Establishment Slap-down of Torture Investigations

Recently, on this blog, we've talked about the principled left and right uniting to challenge the power of the establishment. Some are wary of this notion.

However, the left & right members of the establishment do this all the time, often without being deliberate about it. A classic example is how the Democratic and Republican parties cooperate to exclude third parties by creating legal barriers to entry and other tactics, like exclusion from national presidential debates.

And, when the left and right wing establishment figures are both guilty of similar crimes, they tag-team to protect each other. I suspect we're seeing this happen with torture.

The myth is that George Bush dragged the nation across the line into the dark world of using torture. His only difference was one of degree and of admission. The reality is that torture has been used in the past under presidencies of both parties. The dirty wars of the 1970s & 1980s, for which the Salvador Option of the Iraq war is named, is a classic example; the CIA was deeply involved in those civil wars of the oligarchies against their own people who were demanding more democracy (threat of communism was mostly just an excuse for the violence against the people*).

The idea for this blog post came to me when I heard** that the Obama administration had appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate human rights lawyers who had uncovered CIA involvement in torture during the Bush administration (See: Fitzgerald "Irony" or "Poke-in-the-eye"?). Fitzgerald was made famous for investigating the Bush administration's outing of CIA asset Valerie Plame.

Can't have the rif-raf getting too close to the truth on torture.


* Side Note: Another myth about torture is that it is solely used as part of the interrogation process. The reality is that it is used to strike fear and suppress the opposition.

Source:

Mother Jones Magazine, July/Aug, 2020.

The Right, the Left and the 10th Amendment

File this one under "Establishment gets Nervous when Left & Right Unite on 10th Amendment."

The July/August 2010 edition of Mother Jones magazine has a short piece entitled "If at First you Don't Secede," but what catches your eye is the cartoon graphic of three guys standing arm in arm. The guy on the far left, the placement is no mistake I'm sure, is a hippy with a head-band, long hair, goatee, rainbow tie-dyed shirt who is giving the peace sign. The guy on the right, is a jug-headed, broad-shouldered, buzz-cut with a ball cap on wearing camo pants, a T-shirt with the rattle-snake & "Don't tread on me" holding what looks like an M-16 machine gun with a scope. .... and who is that between them? A native of Wisconsin named Michael Boldin, founder of the California "Tenth Amendment Center."

OK.... A lefty peace-nic, a hard-core right-winger and this guy in the middle. LOOKs like grist for the thesis that GDAE Podcast has been exploring the past couple of months.

Mother Jones describes Boldin as being inspired by the likes of Michael Moore and a reader of .... Mother Jones magazine. He got politically active as an opponent of Bush's invasion of Iraq. Now Michael Boldin is finding common cause with people on the right.

The brief July/Aug Mother Jones piece describes Boldin giving a talk at a conservative convention in Georgia last February celebrating the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution. That's the one that simply says that if the Constitution didn't give a particular power to the federal government, then it either resides with states or the people: That is, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people."

Aside:
It's worth saying that drilling down to the US Constitution is a recurring theme of the Left/Right thesis being explored by this podcast. That's because discussions about the fundamentals often lead back to the foundational law, that is, the US Constitution or state constitutions.

So, Michael Boldin gives this speech in Georgia that exposes run-away power at the federal level, some of it wielded by corporate agents that have wrested control of the levers of government I might add.

In his talk, Boldin shares the famous story of a depression era farmer who was ordered by the US Government to destroy 12 acres of grain in violation of a federal government cap on grain production. The grain production cap was intended to help stop the plummeting grain prices by restricting supply .... that basic supply & demand economics thing. The concept was logical, but the federal government's implementation was a bit over-zealous in the case of Roscoe Filburn after whom a famous Supreme Court decision is named.

The Supreme Court sided with the federal government... Michael Boldin argues that this Supreme Court decision conflicts with the 10th Amendment. My view of this is that the Supreme Court is a creature of the elite establishment, an establishment that inclines toward both royalist and corporate elements... the contemporary term for "royalist" would be "Executivist," i.e., those who promote giving power to the executive... the president. It's the same bloodline as the people who sided with the British crown, or if not the "British" crown, an American crown rather than a president who's powers were "checked" and "balanced" by other power centers.... like the people acting through the House of Representatives.

So, as an agent of the establishment, it isn't a surprise that the the Supreme Court sided with the establishment in the Filburn Depression era case. This general insight about the Supreme Court is a shared view among the left & right wing people in the thesis I'm exploring. I wouldn't say, however, that there is agreement on this particular issue of Filburn, but it is a topic where principled people on the left and right can discuss and learn from each other in a civil way that has important connections with other issues that need to be debated.

During his talk, Michale Boldin said,

Whether it's marijuana, gay marriage, health care, the size of your toilet.... We demand adherence to the Constitution, every time, every issue, no excuses, no exceptions!

Apparently the crowed gave a nice 'round of applause for that line.

Interviewed right after his talk, Boldin was pumped-up saying,

I was actually able to say the words "gay marriage" in Georgia and no one booed.

Mother Jones reports that "A woman in a militia T-shirt came over to compliment him. After she walked away, Boldin shook his head, saying

I don't even know how to touch that one.

I know how to touch it. It's just another validation of the the left/right thesis ... there is a hunger for honesty among active Americans on the left and right... an honesty that exposes the wealth and power hoarding of a small minority of Americans... an honesty that exposes the way this minority successfully rigs the system that they like to call a democracy. That hunger for honesty is going to expose the likes of Glenn Beck and many others when the sleeping giant of the principled right and left leaning Americans re-discover that they actually have a lot of things in common.

Corporate Charters Should Not be Contracts

So what? Who cares about "corporate charters" in the first place? BOOORRINGG !

True, but imagine a world in which we the people had control over corporations. Under our thumb. Whoa!

Corporations have power to literally get away with murder, because so much of their "rights" are protected by the US Constitution, among other defining laws. An example is that the US Supreme Court determined, in Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819), that a corporate charter is a "contract." This gives corporations contract powers that, like "property rights," are protected by the US Constitution.

The government (read "the people") are not allowed to meddle in the private affairs of contracts. This corporate contract shield is greater than the corporate shield that limits liabilities of the humans running and profitting from the corporate shell wrapped around a "business" enterprise... more likely these days a scam called a business.

Corporations are chartered to exist by states. These states, like Delaware, or some Caribbean nation, want the tax revenues that come with issuing corporate charters. That's because corporations make their headquarters in the place that issues their charter. So, to attract "business," states and Caribbean nations compete with each other to issue corporate charters. To attract wanna-be corporations, there is a race to the bottom in how lax their charters can be to benefit corporations. These states write corporate charters that are very favorable to corporations, but not favorable for we the people.

For example, lax charters can help corporations hide records from the public, making it almost impossible for the public to even know what a corporation is doing, let alone influence that activity if it is damaging to society.... like that never happens.

In sum, corporate charters, which give birth to corporations, are protected by the US Constitution as a "contract," which gives corporations way too much power. We need to re-define corporate charters to be something less than a contract.

Dismalcrats and Corupliklans

The GLH Blog reminds us of Cindy Sheehan, the on-going wars, the status of the peace movement and the entrenched establishment. We're reminded of how Cindy Sheehan has been shunned by

liberals too tethered to the Democrats [who] are ignoring her or resenting her for speaking out against politicians, like President Obama, who go against the values and policies supported by grassroots Democrats.

After lamenting the way outspoken progressives are mistreated by calculating Democratic Party bloggers and others, he points out what a lot of people know, both liberal and conservative, because they are living it:

Meanwhile, the brunt of suffering under the healthcare system and the crap economy is being inflicted on the middle class and the poor. The rich are doing fabulously well. The Democratic politicians are doing precious little [to] change this.

The Dismalcrats and Corupliklans are driving the principled people from both parties. Tea party aside, I'm becoming convinced that principled people on the Left & Right are joining forces, by necessity, to challenge establishment corruption of our democratic institutions. It's already happening:

Among other things lately, I've been working on a series of audio podcasts about the Left & Right joining forces. Check'em out on "GDAE Podcast":

Part 1: (20-min abridged) Part 1: 20-min abridged podcast

Part 2: Part 2: 30-min podcast

Podcatching:

I know it's an out-moded term, "podcatching," but it captures the essence of "subscribing" to a podcast. But, there are many ways to "catch" podcast. Check out How to Subscribe to a Podcast if you're curious.

Source:

Godless Liberal Homo Blog: Cindy Sheehan Asks: Where Have All The Peaceniks Gone?

Financial Underhaul

The Yahoo! News headline "Bank stocks soar on financial regulation agreement" pretty much says it all. We are a corporate state. Reclaiming the power of the people over the corporate state is the next major multi-generational struggle on par with overcoming slavery, child labor standards and women's suffrage.

"They come out of this big-time winners," Bob Froehlich, senior managing director at Hartford Financial Services, said of financial companies. "Two years later, people will look back and say 'My gosh, nothing really changed.'"

Democrats in charge... Republicans in charge... "My gosh, there's really no difference."

Revoke BP's Corporate Charter

Surely you've heard about British Petroleum's track record from the British colonial days through a litany of felony crimes. Being a "corporation" a privilege, not a right.

By now you also know about corporations being defined as "persons" by a corrupt robber baron era US Supreme Court. So, if a person is a serial felon, including negligent homicide, they "go away," usually to prison. They can no long do business, or anything else in society for that matter.

It's time to seriously consider taking the corporate privilege away from BP. And, in these days of internet activism, there is a Facebook campaign to revoke BP America's corporate charter.

Details here: http://bit.ly/9djBTb

Join the "Revoke BP's corporate charter" (facebook) group .

Sources:

The Punk Patriot.

More on the Left & Right Joining Forces

The following are talking points that I recently used when calling in to the radio show "WakeUp AM" on Portsmouth, NH Community Radio.

Fostering people on the left and right to work together on common interests....

It's a strategy of recognizing the power in numbers that is within grasp of "principled" people on the Left and on the right to challenge the power of the minority establishment to bring about a more perfect democracy.

This is NOT about political party politics, creating a third party, or seeking more "bi-partisanship" in Washington, which we know is hopeless. This is about populist-level advocacy, a true grass-roots demand for the ideals of democracy, ideal that are common to principled people the left and the right.

Tea Party is generally NOT where you find these principled people; they too often follow the lead of corporate-funded groups like American for Prosperity. They too often parrot the message of "government is bad," rather than the message of "Make the 'government of the people' work FOR the people" and not for the get-rich-quick crowd of Wall Street, and so-called "corporate America," with their corporate headquarters located off-shore in the Bahamas showing no allegiance to the Country.

There are exceptions in the Tea Party, of course, like the woman interviewed at a tea party rally who said she feels the government should help the less fortunate and not to cut the salaries of teachers.

There is common ground on Important subjects like protection of our privacy and civil liberties in general, solving the "too big to fail" problem that leads to tax payer bailouts of banks and insurance corporations... concerns about the excessive power of the Federal Reserve and the fiat money banking system in general... concerns about politicians and regulatory agencies that are effectively controlled by lobbyists who steer policies and campaign money while making big bucks as Washington lobbyists.

We can cite real examples of this union between populist left & right working:

- the 2003 push back against the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, attempting to allow more consolidation of media ownership among the monolithic corporations.

- the recent Senate unanimous vote for Bernie Sanders' amendment to audit the Federal Reserve Bank.

- And recently, on your last show, you mentioned the conservative bloggers, military guys I think, who are supporting the repeal of don't ask, don't tell policies regarding gays in the military.

So, this isn't simply strategic theory...