Oakland Airport, “Spitting On The Marines,” etc.

September 30, 2007

Oakland Airport, “Spitting On The Marines,” etc.

~~~~~
NOTE:
I have previously (yesterday) posted the “Spitting On Marines” article to my Gunny G sites, but deleted it after receiving e-mail from the author’s brother asking that I remove the name of his brother from the article; the article had been written by his brother, a Navy chaplain assigned to a Marine unit, but posted to the Internet by the chaplain’s brother. The story had been posted to several online sites earlier before my posting.

Since yesterday it appears the story has “grown legs’ as the saying goes these days.

The following is the latest on the story which some may now find somewhat confusing.
-Gunny G
~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~

http://corner.nationalreview.com/print/

Spitting on the Marines [Michael Ledeen]
Here is an e-mail from a Marine chaplain recently returned from Iraq. The story speaks for itself–lousy treatment of our troops at our own airports. He writes about Oakland, and while checking around I find that this is a common experience. I hope that one of our leaders will find a way to put an end to such behavior.

Marines and Soldiers Returning from Iraq not allowed

into Oakland terminal

On September 27th 204 Marines and soldiers who were

returning from Iraq were not allowed into the

passenger terminal at Oakland International Airport.

Instead they had to deplane about 400 yards away from

the terminal where the extra baggage trailers were

located.

#more#

This was the last scheduled stop for fuel and food

prior to flying to Hawaii where both were based. The

trip started in Kuwait on September 26th with a

rigorous search of checked and carry on baggage by US

Customs. All baggage was x-rayed with a “backscatter”

machine AND each bag was completely emptied and hand

searched. After being searched, checked bags were

marked and immediately placed in a secure container.

Carry on bags were then x rayed again to ensure no

contraband items were taken on the plane. While

waiting for the bus to the airport, all personnel were

in quarantined in a fenced area and were not allowed

to leave.

The first stop for fuel/food and crew change was in

Leipzig Germany. Troops exited the aircraft and took

a bus to a reception area in the terminal, where there

was a convenience store, phones, Internet and

restrooms. As we excited the bus we were given a

re-boarding pass. Three troops remained on the plane

with the rifles and pistols. There was no ammunition

on the plane and the bolts of the rifles had been

removed. After about 2 hours troops re-boarded the

plane and flew to JFK in NY.

At JFK the procedure was similar to Germany, 3 troops

stayed on the plane to guard weapons while the rest

deplaned. At the gate we were each given a

re-boarding pass and spent about 1.5 hours in the

terminal, at which time we re-boarded and flew to

Oakland.

As we came in for the final approach to Oakland a

Lieutenant who served in Afghanistan with the same

unit in 2006 mentioned how when they landed in Oakland

they were not allowed in the terminal. He said, “they

made us get out by the FED EX building and we had to

sit out there for 3 hours”. He also indicated he was

almost arrested by the TSA for getting belligerent

about them not letting the Marines into the terminal.

Well the same thing happened again. This time we did

not park by the FED EX building, instead we were

offloaded near the grass that separates the active

runway from the taxi ramp, about 400 yards from the

terminal. When we inquired why they wouldn’t allow us

in the airport they gave us some lame excuse that we

hadn’t been screened by TSA. While true, the

screening which we did have was much more thorough

than any TSA search and was done by US Customs.

Additionally, JFK didn’t seem to have a problem with

our entering their terminal, nor did security in

Germany.

It felt like being spit on. Every Marine and soldier

felt the message loud and clear, “YOU ARE NOT WELCOME

IN OAKLAND!”

Posted at 5:24 PM
http://corner.nationalreview.com/print/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Same topic–Daily Kos…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/29/19643/6091
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/29/19643/6091
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904504/posts

What happened to our troops in Oakland

By Michelle Malkin • September 30, 2007 10:58 AM

Two days ago, an e-mail about the rude treatment of Marines and soldiers returning from Iraq started making the rounds on the Internet. The brother of one of the mistreated Marines who described the incident at Oakland Airport works on the Hill. The brother forwarded the Marine’s e-mail around. The e-mail is real, contrary to the Daily Kos nut who dismissed it as “fake” without any evidence whatsoever (can you say p-r-o-j-e-c-t-i-o-n). I contacted the Marine chaplain to verify the e-mail on Friday. He confirmed.

You can read the whole thing here or here at The Corner from Michael Ledeen.

In short: “On September 27th 204 Marines and soldiers who were returning from Iraq were not allowed into the passenger terminal at Oakland International Airport.Instead they had to deplane about 400 yards away from the terminal where the extra baggage trailers were located. This was the last scheduled stop for fuel and food prior to flying to Hawaii where both were based. The trip started in Kuwait on September 26th with a rigorous search of checked and carry on baggage by US Customs. All baggage was x-rayed with a ‘backscatter’ machine AND each bag was completely emptied and hand searched. After being searched, checked bags were marked and immediately placed in a secure container. Carry on bags were then x rayed again to ensure no contraband items were taken on the plane. While waiting for the bus to the airport, all personnel were in quarantined in a fenced area and were not allowed to leave.” Nevertheless, Oakland forbade them from entering its terminal. According to the Marine, a Lieutenant who served in Afghanistan with the same unit in 2006 noted that Oakland had treated troops the same way before. He “was almost arrested by the TSA for getting belligerent about them not letting the Marines into the terminal,” despite more rigorous screening prior to landing in Oakland. Both JFK airport and in Germany had no problem with the Marines entering their terminals.

I have also obtained the Port of Oakland’s response about the incident to Captain David Epstein of the Reserve Officers Association. The Port official blames a lack of “clear communication” from the charter airline hired by the military. In other words: it’s the troops’ fault:

Thank you so much for sharing with me the information you had regarding the incident at the airport. As you know sometimes the way things appear initially regarding an incident turn out to be different after looking into the details. We checked into this once you had called me and raised your public relations concern, so again thank you. Here is the background information I have about the incident as well as the procedures and policies that affected decision-making that day.

In the case of North American Airlines Flight #1777, a military charter flight that arrived at OAK on Thursday, September 27, aircraft parking and passenger service arrangements were coordinated and approved in advance between the ground handling company and Airside Operations. The airport received information that the passengers were not TSA-screened
at their originating airport and that weapons were on-board the aircraft. Together with our security partners, the airport made a decision to park this aircraft at a remote location on the tarmac. It is the responsibility of the charter airline that its operation is compliant with TSA screening requirements.

Upon landing and parking at OAK, the pilot-in-command advised the ground handling company that the parking and passenger handling provisions did not meet expectations. Upon learning this, Airside Operations and Aviation Security worked with the ground handling company and other law enforcement partners to coordinate a plan that was satisfactory to the pilot and passengers, and which was compliant with all airport safety and security standards.

Oakland International Airport (OAK) makes customer service a priority for all its passengers, whether they are traveling on commercial, military or general aviation aircraft. Charter airlines operating at OAK can choose to contract with a number of ground handling companies. Ground handlers coordinate flight services such as passenger handling, and aircraft fueling, cleaning and catering. It is the responsibility of ground handling companies to communicate aircraft and passenger operational needs to OAK’s Airside Operations Office in advance so that special accommodations can be coordinated to ensure that all airport operational, safety and security concerns are addressed.

The scheduled arrival and departure time of the flight is set by the aircraft operator. Time is needed to refuel the aircraft, perform maintenance inspections, refresh the catering, and give passengers time to stretch to break-up long travel periods. An analysis of the incident and prior correspondence between OAK’s Airside Operations and the ground handler determined that the airport did not receive clear communication in advance from the charter airline that was hired by the military.

I am out of town starting tomorrow for a convention. If you have any further inquiries about this incident and the way it was handled, Rosemary Barnes who is part of our Public Affairs team would be happy to speak with you. You may also call Joanne Holloway, the acting manager of the Port’s Community and Customer Relations Department.

Kindest regards,
Marilyn Sandifur
Port Spokesperson
Port of Oakland

“The airport did not receive clear communication” is not a satisfactory explanation. The bottom line is that Oakland officials made the final decision (”the airport made a decision to park this aircraft at a remote location on the tarmac”). The Port of Oakland’s p.r. flacks have passed the buck and seem to believe they can blow off this incident without bothering to apologize to the troops who felt mistreated and without pledging to ensure that the troops are received properly the next time they touch down at that airport.

Big mistake from a region of the country that already has a bad, longstanding rep as anti-military .

All fair-minded observers should agree: The troops deserve better.

***

A commenter at Patterico’s notes:

When I was returning from the first Gulf War, we went through the quarantine process prior to boarding the plane to leave Saudi Arabia. After our baggage and bodies were searched we went into the quarantine holding area from which we could not leave, ensuring that no contraband would enter the US. Our first stop was Rome, and we stayed on the plane. We landed at JFK and went into the terminal for a couple of hours. A security detail stayed on board the aircraft. We then re-boarded and returned to Ft. Hood, TX.
Troops returning from overseas have to pass through customs. In the case of troop transports, this is actually done overseas, hence the quarantine area. The only processing we went through in the US was turning in weapons & other sensitive items when we returned to Ft Hood. Remember, troops do not carry passports in combat zones. I assume that the military follows the same procedures that they did in the 90’s vis troops returning from overseas deployments and they should be able to disembark during layovers in the US. I can tell you from personal experience, troops just want to get a quick stretch, a chance to clean up before returning home and maybe a cool drink: I hope the Oakland airport can accommodate these simple needs.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904504/posts

–
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Living In An Imperial World by Karen Kwiatkowski

September 29, 2007

Living in an Imperial World

by Karen Kwiatkowski
by Karen Kwiatkowski

DIGG THIS

The republic is dead. Not sick, not dying, not failing, or in a gradual decline, not waiting to be resuscitated, but already stone cold dead.

This death probably occurred as we began to win the Cold War, but long before we realized we had prevailed. The professionalization of politics, of military and bureaucratic service to the state, of foreign policy making, and of business seems to have completely done in the old ideas. Simply federated, decentralized, self-depreciating government that once feared the people has self-actualized into a contemptuous, rapacious and iron-fisted murderer of freedom, and murderer of men.

Perhaps the 1989 movie Weekend at Bernie’s was really the American political saga, and we never knew.

The founders worried that subsequent elites and factions would take over the republic they had birthed with every aspect of their power, as the gifted political elites of their time. Yet, as the 19^th century dawned, even the most pro-state among them loved freedom and hated tyranny.

They were right about government power and human nature, and their predictions true. New elites and government-dependent factions have ascended. Unfortunately, these political elites hate freedom and love the tyranny of government solutions.

One of many truths Ron Paul’s campaign is revealing is how hated real liberty is among the powers that be, how despised the individual, and how all-encompassing the contempt with which modern power brokers in Washington and New York hold the principles of the founders.

Americans who care about the existence of an American republic are many, and those who love freedom are many more. Again, the fantastic and political wisdom-slashing adventure of the Ron Paul campaign stands witness to the fact that sheer passion for liberty remains a vibrant force in American life. But this passion, this life, is nowhere to be found in American government, nowhere to be found in the state, or in the empire.

There seems to be no effective way to save or restore the republic, no way for any individual to even begin to solve the problem of our late 20^th and early 21^st century imperialism. I tend to agree, and the wisest observers in these pages warn, as Chris Floyd does, “It is pointless – and counterproductive – to simply throw yourself under the wheels of such a monstrous machine in futile spasms of rage and despair. The machine doesn’t care. It will gladly chew up your life and move on.”

All this presumes that an American republic is still viable – not really dead, just severely weakened and in need of strong salts and a booster shot.

A book I read a few years ago, entitled Deep Survival, by Laurence Gonzales, offers a helpful perspective on our current condition. In studying the question of who lives and who dies in extreme survival conditions, Gonzales found that survivors shared a sense that, in fact, they were not going to live. While they wanted to live, to go home again, and to be secure – they recognized that they were so royally and absolutely FUBAR’ed that they would die, probably quickly and perhaps horribly.

Now, obviously those who actually died in these disasters could not be interviewed, but the behaviors and actions of those who lived and those who died were measurably different. The survivors recognized the ugly truth of their own imminent death quickly – and this early recognition of reality – however harsh and frightful and depressing it may have been – was also at once incredibly liberating, in some ways exhilarating.

The survivors tended to reach this point of reality sooner than did the victims. They grieved for themselves, their hoped-for futures, their now impossible dreams. Then they rolled up their sleeves and got started on the hard, and very likely pointless, work of survival.

Rules were abandoned – what could be eaten, what could learned, what could be done, and what could be considered. Old ideas of personal capabilities and limitations were gradually discarded. Prayer became real and palpable rather than formalized and pious.

The idea of “living each day as if it were the last” is sometimes suggested to remind us to be loving and kind, yet it also hints at the value of self-indulgence, impulsivity and risk-taking. But when each day really might be your last – the behavior of survivors seems to be far more practical, far more thoughtful for the future, far more truthful about what one really needs, and quietly courageous without flamboyant risk-seeking.

Recognition of reality is liberating. When Jesus said, “the Truth will set you free,” I’m not sure he was directly speaking of the governments of men. But recognizing the unreality of a once treasured concept – in our American case, a vibrant past and future republic, may in fact free us to do what we need to do.

“And what is that, exactly?” you ask.

Recognize that the republic is dead, and that we owe its rotting bloated corpse no loyalty whatsoever.

This done, act accordingly. Publicly and privately, we should observe the corpse as a public nuisance, a pollutant both aesthetically and materially. When the yellow brick road leads us to the grand doors of government services, we should not avert our gaze but instead pull back the curtain, grandly, loudly, with the contagious laughter of a child, or the righteous anger of a soldier back in pieces from a war, like most wars, that was from the beginning a brutal political lie.

Will we insult a federal or state employee, a law enforcer or judge? Will we anger a politician, a lobbyist, a corporatist employer, or a government news organ for stealing our lives, our freedom of movement and thought, our productivity? We should certainly aspire to do so, with the zeal of missionaries.

To live in an imperial world, we must first, as survivors, recognize that it is an imperial world. History is filled with imperial/totalitarian states, as global graveyards are filled with those who were too late in recognizing what had already happened.

It’s over. The faithful and the hopeful may carry the corpse of the American republic, hoping that it can be brought back into normality, into life, and into power. I am afraid these nurturers will not survive the present reality of imperialism.

But some of us will look directly at the ugly, dangerous and very real empire. We will stare – with little hope but also with little fear – into the face of the FUBAR nation, and then roll up our sleeves and get started on the only life we may honestly live, as internal dissidents. We will no longer pledge allegiance, we will not obey old rules, we will make do and make it up as we go along. Our minds focused on surviving the empire, our talents and creativity unleashed against the state and its fantasist faithful, we will live as if we are free.

This simple prescription will not only make us survivors, but it will gradually cultivate a political landscape for a future of free republics where today we see nascent totalitarianism and bankrupt empire. This prescription was written for us in 1809 by revolutionary war general John Stark. He advised, “Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils.”

We face a modern American state more overweening and dictatorial than even King George III could imagine, yet we have no declaration of independence, no privileged elite to demand it, no interested population to read and debate it. This time, our declaration will be made individually, every day, in calm desperate fearlessness, as we simply live free.

September 29, 2007

LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for MilitaryWeek.com, hosted the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com and Liberty and Power. To receive automatic announcements of new articles, click here.

Karen Kwiatkowski Archives

Find this article at:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski192.html

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The Teflon Alliance With Israel

September 28, 2007

http://counterpunch.com/

September 28, 2007

See No Evil

The Teflon Alliance with Israel

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON

Two recent offhand comments, both widely publicized, have seriously undermined whatever progress might have been made in exposing the fact that the Iraq war was initiated at least in large part to guarantee Israel’s safety and regional dominance in the Middle East.

In late August, Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell’s chief of staff when he was secretary of state, told Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service that, when Israel first got wind of U.S. planning for a war against Iraq, a wide range of Israelis, including political and intelligence officials, began warning against such a war. “Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy — Iran is the enemy,” Wilkerson said. Israeli warnings against an attack on Iraq were “pervasive” in Israeli communications with the administration during early 2002, according to Wilkerson.

This story garnered a fair amount of publicity and in at least one instance was used by a radio talk show host to shut off discussion of the John Mearsheimer-Stephen Walt book on the influence of the Israel lobby, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Just a few days after the Wilkerson story came out and also only days after release of the Mearsheimer-Walt book, a caller to the Thom Hartmann radio program commended the book, urged Hartmann and his guest at the time, Senator Bernie Sanders, to read it, and asked Sanders to address the issue of Israel’s and the lobby’s support for the Iraq war. Hartmann shut the caller off with a comment that “we don’t hype books on this program” (after having just allowed another caller to hype another book). Sanders then proceeded to denounce “conspiracy theories” such as the notion that Israel had anything to do with the war, and Hartmann finished off with a remark that, “besides,” a report just came out –obviously meaning the Wilkerson story — that demonstrates there was no Israeli link to the war.

In fact, the Wilkerson report does not refute the notion of an Israeli link; he addresses only Israeli-U.S. contacts in early 2002, whereas by later in 2002 and 2003 the evidence is overwhelming that Israel and particularly the Israel lobby were pushing hard for the war. But this is the way myths are born: Hartmann and Sanders were able to use perhaps 90 seconds on a nationally broadcast radio program to tout an incomplete report reinforcing their own misconceptions and to dismiss a thoroughly researched book disproving those misconceptions. Never again, mostly likely, will they or any of the choir they were broadcasting to, who do not want to have to deal with Israel anyway, even think about the issue.

The Wilkerson assertions were followed in mid-September by the highly publicized single-sentence statement by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in his just-released memoir, The Age of Turbulence, that “it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” When the media pounced on this statement, which stands virtually alone and unelaborated in a 500-page book, Greenspan gave several interviews supposedly intended to clarify his statement. To AP he said — in an obvious sop to the administration and the right, which clearly do not want to own up to such a crass motivation for the war as oil — that he had not intended to imply that oil was “the administration’s motive. I’m just saying that if somebody asked me, ‘Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?’ I would say it was essential” for economic reasons. He had come to fear, he explained, that “Saddam, looking over his 30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence of moving towards controlling the Straits [sic] of Hormuz, where there are 17, 18, 19 million barrels a day” passing through. The war was not an oil grab, Greenspan said, but “taking Saddam out was essential” because it assured the continued smooth operation of the oil market.

A week later, on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!,” Greenspan, repeating that he had been watching Saddam Hussein for 30 years, said that he had feared that Saddam would acquire a nuclear weapon, that this would give him control over the Strait of Hormuz, and that he therefore had to be removed. Greenspan said he believed the “size of the threat” that Saddam posed “was scary” because “he could have essentially also shut down a significant part of economic activity throughout the world.”

The logic here is really quite strange and indicates at least that whatever economic genius Greenspan possesses does not extend to military strategizing or political analysis. One wonders, for instance, how exactly Saddam could have controlled the Strait of Hormuz with a nuclear or any other type of weapon when Iraq does not border this key waterway at the opening of the Persian Gulf and has no navy of any significance. One also wonders why Saddam’s future possession of a nuclear weapon was more worrisome than the likelihood that Iran, which does have a navy and does geographically control the strait, might close it. Greenspan’s statements further raise the question of why, given his claimed knowledge of Saddam’s “30-year history” and given the interest of earlier administrations in Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, he began to feel Saddam’s removal was “essential” only when the Bush administration began planning for war. And none of what Greenspan said explained why Iraq would have shut down its economy by blocking its own oil exports.

Greenspan’s fumbling explanations seem at a minimum to be in the nature of meandering remarks by a man concentrated on economics with little political acumen, who went along with the war because of its presumed benefits in safeguarding oil markets but with no concern about the broader consequences of the war and little or no interest in its political motivations or its geostrategic implications beyond what he saw as its global economic goal.

It remains open to question whether Greenspan in addition intended to divert attention from the clear evidence that Israel and its U.S. supporters, both among Jewish American organizations and among neocon policymakers inside the administration, pushed hard for the war, among other reasons to guarantee Israel’s security in the Middle East and its regional domination. But whatever his intent, this has been the effect of his concentration on oil. It reinforces the assumptions of those, primarily on the left, who have always contended that the war was “all about oil,” and only about oil. The left’s refusal to acknowledge that a desire to secure Israel in the region had anything to do with the Bush neocons’ war planning is difficult to fathom, since many on the left are notable critics of Israeli policy. But, again, whatever their intent in quashing discussion of the Israeli link, the effect has been to contribute to silencing domestic debate on a critical U.S. policy issue.

Neither is it clear in Wilkerson’s case whether he intended, by discussing Israeli representations against going after Iraq, to divert attention from Israel’s actual interest in Iraq. But once again, diverting and silencing discussion has been the effect of his brief remarks.

Without closer examination, both Greenspan’s and Wilkerson’s statements seem to let Israel and its U.S. lobbyists off the hook, something that in differing ways serves the interests of Israel and the lobby, of the right in the U.S., and of the left. Israel’s U.S. supporters — fearful that Jews will be blamed for leading the U.S. into the debacle that Iraq has become and fearful of reviving old anti-Semitic canards about Jews exerting undue power — roundly deny any Israeli connection to the war. Israel itself, although not as fearful as its American acolytes of anti-Semitism, has remained silent, obviously not affirming a role in instigating the war and letting its supporters do the denying. The U.S. political right does not, of course, want to acknowledge that the relationship with Israel has grown so close that the U.S. would actually go to war at the behest of or for the benefit of Israel. Nor does it want to own up to any of the other actual motivations for the war — neither, as previously noted, to a motivation like oil nor to a baldly imperial motivation promising (and already providing) great profits for the joint U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex.

The left, on the other hand, very much wants to believe that oil, and perhaps secondarily the imperial drive, constituted the only motivations, and that Israel played no role at all. The left is as skittish as anyone, and perhaps more so than anyone else, about being seen to criticize Israel except occasionally regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It is much more comfortable for the left to believe that the U.S. is evil and Israel is at worst a hapless tool of Washington. The thought that the tail might wag the dog is rarely taken seriously.

So the weight of public discourse since before the Iraq war was launched has been that any Israeli role in inspiring or pushing for it is at best a silly invention and at worst a vile anti-Jewish lie, and both the Wilkerson and the Greenspan statements play into this impression. Until these statements, the knowledge of an Israeli connection had begun to gain some greater currency thanks to a few valiant souls who have dared raise the subject, including people like Chris Hedges, Scott Ritter and, most recently, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. In July, Hedges wrote a hard-hitting article for Truthdig, subsequently widely circulated, saying that the war “was strongly shaped by the notion that what is good for Israel is good for the United States,” and Israel and its neocon supporters wanted Iraq neutralized. Hedges also acknowledged a “desire for American control of oil” as a major driver of the war, along with “the belief that Washington could build puppet states in the region.”

Scott Ritter, who served as a weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s, paints a somewhat more complex picture in his 2006 book Targeting Iran. He makes it clear, supporting Wilkerson’s statement, that over the years of weapons inspections, Israel had come to regard Iraq as a diminishing threat (unlike Greenspan, apparently), whereas Iran was increasingly viewed as a new looming danger. By August 2002, according to Ritter, when the Israelis passed intelligence about the threat from Iran to the Bush administration, “there was barely a reaction in Washington” because “all eyes were on Baghdad, not Tehran.” But Israel’s Ariel Sharon was, in Ritter’s words, “quick to catch on,” and in those last several months of 2002 — the critical months of war planning, coming well after the early 2002 period that Wilkerson was discussing — Israel jumped on the Iraq war bandwagon, publicly and privately, and began to press for and justify a U.S. invasion. Sharon assigned a senior Israeli military intelligence official to give the U.S. Israeli intelligence assessments on Iraqi WMD activity, according to Ritter, and at the same time, with an eye to later broadening the conflict to Iran and beyond, Israeli intelligence “pressed home to [the U.S.] the notion that the upcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq must serve as a springboard for a larger transformation within the Middle East, one that swept away not only Saddam Hussein, but also anti-Israeli elements in Syria, Palestine, and, of course, Iran.”

This dovetails precisely with the neocon agenda, which was ultimately the operative ingredient in determining whether there would be war or not. This agenda was laid out publicly in the mid-1990s in the now infamous “Clean Break” paper, written in Israel for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a group of Israelis and Americans, three of whom later entered the Bush administration and began planning for the attack on Iraq. The principal elements of the paper involved overturning the Palestinian-Israeli peace process to save Israel from having to make any territorial concessions and then sparking massive changes, through force if necessary, in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, leading to an era of peace in which Israel and the U.S. jointly dominated a transformed and intimidated Middle East.

In their book on the lobby, Mearsheimer and Walt provide overwhelming evidence for an Israeli link to the war that completely undermines the public myths revived by Wilkerson’s and Greenspan’s statements, and they build a convincing case against the notion that the war was “all about oil.” They are the first who have done the extensive research necessary to bring the mountain of evidence together.

The two authors devote more than 30 pages and a remarkable 175 footnotes to constructing an irrefutable case for an Israeli role in helping plan, and a large lobby role in pressing for, the war. Although they do not claim that the effort to guarantee Israeli security was the sole reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, they demonstrate clearly — citing public and privates statements by Israeli military and political officials, informed commentary in both Israel and the U.S., and analysis by foreign policy experts — that “Israeli leaders, neoconservatives, and the Bush administration all saw war with Iraq as the first step in an ambitious campaign to remake the Middle East” in order to “make it a more friendly environment for America and Israel.” Israel and the lobby “played crucial roles in making that war happen.” Without the lobby and particularly the core of neocon policymakers inside government and neocon commentators and think-tank analysts on the sidelines, Mearsheimer and Walt conclude bluntly, “the war would almost certainly not have occurred” and “America would probably not be in Iraq today.”

On the question of oil as a principal driver in the war, the authors demonstrate that in fact, although the oil industry was clearly happy to obtain lucrative concessions in post-Saddam Iraq, the argument that the industry pushed for the war in order to enhance profits is counter-intuitive. The disadvantages to the industry of turmoil in the region are evident. Energy companies, they make clear, do not like wars in oil-rich areas. Nor do they like such other recent “staples of U.S. Middle East policy” as sanctions and regime change, because each of these actions “threatens access to oil and gas reserves and thus [the oil companies'] ability to make money.” Mearsheimer and Walt point out that Vice President Cheney opposed sanctions on Iran while he was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s and complained about the “sanctions happy” policies of the U.S. Instability is rarely in the interests of the oil companies. In the end, the authors conclude, the “wealthy Arab governments and the oil lobby exert much less influence on U.S. foreign policy than the Israel lobby does, because oil interests have less need to skew foreign policy in the directions they favor and they do not have the same leverage.”

It is fair to ask why it matters whether the U.S. went to war solely for oil, or solely for Israel, or out of an imperial drive — or, as is much more likely the case, for some combination of these motivations. It matters, most fundamentally, because, if there is ever to be a course correction and a return to some kind of policy sanity that will prevent similar future disasters, it is necessary to understand how this disaster arose in the first place. All of these motivations, together and separately, are unacceptable reasons for launching an unprovoked aggression against another sovereign nation, for killing up to a million of its innocent citizens, and for fostering chaos throughout the region. Global sanity and global security demand that the U.S. not invade other countries to obtain control over their natural resources or gain huge corporate profits through oil concessions. Global sanity and security also demand that the U.S. cease trying to expand its imperial reach. And, perhaps most important, it is absolutely vital that the U.S. not so subordinate what should be its true interests to those of another nation that it can be led into wars anywhere, but particularly in the most sensitive area of the world, at the behest or for the benefit of Israel. If going to war to secure huge profits for oil companies is obscene, how much more obscene is going to war for the benefit of a foreign power because we are no longer able to distinguish our interests from theirs?

It has become almost trite to quote George Washington’s farewell speech urging moderation in foreign attachments, but his injunctions 200 years ago have an eerie applicability to the U.S. relationship with Israel today. Warning against “a passionate attachment of one nation for another,” Washington observed that this creates “a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.”

The U.S. alliance with Israel has unquestionably led to a gross distortion of U.S. policy in exactly the way in which Washington predicted, creating the illusion of a common interest where none exists and injecting Israel’s enmities into the U.S. with little or no justification. If the U.S. cannot distinguish its own interests from those of Israel and Israel’s lobby, then it simply cannot act, as it should, purely in its own interest. Those who minimize the role of the Israel lobby in influencing U.S. policy choices, and who refuse or fail to recognize the part Israel and the lobby have played in leading the U.S. into disastrous foreign adventures, pose an incalculable danger to the U.S., for a failure to recognize the reason for a misguided policy will inevitably doom us to repeat it.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. She can be reached at kathy.bill.christison@comcast.net.

Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence officer and as director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis.

They can be reached at kathy.bill.christison@comcast.net.

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Dead Dollar Walking…by Edgar J. Steele

September 28, 2007

“Edgar J. Steele”

to me

show details

1:02 pm (1½ hours ago)

www.ConspiracyPenPal.com

Dead Dollar Walking…

(This is a response to one of many list member missives I’ve been getting today about things financial - ed)

Thanks, Paul -

This is as critical a moment as you get in financial market watching.

I knew today was going to be interesting, but the next 35 minutes will be especially so. It’s not often that I sit here, watching the tickers nearly nonstop like this.

PM stocks showed surprising strength yesterday, if they knew that the hammer would be falling today. So far today, they are showing similar strength, suggesting that somebody knows otherwise, in fact. Despite WhirlyBen’s walk and talk this past week or so, I refuse to believe the US would not at least pay lip service to protecting the 78 dollar before bowing to the inevitable. This sure doesn’t look like lip service.

The 78 dollar got hit with a truck this morning, dropping .50 to 77.25 as of now. Gold and silver both are showing serious strength this morning, too.

Will they marshall the forces to counter the obvious strength in PM markets at the same time that they are sweating bullets to keep the world stock markets going sideways? Dunno. I’d say, “Yes,” normally, but normally you see the up move begin an hour or so before this on a Friday. I don’t see how they come back from this deficit in the time that is left.

If we finish the hour with the dollar under 78, it is a very, very big statement, just as you note. Then Monday will become critical while we see if they let it stay there. If not, then….look out below…

Good instincts. I know you are positioned well to survive the now-in-progress train wreck. Even so, as you so aptly put it, “God help us,” because WWWIII really has to be just days away if the dollar sails through 78 like this and keeps going. Keep your gas tanks full, your bug-out bags packed and know where your kids are at all times.

I’m going to bcc my response to this to a few thousand of my closest friends, if you don’t mind.

-ed

—–Original Message—–

From: Paul

Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 8:50 AM

To: steele@conspiracypenpal.com

Subject: Dollar Index Below 78

Hello Ed,

I’ve been reading your columns for a while now.

I noticed that the dollar index has dropped below 78 just a little while ago.

As of 11:11 AM EST, it was at 77.909

Currently, it sits at 77.953

I think from here on out, things will deteriorate very rapidly………it’s both amusing and horrifying to knowingly witness the destruction of our nation and economy, and being powerless to stop it.

God help us.

Regards,

Paul

~~~~~~

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Alan Stang Interviewed by Carl Wilson on KAJO Radio

September 28, 2007

www.NewsWithViews.com
September 27, 2007
New Articles

NEWS ANALYSIS
Alan Stang Interviewed by Carl Wilson on KAJO Radio
Alang Stang describes the future for America and Ron Paul
Carl Wilson KAJO
http://www.kajo.com/features/talk_shows/programs/kajo070926.mp3

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OLD CORPS!

September 28, 2007

Old Corps!!!!!!!!!!

http://tinyurl.com/3×4ttx

From my companion blog…

September 28, 2007

<>The “G” Weblog @N54

<>http://www.network54.com/Forum/578302/

<>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE “FIX” IS IN
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:31 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252469>

<>Paul’s their all
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:23 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252279>

CFR’s Hart Suggests False Flag Event For Iran War….
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:21 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252192>

How a President Can Really Liberate People
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From network54.com on September 28 at 1:17 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252089>

– SPECIAL REPORT — Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle
East theater
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<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26251987>

Hate Bill Passes - Senate Stabs First Amendment
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<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26251885>

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<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26235160>

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<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26234469>

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<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26233833>

Stop Lieberman From SNEAKING An Iran War Declaration Through The
Senate « THE “G” BLOG
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<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26227452>

“Cocked and Locked” The Marine Mail Guards of the 1920s…
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 2:22 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26222838>

Attn: Ron Paul Supporters. Lee Rodgers Wants you Dead!
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From network54.com on September 27 at 1:24 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26220465>

Where’s the fence?(What a joke!)
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 1:14 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26220091>

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Being “Guarded” by Israel
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From network54.com on September 27 at 1:05 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219820>

Saddam Offered Exile, But Neo-Cons Unleashed Carnage Anyway
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 1:01 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219677>

Political Power and the Rule of Law
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 12:49 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219298>

What Does Freedom Really Mean? by Ron Paul
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 12:41 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219030>

U.S. for sale to foreigners by Texas hold’em rules
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 12:33 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26218796>

Today’s Toons…
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 11:24 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26216541>

Ron Paul Wants to Exempt Taxes on Tips
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 11:15 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26216151>
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The “Original/The Only” Gunny G
THE “G” WEBLOG @N54
By R.W. “Dick” Gaines
http://www.network54.com/Forum/578302/
(Also Known As: Gunny G’s…Weblog)
Previous/Numerous GyG Posts Below!!!!!
http://www.network54.com/Forum/135069
Go To: Gunny G’s Sites/Forums/Blogs!
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RESTORE THE REPUBLIC/
TAKE AMERICA BACK!

THE “FIX” IS IN
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:31 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252469>

Paul’s their all
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:23 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252279>

CFR’s Hart Suggests False Flag Event For Iran War….
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:21 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252192>

How a President Can Really Liberate People
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:17 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26252089>

– SPECIAL REPORT — Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle
East theater
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:13 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26251987>

Hate Bill Passes - Senate Stabs First Amendment
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 28 at 1:09 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26251885>

GROWING BLESSINGS OF DENVER’S MAYOR HICKENLOOPER’S SANCTUARY POLICY
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 5:14 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26235160>

WHAT IS THE CHURCH HIDING FROM?
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 5:11 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26234469>

BRING A REAL NEWSPAPER BACK INTO AMERICA’S TOWNS & CITIES
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 5:08 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26233833>

“Cocked and Locked” The Marine Mail Guards of the 1920s…
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 2:22 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26222838>

Attn: Ron Paul Supporters. Lee Rodgers Wants you Dead!
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 1:24 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26220465>

Where’s the fence?(What a joke!)
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 1:14 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26220091>

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Being “Guarded” by Israel
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 1:05 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219820>

Saddam Offered Exile, But Neo-Cons Unleashed Carnage Anyway
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 1:01 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219677>

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Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 12:49 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219298>

What Does Freedom Really Mean? by Ron Paul
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 12:41 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26219030>

U.S. for sale to foreigners by Texas hold’em rules
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 12:33 PM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26218796>

Today’s Toons…
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 11:24 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26216541>

Ron Paul Wants to Exempt Taxes on Tips
Rated 5 in topic Multi-topical
From network54.com on September 27 at 11:15 AM
<http://www.furl.net/item.jsp?id=26216151>

**********

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The End of Ford: It Began in the New Deal

September 27, 2007

The End of Ford: It Began in the New DealBy Garet Garrett

Posted on 9/27/2007

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[This article is excerpted from a chapter in The Wild Wheel, originally published in 1953.]
http://www.mises.org/story/2729#

Henry Ford with Model T

The Great Depression had revolutionary political and social consequences, some of them irreversible, some of them still acting with unspent force. It began in 1930 and continued like a nightmare of Prometheus in chains until the nation’s energies were released again in preparation for World War II.

During these ten years the relations between government and people were fundamentally altered. The welfare of people became a direct responsibility of government, whereas always before government was a responsibility of people, and the people minded their own welfare. American ways of thinking and feeling were deeply changed, to the point at which people were willing to surrender personal freedoms and abide compulsions in exchange for a sense of social security.

The song of the wild wheel died suddenly. Even the echoes of it became hateful. In place of it was heard a mighty chorus, led by the voice of the New Deal, demanding that the wheels be tamed, that their revolutions be governed and planned to produce only as much as people could afford to buy at fair prices.

The delusion was that the wild wheel had caused the depression. It had produced too much, more than people could consume, thereby bringing to pass unemployment and the absurdity of want in the midst of plenty. No man was more unbelieving than Henry Ford. The popular delusion seized a great majority of the men of business, who were willing to strike hands with government to limit production, restore prices and put competition in a straitjacket; it could not seize him. His mind rejected it completely. But what he would not or could not see was that a world was passing. The delusion was but the furor attending its eclipse; and its eclipse was bound to include him because he was its symbol.

He was still under seventy, and apparently at the peak of his unpredictable powers; nevertheless, his horizons had reversed their direction. Instead of going away they were slowly moving toward him. And as a fateful coincidence, crises in the world of the wild wheel, utterly beyond his control, were parallel in time to crises in the affairs of the Ford Motor Company.

The V-8 was his own last mechanical triumph. As it developed year by year thereafter, to meet competition in style and refinement, fewer ideas came from him and more from the organization, subject to his approval. The authority of his yes and no was final and imperious to the end, but only when it was exercised, and many things went around him. More and more he relied upon Charles E. Sorensen, the Magnificent Dane who began as a pattern maker in the Ford shop at three dollars a day and became the great production genius of his time.

It was Sorensen who walked with the rope that pulled the first motorcar assembly line at Highland Park. It was Sorensen who went to California to see how they made airplanes there, because the Ford Motor Company was going to make them, too, for World War II, and said: “I don’t understand this bird’s next method.”

They asked him what he meant by that. He said: “First you build the plane and then you drag everything into it through little holes.”

They asked him how he would do it. He took the print of a plane and bisected it with lines. “I’d build it in sections, like that,” he said, “then stuff the sections and bring them together.”

That changed the method of airplane construction. It was Sorensen who said: “You never can forge enough cylinders for the airplanes you want.”

They asked him how he would make them. He said: “I’d cast them.”

They said: “That proves what we already knew. Automobile people can’t make airplanes. You can cast the cylinders of a motorcar engine but an airplane engine is different.”

What they were talking about was the lining of an airplane engine cylinder, fitted in the piston well like a membrane that grew there — an exquisite, jewel-like thing to look at, absolutely perfect and very slightly tapered because it will expand more at the spark plug end than at the other, which causes it to be precisely true when the engine gets hot. Sorensen went back to the River Rouge plant and cast some sample cylinders. They were tested under hydraulic pressure that would rise until they were crushed. The forged pieces buckled first and crumpled up; the cast cylinder, when it did buckle, went down like an accordion hat. After that, airplane cylinders were cast, else, as Sorensen said, there could hardly have been enough of them, because the forging process is very slow.

And it was Sorensen who built the famous Willow Run plant, to produce a bomber an hour, which was the largest single thing the Ford Motor Company ever did.

The V-8 was brought out in the third year of the Great Depression. That was bad enough. The obstetrical event was long and painful and entailed a kind of engineering crisis. This in turn led to a crisis between the Ford Motor Company and its unhappy dealers, who again for a long time had nothing to sell and began to give up.

Ford’s complacency at this time astonished his associates. If he thought the superiority of the new car would sweep the market back to him he was disappointed. Although the V-8 was successful as a car, the most it could do was to hold the Ford Motor Company in third place, whereas it had been first. Now it had become one of the Big Three. The other two were General Motors, in first place, and Chrysler in second, who by this time knew as much about automobile making as Ford knew, even more. They were beating him in style and meeting him in price.

Each of his competitors had a line of cars, suited in price to the size of your pocketbook — that is, a low-priced car for the many, a more expensive middle-class car, and then one for the rich. Before the V-8 there had never been anything but a Ford car. When it was the Model T it was the Model T and nothing else. When it was the Model A it was the Model A, take it or leave it. A Ford was a Ford was a Ford.

“No factory,” Ford had said, “is large enough to make two kinds of product.”

But now he was persuaded that the Ford Motor Company too must have a line of cars. Besides the V-8 there was a six-cylinder car at a lower price, because the dealers wanted it — and the voice of the dealers was beginning for the first time to be respected, for the Ford agency was no longer the little gold mine it had once been. And then there was the Lincoln, which became a Ford product when Ford bought the Lincoln Motor Company. “More for personal reasons,” he said, “than because we wanted it. We have no desire to make a commodity of the Lincoln.”

Nobody could have made a commodity of the Lincoln. It was in its day the finest and costliest American automobile. Only the rich could afford it. It was designed by Henry M. Leland, whose fame in the motor world was such that when he organized the Lincoln Motor Company its capital stock was subscribed in two hours. At that time Model T was already high on its way. Leland built his ideal car and it was all that he meant it to be, but its cost was so high that its market was bound to be small and it was never a success in a financial way. Ford bought it to save it from bankruptcy. One of his personal reasons may have been the desire to have an automobile of that superb quality within his domain.

The understanding was that the Lincoln Motor Company should continue as a separate province, with Leland as its vassal lord. Ford did not intend to cheapen the car, and he never did; he intended only to reform the manufacturing methods in order to reduce the cost of producing it. But when his engineers, led by Sorensen, entered the Lincoln premises and saw how men worked who had been taught never to worry about cost, they were horrified; on the other side, when these engineers began to apply Ford methods to eliminate waste, Leland’s blood curdled and he retired with an embittered heart.

The Lincoln became then a Ford problem. Simply, it did not lend itself to mass production, which meant that the price could not be reduced, and if the price could not be reduced the sales could not be increased.

One attempt at solution was to bring out a lower-priced car called the Lincoln-Zephyr. Then the hyphen was dropped and there was the Zephyr. Later the Zephyr disappeared and there was a new Lincoln, still a fine car but not like the old Lincoln and not so costly.

Before the Great Depression the Ford Motor Company’s amazing growth, always with its own capital, enabled it to absorb mistakes with astonishing ease. It could write off its white elephants and forget them. So it wrote off a railroad, an excursion into aviation, and the Fordson tractor, to mention only three.

When it became just another motorcar company, one of the Big Three and in third place, something of that reckless spirit went out of it. However, its essential character never changed. General Motors was a confederacy, Chrysler was a democracy, and both were large borrowers of capital; but the Ford Motor Company was a monarchy so long as Ford lived and a tight family possession after he died, with his grandson, Henry Ford II, on the throne.

It was in the middle of the Great Depression that the transfer of economic power from the employer to organized labor took place. It took place legally, but in a curious way. The New Deal passed a law under which organized labor was free to enjoy and exercise the power of monopoly — provided it had the strength to seize it in open combat with the employer, the government to act as umpire. What followed was a series of bitter struggles on the ground of industry-wide collective bargaining. Organized labor won.

In the motorcar industry, as aforesaid, Ford was the most implacable of the Big Three and for that reason the last to be attacked. He was then seventy-five. His defeat was without solace. The union won more than it asked for, and after that the Ford Motor Company was a closed shop; only union members could work there, and Ford became the collector of the members’ compulsory union dues, acting for the union treasury.

What he had lost was not just a battle with labor. He had lost his world. Never again would the wheels be wild in a Ford shop. The union would attend to that. The significance of this change was deeper than anybody knew at the time. Although Ford never expressed it in rational terms he must have known it intuitively.

	$18
“The benefits of mass production were intended for the consumer, which includes labor, since all wage earners are also consumers.”

The one great justification of mass production as he had developed it, for all that might be valid in the resentments of labor, was that it did progressively cheapen the cost of satisfying human wants, so that goods, automobiles or anything else, were ever more abundant and more available, possibly to the point at which sometime they might become as cheap as water carried from the well. But in order for mass production to have that result it was necessary that management should be able to control costs, and management cannot control costs unless it controls both wages and the tempo of work and obeys the hard law of the machine. Here lies the enigma. You may do with it what you like.

In Ford’s philosophy, the benefits of mass production were intended for the consumer, which includes labor, since all wage earners are also consumers. In his scheme the consumer was more important than the producer; and if this seems a bit dialectical you may consider the fact that while you may dispense with the wage earner by putting a machine in his place, the consumer, who buys the products of the machine and makes mass production possible, is indispensable. The wage earner is more important in the aspect of consumer than in the aspect of producer, and it follows that in order to be a good consumer he must have high wages.

But when labor itself has the power to say what the wage shall be and how much it will give for the wage received, it claims for itself the first benefits of mass production; the consumer is forgotten. Thus the true economic ends of mass production are defeated, and all you have left is a method of producing goods. You may say it another way: that the intentions of mass production cannot be realized unless management and labor are both free. So long as that freedom existed in the motorcar industry, the cost of an automobile went lower and lower until it became, pound for pound, the cheapest manufactured thing in the world, not the Ford car only but all cars; and automobile labor at the same time was the highest-paid labor of its kind in the world.

It was estimated that one year the Model T generated, directly and indirectly, a payroll of one billion dollars, and that year the car sold for twenty cents a pound. And so we became an automobile people. That could not happen again in a world of tame wheels. If the political and social conditions that now exist had existed in 1900, the American motorcar industry as we know it could not have been created at all.

Garet Garrett (1878–1954) was an American journalist and author who was noted for his critiques of the New Deal and US involvement in the Second World War. Comment on the blog.

This article is excerpted from The Wild Wheel, chapter 8: “The Broken Song.”

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http://www.mises.org/story/2729#
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Stop Lieberman From SNEAKING An Iran War Declaration Through The Senate

September 27, 2007

Stop Lieberman From SNEAKING An Iran War Declaration Through The Senate

15,515 Submissions so far

Here is the language from the amendment:

http://tinyurl.com/2dhkse

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

The policy of the U.S should be to “combat” Iran with “all” “military instruments”?!? You can be absolutely certain that those are the ONLY words Dick Cheney and George Bush will see or care about.

We need every warm body we can muster to call and email their senators RIGHT NOW, before they pull another fast one and sneak this one through in the dead of the night. Call them toll free at 800 828-0498, 800 614 2803 or 866 340 9281, and then ALSO submit the action form below to make sure your message gets through.

The one click form below will send your personal message to all your government representatives selected below, with the subject “Reject the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment On Iran” At the same time you can send your personal comments only as a letter to the editor of your nearest local daily newspaper if you like.

http://tinyurl.com/2dhkse
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The “Original/The Only” Gunny G
THE “G” WEBLOG @N54
By R.W. “Dick” Gaines
http://www.network54.com/Forum/578302/
(Also Known As: Gunny G’s…Weblog)
Previous/Numerous GyG Posts Below!!!!!
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“Cocked and Locked” The Marine Mail Guards of the 1920s…

September 27, 2007

“Cocked and Locked” The Marine Mail Guards of the 1920s…
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/mailguards.html
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/mailguards.html

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News-N-Views, Military, History, Politics,
Controversial, Unusual, Non-PC
Eye-opening, Thought-provoking,
Articles Just Not Seen… Elsewhere!
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The “Original and Only” Gunny G!
THE “G” WEBLOG @N54
By R.W. “Dick” Gaines
http://www.network54.com/Forum/578302/
(Also Known As: Gunny G’s…Weblog)
Previous/Numerous GyG Posts Below!!!!!
http://www.network54.com/Forum/135069
Go To: Gunny G’s Sites/Forums/Blogs!
http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/gunnyg/sites3.html
HISTORY ETC. — The Gunny G History Wiki!
http://gunnyg.wetpaint.com/
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RESTORE THE REPUBLIC/
TAKE AMERICA BACK!

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What Does Freedom Really Mean? by Ron Paul

September 27, 2007

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Articles › What Does Freedom Really Mean?

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Summary:

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

by Ron Paul, Dr. September 6, 2007Fedruary 7, 2007

“…man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan

We’ve all heard the words democracy and freedom used countless times, especially in the context of our invasion of Iraq. They are used interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings are very different. </