the slow process of self-isolation for al Qaeda in Iraq that has turned into a long-term strategic disaster. It took quite a lot of al Qaeda to alienate *their* base in the Sunni sect, and yet that is exactly what they have done to the point where Iraq tribes have sworn 'blood enmity' against al Qaeda. By being neighbors to the Kurds for so long, Iraqi Arabs have learned that this is not a joke and adhere to it in ways that only the Scots and Norsemen of old could easily understand. Blood feuds usually end up with one side seriously dead, no matter the cost to the other.
[Actually, if the US were a bit more astute we would be asking the Iraqi government to help cross-train with the Afghani government, with Kurdish help: the Kurds and Afghans are far closer in their societal outlook to each other, and that could be a long-term combat tie against al Qaeda and even Iran that will bring them together. After the Gurkhas, the next two most cohesive combat cultures on the planet are, arguably, the Afghans and Kurds, with the nearby Arabs around the Kurds falling into that due to survival needs. The tribes of Iraq and Afghanistan are now much closer in their outlook than had been true at any point in history, and a historic meeting of tribal leaders from both regions might start ironing out a few topics and lead to joint and cooperative force outlook against terrorism. Such an outlook would give transnationalists conniption fits, but it actually *is* a multi-culti outlook... a WARRIOR multi-culti outlook. I do digress.]
For the al Qaeda trademark and brandname to have high credibility, it must not cross its own underpinnings (in this case attacking Muslims) and be highly successful (via attacks that cannot be countered on the large, showmanship scale). Until the post-9/11 world, al Qaeda had strong credibility and boasted that it was ready to face down the evil United States and the rest of the West. That credibility and bravodo, however, have been frittered away with relatively low lethality attacks (Madrid and London), multiple botched attacks (Bojinka II, Ricin takedown in London, cell takedowns in Germany and other parts of Europe), and being unable to actually fight successfully against the US on the ground. In every stand-up fight that al Qaeda has been in, they have been removed from the battlefield in large numbers, mostly dead. While many trump the Tora Bora escape, they miss the fact that Tora Bora was something akin to a mountain fortress and al Qaeda had to *evacuate it*. Coming back to it *now* due to the threat of having training camps bombed, long after it has been researched, mapped out and all the rest by the US and Afghanis is nothing more than inviting a death trap for those in it: never cross a region that the US Army Corps of Engineers has studied first hand. And the only place that al Qaeda has done damage is not against the US, nor even the Iraqi Army after it got to 10% operational status, or even the Iraqi police after they passed that same mark. It has been against Muslim *civilians*. That has fouled their own nest, made al Qaeda seem weak and has spent all of their showmanship and operational adherance. Today, outside of the Palestinian territories, suicide bombing is at the highest level of disrepute EVER due to al Qaeda and al Qaeda ALONE.
al Qaeda, over time, has run training facilities in: Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, Algeria and the Tri-Border Area of South America (mostly in cooperation with Hezbollah). While still having a wide number of associated elements on a global scale (from the tiny organizations in Trinidad to large ones like Jemaa Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf) the actual ability to leverage them has waned due to lack of cohesive message control and coming to be seen as 'a weak horse'. With that said the basics of al Qaeda, remain strong as there has been no hard and fast break with MB, which is the source of new disciples and terrorist recruits for multiple fanatical Islamic killers.
There are localized problems with the organizations affiliated with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as he is not as puritanical as al Qaeda and their interactions have led to friction over time. al Qaeda has looked to shift into Kasmir via Hekmatyar's organizations and local separatist organizations, to some degree of success, but that is limited due to the presence of so many small organizations that seem unable to come to any common accord between them. Looking further east to those organizations in Bangladesh is some help, and al Qaeda has had influence there for some time but with a relatively weak infrastructure due to that of Bangladesh. Helping the Talibe solidify Warziristan has been a prime concern, outside of Iraq, but fleeing camps due to having them targeted demonstrates acknowledged limits on how openly al Qaeda can operate. Locally, the only other area of interest is China, which has a large, poor population that has served as a basis for smuggling goods through China, but there has only been a few hints of activity in China due to al Qaeda... mind you that is still a surprise as the expected level is zero.
Outside of the local region and excluding MB recruiting, al Qaeda has had difficulty in Somalia via the Islamic Courts organization, which has been thrown back by Ethiopian military and local Somali warlords with assistance by the US. Algeria has had a slow simmering due to local politics which has been trending away from Islamic fundamentalism, causing problems in al Qaeda recruitment and training options. Chechnya, where al Qaeda had great early success, has been beaten back by the Russians and the local population realizing that supporting radical Islamic groups tends to get you dead: if not by the terrorists then by the Russians. Georgia has been a long-term but low profile organizational point for al Qaeda, but the remote training areas are far too remote to allow any influx of personnel to train there.
Bosnia has worked out to a greater or lesser extent due to Iranian and Saudi influence, with local pushback by traditional Islamic groups the only real threat to ongoing training and logistics from there. The Balkans from Albania northward must be considered one of the prime logistics spots of al Qaeda due to the organized crime infrastructure there. It is in that region that the outward export of guns and munitions is most seen, even if the actual goods, themselves, never transit the region. Those support contacts to Africa and the Americas, along with Europe, are the major nexus for al Qaeda support outside of Saudi funds and funds gained via religious support wherever they can make it happen. Of the work in the Americas, not much is known about al Qaeda, save their contacts in the Caribbean and Latin America and working with Hezbollah and HAMAS in Arab ex-pat communities.
A look at the spiritual side of al Qaeda sees that Zawahiri is the spiritual leader of Osama. He became part of MB in the 1970's and soon formed his own splinter group within it, that Osama gravitated towards during the 1980's. From the MB view, al Qaeda is a major operational group centering on subisidiary beliefs held by Zawahiri. While the West may question the lack of bin Laden in media releases, and question his living status, such media releases are not aimed at the West, even when addressing the West. Putting Zawahiri up more and more frequently is an appeal to the followers of the Muslim Brotherhood to show that al Qaeda has *not* strayed from their system of outlook and is worth supporting.
Even with MB getting backing from Saudi Arabia, the control of the Wahabbi Imams is not as high as those of localized Imams for MB, thus they are less swayed by Saudi clerics issuing fatwas against al Qaeda and will remain so as long as the cash flows in. The moment the cash *stops* then the question of 'who is more serious about being devout' will come around making all of the past al Qaeda and other MB inspired attacks there seem miniscule in comparison. By feeding this creature so regularly, MB, HAMAS and al Qaeda are no longer under Wahabbi control and the only way Saudi Arabia keeps from being the target is by paying their once voluntary funds to MB. One wonders just how 'voluntary' they are these days, with so many foreign workers in Saudi Arabia.
MB, by seeking its own distributed funding sources locally and globally (as its terror section HAMAS has) can no longer be directly controlled by Saudi Arabia due to cash alone. By the House of Saud pulling in this radical religious sect so early on now faces the long term consequences of doing so: the new generation of radicals is no longer adhering to the views of the Saudis *or* their allied clerics. One of the larger worries has to be that unsuccessful al Qaeda terrorists that exfiltrate Iraq may decide that Syria isn't the best place to wind up. It is no wonder that the Saudis are talking about installing a border fence between it and Iraq: not to keep fighters from going to Iraq, but to keep disillusioned terrorists from coming *back* to Saudi Arabia.
I don't think this is what Saudi Arabia had planned when they started out in the 1950's supporting a radical student group in Egypt to counter Nasser. They thought they could *control* the spiral of death and destruction by controlling funds to it. Little did they know that the early seed money, then, has bought them something that will seek revenge upon them if they stop supporting it... or if they are seen as less than pure by the radicals they have enabled. How very strange that Islamic Nations, like Iraq and Afghanistan, may be the ones to repel the winds of fanaticism and force it back and closer to its origins... in the oilfields of Saudi Arabia.
Sphere: Related Content
The following is a personal outlook paper of The Jacksonian Party.
"In the year from autumn 1916, all three of the major Allied powers (Britain, France, and Russia) had a change of government. In all cases, the new governments had very different ideas about the Middle East than had their predecessors. David Lloyd George became prime minister looking much more covetously at the Middle East. Shortly thereafter, Georges Clemenceau became premier of France. Historically, he had felt negatively about colonial expansion believing that France had overextended herself in the late 1800s making her vulnerable to the Germans. Perhaps most dramatic, the Russian revolution led to Russia pulling out of the war.
To compound this, German attacks propelled the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. Woodrow Wilson's personal beliefs in self-determination drove him to support independence for the peoples of the Middle East. The ambiguity of language permitted the British to agree with Wilson, when in fact they intended to maintain a protectorate. In a parallel development, for a range of moral, religious, and political reasons, the British government adopted the Zionist cause.
As the Allied victory in World War I became more likely, at least in the Middle East, the dishonesty with which the Allies and their Arab allies, treated each other became apparent. Each sought to position themselves to gain the most in the Middle East after the war. This was to continue as the peace was being constructed. Britain's David Lloyd George attempted to play Woodrow Wilson's idealistic self-determination against French, Italian, and Greek desires for territorial gain in the former Ottoman Empire. Economic crisis and demands for demobilization by the rank-and-file and the public, however, sapped Britain's strength."
- Part of a book review by Eric Brahm on David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.
Yes, Woodrow Wilson did have grand aspirations for the Middle East! It would become self-governing, independent, have accountable government and all because the US would NOT fight there and would use the balm of trade with the help of the Allies, who really had *no* interest in the region...
Worked out so well, didn't it?
And what does a leading thinker have to say about the Middle East *today*? Well, let us turn to Steven Simon, with this part of a paper What Strategy for the Greater Middle East? (01 JAN 2004) at the Center for European Policy Studies:
Democratisation. If any of these elements of a strategy has priority, it must be democratisation. This is a project, of course, not a panacea. It has been observed that democracy is a cure for just one ailment – tyranny – and that there are both poor and illiberal democracies. The future may also hold Islamist, anti-Western democracies. Nevertheless, democracies predicated on rule of law entail accountability and a degree of transparency that reduce the opportunity for corruption and misallocation of resources, while giving people a stake in decision-making. Thus democratisation would serve two vital purposes. First, it would improve economic performance and provide a better climate for investment, thereby reducing the labour supply overhang that poses such a severe threat to stability. Second, it would give frustrated, even alienated, publics a sense of empowerment at home that would reduce their resentment of powers abroad.
All emphasis mine, of course. Yes, democracy because it gives one economic advantage FIRST. Isn't that a lovely thing to have pop into one's head? Not that it can be used to secure freedom and liberty *from* government instead of having those administered *by* government? Empowerment is one thing, but the ability to be secure as a minority or have freedom of expression is an underpinning to have democracy that is responsive to people. When that is circumscribed and the ability to promulgate ideas amongst the population is put at risk, then there are problems no matter how much one owns.
What is an 'illiberal' democracy? A democracy that cannot afford basic liberty of individuals to have security from government and have basic freedoms assured by a system of law is *not* democracy. There are corrupt, crony run systems in which parties will view with favors to get into power, but the long term stability of those has looked to be even less than that of tyrants and dictators. And the first thing that happens when power shifts inside such arrangements is a move away from the freedoms already in-place and a slow slide to tyranny once more. Columbia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Somalia and Sudan are all points in which corrupt 'democracy' has created worse conditions, over time, because that corruption leads to a disenfranchisement of the people. From death squads to endemic terrorism to inability to manage government and to authoritarian rule are the slides of 'illiberal' democracy to something far worse. These are called 'failed States' and serve as havens for Transnational Terrorism, organized crime, and safe havens from exterior accountability for those on the run from their actions in other Nations.
There is something seriously wrong with a world-view that puts economic gain as the main reason for democracy. A bit further on this is continued:
Aid is not the whole story. Trade is a far better way to help these societies perform better. Assistance tends to perpetuate the structures that hinder democratisation and hobble growth. Trade would take the funds from corrupt, favour-dispensing regimes and put it in the hands of a commercial middle class, empowering civil society and helping to create the conditions for democratic transition. The United States has finally adopted this policy towards the Pakistani textile industry and – as a policy, if not a political matter – made pursuit of free trade arrangements an important part of its foreign policy. This is another area where the harmonisation of US and EU policies can pay real dividends.
Trade is the panacea, then! Yes, indeed, with trade one gets to put money and power directly into the middle class... unless, of course, the 'illiberal' democracy leaves the banks under control of the State to be raided like the National piggy bank whenever a charismatic and 'illiberal' ruler gets a need to arm up death squads and terrorists. Get the trade first and you will *support* democracy! And Pakistan has turned out to be the stellar performer in democracy having had such a wide slate of candidates that represents the full will of the people now... hasn't it?
What's that I hear? Strong man rule? Quashing of dissent because there are radical Islamists looking to overthrow the regime? Now I wonder how *they* are being funded.... could it have anything to do with tithes upon the middle class by Imams?
Just asking!
Notice that the exact same view of expecting the 'hands off, figure it out for yourself and don't bother us if you can't' sort of deal from 1917 hasn't gotten us to a splendid world of liberal democracies across the Middle East and a much, much safer world. Yes, just three years on in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and we can see what a social revolution there is in Pakistan, recipient of our help and trade. Apparently they still have animosity against India, want Afghanistan to go away and fear an internal revolt because of the terrorists now utilizing the northern provinces and the Baluchs wanting independence. And with a strongman in power trying to keep the lid on things so that a nice little regional nuclear war doesn't turn Pakistan into a sea of nuclear fused glass. Yes that 'free trade' has 'supported democracy' of this 'illiberal' regime quite well, hasn't it? A few more years of this and the entire place might be one, nice, flat reflective surface.
Still, the stepping stones to Transnationalism were set early on, and the first one to do so would actually come to discount it as an idea! And, needless to say, his political opponents would pick it up and try to implement it. Ah, such is life in America. And from Theodore Roosevelt's autobiography (Chapter XV) we get why he initially looked at an International Court as a good idea:
It was under my administration that the Hague Court was saved from becoming an empty farce. It had been established by joint international agreement, but no Power had been willing to resort to it. Those establishing it had grown to realize that it was in danger of becoming a mere paper court, so that it would never really come into being at all. M. d'Estournelles de Constant had been especially alive to this danger. By correspondence and in personal interviews he impressed upon me the need not only of making advances by actually applying arbitration—not merely promising by treaty to apply it—to questions that were up for settlement, but of using the Hague tribunal for this purpose. I cordially sympathized with these views. On the recommendation of John Hay, I succeeded in getting an agreement with Mexico to lay a matter in dispute between the two republics before the Hague Court. This was the first case ever brought before the Hague Court. It was followed by numerous others; and it definitely established that court as the great international peace tribunal. By mutual agreement with Great Britain, through the decision of a joint commission, of which the American members were Senators Lodge and Turner, and Secretary Root, we were able peacefully to settle the Alaska Boundary question, the only question remaining between ourselves and the British Empire which it was not possible to settle by friendly arbitration; this therefore represented the removal of the last obstacle to absolute agreement between the two peoples. We were of substantial service in bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the negotiations at Algeciras concerning Morocco. We concluded with Great Britain, and with most of the other great nations, arbitration treaties specifically agreeing to arbitrate all matters, and especially the interpretation of treaties, save only as regards questions affecting territorial integrity, national honor and vital national interest. We made with Great Britain a treaty guaranteeing the free use of the Panama Canal on equal terms to the ships of all nations, while reserving to ourselves the right to police and fortify the canal, and therefore to control it in time of war. Under this treaty we are in honor bound to arbitrate the question of canal tolls for coastwise traffic between the Western and Eastern coasts of the United States. I believe that the American position as regards this matter is right; but I also believe that under the arbitration treaty we are in honor bound to submit the matter to arbitration in view of Great Britain's contention—although I hold it to be an unwise contention—that our position is unsound. I emphatically disbelieve in making universal arbitration treaties which neither the makers nor any one else would for a moment dream of keeping. I no less emphatically insist that it is our duty to keep the limited and sensible arbitration treaties which we have already made. The importance of a promise lies not in making it, but in keeping it; and the poorest of all positions for a nation to occupy in such a matter is readiness to make impossible promises at the same time that there is failure to keep promises which have been made, which can be kept, and which it is discreditable to break.
It is one of those things that is looked at for *limited* arbitration in matters where both sides can *honorably* agree to letting a third party weigh the matter. If there are problems that are too important or where one party cannot be trusted to do this, then it should not be used. It is good for minimal decisions between Nations that are generally disposed to an agreement already. It is useless for those Nations that are not well disposed to each other or that will utilize such in bad faith to secure for themselves a better position, later.
The man who would take this up was one that wanted to avoid war at any cost, and spoke eloquently that America should be above these wars and help to mediate them because of her position that has no stake in conflict. Eugene Clyde Brooks would attempt to put 20/20 hindsight on Woodrow Wilson's actions and speeches, but he does give good accounting of them in Woodrow Wilson as President. This section begins one of the most important pre-election, pre-war speeches that was given, note the narrator is Mr. Brooks:
President Wilson warned the people against these agitators who were trying hard * to rock the boat. And later, on April 20, in an address to the Associated Press of New York, he took the occasion at a most critical time to remind the people of the United States once more that our whole duty for the present is to place "America First" and to think of her position in the world. So many people were thinking of Europe and the war that there was danger of America s safety fol lowing the thought of the people and falling into the hands of the belligerents. "I want to talk to you as to my fellow citizens of the United States, " he said. "For there are serious things, which as fellow citizens we ought to consider. The times behind us, gentlemen, have been difficult, because whatever may be said about the present condition of the world's affairs, it is clear that they are drawing rapidly to a climax, and at the climax the test will come, not only of the nations engaged in the present colossal struggle it will come for them, of course but the test will come to us particularly. "
He then emphasized more forcibly than ever before the important position that this nation holds in the world today. The American people were living from moment to moment. They were enraged first at the conduct of England in seizing our vessels, and then at the acts of Germany in sinking our merchantmen. The President, however, was looking forward to a time when this nation, because of its neutral position, would be called upon to help bring order out of chaos, and thus lead the world back to paths of peace and honor.
"We shall some day have to assist in reconstructing the processes of peace," he continued. "Our resources are untouched. We are more and more becoming, by the force of circumstances, the mediating nation of the world in respect of its finances. We must make up our minds what are the best things to do and what are the best ways to do them. We must put our money, our energy, our enthusiasm, our sympathy into these things, and we must have our judgments prepared and our spirits chastened against the coming of that day. So that I am not speaking in a selfish spirit when I say that our whole duty for the present, at any rate, is summed up in this motto, America first. Let us think of America before we think of Europe, in order that America may be fit to be Europe's friend when the day of tested friendship comes. The test of friendship is not now sympathy with the one side or the other, but getting ready to help both sides when the struggle is over."
By being above it all and having such power, America could be *trusted* to be fair and impartial by Large Powers already at war. It is very strange that the man who castigated Roosevelt on helping Big Business would then start the Federal Reserve and then point out how powerful these very same Big Businesses *were*. He also has never heard of: 'A friend in need is a friend in deed.' America, as President Wilson put forward, would *not* do the things necessary to be a friend to ANYONE. Somehow this does not get one much applause nor admiration in the world, and generally gets disdain. Friends help friends when they are in tough spots and work through those together. That IS friendship, be it amongst individuals or Nations.
Apparently, however, high minded neutrality needed to be the driving force of America:
"The basis of neutrality," he spoke with renewed emphasis, "is not independence; it is not self-interest. The basis of neutrality is sympathy for mankind. It is fairness; it is good will at bottom. It is impartiality of spirit and judgment. I wish that all of our fellow citizens could realize that. There is in some quarters a disposition to create distempers in the body politic. Men are even uttering slanders against the United States, as if to excite her. Men are saying that if we should go to war upon either side, there will be a divided America an abominable libel of ignorance!America is not all of it vocal just now. It is vocal in spots. But I, for one, have a complete and abiding faith in that great silent body of Americans who are not standing up and shouting and expressing their opinions just now, but are waiting to find out and support the duty of America. I am just as sure of their solidity and of their loyalty and of their unanimity as I am that the history of this country has at every crisis and turning point illustrated this great lesson."
The basis of being IMPARTIAL is fairness. The basis of NEUTRALITY is not getting involved in partisan conflicts, and stating support for no side in it. It is disdain for the conflict itself and that one has no business in being in such conflicts. Being Impartial means that you understand the stakes involved, that you do have your own opinions but that you set them aside when asked to judge something on equitable basis. That is why the US system of justice tries to get a fair and impartial jury, not a neutral one. Being Neutral is not being Impartial: it is having no stakes nor opinion when judging something. One can and, indeed, must bring good will to be an impartial judge. Neutrality is to have no stakes involved, seek no good will, to, indeed, put forth that only the basis of a conflict and its underpinnings matter and are to be weighed coldly, without favor to any side. And if one wants to be liked and admired, then Neutrality is sacrificed as you are no longer Impartial: you now have a stake in the result.
For good reason was President Wilson deemed one of the greatest orators of the 20th century. By making these two near things out to be the same, he attempts to put forth that they are the same, although the basis of ideas yield different results. Shortly thereafter he then puts forward the following:
"If I permitted myself to be a partisan in this present struggle, " he concluded, "I would be unworthy to represent you. If I permitted myself to forget the people who are not partisans, I would be unworthy to represent you. I am not saying that I am worthy to represent you, but I do claim this degree of worthiness that, before everything else, I love America."
He did, indeed, love his Nation. He also forgets to put forth that the President *must* understand world affairs and BE partisan so that the Nation can survive. And now he points out that he is, by his unworthiness, and in his own estimation PARTISAN. In all that lovely speech, he cannot come out and say that he does favor something and have a desired outcome that is *not neutral* and *not impartial*. To try and establish an international basis for judging conflicts between Nations, President Wilson comes at it from a partisan position which he endeavours to hide through his verbal acumen.
Just two months down the road the Germans would sink the Lusitania and Theodore Roosevelt would have an article published on 11 MAY 1915, from which I will extract a part:
THE German submarines have established no effective blockade of the British and French coast lines. They have endeavored to prevent the access of French, British and neutral ships to Britain and France by attacks upon them which defy every principle of international law as laid down in innumerable existing treaties, including The Hague Conventions. Many of these attacks have represented pure piracy; and not a few of them have been accompanied by murder on an extended scale. In the case of the Lusitania the scale was so vast that the murder became wholesale.
A number of American ships had already been torpedoed in similar fashion. In one case the lives lost included those not only of the American captain, but of his wife and little daughter. When the Lusitania sank some twelve hundred non-combatants, men, women and children, were drowned, and more than a hundred of these were Americans. Centuries have passed since any war vessel of a civilized power has shown such ruthless brutality toward non-combatants, and especially toward women and children. The pirates of the Barbary Coast behaved at times in similar fashion, until the civilized nations joined in suppressing them; and the pirates who were outcasts from among these civilized nations also at one time perpetrated similar deeds, until they were sunk or hung. But none of these old-time pirates committed murder on so vast a scale as in the case of the Lusitania.
[..]
Our treaties with Prussia in 1785, 1799, and 1828, still in force in this regard, provide that "if one of the contracting parties should be at war with any other power the free intercourse and commerce of the subjects or citizens of the party remaining neutral with the belligerent powers shall not be interrupted." Germany has treated this treaty as she has treated other "scraps of paper."
But the offense goes far deeper than this. The action of the German submarines in the cases cited can be justified only by a plea which would likewise justify the wholesale poisoning of wells in the path of a hostile army, or the shipping of infected rags into the cities of a hostile country; a plea which would justify the torture of prisoners and the reduction of captured women to the slavery of concubinage. Those who advance such a plea will accept but one counter plea--strength, the strength and courage of the just man armed.
[..]
In the teeth of these things, we earn as a nation measureless scorn and contempt if we follow the lead of those who exalt peace above righteousness, if we heed the voices of those feeble folk who bleat to high heaven that there is peace when there is no peace. For many months our government has preserved between right and wrong a "neutrality" which would have excited the emulous admiration of Pontius Pilate--the arch-typical neutral of all time. We have urged as a justification for failing to do our duty in Mexico that to do so would benefit "American dollars." Are we now to change faces and advance the supreme interest of "American dollars" as a justification for continuance in the refusal to do the duty imposed on us in connection with the world war?
Unless we act with immediate decision and vigor we shall have failed in the duty demanded by humanity at large, and demanded even more clearly by the self-respect of the American Republic.
Here Roosevelt is looking at the actual international treaties which make up the laws of the sea. And we have seen, in our own era, attacks of Piracy by outlaws, called terrorists, which none dare call their actions by name. Even worse are those who go on about the COST of warfare as the COST of doing NOTHING is also high. Treaties are not entered into just to get mutual benefits: they have mutual costs associated with them for lack of upkeeping them. In the laws of the seas area the thing that is effected is trade, commerce, and the ability of individuals to move about on the high seas unmolested by *anyone*. Even after such breaking of Treaties and international law, President Wilson would do *nothing*, save plead with Germany to stop doing this. Breaking off 'diplomatic relations' was seen as a step just prior to that of going to war, and it was the ONLY diplomatic threat left. By setting the cost of war too high, innocents were killed in their hundreds.
That was the cost of Neutrality and of being Impartial.
This would not stop President Wilson from trying to implement Roosevelt's previous idea for a 'League of Peace', which had been limping along as an idea, but it would hit obstacles on its own, no matter who the backers were. This from Ohio History, Vol. 109 (pp. 33-36) [the 'Morgan' referenced is Arthur E. Morgan, an Ohio engineer later to be head of the TVA] on the Ohio branch of the League:
Outspoken leaders such as William Jennings Bryan, William E. Borah, and Theodore Roosevelt opposed Wilson's plans for a league of peace. The new opposition saw the league plan as an inappropriate foreign policy and a serious departure from the Monroe Doctrine. These leaders believed that participation in such a league would lead to unnecessary entangling alliances, would relegate the United States to a subordinate place in the foreign organization, and would result in great loss of American lives over matters that did not concern the country. Even though criticism came from each of the political parties, because of the President's growing affiliation with the League to Enforce Peace, Republicans became the chief opponents of the organization and its league idea.33
As the debate continued, German U-boats pressed a relentless campaign against all ships passing through the war zones. As the submarine offensive intensified, it became clearer to Wilson that armed neutrality would not pro-tect American commerce. Further, by late March 1917, Wilson had lost all faith in the integrity, credibility, and good intentions of the German leaders. Wilson decided that waging war was the only way to establish peace, and with his recommendation to Congress, on April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and its allies. Quickly, domestic war mobilization efforts increased as the nation prepared to enter the world war. As American forces arrived on the European fronts, politicians and the public struggled with the league of peace idea. With the United States fighting in a world war, the League faced the even greater challenge of not being labeled by its opponents as an "un-American" pacifist organization.34
To generate support for their principles, the state branches of the League to Enforce Peace renewed their efforts. In the Ohio branch, with the national organization's endorsement, Thompson hired professional fund-raiser L. L. H. Austin at a monthly salary of $250. Because of budgetary concerns Morgan opposed the hire, but with Thompson's authorization Austin spent the early months of 1917 in the Columbus area lecturing and creating interest in the league idea. To help raise new funds for the branch, Austin sponsored a banquet in April.35
Held on April 14 in Columbus, the banquet featured three prominent speakers but was poorly attended. Thompson expected an audience of more than 100 but only about sixty attended. Because of the sparse showing and depleted funds, a week later Thompson dismissed Austin. To make matters worse, Thompson admitted to Morgan that the state branch had not met his expectations and that without new interest and financial backing he would end his involvement with the League. With the lackluster success of the banquet, financial woes, and Thompson's announcement, in late April Morgan declared that the Ohio branch would "terminate" all activities until a more definite state organization could be established. Thus for the rest of the summer of 1917, the chapter remained silent.36
The Ohio branch's problems were similar to other chapters' difficulties. Criticism of the league idea abounded and detractors called the League a pacifist group seeking an immediate peace with hostile nations. In an effort to counteract this argument, the League's executive committee created and publicized a War Program, pledging itself to winning the peace by winning the war.37
This would still be pushed as a concept on the international stage after WWI, but the problems of being pacifist and leading to even *worse* international situations was one that hampered it from the start. The UN has demonstrated not only those problems, of Nations becoming preferred patrons able to criticize others continuously to no good ends, but also by becoming its own moribund bureaucracy and having no capability to actually be a meaningful participant in world affairs. When one speaks of 'entangling alliances' that is the sort of thing the Oil For Food program represents, or the latest incarnation of the Human Rights Council (or whatever that body representing dictators is named this week) - those are inappropriate entanglements with foreign governments that lead to dilution of US power. And it also leads to loss of accountability across the board for all involved as a 'neutral' third party can easily be corrupted by cash payments from a dictator.
What these early criticisms point out is that the utility of international bodies is strictly limited to those things that the participants *agree upon* or, as Roosevelt put forth, where the sides are acting honestly and above-board. The ability of corruption to manifest itself into an organization with low amounts of accountability and large amounts of cash is extremely high. Just look at the US Congress.
A major misstatement of the actual war proposal itself is that the US did NOT declare war on a German ally: The Ottoman Empire. President Wilson was quite pointed that only the aggressor Nation and NOT its allies should be gone after. This from his address to Congress on 02 APR 1917:
I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the Unites States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are not other means of defending our rights.
This is refusing to go after the array of powers that the allies faced. This is not acting as a friend, nor ally, but as a highly partisan, impartial Nation that is not supporting the broader war effort of its allies. Thus, one part of an active alliance may act against another Nation to the benefit *of* the entire alliance, but by simply saying that 'we had nothing to do with those actions' they will be seen as *neutrals*.
Starting in 1917 the second way of looking at the international arena, that of taking up international institutions as a main form of trying to bring agreements amongst Nations would be running counter to the view where Nations are held accountable to their Treaties. The United States had problems with the 'League of Peace', 'League of Nations' and the current UN because they were seen then, and now, as diluting the power of Nations, large and small, to call for reciprocity in affairs amongst Nations. Yes, this is the beginning of "nuance", in which just because a Nation signs up to a Treaty that makes it an Ally of another Nation doesn't mean that a third Nation should ever take it seriously! Instead lets just put a 'neutral' or 'impartial' third party in the fray to decide just what a Nation has or has not signed up for. Let me know when you find an 'impartial' or 'neutral' Nation that actually can do that, for even the SWISS don't sign up for that sort of thing. Tends to get one in the cross-hairs of both sides.
That gets us a bit up to date on the origins of Transnationalism: an idea of President Theodore Roosevelt, which he discarded but others adhered to that is then picked up by President Wilson and put forward in his 14 Points speech as the way to help end war. It is *that* speech that every Leftist and Transnational Progressivist will point to so as to exonerate President Wilson of *any* incapacities he had shown in thinking about World War I, about the implications of international institutions and his 'good intentions' towards minorities and getting them into safe Nations in Europe and the Middle East. There is one major problem with giving the big, blanket warm 'n fuzzy to President Wilson on this:
He did not take part fully in the war and was seen as having done that and, thusly, lost any ability to push these points *anywhere*.
So many of those points would be violated in the inter-war years that it was ridiculous to think that they had any meaning to the other Nations of the world in that era. Instead we would get: private understandings between Turkey and the other powers for division of the minorities and the total breaking of the post war alignment concept so that Turkey could have neighbors it could 'manage' and not so well at that, the freedom of Navigation was upheld by *existing* Treaties which would be re-signed by many Nations and upheld just as well *after* WWI as before it, the removal of economic barriers was and still is resisted by many Nations for their own reasons and is something that cannot be imposed from above, guarantees on 'National Armaments' are a pipedream, especially when a Nation starts to develop newer and better arms that are not covered under older Treaties as they can have as many of those as they wish to have, adjustments to 'colonial claims' turned out to be partial and partisan leading to many problems over time.
That list goes on and on of the things that could not be done by any international body and was damned difficult to do BEFORE those were around on a perpetual basis. It would not have mattered if the US had signed on to the League of Nations as such organizations are not made to solve problems, but to continue them at a lesser level until folks get fed up and FIGHT ANYWAYS. Often they are used as a 'stalling tactic' so that a Nation can better position itself when it does decide to escalate to war. The US had no interest in the Ottoman Empire or the Middle East and one of the first major flare-ups after WWI was in Ethiopia. Also in China. Actually in quite a few far off places that Americans didn't give a damn about. Putting forth that America would have made the thing work flies in the face of the fact that the UN doesn't work today with the US involved.
Even worse is President Wilson's attitude just before declaring war, as seen in his Peace without Victory speech. Throughout that speech he invokes the phrases of the Declaration of Independence to put forward how meaningful it is that victory will not get peace. Let us take a look at the core proposition, however:
Fortunately we have received very explicit assurances on this point. The statesmen of both of the groups of nations now arrayed against one another have said, in terms that could not be misinterpreted, that it was no part of the purpose they had in mind to crush their antagonists. But the implications of these assurances may not be equally clear to all-may not be the same on both sides of the water. I think it will be serviceable if I attempt to set forth what we understand them to be.
They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no other interpretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor's terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intolerable sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very principle of which is equality and a common participation in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a lasting peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national allegiance.
The equality of nations upon which peace must be founded if it is to last must be an equality of rights; the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak. Right must be based upon the common strength, not upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose concert peace will depend. Equality of territory or of resources there of course cannot be; nor any sort of equality not gained in the ordinary peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples themselves. But no one asks or expects anything more than an equality of rights. Mankind is looking now for freedom of life, not for equipoises of power.
Yes, I do have problems with that in that the proposal is that there is ONLY humiliation in defeat. Apparently the idea of liberating a people under the yoke of tyranny and helping the people to stand up after a conflict had never crossed President Wilson's mind. Well, he was working with a pretty bloodthirsty group of Nations that did, in actuality, aim to destroy each other. Say what about that 'honesty between negotiation partners' sort of deal that Roosevelt talked about? Not a concern of President Wilson, obviously.
Secondly is that there can only be 'peace between equals'. Well, if you are in a dog-eat-dog world, then that is very true. Unfortunately he then goes on to talk about the 'state of mind' amongst Nations. Well, what if one Nation decides to start abusing this lovely, cooperative system for self-gain? You get the UN! Lovely, that. If all Nations acted rationally there would be no worries about warfare. A quick round of dice would solve the worst of problems pretty quickly. Unfortunately by wanting Nations to be rational as a basis for this cooperative peace concept, he puts forward that Nations act in a rational manner over time. You would think that World War I would belie that as it was going at that point in time.
Third is that the United States does, indeed, believe in the self-evident concept that 'all men are created equal'. That is, in actuality, something you cannot force down the minds of other people if they disagree with it. The proof of it lies in the demonstration of it and the persuasion to it so as to safeguard those rights internationally. Do note that such a thing is no guarantee that those rights will be universally held nor upheld, as each Nation may do as it pleases within its own borders.
Now as for trying to invoke the Declaration of Independence on an international basis, the original document should be looked at to see what the basis of its practice is, thus a quick extract of the major part of it:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
While this is a universal outlook, is it applied so that all people will benefit from it?
That wording at the start is key, in that it puts forth that a people must recognize that they have these rights and this power unto themselves. When they recognize that they have this power they may then gather together to form government or change or abolish tyrannical government. In other words this form of recognition is INTERNAL to a Nation and that attempting to impose it is as wrong-headed as trying to impose any other doctrine. If you believe that the truths are self-evident then ANYONE will see that this is true for themselves and craft something very close to this concept as presented here. If they do not, then they are free to have any form of government they wish inside their Nation and put up with it as long as they can tolerate it. President Wilson by trying to put this down as a lasting basis for peace in the international arena had his heart in the right place, but his head had forgotten that imposed values often gain resentment and that it is in the demonstration of the power of individual rights by using them to do good that makes them compelling. For President Wilson to actually *believe* the Declaration is true, he would not need to make it as a basis for a peace concept: if it is universal and self-evident then it will be adhered to without statement, and if it is *not* then nothing the US or any other Nation on this world can do will make it so.
To those people pointing at 'democracy can't be imposed', that is part of what they are getting at. The post-war affairs in the Philippines and WWII address this, or tried to in any event, by having Americans around after the conflict to stop opportunistic elements of society from coming to the fore and dominating them. Getting civil units of that society stood up in a way that had accountability to its people has more or less worked when America has invested the time and energy to do this thing known as: 'Show Me'. Folks from Missouri should know that slogan well, as it is the demonstration of intentions and beliefs by utilizing them and making good works that solidifies character and shows the depth of commitment to what is said. In the Philippines, Germany, Japan and lesser extent Italy, these Nations have had time and insurance of American presence to try and get something a bit better put down that can offer protection to its people and also have a degree of accountability. That can take decades to finally move from the saying to the adhering part, with the Philippines taking 90 years or so to finally get on with it and Japan taking it up a bit faster at just over 60 years. Germany appears to have become so dependent upon US military presence and the cash it affords to local communities, to no longer even understand what 'self-reliance' IS. And Italy... well... it is Italy, after all, and it is steadfast in its wide swings of government more than in a firm course of a Nation, but even in that the Italian people seem more or less contented in that indecision.
President Wilson could only see the barest glimmerings of that coming into WWI and was still aghast at the Imperial outlooks of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary and the Ottomans. Empires are extremely 'illiberal' in their actions and the view by President Wilson to have colonies of these Empires divested was also good. The follow-up to that, however, is that when structured and orderly government from the outside is removed, it is not the continuation of ordered government that results but a reversion to chaos as 'rule by power' is removed. Without the necessary wide and deep understanding of the basis of freedom and liberty this thing known as 'rule of law' cannot be brought forth in that atmosphere. Only where a strong and traditional ethos of following laws was already present could that be attempted, and even with that it was no long-term assurance that it would stick.
What he did put forth, before WWI was a traditional American viewpoint on how to create liberty by holding commerce accountable to it. That is very clear, but in the enaction of things during and after WWI that would change. In that traditional view we see from him on a 14 JUL 1914 speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia found in President Wilson's Addresses at Project Gutenberg:
In one sense the Declaration of Independence has lost its significance. It has lost its significance as a declaration of national independence. Nobody outside of America believed when it was uttered that we could make good our independence; now nobody anywhere would dare to doubt that we are independent and can maintain our independence. As a declaration of independence, therefore, it is a mere historic document. Our independence is a fact so stupendous that it can be measured only by the size and energy and variety and wealth and power of one of the greatest nations in the world. But it is one thing to be independent and it is another thing to know what to do with your independence. It is one thing to come to your majority and another thing to know what you are going to do with your life and your energies; and one of the most serious questions for sober-minded men to address themselves to in the United States is this: What are we going to do with the influence and power of this great Nation? Are we going to play the old role of using that power for our aggrandizement and material benefit only? You know what that may mean. It may upon occasion mean that we shall use it to make the peoples of other nations suffer in the way in which we said it was intolerable to suffer when we uttered our Declaration of Independence.
The Department of State at Washington is constantly called upon to back up the commercial enterprises and the industrial enterprises of the United States in foreign countries, and it at one time went so far in that direction that all its diplomacy came to be designated as "dollar diplomacy." It was called upon to support every man who wanted to earn anything anywhere if he was an American. But there ought to be a limit to that. There is no man who is more interested than I am in carrying the enterprise of American business men to every quarter of the globe. I was interested in it long before I was suspected of being a politician. I have been preaching it year after year as the great thing that lay in the future for the United States, to show her wit and skill and enterprise and influence in every country in the world. But observe the limit to all that which is laid upon us perhaps more than upon any other nation in the world. We set this Nation up, at any rate we professed to set it up, to vindicate the rights of men. We did not name any differences between one race and another. We did not set up any barriers against any particular people. We opened our gates to all the world and said, "Let all men who wish to be free come to us and they will be welcome." We said, "This independence of ours is not a selfish thing for our own exclusive private use. It is for everybody to whom we can find the means of extending it." We cannot with that oath taken in our youth, we cannot with that great ideal set before us when we were a young people and numbered only a scant 3,000,000, take upon ourselves, now that we are 100,000,000 strong, any other conception of duty than we then entertained. If American enterprise in foreign countries, particularly in those foreign countries which are not strong enough to resist us, takes the shape of imposing upon and exploiting the mass of the people of that country it ought to be checked and not encouraged. I am willing to get anything for an American that money and enterprise can obtain except the suppression of the rights of other men. I will not help any man buy a power which he ought not to exercise over his fellow-beings.
President Wilson pressed trade, and hard, seeking to eliminate tariffs and get freer trade going. That was, however, within the context of what that trade meant to press the ideals of America outwards via it. Freedom to have trade did not mean 'free trade' and that those Nations that did not afford their people the ability to have liberty and freedom should not be empowered by American trade. People must come TO freedom and understanding it and the responsibilities that it entails and then use those freedoms to promote furthering of freedom by acting in support of those responsibilities.
When looking back on how President Wilson actually carried out that ideal, however, we are left with a different view of where those ideals would lead. This from Clark University's Prof. Simon Paysalian's overview of his work on the Armenian Genocide:
A humanitarian disaster Almost one hundred years ago, also in the Middle East, the United States was confronted with this same question. At the start of WWI (1914-1918), the (largely Muslim) Ottoman Empire aligned itself with the Central Powers and declared a Jihad (Holy War) against the Allied Powers.* Ostensibly threatened by the desire of some of its ethnic Christian Armenians for an independent state, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began in 1915 to carry out a deliberate genocidal plan to annihilate the Armenian people across the empire. It is estimated that during the genocide (1915-1923) more than one million Armenians were killed outright or died as a result of disease and starvation resulting from the forced deportations.
A policy of avoidance In a recent book chapter, historian Simon Payaslian recounts how the United States government, while informed by its diplomats in the Ottoman Empire of the threat to the Armenian population, chose not to intervene in this humanitarian disaster.
Payaslian argues that reason for this policy was the U.S. government's reluctance to risk a long-standing trade relationship with the Ottoman Empire. From the early 19th century, American economic interests in the Ottoman Empire increased, and by the end of that century a growing number of companies such as Standard Oil, Singer Sewing Machine, and the American Tobacco Company had expanded their businesses in the region. The U.S. need for oil became more pronounced as oil became the favored alternative to coal. The value of U.S. -Ottoman trade rose from $8.3 million in 1900 to $82 million in 1920.
The desire to maintain friendly trade relations was complemented by President Woodrow Wilson's policy of non-interference and neutrality during the first half of WWI. Wilson hoped to serve as mediator and peacemaker between the Central and Allied Powers. Taking action against Turkey over its Armenian policy would have compromised that neutrality. Wilson also did not want to stir up a controversy that might have polarized public opinion and jeopardized his chance of re-election in 1916.
Finally, the presence of Americans in Turkey as missionaries and diplomats made the administration further reluctant to take any action against Turkey, as military action might have jeopardized the safety of American citizens.
Too little, too late Although world media publicized the atrocities, Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, later maintained that the Ottoman government deliberately obscured details of the events taking place among its Armenian population. Nonetheless, in 1915 Morganthau was sufficiently alarmed to urge that the U.S. at least administer relief to deportees being driven into the Syrian desert. The result was the formation of the Committee on Armenian Atrocities and the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief.
Even after Wilson was re-elected and declared war against Germany and Austro-Hungary in 1917, the U.S. continued to show reluctance to engage Turkey in any substantive way over the treatment of Armenians. Although the Ottoman Empire had joined with the Central Powers, Wilson maintained that Turkey was a victim of German manipulation.
The cumulative response of the Wilson administration during this period was to condemn the Ottoman atrocities, but limit government action to the supply of humanitarian aid to survivors of the genocide. By then, for hundreds of thousands of Armenians, it was too late.
The reports from the Ottoman Empire had been coming in since the start of WWI, with missionaries and a few reporters, plus State Dept. officials getting word back, but slowly through the Syrian desert. Trade, then, had no bite to it as President Wilson talked fine words about having responsibility associated with trade, but refused to do the one thing that would make that work: back it up with action.
Americans who go overseas, throughout the 19th century and even to this day, put their lives on the line and must weigh their activities as free people. Venturing forth means that one takes a calculated risk in that venture with no guarantee of its success or that one will even survive it. The 19th century is rife with Americans dying in conflicts, plagues, internecine ethnic strife, and succumbing to the vicissitudes of war. And then there are the things we did OVERSEAS. Using the lives of Americans who had taken a calculated risk to put forth their beliefs and the earnest holding of them is cowardice in the extreme. Americans have been risking their lives to form this Nation, uphold the beliefs that all men are created equal and that this is best demonstrated by Americans, as individuals, putting the proof of that when they wanted to do so. That proving is taking a gamble, a risk, to show just what free people can DO.
By breaking that link between what he says and believes and what he does, President Wilson started the de-linking process between accountable trade and unaccountable free trade. That de-linking process and putting hopes into international institutions that have no accountability to people, may have started out with fine ideals, but the inability to understand that ideals need demonstration even and especially when they hurt the Nation economically must be done. That is the greatest backing America can give: to show that we mean and demonstrate liberty and freedom even when we hurt ourselves because of the damned stupid choices we have made to trade with tyrants and dictators.
President Wilson complained that Theodore Roosevelt, the man who started 'Trust Busting' spoke only words about wanting to see American Industry used in support of freedoms for the individual. To this, Roosevelt responds in his autobiography:
Mr. Wilson says of the trust plank in that platform that it "did not anywhere condemn monopoly except in words." Exactly of what else could a platform consist? Does Mr. Wilson expect us to use algebraic signs? This criticism is much as if he said the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence contained nothing but words. The Progressive platform did contain words, and the words were admirably designed to express thought and meaning and purpose. Mr. Wilson says that I long ago "classified trusts for us as good and bad," and said that I was "afraid only of the bad ones." Mr. Wilson would do well to quote exactly what my language was, and where it was used, for I am at a loss to know what statement of mine it is to which he refers. But if he means that I say that corporations can do well, and that corporations can also do ill, he is stating my position correctly. I hold that a corporation does ill if it seeks profit in restricting production and then by extorting high prices from the community by reason of the scarcity of the product; through adulterating, lyingly advertising, or over-driving the help; or replacing men workers with children; or by rebates; or in any illegal or improper manner driving competitors out of its way; or seeking to achieve monopoly by illegal or unethical treatment of its competitors, or in any shape or way offending against the moral law either in connection with the public or with its employees or with its rivals. Any corporation which seeks its profit in such fashion is acting badly. It is, in fact, a conspiracy against the public welfare which the Government should use all its powers to suppress. If, on the other hand, a corporation seeks profit solely by increasing its products through eliminating waste, improving its processes, utilizing its by-products, installing better machines, raising wages in the effort to secure more efficient help, introducing the principle of cooperation and mutual benefit, dealing fairly with labor unions, setting its face against the underpayment of women and the employment of children; in a word, treating the public fairly and its rivals fairly: then such a corporation is behaving well. It is an instrumentality of civilization operating to promote abundance by cheapening the cost of living so as to improve conditions everywhere throughout the whole community. Does Mr. Wilson controvert either of these statements? If so, let him answer directly. It is a matter of capital importance to the country that his position in this respect be stated directly, not by indirect suggestion.
[..]
After reading Mr. Wilson's book, I am still entirely in the dark as to what he means by the "New Freedom." Mr. Wilson is an accomplished and scholarly man, a master of rhetoric, and the sentences in the book are well-phrased statements, usually inculcating a morality which is sound although vague and ill defined. There are certain proposals (already long set forth and practiced by me and by others who have recently formed the Progressive party) made by Mr. Wilson with which I cordially agree. There are, however, certain things he has said, even as regards matters of abstract morality, with which I emphatically disagree. For example, in arguing for proper business publicity, as to which I cordially agree with Mr. Wilson, he commits himself to the following statement:
"You know there is temptation in loneliness and secrecy. Haven't you experienced it? I have. We are never so proper in our conduct as when everybody can look and see exactly what we are doing. If you are off in some distant part of the world and suppose that nobody who lives within a mile of your home is anywhere around, there are times when you adjourn your ordinary standards. You say to yourself, 'Well, I'll have a fling this time; nobody will know anything about it.' If you were on the Desert of Sahara, you would feel that you might permit yourself—well, say, some slight latitude of conduct; but if you saw one of your immediate neighbors coming the other way on a camel, you would behave yourself until he got out of sight. The most dangerous thing in the world is to get off where nobody knows you. I advise you to stay around among the neighbors, and then you may keep out of jail. That is the only way some of us can keep out of jail."
I emphatically disagree with what seems to be the morality inculcated in this statement, which is that a man is expected to do and is to be pardoned for doing all kinds of immoral things if he does them alone and does not expect to be found out. Surely it is not necessary, in insisting upon proper publicity, to preach a morality of so basely material a character.
There is much more that Mr. Wilson says as to which I do not understand him clearly, and where I condemn what I do understand. In economic matters the course he advocates as part of the "New Freedom" simply means the old, old "freedom" of leaving the individual strong man at liberty, unchecked by common action, to prey on the weak and the helpless. The "New Freedom" in the abstract seems to be the freedom of the big to devour the little. In the concrete I may add that Mr. Wilson's misrepresentations of what I have said seem to indicate that he regards the new freedom as freedom from all obligation to obey the Ninth Commandment.
But, after all, my views or the principles of the Progressive party are of much less importance now than the purposes of Mr. Wilson. These are wrapped in impenetrable mystery. His speeches and writings serve but to make them more obscure. If these attempts to refute his misrepresentation of my attitude towards the trusts should result in making his own clear, then this discussion will have borne fruits of substantial value to the country. If Mr. Wilson has any plan of his own for dealing with the trusts, it is to suppress all great industrial organizations—presumably on the principle proclaimed by his Secretary of State four years ago, that every corporation which produced more than a certain percentage of a given commodity—I think the amount specified was twenty-five per cent—no matter how valuable its service, should be suppressed. The simple fact is that such a plan is futile. In operation it would do far more damage than it could remedy. The Progressive plan would give the people full control of, and in masterful fashion prevent all wrongdoing by, the trusts, while utilizing for the public welfare every industrial energy and ability that operates to swell abundance, while obeying strictly the moral law and the law of the land. Mr. Wilson's plan would ultimately benefit the trusts and would permanently damage nobody but the people. For example, one of the steel corporations which has been guilty of the worst practices towards its employees is the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan's plan would, if successful, merely mean permitting four such companies, absolutely uncontrolled, to monopolize every big industry in the country. To talk of such an accomplishment as being "The New Freedom" is enough to make the term one of contemptuous derision.
Yes a 'New Freedom', sounding very much like a way to get back to the older freedom of tyranny and enshrining power to an elite group or class, be it in industry, business or politics. Government to assume the power of the marketplace and require only certain divisions within it and to control industry leaves little input by the people and their choices to affect such industry. And when such is used overseas to ensure that industry and business is not held accountable because a little thing like fighting a war to oppose an ally of a declared enemy might just hurt the economy a tad... well... trade trumps rights, it appears. The Right of a Nation to oppose its enemies and fight *for* something better.
From this era would come the slow change and new method of thought, where trade and international businesses to trade would be seen as 'freeing' no matter what such businesses actually did to individuals. This would lead to the Transnational Right as it has come about today.
We would also get an ideal that international institutions should have pre-eminance over Nation States and that Nations needed to be ruled over so as to bring peace and equality. That is the Transnational Left known as Transnational Progressivism, that seeks to dissolve Nations and put an informed Elite in place to administer rights and freedom, just like President Wilson wanted to apportion market share.
These two have left us bereft of speaking the name of what terrorism is, because it has consequences and puts the US as judge for its own actions and commerce. And allows them to physically assault peoples and erode Nations so that they will become the new ruling Elite. And the fight that President Wilson skipped out on now haunts us to this day because he would not back up his words to cause some harm to *industry* and *economy* to further the cause of liberty and freedom. And the payment for that money is more blood until that balance is set right once more. Not just for peoples, but for our outlook on what liberty and freedom mean to us... and when we are willing to back that up to the death so that it may survive.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Let us hope we can unlearn some of the ideals of the 20th century that are now the cause of our problems.
Sphere: Related Content
The following is a personal outlook paper of The Jacksonian Party.
We are taught time and again that the laws of the United States are based only on the things carried through by English Common Law and those things that we have made since the Constitution. I remember teacher after teacher giving that view: that America places its foundations on the inherited Common Law and that, really, nothing else is incorporated into the Constitution. There is no 'unwritten law' in the United States, and it is all in law books and legal books of various sorts.
Really! I went to a very good school system in NY State (fifth in the State academically) and it was in the top 50 nationwide. Had some damned fine social studies teachers (and a few klinkers, it can be said), but that basic view, above, is given. It is a lovely view and right... to a point. There are, however, two things given in the Constitution that are not explicitly written down in Federal Code, but serve as power oversight concepts. One is explicitly stated, the other brought in by reference to the type of law involved. Both have been used in court trials all the way to the SCOTUS level to demonstrate the justification for interpretation of law not only as given in the Constitution, but as the background view of how America works.
I have never been taught about this in any school, nor university and have had to figure this out on my lonesome. In doing that I can come to no other conclusion that these vital views of why the Nation can and cannot do things has been deliberately left out of the curriculum, save for that of law schools. This stuff is, however, not difficult to understand and was written in an era when explicit statements triumphed over verbiage: scarce paper and ink put a premium on concise thought. They were made to be read by anyone with an education which, by today's standards, would be somewhere in the 5-6th grade level. Yet it remains untaught, unviewed and, to this day, the population remains ignorant of these vital pieces the Constitution references in its main body text. Not an Amendment, but in the main body of the work itself: a fundamental underpinning of how the United States is to work.
Apparently those teaching school and those given oversight and those elected to get those to do oversight... they all think this is unimportant. You are meant to forget it by not having it taught, or if you learn of it, you are to treat in only in the most abstruse legal sense. Yet these are in the main body of the Constitution and more primary than Amendments. This is part of the guidance on what America can do.
Forget them.
Starting with the inexplicit is the inheritance by Common Law, but also trade law between Nations. Here are the portions of the US Constitution that deal with this.
Article I, Section 8
"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
[..]
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
[..]
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;"
Article I, Section 9
"No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another."
Article I, Section 10
"No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
Article II, Section 2
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, ...
[..]
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments."
Article III, Section 2
"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; [..] --to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; [..] and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."
The highlighting marks the implicit law sections, carried over from the Common Law of England and via the trade laws that had been defined before the founding of the United States. This area of law is the Admiralty jurisdiction of the United States, and it has its foundations in the English Common Law in the Black Book of the Admiralty. To get a better understanding of the role this 14th century book plays, let me offer an excerpt of Courts of Admiralty in Colonial America (Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC, 1995) [pdf reprint here]], Chapter 1, p. 4 on Substantive Law [note abbreviations for this piece are: Lord High Admiral of England (“LHA”), High Court of Admiralty (“HCA”)]:
Courts of admiralty administer the specialized law of the sea called “admiralty law” or “maritime law.” This law has no connection, in history or in principle, with the common law.[36] In England it has always been referred to as the “civil law,” in the sense of “continental law” in contrast to the common law.[37] Basically this is Roman law onto which have been engrafted concepts and procedures developed by merchants in European ports of the Mediterranean, Atlantic Coast, North Sea and Baltic. An important part of maritime law thus acquired the name “Law Merchant.” Many principles of this ancient and specialized area of law are still with us today.38 An example is the law of charter parties.
The common law of England originated in its feudal society, with the great additional influences in the 11th century of the Norman Conquest and in the 18th century of a developing market economy and the Industrial Revolution that continued into the 19th century. The maritime law, on the other hand, originated in the practices of merchants along the southern, western and northern coasts of continental Europe. Gradually, this “Law Merchant” was absorbed into the continental or “civil” law which had its own roots in the Roman law. Beginning in about the 13th century the law maritime commenced its immigration to England, a process that has never completely ceased.[39] This cross-Channel transplant was welcomed by the Court of the High Admiral (later, the HCA), which was taking form about 1360 for reasons of commercial convenience. English merchants, who were beginning to deal in international trade, needed a substantive law that had international recognition and uniformity. They also needed a procedure of summary justice that would resolve commercial disputes promptly and allow them to get back to sea. The law merchant and the law maritime of continental Europe satisfied these two needs; the common law did not.
Fortunately, this medieval commercial law was codified in some of the major ports of the Western World. The most important were the Consolato del Mare of Barcelona, the Rolls of Oleron (a French Atlantic island) and the Town-Laws of Wisby (a Swedish port in the Baltic). Other codes originated in the ports of Pisa (now Italy), Damme, Flanders (now Belgium), and Hamburg and Lubeck (now Germany).[40] These codes, and many other maritime laws and regulations, are preserved in the famous Black Book of the Admiralty which originated about 1450 as a form of manual for the judges and practitioners in the HCA.[41]
In essence, the beginning of international law starts with the Roman Empire, as this form of trade law was an outgrowth of the practices of Rome. As trade grew in old Roman holdings, that form of law was changed by localities to make a new merchant law of trade. This form of law has peculiarities to it not seen in Common Law, such as speedy trial or even the absence of a defendent at trial. Admiralty Law is trade law for commerce, at heart, and a view towards swift and sure justice so as to not unfairly impede merchants who had done no substantive wrong or to assuredly bring in those who had done such wrong. The Black Book of the Admiralty is one of the first pieces of International Law as it serves as compendium of multiple maritime trade laws and regularizes them by the fact of having them together in one book.
Who *couldn't* make a good two week history class on that alone? What youngster in their right mind would want to pass up knowing about an important Black Book? What with all the fantasy stories going on and a name like The Black Book of the Admiralty, a half-way decent teacher could make this a romp through trade, war, pirates, and other such fun things to finally get into why this becomes a source of international law. And yet it is as vital to our understanding of ourselves today as it was when it was compiled: not only were laws regularized by common collection and distribution, but the basis for how to *make* such law starts there. This area of law also covers Privateers and the implications of Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and how they are viewed and utilized. Similarly as the Admiralty Court, as a jurisdiction within Common Law, came about, the basis for understanding what the responsibilities of individuals were to this common law of the sea would become a factor in later courts.
In one of the wonderful marvels of the modern world, the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica is available freely as it is out of copyright, and it has some of the best entries on Admiralty Jurisdiction and Law around. These things do not change much over time, and I will cover that in a bit, but where else can you get an entry on that jurisdictional view like this in the modern day:
Marsden, Select Pleas of the Court of Admiralty, Selden Society, London, 1892 and 1897; Zouch, Jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England asserted; Robinson, Collectanea Maritimes; Brown, Admiralty; Edwardes, Admiralty; Phillimore, International Law, vol. i., vol. iii. part xi.; Pritchard, Admiralty Digest, tit. Jurisdiction. (W. G. F. P.) United States The source of admiralty jurisdiction in the United States is Article 3, � 2 of the United States Constitution: - "The judicial power shall extend to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction." The United States Supreme Court has declared that by virtue of these words the admiralty jurisdiction extends not only to the high seas but to the great lakes and the rivers connecting them, and to all public navigable waters in the United States (the "Genesee Chief" v. Fitz-Hugh, 12 Howards U.S. Rep. 443), including even interstate canals (Ex. p. Boyer, 109 U.S. Rep. 629, the "Robert W. Parsons," [1903] 191 U.S. 17), and is not confined to tide waters. The American colonies had vice-admiralty courts with an admiralty jurisdiction equal to the largest claimed by the English admiralty courts even under Edward III. When they became states they delegated to the federal government their several "admiralty and maritime jurisdiction," using these words in the sense understood in every country in Europe, England excepted, and in the sense in which they had then been used in the colonies for a long time, and without reference to the very narrow jurisdiction of the English admiralty courts then existing (Waring v. Clark, 5 Howards U.S. Rep. 441).
It is settled as to the United States admiralty jurisdiction not that it is "co-equal with that of the original English, or that of continental European admiralty, but is rather that defined by the statutes of Richard II., under the construction given to them by contemporary or immediately subsequent courts of admiralty" (2 Parsons Adm. 176), and that it embraced all maritime contracts, torts, injuries or offences (De Lovio v. Boit, 2 Gallisons Rep. 398; Waring v. Clark, 5 Howards U.S. Rep. 441), and that it has never been restricted by the action of the common law courts as in England under Lord Coke (2 Parsons Adm. 166 n.; Waring v. Clark; De Lovio v. Boit). Original admiralty jurisdiction was by the Judiciary Act of 1789 (U.S. Rev. Stats. � 563) granted to the United States district courts exclusively, except that concurrent original jurisdiction was given to United States circuit courts over seizures for slave trading, and condemnations of property used by persons in insurrection (� 62 9; � 5309), and in the coolie trade (� 2159), and by the act of the 3rd of March 1901; the supreme court of the District of Columbia is given the same jurisdiction as the district and circuit courts. The Supreme Court of the United States has no original jurisdiction in admiralty. All suits are brought in the first instance in the district court.Appeals lie, both on the law and on the facts, from a final decree of that court to the circuit court of appeals only, except in cases involving the jurisdiction of the court, the constitutionality of a law of any state or of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty of the United States, and except cases of prize and capital or infamous crime, in which cases of appeal lies directly to the supreme court. In cases of gravity and importance the Supreme Court may by certiorari review the judgment of the circuit court of appeals, but such cases are rare (re Lau Ow Bew, 141 U.S. Rep. 587; Benedict's The American Admiralty, � 607). Formerly the Judiciary Act authorized an appeal from the district court to the circuit court, and thence to the Supreme Court. But the act of the 3rd of March 1891 (Ch. 517) abolished this and created the circuit court of appeals, making it the final appellate court in admiralty, except as above stated. In any case where the district judge is unable to perform his duties or is disqualified by reason of interest or of relationship, or has acted as counsel for one of the parties to the action, it may be removed to the circuit court in that district (U.S. Rev. Stats. �� 587, 589 and 601). These are now the only cases in which admiralty suits can come before the circuit court (Benedict's Adm. � 321).
The subject matter in cases of contract determines the jurisdiction (the "General Smith," 4 Wheaton U.S. Rep. 438), and not the presence or absence of tide, salt water, current, nor that the water be an inland basin or land-locked, or a river, nor by its being a harbour, or a port within the body of the county, nor that a remedy exists at common law. The admiralty courts have jurisdiction over all matters that concern owners and proprietors of ships as such; possessory actions and petitory actions to try title of a ship; cases of mariners' wages, wharfage, dockage, lighterage, stevedores, contracts of affreightment, charter parties, rights of passengers as such (the "Moses Taylor," 71 U.S. Rep. 411), pilotage, towage, maritime liens and loans, bottomry, respondentia and hypothecation of ship and cargo, marine insurance, average, jettison, demurrage, collisions, consortship, bounties, survey and sale of vessel, salvage, seizures under the laws of impost navigation or trade, cases of prize, ransom, condemnation, restitution and damages; assaults, batteries, damages and trespasses on the high seas and navigable waters of the United States; but not suits in rem for duties (Benedict's Adm. � 303a).
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The admiralty courts have jurisdiction over crimes and offences committed upon vessels belonging to citizens of the United States on the high seas or any arm of the sea or any waters within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States (U.S. Rev. Stats. � 5339). High seas include the great lakes. (U.S. v. Rogers, 150 U.S. 249). (J. A. BA.)
And as the US Court system uses stare decisis, or precedent to guide future doctrine, in adjudicating cases, this entry is just as relevant today as it was when it was printed. This is a major part of the United States outlook as a Nation and the strangenesses seen in the Admiralty can still show up to this day. That said the US, when it became a Nation, did the one thing that England had not done with Admiralty law: we made a record of the decisions so that precedent could be set. Great Britain would follow suit in the 19th century and as the basis of Admiralty law has a high degree of similarity between the US and Great Britain, decisions on similar cases in Great Britain could give guidance in the US due to the underlying basis of the law itself.
This underlying basis is the second part of the things you aren't taught about the US Constitution and what it has in it by reference, and is an extremely important part of how the US functions as a Nation and how we understand ourselves to be a Nation. For that I will look back at Courts and Admiralty in Colonial America:
For completeness a few words should be said about the substantive law of prize. It is unique in several respects. Obviously there is nothing comparable in the common law, but it is surprising to find that the medieval codes do not touch the subject. Prize law involves the law of nations, of war, of neutrality, of nationality, of capture, etc. The classic writers are Vattel, Grotius and Puffendorf. Dr. Browne has chapters on the law of nations (I) and the law of the prize court (VII). Henry Bourguignon thoroughly discusses the law of prize as developed by Sir William Scott, the greatest of all prize judges.
Certain unique features of the substantive instance law find no counterpart in the common law. Not all of these, however, were characteristic of the admiralty in the 17th or 18th centuries but developed in the 19th or even 20th century.
This now transitions us to the *other* law that is mentioned in the Constitution by name:
Article I, Section 8
"To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;"
The Law of Nations is the system developed to give a system of how Nations are to act with respect to each other, what their duties and responsibilities are, and what individuals are to do with regard to Nations. When one runs across a text, by name, in the US Constitution as specific citation of where Congress is to make law and for what offences you would *think* that someone would take notice of it. Congress certainly did writing the Piracy code and other Felonies on the high Seas.... but it never did get around to Offences against the Law of Nations outside of that. Yet, by the sentence construction it is clear that Congress gets to define *both* the high Seas portion (Piracies and Felonies) AND more general Offences against the Law of Nations.
There are two very good basis for text to understand how the Law of Nations works and its impact on the US. The first of these, quixotically, is not the main and important text, but a sub-part of another text that has high degree of impact on the US due to its standing for English Common Law. Here we get a text referenced in Court decisions, but I cannot, for the life of me, ever remember it being taught in any course in my sojourn through education. This is Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1769 (a free text from scanned source with need to be deciphered a bit at the Avalon Project, and it does need some study to remember letter replacement and such; better edited text at The Laws of Nature And Nature's God). While a compilation of a long series of lectures on the law of England and how it worked, this also serves as one of the fundamental outlinings of Common Law that would serve as a basis of later views on the law. The founding generation used this as a reference when constructing the Constitution, although indirectly: it is never mentioned.
From Blackstone we get a view on Public Wrongs in Book 4, and Chapter 5 Of the Law of Nations:
THE law of nations is a system of rules, deducible by natural reason, and established by universal consent among the civilized inhabitants of the world;1 in order to decide all disputes, to regulate all ceremonies and civilities, and to insure the observance frequently occur between two or more independent states, and the individuals belonging to each.2 This general law is founded upon this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can; and, in time of war, as little harm as possible, without prejudice to their own real interests.3 And, as none of these states will allow a superiority in the other, therefore neither can dictate or prescribe the rules of this law to the rest; but such rules must necessarily result from those principles of natural justice, in which all the learned of every nation agree: or they depend upon mutual compacts or treaties between the respective communities; in the construction of which there is also no judge to resort to, but the law of nature and reason, being the only one in which all the contracting parties are equally conversant, and to which they are equally subject.
Not to worry, the law of nations actually *is* written down. That said, this view is one that examines the fact that treaties between Nations determine their course with respect to each other. No third party, unless otherwise given by treaty, is the judge over the adherence to such a treaty. Nations enter into treaties voluntarily and hold each other accountable based on the treaty designed by them. This is a primary form of intercourse between Nations and outside of treaties only the more generalized law of nations applies, and there are some things which are basic to Nations that no treaty may remove: for Nations to enter into such treaties, they must have foundation before that entry and ability to freely leave such treaties when they no longer suit a Nation.
When Nations enter into treaties, however, their citizens are bound by such treaties. From that follows that citizens who break such laws are breaking a civil law created amongst Nations or the very sovereign foundations of the Nation State itself. Blackstone looks at the three categories of offense against the law of nations as follows:
THE principal offense against the law of nations, animadverted on as such by the municipal laws of England, are of three kinds; 1. Violation of safe-conducts; 2. Infringement of the rights of ambassadors; and, 3. Piracy.
Each of these three are primary to being able to hold discourse between Nations or to having a Nation without having its sovereignty violated. Sovereign Nations that break safe-conducts or infringe on the rights of ambassadors can give rise to war because of those things ALONE. Nations that disrespect other Nations in that way either during wartime or during peace, are liable to have war waged upon them because of that basic violation: a Nation that has given its word to respect safe-conduct of anyone through its territory and that then BREAKS that word, is committing an act of war.
Similarly as ambassadors are physical representatives of a sovereign Nation, they are to be given all due respect of that representation. Standard legal proceedings are halted in the cases where ambassadors are involved so as to settle the type of offense that is given. Truly, this does get to be quite a complex area of the law, but the basis for the sanctity of ambassadors is long-standing and the tradition of non-prosecution of offenses, save for true acts of war committed or sanctioned by the ambassador, are normally put aside. That is a very over-generalization, of course, but serves as a rule of thumb.
The third part, as a view of the law of nations, is one that utilizes piracy as a category to fit those warlike offenses committed by individuals without sanction from any Nation. The view of English law is to restrict this entirely to robbery and depredation upon the high seas, but even with that there is some variance of attitude of the activity itself. Strictly speaking Blackstone puts the specific of what we know as piracy, robbery and depredation on the high seas, with something more general:
LASTLY, the crime of piracy, or robbery and depredation upon the high seas, is an offense against the universal law of society; a pirate being, according to Sir Edward Coke,10 hostis humani generis [enemy to mankind]. As therefore he has renounced all the benefits of society and government, and has reduced himself afresh to the savage state of nature, by declaring war against all mankind, all mankind must declare war against him: so that every community has a right, by the rule of self-defense, to inflict that punishment upon him, which every individual would in a state of nature have been otherwise entitled to do, any invasion of his person or personal property.
BY the ancient common law, piracy, if committed by a subject, was held to be a species of treason, being contrary to his natural allegiance; and by an alien to be felony only: but now, since the statute of treasons, 25 Edw. III. c. 2. it is held to be only felony in a subject.11 Formerly it was only cognizable by the admiralty courts, which proceed by the rule of the civil law.12 But, it being inconsistent with the liberties of the nation, that any man's life should be taken away, unless by the judgment of his peers, or the common law of the land, the statute 28 Hen. VIII. c. 15. established a new jurisdiction for this purpose; which proceeds according to the course of the common law, and of which we shall say more hereafter.
This is where the Admiralty law leaves off, by and large, save for when pirates have warrant put out against them and their vessels and those that support them. At that point the Prize Court of the Admiralty would still be involved. Piracy is against the law of society, but having a yet more general distinction of 'enemy of mankind'. That more general distinction is not one that is limited to just piracy, in and of itself, but is a more general description of those who wage war for themselves, even if robbery is not involved. That is 'depredation', or war for the sake of something other than monetary gain. When delimited to the high seas, it is a civil crime if captured.
What the English law does not look at are those that commit 'depredation' on land: the illegitimate use of warfare that is not for robbery, but for the act of war itself. When unsanctioned by any Nation that, too, would fit under 'depredation' but the English law does not address that beyond piracy. Normally it is a reason to go to war against a Nation, when done by a Nation, but by individuals and groups that have 'renounced all the benefits of society and government' while on land, especially when they are foreigners unattached by their actions to any Nation, just what, exactly are they?
Yes these things are not taught in school, are they? This raises the next untaught text the one directly mentioned in the Constitution and given by Blackstone: Law of Nations. Capitalized as more than just common agreement, that now leaves the actual document of Law of Nations to be addressed. This is the work of Emmerich de Vattel, Law of Nations, 1758, via Constitution Society. So we are up to three works not taught in school, but that have a major impact upon the actual law in the United States, one by inference, one by association with the English Common Law and the final the widely accepted work of all European Nations on how to behave as Nations, and none of these were taught to me while I was actively in school. When did these works go from actual, scholarly teaching to being dropped from the curriculum of everything but law schools? They each do have bearing upon the law, yes, but they are also, each of them, historical basis for how the United States works and views itself as one Nation amongst many. In that long era before the United States was even a major power in the world and before it was a superpower, this was how it viewed itself and, to this day, is how we still approach the world at large.
And while the Black Book of the Admiralty is more towards recounting the instances of law and how it is made at sea, which is highly fascinating on its own, Law of Nations now shifts to regularize those things which Blackstone would use to view the English Common Law. I move from the interpreted to source text so that we can see how this major work influenced the English Common Law and how the Admiralty law still, even then, was a separate jurisdiction even when it had shifted to the Common Law. That shift between the 14th and 18th centuries is crucial as the United States traces its Admiralty authority to the 14th century, and utilizes only preceptual outlook on the Admiralty law by England as there was no written record of the rulings between the 14th and 19th centuries in England. The United States would, in particular, not apply fully the views of Coke, and would differentiate the US jurisdictional views from those of Britain by doing so. With that the US would look towards the Law of Nations as a major supplier to help define Piracy and recognize that there were *other* Offences against the Law of Nations that England had left unaddressed.
Basically, the US gave itself the most leeway possible to interpret the law and not be hindered by the views of Monarchs and the unrecorded history of the Admiralty courts. Thus the Law of Nations and the Offences against Nations comes to the forefront as the third and most vital text for the US Constitution. In giving this citation by name and capitalizing the name, as seen in for an actual book or set of same (which Law of Nations is a multivolume set) and putting forth that Law of Nations defines crimes against Nations in it, the founders elevate this text up to the Constitutional level. While the US Constitution will refine the views of the United States towards itself and how it fits into the framework of this common view of Europe, we would also differentiate ourselves on how the US applies those views. But the actual crimes in Law of Nations is left up to Congress to define and enact: that is the direct duty given by the founders to Congress. And Piracy only begins to scratch the surface of that.
To see its impact, one can look to the founding era and find the references to Law of Nations in the works of Federalists and Anti-Federalists: this was an important view of the world and they incorporated it into their arguments on the Constitution. So some excerpts follow to let us see what this work did in their thinking about the nation of that era.
James Madison in Federalst No. 42, 22 JAN 1788 [bolding in original, italics mine for emphasis]:
The second class of powers lodged in the general government consist of those which regulate the intercourse with foreign nations, to wit: to make treaties; to send and receive ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; to regulate foreign commerce, including a power to prohibit, after the year 1808, the importation of slaves, and to lay an intermediate duty of ten dollars per head, as a discouragement to such importations.
This class of powers forms an obvious and essential branch of the federal administration. If we are to be one nation in any respect, it clearly ought to be in respect to other nations.
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The power to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offenses against the law of nations belongs with equal propriety to the general government, and is a still greater improvement on the Articles of Confederation. These articles contain no provision for the case of offenses against the law of nations; and consequently leave it in the power of any indiscreet member to embroil the Confederacy with foreign nations. The provision of the federal articles on the subject of piracies and felonies extends no further than to the establishment of courts for the trial of these offenses. The definition of piracies might, perhaps, without inconveniency, be left to the law of nations; though a legislative definition of them is found in most municipal codes. A definition of felonies on the high seas is evidently requisite. Felony is a term of loose signification even in the common law of England; and of various import in the statute law of that kingdom. But neither the common nor the statute law of that, or of any other nation, ought to be a standard for the proceedings of this, unless previously made its own by legislative adoption. The meaning of the term, as defined in the codes of the several States, would be as impracticable as the former would be a dishonorable and illegitimate guide. It is not precisely the same in any two of the States; and varies in each with every revision of its criminal laws. For the sake of certainty and uniformity, therefore, the power of defining felonies in this case was in every respect necessary and proper.
Notice that there is an expansive view of the law of nations for self-protection against other forms of offenses against the law of nations. That is, exactly, what Madison sees under the Blackstone view of this:
so that every community has a right, by the rule of self-defense, to inflict that punishment upon him, which every individual would in a state of nature have been otherwise entitled to do, any invasion of his person or personal property.
Extracted from the previous for emphasis, to show how Madison utilizes the Common Law view of Law of Nations and then seeks to put that forth in the Federalist argument for the Constitution. As a Nation the US has the right to define these other offenses against the law of nations and to protect the nation from those practicing such via civil law. The Anti-Federalists also looked to this work for such things as press freedom, as seen in Cincinnatus I: To James Wilson, Esquire, 01 NOV 1787 [itals in original, bolding mine]:
You instance, Sir, the liberty of the press; which you would persuade us, is in no danger, though not secured, because there is no express power granted to regulate literary publications. But you surely know, Sir, that where general powers are expressly granted, the particular ones comprehended within them, must also be granted. For instance, the proposed Congress are empowered—to define and punish offences against the law of nations—mark well, Sir, if you please—to define and punish. Will you, will any one say, can any one even think that does not comprehend a power to define and declare all publications from the press against the conduct of government, in making treaties, or in any other foreign transactions, an offence against the law of nations?If there should ever be an influential president, or arbitrary senate, who do not choose that their transactions with foreign powers should be discussed or examined in the public prints, they will easily find pretexts to prevail upon the other branch to concur with them, in restraining what it may please them to call—the licentiousness of the press. And this may be, even without the concurrence of the representative of the people; because the president and senate are empowered to make treaties, and these treaties are declared the supreme law of the land.
Here is a very interesting view of the law of nations, and well worth examining. In how things worked out the Piracy laws are in the US Code and utilized there via the Admiralty jurisdiction. What is fascinating is that the direct, and blunt reading of the words of the Constitution, as Cincinnatus points out, is that Congress gets to define and punish piracy on its own. That reasoning, however, is belied by the Admiraly jurisdiction and Common Law views, that a tribunal or other judge (with or without jury! yes, that is *also* part of the Admiraly heritage) is to rule on such things.
But that is a tricky part as the Admiralty courts had two tracks of power: civil and military. At that point in history there was still a separate Prize court system for military captures, and that, while related under the Admiralty, served as a punishment court for things like piracy. This attempt to differentiate those systems by combining them into the Admiralty jurisdiction as a whole and regularize them is seen in the 'define and punish' language. While Cincinnatus puts forward only the treaty and trade end, the broader view of definition and assigning punishment belongs to Congress. By shifting the entirety of Piracy and other felonies on the high seas to Congress, there is, at that era, a necessity not only to give definition to those things, but assign the punishment scale: felonies needed to be graduated by type of crime and only Congress can do that.
The broader point, however, is extremely well taken: a powerful or charismatic President and a sycophantic Senate could abuse their treaty power and the need to ensure that such can be reported on falls to the House to guard the overall laws and privileges of that body as part of Congress. Did you think this was a *modern* worry?
Again, this stuff just isn't properly taught and in my school career the exposure to the Federalist Papers, which everyone lauds, was minor and my exposure to the coherency of the Anti-Federalist side and other Federalist supporting documents was *nil*. That does bring up a major problem in presenting American History as 'static': by making it that all of the arguments had been addressed and settled we spend forever trying to bring up 'new' arguments that, in actuality, have remained unsettled since the founding era. When we talk of the Presidential powers as Head of State, we are not talking some nebulous concept, but talking to a body of work that those creating the Constitution understood at heart. They CITE IT in their works and in the Constitution itself and utilize it in their understanding of how this republic fits into the greater continuum of nations. President Washington, himself, would utilize this in his approach to the world, and The Proclamation of Neutrality (22 APR 1793) would be based upon the President's powers as Head of State, hear provided in full [bolding mine for emphasis]:
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
A PROCLAMATION
Whereas it appears that a state of war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, and the United Netherlands, of the one part, and France on the other; and the duty and interest of the United States require, that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerant Powers;
I have therefore thought fit by these presents to declare the disposition of the United States to observe the conduct aforesaid towards those Powers respectfully; and to exhort and warn the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings whatsoever, which may in any manner tend to contravene such disposition.
And I do hereby also make known, that whatsoever of the citizens of the United States shall render himself liable to punishment or forfeiture under the law of nations, by committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any of the said Powers, or by carrying to any of them those articles which are deemed contraband by the modern usage of nations, will not receive the protection of the United States, against such punishment or forfeiture; and further, that I have given instructions to those officers, to whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be instituted against all persons, who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the law of nations, with respect to the Powers at war, or any of them.
In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia, the twenty-second day of April, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the seventeenth.
GEORGE WASHINGTON April 22, 1793
I have seen longer proclamations on the need for apple pies and motherhood! But the import is direct and clear and the *expectation* is that citizens will damned well know the law of nations and abide by it. And if you *didn't know* you were to find out.
Which, of course, finally gets to Law of Nations! What President Washington is referring to comes from Book III:
§ 4. It belongs only to the sovereign power.(137)
As nature has given men no right to employ force, unless when it becomes necessary for self defence and the preservation of their rights (Book II. § 49, &c.), the inference is manifest, that, since the establishment of political societies, a right, so dangerous in its exercise, no longer remains with private persons except in those encounters where society cannot protect or defend them. In the bosom of society, the public authority decides all the disputes of the citizens, represses violence, and checks every attempt to do ourselves justice with our own hands. If a private person intends to prosecute his right against the subject of a foreign power, he may apply to the sovereign of his adversary, or to the magistrates invested with the public authority: and if he is denied justice by them, he must have recourse to his own sovereign, who is obliged to protect him. It would be too dangerous to allow every citizen the liberty of doing himself justice against foreigners; as, in that case, there would not be a single member of the state who might not involve it in war. And how could peace be preserved between nations, if it were in the power of every private individual to disturb it? A right of so momentous a nature, — the right of judging whether the nation has real grounds of complaint, whether she is authorized to employ force, and justifiable in taking up arms, whether prudence will admit of such a step, and whether the welfare of the state requires it, — that right, I say, can belong only to the body of the nation, or to the sovereign, her representative. It is doubtless one of those rights, without which there can be no salutary government, and which are therefore called rights of majesty (Book I. § 45).
Thus the sovereign power alone is possessed of authority to make war. But, as the different rights which constitute this power, originally resident in the body of the nation, may be separated or limited according to the will of the nation (Book I. § 31 and 45), it is from the particular constitution of each state, that we are to learn where the power resides, that is authorized to make war in the name of the society at large. The kings of England, whose power is in other respects so limited, have the right of making war and peace.1 Those of Sweden have lost it. The brilliant but ruinous exploits of Charles XII. sufficiently warranted the states of that kingdom to reserve to themselves a right of such importance to their safety.
Quick and to the point, isn't it? In the US, as we have separated out the Foreign Policy from War Declaring powers, the President is fully within his power to put forward that he is not looking to partake in a war and that NONE of the citizens of the Nation may do so. But there is more to it than that! Lets look a bit further along in Book III:
§ 15. Enlisting in foreign countries.
As the right of levying soldiers belongs solely to the nation or the sovereign (§ 7), no person must attempt to enlist soldiers, in a foreign country, without the permission of the sovereign; and, even with that permission, none but volunteers are to be enlisted; for the service of their country is out of the question here; and no sovereign has a right to give or sell his subjects to another.
The man who undertakes to enlist soldiers in a foreign country, without the sovereign's permission, — and, in general, whoever entices away the subjects of another state, violates one of the most sacred rights of the prince and the nation. This crime is distinguished by the name of kidnapping, or man-stealing, and is punished with the utmost severity in every well-regulated state. Foreign recruiters are hanged without mercy, and with great justice. It is not presumed that their sovereign has ordered them to commit a crime; and, supposing even that they had received such an order, they ought not to have obeyed it, — their sovereign having no right to command what is contrary to the law of nature. It is not, I say, presumed that these recruiters act by order of their sovereign; and with respect to such of them as have practised seduction only, it is generally thought sufficient to punish them when they can be detected and caught: if they have used violence, and made their escape, it is usual to demand a surrender of the delinquents, and to claim the persons they have carried off. But if it appears that they acted by order, such a proceeding in a foreign sovereign is justly considered as an injury, and as a sufficient cause for declaring war against him, unless he makes suitable reparation.
President Washington is reminding folks of this paragraph and his right to deny citizens the ability to enlist in foreign armies or help foreign nations. Now imagine if we applied *this* as Congress can and should do, against terrorist recruiters. They are, actually, worse than those recruiting for a foreign nation as they are seeking to entice people to lawlessness on an international scale. The offense of doing that has an actual punishment under the law of nations: hanging without mercy and great justice.
Wouldn't THAT be a lovely law to have for those recruiting for Hezbollah, al Qaeda, HAMAS, and so on?
Congress DOES get to do that, Art. I, Sec. 8:
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
There you have a stated Offence against the law of nations and its REMEDY. Congress can do that for foreign recruiters AND non-state military recruiters or those supporting non-state military actors. They are given that right EXPLICITLY by the US Constitution and they are to follow the Offense in question with its remedy. Define and punish.
That puts an entirely different character on those 'charity' front organizations supporting terrorism, doesn't it?
Too bad you weren't taught this in school.
That brings us up to actual war time powers a Nation may use under declaration of war or when attacked by outside forces so as to be at war. This is still in Book III [itals in original, bolding mine]:
§ 67. It is to be distinguished from informal and unlawful war.
Legitimate and formal warfare must be carefully distinguished from those illegitimate and informal wars, or rather predatory expeditions, undertaken either without lawful authority or without apparent cause, as likewise without the usual formalities, and solely with a view to plunder. Grotius relates several instances of the latter.5 Such were the enterprises of the grandes compagnies which had assembled in France during the wars with the English, — armies of banditti, who ranged about Europe, purely for spoil and plunder: such were the cruises of the buccaneers, without commission, and in time of peace; and such in general are the depredations of pirates. To the same class belong almost all the expeditions of the Barbary corsairs: though authorized by a sovereign, they are undertaken without any apparent cause, and from no other motive than the lust of plunder. These two species of war, I say, — the lawful and the illegitimate, — are to be carefully distinguished, as the effects and the rights arising from each are very different.
§ 68. Grounds of this distinction.
In order fully to conceive the grounds of this distinction, it is necessary to recollect the nature and object of lawful war. It is only as the last remedy against obstinate injustice that the law of nature allows of war. Hence arise the rights which it gives, as we shall explain in the sequel: hence, likewise, the rules to be observed in it. Since it is equally possible that either of the parties may have right on his side, — and since, in consequence of the independence of nations, that point is not to be decided by others (§ 40), — the condition of the two enemies is the same, while the war lasts. Thus, when a nation, or a sovereign, has declared war against another sovereign on account of a difference arisen between them, their war is what among nations is called a lawful and formal war; and its effects are, by the voluntary law of nations, the same on both sides, independently of the justice of the cause, as we shall more fully show in the sequel.6 Nothing of this kind is the case in an informal and illegitimate war, which is more properly called depredation. Undertaken without any right, without even an apparent cause, it can be productive of no lawful effect, nor give any right to the author of it. A nation attacked by such sort of enemies is not under any obligation to observe towards them the rules prescribed in formal warfare. She may treat them as robbers,(146a) The inhabitants of Geneva, after defeating the famous attempt to take their city by escalade,7 caused all the prisoners whom they took from the Savoyards on that occasion to be hanged up as robbers, who had come to attack them without cause and without a declaration of war. Nor were the Genevese censured for this proceeding, which would have been detested in a formal war.
Yes, terrorism is *defined* under the law of nations! It is 'informal or predatory' war not sanctioned by any sovereign nation. It is depradation undertaken without any right and any cause given is illegitimate: they have no basis as a non-sovereign to address a grievance in this way. And do notice that 'summary justice' is done to those practicing it, that is the right of nations and peoples to have freedom from predators in human form. That is an actual sanction that Congress could levy... or just treat the like under the Piracy code with life imprisonment.
And this brings us to my favorite citation of the last few weeks, one that gets repeated perhaps too often, and yet bears repeating. It is this power to protect a nation from predators that is given to the sovereign during wartime. When illegitimate and illegal war, under law of nations, is done to the nation, she has the right to protect herself and ask for the support of all other nations in ending this scourge. When such predators are captured on the battlefield, the President, as Commander in Chief of the Armies and the Navies has wide jurisdiction and prosecution against those that are predators. This is something that past Presidents have put forth and utilized, and it was, for many decades, part of the Field Manual of the US Army. Here is the actual article in question:
Art. 82.
Men, or squads of men, who commit hostilities, whether by fighting, or inroads for destruction or plunder, or by raids of any kind, without commission, without being part and portion of the organized hostile army, and without sharing continuously in the war, but who do so with intermitting returns to their homes and avocations, or with the occasional assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character or appearance of soldiers - such men, or squads of men, are not public enemies, and, therefore, if captured, are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war, but shall be treated summarily as highway robbers or pirates.
Perhaps the most succinct view of terrorism given by a President, although he did not even call it such. It was a form of illegitimate war and he addressed it as such. Which President is it that had this view, and promulgated it? A President who knew justice and injustice, and one greatly lauded for his wisdom and insight into humanity and America:
Prepared by Francis Lieber, promulgated as General Orders No. 100 by President Lincoln, 24 April 1863.
The Great Emancipator. President Lincoln understood the law of nations and *his* responsibility to the nation to protect it under that law. He calls such being by a few of their law of nations names: highway robbers, pirates.
And you weren't taught that, either.
How can we make decisions as a Nation and a People if we have no idea what it means to have a Nation by the People?
Apparently this is far too much a burden for the everyman to have, so it is not taught save at the upper echelons of law schools. Yet it is something that was widely known by Americans to found this nation and understand the meaning of that and what the responsibilities of individuals and the nation *are*.
I call on Congress to carry out its DUTY to enforce the Law of Nations and put down those Offenses and their punishment so that this Nation can be protected.
The following is a comment I left at Megan McArdle's site on A happy surge in Iraq. I will put the links to my previous posts on this after the commentary, which is as follows:
The ongoing problem is infrastructure: a decayed, Soviet era piece of junk that was not well maintained and then left to neglect in many areas.
Electricity distribution will require a long-term swap-out of electrical substations, new power lines (due to increased demand) and actual new generation capability. The old generators had been natural gas fired, but Saddam had them converted to crude oil use in the 1990s. A vigorous petro-industry captures natural gas not only from well heads (not all oil is, properly, just oil, and segregation and filtration of crude oil gets methane and other hydrocarbons coming out of solution) but from refineries. Not only did USACE have to see if they could get any of the old plants running, they then had to look to convert them back to natural gas as the oil pumping and refining system came back online. The first major part of the new system will be newer refineries as the old ones are just not working at anything like design capacity due to age. Currently Iraq needs to utilize Syrian refineries and, with the pipeline now opened to Turkey, it can be expected to help in that during the interim.
The lack of maintenance and needing to swap in new equipment means that there is an effective cap on Iraqi crude oil production until that can be done. As newer and higher capacity pipelines, pumps, pumping stations and distribution facilities come on line, older ones need to be removed from the system, so the petro-system gets a marginal but sustainable boost, overall, even when older equipment causes drops in production. As natural gas was *flared* by Saddam, that entire revenue stream is now slowly coming on line with LNG facilities and sales on the open market. Further, the IHS review of Iraqi total reserves re-examined the older geological data in Western Iraq in conjunction with those structures in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and what is known in Syria after their late 1990's prospecting boom. Overall reserves shifted Iraq into the #3 position in the world, shifting it past Iran, and the majority of that is in Anbar and other Sunni provinces, and that change made each of the major factions (Arab Shia, Arab Sunni, Kurds) have co-equal portions of the reserves and the Western portions remaining largely untapped. That got Japan and India interested in investment and the first long-term trade and production agreements are still in the works, but each of those has a lot of money to spend that they had not spent in Iran.
The USACE and Iraqi timelines for complete overhaul of the electrical system runs to 2015, and gets a reliable production and management system in place. Pre-war, Saddam managed the electrical system to the tune of 4,300 MW nationwide with 12-14 hours of electricity/day for Baghdad in 2002, residents in surrounding areas got at most 8 hrs/day. The 5,000 MW seen today is nominal load capacity with peak capacity a bit higher. The 4,300 Saddam era is peak, maximum productive capacity and the nominal load was in the 3,900 to 4,000 MW/day. You can get those figures from USAID, USACE, COMTEX, and a number of other aid and development agencies working with Iraq to bring it a modern era electricity network.
As noted above electricity is paid for via a flat rate, across the board, income tax at 15%. It is not metered. You pay one price for all you can use from the government via that single income tax, which results in folks buying refrigerators, stoves, lighting, televisions, audio systems, computers, VCRs, DVD players, air conditioners... the day the first meters are put into Iraq will be the day that electricity usage finally *drops* to set a supply/demand price-point. You want a key stat, that will be it and don't expect that any time soon as there are bigger fish to fry...
On the clean water front: Saddam also shut down water and sewage plants and let them go into disrepair. This was a weapon used by Saddam against his own people: limit both to those that would toe the line to him, and remove it from those that did not. Water projects for agriculture are even more important than for potable water, and have received more attention so that Iraqis can actually *eat food grown in Iraq*. Saddam destroyed the agricultural system, ripped up such things as date palms, and left to neglect and disrepair the agricultural farming water distribution system. Before Saddam Iraq had a vibrant agricultural system and even before 1991 it was a regional exporter of goods. Saddam turned that around, evicted farmers and made everyone queue up for government handouts.
Municipal water supplies are now being put into towns that have *never* had *any* reliable and clean water supplies. In the cities getting old mains repaired and cleaned, along with sewage treatment facilities is taking forever due to nearly 15 years of war time damage, neglect and purposeful non-maintenance. Photos taken inside one of the sewage facilities serving Baghdad to have concrete settling ponds that were dry and the concrete broken by plants growing up through them. Repairing that has been a hell of a problem. The Nasiriyah sewage facility had never been completed by Saddam, so re-fit and final construction and maintenance were key concerns going forward there.
Dams had been left in disrepair and a major concern early on was actually repairing the Mosul Dam to ensure that catastrophic flooding would not be seen due to dam failure. Basra, in particular, needs new water supplies and maintaining the Sweetwater Canal has been an undertaking, it being 240 km long. It needs maintenance to replace sections of it where gypsum had been used in the embankments and that was crumbling. Additionally the pumping plants on the canal needed not only refurbishment but electricity, so getting reliable electricity in-place is a double-purpose endeavor.
Similarly the overland transport network was in high states of disrepair outside the major cities, with some major towns still having dirt roads. Getting reliable roads for transport of food and other goods is critical, and such towns also needed to serve as a set of supply points, and thus, got other infrastructure to help maintain that. The rail system needs a complete overhaul and major repair across all of Iraq. Locomotives were left in the desert or just derailed, sometimes derailed in the desert and left to rust.
This does not even begin to address the outlying airport system, of which the old military airports are being converted to civilian or dual-use facilities once the Iraqi Air Force gets stood up. That is a major military logistical headache and while the transport aircraft are being delivered pilots are being found and trained and certified to fly them... another year or two for that at least.
Once infrastructure is stood up and reliable, even if only partially functional, manufacturing jobs can come back. In Ramadi, in JAN 2007, the first agreements to start re-opening factories there this year had been settled. While the number is modest, per factory, the jobs needed for supply chain, infrastructure, plant maintenance, costing, accounting, etc. is enormous. Each factory looks to employ 3,000 or more people, with, if memory serves, some 59 factories to be rehabilitated. That is already having an effect on double-digit unemployment slowly moderating downwards and allowing for the Central Bank of Iraq to put out numerous small business loans. Even without reliable branch banks, this is causing a moderating of unemployment in Baghdad and that is stretching to Ramadi and Fallujah. Baqubah was the major grain milling city in Iraq and the re-opening of the flour mills means that Iraq can now produce its own flour... and when the agricultural system is up and running a bit better, that now puts a reliable processing point into the mix.
These are the things one needs to dig through many sources to get, not only aid agencies, but places like TMC.net news and finding reliable local translation services and individuals interested in moving news into the english realm of the net. There are lots of newspapers, magazines, weekly and monthly publications in Iraq, along with commercially owned television and radio stations manned by local crews. They compete with the satellite networks on that basis: local news is very important in Iraq and most people have been starved of information on the goings-on elsewhere in their own Nation since the early 1990's. And the majority of journalists killed in Iraq are Iraqi, also... yet the Western news agencies never tell you about that, either. You know, Iraqi's reporting on the insurgents getting killed for that reporting?
Too bad no Western news agency can be bothered to do this work. I guess we are waiting for the Iraqis to do that for us. They already know our television news sources and what lazy sorts we are and scratch their heads at the disconnects between our Military and Civilian populations... apparently our Civilian population isn't reflecting well on the military, and Iraqis do wonder at that.
==== In semi-reverse chronological order of posts related directly or indirectly to this comment:
A look at the underworld Kazali network and the role it plays in Iraq: Terror takedown in Iraq.
One of the top 'Most Wanted' by Iraqis, currently under extradition to the US from Spain: Monzer al-Kassar.
Oil outlook for Iran, which looks at infrastructure problems there and gives a feel for what the problems in Iraq are: original review and deeper look.
The struggles continue on, year after long year, with no resolution in sight.
Veterans of many battles soldier on with few to come and relieve them.
Embattled on all sides, and unable to meet the heavy loads set to them, they fail at it, even as they are sent to the fight again and again. They volunteer for it, and the People fail to support them.
Is this the all volunteer Armed Forces in Iraq? No, this is a description of another all volunteer force... but let us say that it was the forces in Iraq and we realized we could not leave. What would you minister, just on the bland face of it?
Send in fresh troops and reinforcements, of course!
But if this force I describe in bitter battles is not the forces in Iraq, then who, exactly, are they?
To no surprise of readers here, it is one that we all know and have come to see as untrustworthy in America. This force of mostly veterans with too few new faces and too much work is, indeed, Congress.
The poor dears in the House have a 5 day work week!
Long schedules!
Too little time in their districts!
Ah, the river of crying has begun, has it not?
I have gone over the concept of a solution for this before, but I will pull out a bit from the folks more heavily pushing the 1:30,000 House concept. They have a lovely file doing long-term trend analysis of the incumbency problem of the US, and it has been in the realm of 90% return rate now for decades:
This is not a trend that bodes well for America, and, indeed, has pushed down voter turnout and depressed off-year elections on what should, at basis, be the fundamental underpinning of democracy: the House of Representatives.
These are not things to put forward as 'those not interested not voting'. Indeed, that is a prescription to lose democracy at its base, from a population that is self-guiding and takes interest in their outlook and future. Consider, for a moment, an Anti-Federalist all of whom were committed to democracy, but were arguing the best form of democracy for the United States, Brutus No. 1:
"The magistrates in every government must be supported in the execution of the laws, either by an armed force, maintained at the public expence for that purpose; or by the people turning out to aid the magistrate upon his command, in case of resistance.
In despotic governments, as well as in all the monarchies of Europe, standing armies are kept up to execute the commands of the prince or the magistrate, and are employed for this purpose when occasion requires: But they have always proved the destruction of liberty, and [are] abhorrent to the spirit of a free republic. In England, where they depend upon the parliament for their annual support, they have always been complained of as oppressive and unconstitutional, and are seldom employed in executing of the laws; never except on extraordinary occasions, and then under the direction of a civil magistrate.
A free republic will never keep a standing army to execute its laws. It must depend upon the support of its citizens. But when a government is to receive its support from the aid of the citizens, it must be so constructed as to have the confidence, respect, and affection of the people." Men who, upon the call of the magistrate, offer themselves to execute the laws, are influenced to do it either by affection to the government, or from fear; where a standing army is at hand to punish offenders, every man is actuated by the latter principle, and therefore, when the magistrate calls, will obey: but, where this is not the case, the government must rest for its support upon the confidence and respect which the people have for their government and laws. The body of the people being attached, the government will always be sufficient to support and execute its laws, and to operate upon the fears of any faction which may be opposed to it, not only to prevent an opposition to the execution of the laws themselves, but also to compel the most of them to aid the magistrate; but the people will not be likely to have such confidence in their rulers, in a republic so extensive as the United States, as necessary for these purposes. The confidence which the people have in their rulers, in a free republic, arises from their knowing them, from their being responsible to them for their conduct, and from the power they have of displacing them when they misbehave: but in a republic of the extent of this continent, the people in general would be acquainted with very few of their rulers: the people at large would know little of their proceedings, and it would be extremely difficult to change them. The people in Georgia and New-Hampshire would not know one another’s mind, and therefore could not act in concert to enable them to effect a general change of representatives. The different parts of so extensive a country could not possibly be made acquainted with the conduct of their representatives, nor be informed of the reasons upon which measures were founded. The consequence will be, they will have no confidence in their legislature, suspect them of ambitious views, be jealous of every measure they adopt, and will not support the laws they pass. Hence the government will be nerveless and inefficient, and no way will be left to render it otherwise, but by establishing an armed force to execute the laws at the point of the bayonet — a government of all others the most to be dreaded."
The long-term stand of democracy is above that of form of government - it is active participation in deciding who shall represent you, as an individual, in government for your greater good and well-being. America re-affirms this outlook over a century later when President Theodore Roosevelt would address the Sorbonne in Paris, 23 APR 1910 via the Theodore Roosevelt website:
Today I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you and we a great citizens of great democratic republics. A democratic republic such as ours - an effort to realize its full sense government by, of, and for the people - represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success or republics like yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure of despair, of mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nations for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness. But with you and us the case is different. With you here, and with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher.
Being a citizen in a democracy is not just a privilege, it is a duty to the upholding of society. As democracies rest upon the consent of the governed, when those that are governed no longer exercise their right to choose government, it is not only the government but the Nation that suffers in lack of legitimacy. We no longer teach upholding democracy and citizenship as a duty, and so we now lack dutiful citizens that support government and Nation.
We have a tired, worn out set of politicians in a moribund institution that was size delimited in 1913 by Congress. That happened in a 10 year flurry of changes on the basis of democracy in America that would alter the relationship of how Federal Government to the American People. Those changes, however, did not press forward the concept of democracy and have, instead, eroded it deeply. By not having commitment to democracy, America no longer generates leaders that understand democracy or that can adequately express any vision for a future of democracy in America or the world. Because of that, we are at a point where the only institution of the Federal Government that is *trusted* is the Armed Forces. And those same Armed Forces do their job while being harried at all sides not only by those firing bullets and bombs from abroad, but by the media and punditry at home.
This is not a stable mix for any democracy. Only the deep seated view of democracy and adhering to civilian control over the military that was put forward by General Washington serves as the deepest check to worse problems. Those same problems are being generated by veterans fighting not just the last war, but two or three wars back, now... in Washington, DC.
It is time to recall these veterans and send reinforcements, and tell Congress it is time to return popular representative democracy to Washington. I am sure it will cause turmoil, of that there is no doubt.
Not doing so will place the republic in even worse danger as government becomes distrusted and hated, the military loved and democracy diminished.
Give the House of Representatives back to the People so we may be heard in diversity and cacophony.
Sphere: Related Content
Perusing through the NRO Corner this morning I found that Mr. Krikorian had posted about a meeting he had attended an immigration debate held by FrontPage Magazine. Now just on the quick read through on the 'pro' side of the immigrant debate to have illegals put into a 'regular' status we have Linda Chavez and she has one very interesting part of her view which I will highlight:
The bigger problem is that a guest worker program should be only one component of an immigration overhaul. We also need more legal permanent residents if we are to satisfy our labor needs, on the order of about 1.5 million a year when our economy is creating 1.5 to 2 million new jobs each year as it is now. And these should be new persons, not just those already here adjusting their status, which is the current practice. I have no problem with a point system based on our economic needs in determining who gets in—with the caveat that we need not only more scientists, engineers, and mathematicians but also more people who can fill jobs that require little education but can’t be outsourced to another country or done away with by automation. What sense does it make to encourage Americans with 13 years of schooling (on average) to take these jobs—even if an employer could afford to pay wages to such workers to entice them into the jobs? And if any of the critics actually spent time with employers who have seen their industries transformed by immigrant workers, they would learn that having employees who are eager for these jobs-- not resentful as most American high school dropouts are that they’re stuck doing difficult, often dangerous and dirty, work, even at $20 an hour-- they would understand why employers are so eager to hire immigrants. It is worth remembering that the labor force participation rate of illegal alien men from Mexico is 94 %, while the comparable rate for native-born white men is 46% and the rate for blacks is 40%, and many of those not in the work force are in school or entangled in the criminal justice system. These men are largely unemployable.
You know, when folks complain about Republicans making elitist arguments, this is what they mean. So here's the deal: if you actually educate someone through high school it makes NO SENSE to have them take low skills jobs, and if drop-outs took them then they RESENT it. Well, isn't that a lovely view? Yes, American children are, apparently, over-educated *and* want high skill, high wage jobs when they don't have the skills to get the job. So they are resentful! Excuse me for saying so, but THAT is not a well functioning society that encourages that attitude in children: drop out and feel that you should get a high wage job.
The idea of 'universal education' was to get adults who learned civics and their role within society as citizens and the expectation of THEM within society. If those dropping out feel that they should have a privilege to high wage jobs with no skills, then this Nation has a far deeper problem way beyond illegal aliens taking jobs.
Now lets take a look at the labor force participation rate, as seen from Wikipedia:
The labor force participation rate is the ratio between the labor force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range). In the West during the latter half of the 20th century, the labor force participation rate increased significantly, largely due to the increasing number of women entering the workplace. In the United States, the labor force participation rate rose from approximately 59% in 1948 to 66% in 2005, with participation among women rising from 32% to 59% and participation among men declining from 87% to 73%. Conversely, the labor force participation rate can decrease when the rate of growth of the population outweighs that of the employed and unemployed together. The labor force participation rate is a key component in long term economic growth, almost as important as productivity.
This is a form of cohort analysis, to see about how a cohort, usually a group of individuals having similar characteristics like all of those born in a given year, performs on various criteria. An example of this is longevity of the cohort, so that when a given cohort passes a set survival amount, it can be said to be in decline with only a minority survivorship. Insurance companies love this stuff with actuarial tables for selling life insurance. Here Ms. Chavez is looking to use the overall participation of a given sub-cohort (illegal aliens from Mexico) and compare that to the overall white and black male participation rate for their cohorts (whites and blacks). She is saying, if I read this right, that of all illegal alien males from Mexico 94% participate from their cohort, while in the overall US cohort, the sub-cohorts of white and black males are 46% and 40% repsectively. She is also ignoring the participation rate of women in the US and the overall labor force participation rate for the Nation which is *rising* as seen from 1948-2005. What she also does *not* address is that within these cohorts are steep demographic differences: children, elderly, retirees, and those in otherwise non-labor roles are included in the overall population analysis, while for the illegal aliens from Mexico who are primarily childless, male, and non-retirees, the participation rate is much higher.
Well of course it is!
They are not here permanently, do not have families here, are not children, have not reached retirement age or are elderly. They have a high participation rate HERE because they are NOT part of our society. Apparently this is news to Ms. Chavez. The moment you make them LEGAL those rates will DECREASE as dependents, children, retirees and non-working mothers show up in the pool. It is only high because these individuals lack all attachments and overhead to society that they can get such a high participation rate. And once those children become Americans they won't want to do these jobs EITHER.
Perhaps it is time to pay a bit more for undesirable jobs or to not look down upon those that take manual work that is 'dangerous'. Apparently Ms. Chavez has never seen an episode of 'Dirty Jobs' on the Discovery Channel. I have not seen loads of illegal aliens lining up for coal mining, cess pit cleaning, sewer cleaning, or working to make charcoal. There are loads of dirty, dangerous and down right disgusting jobs that do NOT have high pay and people are still found to do them without looking for illegal aliens.
Then there is Clint Bolick who puts forth this lovely inanity:
Building a wall on our southern border will not halt the flow of illegal immigrants. Immigrants want the something we have: freedom and opportunity. People who would risk their lives to come to our nation---like our forefathers and mothers---are not easily deterred. Conservatives usually understand the laws of supply and demand. Our immigration laws have not been overhauled in more than 20 years. Millions of people want to come here, and employers hunger for them. Why don’t opponents of comprehensive reform---who love to say they are not anti-immigration but only anti-illegal immigration---ever propose approaches that lift the number of immigrants who can lawfully enter from Latin American countries? Until that issue is addressed---until those who enter illegally because there is no hope for legal immigration perceive a meaningful change---true border enforcement is a pipe dream.
To which the answer is: we don't know as NO ONE has tried to put a wall there. But the areas that used to be high traffic ones that have *fences* have seen a dramatic decrease in border crossings AND crime. These illegals may want freedom and opportunity, but that only comes with respecting the law. They are not respecting the law and actually degrading it which puts those same freedoms and opportunities at risk for everyone. As for proposing to lift the limits on Latin American countries, how about a counter-offer: raise the limits to all of those Nations that have been Friends and Allies in war and peace? Why make it regional and *not* conditional that people must come from Nations that respect and are friendly to the US and help us out when we need it, and we do the same for them? How about Nations recently out from under Communist repression for decades? How about Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Ukraine, Georgia? How about long time Friends and Allies like: the UK, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea?
Those should work out just as well and give us stronger ties with Nations that have supported us and not those that look to exploit the US economy by coming here illegally. Probably even better as people from those Nations tend to respect the rule of law and understand the responsibilities of being a citizen.
No wonders we have a problem with illegal aliens in the US.
We are teaching our children to HATE work.
Tell you what, lets stop over-educating our children, teach them to respect all forms of work, that getting good paying jobs requires decent education and work attitude and, if you drop out of that path to success, you tend to get stuck with low paying, low skill jobs. Apparently we are teaching our children just the opposite of these things and we are paying for THAT with illegal aliens.
Of course if you say *that* then you really are out of tune with the elitist atmosphere of the education establishment of the US and, apparently, the two political parties.
It is sounding more and more if we need a Nationalist party - a political party that actually supports the Nation and not ideological objectives. The goals of having a law abiding citizen that actually understands and adheres to the responsibilities of *being* a citizen. Not ones of citizen as sum of their 'associations' or as 'economic unit', but as individuals to respected as such and to have expectations of them for the Nation.
A very interesting thing happened while skimming through a speech pointed out by Instapundit: it appears that there has been a good definition of American and Hero made by a President! Yes, indeedy! Lets take a look at this lovely passage, and it is a stand-alone one, also, as most of these sound-bite driven speeches are these days:
The real American heroes today are the citizens who get up every morning and have the courage to work hard and play by the rules -- the mother who stays up the extra half hour after a long day's work to read her child a story; the rescue worker who digs with his hands in the rubble as the building crumbles about him; the neighbor who lives side-by-side with people different from himself; the government worker who quietly and efficiently labors to see to it that the programs we depend on are honestly and properly carried out; most of all, the parent who works long years for modest pay and sacrifices so that his or her children can have the education that you have had, and the chances you are going to have. (Applause.) I ask you never to forget that.
Ah, the real Americans are those that play by the rules, work hard and then go further to ensure the best for themselves, their children and their neighbors. Now what if you come here illegally to undercut the economy and work at jobs below the going rate and make things difficult for those who are citizens? Thank you to President William Jefferson Clinton for providing ALL AMERICANS with a handy-dandy definition of 'American Hero'! That was given as part of the , at the Michigan State University 1995 commencement address.
And do excuse me if I look a bit askance at such things as (NY Sun 09 MAR 2006):
In Mrs. Clinton's comments, and in a simultaneous four-page letter sent outlining her principals for comprehensive change to the immigration laws, she criticized the House bill, saying criminalizing illegal immigrants and those who help them, "would turn millions and millions of Americans into lawbreakers because they want to continue the tradition of outreach and assistance that has been the hallmark of our nation."
Perhaps, Mr. Clinton should sit down and have a nice little chat with his wife about who 'American Heros' are. Because those who break the rules to get here are definitely NOT Americans and those that help them by *also* breaking the rules are NOT heroic in any way, shape or form. That really does need to get through now, doesn't it? Helping runaway American slaves is one thing, and a different era, but if folks from other Nations need help, they can ask for it from their Nation of origin or apply for asylum. That is 'playing by the rules', which seems to matter so much to Bill Clinton... well, in 1995, just as he was getting ready to break quite some few of them in the Chinagate/Donorgate business.
These commencement addresses are so full of 'vision' and addressing 'reality' that I can't help but take out a bit just prior to the above:
Whenever in our history people have believed that violence is a legitimate extension of politics they have been wrong. In the 1960s, as your distinguished alumni said, many good things happened and there was much turmoil. But the Weathermen of the radical left who resorted to violence in the 1960s were wrong. Today, the gang members who use life on the mean streets of America, as terrible as it is, to justify taking the law into their own hands and taking innocent life are wrong. The people who came to the United States to bomb the World Trade Center were wrong.
Freedom of political speech will never justify violence -- never. Our founding fathers created a system of laws in which reason could prevail over fear. Without respect for this law there is no freedom. (Applause.)
So I say this to the militias and all others who believe that the greatest threat to freedom comes from the government instead of from those who would take away our freedom: If you say violence is an acceptable way to make change, you are wrong. If you say that government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom away, you are just plain wrong. (Applause.)
If you treat law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line for your safety every day like some kind of enemy army to be suspected, derided and, if they should enforce the law against you, to be shot, you are wrong. (Applause.) If you appropriate our sacred symbols for paranoid purposes and compare yourselves to colonial militias who fought for the democracy you now rail against, you are wrong. (Applause.)
How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny. How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes.
I say to you, all of you, the members of the Class of 1995, there is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government.There is nothing heroic about turning your back on America, or ignoring your own responsibilities. If you want to preserve your own freedom, you must stand up for the freedom of others with whom you disagree. But you also must stand up for the rule of law. You cannot have one without the other.
'Freedom of political speech will never justify violence -- never.' Dear me! Where did all these lovely outlooks go? Yes, it wasn't too long ago that we heard the following from Hillary Clinton:
My view on this, though, is pretty simple. We had eight years of prosperity because we paid down our debt and we got rid of our deficit. We hit a rough spot, and it was turned into a terrible bump because of the attacks of September 11.
If we hadn't passed the big tax cut last spring, that I believe undermined our fiscal responsibility and our ability to deal with this new threat of terrorism, we wouldn't be in the fix we're in today. But the fact is, we are.
And now we've got to figure out what's the best way out of it. I certainly don't think more tax breaks that are not linked to investment and job growth or turning our back on the unemployment and health needs of hardworking Americans who have lost their jobs because of the attacks is a very sensible proposal.
I'm also concerned that we're back into deficits, which we know from prior experience are, you know, job killers because they dry up private investment capital.
So I would say that, on balance, the Democratic alternative is far preferable. And any one of us could have written it differently, but, you know, in Congress you make necessary tradeoffs and compromises. The kind of balance that the Finance Committee struck under Chairman Baucus is a heck of a lot better than the Republican alternative or the House-passed alternative.
That was put out on 10 NOV 2001 (via The Wayback Machine) as a transcript at CNN. The NEW threat of terrorism? Excuse me? To give the reader a reminder, here is a list of all the terrorist attacks on US government personnel, civilian and military, US embassies and US Ambassadors under the term of President Clinton:
Bomb explodes near US Ambassador's Residence in Columbia, Carbomb explodes outside US Ambassador's Residence in Columbia, Slayings of CIA personnel in Langely, VA, Window smashing of US Cultural Center in Serbia, Grenade attack on US Embassy in Serbia, Guards at US Consulate attacked in Columbia, ETA suspected of bombing near US Embassy in Spain, Two US soldiers wounded by sniper fire in Somalia, Kakurokyo attacks HQ of US forces in Japan, Kakurokyo attacks US Camp Zuma in Japan, Shining Path explodes carbomb outside US Embassy in Peru, US diplomat killed in Tblisi, Georgia, Forces of Gen. Aidid suspected in killing of four US soldiers in Somalia, Red Brigades attack US-NATO airbase in Italy, Three US soldiers killed when helicopter downed in Somalia, US Embassy bombed in Estonia, One US soldier killed in Somalia, Shining Path attacks US-Peruvian Binational Cultural Center in Peru, US diplomat kidnapped by Jahm tribesmen, headed by Mubarak Mashan, in Yemen, US soldiers fired upon in Somalia, Gunmen fire shots at US diplomat in Ethiopia, 'Southern California IRA' grenade attack on British property in US, Lebanese man fires on van carrying rabbinical students in US, Haitian exiles fired upon in US, Shots fired at residence of US Ambassador in Uruguay, Mozambique National Resistance Movement kidnaps US pilot working for UN in Mozambique, Convoy carrying US Ambassador attacked in Somalia, FARC kidnaps American in Columbia, Shining Path bombs US Embassy in Peru, Grenade attack as USAID offices in Ethiopia, Two Americans working at US Consulate killed in Pakistan, Oklahoma City Federal Office building bombing in US, RPG attack on US Embassy in Russia, US Army Captain fired at in Saudi Arabia, GIA sets US Embassy warehouse on fire in Algeria, Hezbollah and al Qaeda attack OPM/SANG complex in Saudi Arabia, Chukakuha and Kakurokyoha bomb US base in Japan, Attempted kidnapping of US human rights worker for UN in Guatemala, Territorial Anti-Imperialist Nucleus firebombs US serviceman's car in Italy, FARC kidnaps American Citizen in Columbia, Guard at U.S. Government Binational Center disarmed and wounded in Columbia, Revolutionary Struggle launches RPG attack at US Embassy in Greece, Attack on US Consulate in China, US Consulate attacked in Mexico, Bombing of US Information Services compound in Pakistan, Attempted firebombing of US Cultural Center in South Korea, Firebombing of US military compound in South Korea, Contras kidnap USAID election observer in Nicaragua, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah bombing kill six US servicemen in Saudi Arabia, US Defense Intelligence Agency employee stabbed in Egypt, USAID vehicle torched outside US Embassy in Russia, Nicaraguan Sandinista Liberation Front HQ set on fire in US, Attempted firebombing of US Consulate in Indonesia, Jamaat-e-Islami attack US Consulate in Pakistan, FARC captures and kills US Citizen in Columbia, Letterbombings of Saudi Arabian newspaper offices in US, Letterbombs arrives at Ft. Leavenworth in US, Letterbombs arrive at Saudi Arabian newspaper offices in US, Two guards at US Embassy murdered in Tajikistan, Palestinian kills one tourist, wounds others at Empire State Building in US, Armed attack on US Ambassador's residence in Albania, American Citizen kidnapped with others by tribesmen in Yemen, US Citizen and child kidnapped in Guatemala, Helicopter carrying US State Dept. official fired upon in Columbia, Grenades launched at US Embassy in Lebanon, FARC stages takeover of US Embassy public area in Columbia, al Qaeda bombs US Embassy in Kenya, al Qaeda bombs US Embassy in Tanzania, Firebomb attack at US Information Center in Kosovo, Bombing of US Embassy in Ecuador, Two Americans taken as part of tourist kidnap plot by tribesmen in Yemen, Bombing near US and UK Consulates in Russia, DHKP/C assault US Consulate in Turkey, US worker with UN mission injured by gunfire in East Timor, Arson attack on vehicle parked outside US Information Services in Pakistan, Attempted bombing of US Embassy in Indonesia, FARC attempts assassination bombing of President Clinton in Columbia, al Qaeda bombs USS Cole in Yemen.
NEW threat of terrorism? Do you see all of those in red? Those are things that would normally get this Nation involved in a war if it was done by a Nation state. Like the FARC attempt to assassinate President Clinton. Blaming tax cuts for not leaving the Nation prepared to deal with terrorism is *not* the fault of the incoming Administration and is directly the fault of Bill Clinton. Ignoring the attacks on the US and the killings of Americans by these organizations and then turning around and blaming the next President for the inability of the Previous one to even *address the problem* is beyond asinine: it is deceitful. President Clinton had eight long years to establish a way to deal with terrorism and confront such organizations that had decided that it was not only easy to go after the US but that the US would do nothing in retaliation. By trying to place blame for 'the fix we're in today' on tax cuts that had not even gone into effect is ludicrous.
Then there is this concept of being a 'Citizen' that, as Bill Clinton put it above 'The real American heroes today are the citizens who get up every morning and have the courage to work hard and play by the rules...' That is your average man and woman in society, keeping up with life's needs to make a better life for themselves and their children. Hillary Clinton, in speaking at the Sorbonne on 17 JUN 1999 had some things to put forward on that, too:
The many democracies that came together to wage this battle against Milosevic may have spoken different languages and even held different political views. But they have sent a unified message at the end of this century that says we will not turn away when human beings are cruelly expelled, or when they are denied basic rights and dignities because of how they look or how they worship. When crimes against humanity rear their ugly heads, we have to send such a message as an international community.
But what about us as individuals? What about us as citizens? How do we live the values in peacetime that we have just fought for? How do each of us work to ensure that our children and our children’s children don’t repeat the 20th century’s worst excesses? We’re thinking about that because of the approach of the millennium. Like your Commission 2000, the President and I created the White House Millennium Council that we hoped would help people mark this time in history, not just by a great party on New Year’s Eve, but by taking this opportunity to think of who we are as a people—what aspects of our history, our culture, and our values we want to bring into the next century, and what we wish we can, by hard work and determination, leave behind.
We’ve chosen as our theme: “Honor the past, imagine the future.” By honoring the past, we have to take a hard look at where we have been; we have to acknowledge the progress we’ve made, but also the violence and the disappointment, in order to live honestly in the present and imagine and create a better future. Now at any time of great transition such as this, there are always pessimists among us. I went back and read about the first millennium’s end. There was the myth of panic and terror afoot in the land, where people gave away their possessions and hid in churches all over Europe waiting for the world’s end. There was even a rather controversial monk in the tenth century who consistently warned his neighbors of impending doom. He had quite a checkered past, having been expelled from a number of monasteries, but he always had an audience. There were always people who believed that the worst was yet to come.
Yes, high and lofty ideals to be sure! But still not coming to the point of saying what a citizen 'is'... the meaning of which should be self-evident in this context. We do, indeed, need to honor the past, but so far Hillary Clinton hasn't said much on that topic for citizenship. A bit further on we get:
We have the responsibility to create a society in which we expand the benefits of democracy and freedom to all of our fellow citizens; where we ensure that free markets benefit all people, not just a privileged few; where we create and nurture vibrant civil societies that foster active citizens. I often use a very simple metaphor to talk about society—that of a three-legged stool: one leg is the government, another is the economy, and the third is a civil society. I spoke about this at length at Davos a few years ago because, for that World Economic Forum, I wanted to remind the participants that we cannot sit on a stool if there are only one or two legs; we cannot sit on that stool if one leg is shorter or longer than the others. We need three legs that balance and reinforce one another, and that are strong enough to support us in the years to come.
We have lived with the benefits, for 50 years now, of the agreements that were made at the end of the Second World War, coming out of Bretonwoods to create new financial architectures that would enable us to tackle the problems that we knew would lie ahead. Today, we have outlived the usefulness of that particular set of arrangements. And we now have to face up to creating a new architecture that will help us tackle runaway global capitalism’s worst effects; ensure social safety nets for the most vulnerable; address the debt burden that is crushing many of our poorest nations. And I’m pleased, as I know many others are, that the G-8 will be addressing debt relief at the summit in Cologne.
So we do have to confront and be willing to use our political will to address the issues that are paramount today. That will take effectively functioning governments to do. There are those, particularly in my country, who insist on a salting government, who claim that if we would only abolish or severely weaken it that everyone’s freedom and prosperity would blossom. That is, I believe, a very mistaken notion, particularly as we end this century. We need strong and efficient governments—not oppressive or weak ones—that are able to empower citizens to help them take responsibility for their families and communities.
Similarly, with the economy, there are those in Europe or the United States who overstate or understate the positive effects of the free market. There are many who are great advocates, who think that the market can do anything if left alone. There are others who are great opponents, who are very clearly undermining or misunderstanding the benefits that free enterprise brings. So again we have to create a balance. How do we enjoy the benefits without suffering from the excesses?
Lots of responsibilities for citizens and that is always good, but what is this deal with democratic governments being 'efficient'? Since when have they ever been *that*? If you want 'efficient democracy' you get 'state control' which is very, very 'efficient', usually at cleaning out those that decry its injustices. Somehow government that is able to 'empower citizens' means that government is, itself, the seat of power. Not the citizens. Government, as designed in the US, was to be limited, and a backstop to the abuses of government and to enable citizens to have redress and control over it. Not to make government 'empowering'.
And *still* nothing on what it is to be a citizen. Thus we come to this section:
Now the discussion about government and the economy could go on for days. And I hope it does here in this distinguished university and in other places here and in the United States, Asia, and throughout the world, because we have to come to terms with how government and the economy will function. But today I want to focus on the third leg of the stool, the one that is often overlooked—that of civil society, of citizenship. Because it is there in the space between government and the economy that we live our lives and pass down our values. It is where we find that wonderful phrase from the great French observer of American life, DeTocqueville—“the habits of the heart”—that determine how we are going to live together; the voluntary associations that we join; the arts and culture that define us, challenge us and make our spirits sore; the training ground in families and neighborhoods that turn our people into citizens.
Now the economy can create the jobs and enough wealth so that we can enjoy what is best about life. And it can of course, as we have seen, create consumers and the producers of goods. But the economy cannot create citizens. Government can protect our freedoms and defend our lives, but it can only respond to citizens, not create them. Only civil society can do that. And it is time for us, in our advanced economies and our long-standing democracies, to renew civil society within and expand it abroad.
Now isn't that a great way to look at things: that civil society exists BETWEEN government and economy? Sort of wedged in there as an after thought. While talking much on rights, that doesn't appear to be a direct link TO citizenship, thus moving the 'voluntary associations' forward AS citizenship. Thus being a citizen doesn't matter so much on who you are, but who you associate with. This ignores that the associations, themselves, are a reflection of the culture, not the defining points of it. Remember, in this view it is the civil associations, the voluntary civil associations that need to be expanded abroad.
This view moves forward a bit later in the speech:
If we want to ensure that the global economy does lift all of us, then we have to teach young people how to feel that sense of empowerment. And we have to demonstrate to them respect for one another, and to see their diversity as a sign of strength. In France, you could see that in the faces of the World Cup champions last year. You can see it in the young people in groups like S.O.S. Racism. You can see it in exhibits like “Silence the Violence.” All around France, all around my country, and increasingly around the world, we are seeing citizens, including children, understanding the role they have to play in civil society.
This may be the hardest task that we have. How do we bring people together to live civilly with one another? Whether it is in Northern Ireland, or in the Balkans, or in the Middle East—how do we create a civil society where there has been very little evidence of that? How do we say enough to the bloodshed, whether it happens in Littleton, Colorado, or whether it happens half a world away in Indonesia?
There is a new impetus for this action, but it will require leadership. It will require us not to leave it to our governments, but to inquire into our own lives and our own professions as to how we can kindle that commitment to civil society. I’m impressed by the work of the youth counsels here in France where students in one community planted flowers and trees and worked to help clean up the neighborhood, and then taught others to do the same. Where children in another community started examining the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child—interviewing one another, organizing debates, and particularly focusing on children as victims of war—even becoming pen pals with children in Bosnia.
Again it is the voluntary associations spread globally that are to define citizenship, not where you happen to live or something as quaint as Nationality. Indeed, this is to be some sort of 'global citizen' of the elite and children seeing what role they have to play by being 'empowered' by government to have a civil society. Then Hillary Clinton goes on to confound civil society with 'civility': polite regard for others. To do that requires that 'civility' be removed and 'civilly', as in another individual in the same society, be made. The excuse for that is, of course, to end bloodshed. You see, if government just 'empowers' you to have a lovely global association environment and to be just one people, then you will have nothing to worry about! All flower planting and interviews and don't mind the killing by those wanting to grab power...
That is the problem with the benevolent Nannystate that 'allows' you as an individual to 'feel empowered': you don't have any power outside of government and the definition of who you are, on a global basis, are your voluntary associational groups, not your Nationality. I find it very strange that Hillary Clinton can walk into the Sorbonne to address citizenship and NOT refer to the speech given by a previous President at the Sorbonne on that topic! But to do so would require acknowledging that transnational global citizenship by association is deeply flawed. Here is a bit out of that other speech by a previous President:
Today I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you and we a great citizens of great democratic republics. A democratic republic such as ours - an effort to realize its full sense government by, of, and for the people - represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success or republics like yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure of despair, of mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nations for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness. But with you and us the case is different. With you here, and with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average women, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher.
Here we see what the source of citizenship is not *just* responsibility but DUTY. Being a citizen is not just an accumulation of responsibilities with voluntary associations, but a duty carried through in every day life for the betterment of oneself and society. Obedience to the law is paramount as is duty to civil society which is the basis for democracy and that becomes the basis for government. Leaders in a democratic republic are to be kept higher than the standards of ordinary citizens so as to put valuation on leadership and accountability to be a good leader. This is a very, very stark contrast to Hillary Clinton's view of 'empowered individuals' who seek to form society between government and economy: just be nice with your 'empowered' ability and everything else will be taken care of by government.
This other President, whom I am sure most have figured out by now, then went on to take a look at leadership:
It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any republic, in any democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn from the classes represented in this audience to-day; but only provided that those classes possess the gifts of sympathy with plain people and of devotion to great ideals. You and those like you have received special advantages; you have all of you had the opportunity for mental training; many of you have had leisure; most of you have had a chance for enjoyment of life far greater than comes to the majority of your fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from you much should be expected.Yet there are certain failings against which it is especially incumbent that both men of trained and cultivated intellect, and men of inherited wealth and position should especially guard themselves, because to these failings they are especially liable; and if yielded to, their- your- chances of useful service are at an end. Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.
Leaders must not be out of touch with the citizenry and must hold the needs and ideals of that citizenry first as a prime duty as a leader. Thus leaders are to support society, not try to DEFINE IT. To those that take up more learning, then more is expected OF YOU for doing so. That is not a 'privilege' nor an 'empowerment' but a responsibility and a duty to your fellow man. When one becomes so loftily educated that good and evil have no distinction, then one has lost touch with the actual world and that of the citizens that create society.
This President, obviously, did not mince words behind the attendees at the Sorbonne and reminded them that for their gifts of education they dare not attempt to impose their lofty ideals of what society 'should be' and then disdain that society which cannot live up to such refined views. A President attempting to give a speech like that today, would be ridiculed by the same, lofty media we have today for not being 'realistic' enough to address the necessity of fine ideals over that of society's. Luckily the next, and most famous, passage deals with THEM:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier."
The strength of the society is NOT in criticism or cynicism, but in CREATING it by getting dirty, muddy and doing actual *work* to create and sustain it. That is the duty of citizenship, creating the world and not looking for 'empowerment' to be given some little playthings to do by government. The speech was given by President Theodore Roosevelt, 23 APR 1910 at the Sorbonne (via the Theodore Roosevelt site).
It is that speech that puts forward that it is not the loftiness of your views nor education that give you right to criticize, but it is in the DOING that gives one the appreciation of the work so that it may be done better. Lofty cynicism that gives way to tepid views and telling others what THEY should do to uphold THEIR ideals, and doing NOTHING to demonstrate that one has any knowledge of what it is they are telling them to do. That is not Jefferson's view of criticism, which is to help create a better union by enabling us to identify flaws and find solutions to them. No the form of criticism we see today to actually denigrate and demean civil society and have its boundaries dictated by government that are the destructive ones.
