TO JIM

THE DEMISE OF REAL HEROS

IGNORANT WANNABES EXITE THE IGNORANT AND PROMOTE THE COWARDS.
D.L. BLEWITT, J.D., Dec., 2016

In two weeks, it would have been my brother’s birthday.  We were born 11 months apart and both independent with strong beliefs and values based on a long line of family tradition. We had divergent political views, but respected those of others, each fighting for them in different ways.  We both had a reverence of the Constitution and honored the Posse

Commutatis principals.      I lately published a piece of the two Distinguished Flying Crosses he was awarded.  He was a hero.  Not a coward.  He saved lives, not take them claiming he was in fear of being hurt.  He remained a target while calling in positions under fire.  He didn’t brag.  He just did his job.  He, like many of my generation were conflicted with the divergent views during the time of the Viet Nam war.  He was a soldier, I was not.  He was a hero, I was not.  But we both stood up for what we believed in.  And we both defended each other’s right to believe.

          Once a superior officer informed him that because of some of my activities, his career advancement might be jeopardized.  His answer, “I thought freedom of speech was what I am fighting for.”  We disagreed on the Viet Nam war policy, but not on our basic rights to believe and express those beliefs.  I saw him stand by the bullet holes in his helicopter after he was attacked.  He utilized all his training.  He had desert, ocean, artic, and jungle survival schools.  He trained with special anti-terrorist forces in Italy, Germany, Spain and England.  He was in Egypt during the Blue Light exercise, resulting in a coup, and trained Navy pilots for the Iranian rescue mission.

          His mission was to save lives, even at risk to his own.  He rescued downed pilots flying the largest helicopter made.  After Viet Nam, he was with special forces anti- terrorist squads and trained all over the world.  In the process, he earned two distinguished flying cross awards.  He was a hero.  He didn’t shirk.  He didn’t wait for orders to perform a rescue. 

          When he retired, he gave speeches to various groups about the military training of police.  He was dead set against it.  He told me that he had been to over 80 countries in the world.  He observed that in every one of these countries   where military performed law enforcement, there was a dictatorship. 

          “I’m trained to kill, not make arrests.  It would be bad policy to put someone like me in any form of law enforcement.  I see officials clamoring to sell military weapons to police department and train them in the philosophy of School for the Americas, which we operate to train South American military how to deal with the peasantry.  Police in this country get to play with military equipment like children play with toys.”  Police are trained to view citizens as possible enemies, not people served.

          I remember a discussion we had after the tragic shooting at Columbine High School.  He was shocked that law enforcement officers waited outside until the premises were thought to be safe before entering.  He was outraged.  “Even an unarmed conscientious objector medic would have rushed in immediately to help save lives and not wait until it was safe.  My brother’s peers were trained that the lives of others were to be thought of first.  Their mission was to save lives, not to be safe.  He branded them as cowards.  Every time he went up in his helicopter, he feared for his life or safety.  Yet he went.  He did his job even while under attack.

          I’ve thought of that a lot in the past few years.  In 40 years of law practice and many friends in law enforcement, I have never met an officer that shot at or killed a suspect.  They were proud of this.  My brother flew rescue helicopters in war zones to rescue downed pilots.  His ship was not armed and he did several missions under fire.  There is a photo on the internet showing him standing in front of a 50mm hole in his helicopter.  His mission came first.  Saving lives came first.  He was a real hero, not a wannabe like the new generation of law enforcement.  He went from B52 bombers to rescue helicopters because he thought saving lives was more important than taking them.  No cowardly drone piloting for him.  I can’t imagine what he would say today about the homicidal behavior of our police.  I do know that he would have been on a crusade to prevent the militarization of our police.  Real warriors don’t wait to be safe, they act to save lives.  Cowards take lives to save their own.

ARE YOU SCARED YET?  

THE LOOTING OF THE UNITED STATES IS ACCELERATED, AND WE CHEER IT ON.

THE RIGHT WING

SALON MAGAZINE   FRIDAY, NOV 25, 2016 12:40 PM MST

“I can’t imagine a worse pick”: Critics slam choice of Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education

Donald Trump's choice for secretary of education is someone who wants to destroy public schools

MATTHEW ROZSA

The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education

By now you've surely heard of the Kochs. Meanwhile, the powerful, wealthy DeVos family has remained largely under the radar, while leading a stealth assault on America's schools.

By Rachel Tabachnick / AlterNet May 6, 2011

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Since the 2010 elections, voucher bills have popped up in legislatures around the nation. From Pennsylvania to Indiana to Florida, state governments across the country have introduced bills that would take money from public schools and use it to send students to private and religious institutions.

Vouchers have always been a staple of the right-wing agenda. Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But "school choice," as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.

The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.

By now, you've surely heard of the Koch brothers, whose behind-the-scenes financing of right-wing causes has been widely documented in the past year. The DeVoses have remained largely under the radar, despite the fact that their stealth assault on America's schools has the potential to do away with public education as we know it.

Right-Wing Privatization Forces

The conservative policy institutes founded beginning in the 1970s get hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy families and foundations to develop and promote free market fundamentalism. More specifically, their goals include privatizing social security, reducing government regulations, thwarting environmental policy, dismantling unions -- and eliminating public schools.

Whatever they may say about giving poor students a leg up, their real priority is nothing short of the total dismantling of our public educational institutions, and they've admitted as much. Cato Institute founder Ed Crane and other conservative think tank leaders have signed the Public Proclamation to Separate School and State, which reads in part that signing on, "Announces to the world your commitment to end involvement by local, state, and federal government from education."

But Americans don't want their schools dismantled. So privatization advocates have recognized that it's not politically viable to openly push for full privatization and have resigned themselves to incrementally dismantling public school systems. The think tanks’ weapon of choice is school vouchers.

Vouchers are funded with public school dollars but are used to pay for students to attend private and parochial (religious-affiliated) schools. The idea was introduced in the 1950s by the high priest of free-market fundamentalism, Milton Friedman, who also made the real goal of the voucher movement clear: “Vouchers are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a free-market system." The quote is in a 1995 Cato Institute briefing paper titled “Public Schools: Make Them Private.”

Joseph Bast, president of Heartland Institute, stated in 1997, “Like most other conservatives and libertarians, we see vouchers as a major step toward the complete privatization of schooling. In fact, after careful study, we have come to the conclusion that they are the only way to dismantle the current socialist regime.” Bast added, “Government schools will diminish in enrollment and thus in number as parents shift their loyalty and vouchers to superior-performing private schools.”

But Bast's lofty goals have not panned out. That's because, quite simply, voucher programs do not work.

The longest running voucher program in the country is the 20-year-old Milwaukee School Choice Program. Standardized testing shows that the voucher students in private schools perform below the level of Milwaukee’s public school students, and even when socioeconomic status is factored in, the voucher students still score at or below the level of the students who remain in Milwaukee’s public schools. Cleveland’s voucher program has produced similar results. Private schools in the voucher program range from excellent to very poor. In some, less than 20 percent of students reach basic proficiency levels in math and reading.

Most Americans do not want their tax dollars to fund private and sectarian schools. Since 1966,24 of 25 voucher initiatives have been defeated by voters, most by huge margins. Nevertheless, the pro-privatization battle continues, organized by an array of 527s, 501(c)(3)s, 501(c)(4)s, and political action committees. At the helm of this interconnected network is Betsy DeVos, the four-star general of the pro-voucher movement.

The DeVos Family Campaign for Privatization of Schools

The DeVoses are top contributors to the Republican Party and have provided the funding for major Religious Right organizations. And they spent millions of their own fortune promoting the failed voucher initiative in Michigan in 2000, dramatically outspending their opposition. Sixty-eight percent of Michigan voters rejected the voucher scheme. Following this defeat, the DeVoses altered their strategy.

Instead of taking the issue directly to voters, they would support bills for vouchers in state legislatures. In 2002 Dick DeVos gave a speech on school choice at the Heritage Foundation. After an introduction by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett, DeVos described a system of “rewards and consequences” to pressure state politicians to support vouchers. “That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible,” stated DeVos. He described how his wife Betsy was putting these ideas into practice in their home state of Michigan and claimed this effort has reduced the number of anti-school choice Republicans from six to two. The millions raised from the wealthy pro-privatization contributors would be used to finance campaigns of voucher supporters and purchase ads attacking opposing candidates.

Media materials for Betsy DeVos’ group All Children Matter, formed in 2003, claimed the organization spent $7.6 million in its first year, “impacting state legislative elections in 10 targeted states” and a won/loss record of 121/60.

Dick DeVos also explained to his Heritage Foundation audience that they should no longer use the term public schools, but instead start calling them “government schools.” He noted that the role of wealthy conservatives would have to be obscured. “We need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities,” said DeVos, and pointed to the need to “cut across a lot of historic boundaries, be they partisan, ethnic, or otherwise.”

Reinventing Vouchers

Like DeVos, several free-market think tanks have also issued warnings that vouchers appear to be an “elitist” plan. There's reason for their concern, given the long and racially charged history of vouchers.

School vouchers drew little public interest until Brown v. Board of Education and the court-ordered desegregation of public schools. Southern states devised voucher schemes for students to leave public schools and take the public funding with them.

Author Kevin Michael Kreuse explains how this plan was supposed to work in White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. “At the heart of the plan to defend school segregation, for instance, stood a revolutionary scheme called the ‘private-school plan.’ In 1953, a full year before Brown, Governor Talmadge advanced a constitutional amendment giving the General Assembly the power to privatize the state’s entire system of public education. In the event of court-ordered desegregation, school buildings would be closed, and students would receive grants to attend private, segregated schools.”

Given the racist origins of vouchers, advocates of privatization have had to do two things: obscure the fact that the pro-privatization movement is backed primarily by white conservatives, and emphasize the support of African American and Democratic lawmakers where it exists. 

In 2000, Howard Fuller founded the Black Alliance for Education Options. The group was largely funded by John Walton and the Bradley Foundation. Walton, a son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, contributed millions to the Betsy DeVos-led All Children Matter organization, including a bequest after his death in a plane crash in 2004. 

A report by People for the American Way questions whose interest was being served in the partnership between the Alliance and conservative foundations. The summary of the report reads, “Over the past nine months, millions of Americans have seen lavishly produced TV ads featuring African American parents talking about school vouchers. These ads and their sponsor, the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), portray vouchers as an effort to help low-income kids. But a new report explores the money trail behind BAEO, finding that it leads directly to a handful of wealthy right-wing foundations and individuals that have a deep agenda -- not only supporting the school voucher movement, but also backing anti-affirmative action campaigns and other efforts that African American organizations have opposed or considered offensive.”

Black Commentator.com was more blunt, describing vouchers as “The Right’s Final Answer toBrown” and tracking the history of vouchers from die-hard segregationists to the Heritage Foundation’s attempt to attach vouchers to federal legislation in 1981. The article stated, “The problem was, vouchers were still firmly (and correctly) associated with die-hard segregationists. Memories of white “massive resistance” to integration remained fresh, especially among blacks, who had never demanded vouchers -- not even once in all of the tens of thousands of demonstrations over the previous three decades.”

The article continues, “Former Reagan Education Secretary William Bennett understood what was missing from the voucher political chemistry: minorities. If visible elements of the black and Latino community could be ensnared in what was then a lily-white scheme, then the Right’s dream of a universal vouchers system to subsidize general privatization of education, might become a practical political project. More urgently, Bennett and other right-wing strategists saw that vouchers had the potential to drive a wedge between blacks and teachers unions, cracking the Democratic Party coalition. In 1988, Bennett urged the Catholic Church to 'seek out the poor, the disadvantaged…and take them in, educate them, and then ask society for fair recompense for your efforts' -- vouchers. The game was on.”

In this winning formula, vouchers or “scholarships” are advertised as the only hope for under served and urban minority children. Those who dare to defend public education from voucher schemes are, ironically, implied to be racist. Glossy brochures published by the DeVos-led entity All Children Matter show smiling faces of little children as well as those of the African American and Democratic politicians who have joined the campaign. Kevin Chavous, a former D.C. city councilman who takes credit for “shepherding” vouchers in D.C. and New Orleans, served as senior advisor to All Children Matters and now leads the BAEO and sits on the board of the DeVos-led AFC and Democrats for Education Reform.

All Children Matter was fined $5.2 million dollars in Ohio for breaking campaign finance laws, and lost an appeal in early 2010. The fine has not been paid. The DeVos-led organization also received bad press due to a fine in Wisconsin for failing to register their PAC as well as complaints in other states. In 2010 the entity began working under the name American Federation for Children (AFC) and registered new affiliate PACs across the nation, just in time for the 2010 elections.

The 2010 effort included a state that was not even included in Dick DeVos’ list of potential targets when he spoke to the Heritage Foundation in 2002 -- Pennsylvania. An affiliate of AFC registered a PAC in Pennsylvania in March 2010 and less than a year later a voucher bill, SB-1, was sponsored in the Senate.

Throughout this well-coordinated campaign, the Pennsylvania press never once mentioned the name Betsy DeVos.

The Religious Right Foot Soldiers

The strategy in Pennsylvania in 2010, like efforts in other states, benefited from years of previous efforts to build alliances in the voucher movement. The conservative policy institutes have limited reach in the general public. In order to win the battle for hearts and minds, a larger public relations effort is required. The Religious Right fills this role with their tremendous broadcast capability and growing access to churches and homes. The partnership between free market fundamentalists and social conservatives is often contentious, but they share a common goal -- to end secular public education. The free marketers object to the “public” aspect while the Religious Right objects to the “secular” component of public education.

A significant forum that brings together free-market power brokers and Religious Right leaders is the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive group that has met several times annually behind closed doors since 1981. Richard DeVos described CNP as bringing together the “donors and the doers.” This partnership gives the Religious Right access to major funders, including Richard Mellon Scaife, who are not social conservatives.

Many of the free-market think tanks are secular, but there is a trend toward merging free-market fundamentalism with right-wing religious ideology. The Acton Institute is described by religious historian Randall Balmer as an example of the merging of corporate interests with advocates of “dominion theology.” Dominionism is the belief that Christians must take control over societal and government institutions. The Acton Institute funds events featuring dominionist leaders including Gary North, who claims that the bible mandates free market capitalism or “Biblical Capitalism.”

Betsy DeVos has served on the board of Acton, which is also funded by Scaife, Bradley and Exxon Mobil. A shared goal of this unlikely group of libertarians and theocrats is their battle against environmental regulation. One of the Acton Institute fellows leads a group of Religious Right organizations called the Cornwall Alliance, which is currently marketing a DVD titled Resisting the Green Dragon. The pseudo-documentary describes global warming as a hoax and claims environmentalism is a cult attacking Christianity. Another shared goal of the free marketers and Christian dominionists is eradicating secular public education.

Gary North explains why getting students out of public schools is key to the Christian dominionist camp. “So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”

And the Christian Right has been busy enacting this vision. One of the first goals of the Christian Coalition was to take control of 500 local public school boards, and it's a strategy the Religious Right has continued. One prominent example is Cynthia Dunbar, one of the members of the Texas State Board of Education which made controversial changes to the state’s social studies curriculum in 2010. Dunbar, who was advised by right-wing self-styled "historian" David Barton, is author of One Nation Under Godand has described sending children to public schools as “throwing them into the enemy’s flames, even as the children of Israel threw their children to Moloch.”

In addition to getting Trojan horses on school boards, the Religious Right has played a significant role in disseminating anti-public school propaganda and forming alliances to support vouchers for private schools. Family Research Council (FRC), one of the entities funded by the Prince and DeVos families, documents the effort in Pennsylvania to cultivate a partnership between Protestants and Catholics who wanted public funding for their sectarian schools.

The data accompanying proposed bill SB-1, indicates that the majority of the public school funds that will be spent on vouchers will pay tuition for students already enrolled in private schools. In Milwaukee 80 percent of voucher program schools are religiously affiliated, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In Cleveland, 52 percent of the students in the 29 Catholic diocesan schools are using taxpayer-funded vouchers, according to the Plain Dealer.

FRC’s Web site includes a 1999 speech by one of Pat Robertson’s biographers, in which he describes the school choice alliance in Pennsylvania of Protestant and Catholic leaders along with the Commonwealth Foundation and REACH Alliance. Commonwealth is a state think tank funded by the Scaife foundations. REACH Alliance is the statewide pro-voucher activist organization funded by the DeVos-led Alliance for School Choice (now also renamed American Federation for Children). This alliance is further described in the speech as forming "ties to black legislators based in Philadelphia, including Dwight Evans. This was big news for the Pennsylvania education reform movement because Evans is a powerful legislator and community leader."

Evans would indeed become key to expanding vouchers in the Philadelphia area, and he and state Senator Anthony Williams (not to be confused with the D.C. mayor by the same name), both Democrats, serve as directors of the BAEO.

The Battle for Pennsylvania

By the 2010 election, the groundwork had been laid and the heavy artillery brought into the state of Pennsylvania. First, a PAC was registered in March 2010 by Republican strategist Joe Watkins under the name Students First. Affiliated with the DeVos and Chavous-led AFC, the PAC shared the name with the organization founded by Michelle Rhee, a star of the popular pro-privatization movie Waiting for Superman. The Web site of Students First PAC touts the African-American Watkins' experience as an adviser to a president and pastor. There is no mention of the fact that the president was George W. Bush. The bio also neglects to include Watkins' ties to the Republican Party or his role in attack ads run on Fox News against presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008.

Students First PAC received over $6 million in donations for use in the 2010 elections, much of that donated by three mega-donors whose names were unfamiliar to most Pennsylvanians. The three mega-donors, Joel Greenberg, Jeffrey Yass and Arthur Dantchik, also contributed over a million dollars to the AFC-affiliated PAC in Indiana and $6,000 dollars each to the gubernatorial campaign of Scott Walker. The Indiana PAC total was raised to almost $6 million by a few contributors, including Betsy DeVos herself and several Walton family members. Most of that money did not stay in Indiana but was distributed to affiliated PACs in six other states, including over a million sent back to Pennsylvania’s Students First.

Much of the Students First money went to the long-shot gubernatorial campaign of Anthony Williams. Williams lost in the primaries, but he brought statewide attention to his primary campaign cause -- school vouchers. Among Students First’s millions of expenditures was a $575 payment for conference registration to the Council for National Policy.

Pennsylvania press did not pay much attention to the background of the donors of the unprecedented millions pouring into the election in support of a single issue, describing them simply as supporters of school choice. Greenberg serves on the board of the Betsy DeVos-led AFC; Yass on the board of the pro-privatization think tank Cato Institute; and Dantchik on the board of the Institute for Justice, which describes itself as a merry band of libertarian litigators and is perhaps best known for its battles against affirmative action. It’s funded by Koch, Bradley, Olin, Scaife and Walton foundations and has now become a champion of school vouchers. The organization was credited by Dick DeVos in his 2002 speech as serving a significant role through challenges to the Blaine Amendments in numerous states, which disallow public funds to be spent supporting religious schools.

Money continues to be spent on attack ads against both Republican and Democratic senators opposed to SB-1. The Scaife-funded Commonwealth Foundation has created a webpage to pressure wavering Republicans. The Koch-funded FreedomWorks sponsored mailers attacking Republican state Senator Stewart Greenleaf. The mailer is headlined, “There’s a battle in Harrisburg over our children’s future. Who will win? Our children or the powerful teacher’s union?” A Students First PAC mailer attacks Democratic state Senator Daylin Leach as opposing the bill because, “he is listening to teacher union leaders who oppose SB-1 and have contributed a fortune to people like Leach.”

Much of the Indiana PAC money was also used in media campaigns, including funds sent to Florida for media purchases. AFC was the sole funder of a pro-voucher group that ran ads in Jewish publications attacking Dan Gelber, a Jewish candidate for Florida attorney general who opposed vouchers. Full page “wanted ads” were purchased in Jewish publications accusing Gelber of “crimes against Jewish education.” Other ads purchased just prior to the election described Gelber as “Toxic to Jewish Education” in red Halloween-style letters.

Dick DeVos’ model for “rewards and consequences” as described in his 2002 speech, is at work in Pennsylvania, Florida, and elsewhere, and it's a project funded by a few mega-donors. The voucher warriors with their unlimited funding are trying to create the absurd impression that they are the altruistic David in battle against the teachers’ union Goliath.

Betsy DeVos has announced that Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are scheduled to speak at the National Policy Summit of the American Federation for Children on May 9. Walker wants to expand vouchers in Milwaukee despite the program's failure, made clear by disappointing standardized test results. Walker’s response? To halt the testing. Pennsylvania voucher supporters have already taken care of the pesky issue of accountability by defeating an amendment that would require the students using vouchers to take standardized tests.

During the AFC’s summit, it’s doubtful there will be speeches about eradicating public education but there will certainly be public relations-produced media everywhere, showing the beautiful faces of the little children these voucher proponents are supposedly saving. And Betsy DeVos, the four-star general of the voucher wars, will continue to advance a stealth campaign against American communities and working families -- the battle to eradicate public education

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Thanks to all my friends and readers for your concerns over my hospitalization. I can assure everyone that it wasn't due to the CIA or the election results. Will be back in action soon. 

Seanad Order of Business 10th November 2016: Election of Mr Trump as Pre...

March to Martial Law (work in progress)

WHAT IS PLUTO-WHAT IS CRIME?  IS THERE DIFFERENCE?  (BEFORE NIXON, part 2)

Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D., Nov. 2016

During the past four decades, I have studied the origins and development of law from Roman times until the present.  Additionally, I have studied criminology, both at the undergraduate and graduate level.  I edited a nationally recognized law school news journal. I was on a committee that drafted and graded the criminal law question on the bar exam.  I have chronicled the changes in law and society for five decades and am as confused and fearful, as the citizenry.  I like to think that my fear, though is rational, but perhaps not.

          I noticed a change in the view and interpretation of law during the Viet Nam era and have been watching that change since then.  My concentration was on crime and the Constitution, formed by centuries of precedent and logical development.  At least, I thought sp.  But, now I don’t know.  I truly believe that there is no longer such thing as precedent or law.  There is arbitrary exercise of power by a small group who could care less about the nature of law, but are jealously guarding their power with unprecedented arrogance, selfishness, ignorance and self-righteousness.

          I learned that criminal law was not as concerned with an act as with the actor.  That is because law, as we know had its origins in the ecclesiastic training.  Lawyers were priests who studied law later.  In England, where most of our law came from, law was formulated and transmitted through buildings clustered around the Temple Church, the headquarters of the Knights Templar, where even today barristers learn in Inner and Middle Temple Inns of Court.  Law was a developmental process, not a body of knowledge.  Most of the law dealt with property and revenue and injuries to people known as torts.  A very small percentage dealt with matters that pissed off the king or queen known as crimes.  Crimes had nothing to do with individuals; it was entirely between the sovereign and the subject.  If individuals were wronged or harmed, their remedy was to file a lawsuit.  Of course, there was a time when filing a lawsuit was much cheaper than today.  That was also in a time where most court business dealt with crimes that caused injuries to people and not that dealt with contraband. 

          The essence of crime was the determination of whether or not the accused was a good guy or a bad guy.  The act defined the crime and the intent defined the criminal.  To commit a crime, the actor had to have a specific intent.  There had to be both an act and an intent, without which would not be a crime. No intent, no crime.   This was later modified with the introduction of the misdemeanor.  Crimes were considered felonious if intended to cause a specific result.  If intent were lacking, but there was some sort of bad guy element, it was a misdemeanor, generally subject to a fine, stocks or short term in the goal.  In other words, crimes were classified as bad in themselves, (Malum in Se), or bad because someone in power said so, (Malum Prohibitum).  To keep the sovereign from abusing power, a contractual relationship evolved, based upon “Magna Carta.”  In the U.S., because we, the people are the sovereign, crimes are acts that affect the society, which is also the sovereign.  Later, as bureaucracies developed, and some activities were in need of regulation, but not of great concern to the sovereign, regulatory infractions came into existence.  But, as bureaucracies grew, so did infractions.  This was accelerated by bureaucratic empire building into the behemoth existing today.

          Enter the politicians, Nixon, Ehrlichman, Mitchel, et al.  They discovered that fear won elections and drugs scared parents.  Long hair scared the shit out of parents, who had struggled to give their children what the parents didn’t have during the depression.  Many draft and war protesters smoked marijuana and the long hair pissed off parents who tried to live the American dream after WWII.  The Administration dreamt up ways to gain control over crime, which had been a local matter until then.  Through propaganda, TV, and other devises, the drug war was launched.  The obsession with crime began.  Fear reigned supreme.

          Before Nixon, it was accepted that the Government, wasn’t supposed to make people safe. That was a local matter. Local police were solving crimes.  The Government, I was taught in law school, had no police power.  Nixon changed that.

          It was obvious to officials that great power existed with ability to interpret and enforce laws.  Power could be enhanced with fear. National interest groups were formed to consolidate this power and wield it based on fear.  There was the DA’s association, the AG association, FBI and other agency associations.  None of these organizations advanced the view that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land.  They portrayed the Constitution as an obsolete anachronism standing in the way of effective policing.  These protectors of the citizenry morphed into a big protection racket which would become the envy of any Mafia group in the world.

          Police started to view their function as the final arbiter on crime.  They, although untrained and essentially ignorant of social, economic or psychological factors in crime, believed that the sole purpose of policing was to apprehend a suspect and keep him locked up.  They began to lobby against the centuries long tradition of release of accused on bond, and complained to the press that they worked their asses off to apprehend criminals to only have them let loose on society.  Although they took oaths to protect the Constitution, they dreamt up ways to circumvent that oath.  They also resented the rules that prohibited torture and beating the shit out of suspects to get confessions.  The concept restraint on searches and seizures were viewed as impediments.  They spread that ignorance, and government lawyers, following their career aggrandizement, joined in, although they knew better.  Jobs and advancement were more important than right and wrong.

          As politicians discovered how powerful fear and the crime issue were, more legislation was promoted to shift power to the administrative branch, particularly prosecutors.  Victim programs were invented and directed by prosecutors.  Prosecutors lost sight of their traditional role of assessing what was beneficial to society and myopically viewed their constituency as alleged victims and the police establishment.  Them versus us was the result.  Lawyers, trained to analyze and solve problem were now trained to administer.  The system morphed from common law to something else, resembling a Napoleonic code. 

          Prosecutors, many of whom had been part time and had small private practices in addition to prosecuting cases, became full time specialists, losing contact with the rank and file public.  Efficiency flourished, wisdom extinguished.  The class war had begun.  Judges were rated on efficiency, not fairness.  Emphasis was not on balancing interests, but upon punishing and incarceration.  Prison populations increased by a multiplier of ten in 4 decades to almost 3,000,000.  65% of Black America was incarcerated, on bail or under court supervision.  instead of educating the people, unscrupulous prosecutors took public stances on law and order making Nixon look like a progressive.  The concocted drug war changed the face of law and abolished the concept of justice as we knew it.  Justice was no longer just, it was punitive.  As John Ehrlichman finally admitted,

“You want to know what this was really all about?” Ehrlichman bluntly asked Baum of the war on drugs. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

In short order, rules of evidence were changed to allow more flimsy presentations, the element of criminal intent was changed to general intent for most felonies, blurring the distinction between felonies and misdemeanors, the line between civil wrongs and crimes became indistinguishable.  Victim groups, known to personal injury lawyers as “groaners” became empowered to set policy.  Professional prosecutors became more focused upon pandering to the police and victims than concerning themselves with the society in general.  Various programs were funded through legislation, controlled by prosecutors.  And finally, confiscation and seizure laws made the police establishment independent of the legislative branch of government. 

When I mention this change to young lawyers, they all express the opinion that I am crazy.  Me and the rest of the industrialized world.  The Arab world and other fascists regimes share this view of justice. 

Additionally, the judiciary, spawned from privilege and the rulers, distrusting the great unwashed peasantry, has steadfastly crusaded to abolish jury trials, or at least limit them.  Juries, contrary to common law, are told that they can only judge facts and not circumstances and decide what is just.  Therefore, there is no input from the people on laws.  If an accused did an act, he was guilty, no matter the intention, reason, or fairness of the law.  An important check or balance has been eliminated, in favor of expediency and sound business principles.  After all, juries are inefficient and the juries aren’t trained to make decisions.  They just reflect the views of the citizenry which is viewed as ignorant and crude.

So, prodded by business concepts such as management by objectives, streamlining procedures, and eliminating any feedback loop, we have created a dictator’s dream, and, like the populace, at the time of Caesar, must believe and count on the fact that “Brutus is an honorable man,” and will not take advantage of the power given by a gullible public. Like the early Romans, we are entertained by gladiator events and distracted from the harm the rulers are doing.  As long as we are fearful, and we resent taxes, we can be looted by business, stealing through privatization of government, be poisoned by air and water, and have our bridges collapse on us, spawning an ignorant population at each other’s throats rather than existing in a society.

CAN WE LEARN?

One of the first things that I learned from my grandfather was that there is nothing more despicable than a bully.  Not only a physical bully, but a mental bully must not be allowed to exist in a civilized society.  From a long line of ship masters, he first served as mate under his father, who served under his father etc.  It is ironic, considering the life on the London docks in the 15^th through 20^th Centuries.  The docks were a rough place.  Sailors were impressed and the rule of a ship’s master was absolute.  It would be easy to be an unfair tyrant, but sometimes that could backfire.  For me, the easiest way to face punishment and sanction was to bully someone, particularly my younger brother.

            That is the start of what I call playground education that most children must have to progress from childhood to adulthood.  Unfortunately, some never make it.  The playground bully would attract his share of sycophants and droolers, but generally, they had to go through life in a state of paranoia and isolation, with no friends.  I was imbued with the sense of duty to society and humanity.  Not only was I prohibited from bullying, I was charged with the obligation to make things better for people if within my power to do so. These are what set us apart from the state of nature.  They were deemed essential to the advancement of a society.  So with this great burden, I ventured forth into the world, at times questioning whether or not I was given the requisite survival skills. 

            So, I wonder, as I watch election coverage, if I was born on a different planet and am a displaced alien here.  The TV coverage and debates don’t reflect the culture or milieu in which I was raised.  It reflected the barbarians of a different age.  I wonder where such a sense of entitlement originated.  Reflecting on Mr. Trump, it is clear that he regards himself the modern equivalent of a medieval baron, including having the right of Droit du Seigneur, entitling him complete entitlement to impose his desires on any female in his kingdom.  Utterly amazing.  Next, the Devine right of Kings will be invoked.

            Meanwhile, no one is discussing, torture, drone warfare, privatization, incarceration, and other issues that real candidates should be discussing.  Corporate theft is all but ignored as the CEO of a major bank resigns, confession massive fraud.  We worship unethical cheating executives and want to punish the poor and needy.  The business mentality is destroying our citizenry and country.  Someone who perpetually stiffs sub-contractors, is not a leader.  He is a predator.  Likewise, playing footsie with bankers of Wall Street isn’t any good.

            So we enter the election climate with the same mindset and a sporting event, including pep rallies and cheer leaders.  “Lock her up” was repeatedly shouted in a convention.  This is in light of the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate in the free world.  “Build a wall” was chanted as a solution to the economy doldrums at the same time as a release of a report stating home-grown terrorism is the biggest threat to the safety of our citizenry.  I am tired of being embarrassed, lied to, manipulated, and ignored.  This is insulting.  It is time for us to make our presense known.  Let the rulers be aware that we are watching and we expect better of them.  Get active at the congressional and state levels.  Don’t fear being labeled as stupid.  Those are the ones doing the labeling.  Hit the social media with demands that the candidates talk about real issues rather than amuse us.  Get angry.  Get involved.  Stop bullies.  Stop corporation power.  Quit worshipping toxic business ethics.  Tell the other candidate to concern herself with all the people and society rather than corporations and children.  

JUSTICE, B.N. (Before Nixon or Before Nazis)

WHAT'S CHANGED? 

Dennis B.N

Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D, June, 2016

       Like many of my colleagues, I hung out at bars and coffee shops and talked to people, even today.  However, there are some significant differences that merit comment about “the good old days.”  The only thing good about them was that they warrant discussion.  So, I rewrote an excerpt from my Memoirs of a Drug Warrior to see if anyone understands it, or, more to the point, if anyone cares.  It is my hope that some nostalgic well connected acid freak might even line up a publisher or an agent.

One of the many advantages of trying cases in numerous jurisdictions is the benefit of comparing different views of the law and of legal procedure. Before I started traveling, I assumed law in the United States was pretty much the same all over however, that’s not the case.  The only consistency is when people in the system view it as a methodology rather than a body of knowledge.  There have, over the decades, substantial changes in both the law and the perception of the law.  Here is an example of the good old days.

One of my first cases out of state was in Laramie, Wyoming.  Both Laramie and Boulder, Colorado were college towns with travel between the student bodies at each institution. Laramie is on a wind-swept plateau is cold.  The town is much less active and much smaller than Boulder and, other than romancing sheep, I there’s not much else to do there. But, the cowboys do have money. And that’s where my clients, newly returned from Vietnam to enroll at the local University here enter the picture.  They were contacted by someone in Laramie who wanted to purchase marijuana. He drove down to Boulder to beg the clients to deliver the product to Laramie, which the clients were reluctant to do at first until the price offered was so high, they couldn’t refuse.

An interesting fact about my client’s back then was that the majority of them were first introduced to marijuana in Vietnam, by superior officers. So, as long as they were killing Commies for Christ, everything was cool. But when they came home things changed. There were newspaper articles at the time about how soldiers returning from Vietnam had become addicted to heroin and the government wasn’t doing anything about it. Later, I found out they were doing something about it. The government was packing heroin into caskets and sending it to the United States with the corpses, but that’s another story.

So, when my clients showed up in Laramie with a couple hundred pounds of marijuana they were surprised to be presented with handcuffs rather than money. I recruited co-counsel, Eugene Dykeman, and we flew to Laramie to see what we could do. We talked to the prosecutor and a date was set for hearing on our suppression motion. The prosecutor was friendly and condescending and offered to go easier on me when I told him I had never done a drug case there before. After the hearing, he accused me of lying to him because of my performance at the hearing.

“I thought you said that you had never handled a drug case before,” he said accusatorially.

“No, Mr. Reese, I said that I had never handled a drug case in Wyoming before. You must have misunderstood.”

During the hearing, I discovered some very interesting facts. First, Boulder was targeted by various agencies as a drug center. In fact, it was a training ground for some agencies. Additionally, the detective on this case specified that the informant had to buy marijuana from someone in Boulder and get them to deliver it across a state line to Wyoming. My clients were nominated and elected at the same time.  

When I delved into the phone call made from Laramie to my clients in Boulder, some very interesting facts were uncovered. The officer, listening in on the phone call, heard both sides of the conversation between the informant and my client. But the call was made from a phone that had no extension. It was a pay phone. So I asked the investigator how he managed to hear both sides of the conversation and he said, “well now, I have this neat little gadget that I use. I take my knife and I peeled back the wires and attach alligator clips to them, attached to headphones. there’s no microphone in the unit so the other side couldn’t hear anything from me but I can hear everything that goes on.”

Well, the detective had just confessed to a warrantless illegal wiretap. He was clueless he had done so.  I considered the case won at that point but toyed with him for another hour.  Then Dykeman had a go.  All was well except the prosecutor didn’t seem to recognize the problem with the search.  I concentrated on that and Dykeman concentrated on the enticement by the Government to encourage citizens to cross a state line to commit a crime.  I personally believed that it was to help populate the state with one congressman and two senators.  Incarceration would ensure that they would be around for a census.  After the first hearing, the prosecutor informed me that the U.S. Attorney was interested in my case.  He explained that he was a part-time prosecutor and dealing with me took up too much time.  He threatened to turn the case over to the Feds if I kept filing motions.  I knew that the penalty under Federal law was much less that the state of Wyoming was offering.  Immediately, upon returning to Boulder, I filed more motions.

I had some more trips. In one, I got within a mile of the runway when they closed the airport, forcing me to fly back and drive there. Most of the hearings were uneventful, and the prosecutor kept trying to get me to tell my clients to plead guilty to something.  I would respond by filing more motions.  This was the first wiretap case in Laramie and I don’t think the Courts there were used to them.

Finally, I pissed off the prosecutor to the point he turned the case over to the Feds. We had to wait to celebrate because I didn’t drink if I was flying.  However, I made up for it when I got back.  Looking back and comparing what happened then with what would have happened now is astounding.  It is hard for me to believe or appreciate what four decades has done to the drug laws.

In Cheyenne, we had a judge who had sat form many years and had many years as a practicing lawyer.  We both knew about loco weed that the cattle and horses occasionally ate, but there wasn’t a big marijuana problem in the area.  Most illicit smoking was trying to burn corn silk behind the barn.  The prosecutor made a reasonable offer to dispose of the case.  We actually had some discussions about the case, as opposed to today when a recent Law School graduate reads some police files written in a slanted fashion by more experienced police officer and then confers with the officer or agent in order to come up with a “plea bargain.”  There is no bargain.  There is an offer by some kid on a take it or leave it basis.  This arrogance is enforced by long sentencings with minimum mandatory sentences of the client balks at the extortion of a plea.  It is assembly line case processing.  It isn’t fair, but it is efficient.  That’s how the courts handle so many cases in a year.  It is also why we have ten times more prisoners now than when I started.

Before the clients were to be sentenced on a plea to a reduced charge, the Judge called us back to his chambers before Court.  Back then, judges mingled with the peasant lawyers and didn’t hide behind back doors.  I think that is not the case now because the judges know that they are unfair, dictatorial and clueless.  The judges were more concerned with Justice than processing cases and moving the docket along.  The process was fair, but not efficient.  Now the process resembles a ritual such as Mass, where a litany is recited which has absolutely no relationship to reality where a judge tells a defendant about rights he theoretically has, which actually don’t exist.  The client responds with catechistic answers.  The judge asks the defendant if he is agreeing to be screwed of his own free will and there haven’t been any threats.  Instead of telling the judge that he was threatened with extremely long sentencing if he didn’t go along, he tells the judge that his plea is voluntary.  At that point, the defendant is sentenced according to some chart that any clerk could use with the same result.  Uniformity is the buzz word.  To get that, judges can’t be independent.

In chambers, the judge had a conversation with the attorneys and prosecutor.  He explained his position in advanced and warned the prosecutor that he would have many regrets if he pissed and moaned about the decision.  This is the essence of the judge’s position as best as I can remember.

Judge-  Gentlemen, I have been doing some reading about this marijuana situation.  I don’t think it is that bad.  I read how it became law and am aware that the defendants didn’t start until they were in Viet Nam.  I find it unfortunate that the Government isn’t doing something about the situation there.  We’re surely spending lots of money to kill and I think some of the money could be used to help these men out.  So, I am sentencing them to the indeterminate sentence as required.  He told us that he had to do that because the press demanded some kind of punishment because it was the biggest marijuana case in Wyoming so far.

However, he told us, I will entertain a motion to resentence these people in 90 days when the publicity dies down.  So if you gentlemen file motions in about 85 days, I will grant them.  He also said that the clients had 30 days to turn themselves in at the facility in El Reno, Oklahoma and they could take their cars there.  Not a peep out of the U.S. attorney.  The defendants were released in 100 days, finished college and have been employed ever since.

I don’t have the vocabulary to describe what happens in court today to give all of you a comparison.  All I can say is that you should attend some court sessions and compare what is happening today with my story.  There hasn’t been just a change in attitudes, there has been a whole change in the culture.  Everyone entering the courthouse is suspect.  Probability is slim, but that doesn’t matter.  We are no longer a free country where we are assumed to be good.  We are suspected of wanting to cause harm to the court personnel.  Unless you are a member of the police state, you have to submit to surveillance, and searched, either by hand or electronically.  I can’t help but observe that the courts weren’t that way until the prosecutors and judges started screwing the people.  I have always found the situation to be insulting, but I guess I am one of the few who doesn’t live in a state of fear.  Like one famous president said, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and yet another stated confidently, “you have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  Also, compare past presidents with the front-running candidates today.  It is not hard to see why I write.

WE MUST ABOLISH FUN

DEAD CONCERT SEASON:

NEW GENERATION RESPONSE TO FUN; CONTROL IT or ABOLISH IT.

Dennis L Blewitt, J.D.  June 2016

            THE local paper published suggestions to officials and residents about how to manage the appearance of the “Grateful Dead” when they appear at a local football stadium to perform a concert.  The main concern was that the officials were concerned with camping in public places.  They were especially concerned with the types of fans that the band attracted.  Their fans did not wear ties and probably smoked weed.  The latter is accepted in Boulder as long as the smoker is acceptable and not a member of the unwashed.  The public image of Boulder is “the people’s republic,” which is pure propaganda.  It is an elitist location more aptly named the “brat’s playground.”

            The article took me back a few decades to when I ran for District Attorney.  I mounted a vigorous campaign against my opponent, a party official.  Most people thought that I wouldn’t get on the ballot, because I was nobody. However, the Nixon administration had shown its propensity toward establishing a police state, and more people were afraid than was recognized by the establishment. Even though there were protests, racial unrest, challenges to the power elite, most older people believed the Nixon policies of repression would stop the changes. The citizens were especially afraid of “new age" beliefs, longhair, drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll. It was also the first year that the voting age was lowered to the age of 18.

            The Grateful Dead announced that it would give a concert in the football stadium, causing consternation and panic in the strait community.  I had other things to worry about such as writing speeches, planning strategy, and formulating position papers. However, my morning was interrupted by my campaign manager, who suddenly appeared at my doorway, out of breath and in a panic.

            "You got a stop them,” he shouted, blood vessel pounding in his head, and a panicked look on his face.

            "Calm down. What are you talking about?"

            “Your clients are going to wreck your campaign,” almost crying as he said it. “I can’t talk about I got to show you. Come on let’s go.”

            So I left the office with my campaign manager and walked down Pearl Street to where my client had a store and walked into a beehive of activity. In the back was a hundred pounds of marijuana and an even larger quantity of plastic baggies. An employee was stamping baggies and passing them to another employee who was taking a handful of marijuana out of a big box, and stuffing it into the baggie which bore the stamp, “Baggies for Blewitt,” in bright royal blue letters.  I was impressed with the efficiency of the assembly line.

            "What are doing” I asked my client?

            Proudly he announced, “We’re getting you elected.”        

            Now, I must admit that I didn’t think of that as a campaign strategy. Although, I have to concede that it was pretty brilliant. The election laws had just been changed to permit 18-year-olds to vote and that was the majority of my constituency. They weren’t quite as uptight as the people of my father’s generation, who were more concerned about hair than any other issue.  I thought the idea brilliant.

            However, in deference to my campaign manager whom I promised could run the campaign, I vetoed the idea. In retrospect, I wonder if I would still do the same thing. But, with Nixon’s drug war and the political climate of the right wing I, frankly, feared that I would get arrested and prosecuted, which had been tried a few times previously by various right-wingers. I was told later by clients, that some of the baggies had shown up at the concert.  If any of you dear readers have one, or a photograph of one I would really appreciate having it.  In any event, I lost the election.

            Which brings us to today. The drug war is still going on. We still have prisoners of that war and the highest incarceration rate in the world. We don’t have Universal Health Care. We don’t have a top-notch educational system. We don’t have as much paid vacation as other countries. We are stressed out. The so-called “deadheads” still exist, although the Grateful Dead has been around for almost 4 decades. However, like most things in our society, we are now concerned more with image than actual potential threats. When Boulder had hippies, they were everywhere, camped everywhere, and pestered people everywhere. But, for some reason, they were tolerated. Now, there is zero-tolerance. I have yet to hear any debate on to the harm that a few days of camping in the city would cause. I haven’t heard any discussion about emergency services for the people coming into Boulder for the concert. I suspect, rather than helping make the event a success, officials are staying awake and working overtime to determine how to sabotage the event. I’ve heard all kinds of worst-case scenarios, all directed at Prohibition, and none at amelioration. Under the present conditions, I believe the only reason that the concert is coming to down in the first place is to enhance the coffers of the police establishment, giving slaughter for the perpetual prison machine and the fine revenue machine. Some of my enemies have accused me of looking at things as they do now because I retired and don’t have to live the printed terry life of a lawyer. My response is, “I never made any money as a lawyer before I retired, why should I start now?” In any event it’s going to be interesting to see how the concert and the concert crowd is treated. I am considering starting a pool based on how many hippies the police can bag during the event. When I was practicing law, hippies were considered dangerous and a threat. Police officers I knew, who prided themselves and never drying their guns, weren’t afraid of hippies. Not so when Boulder County. We have one of the few documented cases where a deputy sheriff went hunting without a license specifically for hippies. There was a brief story about it in the local paper. The local power structure is more concerned that people will show up and smoke legalize pot than they were before it became legal, which I find ironic and hypocritical. Also enclosing, that I recommend everybody carry cameras and photograph the scene. Who knows, it might save someone’s life. If not, it’s still probably pretty good historical footage.

            

Does Law Exist?

WHAT’S CHANGED: 

ABOLISHING LAW THROUGH FALSE HISTORY 

Dennis L. Blewitt, J.D.

First there was the Sachsenspeigel, the source of Saxon common law.  It was an amalgamation of customs, decrees village consensus and other sources, none of which were written. It codified law in Eastern Europe and Eastern England, pretty much centered around the tribe or territory.  Not even an invasion by Normans could supplant it. Then came the Normans, with their version of law, more in line with Roman Church law. It was pretty well established when William invaded in the 11^th Century.  The Normans tried to change the law, but instead of doing so, had one of their kings held at sword-point to sign a document limiting power of the King.  Although the King repudiated it, it survived and is the basis of many of the rights enjoyed today in English speaking countries.  So, the two systems became amalgamated.

            Conflict occurred between the people and the sovereign ever since.  Although there was conflict and even wars, law was pretty well established by the 14^th century.  Essential to the development were certain undeniable principles, sometime referred to as Natural Law.  Common law dealt with concepts, applied to the people, based upon general consensus.  Norman law dealt with specifics, declared by the State through decree or legislation.  The concepts such as prohibition against search, seizure, denying due process, and sanctuary of the Church and the home.  The concepts of due process and sanctuary survived for nine centuries in a revered place in our history and law.  However, after the assassination of a President and the pursuit of an unpopular war, fear seized the population, spurred on by our leaders.  With the election of assassination of Kennedy, the way was paved to wrest power from the people and give it to the powerful.  Searches and seizures became more common place to combat the scourge of marijuana, in use by returning soldiers and anti-war protesters.  The idea of a home as a sanctuary was abolished.  The king’s men were never allowed to enter a house, even on of a murderer.  They had to await his exit.

            Then came the attack on due process.  The police state obtained an advantage and due process seemed to be anything that the executive branch of the government feels comfortable with.  With this mythology of law, a false history was developed.  All the changes were brought about by one gigantic protection racked, called Government.  Fear was marketed to the point that the citizenry became paralyzed and irrational.  Checks and balances in our constitution were abolished as inconvenience.  Justice was replaced with expediency.  The Courts were viewed as inconvenient in the administration of the modern corporate state. Instead, substance was eclipsed by procedure.  With the help of PR firms and politicians without honor, we became the world’s leader in incarceration.  We are behind other Western nations in almost everything good, and are competing with Islamists for the record number of executions.  Greed is venerated.  Charity considered passé. 

            The fear machine made it easy.  Also, the rulers, stealing from us and lowering our standard of living made it easy for them to convince us that Government was bad.  Taxes were bad.  Decent housing and medical care are “socialistic,” and business is better at almost everything.  Profit became the new deity.  One of the cleverest ways of wresting control was to convince us that private corporation should rule everything.  Soon, Government became an enterprise, financed by various self-funding schemes, wresting control over expenditures from legislators and delivering it into the greedy unscrupulous tycoons and robber barons.

            Three decades ago, congress investigated the intelligence agency abuses.  After hearings and printing a lengthy report, the rulers set about making sure that the citizenry couldn’t find out as much did ever again.  The abuses couldn’t have occurred if the agencies didn’t have a source of income outside the legislatures.  Whistle blowers became targets and were prosecuted.  Laws clamped down on citizen participation and dissent.  Disclosure laws made it possible for the elite to measure the strength of the opposition.  Media no longer was viewed as a community asset held in trust for the people.  Equal time was essentially abolished for politicians and costs to run for office increased astronomically.  The day of the rail-splitting candidate was history.

            One thing was clear from the Pike and Church committees.  The rogue activities, illegal in most civilized states were funded by privatized businesses, called proprietaries, such as Air America, which flew most of the drugs for the CIA.  Like lemmings, we blindly run to the sea of privatization to drown.  I often ask “Where’s the outrage?”  Now I ask “Where’s the brains?” 

            So we allow privateers to stop cars, confiscate cash and other valuables to hire more liars jerks to harass the citizens on the highways.  There is no way a police agency should obtain one cent without appropriation by a legislative body, no matter how publicized the situation.  We are the Government, not the officials and employees of the state.  The ass-holes get away with this because we let them.  A recent review of the news according to the Washington Post reveals that the police are literally getting away with murder. Nearly a thousand times this year, an American police officer has shot and killed a civilian This is not equal or fair.  It is the power elite’s version of ethnic cleansing.  The Government bombed its citizens experimentally at Bikini and other sites, infected blacks with syphilis in the name of science, caused suicides administering LSD, developed the drug trade in the US to keep the citizens in line, euthanized, sterilized and executed almost at will.  People can be denied a livelihood by investigation.  Some unprincipled Bureaucrats, like J. Edgar Hoover, even tried to get Martin Luther King to commit suicide.  I ask, “How long is this going to be allowed?”  Why do we even speak to these people or their associates?  Why are they respected and not ridiculed?  Is the population so stupid, or just lazy?