Indy Councilman Raises Controversy With Nazi-Style Salute

WRTV TheIndyChannel.com
Thu Mar 30, 7:10 AM ET

A city councilman stirred controversy with a Nazi-style salute in protest of the end of a meeting Wednesday night.

Councilman R. Douglas Reeser, upset at the end of a special council meeting, expressed his displeasure after he and two other Republicans were outvoted on some measures that would have essentially done away with a lawsuit that Lawrence Mayor Deborah Cantwell has against the council.

Reeser and other opponents of the measure were upset because they felt they didn't get a chance to speak to their point of view.

Councilman Raises Controversy With Nazi-Style Salute

Cantwell said the Nazi-style salute was a very inappropriate way to protest.

"This just signifies hatred. So it certainly was a disappointment -- just shows what kind of character unfortunately the person has," Cantwell said.

Reeser, also a Lawrence teacher, spoke with 6News briefly via phone Wednesday night. Reeser said his intent was simply to express displeasure at not being able to speak at the meeting.

Councilman Kyle Walker said he and other Republicans were muzzled.

"It was very unfortunate we couldn't speak because the president of the council would not allow us to make any public comment whatsoever," Walker said.

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80 Black Celebrities Creating a Dramatic Audio Performance of the Bible

'Experience' the Bible
By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Blair Underwood stands in a Los Angeles recording studio, his arms outstretched, tears on his cheeks, as he groans Jesus' suffering words, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."

Denzel Washington and his wife, Pauletta, coo the love poetry of Solomon's Song of Songs. Urban gospel artist Kirk Franklin gives voice to Paul the apostle. (Related clip:Hear Sample Clip

They're among more than 80 black celebrities reading, singing and composing music for The Bible Experience, a new 70-hour Genesis-through-Revelation dramatic audio performance of the Scriptures.

The New Testament in CD and MP3 formats will be in retail outlets — secular and Christian, storefront and online — by September. The Old Testament follows in 2007.

Also coming next year: additional formats, from ringtones to iPods to animation, so you could put Robert Guillaume intoning the mighty angel of Revelation on your home answering machine or, perhaps, a line from the Lord in Psalm 91: "They will call on me, and I will answer them."

It's a serious Bible, but there's wit in the casting:

Cuba Gooding Jr. is the voice of Judas, lending new meaning to his Oscar-winning Jerry Maguire catchphrase "Show me the money!"

Judge Greg Mathis, who wields a gavel on a syndicated TV courtroom show, reads Solomon.

Hip-hopper Heavy D reads Apostle Andrew, and gospel great Shirley Caesar reads Naomi. They join musical stars such as Franklin, Common, MC Lyte, Anthony Hamilton, Angie Stone and Faith Evans in recording original songs, psalms and more.

It's all designed to give life to even the dullest sections.

"Our co-producer Lou 'Buster' Brown says we're taking God's word and we're gel-capping it: surrounding it with elements that make it more palatable for mass consumption in today's marketplace," says Kyle Bowser, one of the quartet of Emmy- and Grammy-winning co-producers from Inspired By Media Group. The group instigated the multimillion-dollar project with financing and text provided by Zondervan, the nation's largest Bible publisher.

God? Still not cast.

There's an offer out, but "God requires a lot of recording time in hours. He had a lot to say," says casting director and co-producer Robi Reed.

Stars who have either already recorded or signed contracts include film actor Angela Bassett reading the Christmas story and TV's Tisha Campbell-Martin (ABC's My Wife and Kids) as Mary Magdalene.

Some, like Guillaume, have Old Testament roles as well. He'll be reading Noah, Bassett reads Esther and Gooding is the recalcitrant prophet Jonah. Queen Latifah, Star Jones and dozens more entertainers under contract have not been assigned their roles yet.

Underwood says his favorite part of his demanding role is the crucifixion. It was "the culmination of the three years of his teachings, but it was the beginning of a whole new walk for believers forever."

The producers say all-black casting should be no obstacle to a nationwide audience.

"We're taking artistic license, like Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel. No one up on that ceiling looks like me," says Bowser. "I have to superimpose myself in that imagery. We're expressing what our artistic hearts see and allowing others to see themselves in these characters."

God is inherently universal, so the Bible speaks in the voice of all races, says Arizona State University professor Lance Gharavi, associate editor of the Journal of Religion and Theatre.

But not both genders: In The Bible Experience God is a guy. One female singer who asked to read the role — producers won't release her name — was turned down, although the translation used is Zondervan's most contemporary translation, Today's New International Version, advertised as "gender-accurate" with only the theologically essential pronouns.

Gharavi sees the distinction as part of a society-wide "struggle with who has the right to speak for God. It's part of a larger conversation we're having as a culture and our changing understanding of whose voices and what kinds of voices are legitimate."

Another casting question: Should only faithful Christians get roles?

Reed says the producers agreed that the Bible — populated with many unbelievers — would be their guide. "The Bible itself is God's word. Who are we to judge God's word? It's his project, his will and his purpose. If we bring in someone who doesn't believe or whose faith is not as strong as ours, God's plan might be that this is a way to bring them into belief."

"Some of the people whose voices they will be reading were not exactly saints, either," notes Paul Caminiti, publisher of Bibles for Zondervan.

Zondervan was looking for new ways to reach beyond print Bibles with its modern, accessible translation. "We wanted something unusual, something more visceral, something more experiential," Caminiti says. "We're trying to engage a new urban generation, and most are already turned off by the memory of the King James' " archaic translation.

Underwood, who played Jesus once in a short film 13 years ago, says he was drawn to the project by a chance to play out fully the role of a lifetime: "Whether you believe the doctrine or not, you cannot deny the impact that the life of this man, Jesus, had on everyday life."

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Update: 3 Cops Indicted in New Orleans Beating

Charges upgraded to state felonies for 2
Thursday, March 30, 2006
By Michael Perlstein
Staff writer
See Video

An Orleans Parish grand jury on Wednesday indicted three New Orleans police officers involved in a videotaped beating of a retired teacher in the French Quarter, upgrading charges against two of the officers from municipal misdemeanors to state felonies.


Robert Evangelist, 36, and Lance Schilling, 29, both fired from the Police Department after the Oct. 8 incident, were indicted on charges of second-degree battery, punishable by up to five years in prison. Evangelist also was indicted on a charge of false imprisonment, which carries a 10-year maximum prison term.

Previously, the officers had each been issued a municipal summons for simple battery. While both battery charges are defined as the intentional use of force or violence, second-degree battery is committed "when the offender intentionally inflicts serious bodily injury" involving "unconsciousness, extreme physical pain or protracted and obvious disfigurement," according to state law.

The bloody confrontation was captured by at least two people with video cameras, providing graphic footage of an already embattled police department to a nation glued to coverage of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath.

Also caught on video was footage of the third officer, Stuart Smith, cursing and jabbing a finger in the chest of an Associated Press news producer, whose crew was among those taping the incident. Smith, 50, was indicted Wednesday on a charge of simple battery, the same misdemeanor charge that had been lodged against him earlier in municipal court. A police spokesman Wednesday could not determine the current job status of Smith, who already served a 120-day suspension for his actions.

District Attorney Eddie Jordan said the indictments "send a clear and unmistakable message that lawlessness will not be tolerated, whether by civilians or law enforcement officers."

Jordan said it was his decision to seek stiffer charges against the officers after assessing all the evidence in the case, including the video. A court date for the officers has not been set.

"These are much more serious charges, and they will serve as a much bigger deterrent to this type of conduct," he said. "The grand jury concurred in our assessment that this was a serious violation of state law."

The veteran police officers, all of whom had been assigned to the 8th District, were trying to apprehend Robert Davis, 64, on suspicion of public intoxication. Davis, however, said he had not been drinking and did not resist the officers. He said he ventured from his hotel to buy a pack of cigarettes when he was accosted and pummeled.

Frank DeSalvo, attorney for the officers, said the officers used necessary force when Davis began acting irrationally and resisted arrest. He called Wednesday's indictments "asinine."

"For them to come up with these charges does more to undermine law enforcement than half the criminals running around the streets," DeSalvo said. "It's terrible, and we're going to fight it. They served up this mess, and we're going to make them eat it."

DeSalvo said the false imprisonment charge against Evangelist is especially galling.

"Evangelist tried put handcuffs on a man who was resisting arrest. For them to charge him with false imprisonment is an abuse of the law," he said.

Lt. David Benelli, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, said the officers haven't been given a fair shake since the videotape began airing around-the-clock the day after it was shot.

"These officers were tried and convicted in the media before anyone knew the facts," Benelli said. "They were fired before they even had a day in court. They've never had a chance to defend themselves."

A nonprofit reform group, however, doesn't think the indictment goes far enough to curb what it described as long-standing civil rights abuses by the New Orleans officers. Seung Hong, spokesman for Safe Streets, said the indictment should be a beginning, not an end.

"We applaud the district attorney for taking this so seriously," Hong said, "but it would be a shame if these officers were used as whipping boys of the rest of the department and no major reforms came of this."

. . . . . . .
Michael Perlstein can be reached at mperlstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3316.

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Is The News Really the News?

CNN News is committing treason

by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News.org
March 28, 2006

Americans are a decent people, who wouldn't stand for this utterly un-American Bush administration... if they knew what was happening. But most Americans don't know, because corporate-controlled media like CNN are simply not reporting the news.

When so much hangs in the balance, that's beyond irresponsible. It's treason, by either of the two definitions in my dictionary:

1. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.

2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.

It is no exaggeration to describe George Bush as America's enemy. He and his cohorts stand foursquare against every principle America is proud of, from 'open, honest government' to 'freedom of speech', from 'innocent until proven guilty' to 'liberty and justice for all'. American troops are at war in two nations without any sane reason, and the Bush-Cheney administration is leading the nation toward a third war...

And the news is nowhere to be found at CNN. It is obvious that CNN and other American news media have betrayed any trust Americans' once had for journalism.

If you have the time and internet savvy to seek out alternative and foreign news sources, then you know that America is in grave peril. We have a President who has never told Americans the truth about anything, who has exercised abysmal judgment about remarkably important matters, who breaks the law with impunity and announces it plainly and often. The Bush-Cheney administration has committed dozens of impeachable offenses, but it's impeach-proof, because Bush's Republican Party controls Congress, and allows no oversight of the White House.

But if you don't have the time or don't know where to look beyond bland American mainstream news, chances are you don't know much of the above.

CNN Radio even has the chutzpah to end its radio newscasts with the most frightening words regularly aired on any commercial broadcasts:

"This is CNN, the most trusted name in news."

If that's true, that's why Americans don't know the grave peril their nation faces.

CNN, and its equally empty colleagues at Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS, have helped the White House convince Americans that the nation's most dangerous enemy is an Iraqi rebel, or an al Qaeda terrorist.

But that's a lie, and most professional reporters aren't dummies; they must know it's a lie.

America's most dangerous enemy, by far -- the enemy seeking to destroy our way of life and eliminate our freedoms -- is the enemy in our midst -- the enemy in our White House.

Media that won't report that fact, is media that's aiding and abetting the enemy.

There's much more than this at Unknown News.

We don't have cable TV, and haven't for years. Instead we listen to lots of talk radio, on a local station that plays CNN Radio News at the top of the hour. In a four-minute newscast, CNN's top story is almost perpetually pabulum. CNN will reliably report when the latest pretty white woman is kidnapped, or when somebody's lost kitten is found, or when a celebrity is caught in an embarrassing situation.

Do you know what I learned, listening to CNN Radio News on Sunday and Monday? A dog playing 'fetch' with its owner somehow got a stick lodged in its throat. The sexiest woman in show business is no longer Jessica Alba or Angelina Jolie, it's now Scarlett Johansson. The Muslim divorce chant ("I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee") is legal, even if the husband is such a coward he says it while his wife is asleep.

And no, I am not making this up. That was the news at the heart of CNN Radio's hourly news updates.

When CNN Radio News actually does touch on a subject that's newsworthy, they'll first make sure all the facts that matter are removed. Yesterday, for example, CNN Radio News reported that the House of Representatives had passed an immigration bill, and that Congressional Representatives applauded when it passed. CNN mentioned nothing about the content of this despicably evil bill that will, if it becomes law, illegalize babysitting for "illegal" immigrants, outlaw giving "illegals" a lift or a sandwich or a Band-Aid. CNN said nothing about the huge protests that have been held against this bill, nothing about the Catholic Church's stand against it, nothing to provide any context at all. They merely reported that a bill had passed the House, and members of Congress applauded.

Then it was back to the fluff and non-news stuff. A preacher's wife is accused of killing her reverend husband. Somebody's house burned down. An NFL player was arrested for boisterous dancing at a night club. That's the standard for CNN's radio newscasts -- all this in a newscast that only lasts four minutes, presented just once an hour, with each hour's newscast almost invariably including a few minutes of "rerun" material from the previous hour.

For us, since we're listening to an ongoing, fairly intelligent discussion of news on a talk radio station, the break for CNN News isn't a break for the news, it's a break from the news. But it's a syndicated newscast, so those few minutes of fake news are the only news listeners will hear on hundreds of rock'n'roll, jazz, or oldies stations, all across America.

Which means, millions of listeners will hear virtually no news. Or fake news.

CNN Radio even has the chutzpah to end its radio newscasts with the most frightening words regularly aired on any commercial broadcasts: "This is CNN, the most trusted name in news." If that's true, that's why Americans don't know the grave peril their nation faces.

CNN, and its equally empty colleagues at Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS, have helped the White House convince Americans that the nation's most dangerous enemy is an Iraqi rebel, or an al Qaeda terrorist. But that's a lie, and most professional reporters aren't dummies; they must know it's a lie.

America's most dangerous enemy, by far -- the enemy seeking to destroy our way of life and eliminate our freedoms -- is the enemy in our midst -- the enemy in our White House.

Media that won't report that fact, is media that's aiding and abetting the enemy.

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Brotha's Have Been Playin Ball Longer than You Think

The Days of the Rens

Everyone remembers baseball's Negro Leagues. Here's the story of the basketball counterpart.

BY MARTIN JOHNSON
Tuesday, March 21, 2006 12:01 a.m.

The story of the Negro Leagues of Baseball, a circuit of teams that provided a showcase for many of Black America's top athletes during the first half of the 20th century, is well known. But the story of the Black Fives, a parallel set of basketball teams, is just beginning to come to light.

The Black Fives typically refers to leagues that first thrived in the African-American communities of New York, Pittsburgh, Washington and Chicago in the teens and '20s but soon spread to the South and Los Angeles. "The Black Fives era was a particularly important and unique era in basketball," explained Matt Zeysing, a historian and archivist at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. "Not unlike today, the early game of basketball had a far-reaching impact on everyone involved: those who played, those who watched, and those individuals or organizations that profited from it," he continued. "During the Black Fives era, the stakes were higher."

The game of basketball was invented by James Naismith in 1891, and it caught on quickly. Before the turn of the century, it was being played widely in YMCAs and various athletic clubs across the country. By 1898, the game was being played professionally in Trenton, N.J. Edwin Henderson, a Harvard-educated physical-education teacher, introduced basketball to black students in the public-school system in Washington in 1904, and he founded the first league of all-black teams, the Interscholastic Athletic Association, two years later.
News of Henderson's endeavors spread along the East Coast, and by 1907 inter-city games between all-black teams were played. In 1908, the Smart Set Athletic Club, a team based in Brooklyn, won the first Colored Basketball World Championship, which became an annual tournament.

The game of basketball was still in its infancy and much slower than today's game. The courts were smaller, the basket was still literally that, and referees had to retrieve the ball with a stick after each score. There was a jump ball after each hoop. However, many black teams were sponsored by ballrooms, which would include games as part of their evening entertainment.

"There would be a big band playing before the game and at halftime," explained Claude Johnson, a marketer and historian who has researched the era extensively. "After the game, the band would return and a dance would go on until after midnight." Mr. Johnson said that being part of an evening of fun led to Black Five teams developing a faster, more athletic and daring style of play. "The game wasn't just seen as an athletic science, but it was also entertainment."

The game of basketball was invented by James Naismith in 1891, and it caught on quickly. Before the turn of the century, it was being played widely in YMCAs and various athletic clubs across the country. By 1898, the game was being played professionally in Trenton, N.J. Edwin Henderson, a Harvard-educated physical-education teacher, introduced basketball to black students in the public-school system in Washington in 1904, and he founded the first league of all-black teams, the Interscholastic Athletic Association, two years later.
News of Henderson's endeavors spread along the East Coast, and by 1907 inter-city games between all-black teams were played. In 1908, the Smart Set Athletic Club, a team based in Brooklyn, won the first Colored Basketball World Championship, which became an annual tournament.

The game of basketball was still in its infancy and much slower than today's game. The courts were smaller, the basket was still literally that, and referees had to retrieve the ball with a stick after each score. There was a jump ball after each hoop. However, many black teams were sponsored by ballrooms, which would include games as part of their evening entertainment.
"There would be a big band playing before the game and at halftime," explained Claude Johnson, a marketer and historian who has researched the era extensively. "After the game, the band would return and a dance would go on until after midnight." Mr. Johnson said that being part of an evening of fun led to Black Five teams developing a faster, more athletic and daring style of play. "The game wasn't just seen as an athletic science, but it was also entertainment."


The Harlem Globetrotters, the internationally renowned team of highflying tricksters and acrobatic hoopsters emerged from a Black Fives league in Chicago. Powerhouse teams were sometimes made up of players who were on integrated collegiate teams and known for other endeavors, such as Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson and Cumberland Posey, a Negro League baseball great recently inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Teams like the New York Rens won championships so often that they became institutions; the Rens often played all-white teams during barnstorming tours.

By the early '40s, two fledgling outfits, the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League, began featuring integrated teams; the NBL even invited the Rens to join the league, though the team was relocated to Dayton, Ohio. When the two leagues merged into the National Basketball Association in 1949, there was little resistance to integration. Teams drafted and signed black players from the outset, and there were few reports of racial tension among the early NBA players.

This episode of American athletic history faded from view, however. In 1996, Mr. Johnson took a job with the NBA in International Licensing, and began reading up on the league's history.
"The league had a book they put out to celebrate its 50th anniversary, but it listed only the Globetrotters and the Rens," said Mr. Johnson, who suspected there was more. He then read Arthur Ashe's "Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete" (Amistad), which listed several early all-black teams, and was intrigued.

Mr. Johnson began reading microfilm of black newspapers from the early part of the 20th century and discovered a mother lode of information about the circuit. He then began using census records to track down the descendants of the players from that era, and he compiled their stories. He also did what he calls "logo forensics" to help re-create team insignia from major Black Five teams. In 2003, Mr. Johnson launched an apparel line, Black Fives, which has been licensed by Nike for a future collection, as well as a foundation, the Sons and Daughters of the Black Fives Era, to support collegiate ambitions of those whose ancestors were players or team owners.

The apparel line met with some surprise competition last autumn when a line endorsed by NBA player Eric Williams debuted featuring logos of the "Black Basketball League." The logos pirated images from photographs by famed Harlem photographer James Van Der Zee, and offered information about a fictitious multicity league from the '30s. The clothing line was denounced by both Mr. Johnson and officials at the Hall of Fame, and a lawsuit is pending.

Meanwhile, participants of the Black Five era are beginning to get their due. John Isaacs is one of the finalists in the balloting for this year's group of inductees to the basketball Hall of Fame. Isaac was a standout player with the Rens in the late '30s, and he is credited with bringing the pick-and-roll play, a staple of nearly every basketball team's offensive maneuvers, to the pro game. Henderson was nominated, but did not make the finalists. The group of inductees will be announced April 3, during the NCAA Final Four weekend.

Mr. Johnson feels the impact of this episode of history coming to light will be immense. "There's a widespread perception, even in black communities today, that basketball is a game that African-Americans co-opted sometime in the '50s and '60s," he said. "In fact, we were on the Mayflower, in with basketball from almost the very beginning of the sport."

Mr. Johnson lives in New York and writes about music and basketball.

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EX Trucker James Crudup: (A Black Man) Trains Doctors for Microsurgery

Photo comming soon

March 23, 2006

Surgeons learned skills from ex-trucker

James Crudup Award revered at med school

By Gary Pettus
Web Site


FOREST — At the University of Michigan medical school, there was a room you entered, like the secret chamber of Oz; it could make you rich and famous.

Waiting behind the door was a wizard: a soft-spoken ex-truck driver with the trace of a stutter, a Mississippi accent and a pair of magical hands.

James Crudup, who never went to college, who was never allowed to operate on a human, was the best surgeon in the medical school. And he could make you one of the best in the world.

Dr. Sherman Silber of St. Louis, a world-famous urologist, says of him: "He made me what I am."

But, outside the medical field, few people have heard of James Crudup, even in the state he calls home.

"When I found out what he had done, I said, 'my God, this is fascinating," says Dr. Edgar Smith, a former University of Mississippi Medical Center administrator. "Absolutely fascinating.' "

Now 79 and retired, Crudup has been back in his hometown of Forest for 17 years, working in his yard, tinkering with his '46 Ford, and never regretting his fate as a maker of fortunes greater than his own.

"It didn't bother me that I was training these doctors who were going to make a lot of money," he says, fiddling with a pair of old microsurgery glasses that once peered into the kidneys of rats.

"I grew up in Mississippi back when you couldn't walk down the street, when you had to go to the back door to buy a hamburger. I was glad to have the job.

"I also wanted to make sure doctors got the right training. One day I might be on the operating table, and I wanted the best."

Each year at the University of Michigan medical school in Ann Arbor, the best are honored in his name: The chief resident with the outstanding record for research in surgery claims the James W. Crudup Award.

"I'm struck by the reverence with which people speak his name here," says Amy Yamasaki, a video producer for the school.

"Yet very little is known about him." Yamasaki has the cure: She's shooting a documentary on Crudup's deeds for the school.

MOTHER, MIDWIFE

If it were a made-for-TV movie, it might open with Tommie Crudup delivering a baby in the night.

"My mother was a midwife," James Crudup says. "As long as I could remember she delivered them - white, black, Indian.

"I never heard my mother say she lost a baby.

"I got my talent from her."

Or it might open with Crudup's father Jonas Sr. slinging wood onto a wagon drawn by horses named Bunny and Grace.

"My dad hauled wood, sunup to sundown, and I helped," Crudup says. "I learned to work from him.

"I work everyday. I've messed around and bought a tractor," says Crudup, whose neat lawn could have been trimmed by a surgeon's knife.

"I can drive anything."

As a young man, he drove a truck into his future.

After a short stint in the Army, he'd returned home in '46 to finish at Scott County Training School.

He found a wife, Juanita, then found a job. Some of his family had moved near Detroit, he says. "So I went up there and got a job driving a truck for a brick company. There weren't many jobs around here."

But the job that gave him new life started with a place for the dead: "My brother Jonas Jr. worked in a morgue at the medical school," Crudup says. "When things looked bad for the brick company, I looked for a new job. Jonas helped me get one in a lab."

It was a lab where dogs, cats, rats, pigs and calves were cut open for research. Crudup cleaned the instruments: pipettes, clamps, forceps, knives.

"I couldn't stand the sight of blood," he says. "But I needed a job. You can get used to anything."

There was something, though, that he'd never accept: "I stuttered. That's why I didn't go to college. People made fun of you.

"I had a brother who stuttered too. One day he was annoying my sister while she was washing the dishes, so she whopped him in the mouth with a soap-dish rag. He never stuttered again.

"I tried to get her to hit me, but she wouldn't do it."

One day at the medical school, he met a doctor who had a stutter. "A bad one," he says. "That encouraged me to get rid of mine.

"I learned that, if I couldn't say something, to just change it to something else. I still hesitate sometimes. But I almost cured myself."

TRANSPLANTS

He could do whatever he put his mind to, and particularly his hands. He watched the doctors coming through, transplanting organs in animals. He thought, "I believe I can do that." He learned terms from medical books. Vena cava, aortic arch. He practiced on the bodies of animals destined for the incinerator. It was as natural to him as rewiring a house.

A doctor who ran the lab found him out. He put a knife in Crudup's hand.

"Then he started sending residents to me," Crudup say. They were told, 'See Jimmy. If he can't teach you, you have to go.' "

By the time Sherman Silber found him, Crudup was already a legend.

"He could do shunts, liver transplants, much faster and with healthier results than any of the surgeons," Silber says. "And there were damn good surgeons.

"I went to him and told him what my problem was."

Silber wanted to be a surgeon. "But I wasn't good with my hands," he says. "I had a huge amount of insecurity about it. Jimmy was a prodigy. But he was kind."

Crudup taught him how to use his hands, he says.

"Then it went further."

Silber wanted to study transplant rejections, but the best subjects for this were inbred rats, animals with tiny organs and vessels - too tiny for the clumsy instruments at hand at the time. "I asked Jimmy if this was possible," Silber says.

"He thought about it for a minute, and said, 'Yeah, I think we can do that.'

"He made his own instruments. We basically pioneered microsurgery together."

In 2005, an Alabama woman, Stephanie Yarber, had a baby; 10 years earlier, her ovaries had shut down. The birth became possible because of a transplant of ovarian tissue donated by her identical twin.

Silber was the surgeon.

Now at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis, Silber is a renowned fertility expert; he's a pioneer in reverse vasectomies.

"I wouldn't have the techniques or tools to do that without Jimmy," he says.

CANCER SUPPORT GROUP

In Mississippi, his story might not have emerged if Crudup hadn't developed cancer. He's a member of a prostate cancer support group at St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson.

"He started talking to me about fixing his car," says Robert Teague, who counsels the group, "about how it relates to surgery. Surgery in rats. I thought, 'He's putting me on.' Then the story came out in bits and pieces. But I had to pull it out of him."

In a back room of his spotless home on Old Mississippi 21, there are a handful of certificates and plaques proclaiming Crudup's contribution to the careers of some of medicine's best and brightest. They hang above a chair the medical school gave him at his retirement party.

"I don't use the chair too much," he says with a smile. "My wife sits in it at the window to look at the squirrels."

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In 2006 A Brotha is Still Not Safe at the Job

March 22, 2006, 12:56AM

Conroe firm pays $1 million to settle race abuse case
By L.M. SIXEL
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

A black laborer for a pipe company in Conroe who contends white co-workers subjected him to racial epithets and choked him with a hangman's noose has received a $1 million settlement from his former employer.

"I find it very hard to believe that in 2006 we're finding incidents like this in the workplace," said Cari M. Dominguez, the chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who was visiting Houston today on other business.

The settlement, which stems from a lawsuit filed by the EEOC in 2003, is the largest single award the agency has won for an individual in its history, Dominguez said.

Commercial Coating Services denies the allegations in the consent decree that was approved by U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison. A company representative referred all calls for comment to the company's lawyer who did not return telephone calls.

Charles Hickman worked at Commercial Coating Services for seven months in 2002. Hickman, the company's only black employee, said his white co-workers — including his supervisor — started making racial taunts almost as soon as he was hired, according to the EEOC suit.

Then one day one of his co-workers told him someone wanted to talk to him in the bathroom, the 37-year-old claimed in the suit. When Hickman he went in, two co-workers were waiting with a hangman's noose, which they put around his neck tightened, the suit alleged.

Hickman, who made $8 an hour, said a fight broke out and he lost consciousness. Once the noose was removed, he began coughing up blood.

"I'm still having problems," said Hickman. "I'm still on medication to make it through the days."

Hickman, who has five children between the ages of 13 and 18 and gets by on disability checks, said he doesn't expect to ever hold a full-time job again.

"I have trouble eating to this day," he said. "I can't swallow properly."

Hickman said he's not thinking much about the money.

"You really can't put a dollar amount on how I felt then and now," he said.

Rudy L. Sustaita, the EEOC lawyer who handled the case, said he was very pleased with how the case turned out.

"This is the worst case of discrimination I've ever seen," said Sustaita, who has been with the agency for 16 years.

Commercial Coating Services, which has changed owners since Hickman worked there and is now known as Commerical Coating Services International, initially tried to argue that the men were involved in "horseplay" and it wasn't racially motivated, said Charles H. Peckham, a private employment lawyer with Lundy & Davis who represents Hickman.

The piping company was also able to argue successfully to the Texas Workforce Commission that Hickman voluntarily quit his job and that he was therefore not eligible for unemployment benefits, said Peckham.

"They actually tried to make the argument that Charles actually thought it was funny," said Peckham.

That annoys Hickman who said he never considered the insults or physical abuse humorous.

"I was doing the job to support my family," he said. "I never took it as a joking matter."

In addition to the $1 million settlement and a permanent injunction, Commercial Coating's chief executive agreed to make a written apology to Hickman within 14 days.

And within 30 days, the company must either plant or designate a tree on its property in Conroe in honor of Hickman's tenure there.

Sustaita believes it's the first time the EEOC has participated in an settlement that includes the designation of a special planting of a tree.

The idea is that when someone is harmed badly, there should be a legacy, he said.

lm.sixel@chron.com

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Actor Charlie Sheen Questions Official 9/11 Story

Calls for truly independent investigation, joins growing ranks of prominent credible whistleblowers

Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com
March 20 2006

Actor Charlie Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it.

Over the past two years, scores of highly regarded individuals have gone public to express their serious doubts about 9/11. These include former presidential advisor and CIA analyst Ray McGovern, the father of Reaganomics and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Paul Craig Roberts, BYU physics Professor Steven Jones, former German defense minister Andreas von Buelow, former MI5 officer David Shayler, former Blair cabinet member Michael Meacher, former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds and many more.

Speaking to The Alex Jones Show on the GCN Radio Network, the star of current hit comedy show Two and a Half Men and dozens of movies including Platoon and Young Guns, Sheen elaborated on why he had problems believing the government's version of events.

Sheen agreed that the biggest conspiracy theory was put out by the government itself and prefaced his argument by quoting Theodore Roosevelt in stating, "That we are to stand by the President right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

"We're not the conspiracy theorists on this particular issue," said Sheen.
"It seems to me like 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75% of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory. It raises a lot of questions."

Sheen described the climate of acceptance for serious discussion about 9/11 as being far more fertile than it was a couple of years ago.
"It feels like from the people I talk to in and around my circles, it seems like the worm is turning."

Sheen described his immediate skepticism regarding the official reason for the collapse of the twin towers and building 7 on the day of 9/11.
"I was up early and we were gonna do a pre-shoot on Spin City, the show I used to do, I was watching the news and the north tower was burning. I saw the south tower hit live, that famous wide shot where it disappears behind the building and then we see the tremendous fireball."

"There was a feeling, it just didn't look any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my life and then when the buildings came down later on that day I said to my brother 'call me insane, but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition'?"

Sheen said that most people's gut instinct, that the buildings had been deliberately imploded, was washed away by the incessant flood of the official version of events from day one.

Sheen questioned the plausibility of a fireballs traveling 1100 feet down an elevator shaft and causing damage to the lobbies of the towers as seen in video footage, especially when contrasted with eyewitness accounts of bombs and explosions in the basement levels of the buildings.

Regarding building 7, which wasn't hit by a plane, Sheen highlighted the use of the term "pull," a demolition industry term for pulling the outer walls of the building towards the center in an implosion, as was used by Larry Silverstein in a September 2002 PBS documentary when he said that the decision to "pull" building 7 was made before its collapse. This technique ensures the building collapses in its own footprint and can clearly be seen during the collapse of building 7 with the classic 'crimp' being visible.

The highly suspicious collapse of building 7 and the twin towers has previously been put under the spotlight by physics Professor Steven Jones and Kevin Ryan of Underwriters Laboratories, the company that certified the steel components used in the construction of the World Trade Center towers.

"The term 'pull' is as common to the demolition world as 'action and 'cut' are to the movie world," said Sheen.

Sheen referenced firefighters in the buildings who were eyewitnesses to demolition style implosions and bombs.

"This is not you or I watching the videos and speculating on what we saw, these are gentlemen inside the buildings at the very point of collapse."
"If there's a problem with building 7 then there's a problem with the whole thing," said Sheen.

Bush's behavior on 9/11

Sheen then questioned President Bush's actions on 9/11 and his location at the Booker Elementary School in Florida. Once Andy Card had whispered to Bush that America was under attack why didn't the secret service immediately whisk Bush away to a secret location?

By remaining at a location where it was publicly known the President would be before 9/11, he was not only putting his own life in danger, but the lives of hundreds of schoolchildren. That is unless the government knew for sure what the targets were beforehand and that President Bush wasn't one of them.

"It seems to me that upon the revelation of that news that the secret service would grab the President as if he was on fire and remove him from that room," said Sheen.
The question of how Bush saw the first plane hit the north tower, when no live footage of that incident was carried, an assertion that Bush repeated twice, was also put under the spotlight.

"I guess one of the perks of being President is that you get access to TV channels that don't exist in the known universe," said Sheen.
"It might lead you to believe that he'd seen similar images in some type of rehearsal as it were, I don't know."

The Pentagon incident

Sheen outlined his disbelief that the official story of what happened at the Pentagon matched the physical evidence.

"Show us this incredible maneuvering, just show it to us. Just show us how this particular plane pulled off these maneuvers. 270 degree turn at 500 miles and hour descending 7,000 feet in two and a half minutes, skimming across treetops the last 500 meters."

We have not been able to confirm that a large commercial airliner hit the Pentagon because the government has seized and refused to release any footage that would show the impact.

"I understand in the interest of national security that maybe not release the Pentagon cameras but what about the Sheraton, what about the gas station, what about the Department of Transportation freeway cam? What about all these shots that had this thing perfectly documented? Instead they put out five frames that they claim not to have authorized, it's really suspicious," said Sheen.

Sheen also questioned how the plane basically disappeared into the Pentagon with next to no wreckage and no indication of what happened to the wing sections.
Concerning how the Bush administration had finalized Afghanistan war plans two days before 9/11 with the massing of 44,000 US troops and 18,000 British troops in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and in addition the call for "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor," as outlined in the PNAC documents, Sheen stated, "you don't really put those strategies together overnight do you for a major invasion? Those are really well calculated and really well planned."
"Coincidence? We think not," said Sheen and he called the PNAC quotes "emblematic of the arrogance of this administration."

A real investigation

Sheen joined others in calling for a revised and truly independent investigation of 9/11.
Sheen said that "September 11 wasn't the Zapruder film, it was the Zapruder film festival," and that the inquiry had to be, "headed, if this is possible, by some neutral investigative committee. What if we used retired political foreign nationals? What if we used experts that don't have any ties whatsoever to this administration?"

"It is up to us to reveal the truth. It is up to us because we owe it to the families, we owe it to the victims. We owe it to everybody's life who was drastically altered, horrifically that day and forever. We owe it to them to uncover what happened."

Charlie Sheen joins the rest of his great family and notably his father Martin Sheen, who has lambasted for opposing the Iraq war before it had begun yet has now been proven right in triplicate, in using his prominent public platform to stand for truth and justice and we applaud and salute his brave efforts, remembering Mark Twain's quote.

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."

Please feel free to contact us about this story at mediaonly@infowars.com

Listen to the entire Charlie Sheen interview right now for free by Clicking Here

More Related Articales
Huge Reaction To Sheen Story
Mainstream Media Blackout of Sheen Story

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Antoher Reason You Should Do Your Own Taxes

IRS plans to allow preparers to sell data
Posted on Tue, Mar. 21, 2006

Critics said the proposed regulation could lead to a loss of privacy for clients.
By Jeff Gelles
Inquirer Staff Writer

The IRS is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns. If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers will be able to sell information from individual returns - or even entire returns - to marketers and data brokers.

The change is raising alarm among consumer and privacy-rights advocates. It was included in a set of proposed rules that the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."

IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning to update outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.

Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing deadline.

"The normal interaction is that the taxpayer just signs what the tax preparer puts in front of them," said Jean Ann Fox of the Consumer Federation of America, one of several groups fighting the changes. "They think, 'This person is a tax professional, and I'm going to rely on them.' "

Criticism also came from U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.). In a letter last Tuesday to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, Obama warned that once in the hands of third parties, tax information could be resold and handled under even looser rules than the IRS sets, increasing consumers' vulnerability to identity theft and other risks.

"There is no more sensitive information than a taxpayer's return, and the IRS's proposal to allow these returns to be sold to third-party marketers and database brokers is deeply troubling," Obama wrote.

The IRS first announced the proposal in a news release the day before the official notice was published, headlined: "IRS Issues Proposed Regulations to Safeguard Taxpayer Information."

The announcement did not mention potential sales of tax information. It said the proposed rules were guided by the principle "that tax return preparers may not disclose or use tax return information for purposes other than tax return preparation without the knowing, informed and voluntary consent of the taxpayer."

IRS spokesman William M. Cressman defended the proposal in similar terms.

"The heart of this proposed regulation is about the right of taxpayers to control their tax return information. The idea is to emphasize taxpayer consent and set clear boundaries on how tax return preparers can use or disclose tax return information," Cressman said in an e-mail response to questions.

Cressman said he was unable to explain "why this issue has come up at this time other than our effort to update regulations that date back to the 1970s and predate the electronic era."

Not all the changes have drawn opposition.

Beth A. McConnell, director of the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group (PennPIRG), said she welcomed a requirement that a taxpayer would need to consent to overseas processing of any portion of a tax return.

"That's a positive development, but I don't think it's worth giving up our tax returns' privacy for," said McConnell, who plans to testify on behalf of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group at an April 4 IRS hearing in Washington on the rule changes.

McConnell accused the IRS of using the new limit on overseas processing to dress up changes that would chiefly benefit tax preparers, marketers and data brokers.

"That's a disturbing trend among Washington officials lately," McConnell said. "They'll offer a modest consumer protection in one area in exchange for dramatic weakening of consumer protections in another area, and then try to convince the public that it's all in our interests."

Critics of the proposal said it could do more than open up sales of tax information to data brokers and marketers, because it could undermine taxpayer confidence in the entire tax system.

"Privacy protections for tax information are especially critical given the largely voluntary nature of the U.S. tax system," said Chi Chi Wu, a tax-law specialist at Boston's National Consumer Law Center.

Wu and other critics said they were uncertain who or what was behind the proposed changes in IRS privacy rules, which currently prohibit tax preparers from selling returns to third parties for marketing purposes, and require written consent if they want to use it for marketing by companies under their own corporate umbrella.

Officials at H&R Block and Jackson-Hewitt, two of the nation's largest tax-preparation firms, did not respond to requests for comment. Cressman said the IRS had so far received only about a dozen comments on the proposal.

"I think this just flew under the radar screen for so many people," McConnell said.

Although the formal comment period ended March 8, Cressman said late comments "may receive consideration if they are sent to the IRS promptly." Consumer advocates are urging taxpayers who oppose the changes to contact the agency and Washington lawmakers.

Where to Write

It's too late to comment electronically, but the IRS may still consider written comments. Mail them to:

CC:PA:LPD:PR (REG-137243-02)

Room 5203

Internal Revenue Service, Box 7604

Ben Franklin Station, Washington, D.C. 20044.

ONLINE EXTRA

Read the IRS's proposed new rule via:
IRS Artical

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STORY UPDATE: A 7-Year-Old’s truthful Black Poem Scares Schools & White People

Peekskill police investigate hate literature
By TERRY CORCORAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: March 15, 2006)

PEEKSKILL — Postcards containing a message of hate were found strewn on city streets yesterday morning, but police said they do not believe they are related to a controversy over a poem a 7-year-old girl wrote for Black History Month.

"The cards were found in various locations (Monday) night and early (yesterday) morning," Detective Sgt. Mark O'Buck said. "They were found on the south and eastern sides of the city and in the area of Peekskill High School. It was basically hate material — anti-black, anti-Semitic, anti-Hispanic — in postcard size. We only got a couple of calls (yesterday) morning because the officers went out right away and started picking them up. They got around 60 to 70."

O'Buck said the postcards did not target any particular neighborhood and seemed to be thrown from the window of a passing car.

"We had a conversation with the District Attorney's Office and they indicated that similar items were distributed recently in lower Westchester," he said.

Lucian Chalfen, spokesman for District Attorney Janet DiFiore, said the office's Bias Crimes Unit is aware of the situation.

"From time to time, we get reports of incidents like this. The Bias Crimes Unit was advised of the matter and are working with Peekskill police," Chalfen said.

When asked if police thought the action was in response to the controversy over the poem that Autum Ashante wrote, Chief Eugene Tumolo said, "I don't think so."

"It's very offensive and representative of a debased way of thinking, but I think we need to remember the kinds of people who distribute this type of material and keep things in perspective," Tumolo said. "Hopefully, something like this will make us all aware of the fact that a majority of the people embrace diversity as a positive part of what our culture is about."

The postcards were found one day after published reports on a poem that Ashante, 7, of Mount Vernon wrote and recently recited during a Black History Month event at Peekskill's middle and high schools. In her poem, "White Nationalism Put U In Bondage," Ashante described Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin as "pirates" and "vampires" and accused them of stealing identity, wealth and culture from black people. Some people at the event were offended.

The Rev. Jan Nunley, an Episcopal priest who serves as deputy director of the Episcopal News Service in Manhattan, said her partner was walking their dog around 7 a.m. yesterday when she came across some of the postcards on Maple Street and brought them home.

Nunley, a former radio reporter who covered racist groups in Texas, said her initial fear was that their neighborhood was singled out. "Our street is pretty diverse, and I was afraid that people were being targeted," she said. "We called the police and they told us they had reports of them all over town. It makes you sad because I feel sorry for anybody who has to look at this literature directed at them. But I also feel sorry for the people who distribute it because they need help — although it does make you mad."

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A 7-Year-Old’s truthful Black Poem Scares Schools & White People

By DAVID ANDREATTA Education Reporter

March 13, 2006 -- YOUNGSTER'S BLACK-POWER POEM RILES SCHOOL

A 7-year-old prodigy unleashed a firestorm when she recited a poem she wrote comparing Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin to "pirates" and "vampires" who robbed blacks of their identities and human rights.

Hundreds of parents of Peekskill middle- and high-school students received a recorded phone message last week apologizing for little Autum Ashante's poem, titled "White Nationalism Put U in Bondage."

"Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse," the aspiring actress and poet wrote. "They took the gold, the wisdom and all the storytellers. They took the black women, with the black man weak. Made to watch as they changed the paradigm of our village.

"Yeah white nationalism is what put you in bondage. Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan and Darwin."

Autum was invited to speak at the Westchester schools on Feb. 28 by Melvin Bolden, a music teacher at the middle school who advises the high school's Black Culture Club and is a member of the Peekskill City Council.

Autum, whose résumé includes several television appearances and performances at the Apollo Theater and the African Burial Ground in Manhattan, told The Post that her poem was meant to instill pride in black students and to encourage them to steer clear of violence.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with my poem. I was trying to tell them the straight-up truth," Autum said. "I'm trying to tell them not to fight because they're killing the brothers and sisters."

Autum, who is home-schooled in Mount Vernon and speaks several languages, prefaced her performance at the high school with a Black Panthers' pledge asking black youngsters to not harm one another.

It did not sit well with parents.

In a telephone interview with The Post, Bolden said Autum has been "unofficially" banned from performing in a district school again and that school officials would review transcripts of future speakers.

"It's unfortunate, because some teachers said they wanted this little girl to explain the things she said to their students, but some parents don't want her on school grounds," Bolden said.

"[The poem] might have been a little too aggressive for what the middle-school kids are ready to handle," Bolden added.

Kimberly Greene, a mother of children in the high school and middle school, said she was shocked when she got the recorded phone message.

"If there are people who are upset about what she said, the schools should have talked about and analyzed it rather than send a message to everyone saying this little girl was offensive," Greene said.

Autum's father, Batin Ashante, said he can't believe the fuss over his daughter's poem.

"She's a little girl who does poetry about real things. She doesn't do poetry about cotton candy," Ashante said. "She's a serious little person."

david.andreatta@nypost.com

My Opinion: So let me get this striate....Its ok to for schools to take our property tax money and teach black kids a Caucasian view of history full of lies and half truths, but it's not ok for a black kid to express her historically truthful opinion about those lies and half truths. Wake up black people please!!!!

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Black. White. : Families Swapping Color in Hopes of Tasting the Others Experience

There is a great new show on TV it's Black. White on the fx channel. I highly recommend it to everyone. Two families one black & one white switch skin color with the other and attempt to experience life from the other perspective. The first show was eye opening mostly because of the possibilities that could be explored. I hope the show lives up to the possibilities. The truth must be told discussions about racism are rare and mostly unsuccessful.

Article summary: If you're looking to understand why discussions between blacks and whites about racism are often so difficult in this country, you need only know this: when the subject is race and racism, whites and blacks are often not talking about the same thing. To white folks, racism is seen mostly as individual and interpersonal--as with the uttering of a prejudicial remark or bigoted slur. For blacks, it is that too, but typically more: namely, it is the pattern and practice of policies and social institutions, which have the effect of perpetuating deeply embedded structural inequalities between people on the basis of race. To blacks, and most folks of color, racism is systemic. To whites, it is purely personal.

These differences in perception make sense, of course. After all, whites have not been the targets of systemic racism in this country, so it is much easier for us to view the matter in personal terms. If we have ever been targeted for our race, it has been only on that individual, albeit regrettable, level.

But for people of color, racism has long been experienced as an institutional phenomenon. It is the experience of systematized discrimination in housing, employment, schools or the justice system. It is the knowledge that one's entire group is under suspicion, at risk of being treated negatively because of stereotypes held by persons with the power to act on the basis of those beliefs (and the incentive to do so, as a way to retain their own disproportionate share of that power and authority).

Until white folks get as upset about racism actually limiting the life choices and chances of people of color, as we do about black folks hurting our feelings, it's unlikely things will get much better. In the end, it's hard to take seriously those who fume against this so-called reverse racism, so petty is the complaint, and so thin the ivory skin of those who issue it.

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull, 2005) and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge, 2005). He can be reached at timjwise@msn.com

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Hip Hop: Who is Your All Time Best?

Who is your top 3 all time best Rapper? (based on Lyrical content, & flow - Not Sales)

Who is your top 3 all time best Female Rappers? (based on Lyrical content, & flow - Not Sales)


What is your top 3 all time best Rap albums? (based on listening Pleasure, & replay value - not sales)


My picks are:

Aritst: Rakim, K.R.S. ONE, & ????

Female: M.C. Lyte, Da Brat, & ????

Album: P.E. Takes a Nation Of Millions, ?????, &???????

As you can see I'm still working on my list.

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When Americans No Longer Own America

by Thom Hartmann Thom Hartmann.com
March 2006

The Dubai Ports World deal is waking Americans up to a painful reality: So-called "conservatives" and "flat world" globalists have bankrupted our nation for their own bag of silver, and in the process are selling off America.

Through a combination of the "Fast Track" authority pushed for by Reagan and GHW Bush, sweetheart trade deals involving "most favored nation status" for dictatorships like China, and Clinton pushing us into NAFTA and the WTO (via GATT), we've abandoned the principles of tariff-based trade that built American industry and kept us strong for over 200 years.

The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes, we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a 90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies could choose to make their products here or overseas, but the ultimate cost of labor would be the same.

Then came the flat-worlders, led by misguided true believers and promoted by multinational corporations. Do away with those tariffs, they said, because they "restrain trade." Let everything in, and tax nothing. The result has been an explosion of cheap goods coming into our nation, and the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs and thousands of manufacturing companies. Entire industry sectors have been wiped out.

These policies have kneecapped the American middle class. Our nation's largest employer has gone from being the unionized General Motors to the poverty-wages Wal-Mart. Americans have gone from having a net savings rate around 10 percent in the 1970s to a minus .5 percent in 2005 - meaning that they're going into debt or selling off their assets just to maintain their lifestyle.

At the same time, federal policy has been to do the same thing at a national level. Because our so-called "free trade" policies have left us with an over $700 billion annual trade deficit, other countries are sitting on huge piles of the dollars we gave them to buy their stuff (via Wal-Mart and other "low cost" retailers). But we no longer manufacture anything they want to buy with those dollars.

So instead of buying our manufactured goods, they are doing what we used to do with Third World nations - they are buying us, the USA, chunk by chunk. In particular, they want to buy things in America that will continue to produce profits, and then to take those profits overseas where they're invested to make other nations strong. The "things" they're buying are, by and large, corporations, utilities, and natural resources.

Back in the pre-Reagan days, American companies made profits that were distributed among Americans. They used their profits to build more factories, or diversify into other businesses. The profits stayed in America.

Today, foreigners awash with our consumer dollars are on a two-decades-long buying spree. The UK's BP bought Amoco for $48 billion - now Amoco's profits go to England. Deutsche Telekom bought VoiceStream Wireless, so their profits go to Germany, which is where most of the profits from Random House, Allied Signal, Chrysler, Doubleday, Cyprus Amax's US Coal Mining Operations, GTE/Sylvania, and Westinghouse's Power Generation profits go as well. Ralston Purina's profits go to Switzerland, along with Gerber's; TransAmerica's profits go to The Netherlands, while John Hancock Insurance's profits go to Canada. Even American Bankers Insurance Group is owned now by Fortis AG in Belgium.

Foreign companies are buying up our water systems, our power generating systems, our mines, and our few remaining factories. All because "flat world" so-called "free trade" policies have turned us from a nation of wealthy producers into a nation of indebted consumers, leaving the world awash in dollars that are most easily used to buy off big chunks of America. As www.economyincrisis.com notes, US Government statistics indicate the following percentages of foreign ownership of American industry:

· Sound recording industries - 97%
· Commodity contracts dealing and brokerage - 79%
· Motion picture and sound recording industries - 75%
· Metal ore mining - 65%
· Motion picture and video industries - 64%
· Wineries and distilleries - 64%
· Database, directory, and other publishers - 63%
· Book publishers - 63%
· Cement, concrete, lime, and gypsum product - 62%
· Engine, turbine and power transmission equipment - 57%
· Rubber product - 53%
· Nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing - 53%
· Plastics and rubber products manufacturing - 52%
· Plastics product - 51%
· Other insurance related activities - 51%
· Boiler, tank, and shipping container - 50%
· Glass and glass product - 48%
· Coal mining - 48%
· Sugar and confectionery product - 48%
· Nonmetallic mineral mining and quarrying - 47%
· Advertising and related services - 41%
· Pharmaceutical and medicine - 40%
· Clay, refractory, and other nonmetallic mineral products - 40%
· Securities brokerage - 38%
· Other general purpose machinery - 37%
· Audio and video equipment mfg and reproducing magnetic and optical media - 36%
· Support activities for mining - 36%
· Soap, cleaning compound, and toilet preparation - 32%
· Chemical manufacturing - 30%
· Industrial machinery - 30%
· Securities, commodity contracts, and other financial investments and related activities - 30%
· Other food - 29%
· Motor vehicles and parts - 29%
· Machinery manufacturing - 28%
· Other electrical equipment and component - 28%
· Securities and commodity exchanges and other financial investment activities - 27%
· Architectural, engineering, and related services - 26%
· Credit card issuing and other consumer credit - 26%
· Petroleum refineries (including integrated) - 25%
· Navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments - 25%
· Petroleum and coal products manufacturing - 25%
· Transportation equipment manufacturing - 25%
· Commercial and service industry machinery - 25%
· Basic chemical - 24%
· Investment banking and securities dealing - 24%
· Semiconductor and other electronic component - 23%
· Paint, coating, and adhesive - 22%
· Printing and related support activities - 21%
· Chemical product and preparation - 20%
· Iron, steel mills, and steel products - 20%
· Agriculture, construction, and mining machinery - 20%
· Publishing industries - 20%
· Medical equipment and supplies - 20%

Thus it shouldn't surprise us that the cons have sold off our ports as well, and will defend it to the bitter end. They truly believe that a "New World Order" with multinational corporations in charge instead of sovereign governments will be the answer to the problem of world instability. And therefore they must do away with quaint things like unions, a healthy middle class, and, ultimately, democracy.

The "security" implications of turning our ports over to the UAE are just the latest nail in what the cons hope will be the coffin of American democracy and the American middle class. Today's conservatives believe in rule by inherited wealth and an internationalist corporate elite, and things like a politically aroused citizenry and a healthy democracy are pesky distractions.

Everything today is driven by profits for multinationals, supported by the lawmaking power of the WTO. Thus, parts for our missiles are now made in China, a country that last year threatened us with nuclear weapons. Our oil comes from a country that birthed a Wahabist movement that ultimately led to 14 Saudi citizens flying jetliners into the World Trade buildings and the Pentagon. Germans now own the Chrysler auto assembly lines that turned out tanks to use against Germany in WWII. And the price of labor in America is being held down by over ten million illegal workers, a situation that was impossible twenty-five years ago when unions were the first bulwark against dilution of the American labor force.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote of King George III in the Declaration of Independence, "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation…" he just as easily could have been writing of the World Trade Organization, which now has the legal authority to force the United States to overturn laws passed at both local, state, and federal levels with dictates devised by tribunals made up of representatives of multinational corporations. If Dubai loses in the American Congress, their next stop will almost certainly be the WTO.

As Simon Romero and Heather Timmons noted in The New York Times on 24 February 2006, "the international shipping business has evolved in recent years to include many more containers with consumer goods, in addition to old-fashioned bulk commodities, and that has helped lift profit margins to 30 percent, from the single digits. These smartly managed foreign operators now manage about 80 percent of port terminals in the United States."

And those 30 percent profits from American port operations now going to Great Britain will probably soon go to the United Arab Emirates, a nation with tight interconnections to both the Bush administration and the Bush family.

Ultimately, it's not about security -- it's about money. In the multinational corporatocracy's "flat world," money trumps the national good, community concerns, labor interests, and the environment. NAFTA, CAFTA, and WTO tribunals can - and regularly do - strike down local and national laws. Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" are replaced by Antonin Scalia's "Rights of Corporate Persons."

Profits even trump the desire for good enough port security to avoid disasters that may lead to war. After all, as Judith Miller wrote in The New York Times on January 30, 1991, quoting a local in Saudi Arabia: "War is good for business."

Thom Hartmann is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author of over a dozen books and the host of a nationally syndicated noon-3pm ET daily progressive talk show syndicated by Air America Radio. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "What Would Jefferson Do?" and Ultimate Sacrifice.

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The Covenant with Black America 2006

Watch:
Video: State of the Black Union 2006
With Tavis Smiley hosting the event is very enlightened and stimulating. There is something to learn from all of the speakers. Visit this site for more info. and To Buy the "Covenant Book" Speakers Include:

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Possible Conspircy: 9/11 - 15 Interesting Facts & Questions That Need Answers

Visit What Really Happened.com for info. on the issues listed below.

One Brotha's Mind FYI: I do not agree with all of the conclusions this site states, but I do agree that these questions MUST be answered!!!

1. FACT: The Twin Towers were designed to withstand fully loaded Boeing 707's crashing into them.

2. FACT: Marvin Bush (The President's Younger brother) was a principal in a company called Securacom which provided security for the World Trade Center, United Airlines, and Dulles International Airport.


3. Why was FEMA was in New York on September 10?

4. Why did the OEM issued a WTC collapse warning even though no steel framed building had ever collapsed through fire?

5.Why did Giuliani receive a collapse warning?

6. FACT: Survivors escaped from above the WTC 1 impact level, therefore the building's core was solid.

7. Where were the 800ºC infernos in the twin towers?

Here's what an 800ºC fire in a building looks like.
ABOVE: Windsor Building Fire in Madrid which did burn at 800°C...

Do You See any 800°C fire?

If you look closely...at the red box...you can see a suvivor standing in the hole the plane left....OH where's the fire?

For thoes who think that the picture above is "doctored" or "fixed"...Fox News showed video of the same picture.


8. Why did Firefighters in the impact area of WTC 2 reported no inferno or failing structure immediately before the building's collapse?

OH...there's so much more. Read the rest of this artical and please visit What Really Happened.com and be sure to explore the links to each issue.

9. why are there numerous eyewitnesses reported explosions prior to the collapses, as did firefighters transmissions?

10. Why are there Videos that show a ground shake followed by white smoke appearing at the base of WTC 1 seconds before its collapse?

11. Why were Firefighters were warned of WTC 7's collapse. Larry Silverstein said of the building "the smartest thing to do is pull it" (i.e. demolish it), and it subsequently collapsed into its footprint.

12. Why seven days after the collapses were there deeply buried heat sources in the WTC wreckage that had temperatures ~500ºF hotter than the maximum burning temperature of jet fuel?

13. The fires in the WTC wreckage were not conventional fires, Why did they burn for three months?

14. fACT: The new WTC owner made a huge profit off of the attacks.

15. Was the collapse analysis was a farce?

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Need To Know Info: Understanding the U.S. & Our Money System

What Really Happend.com Source Web Site

PICTURE THIS: Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 a.m. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA).
After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in.....AMERICA.....

United States Congressional Record - March 17, 1993 - Vol. #33, page H-1303 - Speaker- Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:"Mr. Speaker, we are here now in chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any Bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government. We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner's report that will lead to our demise."

Imagine for a moment that someone inherits a farm. Let's say that the farm has good topsoil, a good well, good breeding stock, good seed, and excellent farm equipment in good repair. Prior to passing into the control of the present owner the farm did a good business selling vegetables, meat, and dairy products to the local market, and it made a small profit.
But let us suppose for a moment that the present owner of the farm doesn't understand farming, or isn't even really interested in learning. The present owner has no objection to standing around looking good, so he stays at the farm, standing in front of it, looking good to passers by.

Of course, the bills still come in, so our farmer puts them on his credit card. When that bill comes due he uses another credit card, Then another. Pretty soon the interest payments alone are higher than his bills and the banks get nervous and call him. No problem. Our farmer sells the tractor, takes the money around to the various credit cards, the food store, the utilities, and pays off all his bills. Then he stands around in front of the farm looking good to passers-by, the lord of his domain.

Will, the bills still come in. Again the credit cards get loaded up. So, this time our farmer sells the harvester. Then later on, the cattle, then the chickens, then the seeds, then he leases the well to his neighbor and finally sells the top soil from his farm to another farm down the road whose soil is getting tired. The cash is taken around to the various creditors, the food store, the utilities, etc.

Now at this point, our farmer thinks everything is okay. The bills are paid, he has a little cash in his pocket, and everything is fine.

Of course, you know better. The farm simply does not exist any more; it's just an empty lot with a few buildings, and soon they will be gone as well. The path from the farmer's present condition to seizure of the property for unpaid taxes is a foregone conclusion, even if the farmer doesn't look far enough ahead to see it.

Poor, dumb, stupid farmer.

That farmer is our government, and our business leaders.

Just as our hypothetical farm has lost its soil, livestock, seed, and farm equipment, America has lost its manufacturing ability. Short sighted business leaders, with as little interest in manufacturing as our farmer had in farming, decided their own personal bonuses would be higher if they simply sold their factories rather that ran them. After WW2, the 27 American TV companies including Zenith, Emerson, RCA, GE, etc. led the world in TV technology. Then, the owners of the patents on TV technology decided they didn't need to dirty their hands by actually making the TV sets themselves any more, and they started selling licenses to manufacture, which the Japanese bought.

By 1987, the only remaining American TV company is Zenith. The patent holders get their money, but the American products which can be sold overseas are gone, along with the jobs to make them.

The same happened in high-tech electronics. The integrated circuit was invented in the United States. But rather than focus on selling integrated circuits, the companies that owned that technology sold the machines to MAKE integrated circuits around the world, and now America sells very few chips anywhere. The patent holders have their money, but the cash flow from sales of manufactured goods, and the jobs that go with them, are gone. When Seymour Cray needed custom chips for his supercomputers, he had to order them from Japan.

The same thing has been happening in aviation. The airplane was invented in the United States, and through the 60s, we sold a lot of them around the world. But lately, all aircraft sales to foreign countries involve "offsets", a portion of the core technology that gets licensed to the purchasing nation and gets manufactured there. Bit by bit, the core technology gets bled off, taking with it jobs, and cash flow from the sale of those manufactured products. Along the way, the rights to manufacture American inventions outside America leak away on a steadily increasing basis. Even the mighty F-16 is now being manufactured overseas, under license.

To cover the loss of manufacturing jobs, our government has invented the catch phrase "service economy". This is the idiotic notion that we don't need to actually sell manufactured products; that we can grow and prosper our nation by doing each other's laundry. To conceal the loss of manufacturing jobs, the government has legislated into existence thousands upon thousands of useless paper-shuffling jobs, and declared their necessity by fiat. The most obvious is the income tax which has been so obfuscated by the government that half of you had to rely on an outside expert to figure out just what all those incomprehensible words really meant. By this device, the government has replaced those jobs that made products to sell with an equal number of jobs that produce nothing whatsoever of any worth, except to keep the unemployment figures down. This over-burdening of the American people with gratuitous regulations and paperwork has accomplished nothing except to obfuscate the loss of manufacturing jobs, and to transform the American character from innovators and inventors creating new products to that of minor clerks, peeking under each other's seat cushions for lost change.

So, with most of our manufacturing now gone, just what DOES America make? Trouble, mostly. With 4% of the world's population and 18% of the economy, we have 50% of all the lawyers, all looking to make a killing by looting those few industries that still call America home (like Microsoft). Kids don't want to be scientists and engineers; they've seen how little such people are valued in our country. Based on recent history, kids see the "big bucks" are in corporate law, specifically investment banking, leveraged buyouts, greenmail, junk bonds, in short what other countries describe as "trying to make money grow by shaking it side to side".

With America's ability to actually produce products that can compete on the open world market in decline, it's no wonder that the balance of trade is the problem it is. Nobody buys our export products because we just don't make that many any more, and like or not, we have to buy our appliances from the people who make them, which are NOT Americans. (When Ampex invented the VCR, they didn't even bother trying to find an American company to make it, they immediately sold the rights to Japan).

So, what do all these countries on the plus side of the trade imbalance do with their surplus billions? Well, they have been loaning it right back to us!

Our government engages in a practice politely called "deficit spending". Other terms which would aptly describe the practice include "counterfeiting" and "check kiting", but it all comes down to the same thing; spending money one does not actually have.

What would be a jailable offense for a normal citizen was rendered legal for the government by the Federal Reserve Act. This was not a popular piece of legislation. In fact the Democrats had campaigned in 1912 on a platform of rejection of the creation of a private bank in charge of a fiat money system. Nevertheless, on December 23, 1913, taking advantage of the absence of congressmen opposed to the creation of a fiat monetary system during the Christmas break, the Federal Reserve Act was passed.

Years later, during the great depression, Congressman Louis T. McFadden (who served twelve years as Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency) asked for congressional investigations of criminal conspiracy to establish the privately owned 'Federal Reserve System'. He requested impeachment of Federal officers who had violated oaths of office both in establishing and directing the Federal Reserve -- imploring Congress to investigate an incredible scope of overt criminal acts by the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve Banks. McFadden even suggested that the Federal Reserve deliberately triggered the great stock market crash of 1929, in order to eventually force the passage of the Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, which suspended the gold standard.

In describing the FED, McFadden remarked in the Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296 on June 10, 1932:

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government Board, has cheated the Government of the United States and he people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the misadministration of that law by which the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it".Just as our hypothetical farm has lost its soil, livestock, seed, and farm equipment, America has lost its manufacturing ability. Short sighted business leaders, with as little interest in manufacturing as our farmer had in farming, decided their own personal bonuses would be higher if they simply sold their factories rather that ran them. After WW2, the 27 American TV companies including Zenith, Emerson, RCA, GE, etc. led the world in TV technology. Then, the owners of the patents on TV technology decided they didn't need to dirty their hands by actually making the TV sets themselves any more, and they started selling licenses to manufacture, which the Japanese bought.

By 1987, the only remaining American TV company is Zenith. The patent holders get their money, but the American products which can be sold overseas are gone, along with the jobs to make them.

The same happened in high-tech electronics. The integrated circuit was invented in the United States. But rather than focus on selling integrated circuits, the companies that owned that technology sold the machines to MAKE integrated circuits around the world, and now America sells very few chips anywhere. The patent holders have their money, but the cash flow from sales of manufactured goods, and the jobs that go with them, are gone. When Seymour Cray needed custom chips for his supercomputers, he had to order them from Japan.

The same thing has been happening in aviation. The airplane was invented in the United States, and through the 60s, we sold a lot of them around the world. But lately, all aircraft sales to foreign countries involve "offsets", a portion of the core technology that gets licensed to the purchasing nation and gets manufactured there. Bit by bit, the core technology gets bled off, taking with it jobs, and cash flow from the sale of those manufactured products. Along the way, the rights to manufacture American inventions outside America leak away on a steadily increasing basis. Even the mighty F-16 is now being manufactured overseas, under license.

To cover the loss of manufacturing jobs, our government has invented the catch phrase "service economy". This is the idiotic notion that we don't need to actually sell manufactured products; that we can grow and prosper our nation by doing each other's laundry. To conceal the loss of manufacturing jobs, the government has legislated into existence thousands upon thousands of useless paper-shuffling jobs, and declared their necessity by fiat. The most obvious is the income tax which has been so obfuscated by the government that half of you had to rely on an outside expert to figure out just what all those incomprehensible words really meant. By this device, the government has replaced those jobs that made products to sell with an equal number of jobs that produce nothing whatsoever of any worth, except to keep the unemployment figures down. This over-burdening of the American people with gratuitous regulations and paperwork has accomplished nothing except to obfuscate the loss of manufacturing jobs, and to transform the American character from innovators and inventors creating new products to that of minor clerks, peeking under each other's seat cushions for lost change.

So, with most of our manufacturing now gone, just what DOES America make? Trouble, mostly. With 4% of the world's population and 18% of the economy, we have 50% of all the lawyers, all looking to make a killing by looting those few industries that still call America home (like Microsoft). Kids don't want to be scientists and engineers; they've seen how little such people are valued in our country. Based on recent history, kids see the "big bucks" are in corporate law, specifically investment banking, leveraged buyouts, greenmail, junk bonds, in short what other countries describe as "trying to make money grow by shaking it side to side".

With America's ability to actually produce products that can compete on the open world market in decline, it's no wonder that the balance of trade is the problem it is. Nobody buys our export products because we just don't make that many any more, and like or not, we have to buy our appliances from the people who make them, which are NOT Americans. (When Ampex invented the VCR, they didn't even bother trying to find an American company to make it, they immediately sold the rights to Japan).

So, what do all these countries on the plus side of the trade imbalance do with their surplus billions? Well, they have been loaning it right back to us!

Our government engages in a practice politely called "deficit spending". Other terms which would aptly describe the practice include "counterfeiting" and "check kiting", but it all comes down to the same thing; spending money one does not actually have.

What would be a jailable offense for a normal citizen was rendered legal for the government by the Federal Reserve Act. This was not a popular piece of legislation. In fact the Democrats had campaigned in 1912 on a platform of rejection of the creation of a private bank in charge of a fiat money system. Nevertheless, on December 23, 1913, taking advantage of the absence of congressmen opposed to the creation of a fiat monetary system during the Christmas break, the Federal Reserve Act was passed.

Years later, during the great depression, Congressman Louis T. McFadden (who served twelve years as Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency) asked for congressional investigations of criminal conspiracy to establish the privately owned 'Federal Reserve System'. He requested impeachment of Federal officers who had violated oaths of office both in establishing and directing the Federal Reserve -- imploring Congress to investigate an incredible scope of overt criminal acts by the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve Banks. McFadden even suggested that the Federal Reserve deliberately triggered the great stock market crash of 1929, in order to eventually force the passage of the Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, which suspended the gold standard.

In describing the FED, McFadden remarked in the Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296 on June 10, 1932:

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government Board, has cheated the Government of the United States and he people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the misadministration of that law by which the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it". Why all the fuss over the gold standard?

Well it goes back to the original Founding Fathers and the meaning of the word "dollar". "Dollar" is actually a weight measure of silver, 371.25 grains, to be exact. Our American silver dollars are actually heavier, since other metals were added for durability. But that 371.25 grains of silver WAS the dollar, matching in weight an unbroken chain of accepted monetary units that reached back through the Spanish Milled Dollar, the Dutch Daller, back to the German Thaler; the product of a silver mine which sold it's product in coins of an exact weight. The Coinage Act of 1792 defined our dollar to exactly match in weight the silver dollars in use around the world, and then defined the gold dollar to be that amount of gold which would equal the worth of silver in a silver dollar, 24.75 grains, 1/15 the weight of the silver in a silver dollar.

So, what's wrong with this? Nothing really. When you, as a citizen, hold a silver dollar or a gold dollar in our hand, you hold that actual worth of metal. Nothing the government can do can change the worth of the money in your control. Take the Roman Silver Denarius pictured above. The Roman Empire is long gone, but the money that Rome issued still has worth because the coins themselves had inherent worth. Long after the collapse of the empire, Roman silver coins were still used as money, because the silver in the coin itself did not depend on the issuing government for its worth.

Of course, carrying around too much coin can be bothersome, so many nation, including our own, issued paper notes as a convenience. But that paper currency of the nation was just a convenience. The gold and silver certificates were merely "claim checks" for the equivalent weight of gold or silver held in the treasury, and which would be produced on demand when the certificate was presented. But in the end, the lawful dollar of the United States was 371.25 in silver, or 24.75 grains of gold.

The problem with this system from the point of view of the government or the banks is that it limits the amount of money they can work with. When the bank runs out of silver or gold (or the equivalent certificates) it can no longer lend any more money with which to earn interest. When the government runs out of gold or silver (or the equivalent certificates) it can no longer spend money (just like the rest of us).

The immediate effect of ending the gold standard was that with the paper dollar no longer legally dependent on 371.25 in silver or 24.75 grains of gold, more paper dollars (now called "Federal Reserve Notes") could be printed, their worth no longer under the control of the citizens but under the control of the issuing central bank, based on the total number of dollars printed (or created as credit lines). The more dollars which are created out of thin air, the less each one is worth.
A federal Reserve Note.

The swindle of the system is simple. The Federal Reserve Bank hires the US Treasury to print up some money. The Federal Reserve only actually pays the treasury for the cost of the printing, they do NOT pay $1 for each 1$ printed. But the Federal Reserve turns around and loans out that money (or credit line) to banks at full face value, those banks which have exhausted their deposits then loan that Federal Reserve fiat money to you, and you must repay it in the full dollar value (plus interest) in work product, even though the Federal Reserve printed that money for pennies, or created it out of thin air in a computer.

As the Federal Reserve overprints more money, the money supply inflates, and too much money starts chasing too few goods and services, which means prices go up. But contrary to the charade put on by the Federal Reserve, inflation doesn't just come and go due to some arcane sorcery. The Federal Reserve can halt inflation any time it wants to by simply shutting down those printing presses. It therefore follows that both inflation and recession are fully under the control of the Federal Reserve.

Over time, that excess of printing has destroyed the value of that dollar you think you have. If you want to know by just how much, go out and try to purchase 371.25 grains of silver right now. Usually, the deterioration is gradual. Sometimes, it has to be obvious, such as the 1985 devaluation (done to halt the trade imbalance) which triggered the Japanese real-estate grab in this country.

Many politicians have attempted to reverse this process. John F. Kennedy issued an Executive Order 11110, requiring the Treasury Department to start printing and issuing silver certificates for the silver then remaining in the US Treasury.

Kennedy decided that by returning to the constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. This was the reason he signed Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System.
John F. Kennedy's United States Note.

That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system. Saxon also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the dominant Federal Reserve banks".

Kennedy's E.O. was never implemented following his assassination, and shortly afterwards, United States silver coins were taken out of circulation and replaced with the copper clad slugs in use today. These two events, the failure to print new silver certificates, and the substitution of worthless slugs for our silver coins, may explain why the Warren Commission included on its panel John J. McCloy, a man with no experience in crime, law enforcement, or national security, but who had been the President of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

It should be noted that the banks themselves are still using the gold standard. Accounts are still settled between major national banks by the transfer of gold bullion.

So here we are with a bank that legally counterfeits the money you borrow but expects a full value (plus interest) repayment. But what's good for the Federal Reserve is good for the government itself, and this is where we get back into that funny word "deficit spending". The government spends more money than it takes in. It has for many years now. The Federal Reserve, being the only lawful source of this fiat money, prints up the excess cash the government needs (or manufactures a credit line in a computer). This extra cash is treated as a loan, in order to keep the government overspending from further eroding the worth of the dollar in the world market. The government (meaning the taxpayers) is on the hook for the full face value, plus interest.

But there's another problem. The government is borrowing so much money that it drives the interest rates up! You pay MORE interest on your mortgage, car loan, and credit cards, because the government cannot balance its books. That extra interest you pay is therefore another hidden tax. The government, in its "generosity", gives you a tax credit on mortgage interest that is higher because of their own borrowing!

During the 80s, as exports dropped, and jobs moved from manufacturing to lower paying "service sector" jobs, the US tax base declined. In order to keep the jobless rate from rising, a massive defense program called the Strategic Defense Initiative was cranked up, but since this program produced no exportable product, it produced no taxable sales revenues, and hence the money poured into the project accelerated the government decline into debt. Because manufacturing was on the decline, fewer start-up companies were approaching the lending institutions, so the government loosened up the rules (while increasing the insurable deposit limit) to allow "investments" in more high risk ventures, most of which turned out to be frauds, or worse, money laundering operations for drug criminals. This includes Whitewater, Flowerwood, and Castle Grande. Despite shifting the S&L loss primarily onto the taxpayers (to reassure foreign investors that the taxpayers still made America a safe place to park their surplus cash) the government plunged further into debt.

In the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush administrations, the United States went from being the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor. Many of those nations which had enjoyed huge trade surpluses started loaning that profit back to the United States with the stipulation that we work on our manufacturing, clean up our infrastructure, raise taxes, in short, clean up our act, so that investment in America makes sense!

However, we didn't quite do that.

There has been some shuffling around to try to conceal the real scope of the problem. Over the last several years, the Federal Government has been sending less tax money back to the states than it takes in in taxes. This means that the states have to borrow MORE money to cover their obligations. The net result is that the debt is being transferred to the states, to conceal its true size. The government will easily admit to a $3 trillion "publicly held" debt, grudgingly concede that it's "unfunded liability" brings that number to almost $7 trillion, but the real hard truth is that total government debt, state and federal, is now over $14 trillion dollars, or about 50,000 for every man, woman, and child inside the United States. Since 1960, the taxpayers have shelled out $15 trillion in interest payments alone, while the principal continues to rise.

Yet another stunt the government has pulled is to "borrow" from the various trust funds under its control. Some $2 billion has vanished from the trust accounts of Native Americans (presently suing the Departments of the Interior and Treasury), and nearly ¾ of a TRILLION dollars has been removed from your Social Security retirement trust fund and spent in the last 8 years. If the government has to borrow your retirement money when things are supposed to be so good, under what conditions can it repay the money? Or is that government IOU in your retirement account merely a promise to either tax you a second time or stiff you on the benefits you thought you were paying for?
In the last 8 years, during what are supposed to be record setting good times, the Federal government has nearly DOUBLED its debt load. The estimated interest on the debt equals all the personal income tax paid by all Americans. Our government is so deep in debt that it cannot get out.
This brings us to the issue of collateral. We've borrowed so much money the lenders are getting nervous. Back during the Johnson administration Charles DeGaulle demanded the United States collateralize the loans owed to France in gold and started carting out the bullion from the treasury. This caused several other nations to demand the same and President Nixon had to slam the gold window closed or the treasury would have been emptied, since the United States was even then in debt for more money than the treasury could cover in gold.

But Nixon had to collateralize that debt somehow, and he hit upon the plan of quietly setting aside huge tracts of American land with their mineral rights in reserve to cover the outstanding debts. But since the American people were already angered over the war in Vietnam, Nixon couldn't very well admit that he was apportioning off chunks of the United States to the holders of foreign debt. So, Nixon invented the Environmental Protection Agency and passed draconian environmental laws which served to grab land with vast natural resources away from the owners and lock it away, and even more, prove to the holders of the foreign debt that US citizens were not drilling. mining, or otherwise developing those resources. From that day to this, as the government sinks deeper into debt, the government grabs more and more land, declares it a wilderness or "roadless area" or "heritage river" or "wetlands" or any one of over a dozen other such obfuscated labels, but in the end the result is the same. We The People may not use the land, in many cases are not even allowed to enter the land.

This is not about conservation, it is about collateral. YOUR land is being stolen by the government and used to secure loans the government really had no business taking out in the first place. Given that the government cannot get out of debt, and is collateralizing more and more land to avoid foreclosure, the day is not long off when the people of the United States will one day wake up and discover they are no longer citizens, but tenants.

The following map shows the current extent of all lands grabbed by the government under the guise of environmentalism.
In short, the United States is in deep trouble. We have lost a huge amount of our manufacturing capacity, and those products we still make do not compete well on the world market, despite the steady devaluation of the dollar. In short we have vast debts to pay and little to pay them with. Like the foolish Farmer we have sold the machinery that allowed us to prosper, and we stand around shaking our investment portfolios back and forth in the hopes that the money inside will somehow grow all by itself. It won't. It never has. The very best that can be said is that money gets moved from one person to the other.

Those nations and banks to whom we owe money have been very patient indeed with us. They know that our economies are so tightly entwined that what hurts America will hurt them. But sooner or later, possibly after a market crash, someone, in order to pay their own debts, will demand their loans to the United States be paid. Rather than get caught with "bad paper", there will be a run on the United States government.

In addition to the government debt of $14 trillion, our businesses are home to trillions more in foreign investment, kept here by the promise that the American taxpayer will be made to cover all losses. But with our manufacturing in decline and our schools producing far more lawyers than anything else, it should be obvious to the prudent observer that the American taxpayer, even if so inclined, may not be able to cover the losses of their own government, let alone a foreign investor. That has to be making them nervous as well.

This brings us to the "equities markets", most notably the stock market. Over the last several years a constant media harangue has assured us that the soaring numbers of the stock market are the sole measure of how good our economy is. But close examination of those high-priced stocks reveals that most are heavily over-valued; their price the result of market forces rather than underlying worth (earnings ability). Amazon.com, as one example, has had a terrific run-up of its stock price, even though the company itself has yet to show a profit.

The government has admitted to using covert means to prevent a market downturn; to keep the stock prices at an artificially high and overvalued level, in order to wave those impressive numbers about as "proof" that everything is okay so that the taxpayers go back to work and pay more taxes. But in order to keep those stock prices up above their actual worth, demand must be maintained to keep the prices high. In other words, NEW investors must constantly be brought into the bottom of the pyramid to keep the prices of the stocks at the top from dropping. Hence the onslaught of commercials luring neophyte investors into the stock market via "online trading". Like any Ponzi scheme, the stock market will collapse when no more new buyers can be dragged in at the bottom. As the market starts to stutter, governments (most recently Britain) have moved to dump huge reserves of gold onto the world market to depress gold prices and deter investors from deserting the stock market for gold.

Some years back I worked on the film version of "The Day The Bubble Burst", and in between playing a stock broker, I got to spend some time with the show's consultant, Mr. William Hupt, who had been on the trading floor in 1929 as it all fell apart. He still had, framed, that last strip of ticker tape that ushered in the Great Depression, and he shared some stories which have a bearing on what is going on today.

The first story Bill shared is that there had been early indications of a dangerously over-valued market, running to deep on margin, and like the Plunge Protection Team, the largest investment houses, in particular the House of Morgan, attempted to reverse the early corrections by purchasing large blocks of stock in order to create market demand and drive the prices back up. It worked all but the last time.

The second story Bill shared was that a friend of his, riding up to his office in September of 1929, overheard the elevator operator chatting about his own stock portfolio, and his investments. Something about that image of an elevator operator playing the market set off warning signals, and Bill's friend immediately liquidated his entire portfolio, just in time to miss the great crash. Many people, including the actor Charlie Chaplin, had recognized the "recruitment" of that segment of society that did NOT have risk capital as new investors as a desperate attempt to prop up an overvalued market, and got out in time to save their own personal fortunes.

In the end, there is no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot make money grow in value by shaking it back and forth from one bank to another. You cannot prosper a nation by doing each other's laundry, or filling out their government mandated and greatly obfuscated paperwork, or flinging stock certificates around which may have as little real worth as Federal Reserve Notes. To make money, to show a profit, you must make products that somebody else wants to buy, and sadly, that is a capability the United States has allowed to slip away in great measure. The "service economy" was political propaganda to make the public believe that the decline of our manufacturing ability was a good thing.

Our nation is broke, bankrupt, and having sold much of its machinery and technology (or given it away to political donors), is unable to easily return to those endeavors which once made our nation great. Our infrastructure is in decay (the percentage of roads in the US with major damage doubled last year alone), our public schools unable to produce a workforce able to function in a high-tech manufacturing environment, and those managers end engineers with manufacturing experience have in great part been lured away to other nations. The severity of our total government debt has reached a point where the promise that the taxpayers can be made to cover any foreign investment loss rings hollow, because we can no longer pay the debts our government has now.

Our nation is in trouble. We don't make many of the products we used to make. Consequently we don't have the products to sell that we used to. We don't even make most of the products we need ourselves (like that computer you're staring at this very moment). Result: we have a massive trade imbalance. Cash is flowing out of the nation, and it's not coming back in anywhere near as fast. There's no way to spin it; that is a major problem. Our nation is becoming poorer, it is hopelessly in debt, and all the artificial escalation of stock prices cannot conceal that.

And as the artificially pumped up stock market continues to decline, the true scale of the economic horror which is the product of decades of government corruption, will become apparent to all.

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