Are Some Humans More Equal Than Others? Part I

“Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race,
Of every tongue, of every place,
Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,
All that inhabit this great earth,
Whatever be their rank or worth,
Are kindred and allied by birth,
And made of the same clay.” – Keramos, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Every time I have occasion to see this line from this great poem, I pause to ponder its deep meaning. Are we humans all really made of the same clay?  Were the Spanish who ravished the Meso American Indians in the New World really made of the same clay as the Aztecs who inhabited Tenochtitlan now known as Mexico City? Was the gold that Cortez and his soldiers with tin hats astride horses, took from the Indians really in the name of Almighty God and the Catholic Church? Did all the Aztecs that Cortez burned alive with fire truly drive the devil out of the savages that remained? Or was it just an excuse, an elaborate ruse to take by force (because they could) the riches of the Aztecs and blame it on the Indians who were not saved by the same God, the same grace that the European invaders were?

I saw much of this gold in Madrid’s Museo de los Americas. The finery of the Indian goldsmiths was beyond compare, and I am certain my imagination was playing tricks on me as I viewed these elaborate and exquisite pieces of gold art through the thick glass. Some pieces in my mind seemed to be deep and dark with a hint of red. I wondered if the red tint and hue of these gold objects taken were forged together with all the blood rendered in the gold’s capture by the Conquistadors in Cortez’ party of Spanish marauders. Funny how your mind plays tricks like that.

And in essence were the Aztecs and the Conquistadors all “made of the same clay?”

Or was there a significant pecking order defined by who had the most weapons, the most soldiers, and the most power and might to subdue and conquer other members of the human race who were weaker? In short, are the more powerful of the human species better than the meeker humans they seek to conquer and plunder? Shorter still, is might right? Were the Conquistadors, armed with guns, horses, canons, and friars to save the savage souls in the New World, better human beings than the Indians? Were they more deserving of a good life of riches, plunder, and domination than those they attacked and conquered? Are some humans more equal than others? It seemed to be the case when stronger countries throughout the ages exploited other countries for their land, their riches, and for their life’s blood. Many peoples and great nations collapsed as a result aggressor nations who attacked them and took their land and natural resources. Many excuse this historical phenomenon as being the way things are. And will justify it with phrases, like “That was so long ago, much too difficult to think about.” So are the strong and the weak really all made of the same clay? I confess that I do believe in Longfellow’s assertion that yes we are, and will all return to the same clay. But while we are here, it seems undeniable that the gatekeepers of the human race are those with the most power. Every other class of human being shrinks to insignificance when it comes to the power of guns, armies, and gold. 

Today America is the most powerful and richest nation in the world. Despite our burgeoning $15 Trillion Dollar Debt (all caps for such an incredulous amount of debt) many other countries, e.g., in Europe are worse off financially. As our illustrious Fed and Ben Bernanke print more dollars, inflation is growing silently like a cancer to render our purchasing power nil post haste. Yet the world continues to lend us money to finance our ever-growing debt. Why? I truly do not know, but I think it is because they know that we can kick any other countries’ butts if push ever comes to shove, like in a stand-off war (but if nukes explode all bets are off). That is why I believe that countries will continue to buy our Treasury Bonds at close to 0% interest at least for a while. We are perceived as being fully capable of attacking and occupying Afghanistan and then Iraq for years, pay for the wars with borrowed monies we do not have nor can never pay back. 

We don’t see ourselves the same way the rest of the world does. We are viewed as aggressors who will not hesitate to attack another country even on bogus charges of having weapons of mass destruction pointed at American cities. That Conquistador ability to whup ass is why countries support America and want us on their side. With our unmanned drones alone we can do tidy and quick surgical strikes from afar and kill whoever needs killing (black hats of course, propaganda notwithstanding).   The Saudis may hate us for our Westerner ways, but they love us for our protection. Most other countries find it in their best overall interests to befriend us rather than be enemies with America. They have seen our “shock and awe.” With boots on the ground in more than a thousand countries, Trident Nuclear Submarines, and air weaponry superior to all other nations, we are a pretty formidable sight for sore eyes. The only thorn in our side is terrorists who can strike unaware, any place, and at any time. Even though our financial bucket’s got a hole in it we, at present, are to be feared if you mess with America.

Many of the companies Ike warned us about have come home to roost like no-bid vulture contractors. Whenever you got a war to fight (real or contrived) there is the piper to pay. America must use companies who manufacture planes, bullets, guns, sophisticated software for weapons systems, ships, tanks, and food and shelter for our boots on the ground. So many contractors who are paid for services and weapons rendered to Uncle Sam do not have to bid on jobs. There is no competition because there is no bid to compete with. How does that happen? Well, the way it seems to happen is that a corporation or its officers or both make mega donations for the candidate of their choice who holds a seat in Congress and or the White House. The company then convinces Uncle Sam (wink, wink) that they and only they can do a certain job or build a certain airplane, you get the picture? Uncle Sam then says okay, then you get the contract….no bid necessary. Just send us a bill.

What amazes me is that nobody other than former Senator William Proxmire seemed to read the invoices. He thought it ludicrous that Uncle Sam bought half a million hammers for $500 apiece and 400 thousand toilet seats for $600 bucks apiece. I did too. But where was taxpayer outrage at such skullduggery that got America $15 Trillion Dollars in debt? Why was there no outcry from the taxpayer who now has to fear losing his Social Security and Medicare that he has faithfully paid into all his working life by his taxes rendered to Uncle Sam? Nobody remembers Senator Proxmire or his Golden Fleece Award. Nobody raised hell when he expressed outrage at our no-bid contracts given to war corporation cronies of Reagan and the Bushes, either. Nobody cared.  Yet all the members of the Board of Halliburton, and Erik Price of Blackwater notoriety got rich and we the taxpayer funded their exploitation of the American Government, unaware. At least I knew nothing at the time of George W. Bush contracting at 4 times the normal pay per uniformed US soldier the private militia under the exclusive control and beckon of the President. I didn’t think a president had the power to enlist a private militia. Still don’t. Blackwater received a cool $1 Billion the first year George W. Bush used them as protectors of US Embassy personnel in Iraq. Wow. What a cool no-bid contract that was. You got to wonder how much Prince donated to the Bush reelection campaigns each and every year. Were these companies and people who ran and owned them made of the same clay as the Reserve soldier who had to fight these wars of big profit for the no-bid contractors and their candidate of choice who would serve as hatchet man? So was Erik Prince and Blackwater made of the same clay as Billy Bob’s Hunting Club of Del Rio? And I wonder what Erik Prince contributed to the GW Bush reelection campaign each year Prince was owner of Blackwater. Are we all made of the same clay? Are we all equal or are some humans more equal than others?

Just when you thought it would be all better it gets worse. In 2011 Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Alito, and Chief Justice Roberts ruled that now campaign contributions would be unlimited in terms of how much you could give to one candidate. Wow. That really puts it in our faces. If you got the most money you can buy a vote, moreover a government that is just fine with pushing all the wealth over to the rich side of the room. They don’t even need to hide it now; it’s all legal. You got the money, just run and elect who you choose, bought and paid for, no worries. 

In Part II we will examine the works of Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, and the dethroned “Hammer” Tom Delay and how easy it has become now to screw the working man and take away all his social programs that help him and his family. And (wink, wink) give them social program tax dollars back to their rightful owners: the bloody rich.

Thoughts About Christopher Hitchens – and Dying, Living, Space and Time

Christopher Hitchens is dead - long live his memory and ideas. A freethinker of the highest order, he was a champion of reason and a debunker of frauds, among them the sainted but truly dreadful Mother Theresa. Rather than being a friend of the poor, as admirers of her charities believe, she was, wrote Hitchens, a friend of poverty who saw suffering as a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.

Hitchens considered himself an antitheist. He viewed organized religion as the main source of hatred and tyranny in the world. Faith is a virus, he argued. Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.

In Hitchens honor, I think I will reread his masterwork God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Hitchens was only 62.His death, as with any death, reminds us of our own mortality. We're here and gone in the blink of an eye in a cosmic sense, so try to welcome every breath. Today, when we are thinking about the death of a man, take a moment to ponder the end of all men, women and earth itself - by tipping whatever might pass for your hat to a tiny spacecraft called Voyager 1, which will outlast everything we know.

Sometime about five billion years from now, when our life-giving sun begins to die, it will enlarge and engulf the Earth. Everything will be gone without a trace, save for the metallic fossil we called Voyager 1 and its companion Voyager 2.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 (and 2) have explored Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn's moon Titan, Uranus and Neptune. Now Voyager 1 is exiting the solar system, embarked on an interstellar mission, the first man-made object to reach interstellar space. Voyager is leaving the heliosphere, the region of our galaxy ruled by the sun, our ultimate energy source. We're get signals from Voyager until 2025, when it will need a battery change - no chance of that.

In an essay in the Wall Street Journal entitled, Voyager Heads for the Stars (Opinion, December 10, 2011), Lawrence Krauss puts space time in perspective: In 40,000 years, Voyager will travel within 1.6 light years of another star...In about 300,000 years, it will pass within four light years or so of Sirius, the brightest star that can be seen from Earth...it could continue to travel for billions of years, circling the galaxy much as our sun does on its 200-million-year orbit around the galactic center.

Hitchens is gone, we're all lined up for exits right behind him and, in time, this good earth and the solar system it inhabits will be gone, too. Voyager, however, will still be out there, silent in the vast unknowable realm of wonder. It will last for many billions of additional years, easily.

Perhaps, before Voyager eventually decomposes at some time-era nearly unimaginable, the visual images, music and data packed into it by long-gone humans will be discovered. by intelligent life forms. Perhaps these treasures will provide these beings with small clues about a people from a planet in a solar system no longer existing that was once inhabited by Christopher Hitchens and you and I. Perhaps, as Krauss mused, these materials will give an impression that we knew we were lucky to exist for a brief time on this cosmic speck, instead of suffering under the solipsistic notion that we somehow reigned supreme in a universe created for us.

Thank you Christopher Hitchens. Thank you engineers, poets and all who had the vision, wisdom, eloquence and determination to design, load and send the Voyagers on their way to eternity, of a sort.

The Number One Cause of Illness Is That So Many People Choose Badly

The wellness movement has been going full tilt for half a century. If there is one single message that everyone associated with it would agree upon and would almost surely have communicated in every speech or article written, it is this: lifestyle matters. The choices we make concerning habit patterns, such as how often and how vigorously to exercise, what kinds of foods to eat, what practices to follow or avoid re drinking and so on, affect quality of life as much as or more than any of the other key determinants, namely genetics, environment and medical care.

Now comes a headline story at the BBC Health News website (December 7, 2011) by reporter Michelle Roberts entitled, "healthy habits reduce risk of cancer."

Wow. What a revelation. Notice that the emphasis is on cancer suffered from bad behavior, not optimal well-being enjoyed due to healthy lifestyle choices.

In the BBC article, reporter Roberts notes that about half of the UK's cancer cases are related to ill-chosen lifestyles, specifically, unwise health-destroying choices of a behavioral nature. These erroneous ways include but are not limited to smoking, excessive drinking and food choices that increase the incidence of illness and disease. Tobacco use, too little consumption of fruits and vegetables and excess weight are the leading agents of dysfunction. In addition to the BBC piece, this news was also seen as newsworthy enough to be included in the British Journal of Cancer.

How, you may wonder, did the BBC or study organizers decide that this obvious fact, long acknowledged by those familiar with health issues, was headline worthy? The answer is simple: While all the experts know that lifestyle choices, if ill-made, cause illness (and, if wisely made, promote positive well-being), the masses still don't get it. Or at least it can be asserted that the public is assumed not to realize this self-evident fact, based upon the way most people live - and suffer. The top scientist who led the study that proved the obvious said as much in an interview with the BBC reporter:
"Many people believe cancer is down to fate or 'in the genes' and that it is the luck of the draw whether they get it. Looking at all the evidence, it's clear that around 40% of all cancers are caused by things we mostly have the power to change."

Don't you want to shake these people? I do, but I can't. There are too many of them.

One Nation Indivisible? Tell Me Another One.

Damn, I forgot the “under God” part. Seriously. I wrote it that way without even thinking about the latest (1954) addition to the Pledge of Allegiance – that historically contentious, often coercive, semi-secular American ritual. Almost since its inception in 1892, the government-sponsored (sometimes required) public recitation of the Pledge has been criticized and legally challenged on several rational and persuasive grounds. If we’re going to be stuck with a pledge – and personally I don’t like it, with or without the God reference – it would be a more respectful and culturally mature practice if it didn’t promote a particular form of religion. Separation of church and state just seems like such an enlightened and prudent idea, seeing that it protects everyone’s right to believe and worship, or not, as they choose. What could be more quintessentially American, more in the spirit of “with liberty and justice for all”?

(Never one to pass up an opportunity for irony, I am obliged to point out that the Pledge was written by a Christian socialist and Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy.)

Now on with the latest rambling rant. . . . The Pledge is just one relatively minor, albeit revealing, flashpoint in the pervasive and incessant culture wars that have almost come to define this country of late. So I’ll say it one more time: the U.S. is irredeemably and dangerously polarized, at least for the foreseeable future (and I fear depolarization cannot be accomplished peacefully.) Every day the very idea of a United States is belied in the print and broadcast media, on the internet, in our national and state legislatures, in churches, and in too many schools.

There are cultural and political fault lines everywhere; but the big one – the San Andreas of our fractured landscape – is right versus left, conservative versus liberal. It can also be characterized as ideologically-driven denialists versus the reality-based community. There I go, defending reality again. Who would have thought that reality – along with its intimate partner, science – would need defending in the 21st-Century United States? But you know it does, unless you’ve been ignoring all the right-wing religious and political rhetoric.

Actually, I want to put liberal in quotes due to the unmistakable rightward lurch that has both expanded and demonized the term over the past 30 years. What used to be moderate is now labeled liberal, usually derisively when used by those on the right. The lockstep Republican base is now so extreme that former conservative icons would be considered “too liberal” today unless they pandered to the deluded ideologues who hold the Republican Party in a death grip. I’m talking about transparent pandering as practiced by the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, with the seeming exception of Ron Paul.

Speaking of Congressman Paul, it should be noted that he sponsored the Sanctity of Life Act, which would define human life as beginning at conception. (I can’t be alone in thinking that the only possible rationale for such an absurd position has to be religious. And don’t you agree that any and all laws based solely on religion, without a compelling secular justification, should be ipso facto unconstitutional?) It seems oddly inconsistent that Paul, who bills himself as such a consistent, libertarian proponent of individual freedom, would take the lead in trying to criminalize the act of removing a clump of cells from a woman’s fallopian tube or uterus. His excuse that he inadvertently witnessed the brutality of a “partial-birth abortion” fails to make a distinction between a zygote and a nearly full-term fetus. Such blatant contradictions are typical of right-wing ideologues: they don’t try to justify their positions with logic and evidence but merely offer plausible emotional reasons to satisfy the incurious but dogmatic political base. 

Now I don’t mean to say that all the Republican candidates are adopting extreme right-wing positions in their speeches and debates only for political advantage. That would be giving Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry, for example, far too much credit. It’s clear they really believe much of the bizarre ideological nonsense they’re promoting. But in any case I’m not going to focus on the political and economic issues that are making most of the headlines. That assignment is being handled admirably by others here at TPJmagazine. What I want to discuss are some very fundamental differences between people who identify as conservatives versus those who place themselves somewhere on the moderate-to-liberal spectrum. In the process I will reference and quote a couple of remarkable, recent articles: the first has the provocative title, Promising new research hints at possible treatment for Conservative Personality Disorder. It is an entertaining and informative tour de force written this past February by a gifted, progressive New York City blogger who writes under the pseudonym, Iris Vander Pluym. The second article, titled New Confederacy Rising: Testing, once again, whether this nation can long endure, was published at In These Times on October 5 and rerun at AlterNet, my favorite political website, on December 8. The author is Theo Anderson.

Anyway, I’m thinking I now have an assigned topic – Compare and Contrast Liberals and Conservatives – that I can roll with through most of 2012. And unless someone gives me a good reason not to, I plan to include moderates along with liberals on the grounds that it is not possible to be a moderate conservative these days, or maybe not an independent moderate, because half way between Republican and Democrat is still extreme conservatism. So except for low-information voters, it’s nearly impossible to be a moderate, much less an informed, thoughtful moderate. Also, I doubt that there’s any meaningful role for moderates in the shrinking tent of the Republican/Tea Party (what Steve Jonas calls the GOTP).

That leaves us with that strange breed known as Independents, who might better be labeled “Indifferents,” or “Shruggies,” to appropriate a term first used, to my knowledge, by Dr. Val Jones at the Science-Based Medicine blog. On second thought, a lot of Independents are best classified as low-information voters who perk up, but never catch up, during major election years. That makes it ironic, and frightening, that people who spend about five minutes deciding which candidates are most attractive often hold the balance of power in elections. There are, of course, other groups that will deserve attention from time to time.

Like most of my friends and perhaps a majority of Democrats, I’m politically left of center, but not what most people would describe as far left. Regardless of what the right says, we are not socialists; we don’t actively oppose well-regulated capitalism. But we do recognize and oppose corporate and big-money domination as a serious threat to fundamental democratic values. We all support an evolving social safety net and the importance of strong and effective Federal government. And yes, we certainly believe in fiscal responsibility. Where did the idea come from that the economy is better under Republican administrations? Republicans, I’m sure. But show me the data, and I’ll listen.

In my previous column I confessed to being addicted to reality – hence the pen name, Science Junkie. In essence, I am compelled to acknowledge good evidence as likely being true and to make appropriate course adjustments whether or not the evidence supports my current beliefs. From a political-values standpoint I identify more with European social democracy than with any political movement in this country. But I am always prepared to modify my beliefs based on sound and reliable evidence. Anything less would be arrogant, wouldn’t it?

So next time I’ll begin to take a close look at the major differences between conservatives and liberals, citing research data where possible, to try to determine why the U.S. seems so hopelessly polarized. But to conclude on a more hopeful note, a podcaster I respect recently suggested that even fundamentalist and evangelical Americans are more secular than they think they are. And on those rare occasions when I watch network TV, I’m actually encouraged by all the crass and tacky superficial materialism that dominates our favorite prime-time, mass-entertainment medium. Call it hopeful ambivalence: the millions of people who watch that inane, vulgar programming can’t really be foot soldiers in the the repressive right-wing religious and political army. Can they?

In the meantime, I wish you all the happiest of holidays.

NOT VERY WELL AND ALL ALONE: THE UK AND THE EU: Irreversible Decline and Deepening Crisis

The Europhobic wing of the parliamentary Tory party, which these days encompasses almost all their back benchers and some members of the cabinet, is in full-throated battle mode against the EU. At the time of writing (8 December) David Cameron is due to arrive in Brussels for yet another crisis summit. He does so with their demands that he “stand firm for British interests” ringing in his ears. They insist that any proposal to revise the Lisbon treaty must be put to a referendum in Britain. As treaty revision is precisely what the German and French governments have in mind as a means to pushing through a tighter fiscal union within the Eurozone, this puts Cameron in a tight spot. Earlier this year the coalition government signed up to the European Union Act according to which a referendum could only be called in the event that important UK powers were to be transferred to the EU. A revision of the Lisbon treaty which only affected the countries of the Eurozone would not be sufficient to trigger a referendum in Britain and if Cameron were to attempt to play that card in Brussels, he would get short shrift from Merkel and Sarkozy – and probably from everyone else. Likewise with the demand that certain powers be repatriated from Brussels to Westminster, Cameron is unlikely to get very far. Tory MPs want to tear up those more progressive EU employment laws protecting workers’ rights and conditions of work. In the name of “defending British industry” from interference by Brussels, Cameron has pledged to safeguard the independence of the City of London. “The City” refers to the “financial services industry”, the big international banks and finance houses that have over the past twenty five years or so found London to be a safe haven of “light touch” regulation. Since the destruction of what was left of Britain’s manufacturing base in the 1980s, this is the only “industry” that is thriving in the UK. Safeguarding the independence of the City of London means resisting any attempt (a) to impose a financial transaction (Tobin) tax and (b) to separate investment from retail banking. Both these measures, were they to be adopted, would go some way to reining in an “industry” that a few years ago brought the whole economy to the brink of catastrophe, but has subsequently reverted to “business as usual”.

Although the right-wing Europhobes are mostly motivated by narrow English nationalism, they tap into a wider mood of resentment against what is reasonably perceived as bureaucratic disdain for democracy in the halls of EU power. This has been most evident in the peremptory way that elected governments in Greece and Italy have been sidelined and their leaders replaced by “technocrats” when it was felt they were insufficiently compliant, or incapable of implementing the austerity programmes dictated as quid pro quo for retaining them within the Eurozone. In countries of somewhat lax fiscal probity such as Greece and Italy, popular resentment has been less against the EU as such than against the stronger northern European states, particularly Germany. This has become especially inflamed in Greece where memories of a brutal Nazi occupation are deeply ingrained. In Germany itself, the folk-memory of the great inflation of 1923 has haunted successive generations, brought up on the belief that it led inevitably to Hitler and the Second World War. Germans have been only too happy to exchange the discipline of the drill square imposed between 1933 and 1945 for a democratized protestant work ethic that they feel, with some justification, has enabled them to become the productive power house of Europe. The darker side of this, though, may be seen in a growing resentment and impatience against those whose perceived fecklessness and dishonesty at the Germans’ expense now seem to put at risk their hard won prosperity. The sense of superiority this has engendered has led to revived concerns about a new German bid to dominate Europe. While such concerns may be exaggerated or groundless, the erosion of democratic procedures in the EU cannot be so easily ignored. Resentment at this is evident in the fierce defense of national identity in the Greek anti-austerity protests. Anger and resistance are likely to spread elsewhere as national parliaments are sidelined and austerity measures intensified.

December 10. The two days that have elapsed since the preceding paragraphs were written have served to render them no more than a preface to the main story.

There is a famous cartoon by David Low which appeared in the Evening Standard on June 18 1940. It depicts a lone British Tommy standing, fist raised and defiant, on the storm-swept channel coast facing darkening clouds from the European continent and approaching Luftwaffe bombers. It carries the caption “VERY WELL, ALONE”. The cartoon appeared just a month after Churchill had replaced Chamberlain as prime minister and ten days after the evacuation from Dunkirk. A week later France capitulated to the Germans and the whole of western Europe lay under the Nazi jackboot. Britain stood alone.

This is the spirit that the Europhobic Tory press and the triumphant gaggle of Tory backbenchers now invoke following David Cameron’s return from Brussels. They seek to present his cheap and specious claim to have defended Britain’s vital interests by vetoing the EU-wide treaty intended to prevent the collapse of the euro, as an act of Churchillian grit and courage in the face of overwhelming adversity. But this is definitely not Britain’s finest hour. In fact it is more like the shabbiest act by a British prime minister in living memory. While still in opposition, Cameron de-coupled the Tory party from the centre-right grouping of EU conservatives, to join up with the most right-wing ultra-nationalists in Eastern Europe. This was to reinforce his Eurosceptic credentials with his own backbenchers. Far from recalling Churchill in 1940, Cameron’s trumpeted defense of Britain’s vital interests is reminiscent of Chamberlain’s return from Munich in 1938, claiming that he had defended Britain’s interests by securing “peace in our time”. He also received a rapturous reception in the House of Commons from an adoring Tory party. But, just as then, the euphoria will not last long once the dust has settled.

The likelihood now is that Cameron will have isolated Britain from the rest of the EU, not just the 17 members of the Eurozone but also the nine that remain outside. They have refused to follow him in vetoing the proposed revision of the Lisbon treaty and seem likely to sign up to whatever procedures may now follow to consolidate tighter fiscal union amongst the seventeen. To have used the veto to protect the City of London from a financial transaction tax in the name of defending Britain’s vital interests, hardly accords with the coalition government’s supposed commitment to tighter regulation of banks. It will be interesting to see whether the Lib. Dems in the cabinet will insist that the government accepts the report by the Independent Commission on Banking recommending that high street banks be ringfenced from investment banks. But it is doubtful whether Cameron’s action to “protect the City” will succeed. The Association of British Insurers, which lobbied hard against a financial transaction tax, believes that the British veto might not prevent the passage of EU legislation that could still “damage the financial services industry in Britain.” 

Cameron went to Brussels determined to veto the proposed treaty revision come what may. He knew that to have acceded to it would have meant a full-scale backbench revolt which would have made it virtually impossible to resist the demand for a referendum. This would have torn the coalition apart. But whatever satisfaction he may draw from the cheers of his Europhobic supporters is likely to be short-lived. The Europhobes hope and expect that this is the first act in a drama that will end with Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. They also think (and hope) that the present crisis in the EU will end with the collapse of the euro and the break-up of the union. Such an outcome can no longer be dismissed as fanciful. But to imagine that having jumped ship the UK can stand by and watch the European enterprise sink beneath the waves (or to use Tory grandee Michael Heseltine’s metaphor, to imagine that the UK can drift off into the Atlantic) is naïve in the extreme. If the EU breaks up, the UK, whether inside or out, will be irreparably damaged. Notwithstanding the delusions of the little Englander Europhobes, the whole of Europe, including the UK, is sliding into a deep recession. The ruling classes of Europe will, as always, seek to resolve their crisis at the expense of the working people who were not responsible for causing it.

There is little to indicate that the measures contemplated by the EU leaders are likely to be any more effective in dealing with the crisis than those already undertaken. The present disputes reflect conflicts of interest between the ruling classes of the strongest European powers. Germany has the most powerful economy in Europe and as the dominant force in the EU is determined to impose fiscal discipline on its recalcitrant southern subordinates. But the Germans are determined to resist allowing the European Central bank to be used to prop up defaulting and potentially defaulting countries of the “southern periphery”. So far, there is no indication of how, short of allowing the ECB to undertake “quantitative easing” (printing money) on a large scale (which would be in the teeth of German opposition) the European Financial Stability Fund will be able to accumulate the 2 – 3 trillion euros said to be necessary to meet such eventualities. Given that there seems to be no workable solution in sight, all the “crisis summits” appear to be doomed to failure. So, the collapse of the eurozone , and possibly the EU itself, cannot be ruled out.

Whatever happens in coming weeks and months, one thing is certain: the 1% will continue to try to shift the burden of their crisis onto the 99%. Whether they succeed will depend upon how effectively resistance develops. Every effort must be made, everywhere, to ensure that it does.

Republicans Worship a Nazi Jesus

How you view God is how you see man. An individual’s concept of “God” determines how one treats others. The same principle applies for a culture, nation or movement. If one envisions a vengeful, wrathful superior being, wrath and retribution are levied against “others” outside the “chosen.” The religion justifies prejudice with all its ugly manifestations: verbal abuse, theft, deceit, injustice, violence, and the ultimate – “final solution.” Religion was the foundation for Nazism which gave birth to Holocaust.

This is another law of human nature oft overlooked – which coincides with Voltaire’s cardinal truth: “People who believe absurdities will soon commit atrocities.”

It is a massive cult gripping America spinning it to hell. The current gridlock has its roots in right religion. Remove the religious right’s powerful influence over America, a measure of sanity may return. Imagine a world without religion, as found in John Lennon’s lyrics:

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say

I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say

I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will live as one

I am not stating all religion is bad, because it’s in human nature to invent such philosophical mindsets as a security blanket for an torrid unexplainable existence. I’m just saying the distorting of Jesus’ image and words is the sacrilege that destroys individuals and nations – or, for that matter, the perversion of other revered theological figures.

America’s religious right loathes the concept of a Jesus who speaks of humility, meekness, generosity, compassion and sacrifice. Somehow these virtues de-masculinize the Messiah. And Republicans loathe a feminized Jesus, because humble characteristics are feminine, in their view.

Nazis had the same distorted reasoning in that the Jesus of the Gospels didn’t fit their ideology. So they had to mold “God” into their own image, culminating in a Holy Bible re-write of 1938, approved by the Fuhrer, which were loaded with anti-semitic passages.

Republicans worship a Nazi Jesus, not the Christ of the Bible. They picture a Jesus bearing a sword riding a white horse to slay millions of unbelievers. Revelation is where they lay claim to the view, but the Gospels’ depiction must be discarded in order to arrive. A judgmental “God” justifies a judgmental following. Thus, it’s condoned to hate and kill gays, Muslims, aliens, liberals, and all others not of their belief-system.

Jesus’ Number One principle must be suspended in order for them to condone bigotry: “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love others as you do yourself.”

But in their view, this cardinal command must be set aside for the End Times prophecies to be completed – when a wrathful, vengeful “God” re-appears to annihilate the billions. This eschatological element is what drives America’s religious right to insanity and what is driving America off the cliff – since the religious right is such a significant segment of society. The culture war is here and now, and it has its roots in religion – albeit counter to Jesus’ teachings.

America’s religious right needs to return to its “first love.”