November 30, 2008

'No regrets': Captured terrorist's account of Mumbai massacre reveals plan was to kill 5,000

He is said to have told officers the cell was to seek out 'white targets, preferably British and American'

Israel Hails Takeover Of US Congress As 'Total Annihilation' Of Palestinians Set To Begin

Kremlin reports today are stating that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has made an ‘urgent’ appeal to President Medvedev for the possible use of Russian Military Forces to break the Israeli blockade strangling 1.5 million Palestinian people trapped in the Gaza Strip and who are down to their last two days of food.


By Sorcha Faal

Switzerland has become the latest Nation to join the United Nations in calling upon Israel to end their barbaric blockade but to which Israel’s Defense Minister has bluntly rebuffed and stated, “No. There needs to be calm in order for the crossings to be opened.”

Jordan's King Abdullah II, these reports state, became so enraged at Israel’s planned ‘Total Annihilation’ of the Palestinian peoples in Gaza that he ‘ordered’ Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Barak to a secret meeting in Amman where he told them that should the blockade not be lifted his own government would fall, but not before he would order his own Jordanian Military Forces to launch attacks against Israel.

Israel’s dysfunctional government, however, appears to be a ship of state steering itself towards its own destruction as their President, Shimon Peres, while accepting an Honorary Knighthood from the Queen of England, has warned that his Nation is nearing Civil War with its own Jewish settlers, 20,000 of whom are heading towards a massive confrontation with Israeli security forces. Its Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, forced to step down due to the many corruption charges leveled against him by Israeli police, and its Foreign Minister, and soon to be Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, ‘demanding’ that the World not look at Israel’s starving to death of 1.5 human beings but instead condemn the Palestinians for even daring to think that they could possibly fight back against their mass imprisonment and soon to be death.

Even more perplexing is that while Israel is facing the worst crisis facing its existence since its establishment by the United Nations in 1948 it is, nevertheless, celebrating the record number of Jews elected to the US Congress where they now control over 10 percent of a government in a Nation where they comprise only 3 percent of the population and where next week President Bush will meet with Prime Minister Olmert to plan their military attacks upon Iran which they say the UN has reported now has the nuclear material needed to make an atomic bomb, but to which the Iranians have replied, and much more truthfully:

“Iran has categorically rejected a report in the New York Times which accuses the country of having enough nuclear fuel to make nuclear weapon.

Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh, said that the report was unjustified and politically motivated, Press TV reported. "The allegations are aimed at misleading the public and have no technical basis," Soltaniyeh said.

The New York Times cited a nuclear expert as saying that the amount of low enriched uranium at Iran's disposal could help Iran to make nuclear bomb. Soltaniyeh said that Iran's nuclear sites are under surveillance of IAEA cameras 24 hours a day.

"The nuclear material at Natanz' site is held in a container sealed by IAEA experts and recorded by the same cameras," he added. The latest report released by IAEA's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, indicated no diversion in Iran's nuclear program.

The IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei in his latest report on Wednesday said that the agency "has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran." The IAEA also declared that there has been 'no indication' of Iran conducting nuclear reprocessing activities.”

Now one would be hard pressed to believe that a major Middle Eastern war could be started based solely upon the lies told to the American people by their propaganda media organs. Surely, one could rightly argue, a modern and civilized Nation such as the United States could not possibly degenerate into a state where their millions of citizens would allow their government to attack another country based upon the lies of their having enough nuclear material to make a bomb.

But, that is exactly what happened before their invasion of Iraq where, and just like now, the New York Times published nothing but lies about the Iraqi ‘plan’ to acquire nuclear weapons that the American people were told by their leaders and propaganda media organs would soon fall upon their cities.

What these insane Americans keep failing to recognize is that what is happening in Israel today is what is being planned for them tomorrow, and where today it is 1.5 Palestinian men, women and children being starved to death in the largest concentration camp our World has ever known, tomorrow it will be tens of millions of them who are going to be suffering the same fate.

And just like today, where none of these American people even care about the lives of the Palestinians, so tomorrow will they not even care about their own countrymen, and like the deluded German peoples who they resemble more and more each day, will, likewise, be ‘surprised’ when the full horrors of what they have become is staring them in their own faces and profess, “we didn’t know these things”.

And to the most incredible thing of all, the vast majority of these Americans actually believe that their new President is, somehow, going to save them. It’s as if these people have never read a history book in their entire lives that shows how ‘economic collapses’ combined with ‘charismatic leaders’ have always, ALWAYS, led to the destructions of Nations and Empires….like Rome, like France, like Russia, like Germany, like Japan, like Italy, like England, and though I could go on and on and on, like the United States too!

And the reason for our World’s history being filled with the continued chaos surrounding these staged catastrophic events one may ask? The answer is as simple as reading those aforementioned history books where anyone able to do math can see that just from 1776 to 2008 the numbers of countries, nations, tribes, kingdoms, principalities, etc., have been reduced from over 18,000 to now under 200…and which just one more BIG GLOBAL WAR will reduce to 1.

I would like to be able to tell you now to prepare yourself for the New World Order some of you fear, but most don’t even believe in, but I can’t. What I can tell you though, no WARN you about, is that before this New World Order begins nearly all of you reading these words will be dead along with billions of others of your fellow human beings who, just like you, lived their lives never believing anything other than the lies told to them by those they believed in and, of course, calling the few of us who have risked everything to keep the truth alive the liars.

November 29, 2008

Ron Paul interviewed on Russia Today.

http://www.russiatoday.com/guests/video/1833

Ron Paul warns of creation of world central bank.

Kunst Gegen Entartete Kunst - Ludwig van Beethoven

Kunst Gegen Entartete Kunst (Art Against Degenerate Art)

Art the root of which is Ar an old Indo-European word for the sun, brightness or light, it was also also once the root of an ancient name for the people of the sun, or people of the light, the Aryans, and it has lost it's true meaning to the general public.

Today we are witness to animalistic and perverse images and ideas and it is mislabeled "art". Art uplifts and inspires but this new "degenerate art" is only meant to shame and breakdown, to repulse and infect. True it maybe a type of human expression, but it does not and cannot qualify as art.

In our world today feces is smeared across a piece of cardboard and called a portrait of Christ, musicians electronically sample bits and pieces of real music, and then over the twisted samples they rhyme about rape, jewelry, murder and general unbridled savagery yet they are called artists. Below I would like to reintroduce you to a true artist, a man who's work uplifts and inspires, even long after his death.

Beethoven's, Ode An Die Freude (Ode To Joy)
part 1

part 2

Transition to Black Rule?

The presidential election of 2008 brings to mind another vote that took place 16 years ago in South Africa: the referendum in which whites voted to turn power over to blacks. Though it has long been overshadowed by the 1994 general elections that brought the African National Congress (ANC) to power, it was the referendum of March 17, 1992, that ended white rule.

By 1992, President F. W. de Klerk and his National Party government had repealed all the major apartheid laws. The ANC had been unbanned, and Mr. de Klerk had started discussions with Mr. Mandela on a new constitution that would enfranchise blacks and “share power.”

Andries Treurnicht and his Conservative party led the opposition to these negotiations, saying the president had no authority to negotiate a new constitution. Mr. de Klerk decided to put the question to the people. If he won the referendum, he would push on to a new constitution; if he lost, he would resign and call a general election.

The referendum asked the following question: “Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on February 2, 1990, and which is aimed at a new constitution through negotiation?” (It was on February 2, 1990, that Mr. de Klerk announced the unbanning of the ANC and the release of Mr. Mandela from prison.)

The National Party—the traditional party of the Afrikaners—mounted a massive campaign for a “yes” vote, warning that a “no” would mean more international sanctions and black violence. One of its campaign posters was of an armed member of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement—a militant white organization—with the slogan, “You can stop this man! Vote YES.” In other words, the real menace for South Africa was a white man with a gun.

The Conservative Party, which campaigned for a “no” vote, warned that “power sharing” was just another name for black rule, and that whites had the right and the duty to govern themselves.

How did the people of the Great Trek, the Battle of Blood River, and the Boer War vote? They feared international isolation more than they feared black rule; whites voted 68 to 31 percent for “continuation of the reform process.” Nor was this a decision forced upon Afrikaners by white English-speakers. Though some militant groups boycotted the referendum, all election analysts agree that a majority of Afrikaners voted “yes,” and some even believe there was more support among Afrikaners than British South Africans. Whites therefore had the chance to keep their country, but gave it away. That vote ensured the ANC victory of 1994 and everything that has followed.

American whites are not quite as eager as the South Africans were. In the November 4 election, only 43 percent voted for black rule—pardon me, for Barack Obama. Fifty-five percent of whites wanted John McCain to be their president but it was blacks and Hispanics who got the president they wanted, not whites. Every year, as the number of non-whites increases, whites will have less say about who rules them.

Entirely aside from politics or questions of competence or experience, the election of a president most whites did not want is a jarring symbol of lost autonomy. If their numbers continue to decline, whites will not get the schools, the neighborhoods, the culture—and ultimately, the country—they want.

Perhaps it is because whites have brought diminished status upon themselves that we are expected to take pride in it rather than fight to reverse it. As Paul Krugman explained helpfully in the New York Times, “If the election of our first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there’s something wrong with you.” This means there is something wrong with at least 55 percent of whites, but that has been the Times’s position for years.

Mr. Krugman’s joy in Mr. Obama’s victory is shared by whites all around the world. “We have great hopes that we are standing at the dawn of a new era,” wrote the Norwegian daily Aftenposten. “One Giant Step for Mankind” read the front page of England’s Sun newspaper. A headline on the London Telegraph website declared: “Barack Obama Victory Allows Britain to Love US Again.” The Times modestly headlined its election story, “The New World.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada spoke of Mr. Obama’s “tremendous, historic” victory, and the Toronto Sun called it “an historic milestone like no other.” Le Monde in Paris noted that “from Left to Right, [French] politicians have been competing for superlatives with which to praise the election of Barack Obama.” Milan’s Corriere della Sera wrote that Mr. Obama was “the man who can save America from utter breakdown.”

This chorus of rejoicing has eerie parallels to how the world’s whites welcomed black rule in South Africa. In 1993, Mr. Mandela and Mr. de Klerk shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their new, “power-sharing” constitution. Mary McGrory of the Washington Post gushed only slightly more than most when she wrote in her May 12, 1994 column that “Nelson Mandela has won what the [Washington] Post calls ‘one of history’s sweetest victories over racial subjugation’ and he is going to keep it clean and beautiful so that newspaper readers will think they are reading scripture when they read dispatches from South Africa that cannot be read except through tears.”

Fourteen years later—just 14 years later—does anyone have second thoughts? Under white rule, South Africa was climbing steadily in the UN’s Human Development Index. It reversed course the first year of black rule and has dropped ever since. South Africa can no longer keep accurate crime statistics, but it is unquestionably one of the most dangerous places on earth. Anyone who can afford to lives in a private fortress, and carjacking is so common it is considered foolish to stop at a red light after dark. Amazon.com limits shipping to South Africa because postal workers steal so many packages. Interpol reports that South Africa has the highest rape rate in the world—and the highest AIDS rate. About one-fifth of South African men admit they have raped a woman, and an estimated 35 percent of the armed forces have AIDS. Race preferences for blacks are so ruthless that approximately 50 percent of white men are self-employed and nearly a million whites have emigrated, most citing crime and race preferences.

Surely, not even Mary McGrory would think this sounds like the Book of Matthew. And how about Mr. de Klerk? Would he not give up a hundred Nobel Peace Prizes for a country in which his grandchildren could be safe and proud?

Of course, our election is different from the South African referendum but the effect is the same: Whites are placing their destinies in the hands of others. The South Africans did it suddenly; we are doing it gradually.

Let us hope whites all over the world save their newspapers from November 5, 2008, with their extravagant headlines and dizzy hopes. Let them reread them 10 or 15 years from now—and let them think of South Africa.

California unemployment jumps to 8.2%, third-highest in the U.S.

The state's unemployment rate is the highest in 14 years; it rose half a percentage point in October from the month earlier. In the past 12 months, more than 100,000 jobs have been lost.

Christmas Wars On: Thomas More Law Center Asks Christians to Retake the Public Square for Christmas

ANN ARBOR, MI — For the last several years, the Thomas More Law Center, a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been successfully defending the right of Christians to display nativity scenes on public property and to celebrate Christmas in public schools.

In years past and still today, the Law Center has asked thousands of supporters to go on the offensive – where there has been no nativity display before, ask the government for permission to erect one; where the government has allowed a religious display of another faith, ask that a nativity display be erected on the same property as well; where there is a public forum for the exercise of free speech, ask for permission to erect a nativity display.

Every year the Law Center sends its hundreds of affiliated attorneys across the nation a legal memo on how to deal with the war on Christmas in their area. The Law Center has successfully defended the proper celebration of this national holiday in numerous cases.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center commented, “The ACLU’s war on Christmas is really a war on Christians. With few exceptions and then only to create a diversion from their real target, the ACLU avoids going after religious symbols of other faiths. Despite the fact that over 80 percent of Americans are Christians, the ACLU has bullied elected representatives and school officials to eradicate the public celebration of Christmas under threat of lawsuits. Municipalities and schools should be aware that the systematic exclusion of Christmas symbols during the holiday season is not warranted, and such exclusion itself could be inconsistent with the Constitution and subject them to a possible lawsuit.”

As part of its Christmas Campaign, the Law Center has asked its supporters to petition their local governments in writing for permission to erect nativity displays. Law Center staff attorneys are standing by to assist in the petition, and if legally appropriate, to file a federal lawsuit should they be denied.

In 1984, Chief Justice Warren Burger had this to say in his opinion upholding the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island’s nativity display:

“It would be ironic, however, if the inclusion of a single symbol of a particular historic religious event, as part of a celebration acknowledged in the Western World for 20 centuries, and in this country by the people, by the Executive Branch, by the Congress, and the courts for two centuries, would so ‘taint’ the City's exhibit as to render it violative of the Establishment Clause. To forbid the use of this one passive symbol – the crèche – at the very time people are taking note of the season with Christmas hymns and carols in public schools and other public places, and while the Congress and Legislatures open sessions with prayers by paid chaplains, would be a stilted over-reaction contrary to our history and to our holdings. If the presence of the crèche in this display violates the Establishment Clause, a host of other forms of taking official note of Christmas, and of our religious heritage, are equally offensive to the Constitution.”

According to the Law Center:

  • The display of a nativity scene, as with any religious symbol, by a private person is religious speech that the First Amendment protects.
  • The First Amendment protects private speech most strongly in a traditional public forum, such as a public park, or in what is known as a designated public forum, which is public property the government has designated for public assembly and speech.
  • There should be no unreasonable prohibitions against public school students wishing each other “Merry Christmas,” distributing Christmas cards, or wearing clothing displaying a religious message.
  • It is constitutionally permissible for schools to permit the study and performance of religious songs in its public schools, in order to promote the legitimate educational goal of “advancing the students’ knowledge of society’s cultural and religious heritage.”

The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes America’s Christian heritage and moral values through education, litigation, and related activities. It does not charge for its services. The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization. You may reach the Thomas More Law Center at (734) 827-2001 or visit our website at www.thomasmore.org.

The Duped Agents of Chaos Start To Ask Questions



Wal-Mart Worker Dies in 'Black Friday' Stampede

related: The day in pictures

And still they shopped.

Hundreds of bargain-hungry shoppers stepped on a fallen Wal-Mart worker, who died Friday morning, after the crowd knocked down the store's front doors -- and the worker -- during the "utter chaos" of a Black Friday shopping melee, Nassau County police said.

"A throng of shoppers . . . physically broke down the doors" around 5 a.m. Friday and knocked the 34-year-old part-time worker to the ground as the crowd pushed its way into the store at the Green Acres Mall, Nassau police said.

Police identified the worker as Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens.

"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau Police Det. Lt. Michael Fleming, whose squad is investigating the death. He characterized the melee as "utter chaos."


Fleming said an estimated 2,000 people had gathered in line around 5 a.m. as the store was preparing to open.



Asked at a news conference whether the store had enough security given the crowds that Black Friday shopping typically attracts, Fleming said no. Four shoppers had minor injuries, police said.

People in the rear of the line began pushing, cascading the people in the front into the doors, which were knocked off their hinges, Fleming said.

Hundreds of shoppers who then streamed in literally stepped on the worker who later died, Fleming said.

Fleming said the worker was a temporary worker sent by an employment agency. Fleming did not rule out criminal charges in the case, though he said it would be nearly impossible to identify individual shoppers.

But, he said, authorities were reviewing surveillance video.

Another police officer told Newsday the prelude to the death at the Green Acres Mall was "a mob scene."



Shoppers who surged past the fallen Wal-Mart worker into the store were asked to leave by other store workers, some of them crying and visibly upset, said one shopper, Kimberly Cribbs, of Far Rockaway.

Though rumors circulated among the shoppers that someone had been badly injured, people ignored the Wal-Mart workers' requests that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit, Cribbs said.

"They kept shopping. It's not right," Cribbs said. "They're savages."

Cribbs said she entered the store after the injured worker was already being attended to. As people waited, then pushed into the store, she said, "It was chaos."

Another shopper said people were screaming and shoving in line before the opening.

The police got an emergency call at 5:03 a.m. reporting that the worker had been injured, and he was taken to Franklin Hospital in Valley Stream where he was pronounced dead at 6:03 a.m.

As of Friday morning, the cause of death was described as "undetermined," police said. An exact cause of death will be determined by the county medical examiner's office, police said.

Shopper Camla Brown described a disorganized mob that was thirsting to get into the store before the trampling.

"There was no organization," said Brown, 47, a restaurant manager from Valley Stream.



A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation. Three other shoppers suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospitals for treatment, and they were expected to be released.

Dan Fogelman, spokesman at Wal-Mart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., said Friday, "The safety and security of our customers and associates are our top priority."

Fogelman called the death "a tragic situation" and said the company was cooperating fully with the Nassau County police investigation. He declined to comment on whether the company would review its practice of heavily-discounted holiday sales events, or whether the company was reviewing its crowd control measures at such sales.

Fogelman said company management were saddened by the death of the worker and the injuries to customers, adding, "Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this difficult time."

In a pace considerably more subdued, shoppers by the hundreds streamed into the Wal-Mart the moment it reopened in the early afternoon. Nassau County police officers standing near the entrance asked the shoppers to take it easy as they walked in.

The store's front doors, the ones broken down by the earlier mob, have not been replaced.

A handwritten sign, apparently from early Friday morning, said, "Blitz line starts here" with an arrow telling shoppers where to line up.

Source

November 28, 2008

The Whiteness Of The Whale: A Comanche Contemplates Thanksgiving 2008

By David Yeagley

"It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me," wrote Herman Melville, famous white American author of Moby Dick (1851). For its impropriety, its unnatural application, Melville attributes terror to the unexpected "whiteness."

It is a crime, then, to say that the U.S. Presidency, seat of power in the world, the great white throne, as it were, was created by the white race? Is it an evil that white men created the world as we know it today? Is it a terror to colored people (like me) that they find the power over the nations is white?

Edgar Allan Poe, another white American author, suggested as much in the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838). A race of wild black people, discovered at the South Pole, was terrified of anything white, from the first white handkerchief Pym’s company held out for a parley, to the last moment of the novel, when Pym’s black captive dies of fright before a mysterious, snowy white shrouded figure.

But are white men so fearful of dark men?

Apparently not. Indeed, it was a white man who declared this month of November to be "National American Indian Heritage Month," honoring the "Red Man." That white man was former President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, in 1990.

The United States of America, of course, was the country founded by white European men who intruded upon Indian land. The whites were grateful for the generous, compassionate nature of the Red Man, and created a national holiday, Thanksgiving Day, to commemorate the Red Man’s valiant courtesy, and the providence of the Almighty Who provided it.

Today’s white America, however, seems embarrassed to inhabit its own throne. In a remarkable act of self-abasement, Americans (or some of them) seem quite anxious to hand the throne over to the first available non-white they can put up to the job. The black African leftist, Barack Hussein Obama, was thought to answer all ills, at least in the minds of the guilty white liberals.

But, not to be left behind, the Republicans are already talking about Hindu Bobby Jindal, son of non-citizen Panjabi Hindu immigrants in graduate school, as their candidate for U.S. president in 2012. There are already children’s sweatshirts on the market with the message, "Bobby Jindal for President 2012."

It’s either a male person of color, or a woman, even if she’s white—this is the rage of Washington presidential politics. The white male is simply out. No more. In this suicidal craze of self-eradication, darkness shall prevail.

Or so the whites in power want it to appear. I think power in America is white, and will always be white—even if the whites lend the token throne, that U.S. presidency and its "White" House, to an alien black African leftist. The door to that place of puppetry is now wide open. There may not be a white male in that showcase for some time.

Bobby Jindal was interviewed by Greta Van Susteren during the recent Republican Governors Convention. At one point, Greta asked him how many Republican governors were at the convention. Jindal said, "We just welcomed Luis Fortuno, that was elected governor in Puerto Rico down there." Like Obama, Jindal is apparently counting any social entity associated with the Unites States as a bona fide American legal body. Obama said there were 58 states, and he had visited 57 of them. Either he was thinking of the 57 Islamic States, or he was counting Samoa, Guam, etc., and Jindal’s Puerto Rico. Maybe he was thinking of the Philippines. Maybe American should think about electing an illegal Mexican.

As an American Indian, I am particularly disappointed in this race game whites are playing. It frankly shows complete disrespect for the American Indian—the only race with the grandeur of natural courage to stand up and fight the mighty white man.

We owe no respect or honor to any other race. It’s a whale of an offense that the white man should put another race in charge of Indian Country. These other people never earned any such right. They never fought Indians, nor could any of them have defeated Indians, certainly not at the time the white man did.

I would prefer to honor the strength of him who conquered. But, with this pathetic skin shuffling in American politics, such honor seems a romantic notion of the past.

At this point, I’m thankful for the past.

Obama-Bush Making U.S. A Socialist Republic

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Barack Obama and George W. Bush seem to have come away from their study of the Great Depression with similar conclusions:

To wit: After the Crash of 1929, the Federal Reserve did not move fast enough to save the banks and inject cash into the economy. Second, the New Deal, far from being wastrel deficit spending, was not bold enough. So it was that America wallowed in depression for a decade until the unbridled spending and mammoth deficits of World War II pulled us out.

Bush and Obama seem determined not to make the same mistake.

We are all Keynesians now.

Thus, we have the $700 billion Bush bank bailout, the $700 billion "stimulus package" Obama wants by inauguration to "jolt this economy back into shape" and the $800 billion fund Hank Paulson created to get consumers borrowing and buying again.

These come on top of Bush $455 billion deficit, the $29 billion bailout of Bear Stearns, the $105 billion in pork to grease the $700 billion bailout, the $100 billion to $200 billion to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat, the $140-billion-and-counting for AIG, the $25 billion for the greening of GM, Ford and Chrysler, the $25 billion more to save the Big Three and the $20 billion for CitiGroup.

Now much of this overlaps, and some will be retrieved. But we are still staring at a deficit that could approach $2 trillion.

How would this stack up historically?

A deficit of $1.4 trillion would be 10 percent of gross domestic product, dwarfing the postwar record 6 percent run by Ronald Reagan in the Jimmy Carter recession.

Bewailing the "Reagan deficits" has been a staple of Democratic oratory. This will stop. But the politics of this is not the point, the policy is.

Consider what we are about to do. Bush in 2008 spent 21 percent of GDP. States, counties and cities spent another 12 percent. Thus, one third of GDP is spent by government at all levels. Obama and Co. propose to raise that by another 10 percent of GDP. We may soon be north of 40 percent of gross domestic product controlled and spent by government.

That is Eurosocialism.

And where, exactly, are we going to get the money?

Americans save nothing. We spend more than we earn. Thus the levels of consumer debt, credit card debt, auto debt and mortgage debt. U.S. foreign-exchange reserves amount to a piddling $73 billion.

The only nation with the kind of cash on hand we need now—if we don't print the money and invite another gigantic bubble—is China, with its $2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves.

Will Beijing lend back the dollars it has piled up by selling to us?

China certainly has an incentive to keep Americans spending. For our purchases of Chinese-made goods have often been responsible for 100 percent of China's growth. China does not want to kill the American goose that lays those golden eggs—until the goose can't lay any more eggs. Then they won't need the goose.

But should China decide to lend us the money, what will Beijing demand in interest rates and assurances that we will not default. After all, the U.S. debt is 70 percent of GDP, our savings rate is near zero, and our merchandise trade deficit is still running at 5 percent to 6 percent of GDP.

Unlike the 1950s, we are today dependent on foreigners for two-thirds of our oil and for much of our manufactured goods—toys, TVs, radios, cameras, cars, shoes, clothes, bikes, motorcycles—and for the $700 billion to $800 billion we borrow each year to pay for these imports.

With U.S. homeowners, consumers, companies and banks now going bust, why must the nation borrow trillions more to bail them out? So we can maintain our status and standard of living as the last superpower.

Bush and Obama are competing to shovel out trillions of dollars, so we can return to the good times of yesterday.

But wasn't yesterday the root cause of today? Didn't saving nothing and spending more than we earn, purchasing what we cannot afford in cars, consumer goods and houses, buying far more from abroad than we sell abroad—didn't that cause this crisis and crash?

A family man in America's condition, awash in debt, spending more than he makes, would cut back consumption, find a second job and get out of debt. Or declare bankruptcy, accept the shame and humiliation, change his wastrel ways and start anew.

Is it different for a nation?

Yet we seem to believe we can borrow and spend our way out of a swamp of unpayable debt into which borrowing and spending have plunged us.

We are headed either for default on our debts and bankruptcy as a nation, or something less honorable: a quiet cheapening of the debts we have incurred by inflating and destroying the dollar, robbing our creditors of what we owe them and robbing our own people of the value of what they have earned. And so it has come to this.

What would the Founding Fathers think of us now?

November 27, 2008

Nick Griffin Speaks About Unemployment and Other Issues


Blackpool Conference 2008 from BNPtv on Vimeo.

Seagate Hard Drive Rap (song)

Just in time to get you in that purchasing mood for Black Friday comes a Seagate-sponsored video from the Sniper Twins (above) that looks like something from SNL. Called “Computer Friends” [Stack the Memory], two white rappers sing about the need to upgrade their computers. It’s so bad you can’t stop watching it. And the music is catchy too.

1.5 terabytes,
stack the memory to the sky . . .

Oh God, I can’t get it out of my head.

November 25, 2008

Fundraiser canned on claims disease affects only whites



Carleton University won't be holding a popular fundraiser to benefit cystic fibrosis, it was confirmed Tuesday, after the student council passed a motion falsely claiming the disease affects only white men.

Benefit canned over white-man claims


A student is seen raising money at last year's Shinerama event at Carleton University.

A student is seen raising money at last year's Shinerama event at Carleton University.

CTV.ca News Staff

In what journalism councillor Nick Bergamini calls an "incredibly divisive" move, the Council of Carleton University Students Association (CUSA) passed a motion at a meeting late Monday night that effectively cancelled the annual Shinerama fundraising campaign.

Shinerama events occur during the school's orientation week and proceeds go to the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF).

The association raised the motion based on information it received from one of its former executive members that the disease affects only white people and mostly males, Bergamini told CTV.ca.

"I don't believe that you should be playing politics with a charity," Bergamini said during a phone interview from Ottawa. "It's the most un-political thing. It's something that's supposed to bring people together and now they've done something that's incredibly divisive."

It is correct to say that cystic fibrosis "does affect Caucasian populations primarily," according to Cathleen Morrison, CEO of the CCFF.

However, the term Caucasian includes people from South Asia, North Africa, the Persian Gulf and Israel, Morrison said.

"These are Caucasian populations," Morrison told CTV.ca. "These people do not have white skin. They have CF, it now seems, in the same ratios as other Caucasian people who do have white skin."

Cystic fibrosis, which is the most common genetic fatal disease in young people in Canada, affects just as many young girls as boys, Morrison added.

It is a chronic disease that primarily affects the lungs and digestive system. Only about half of patients live into their thirties and beyond.

According to Bergamini, the motion read that orientation week strives to be inclusive and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts are serving a diverse community.

However, the motion went on to say that "and whereas cystic fibrosis has been recently revealed to only affect white people and primarily men, be it resolved that: CUSA discontinue its support of this campaign."

CUSA president Brittany Smyth said the idea of changing next year's orientation fundraiser to focus on a different charity, perhaps a local cause, first came up about a year ago.

She said that the part of the motion that refers to why Shinerama has been cancelled is irrelevant, not part of the official meeting record and simply reflects the rationale of the councillor who raised the motion.

"It completely depends on the individual," Smyth told CTV.ca. "It's 100 per cent their opinion. Their opinion doesn't have to be fact or anything really. It's just how this individual felt."

Only the resolution is important, Smyth said, even though it appears councillors are endorsing the idea that support of cystic fibrosis be stopped because it is a white-man's disease.

"Speaking from the council perspective, the whereas motions weren't actually overly relevant when people were making a decision on what they wanted to do," Smyth said.

She also pointed out that the whereas clauses cannot be amended, and said if a resolution to drop Shinerama had been rejected, the issue could not have been raised again.

Calls to the Carleton University spokespeople have not been returned.

Shinerama began in 1964, and events are held at nearly 60 Canadian university and college campuses. Students shine shoes, wash cars and hold other fundraising events as part of the campaign. The program has raised nearly $19 million for the CCFF.

Carleton students have participated in Shinerama for 24 years and have raised nearly $1 million for the cause.

Morrison said the CCFF has valued past contributions from Carleton students and hopes to speak with members of the association about their decision.

"We're hoping that when the facts are before them that they will feel more comfortable," Morrison said.

Bergamini said he will try to raise a motion to reverse the decision at the CUSA's next meeting. However, the council is the highest decision-making body and is the primary organizer of orientation week events and so he, and even the university, have little recourse, he said.

"So unfortunately this appears to be a final decision."

Harvard Academic: “Abolish the White Race”


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Video: Abolition Of the White Race — In this 9 1/2 minute video Scott Roberts exposes Harvard academic, Dr. Noah Ignatiev, a Jewish supremacist who seeks the destruction of the White race. His call for the genocide of Whites is a thinly veiled demand for the annihilation of a basic human right–that of cultural identity–by minimizing his target with his euphemism, “concept of whiteness”. Ignatiev uses his position as a Harvard academic to “educate” students about White people as a whole using violent images and words such as “genocide”, “destroy”, “abolish”, and “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity”.

According to social conflict theories and human rights documents throughout the world, social identity is a basic human need and right, a need that is as precious as food, water, and security. Social identity is a non-negotiable need. Dr, Ignatiev calls for the collective deprivation of this basic human need through his use of demonizing propaganda (his website, “Race Traitor”) and the dehumanizing ideologies that he teaches at Harvard University with regards to the White race. It is important to note that cultural genocide is still genocide (defined).

Dr. Ignatiev seeks to maximize the interests of non-Whites, not by encouraging a spirit of American independence, i.e. the development of personal responsibility and ownership of one’s choices, but rather at the expense, victimization, and annihilation of White people, White identity, and Westernization. For more understanding of identity as a basic human right, please research the internet for “social identity”, “basic human needs”, and “social conflict”.

Following the video is an article by Paul Craig Roberts and its introduction at The Occidental Observer which explores Dr. Ignatiev’s direct call for the genocide of White people. — ed


Noah Ignatiev, Harvard University

Promoting genocide for whites? Noel Ignatiev and the culture of Western suicide

The Occidental Observer

There has been a renewed interest recently in a 2002 article by Paul Craig Roberts, actually the first of two (here is the second), drawing attention to a rather frightening phenomenon at Harvard University: the effort by a professor, Noel Ignatiev, and his journal, Race Traitor, to promote the “cultural and psychological genocide of whites.”

Now that’s an odd choice of words—guaranteed to draw attention to himself and his ideas. Was he in any way also promoting the slaughter/liquidation of whites, as some of his adversaries have suggested? Ignatiev says no. In his words,

We frequently get letters accusing us of being “racists,” just like the KKK, and have even been called a “hate group.” …

Our standard response is to draw an analogy with anti-royalism: to oppose monarchy does not mean killing the king; it means getting rid of crowns, thrones, royal titles, etc….

Ignatiev et al. have developed a story that goes as follows: A bunch of very bad people got together and created a category called “white” to which they belong but people with different colored skin can’t belong. Then they made laws that favored people in the white category, they colluded with other whites to dominate the economic and political process, and they invented baseless scientific theories in which whiteness had its roots in real biological differences.

All Ignatiev’s written material that we’ve seen carries the same odd message with the same extreme wording. He talks about the supposed privileges white people have just because they are in the white category, even though we all know that the only racial privileges in the US are affirmative action laws and various subterfuges that favor non-whites at the expense of whites. These practices result in blacks being overrepresented in high status jobs compared to their actual IQ and test scores. And it even results in people like Ward Churchill exaggerating their non-whiteness in order to become beneficiaries of this largesse.


Continue at TheOccidentalObserver.com

Staff

Why Don't Prop 8 Protesters Target Black Churches?

Knoxville: Teen Rapists Take Plea Deal

Trio sentenced to 25 to 30 years in jail for actions

Related Article:The Knoxville Horror

By Jamie Satterfield


Her husband bound and bleeding, the woman did not rage at the teenage gunmen.

"I talked to both of you the whole time," a woman who was forced to perform oral sex on a trio of home invaders while her husband was made at gunpoint to watch told two of her assailants Monday. "I talked to you about the people you love. You asked me about my family, my children, and you still raped me."

The woman recounted how she grew nauseous as Shavon D. Page pointed a gun at her head during the rape.

"He made the statement if you throw up, I'll blow your head off," Assistant District Attorney General Phil Morton told Knox County Criminal Court Judge Bob McGee.

"You laughed," the woman told Page. "You asked my husband how he felt. You wanted to take my husband's manhood from him. You wanted to defile my marriage bed."

Page and Michael L. McMahan, both 18, were standing trial Monday on charges ranging from especially aggravated kidnapping to aggravated rape to aggravated robbery. A third suspect in the June 2007 invasion of the couple's River Shores Drive home, Dameion S. Nolan, 18, was poised to testify against them, having pleaded guilty earlier this year for a 25-year prison term. Instead, the pair took plea deals.

Continue...

Mystery Of Missing Hydrogen: Apparent Absence From Distant Galaxies Puzzles Astronomers

ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2008) — Something vital is missing in the far distant reaches of the universe: hydrogen -- the raw material for stars, planets and possible life.

Binary Star Explosion Inside Nebula Challenges Star Theory

ScienceDaily (Nov. 25, 2008) — The explosion of a binary star inside a planetary nebula has been captured by a team led by UCL (University College London) researchers – an event that has not been witnessed for more than 100 years. The study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, predicts that the combined mass of the two stars in the system may be high enough for the stars to eventually spiral into each other, triggering a much bigger supernova explosion.

November 23, 2008

FHA-backed loans: the next subprime crisis?

Within 12 to 18 months, ‘There is going to be FHA-insurance Armageddon’

As if they haven't done enough damage. Thousands of subprime mortgage lenders and brokers — many of them the very sorts of firms that helped create the current financial crisis — are going strong. Their new strategy: taking advantage of a long-standing federal program designed to encourage homeownership by insuring mortgages for buyers of modest means

Arguments for White Preservation

By Ian Jobling • 2/14/08

Martin-uk sent in a comment on a recent post that lists the different arguments that can be made for white preservation. White preservation, he says, can be defended on the grounds of the value of diversity, even-handedness, tribalism, distinctive white values, and the distinctive capacity of whites for accomplishment and civilization. His comment performs an important service because it clarifies and distinguishes among arguments that white preservationists often run together in a confusing manner.

In my articles on The Inverted World, I have stressed the last two items in martin-uk’s list: the arguments from distinctive white values and the distinctive capacity of whites for accomplishment and civilization. I have criticized the argument from tribalism. You’re free to disagree with me, though—what’s your favorite argument? And which do you think is the most likely to convince the racially unaware?

What follows is an edited version of martin-uk’s list of arguments and his comments on it. He seems to agree with me that the last two arguments are the most powerful.


The value of diversity

Diversity is inherently valuable. It is a good thing, for example, that there are many types of birds and insects, and we all think it is a pity when this or that bird or insect, having evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, becomes extinct, especially when its demise is caused by the actions of human beings.

Similarly, it is a good thing that there are many different human societies and cultures throughout the world. Consequently, most people believe that the folkways of threatened cultures, such as the culture of the Australian Aborigines, should be preserved. But white society is just as valuable for the sake of diversity as Aborigine society. Indeed, even if whites were hunting their dinner with spears while Aborigines were building colonies on Mars, the world would still be poorer if white culture and values were eradicated by demographic eclipse.

Even-handedness

It appears that multiculturalism and diversity are for white nations only. In fifty years, if present trends continue, Nigeria will be managed and controlled by ethnic Nigerians, China by ethnic Chinese, Japan by ethnic Japanese, Mexico by ethnic Mexicans, India by ethnic Indians, and so on throughout the non-white world, but our white children and grandchildren will have lost the autonomy and identity that comes from maintaining a majority in their own historical homelands. This is manifestly unfair.

Tribalism

It is normal and healthy for people to promote the flourishing of the ethnic group to which they belong. What kind of man would could remain unmoved before the prospect that his own people might die out and be replaced by another? Since I am white, I naturally ally myself with white causes and, where possible, take the white side in any argument, because white society and culture are mine. Whites are my tribe, if you like.

I cannot and do not need to cite reasons to justify my tribalism. The only explanation that is possible is people’s natural preference for their own kind.

White values

Concern for humanitarian issues like human rights and animal welfare appears to be native to the white race alone. Activism surrounding these issues originated in the West, and non-western nations only worry about them due to lobbying by whites. An example of such lobbying is the recent outcry in the UK over Japanese whaling in the Antarctic and wanton cruelty in Chinese zoos. When there are no majority-white countries left, it is quite possible that the world will embark upon a very illiberal course, with few rights for women and minorities, and even less concern for animals and the environment.

Whites’ capacity for accomplishment and civilization

Whites have historically been by far the most innovative race and have raised the quality of life of people the world over through their discoveries and inventions in medicine, technology, and science. Moreover, white societies generally exceed those of non-whites in qualities that are universally recognized as desirable, including wealth, democracy, honesty in public life, human rights, quality of life, and so on. Non-whites themselves testify to the superiority of white culture through their desire to emigrate to white countries. We should preserve the white race because of its capacity for accomplishment and civilization. If whites decline, the whole world will suffer.


Martin-uk added two comments on this list. Here is an edited version:

It has been suggested that white preservationists should take a leaf out of the blacks’ book and use the argument from tribalism. But surely the reason why tribalism is so popular among blacks is that they have no other justification for racial pride. Blacks can hardly use the arguments from accomplishments or values, can they?

Furthermore, a few weeks ago a white scoundrel tradesman conned about £500.00 out of a mentally ill and indigent lady I know. On the other hand, in the course of business I occasionally trade with an African black who has always been honest and straightforward in our dealings. Tell me, am I expected to feel something in common with this wretched white scoundrel and prefer him to the black man? This is what the tribalism argument would seem to imply

US officials flunk test of Amerian history, economics, civics

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

"It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI.

"How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don't understand the American experience?" he added.

continued...

What’s Up With White Women?

by David A. Yeagley
Originally published at FrontPageMagazine.com | May 18, 2001

"Look, Dr, Yeagley, I don’t see anything about my culture to be proud of. It’s all nothing. My race is just nothing."

The girl was white. She was tall and pretty, with amber hair and brown eyes. For convenience’ sake, let’s call her "Rachel."

I had been leading a class on social psychology, in which we discussed patriotism – what it means to be a people or a nation. The discussion had been quite lively. But when Rachel spoke, everyone fell silent.

"Look at your culture," she said to me. "Look at American Indian tradition. Now I think that’s really great. You have something to be proud of. My culture is nothing."

"You’re not proud to be American?" I asked.

"Oh, I’m happy to be American, but I’m not proud of how America came about."

Her choice of words was telling. She was "happy" to be an American. But not "proud" of it.

On one level, I wasn’t surprised. I knew the head of our American History department at Oklahoma State University-OKC, and I recognized his hackneyed liberal jargon in Rachel’s words. She had taken one of his courses, with predictable results.

Yet, I was still stunned. Her words disturbed and offended me in a way that I could not quite enunciate.

I could hardly concentrate the rest of the day. I lay awake that night thinking about what she had said.

On the surface, she was paying me a compliment. She was praising my Indian culture, at the expense of her own. Why, then, did it feel so much like a slap in the face?

As I lay awake that night, I thought of an old story by Kay Boyle, written in 1941, called "Defeat." It’s about the French women in the German-occupied village of Pontcharra. All the French men were away at war. It was the 14th of July, Bastille Day, when Frenchmen were usually proud to be French. The village women, however, chose that day to give in to the German men.

They did it innocently enough. The women just wanted to wear their fancy holiday dresses. They wanted to drink and dance. And the Germans were the only men around with whom they could do it.

So they gave in.

The Cheyenne people have a saying: A nation is never conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.

That’s what I thought about as I lay there, with Rachel’s words running over and over in my mind. "My race is just nothing…. " she had said. "My culture is nothing."

After class, one older white student, a husband and father, had exchanged glances with me on the way out. He said to me in a low voice, "I don’t want her on my team!"

I understood what he meant. Frankly, I wouldn’t want her on my team either. A woman who won’t be true to her own people certainly won’t be true to someone else’s.

When Rachel denounced her people, she did it with the serene self-confidence of a High Priestess reciting a liturgy. She said it without fear of criticism or censure. And she received none. The other students listened in silence, their eyes moving timidly back and forth between me and Rachel, as if unsure which of us constituted a higher authority.

My goodness, if an Indian woman had said such a thing in front of Indian men, her ears would have burned for a week!

By giving in to the German conquerors, those French women in the Kay Boyle story had betrayed their men. But it was an understandable betrayal. Their men were gone. The Germans were in command.

Who had conquered Rachel’s people? What had led her to disrespect them? Why did she behave like a woman of a defeated tribe?

They say that a warrior is measured by the strength of his enemies. As an Indian, I am proud of the fact that it took the mightiest nation on earth to defeat me.

But I don’t feel so proud when I listen to Rachel. It gives me no solace to see the white man self-destruct. If Rachel’s people are "nothing," what does that say about mine?

I believe in my Comanche people. I know that someday we’ll stand as equals before the white man, strong, prosperous and self-sufficient. But we won’t get there by listening to empty praise from guilty white women. We’ll get there by studying the white man’s ways and learning to be strong as he is.

November 21, 2008

Free Dr Pepper for all this Sunday

LOS ANGELES – Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality.

The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.

"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."

Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.

Dr Pepper is owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc.

___

On the Net:

http://www.drpepper.com

http://www.gunsnroses.com

November 20, 2008

To Bail or Bail Out, That is the Question

To Bail or Bail Out, That is the Question

by Thomas Fleming

"What do you think about the bailout?"

The old philosopher sighed. Xanthippe had been getting market gossip again from the slave girl she sent to the agora. How many times did he have to tell her to pay no attention to these rumors? News, he snorted to himself. Those people were right in Thurii who made it a crime to ask arriving strangers, "What’s new?"

"What bailout, dear?"

"You know perfectly well what bailout I’m talking about, the bailout of those chariot and wagon makers. They just can’t compete with the Ionian stuff, and I hear they feed the slaves like kings. Some of them are getting pretty uppity–they live better than we do and you are not only an important professor but you have your own phrontisterion (think tank) …So, what do you think?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean nothing? You have an opinion about everything. That’s why the Delphic oracle said you were the wisest man in the world."

"I only know that I don’t know what I don’t know, and I don’t know anything about making wagons."

"Well, what am I supposed to say when those snooty friends of your come over here, talking so glib about what they would do if they had the power. All I say is that if Critias or Alcibiades ever get into office, we’ll all have to watch it. Anyway, everyone is talking about it. You’d think a philosopher would at least show some interest in an important public crisis."

"Well, Xanthippe, what do you think?"

"This is a change! What do I think. Well, what I think is that while those cartmakers and their slaves have mismanaged things pretty badly, Athens simply cannot afford to put so many people out of work. Think of the multiplier effect…"

"Multiplier effect?"

"Yes, the fact that all those unemployed slaves and employee won’t be able to buy wine or oil, which will hurt the grape and olive farmers. Besides, we can’t stand idly by and let economic ruin overtake our neighbors."

"They’re not our neighbors. They live in the Piraeus. You’ve never been to the Piraeus–and you wouldn’t want to: It’s full of foreigners–Phoenicians and Africans–and very dangerous. You know what those Phoenicians are like. You want to bail them out? When they’re not murdering children, cheating you in business or stealing your ideas, they’re finding an excuse to oppress their neighbors. What’s even worse, they expect Athens to defend them against the Persians. Artaxerxes can do what he likes with them, for all I care."

"We’re not talking about Phoenicians and you know very well what I mean: We’re all Athenians–ever since Cleisthenes set us free from all those old phratries and clan wars."

"OK, Xanthippe. We can talk about this, but before we get down to the specifics of the deal, perhaps we should take up the basic issue. You are talking as if we have an obligation to save the jobs of those poor cartmakers in Piraeus. What you say this is something desired in itself or that which is only desired for something else."

"Good grief, Socrates, I shall go mad if you start up with your thises and thats for which."

"Well, if you won’t listen to plain Greek. Let me give it to you in something that sounds like the sloppy language of those northern barbarians. Are we supposed to help the cartmakers because that is a good thing to do or because it serves another, higher purpose?"

"I’ve known you long enough to spot the trap. If I say it is good in itself to help the people in Piraeus, you will ask why restrict it to them, and before long you’ll have us sending wine to the gymnosophists in India. OK, granted: There is no general duty we owe to everyone to assist strangers. Fine. But these are Athenians-even the slaves, in a way."

"Xanthippe, you shock me! Slaves Athenians? Next you’ll be talking about setting them free and making them citizens. Even Cleon doesn’t go that far! Just what we need in Athens, more stupid people voting for the crooks who rob the people and drag us into wars! To get back to my question–far ahead of which you have raced–"

"Ye Gods, not that convoluted Greek again."

"–Are you more concerned with the good of the cartmakers or with the good of Athens? This magic multiplier effect you seem to believe in."

"Naturally, I care about the cartmakers, but primarily I am thinking about the welfare of our city. Where will we get the chariots for the next Panathenaic procession? How will the farmers get their vegetables to town? How will our soldiers haul their equipment–imagine if the cartmakers went to Sparta!"

"The Spartans don’t even use money. How would they buy wagons? So you are saying that the common good requires us to bail out failed business enterprises. What’s next? You know Pasion** the slave who worked as a money-lender and got so rich he took over the business and became a shield manufacturer? Here was an ex-slave and foreigner who gave the city 1000 shields and fitted out a trireme (warship). Anyway, let us suppose his company is failing. Does he get bailed out or is this only reserved for cartmakers. And if Pasion gets helped, what about the olive oil pressers in a bad year or the potters? "

"But this is a special case, and you know the whole economy of the Piraeus could be wrecked."

"You are not answering my question. All right, then, supposing we have this obligation, in what capacity do we have it?"

"What do you mean, capacity?"

"Who is the ‘we’ that owes the cartmakers. Is it we Socrates and Xanthippe, we as two of thousands of private individuals who live in Athens, or we Athenian citizens whose magistrates collect taxes and carry on the city’s business? Not to rus you, but if it is we as Socrates and Xanthippe, then I’d better go and give them one or two of my hard-earned drachmas."

"Hard-earned. You haven’t worked a day since you got bounced from that Parthenon job. Best job you ever had, thanks to Pericles!"

"Thanks to Pericles? You mean it was his money that paid the stone-carvers? You make my point for me. Even if I conceded that I had an obligation to help the cartmakers, it would not follow that the archons or board of generals would be entitled to force me and the other citizens to contribute to their welfare. Or would it?"

Xanthippe is saved by the noisy entrance of a semi-intoxicated young man .

"Why, it’s Pheidippides, that new student of yours at the Phrontisterion. What does he want? I hope he’s come to pay his bills."

"Actually, Xan, I’ve come to prove that neither I nor my father owe any debt to the old man here. A teacher, after all, is supposed to make a man better than he was, and while it is true that I’ve become damn good at arguing our way out of our debts, everyone says I am worse than I was. Argul, I owe no money. But, didn’t I hear you two talking about the bailout? Lucky for you, I am hear to explain the whole thing. It’s very simple"

"You??!!" exclaim the old philosopher and his wife.

"Actually, it’s not so much me as Protagoras. As you know, I’ve learned all I can learn from the old guy here, so I’ve been hanging out with Protagoras. You know Protagoras, Sockie?"

"You mean ‘Man is the measure of all things’ Protagoras?"

"Yeah, that one. Well, what I learned from him is something his brighter students are calling the theory of subjective value. Basically this means that while you might like Sophocles and all that morality jazz, I go for the hot new stuff of Euripides and Philoxenus. They get to me, you know. I get so stirred up I want to bang my head on pillar or go out and mutilate some herms. Well anyway, you might like your wife and I might go for Alcibiades–and believe me I do–and you might like to help the needy and I might prefer to spend my drachmas on getting drunk and picking up boys, and that’s all right because beauty is in the eye of the beholder and value simply means what you are willing to spend time, money, attention on. Get it? I don’t owe nobody nothing, not even my mom and dad, if it doesn’t give me pleasure to feel that I owe them."

"I’m surprised Protagoras puts up with you and the other hooligans. He’s a well-intentioned man, even though he has not exactly thought through the argument. So you conclude from this line of reasoning that you are even free, for example, to beat your father and mother, if you enjoyed doing it."

"Perfect, man. That’s exactly what I did this morning, and boy, is old Strepsiades ticked. He talked about burning down the Phrontisterion–he thinks I get this sh-t from you."

"In a way, I suppose I am guilty. In trying to teach you to think, I only got you to the elementary stage of challenging your conventional beliefs. You left before we got to the part about an immortal and universal basis for moral principles."

"Can it, Sockie. I’m Protagoras’ man now."

"It sounds to me that this is less Protagoras or even that red-bearded Jew who talks so much about the laws of the market–why should he care so much about how the market officials regulate weights and measures?–It sounds to me like you’ve been hanging out with the crazy Scythian prophetess, Anus Randius I think she’s called. What a name. Sounds like an aging bugger! Look, Pheidippides. Go back and apologize to your parents and lay off the philosophy. You don’t have the head for it. Even Plato–and on politics he’s as crazy as his uncle Critias–knows what every Greek knows, that we have a special duty to our parents, and just as we have duties to parents, so we have duties to our kinsmen and fellow-Athenians. That much you could learn from a trip to Delphi."

"Not me. I believe in the holy trinity of me, myself, and I. I am the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not. If there are gods–and I by no means think there are–they live off in their own sphere and take no interest in our affairs. You know what your friend Critias says–and Anus Randius and her teacher Frederikos have picked it up from him–that weak men invented religion and morality to enslave the strong who, by nature, should take whatever they can get. If people are dumb enough to have children they have to spend money on or risk their lives fighting for their country, that’s just the way they get their kicks, but not little Pheidippides. You know, the old man named me "Spare the horses" because he did not want me to become a spendthrift like my mother and her high-toned family. When I’m through, there won’t be any horses–much less carts–in all of Athens. I want the world and I want it now.."

"Boys," says Socrates motioning to two sturdy slaves, who proceed to beat up Pheidippides.

"Some arguments can only be answered with a blow of the fist. I told that one to Plato the other day, when he started talking about raising children in common. I didn’t persuade him, but I think he has been telling it to his own students. Stand up, Pheidippides. Xanthippe, give him something for the fat lip and bleeding nose. Are you ready to listen to reason?"

Spitting blood and teeth, "Go marry yourself, Socrates."

After another round of gentle instruction, Socrates repeats his question and a chastened Pheidippides nods his head down, which is Greek for yes.

"Fine. Now that we have silenced this childish ruffian–would that we could do the same to Anus Randius and all her teachers and disciples–we can talk like adults. We are not random strangers, we Athenians, but fellow citizens in a commonwealth founded by the goddess Athena and the earthborn king Erechtheus and unified by Poseidon’s great son Theseus. The bones of heroes are buried on our territory, and their spirits and the ghosts of our ancestors watch over us, but more important than these heroes and ghosts are the nomoi , the traditional laws and customs that preside over our marriages and births and the rearing and education of our children. They make us who we are, and without them we are mere beasts–as this Pheidippides would like to be. Everyone, even a Scythian slave, has some dim awareness of this, as he dreams of returning home to see his mother once again before he dies. These sophists, who prate about being individuals–these little professors sponging off the city and pretending to a wisdom they shall never have–they think that by denying the obvious, they are being clever. Why not tell people to fertilize their fields with wine and oil and grain and save the horse manure for the table?

As rational people we start, not with some wild speculation, but with what we know to be true and then proceed to extrapolate from the known. Any man that denies the bonds of loyalty to family, kin, and country, is not only a fool, but no man at all. In uttering such inanities, he excludes himself from civilized discourse. If some day the Nomoi of Athens should tell me, in the mouths of a jury, that I must die for the crime of turning out students like this one here, then I shall go to my death, cheerful in the knowledge of my own innocence and happy in obedience to my people and their laws. "

"Does this mean, dear husband, that you agree with me and are now saying that the bailout is right and proper?"

"By no means, my dear wife. We have only established two basic principles so far, and we are a long way from any conclusion."

"What principles are those?"

"First, that a moral obligation to a group of people does not necessarily entail a political obligation, and, second, that our moral obligations cannot be reduced to this foolish and self-refuting theory of "subjective value."

Pheidippides: "For the sake of argument–and keeping what teeth remain to me–I’ll concede ‘foolish,’ oh gentle teacher, but why self-refuting?"

"Did it never occur to you or the Randys that the theory must be applied to the theory itself, that is, that subjective value is simply a subjective value to you but not necessarily to anyone else. Since I don’t accept this theory or any other similar theory [here Socrates, by divine intuition, is rejecting Kant's Categorical Imperative], then I could proceed to agree with my failed student Critias, namely, that I can do with you exactly what I want–I’m thinking of chopping you up and using you for fishbait: You’re more like a worm than a philosopher."

"But wait, oh wise and noble teacher, there another principle we adhere to, and this one you will surely agree with: that it is always wrong to commit aggression. Since no one wants to be attacked, he should not attack."

"By no means. Your theory excludes anything of the kind. This is just another one of your subjective values, which Critias and I don’t accept. Sorry, you’re fishbait. Now, then, back to the bailout. What would you say, then, Xanthippe, do we Athenians as a people and as a city have an obligation to protect all businessmen and their employees from the consequences of bad decisions?"

Pheidippides, breaking in: "No, people enter the marketplace to buy and sell, and the system only works if poor businessmen are allowed to fail and good ones prosper."

Socrates: "Pheidippides, at last, has contributed something to the discussion. Yes, we can agree with the Redbearded Scythian that buying and selling operate like the laws of arithmetic. You make a better product, more people want it, scarcity ensues, the prices goes up, and the producer makes more money and in his affluence is able to hire workers and contribute to the city. These laws of his are very much like the laws of nature–right, Pheidippides?"

"Yes, Socrates, and they cannot be infringed?"

"Not infringed? You mean cannot be infringed without some damage. For example, we know that if we jump out the window we shall fall to the ground, possibly hurting ourselves."

"Yes, Socrates."

"But suppose we are being attacked by a man who intends to rob us? Should we not then be justified in jumping out the window, even at the risk of breaking a leg?"

"I suppose so, but what does this have to do with what we could call the law of supply and demand?"

"Simply this: These natural laws of the market place–if only Greek had some word for them–are simply the way things are, but, on the other hand, we might conceivably wish to break them for a higher reason. For example, Athenians make the best pots in the world, but they are costly as well as beautiful. Suppose some Phoenician bought a load of cheap Etruscan pottery and brought it to the Peiraeus, where they sold so well he hurt the business of the potters whom future races will celebrate as one of the glories of Athens."

"Tough, Socrates. If people want cheap, they should be able to buy cheap."

"Why, Pheidippides?"

"Why, because…because… because…"

"Because we have a right to buy at the cheapest price?"

"That’s it exactly."

"Where does this right come from, in your philosophy? Wouldn’t a rugged individualist like you say, instead, that if the potters were strong and could drive the Phoenician out of the market place, they would be doing a smart thing?"

"But that would not be fair."

"Fair? Where does a Randian get off talking about fairness. We are talking now about power, not justice. What you really mean to say is that while I may like the amphoras painted by Euphorion, you like cheap junk well enough to be satisfied with it so you can save your money to spend on little boys. We’ve been through all that. Perhaps my slave boys did not explain it clearly enough?"

"Why do we always have to go back to threats? Don’t you have any arguments?"

"My dear Pheidippides, what you don’t understand is that I am using your own arguments–or rather those of your demented masters. If there are no standards of the beautiful and the ugly, the virtuous and the vicious, the just and the unjust, then we are left only with the law of tooth and claw. So, to return to the point: The laws of the market tell us what price we shall have to pay if we increase tariffs or ban some imported gods or give public money to the cartmakers but like other natural laws they cannot tell us what we ought to do on any occasion. The fact that water flows down hill does not mean that we should be wrong to row upstream, if that were teh direction we wished to go."

"I suppose not, Socrates."

"Suppose not will have to do for the moment, but you still think it is wrong to spend money on potters or cartmakers.

"I do."

"That is enough on this for now. So, Xanthippe, Pheidippides apparently thinks it would be wrong to use his small share of Athenian taxes to subsidize an industry. What do you say, that it would always be right?

"By no means, Socrates. Surely you would agree with me that some businesses are more important than others. For example, if Pasion’s shield business went bankrupt in the middle of a war, and all the slaves were dispersed, that would not be a good thing, would it?"

"No, Xanthippe, it would not."

"And what about those potters and painters you were bragging about. Hundreds, probably thousands of Athenians work in that industry, which has spread the fame of our city all the way to the Scyths who live beyond the Euxine Sea. That would not be good, would it?"

"No, indeed, Xanthippe. But are you saying that, because the loss of an industry would be a bad thing, our state officials necessarily have to rescue it, and it they do, are there no requirements? Let us put it another way. Is saving an industry a good thing, and if it is, what kind of a good thing is it?"

"Here we go again with the dialectic. If only Plato or Antisthenes were here to back me up! What do you mean by "what kind of"?

"I mean simply this. There are different kinds of good things: Some are quite trivial and can be dispensed with–a vase of flowers on the table, good wine with dinner, a good song of Simonides–while others are indispensable, like food and shelter. But even in the case of indispensable things, like food, it may not be incumbent on one particular human being to provide food to another. With limited resources, I cannot feed every starving man in Athens. So would you say that saving an industry is like a vase of flowers or is it indispensable?"

"It must be indispensable; otherwise you will soon be showing me that Pheidippides’ subjective value argument has at least the merit of giving us the freedom to choose."

"Then, if it is indispensable, is it incumbent on all of us or is it simply meritorious."

"I would say it is incumbent on all of us.."

"To rescue every failing business?"

"Well, no, but I thought you would trap me if I said meritorious."

"So meritorious, then, liking giving food or money, when we can spare it, to a beggar."

"Yes, something like that, though…"

"Though what, you don’t like giving up the idea of a universal obligation to help out every ailing business in Attica. What a patriot you are, Xanthippe."

Xanthippe is perplexed, but she is again relieved from the burden of answering her husband’s terrible questions by the entrance of another young man, actually a mere youth.*** This one has the broad shoulders of a wrestler and the noble face with the inspired look one sometimes sees on people too good for this world. For once, Xanthippe is happy to see one of her husband’s students:

"Plato! Come in, just the man we wanted to see."

"Me, Xanthippe? I am flattered."

"Socrates has been giving me the going over he usually saves for his disciples–he must be bored this morning-and he is trying to get me to say that the Athenian people are either not required the help cartmakers or even that it would be wrong to do it. Prove him wrong, Plato. You know you’re his smartest student. He always says so, and by refuting him, you will win his respect and gratitude. Won’t he Socrates?"

"Yes, indeed. Tell us, my dear boy, what you think and don’t spare my feelings. My only interest is the truth, that is, supposing that there is such a thing and that it is possible for us mere mortals to find it out."

"Well, Socrates, I think you know my opinion, though we rarely talk about the question. I believe that Athens has been ruined by the greed of businessmen. The current collapse of the cartmakers is the result of the greed of the owners and the laziness and impudence of the slaves they have overpaid. The Spartans are better men than we are, because they are more virtuous. There the greedy individualist is nothing: the commonwealth is everything. That is as it should be, and that is why they are beating us in this war."

"So, I take it, that you would let the cartmakers go belly up and do everything to drive business and industry out of Attica?"

"By no means, dear teacher. For the time being, we are what we are, but the first step toward turning Athens into a just republic would be to take over all the major industries and run them for the common good. The slaves and free workers have been greedy and foolish, it is true, but they are far less culpable than the owners and foremen. We the people of Athens owe them employment and a decent living. After all, we are not Phoenicians, who look upon their fellow human beings as objects to exploit.

Socrates: "So, Plato, you go further than Xanthippe and think our city should actually own and manage the means of production."

"Yes, I do, Socrates. After all, producing and buying and selling are all part of the public realm, are they not? No one, after all, sells wine to himself or to his mother, does he."

"No…"

"And, as you have always taught us, the public realm, that is, the city and its rulers, should not be governed by the man on the street but only by those who have the skill and wisdom to steer the ship of state. Since the market place is part of the public realm, it should be managed by the wisest men of the city for the benefit of everyone and not just a few greedy businessmen."

Socrates: "And do you, Xanthippe, agree with your young friend?"

Xanthippe: "I don’t know. What he says sounds reasonable."

Socrates: "It does indeed."

Pheidippides: "Good grief, Sockie, you can’t be falling for this drivel. God help your reputation if this student of yours ever puts his ideas into your mouth after you’re dead. Look, Plato, I know that I am not very bright and you are very smart, but let me ask you this one question. To which of the leaders of our city would you entrust the ownership of all the major industries and businesses. The pious Nicias perhaps? Or Cleon? I know he’s dead but isn’t a vulgar scoundrel like him just the sort of person who would control the markerts? So who gets to be master?

"None of them."

"Then who will run things, the gods you don’t believe in?"

"Obviously, Pheidippides, you do not understand me, and, to be fair to you, I didn’t expect you to. We need a system like Sparta’s, where children are raised not by selfish parents but by the entire city, who will make sure that they grow up to be wise and honest."

"You obviously don’t know much about Sparta these days. What you say may be partly true about Sparta before the wars with Persia. Their greatest hero, Pausanias, got so greedy and ambitious that he plotted with the Persians against Sparta and all of Greece."

"I didn’t say Sparta was perfect, only that it offers a rough outline we could improve upon."

"In other words, Plato, you are saying that when we men become gods–or better than the gods, because they too are greedy and lustful and violent–we can live in peace and harmony in a state ruled by great leaders who will work only for the common good? Don’t bother to answer because you know what comes next: We don’t live in Neverneverland but in Athens, where everyone is out for his own interest, and in seeking his own interest, each man is prodded to take care of himself and his family. This is what Hesiod meant when he described the good kind of strife, the healthy emulation that leads men to greater and greater achievements."

Plato: "You have a very low opinion of men, if you think we are good for nothing but making money and quarreling with each other."

Pheidippides: "Why call it low, when we are what we are? It is people like you, with your wild dreams, who would enslave us to some irationally rational ideal."

Socrates: "Boys, boys, can’t we get back to the topic? Let us give up speaking, oh my beloved student, of what men might be able to do if they all became such good students as you are, and let us return, instead, to the issue. Pheidippides, though he does indeed misjudge what man is capable of of and would enslave us to our bellies, has a point. One man’s greed, when checked by another’s, is a better way of controlling markets than any rule by experts. But surely, there must be some Golden Mean, between Pheidippides’ moral anarchy and Plato’s moral dictatorship. Well, then, let’s take a closer look at those cartmakers in the Piraeus. Perhaps if we can once determine how they got themselves into such trouble, we can say one or two useful things about the solution.

BE CONTINUED

**The story of Pasion is true, but it takes place in the next century.

*** To be honest, Plato was only 9 when Pheidippides was sent to study with Socrates, that is, when Aristophanes put on the Clouds .