The Energy Non Crisis

The Energy Non Crisis

Big Pharma Is in a Frenzy to Bring Cannabis-Based Medicines to Market

By Paul Armentano, AlterNetPosted on July 5, 2008, Printed on July 6, 2008http://www.alternet.org/story/90469/
The US government's longstanding denial of medical marijuana research and use is an irrational and morally bankrupt public policy. On this point, few Americans disagree. As for the question of "why" federal officials maintain this inflexible and inhumane policy, well that's another story
One of the more popular theories seeking to explain the Feds' seemingly inexplicable ban on medical pot goes like this: Neither the US government nor the pharmaceutical industry will allow for the use of medical marijuana because they can't patent it or profit from it.
It's an appealing theory, yet I've found it to be neither accurate nor persuasive. Here's why.
First, let me state the obvious. Big Pharma is busily applying for -- and has already received -- multiple patents for the medical properties of pot. These include patents for synthetic pot derivatives (such as the oral THC pill Marinol), cannabinoid agonists (synthetic agents that bind to the brain's endocannabinoid receptors) like HU-210 and cannabis antagonists such as Rimonabant. This trend was most recently summarized in the NIH paper (pdf), "The endocannabinoid system as an emerging target of pharmacotherapy," which concluded, "The growing interest in the underlying science has been matched by a growth in the number of cannabinoid drugs in pharmaceutical development from two in 1995 to 27 in 2004." In other words, at the same time the American Medical Association is proclaiming that pot has no medical value, Big Pharma is in a frenzy to bring dozens of new, cannabis-based medicines to market.
Not all of these medicines will be synthetic pills either. Most notably, GW Pharmaceutical's oral marijuana spray, Sativex, is a patented standardized dose of natural cannabis extracts. (The extracts, primarily THC and the non-psychoactive, anxiolytic compound CBD, are taken directly from marijuana plants grown at an undisclosed, company warehouse.)
Does Big Pharma's sudden and growing interest in the research and development of pot-based medicines mean that the industry is proactively supporting marijuana prohibition? Not if they know what's good for them. Let me explain.
First, any and all cannabis-based medicines must be granted approval from federal regulatory bodies such as the US Food and Drug Administration -- a process that remains as much based on politics as it is on scientific merit. Chances are that a government that is unreasonably hostile toward the marijuana plant will also be unreasonably hostile toward sanctioning cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.
A recent example of this may be found in the Medicine and Health Products Regulatory Agency's recent denial of Sativex as a prescription drug in the United Kingdom. (Sativex's parent company, GW Pharmaceuticals, is based in London.) In recent years, British politicians have taken an atypically hard-line against the recreational use of marijuana -- culminating in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's declaration that today's pot is now of "lethal quality." (Shortly thereafter, Parliament elected to stiffen criminal penalties on the possession of the drug from a verbal warning to up to five years in jail.) In such an environment is it any wonder that British regulators have steadfastly refused to legalize a pot-based medicine, even one with an impeccable safety record like Sativex? Conversely, Canadian health regulators -- who take a much more liberal view toward the use of natural cannabis and oversee its distribution to authorized patients -- recently approved Sativex as a prescription drug.
Of course, gaining regulatory approval is only half the battle. The real hurdle for Big Pharma is finding customers for its product. Here again, a culture that is familiar with and educated to the use therapeutic cannabis is likely going to be far more open to the use of pot-based medicines than a population still stuck in the grip of "Reefer Madness."
Will those patients who already have first-hand experience with the use of medical pot switch to a cannabis-based pharmaceutical if one becomes legally available? Maybe not, but these individuals comprise only a fraction of the US population. Certainly many others will -- including many older patients who would never the desire to try or the access to obtain natural cannabis. Bottom line: regardless of whether pot is legal or not, cannabis-based pharmaceuticals will no doubt have a broad appeal.
But wouldn't the legal availability of pot encourage patients to use fewer pharmaceuticals overall? Perhaps, though likely not to any degree that adversely impacts Big Pharma's bottom line. Certainly most individuals in the Netherlands, Canada, and in California -- three regions where medical pot is both legal and easily accessible on the open market -- use prescription drugs, not cannabis for their ailments. Further, despite the availability of numerous legal healing herbs and traditional medicines such as Echinacea, Witch Hazel, and Eastern hemlock most Americans continue to turn to pharmaceutical preparations as their remedies of choice.
Should the advent of legal, alternative pot-based medicines ever warrant or justify the criminalization of patients who find superior relief from natural cannabis? Certainly not. But, as the private sector continues to move forward with research into the safety and efficacy of marijuana-based pharmaceuticals, it will become harder and harder for the government and law enforcement to maintain their absurd and illogical policy of total pot prohibition.
Of course, were it not for advocates having worked for four decades to legalize medical cannabis, it's unlikely that anyone -- most especially the pharmaceutical industry -- would be turning their attention toward the development and marketing of cannabis-based therapeutics. That said, I won't be holding my breath waiting for any royalty checks.
Oh yeah, and as for those who claim that the US government can't patent medical pot, check out the assignee for US Patent #6630507.

Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.

Independence Day

Independence DayJuly 4, 2008 — crescentandcross
Independence Day

“I have to get home to my mother, she will be so worried if I am not back soon.”

9 year-old Mona clutched at the gaping hole in her stomach, blood pouring out of her as if someone had turned on a faucet. There was something so terribly and indescribably out of place in her frail words, the colliding of two disparate worlds, that of a mother’s child, and that of a little girl facing down the ugliest of what life and humanity had to offer.
The man kneeling at her side however knew better. He was a trained medical professional, and in a war zone known as Gaza of all places. He had seen this scenario a thousand times before, and a thousand times too many as far as he was concerned. This child would not be going home, at least not her earthly home, given the fact that she had just been shot in the stomach at close range by a soldier wielding a machine gun, the bullets from which produced exit wounds on her tiny body that were as large as golf balls. Had she known that her insides had just been turned to mush, it is highly unlikely that she would have been as composed as she was at this moment.
Her gesture in worrying about her mother, about not wanting to cause a beloved parent any grief was partly genuine, and partly an attempt to distract herself from the fact that she knew something terrible had just happened to her. Indeed a child’s sweetness knows no bounds, irrespective of where such a child can be found in the world. As she lie in a bath of her own warm blood that increased with each passing second, while frantic adults attempt to effect that which they know is futile, all she can think is that her mother must be worried, and how she wishes she could be home with her now, if only for enough time to give her one final embrace, tell her of a daughter’s love, and to say goodbye.
In the end, it all came down to sweets, an indispensable part of any child’s life, even in places that have been torn apart by warfare for the last century such as this. Today, little Mona, despite having grown up in a world of bullets and mortars, allowed the carelessness of her childhood to overpower her reason just enough to persuade her towards venturing forth into that deadly world of never ending violence to buy some cookies at the corner store. The fact that Israeli soldiers were busy with their latest masterpiece in butchery nearby did not seem to arouse her concern. After all, when all things were considered, this was just another day in the life of someone who knew she had been born under a sentence of death and who had developed an intimacy of sorts with this fact as if it had been her own skin.
On her way back, humming something sweet and armed with nothing more dangerous than the cookies in her hand, she was indiscriminately shot by an Israeli soldier, who, like all the rest of his ilk, had been told by both political and spiritual leaders that it is the religious duty of all good Zionists, a mitzvah, to cleanse the promised land of any impurities that may be infecting it, a process of sterilization which included, if it can be imagined, slaughtering helpless Arab children. And so, this courageous and obedient soldier from among a group of people who fancy themselves as being a light among nations, without the slightest hesitation pulled the trigger, simultaneously swatting away at the shred of what remained of his conscience as if it were some species of annoying insect.
For little Mona, it merely felt like a lit match touching her insides momentarily, and it was not until she began to feel the sensation of warm wetness on her dress that she began to panic. Her first instinct was that she might get into trouble for having gotten her new dress dirty, since the last thing her mother told her before leaving the house was to make sure not to get it messy.
Thus is the mind of a child, even when facing the awfulness of eternity that their thoughts are always to be found firmly rooted in something trivial and sweet. Perhaps it was the panic stricken appearances on the faces of those around her who were trying to help that caused her to realize the seriousness of what it was that she was facing, or perhaps it was the unseen whisper into her soul from some divine messenger telling her to hurry up, since time was running out. Either way, no one really knows.
And so in that fifteen seconds before her spirit was liberated from the hellish existence that had been imposed upon her and upon the rest of the inhabitants of the Holy Land by the self-described ‘chosen people’, the little Palestinian child of 9 years forgot all about her cookies, as well as about every other item of what encompasses a child’s existence, grew up quickly, remembered everything she had been taught during the religion classes she had taken throughout her life, and made her last statement of faith. In her last words, there was no malice, no pulsa de nura–the infamous curses that rabbis and Orthodox Jews hurl daily at passing Christians or Muslims in Israel, no condemnations, no vows of revenge. Her composure, as she lie there in a pool of her own blood, was as graceful and as dignified as was that of any patriot or saint who has secured a rightly earned place in mankind’s memory as a result of having had his or her life cut short by the actions of men hell-bent upon doing evil to others. For Mona, it would be one simple statement, without any fanfare or drama, final words that will probably be remembered by few, short of those who loved her more than they loved themselves.
The little girl whose life had been snuffed out like a candle, the last fragrance of this little Palestinian flower who had been cut down by the hatchet of Jewish supremacism had nothing more spiteful in her final curtain call other than “God is great.”
From a bird’s eye view, this was but one of several tragic scenes taking place on that day. A few miles away, a family of seven had just barely made it out of their home when the bulldozer crashed through where the living room was. There were no warnings that this demolition process was about to take place, and had it not been for the fact that 14 year-old Ismail went to the window to see what the noise was that was coming from outside, the entire family would most likely have been buried beneath the rubble. This was a common occurrence these days, of not ordering the evacuation of a home to be demolished, since the Israelis cared nothing about the lives of the filthy Arabs who were polluting their sacred land, and thus preferred that the entire mess be hauled away, home and dwellers included. Under the gaze of 3 armed-to-the-teeth Israeli soldiers, the family stood by and watched helplessly as everything that encompassed their lives was reduced to rubble within a few minutes.
There was nothing left of the meager example of their family’s security and order now, and even though what they had called a life had been a miserable existence anyway, at least they had had a place to call home where they could eat, sleep, and find refuge from the rain. This home, which had literally stood for centuries, was just one of thousands in recent years that has been bulldozed in order to make way for a new apartment complex for “better people,” the Zionists, who, if you were to ask them, were a race apart and chosen by God to be the bringers of enlightenment, peace and righteousness to the rest of humanity.
Perhaps it was the colors of it that caught his eye, the green, black, brown and white that contrasted with the sand-colored rubble of his former home’s exterior. Ismail went over to where his bedroom used to be and found it jutting forth from the rubble, the Palestinian flag he cherished and which he had used to adorn his room on the same wall upon which he hung the photos of friends and family members who had died fighting to liberate their land of its oppressors. He carefully pulled it out from the rubble, paying the same respect to his country’s colors that is paid by other citizens around the world to their respective countries, and forgetting where he was, or possibly, because of remembering where he was, draped the flag over the rubble in what was the only act of defiance he cold muster at this moment. 14 year-old Ismail turned and stared at his oppressors with a controlled yet determined stare. The three armed Israeli soldiers, recently arrived from the former Soviet Union and not able to speak even one word of the same Aramaic that was the language of the Biblical ancestors from whom they claimed to be descendents, finally got what they had been hoping for that day. After all, what good were guns for anyway if they remained cold and unfired? Was there no truth to the old saying that a weapon unused was a useless weapon? Therefore, without any concern paid for what might be future consequences, one from among them chuckled, lifted the American-made rifle that had been gifted to him by virtue of his ethnic superiority from a nation that dares to calls itself Christian, aimed its sights squarely between the boy’s eyes, and in the plain sight of all who were present, launched one of his .22 caliber missiles traveling at 3,300 feet per second through the boy’s head, resulting in a spray of pink mist that left the smell of human blood in the air.
Even before the echoes of the gunshot had died, the family was screaming in agony and running to the spot where Ismail lie as motionless as a child’s doll. His last act of defiance, of simply saluting the flag and of swearing loyalty to the land that his forefathers had inhabited for over a thousand years resulted in the execution of a death sentence under which he had lived from the moment he was born. And as the family members hold him in their arms, watching as his life flows out of him in rivers of red, wailing towards heaven and begging the Almighty who created him to spare his life, those who were responsible for authoring this misery-laden event simply walk away snickering, thinking to themselves that they are now one step closer to having finished the business of exterminating Amalek, the people whom their ancestors were commanded to eradicate in cleansing the promised land, Eretz Y’Israel and of making it racially and spiritually pure. Later that evening, there would be drinks and discussions of what kind of medals would be forthcoming as a result of the day’s hard work…
…And these were just some of the thoughts going through his mind as he looked out the window that evening, watching the night sky as its darkness was interrupted every few seconds by brilliant displays of light. It was July 4’th, 2004; Independence Day in America, but his thoughts could hardly be focused on the festivities that were supposed to mark this event. Not now, and not anytime soon. His eyes had been opened to something so horrible that precluded celebrating anything, much less the freedom that he was supposed to have as an American. It must have been quite a scene down there in town where all the fireworks were taking place. Over-sized Americans stuffed into under-sized clothing, beer in one hand and something to shove into their mouths in the other, congregating for the purpose of celebrating something that in reality they no longer possessed. Waddling around like penguins and peppering their base and trivial discussions with language that one would hear in an x-rated film, they had painted themselves into the ultimate picture of black humor, and had it not been for the fact that such terrible consequences were attached to this situation, one could have been moved towards laughing at all of it.
But laughing was out of the question now, for to do so would have been as vulgar as telling dirty jokes at a funeral. The tragedy was too great, too monstrous, too serious. Besides the fact that it was the ultimate in contrasting images, as well it was all taking place in the midst of unimaginable suffering for millions of others around the globe. Just imagining the audacity of it all made the bile in his throat rise and caused his brain to scream out loud in pain. They were like a group of individuals who had inherited a great fortune generations past, but who today, unbeknownst to them were as penniless as street bums, and all of this the result of their having allowed shyster lawyers to administer their estate and bleed it dry of all its wealth. Tonight as they celebrate their perceived fortunes and congratulate themselves for having inherited them, that which they do not realize is that fact that they are bankrupt, busted, broke, and even now, as they drink and mingle with each other, laughing and talking as foolish heirs often do, the paperwork is being signed in remote places wherein their foreclosure and eviction is being planned and implemented. It had become the ultimate contradiction of themes, Independence Day in America, as much so as if there had been something known as Virtuousness Day in the ancient city of Sodom thousands of years ago.
Our spiritually ex-patriate American, watching all of this from a distance remembered reading something once in a medical journal about schizophrenia and about how one of the telltale signs of this condition’s presence was found in an individual’s ability to simultaneously hold two completely contradictory ideas, and if this wasn’t a description of what had happened to this country, he didn’t know what could be. They had become a nation of madmen, wild beasts who couldn’t think for themselves outside of the parameters that had been constructed for them by overlords who were capable of doing nothing but evil. Here they were, celebrating their freedom in an age where their lives had been reduced to that of mice within a cage, and they were too stupid to realize it. A corporate police state had been constructed around them, and their country resembled the land of their forefathers as much as a swine resembles a ballerina, and yet they were too blind to see it.
But yet, as if on Pavlovian clue, here they were, shouting and hollering like a bunch of maniacs about how wonderful all of it was and how proud they were to be Americans, the freest people on the planet, how much God loved them and blah, blah, blah. He swallowed hard in contemplating these realities, and having ingested this nauseating gruel of clashing images, felt the beginnings of a sickness in his stomach that was not going to be chased away by anything over-the-counter.
For whatever reason, he had not been infected with this virus that had gripped millions of his countrymen on September 11 2001, and in the interests of maintaining his as well as his family’s intellectual and spiritual health, he had imposed upon himself and upon those who were under his charge a strict quarantine from his countrymen since that fateful day. Over the course of the following 3 years, from a safe distance he watched in horror as his nation slowly but surely came down with this plague of intellectual and spiritual paralysis, watched as his former countrymen marched uninterruptedly towards their own oblivion without so much as a trace of resistance.
And so, in maintaining this agenda of keeping his loved ones off of the political version of the Titanic, on this night our American friend was at home with his family instead of participating in the mass-suicide that was taking place down in town.
When the first “boom” had gone off, he and his wife had looked at each other simultaneously, each bearing a face that revealed the underlying sense of puzzlement mixed with a small amount of concern that each felt. It was followed by another distant “boom” and then another, and then both of them, remembering what day it was, nodded their heads and said in unison “July the 4th.”
The event shouldn’t have taken them by such surprise, particularly since they had spent a good part of that evening watching Independence Day, that not-so-subtle piece of propaganda released upon the American people just prior to initiating the wars to save Israel. Talk about blatant, this unashamed effort of pumping up the American people into supporting what was to be the biggest bloodbath in history, theirs or anyone else’s for that matter. A storyline wherein the planet is suddenly threatened with complete annihilation from hostile, fanatical un-humans bent upon the destruction of everyone who is not like them, an extra-terrestrial jihad which is defeated by the combined efforts of Jewish brains and American brawn. The only thing that could have made the film more obvious would have been bearded aliens dressed in sheets and quoting verses from some religious book that inspired them to do what it was that they were doing.
We should suppose though that our couple should be given some slack for having forgotten where they were and in what time period they were living, since the events of the last 2 years in America have been a whirlwind of sorts that should have left anyone with half an ounce of sense somewhat senseless.
It was only a few minutes of these distant festivities going on before there was heard the sound of small footsteps coming down the stairs. In single file, beginning with the youngest (who we can suppose were the most frightened by the noise and thus wanted to get to Mom and Dad as quickly as possible) up to the oldest came the 5 children who were suddenly awakened by what sounded like strange thunder. They made a beeline for the couch where Mom and Dad were seated, asking what all the noise was about, huddling in closely as children are biologically programmed to do. When “fireworks” came the answer, all the children turned their heads towards the window to see for themselves, relieved somewhat that there was no storm, or worse, that there was no new war that had just begun in their vicinity, a reality of present day life that they had come to understand better during the course of the last two years. The oldest boy, who by then had begun to feel the stirrings of his masculine nature already, was the first to recognize the light show for how it appeared, and walking towards the window to get a better gaze, said ominously “It looks like Iraq.”
Out of the mouths of babes, as the saying has always gone.
It certainly did look like Iraq, at least that version of it that had been presented to Americans in the opening moments of the war, wherein the night sky in Baghdad was illuminated in dizzying displays of light that resembled any night in
America on July the 4th. Perhaps this was how the puppet masters in Washington and Tel Aviv wanted it to be seen, this “shock and awe” as they characterized it, in trying to get the “freest” people in the world to acquiesce to the agenda of murdering 1.5 billion Muslims for Israel’s benefit. The other children, understanding the importance found in the oldest boy’s words, also walked towards the window to get a better view. They stood there, saying nothing, although everyone in the room knew what was on each other’s mind. They winced at each flash, recoiled a bit, not displaying the ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ that children would normally exhibit at such a performance. The light show, paired with its distant booms and crackles was just one of several obscene spectacles that their young eyes had witnessed since the beginning of the present war to erect the Israeli empire. Prior to this were the images of the little Iraqi boy whose arms had been completely blown off of his body when the Americans dropped a bomb directly on his home, killing his entire family. And as sickening as this was–the image of this boy fighting to keep himself from succumbing to utter despair, the spectacle which followed was even worse; that of the American soldiers loading him onto a military transport to take him to a medical facility and cheering as he went on his way, a grandiose attempt by the Zionist media to gloss over this tragedy that had somehow slipped past the censors and made its way before the eyes of the American people.
Of course, there were as well many other scenes that these children witnessed which brought the reality of this war to their eyes and which made them smarter than the average American as to what it was all about—the women and children of Palestine who were being shot and blown up on a daily basis for the last century by those who fancied themselves as the apple of God’s eye–America’s only allies in the Middle East, the Israelis, not to mention the daily destruction of all those monuments that have stood for thousands of years and which are considered sacred to billions of Christians and Muslims around the world. And so, what had taken place over the course of the last two years of watching the war on television and of discussing its awful realities with Mom and Dad is that these children had been robbed of their youth and their innocence. They understood life and the ugly side of human nature much better than children should, and this was the reason why there was no excitement in their eyes tonight while watching the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air. Rather, they looked upon the images as any decent individual with open eyes should in America of 2004; a disgusting display of patriotic pornography that was a bringer of disease and death. It was pure smut, a way of defiling what would normally have been the beautiful act of expressing one’s love for the country in a wholesome, healthy way and of replacing it with a whorish, cheap, and sterile performance for lustful spectators. Worse yet is the fact that the national life and vitality that should have been produced by the consummation of this political marriage was (just as had been taking place in the literal sense over 4,000 times a day during the course of the last 30 years) torn to pieces by the political and cultural abortionists in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles, leaving in their wake a trail of death and destruction for hundreds of millions. And so, having had their fill of these ugly scenes and of being scandalized in such a frightful way, all went upstairs in single file as they had come down, a silent march, that, although not uttering a word, yet spoke volumes.
Having had enough of it herself, his wife followed suit and went to bed, leaving our friend in solitude to ponder other thoughts that refused to be chased away the night on which Americans were busy celebrating their freedom, Independence Day.…
The phone ringing at 3 am in the morning could never be a good thing. It was either bad news or a prank. For this particular individual, a phone call at 3 am to this number was particularly worrisome, since, being the most popular actor in the world, he had only given it out to a handful of friends and relatives. He heard his wife and the youngest of their seven children stir as the rings continued.
“Hello?” he answered, expecting to hear the voice of his father or someone else from the family with some kind of important news. “You think you’re pretty smart don’t you?” taunted the voice on the other line. It was a man’s voice, menacing, with a thick Brooklyn accent. The actor had heard the voice before, since this was not the first time he had been called in this manner. The voice continued. “You made me and my friends really mad, and we’re going to make sure that you pay for your crimes, you and your entire family. Think about that when you’re trying to get back to sleep.” The actor started to say something, displaying that angry, determined look on his face that he had famously worn in his movies and which had been seen before by millions of people around the world, but before he could get a word out, the line went dead.
“How did they get this number?”
His crime, the thing that had outraged this tiny minority of tyrants and which had driven them to the brink of madness was his decision to make a movie about the one man who was the most revered by the world’s 1 billion Christians and 1.5 billion Muslims, Jesus of Nazareth. In the months leading up to the release of the movie, the Zionist organizations had gone ballistic and had pulled the levers on every machine upon which they held sway in trying to destroy this man and his project. Under their direction, every newspaper, magazine, radio and television program had devoted a considerable amount of their attention to the campaign of smearing him and of making a mockery of his film. Some of these groups, the less cautious, actually petitioned the US government to have this man and his associates arrested as terrorists under the provisions of the Patriot Act.
It was July the 4th, Independence Day in America, and not only his life, but the lives of those whom he loved had just been threatened, again, something that had become a regular event now for over a year as a result of his daring to exercise his freedom of speech and religion. He had gone to the police, the FBI of all people, but nothing was done short of periodic assurances by agency spokesmen that “they were looking into it.”
Our American actor should have known better than to call them, since after all it was this same agency that had allowed over 200 spies who had been directly involved in the attacks of September 11th to be sent back to Israel immediately following what took place on that fateful day. Added to this, the fact that the Zionist group that was responsible for making such a fuss about his movie, the ADL, was a known yet unregistered agency of the Israeli government and the fact that it had enjoyed a love affair with the FBI over the course of the last 5 decades should have signaled to him whose priorities were going to take precedence in this matter.
And if these two items weren’t enough, then that which should have brought his expectations into proper alignment with reality was the fact that the individual who was responsible for overseeing much of the FBI’s investigations held dual citizenship in America and in Israel, and this fact, more than anything else should have underscored for him just how ridiculous the business of contacting them over this matter really was. In all fairness to our naïve American actor though, what else could he do? He had a family whose safety he was responsible for securing, and he still, foolishly, believed in the system, at least somewhat.
Tonight, the same people who flocked to see his famous movie in droves will don their baseball hats, their t-shirts emblazoned with such recently resurrected and popularized slogans as “United We Stand” and “God Bless America” and who, while clutching in their hands the millions of miniature American flags specially made for this event will celebrate their enslavement to the very same jackals who made the threatening phone call tonight, although none among the sheep will recognize this as being the case. They will nostalgically and schizophrenically lump the triumph of this man’s movie and the war in the Middle East together as being two sides of the same coin–2 fronts in the war to save Christianity and its civilization–two battles being fought in defense of the faith and freedom, refusing to see that the very same people who were responsible for running this man’s life through the meat grinder are the very same who are sending America’s sons and daughters off to die in the Middle East for the benefit of a foreign power who is, despite all the propagandizing that has taken place, no friend. And while all this is taking place, in the very land where a war of liberation was waged by a peasant carpenter from Nazareth against the descendents of those who made the threatening phone call tonight a continuation of this war is raging at full throttle. At this moment, the gangsters who put to death the main character in the same film which Christians in America stampeded like buffalo to go see in 2004 have returned after being chased out in 70 AD and are attempting to impose upon the world the very same nightmare that the Palestinian carpenter-turned-revolutionary tried to prevent.
Tonight, all the spots that commemorate the great events of this carpenter’s life and which have stood as some of the greatest monuments to the development of Western Civilization are being bulldozed and blown up by Jewish supremacist tyrants, while a group of Arab peasants attempt to prevent this disaster from taking place, even with their life’s blood. Tonight, as Americans celebrate the memories of those who gave their lives for the liberation of their own country from a foreign invader, will at the same time curse and castigate those who are attempting to do the same in the lands of Palestine and Iraq. Tonight, “cowards” and “terrorists,” as they have been called by the President of the United States and by his Zionist overlords, are fighting with every ounce of their beings to liberate their respective countries from the foreigners who have invaded their lands and who are slaughtering their women and children in the tens and hundreds of thousands. Adults, not having the sophisticated weaponry that is used against them by their oppressors will strap themselves with explosives and blow themselves up in order to take out the assassins within the Israeli military machine and their hired mercenaries from America who murder women and children on a daily basis. Children, in what is but a modern day repeat of the battle fought between David vs. Goliath will bravely go up against tanks and machine guns, often armed with nothing more than rocks and sticks and will fight this enemy with every ounce of their beings, knowing beforehand that they stand a good chance of losing arms and legs and even their lives. These “cowards” and “terrorists” will do so for exactly the same reasons and in exactly the same manner as was done by those rare Americans who, over 200 years previously, drove out foreign invaders who were bent upon enslaving them and of robbing them of their own destinies. Every man, woman, and child in Iraq, Palestine and every other place where the beast of Jewish supremacism is on the rampage, are–whether donning a rifle, grenade launcher, bomb vest, or a vehicle laden with explosives–brilliant reincarnations of the patriots of 1776 who refused to go down without a fight, who refused to go quietly into the night, freedom fighters whose existence today has been reduced to one agenda that is beyond negotiation or surrender, which is simply, “give us liberty or give us death.” Of course we will not find an ounce of this awareness among those Americans who have chosen to tempt the patience of fate on this night, July 4th, Independence Day. As they foolishly wave their flags, put their hands over the hearts and sing with a quivering voice the national anthem with tears welling up in their eyes, what they have chosen to do is to participate in an obscene display of hypocrisy and contempt for that gem of incalculable value known as freedom, as well as for the justice that must accompany its existence if it is to remain a viable entity. The contempt that they maintain for those who are paying with their life’s blood so that they themselves may experience just a tasting of the same freedom that Americans presume to be celebrating on this night has become a perfect representation of the two minute’s hate of George Orwell’s nightmarish novel 1984. Tonight, as it will be for many future nights in the coming years, the cursing that the Americans will display against those in the Middle East for daring to defend their beloved homelands and families from foreign assassins has become the chanting of the contradictions in that infamous, prophetic piece of fiction turned-into-non-fiction which predicted a future state of madness for humanity: war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and by such, has now become the process of spitting on the graves of those who gave their lives before them in the noble cause of freedom. What they are doing in effect by championing the war against Israel’s enemies, in cheering like the mob at the coliseum for the hellish precepts of the Jewish supremacist agenda is to hold in contempt the war for freedom that their forefathers waged centuries past, although today, most of them are too stupid to recognize this as being the case. For in reality, what are they daring to celebrate this night? Freedom? They are as bankrupt of this currency as some indigent, homeless hobo on the street begging for food. Justice? Their political and cultural system is as anemic of this life-sustaining element to the point of near death. Truth? The fools who tonight are championing the slaughter of the last remaining impediment to the enslavement of the Jewish supremacist agenda stagger around aimlessly, inebriated on the drug of duplicity that they ingest on a daily basis by a government media complex furthering the cause of Zionist tyranny. Decency? Their society has become like a leper colony full of dying individuals who are rotting away from the corrosive effects of the plague, a plague that has resulted from poisons that have been deliberately poured into the wellspring of their culture by the very same assassins who bow at the feet of the Israeli agenda. After all, what is the event being remembered this evening, and for which all of this energy and effort is being expended? The day when a group of rugged individuals refused to be enslaved by a man named George who was a puppet to the business interests and corporations that controlled him? The day in which patriots stood up to the most powerful political, economic, and military power in the world at that time for the chance to run their lives free of those who would be their overlords? The day in which they fought back against an invasion initiated by foreign powers that threatened the peace and prosperity of their lives and the lives of those whom they loved? Please…no more.
It is something that, out of respect for the dead, should be put on hold for a while, this celebration of Independence Day in America. Not only out of respect for those who gave their lives fighting for this thing known as freedom 200 years ago in America, but more importantly, out of respect for those who are fighting for it today and who are being rewarded with nothing but scorn and derision by Americans for their efforts. The honor that is due to the minutemen at Lexington Bridge who were killed by the British is shamed and tarnished when remembering the event in which 35 of America’s young men were deliberately murdered by the Israelis in 1967 when the ship that carried them, the USS Liberty, was torpedoed, napalmed and machine-gunned for almost 2 hours with the quiet complicity of the American government. The outrage with which Americans recall the unsuccessful assassination attempt on George Washington’s life by the British is irredeemably defiled when paired next to what was successfully realized by a nuclear weapons-hungry Israel against the same John F. Kennedy who stood in her way of getting the bomb. The disdain that Benedict Arnold has suffered for 2 centuries now and counting as a result of his treachery in turning coat and siding with America’s enemy at that time is but a grain of sand placed alongside a mountain when considering the manner in which today all the elected members of the American government have unflinchingly cast their lots with the worst enemy that America has ever had. Here they were this night, standing solidly behind the man who lied to them about the reasons for America’s entry into the present war being fought in erecting the Israeli empire, King George, the man responsible for the deaths of thousands of sons and daughters serving in the American military and who has promised to send even more to die in the coming years, and they cheer. This man and his coterie who silently sent back to Israel the nest of spies, 200 or more, who played an indispensable role in the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11th sits atop his throne receiving the adulations of a compliant and conquered American people. They hoop and holler over their ancestors having thrown off the shackles of a foreign power 2 centuries past, and yet drink themselves silly over the fact that they have become the useful idiots of a foreign power whose thirst for supremacy and blood makes what was ‘British tyranny’ in 1776 look like paradise. Even now, as the next terrible event is being planned that will dwarf what took place on 9/11, these individuals who today inform on their friends and family to the Zionist thought police and who would have been the hated loyalists in America’s war against Great Britain 200 years ago refuse to see the obvious for what it is. And it is in this light therefore that our American friend, watching from a distance as the fires of duplicity and treachery consume the land that he used to love becomes a refugee, a wanderer without a home and without a country to which he can swear his allegiance. He sees the circus in town for what it really is, a farce of unprecedented historical outrage that should be an abomination in the eyes of every decent human being on the planet. The presence of these individuals tonight at what should be the solemn ceremony of celebrating freedom and of commemorating the sacrifices made by selfless individuals for their beloved country is as appropriate as would be a whore clad in a red dress at someone’s first communion ceremony.
In the meantime, our friend must do the unthinkable, something that he never would have imagined doing in a million years, which is to find an escape route out of this ‘land of freedom’ before this beast that is on the rampage snatches his own children and drags them off to fight and die for the benefit of a hostile, maniacal foreign power. He must begin preparations to flee, while there is time, to some safe haven lest the storm that is gathering comes and destroys everything that has given his life meaning. As a descendant of those who came to America looking for freedom from their respective countries, he must reverse these events and bring the family name to distant shores, someplace where his children will be safe–not only from being physically kidnapped and dragged off to die in order to serve the beast of the Zionist agenda, but as well from the highly contagious and deadly mental illness that has destroyed their countrymen.
And as he looks out the window, wincing as the mid-air explosions and percussions–meant as a celebration of this thing called independence, punctuate what would ordinarily have been a peaceful night, he thinks to himself, “If I could be president for a day, the things I would do.” In his meanderings, he envisions what would take place in a world where freedom and liberty are celebrated and honored in the spirit of true justice, where vice and bloodthirstiness are contained and then, even if only temporarily, terminated instead of celebrated. And he concludes his thoughts by saying something that he always remembered hearing his grandfather solemnly say when speaking of future events, a man who was born in the same Holy Land where today’s true patriots are fighting and who understood where life’s importance lie; “Yom Yommi”, which, when translated from the same Aramaic tongue spoken by the freedom fighters of Palestine 2,000 years ago against the beast of Jewish Supremacism simply means “the day will come.”
The day will come wherein Independence Day, on whatever date it falls, will be a day celebrated by all the world’s peoples, not just by those in America. It will be a day commemorating the event wherein mankind fought and achieved its independence from the beast of the Jewish supremacist agenda, and wherein a wooden stake was driven through the heart of a vampire that terrorized the world in such an unimaginable and unprecedented way. It will be remembered as the day wherein those who were tyrannized in such a brutal manner by the descendents of Cain rose up and finally cast into the lake of fire this animal that has prowled about humanity’s homestead and who has snatched the helpless, dragged them off towards oblivion and devoured them without any mercy. It will be the day wherein from the heavens, children like Mona and Ismail and all the others who were cut down by Hell’s assassins are remembered and enshrined as some of the best individuals that humanity had to offer as a result of their having given their lives in fighting for the taste of freedom. It will be celebrated as the day in which the beast and his 2,000-year agenda was finally put to the torch, and permanently made a thing of the past, never to be resurrected again. And, with these last thoughts, our American friend turns from the shock and awe, walks towards where his wife and baby lie sleeping, thinking of the heroes whose exploits would one day tell the story of freedom and justice for all mankind…
And it was July 4th, 2004, Independence Day in America.
‘Independence Day’ is an excerpt of Mark Glenn’s book No Beauty in the Beast…Israel Without Her Mascara which can be accessed by going to www.crescentandcross.com. The author can be reached at


he thought in disbelief. It was a brand new number, and only about 5 people had it. The only way possible was to break into the phone company’s computer banks and retrieve it, which would have required the resources of a government or at the very least, its passive cooperation. mailto:crescentandcross@gmail.com

U.S. Funding Terror Attacks In Iran

WTF, I thought that they were the ones that were...............

By Sherwood Ross

The recent surge of terrorist violence in Iran likely is being funded in part by the Bush administration with the support of Congress.
According to a report in the July 7-14 issue of The New Yorker magazine, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh says the U.S. reportedly has been funding the Iranian dissident terrorist group Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or M.E.K.; the Kurdish separatist Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK; and, according to some sources, the Jundallah, or Iranian People’s Resistance Movement.

“Hardly a day goes by now we don’t see a clash somewhere,” retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner is quoted by Hersh as stating. “There were three or four incidents over a recent weekend, and the Iranians are even naming the Revolutionary Guard officers who have been killed.” Gardiner has taught strategy at the National War College and is monitoring the violence in Iran.
The bloodshed in Iran likely has been underwritten by the U.S. Congress which last year acceded to a request from Bush “to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran,” Hersh writes, “designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.” Bush asked for $400 million for the work.
“The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Ara and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations,” Hersh added, noting that “Clandestine operations against Iran are not new” and U.S. Special Operations Forces “have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year.”
Earlier this year, a militant Ahwazi group claimed to have assassinated a Revolutionary Guard colonel, Hersh noted, and the Iranian government conceded an explosion in the southern city of Shiraz had been a terrorist act. That blast killed a dozen people and injured more than 200. Hersh said it could not be learned if there was any specific U.S. involvement in that incident.
However, the M.E.K., which has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, in recent years “has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States,” Hersh writes, and some of the newly authorized covert fund money may well flow into their coffers. A Pentagon consultant who was not named told Hersh, “The (Bush) Administration is desperate for results.”
As for the Kurdish PJAK, reportedly getting U.S. covert funding, Hersh quotes Gardiner as noting there has been a marked increase in the number of their armed engagements with Iranians and terrorist attacks on Iranian targets. PJAK fighters last May attacked Revolutionary Guards and in June attacked Iranian border guards.
A former senior intelligence official indicated to Hersh that Vice President Cheney’s office “set up priorities for categories of targets (in Iran) and now he’s getting impatient and applying pressure for results. But it takes a long time to get the right guys in place.”
The official added, “There is huge opposition inside the intelligence community to the idea of waging a covert war inside Iran, and using Baluchis and Ahwazis as surrogates.”
The official was also quoted as saying there had been a meeting in Cheney’s office and “The subject was how to create a casus belli (an event to justify a declaration of war) between Tehran and Washington.”
Hersh also wrote that Admiral William Fallon, who until recently headed the U.S. Central Command with oversight for Iraq and Afghanistan, “resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran.”
Retired Marine General John Sheehan, formerly commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, told Hersh that when Fallon “tried to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White House leadership shut him out.”
Hersh quoted a Pentagon consultant as stating, “Fallon went down because, in his own way, he was trying to prevent a war with Iran, and you have to admire him for that.”
In sum, while the Bush regime claims the Iranians are behind attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, (an assertion fraught with what the New York Times delicately called “significant uncertainties,”) there is no longer any question Bush is doing just that inside Iran; that Cheney is looking for a cause to start a war; and that the White House will fire any flag officer that dares to stand in its way. #

(Sherwood Ross is a resident of Miami, Fla., who writes on military and political subjects. He has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and for wire services. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com).Authors Bio: Sherwood Ross has worked as a publicist for the City of Chicago and as a public relations consultant to New York City. He worked as news director for the National Urban League; as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and a workplace columnist for Reuters. He has also been a media consultant to colleges, universities, law schools and more than 100 national magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Business Week, and Foreign Policy. Ross also was a talk show host at WOL Radio, Washington, D.C., and holds an award for "best spot news coverage" for Chicago radio stations. He is the author "Gruening of Alaska,"(Best)and several plays, including "Baron Jiro," produced at Live Arts Theatre, Charlottesville, Va., and "Yamamoto's Decision," read at the National Press Club, where he is a member. His favorite quotations are from the Sermon on The Mount.

Enough already!

By Frank Scott Online Journal Contributing Writer

While a cowardly congress avoids prosecuting George W. Bush for using the constitution as toilet paper and getting us into war by twisting facts even more than his syntax, more serious problems await their failure to act as representatives of the American people.
Problems such as: Should we bomb Iran for Israel, or pay Israel to bomb Iran and either way suffer the consequences? Should we resolve this dilemma with the present regime, or wait for the new executive staff next year? How long can the international community -- the USA, Israel, a British lapdog and a French poodle -- tolerate the mad killer in Tehran who threatens to exterminate Jews, sodomize puppies and rape white women in his demonic campaign to rule the world. Or something like that.
Our political paparazzi spread stories of Ahmadinejad and Iran that are almost that blatantly idiotic. As madmen press for us to murder more people in their quest for a divinity that will leave them chosen survivors of a nuclear holocaust, our corporate congress acts as willing servant. It is only aroused to action when Zionists snap their fingers, or when neocons wave a flag.
No wonder so many are swept up in a passionate hope that dulls the senses, but at least seems to offer some light at a very dark time. It is necessary to be asleep to experience a dream, but now we need to be comatose to imagine an American Dream of prosperity, peace and justice, let alone a self-focused one of personal success. A fully awakened people have to confront the present crisis before it becomes an American Nightmare.
The constant leaking of information about planned attacks on Iran indicate that groups within the establishment, supportive of empire but opposed to its present madness, are trying to avoid disaster. But the ruling fanatics are also hard at work, and with the most spineless opposition our nation has ever known -- if they’d been around during the American revolution we’d all be speaking with British accents -- there is a vital need to come out of our political slumber, or mythical dreams will become factual nightmares.
While it’s easy to see that attacking Iran could be more insanely destructive than the slaughter we have caused in Iraq, that is only apparent to those with some sense remaining after having our heads beaten to a pulp by distortions of reality. Our irrational consciousness controllers claim that Iran threatens mankind, especially Jewish mankind, and this based on evidence as convincing as proof of how many angels dance on the head of a pin.
When Ahmadinejad quoted his Imam and said that the rulers of Israel, like those of the Soviet Union, would vanish into history, it somehow became a threat of holocaust revival, endlessly repeated by those incapable of coherent reasoning in English, let alone the Persian spoken by Ahmadinejad.
At a time of confusion and fear, many Americans who hardly believe much their government and its controlling institutions say, seem ready to swallow any bilge shoved into their heads if it’s about the Islamic world. This may be a time for the doubters of much that they are told, most of the time, to become disbelievers in everything they are told, all the time.
Given that we are supposedly a nation of believers, it might be better if we prayed for guidance from immaterial forces before letting hysterical crackpots push us into supporting material action of ever more murderous intolerance and stupidity.
Iran is neither a threat to America, nor is its nuclear program any of our business. Especially since our business involves being the only nation to have ever used nukes, arming ourselves with more of them, and remaining silent about the mass murder potential of the primary source of moronic fables about Iran. That would be AIPAC -- the American Jewish lobby -- and Israel, where Mordechai Vanunu spent years in prison for trying to tell the world that it is as great a threat to humanity as is the USA. Why? It is founded on a myth of perpetual threat of annihilation at the hands of the rest of the world, so that any defense against that threat, however irrational, is deemed logical and even divine.
For the moment, the paranoia is focused on Iran, but it once was Iraq and soon could be any nation or group that incurs the animosity of Israel’s American lobby. And it doesn't take much beyond honest criticism to incur the highly financed rage of that lobby and its sentiment of pending doom, based on biblical legend more than historic reality. If descendants of Native Americans and African slaves had the same psychological aberration, Americans might never be allowed to sleep again.
A public almost desperate to see the Bush regime fade away seems to have been lulled into a state of greater passivity than usual. But the incredible nature of proposed war on Iran may be, hopefully, pushing many closer to action. If that only involves a gentile sector of the ruling class, relief will be brief, at best. If it means a breakthrough in desires and demands for a truly democratic society run by a majority of citizens and not their minority rulers, we may not only avert short-term disaster but bring on real long term-hope for progress.
If we remain angry, confused and lashing out at innocent scapegoats instead of challenging real power, an outlook that can seem personally bleak could soon turn into one of social disaster. It is long past the time for Americans to say we’ve had enough and we can’t take it anymore. That means ending the dictatorship of corporate wealth and Zionism, and beginning a democracy of all the people. Can we? We’d better.

Copyright © 2008 Frank Scott. All rights reserved.Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in the Coastal Post, a monthly publication from Marin County, California, and on numerous web sites, and on his shared blog at legalienate.blogspot.com. Contact him at frankscott@comcast.net.

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The Fouth of July Lie

A Fresh Look at Holidays

by Butler Shafferby Butler Shaffer

I have long been a critic of the state’s co-option of holidays to serve governmental purposes, thus negating the messages these holidays originally served. July 4th – designed to celebrate independence from the state – has been refashioned as a holiday for revelling in the state’s favorite activity, war. Television treats us to a seemingly endless supply of John Wayne films, urging us to embrace the contradictory idea that submitting ourselves to increased state power is the way to promote our liberty! It is such twisted thinking that leads those who refuse to examine the content of their minds to bleat about the soldiers who "fight for our freedom." What nonsense. Shall we next be told that Sunset Boulevard hookers are peddling virtue?
Just how far we have contorted our thinking about "independence day" is reflected in most people’s thinking about fireworks. Like private gun-ownership, our personal use of fireworks represents too much power in the hands of individuals. And so, we confine ourselves to the absurdity of having the state celebrate our liberty and independence for us!
Memorial Day is another holiday corrupted by statism. Originally begun as a day for remembering the dead – particularly those who had died in war – it, too, has been twisted into a day for celebrating – not condemning – warfare. Back to the film files for more John Wayne flicks. Like his neocon successors who never heard a gunshot fired in anger, Wayne remains a hero to the statists for having bravely and selflessly defended the back-lot of Republic Pictures during World War II.
The November 11th Armistice Day holiday of my childhood – which celebrated the end of a war – has metamorphosed into Veterans Day, with thousands of war veterans donning their American Legion caps or U.S.S. Missouri baseball caps to praise the war system, rather than its albeit temporary cessation. More John Wayne celluloid makes it to the television screens. In such fictionalized accounts, young and impressionable minds learn the righteousness not only of obedience to authority, but of throwing oneself upon a live hand grenade.
And for what could we be more thankful on that fourth Thursday in November than living in a nation ruled by an all-powerful state that protects us from the savage hordes menacing us from such lands as Grenada, Afghanistan, Libya, Panama, Iraq, or any other enemy-of-the-month selected by establishment rulers? Nor does New Year’s Day go unused by the state, it being the date on which most of the new regulations on our lives take effect, as well as the beginning of a new tax year.
Even Christmas – the day, not that many decades ago, that was virtually synonymous with "peace" – has given rise to Christmas cards depicting flag-draped Santa Clauses, and homes decorated in red, white, and blue lights. And as children unwrap their "G.I. Joe" toys or their warrior-based computer games, the ballad "Onward Christian Soldiers" may be heard on a local radio station.
Even as modernly practiced, there is one nice thing about national holidays: they provide a day off work for government employees. With this thought in mind, I propose a further expansion of such holidays, to the end that all 365 days of the year be taken up in honoring someone, or some event, or some group of people who should be accorded the same recognition as those now favored. I have a few samples to get our thinking started.
When a holiday for Martin Luther King was first being considered, I suggested other renowned blacks as more suitable honorees, Frederick Douglass being my choice. If there was an insistence upon selecting a more recent candidate, I would have preferred Malcolm X, who – particularly near the end of his life – saw the deeper basis of social conflict than the simplistic "black-versus-white" model upon which most of us have settled, and which is becoming a focal point in this year’s presidential campaign. So, indulge my thinking for the purpose of having additional national holidays for Douglass and Malcolm.
In this age of hyphenated ego-boundary identities, religious, ethnic, and nationality groups could take up the cause for honoring their specific associations. The Christians and Jews already have their holidays (a word which, itself, stems from "holy days") recognized. But what about Muslims, Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus, and the many other religions that are not recognized with a holiday? At a time when politicians like to talk about diversity, why are the members of these religions left out? And what about atheists? Shouldn’t Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s birthday also be recognized, as a confirmation of the non-establishment clause of the 1st Amendment?
Just imagine what could be done to shrink governmental behavior by recognizing nationality groups for a national holiday? Lithuanian Day, Cinco de Mayo, Norwegian Day, Kenya Day, Thailand Day, . . . on and on to encompass all nationalities as well as sub-nationalities (e.g., not just Iraq Day, but Shiite Day, Sunni Day, etc.). Yugoslavia – which has since decentralized into five separate nations – and Czechoslovakia – which has fragmented into the Czech Republic and Slovakia – could multiply the numbers, just as the collapse of the Soviet Union has breathed new life into a great many independent nations.
And why have we limited America’s presidential nominees to a single President’s Day? How about a day to honor each of them? My favorite – and the only one I would choose to honor – would be William Henry Harrison, a man who caught pneumonia on inauguration day and died a month later! Grover Cleveland would probably be entitled to two such days, his having served two non-consecutive terms.
You get the picture. Occupations, genders, lifestyles, belief systems, etc., etc., could each be recognized. Instead of a generic "Labor Day," what about a day recognizing farmers, who produce the food that sustains us? Furthermore, what about a day to honor those whose work is far more central to our well-being than rock stars and athletes, namely, those who dispose of the entropic wastes of our world (e.g., garbage and trash collectors, undertakers, and plumbers)? Such people – along with farmers – do the work many of us despise and yet, without their efforts, we would be inundated in waste (have you ever lived in New York City during a garbage-collectors’ strike?).
Let us have a paid holiday for everyone, in honor of all these e pluribus unum groups we like to imagine have created America. If all 365 days could be filled up, this would mean that all government employees would continue to get paid: they just wouldn’t show up for work to do anything. The benefit of paying such people to stay out of our way would be a wonderful first step toward a total dismantling of the state. We would still be stuck with paying their salaries but, on the other hand, we would have put an end to their ceaseless meddling. Enough of these people might become so bored with having no work to perform, they might quit their government jobs and go into the marketplace with the rest of us! To paraphrase an old Vietnam War saying, "what if they created a government, but nobody came?"
July 4, 2008
Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. He is the author of Calculated Chaos: Institutional Threats to Peace and Human Survival.
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