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- FRONT PAGE EDITORIAL - The Best Government Money Can RentThe recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to spend any amount of money they like on political campaigns represents the final triumph of ideology over reason and pragmatic reality. The ideology, of course, is that of corporate personhood; the notion that a charter issued the secretary of state of any of the 50 states, is somehow a living, breathing human being - at least legally.That means that such a "person" is due his civil rights - including the right of free speech. Free speech, in this case, was construed to mean the right to flood political campaigns with any amount of money. All the money they want. Billions, if they'd like. No limits whatsoever. That overturns a century of precedent and careful attempts by dozens of laws to restrain the economic power of corporations to overwhelm the political process. Talk about judicial activism! Talk about legislating from the bench! There has been lots of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth on the political left about this decision (and only a few, mild misgivings expressed by the right), saying it will lead to the best government money can buy, but at the end of the day, it won't change much of anything about the way political campaigns are actually financed in the United States. They're already being financed by corporate self-interest, and the government of the United States is already under corporate control, as the trillions of dollars, robbed from the taxpayers by the Obama administration and handed to corporations with zero accountability last winter, should have made abundantly, painfully clear. The floodgates of corporate money flowing into political campaigns have been open for a very long time. At the end of the day, John McCain has represented and will continue to represent Motorola Defense Group and Israel in the U.S. senate. And ditto for Joe Lieberman and Aetna - and Israel, of course. In the executive branch, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers will continue to represent Goldman Sachs, just as they do now. And on the courts, we will continue to see the Bush appointees in the Supreme Court seeing to it that the corporations are being carefully watered and fed at the expense of the public interest, just as they are now. The greedy and avaricious capitalists, especially the "defense" industry capitalist pigs, will continue to slop at the government trough, just as they do now, continuing to bloat the "defense" budget to well beyond the spending of the rest of the planet put together. Nothing new there. The United States government has always been for sale, and has been bought and sold many times. Indeed, in the 19th century, there was even a market price for U.S. senate seats! No, my friend, what we are going to see now, instead, will be something much worse than government-for-sale. Instead, it is now going to be government-for-rent. Now it is going to become an orgiastic free-for-all as competing corporations, many created for the express purpoose, advancing every conceivable agenda, often in competition with each other, attempting to buy Congress and the White House, and finding they can only rent it instead, with the rental price being bid up with each succeeding election. Imagine this: Iran Inc., operating through its newly-formed Delaware corporation, goes out and spends millions of dollars trying to counter Israel's influence in Congress. So Israel spends many more millions than it is spending now, buying the impunity for its war crimes - not through AIPAC, but through Israel, Inc., another Delaware corporation. ExxonMobil already spends hundreds of millions each year influencing U.S. senators and congressmen on the issue of global warming and buying access to publicly owned natural resources; can you imagine China National Offshore Oil Corporation buying up Congress to advance its agenda of monopolizing world oil resources? So the oil tankers leaving Valdez, Alaska, may end up heading southwest instead of southeast. Until ExxonMobil rents the government back - resulting in a raising of the rent for congressmen in the next election cycle. Voters are susceptible to this, because all it takes for a lie to be believed is for it to be repeated often enough. And with corporate coffers involved, lies can be repeated as endlessly as neccessary in misleading campaign commercials sponsored by astroturfing groups. There is now not even any effective legal constraint anymore on criminals chartering legal corporations for the sole purpose of capturing government for the benefit of the criminal. For example, Colombian drug gangs could quite conceivably get a Delaware corporation chartered, and use it to funnel millions, even billions into political campaigns in an effort to forestall decriminalization of drugs, so their monopolies will continue to remain enforced by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the price will remain high. And even Al Qaeda could charter Al Qaeda, Inc. to make sure that the terrorism fearmongering is maintained and strengthened and civil liberties further abridged - it means they will have succeeded in creating the terror they're trying to create and further punishing the American people with an unneccessary and pointless loss of their liberty. No commercial interests need even be involved, just theoretical corporate personhood "rights" being exploited to promote pernicious corporate and/or private agendas. So at the end of the day, government won't be permanently owned by corporate interests anymore, as it has been until now. Instead, it will be for rent, and the lease agreement can only run for as long as the election cycle, at the end of which a new auction will occur, inevitably raising the rent. It will truly be a free-for-all of competing corporate interests, fighting it out with checkbooks, and, of course, ultimately the fattest checkbooks will win as they always do. One dollar, one "share" in the right to "free speech." The public interest, whenever it conflicts with these corporate agendas, will be totally ignored, just as it has been in the recent health care debacle and the abandonment by Congress of the global warming problem. The public dialogue for rent to the highest bidder. The cure for this obscenity, of course, would be to abolish private financing of political campaigns, a trend already well-advanced elsewhere in the world. Yes, I know it is painful to watch your tax money being paid to finance the political campaigns of people whose agenda you find odious, but the only cure to that problem - private financing - can only end up VASTLY worse than the disease, as it has, as the American people are about to find out. Additionally, an equally helpful solution, which could solve a lot of other problems as well, would be to abolish the entire notion of "corporate personhood" - a legal concept which has no factual basis in law whatever, but rests solely on the misinterpretation of a single 19th-century Supreme Court decision. In Africa, there is an often-heard saying: "When the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled." Well, there are three hundred million Americans out there who are about to find out what it is like to be grass.
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| ESSAYS |
Commentary on Politics and CultureWhy I Left America answers the question that a lot of the readers of my web journal have been asking about why I have gone into exile...Why Do They Hate Us So Much? explores the roots of the terrorism situation America faces, and what we will have to do to genuinely fix the problem, rather than just bandage it with an ineffectual "war on terrorism"... So You're Leaving The States An entire section of this web site, it offers information that those contemplating exile really need to know, from one who has gone through the process of moving abroad and into permanent voluntary exile. This section offers critically needed information you won't find in the guide books... The Dubya and Dick Scandal Chart is a downloadable chart, showing all the interconnected unsavory relationships, excessive campaign contributions, insider trading, conflicts of interests, fraud, influence peddling, etc., that characterize this administration... The Great Awful Truths And What To Do About Them is an essay that explains in some detail five great awful truths that are so awful, most people live their entire lives in deep denial about them - and how the ruling elites use the denial about three of those truths to manipulate and control the population - but there are two others that can be used to counter the manipulation by the elites themselves... Not With A Whimper, But A Bang - The Endpoints Of Capitalism is an essay that explores the fact that capitalism contains the seeds within itself of its own destruction, and why those seeds seem to regularly sprout and grow - and what to do about it... Free Market Fundamentalism: Neoliberalism, Friedman, and the "Chilean Miracle" discusses the failures of the "neoliberal" economic model, and why it not only has failed, but has increased in popularity since it was first expounded... Conflict In The Middle East: The Untold History Of The Israeli-Palestinian Confict as seen from the Palestinian perspective, but minus the propaganda, explains why the Palestinians have become as radicalized as they are... The Gathering Darkness: America In The 21st. Century is a discussion of the trends in American culture and politics -- and some of the alarming directions in which America is headed. Written in 1997, it is interesting to see how the predictions in this almost-decade-old essay have been borne out... The Darkness Arrives: America in the 21st. Century includes some thoroughly shocking examples of the degree to which the Bill of Rights is ignored when the rich and powerful are in jeopardy of being embarrassed. Powerful evidence of the above essay's contentions... Causes of the Culture Wars explains why the argument between conservatives and liberals is vastly more significant than just a disagreement about politics... Gay Marriage: The Arguments and the Motives looks at gay marriage and the arguments against legalizing it -- and neatly demolishes them, one by one... Homophobia: The Fear Behind The Hatred looks at how homophobia has come to be, why homophobia is the right word to describe the hatred, and the terrible price all of American culture pays for its homophobia... Stranger in Your Own Home Town is an autobiographical essay on the experience of growing up gay in America, and how it is different from the heterosexual experience in some really surprising ways... The Politics of Ignorance and Self-Interest explores how conservatism is borne of personal inexperience and self interest rather than broad education and a sense of egalitarianism, and therefore has fundamental flaws that prevent it from being a philosophy of politics consistent with cherished American values... "The Sovereign Individual" - Prescription Or Propaganda? explores how a brilliant propaganda piece has ended up as an influential cult classic, believed in and followed by hundreds of thousands, who have been influenced by it, to work against their own best interests, and against the best interests of society as a whole... Just What Is A "Secular Humanist Liberal," Anyway? answers the question of just who are those people that "religious right" so loves to hate... A Shameful Legacy The results of what I've seen from living on the public lands, this essay explains why we have vast forests but don't have enough timber for our needs, why our rangelands are degrading and our cultivated acreage is shrinking every year and why we're ruining the legacy we're leaving for our children... The Natural "Crime Against Nature" talks about the commonality of homosexuality among animals, and shows how those who refer to sodomy as "the crime against nature" are actually exposing their ignorance... Saint Aelred The Queer: The Surprising History of Homophobia is a brief survey of homosexuality in pre-contact Africa, native America and Europe - and the surprising reasons that homophobia has arisen in the Christian church... Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme discusses the fact that the fierce new debate about RU-486 and other abortifacients is actually quite irrelevant in the light of the historical options available to women... Living to Work or Working to Live is a discussion of the increasing work week, why the length of the work week is rapidly increasing, and why the "Dotcom Generation" should be gravely concerned about it...
Commentary on ReligionWhy Fundamentalism is Wrong talks about the logical errors of fundamentalist religion, Christian and otherwise...Creationism: An Argument Against Reason is a discussion of the current debate over the nature of Creationism and why it is dangerous to teach it in the public schools... Mormonism: Legitimate Religion Or Cult? discusses that church's unsettling resemblance to the Cult Awareness Network's definition of a cult... The Bible and Christianity: The True Origins demystifies the real origins of Christianity and the Bible, and brings a dramatic new perspective to the origins of traditional Christian values... The Mind Virus is an exploration of how ideas in society can behave like viruses in the body, and a look at the most successful mind virus in world history... Experiencing God: The Neurology of the Spiritual Experience discusses the recent discoveries of neurophysiology about how the brain produces such experiences as the out-of-body experience, the near-death experience, the visions of religious figures and more... What the Christian Fundamentalist Doesn't Want You To Know: a Brief Survey of Biblical Errancy is a discussion of some of the more glaring problems with the Bible, and why they are insoluble from a rational perspective... Towards A New World Religious Philosophy explores the failures of existing religions, the need for a new world religion, and the characteristics that religion should have... Why Am I Me? discusses the deep significance of that simple question from childhood, and why its answer is deeply important to an understanding of religion and even modern physics... The Case Against "The Case For Christ" is a look at one of the more popular Christian apologetic propaganda pieces, which attempts to open the minds of skeptics to the Christian meme complex...
Crazy IdeasSaving The Planet While Saving The Farm shows how an interesting archaeological discovery in the Amazon made a few years ago, could end up revolutionizing tropical agriculture while it saves the planet from the scourge of global warming...Making The Desert Blossom As The Rose offers a novel way of solving the climate problems of the arid lands of the American west - showing how the desert really can be made to "blossom as the rose"... Why The SETI Project Is Doomed To Fail A Radio Engineer's Perspective On The Project And Its Prospects - shows how the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is extremely unlikely to succeed - based on simple, well-proven principles of radio communications engineering...
Thoughts On My Experiences In AfricaScott's Excellent Adventure In Nigeria is a travelogue/essay about some of my truly incredible experiences living in that country and the conclusions I reached about Africa's message for the West...Africa's Agony: A Plan For Action is my ideas of how Africa can overcome the terrible plight in which it finds itself... So You're Planning A Trip To Africa is a page of advice for those planning a trip to Nigeria or anywhere else in sub-Saharan Africa. It's sobering reading...
Personal Adventures and What They Mean To MeWA7UZO in Costa Rica is a section of this web site devoted to my ham radio activities. If you have recently worked me and are looking for QSL information, or you are searching for the "Scott's Tools" freebie calculator software, or just curious about what it is like being a ham in a DX country, you can find it all here...Playing In The Backyard is the story of my living in the motorhome I built myself, on the road full-time with no permanent address for six years... RV Fulltiming: Is It Right For You? is my advice and a few tips for people considering full-time life in an RV... My Biography surprises me with the amount of mail it generates, compared to the number of hits it gets. Seems everyone who reads it comments on it... Let's Rodeo! is the story of gay rodeo, and why I am so passionately in love with it...
Humor"Remove Me From Your Rooster" is a fun little collection of the best of the hate mail received by myself and a few others in response to gay rights activism on the Internet and elsewhere... |
| OTHER CONTENT |
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"The Cool Page for Queer Teens" is my effort at helping gay teens avoid some of the misery I faced growing up gay... "My Child is GAY! Now What Do I Do?" is a page that is designed to help parents cope with the unsettling discovery that their child is gay. It's also available in Spanish... Wallpaper Images From The U.S. Southwest I've been having a lot of fun with my digital camera over the last couple of years. Here are some nice pictures of the Southwest (and a couple from Africa), suitable for your desktop wallpaper image... Wallpaper Images From Costa Rica I did what every landscape photographer dreams of - I took a trip to Costa Rica, and in just two weeks got more and better wallpaper images than I had before... The News: Finding Out What's Going On is a brief compilation of resources, both print and electronic, that can help you become and stay informed about what's going on - news and information that the powerful in Washington or the corporate media have neglected, or worse, actually suppressed... Putting A Stop To Telemarketing offers a simple, easy way to deal with the problem, and some practical advice for serious telemarketing abuse problems... "Cool Stuff" is a collection of fun things I've found on the web over the years... My Professional Resume (in Word format) in case you're here to offer me the big bucks...
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