Book excerpts from a variety of educational nonfiction sources focusing mainly on current events and history of the activities of the US Government and the Multi-national Corporations that influence it
“The people who own the country ought to govern it.” John Jay
Moreover, in a move that would have significant implications for U.S. security later, the Department of defense began supplying arms and assistance to the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), a paramilitary force under the control of the royal family, whose principle task was and is to defend the regime against internal revolt. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.41)
Because Iranian and Saudi military personnel were generally inexperienced in operating and maintaining such high-tech weapons, most of these arms transfers also entailed the deployment of thousands of American military advisers and technicians. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.43-4)
Though the containment strategy allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power, for American officials it possessed one overarching virtue: (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.44-54)
In reality, no one much doubted which path the administration would choose. After all, the president had tapped Vice president Dick Cheney to direct the work of the NEPDG and assess the competing options. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.58)
By the end of 2003, therefore, the Bush administration’s energy policy had become thoroughly integrated into the nation’s security strategy. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.73) Spencer Abraham comments before House International Relations Committee June 20 2002
The first and possibly most formidable challenge facing the United States in 2001 was to preserve the status quo in Saudi Arabia. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.84)
Bush would not have made such haste to advertise America’s enthusiastic support for the Saudi government if he and his advisers had not been so worried about its durability, a factor bearing directly on the safety of U.S. oil interests. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.86)
To do so required vigorous action on several fronts. The United States would have to vacate its combat bases in Saudi Arabia, bring the Arab- Israeli imbroglio to some sort of resolution, and persuade the Saudi leadership to rid the ruling class of corruption and crack down on terrorists and terror-linked charities. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.90)
The widespread suffering provided Saddam with a powerful propaganda tool: by portraying the country’s misery as the product of a campaign against the entire nation, rather than the regime, he was able to generate substantial popular support. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.95-9)
“When we took over,” Powell told Congress on March 8, 2001, “I discovered that we had an Iraq policy that was in disarray. And the sanctions part of that policy was not just in disarray, it was falling apart…. We discovered that we were in an airplane that was heading to a crash. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.96-7) Powell’s congressional testimony 3/8/01
Top administration officials took great pains to keep from mentioning oil as a casus belli -- an admission that would undoubtedly have undermined public support for the war. Nevertheless, a few moments of candor from Vice President Cheney provide hints as to the administration's deep anxiety about oil production in the Gulf. Cheney's August 2002 address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars was widely viewed as an unvarnished expression of administration thinking, both because he was Bush's most influential adviser and a key architect of the war and because it was the only speech on Iraq he gave. "Should all [of Hussein's WMD] ambitions be realized, the implications would be enormous for the Middle East and the United States," Cheney declared. "Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror and a set atop 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region, and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail." Viewed from this angle, the continued survival of his regime was unthinkable. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.) cited in Tom Hull’s notebook
A new relationship between the United states and the Caspian republics began to take shape in the mid-1990’s, just a few years after the region had become unyoked from the Soviet Union. As American energy firms concluded major oil deals with the governments of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, the Department of Defense established military ties with these post-Soviet states and U.S. aid began to flow to their armed forces. From there it was only a short step to the deployment of American military advisers, the sale of American arms, and the initiation of joint training operations -- an exact repetition of the Persian Gulf scenario. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.132-3) cited by United for peace
In the worst possible case, this dynamic could lead to a direct confrontation between the forces of the United States and Russia or China. Unlikely as such a clash may seem, it could result from the escalation of a local struggle in which two powers support opposing sides-if, for example, American troops assisting government forces in Georgia were to come under fire from Russian-backed insurgents from the breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia or Adzharia. This scenario is improbable but not inconceivable, given the rising level of American and Russian involvement in the Georgian civil war. And the possibilities multiply through every country suffering ethnic and religious unrest, every territorial dispute between local powers. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.178-9)
The Caspian Sea is another potential Quagmire. Hailed by the White House officials and American oil companies as a bountiful alternative to the Persian Gulf, this region is just as volatile. Most of the post-soviet states are governed by despots and Oligarchs whose misrule invites the rebellion of all those excluded from the power and wealth that oil can bring. Ethnic and religious antagonisms sustain the ever present perils of terrorism, sabotage, and insurgency. The United States has sought to get around these dangers by allying itself with local strongmen, like Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan- alliances that can only deepen the risk of our getting pulled into future insurrections and civil wars.
The Gulf and the Caspian regions have yet another time bomb in common: the potential for conflicts among the great powers, arising from their competitive pursuit of strategic advantage. Such a conflagration is not likely to be deliberately ignited, but could erupt on its own when one power or another escalates a local conflict a little to carelessly. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.181-3 )
The first step is to detach our pursuit of energy from any commitments to foreign governments for military protection and security assistance. (Michael Klare “Blood and Oil” 2005 p.189 )
Media Ed review of Michael Klare’s “Blood and Oil” 2005
http://www.truth-out.org/article/iraq-and-911-the-truth-is-out p.96-7
IPEG papers in Global Political Economy
(Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” Scribd p.213
(Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” Scribd
(Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p. )
(Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p. )
(Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p. )
(Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p. )
Why So Damn Much Money
Midway through his extraordinary book So Damn Much Money (2009), Robert Kaiser, associate editor and senior correspondent at the Washington Post, reports a conversation with Joe Rothstein, campaign manager for former Alaska senator Mike Gravel. As Rothstein tells Kaiser:
Money has been a part of American politicsforever, on occasion—in the Gilded Age or theHarding administration, for example—much moreblatantly than recently. But…: “the scale of it has just gotten way out of hand.” The money may havecome in brown paper bags in earlier eras, but thepoliticians needed, and took, much less of it than they take through more formal channels today. 1
If we’re going to understand the corruption that is our government, we need first to understand this change. Whatexplains the explosion in campaign cash? What are itsconsequences? No doubt, things cost more today than theydid in 1970. But the rise in campaign spending wildlyoutpaces the rate of inflation. 2 Between 1974 and 2008 “the average amount it took to run for reelection to theHouse went from $56,000 to more than $1.3 million.” 3 In1974 the total spent by all candidates for Congress (both House and Senate) was $77 million. By 1982 that number was $343 million—a 450 percent increase in eight years. 4 By 2010 it was $1.8 billion—a 525 percent increase again. 5
Why? And how did this rise affect how Congress does its work?
To answer these questions, we need to review a bit of recent history. There have been real changes in the competitiveness of American democracy that help account for the increase in the demand for campaign cash. This increase in demand in turn inspired a change in how campaign cash gets supplied. And that change in supply, I will argue, has radically altered how our democracy functions. (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.91)
It was at this moment that the modern Congress—call it the “Fund-raising Congress”—was born. The Republicans came to power raising an unheard of amount of money to defeat the Democrats. Republicans in 1994 received$618.42 million (up from $534.64 million in 1992) in contrast to Democrats’ $488.68 million (down from$498.45 million in 1992). 8 In the four years between 1994and 1998, Republican candidates and party committees raised over $1 billion. 9 Never before had a party come anywhere close.
This fund-raising in turn changed what leadership in both parties would mean: if leaders had once been chosen on the basis of ideas, or seniority, or political ties, now, inboth parties, leaders were chosen at least in part on their ability to raise campaign cash. Leading fund-raisers became the new leaders. Fund-raising became the new game.
Campaigns now were not just about who won in anyparticular district; they were also about which party wouldcontrol Congress. This control has its own value—especially if, as John Lott argues, the government ishanding out more favors, or, in the words of economists,“more rents.” 10 Such rents drive demand for control. Ascorporate law scholars would describe it, they make the“control premium” all the more valuable. 11
At the same time that demand for winning wasincreasing, the core costs of campaigns were increasingas well. Part of the reason for this change was the risingcost of media. But a bigger part was an advance incampaign technology. The machine of politics was morecomplicated and more expensive. “Campaigns dependenton pollsters, consultants, and television commercials,”Kaiser notes, “were many times more expensive thancampaigns in the prehistoric eras before these inventionstook hold…. So congressmen and senators who used thenew technologies… quite suddenly needed much moremoney than ever before to run for re-election.” 12
These two changes together—if not immediately, then certainly over a very short time—put the monkey on the back of every member of Congress. An activity,despised by most, that for most of the history of Congresswas a simple road stop—fund-raising—now became thecentral activity of congressmen. Each member had to raisemore, not just for his own seat but also for his own party. Yetbecause the most obvious solution to this increase indemand for campaign cash—collecting more from eachcontributor—was not legally possible, the only way to raisemore money was to scurry to find more people to give. 13 Congress had tried to limit political expenditures in 1974. 14 The Supreme Court had struck down that limit, whileupholding the limit on contributions. As Professor JamesSample describes it, quoting Professors Pam Karlan andSam Issacharoff, “The effect is much like giving a starvingman unlimited trips to the buffet table but only a thimble-sized spoon with which to eat: chances are great that theconstricted means to satisfy his appetite will create asingular obsession with consumption.” 15 (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.94-5 )
To claim that American politics became more polarized, however, is not to say that America became more polarized. Politically active Americans don’t represent America. As Morris Fiorina and Samuel Abrams write, “The political class is a relatively small proportion of the American citizenry, but it is… the face that the media portray as an accurate image of the American public. It is not.” 24
Instead, the distribution of political attitudes for most Americans follows a classic bell curve. As Hacker and Pierson summarize the research, “the ideological polarization of the electorate as a whole—the degree of disagreement on left-right issues overall—is modest and has changed little over time,” 25 even though “the two partiesare further apart ideologically than at any point sinceReconstruction.” 26
Yet even though these activists are “not like mostpeople,” power in thfe qwere American government gets“transferred to [the] political activists.” 27 Not just because“only zealots vote,” 28 but increasingly because the zealotsespecially fund the campaigns that get people to vote.Fund-raising happens among the politically active andextreme, and that puts pressure on the extremists tobecome even more extreme. As Fiorina and Abrams put it,“the natural place to look for campaign money is in theranks of the single-issue groups, and a natural strategy tomotivate their members is to exaggerate the threats their enemies pose.” 29
In this odd and certainly unintended way, then, the demand for cash could also be changing the substance of American politics. Could be, because all I’ve described iscorrelation, not causation. But at a minimum the correlation should concern us: On some issues, the parties becomemore united—those issues that appeal to corporate America. On other issues, the parties become moredivided—the more campaign funds an issue inspires, themore extremely it gets framed. In both cases, the change correlates with a strategy designed to maximize campaigncash, while weakening the connection between whatCongress does (or at least campaigns on) and thepotential needs of ordinary Americans. So long as there isa demand for endless campaign cash, one simple way tosupply it is to sing the message that inspires the money—even if that message is far from the views of most.
Supply of Campaign Cash: New Norms
An increasing pressure to raise money correlates not onlywith changing party policies, but also with radically different congressional norms.
Consider, for example, the case of Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.; 1978–), chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, arguably the most powerful senator during the debate over the details of Obama’s heath care program. Between 2003 and 2008, Senator Baucus raised more than $5 million from the financial, insurance, andhealth care industries—precisely the industries whose regulation he oversees. 30 According to Public Citizen, between 1999 and 2005, “Baucus took in more interestgroup money than any other senator with the exception of Republican Bill Frist.” 31 Baucus is not embarrassed by thisfact. Indeed, he should be proud of it. It is a measure of hisstatus, and the power he yields. It is a way to demonstratethat power: they give to him because of it.
Compare Baucus to another powerful committeechairman, Mississippi senator John Stennis (D-Miss.;1947–1989). As Robert Kaiser describes, in 1982, Stenniswas chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Thatcommittee oversaw the spending of hundreds of billions of defense dollars. But when Stennis was asked by acolleague to hold a fund-raiser at which defensecontractors would be present, Stennis balked. SaidStennis: “Would that be proper? I hold life and death over those companies. I don’t think it would be proper for me totake money from them.”32
The difference between Stennis and Baucus is notidiosyncratic. It reflects a change in norms. Stennis was nochoirboy. But his hesitation reflected an understanding that Idoubt a majority of Congress today would recognize. Therewere limits—even just thirty years ago—that seem asantiquated today as the wigs our Framers wore whiledrafting the Constitution. As Congressman Jim Bacchus(D-Fla.; 1991–1995) said of the practice of raising moneyfrom the very people you regulate, it “compromises theintegrity of the institution.” 33 After that practice became thenorm, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.; 1997–2009)commented: “There’s no shame anymore. We’ve blownpast the ethical standards, we now play on the edge of thelegal standards.” 34 (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.98-9)
But to make understandable the enormous growth in this “influence cash,” now leveraged by the “influence peddlers,” we should enumerate it just to be clear:
Members of Congress get access to desperatelyneeded campaign cash—directly from the lobbyists,and indirectly, as facilitated by the lobbyists. They need that cash. That cash makes much simpler anotherwise insane existence, as it cuts back at leastpartially on the endless need of members to raisecampaign funds elsewhere.
The clients of the lobbyists get a better chance atchanging government policy. In a world of endlessgovernment spending and government regulation,that chance can be enormously lucrative. Asresearchers at the University of Kansas calculated,the return on lobbyists’ investment to modify the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 to create a taxbenefit was 22,000 percent. 82 A paper published in2009 calculates that, on average, for every $1 that anaverage firm spends to lobby for targeted taxbenefits, the return is between $6 and $20. 83 Lookingat universities, John M. de Figueiredo and Brian S.Silverman found that universities with representationon the House or Senate Appropriations Committeesee a 0.28 to 0.35 percent increase in earmarks for every 1 percent increase in lobbyist expendituresrelative to universities without such representation. 84 Frank Yu and Xiaoyun Yu found that “compared tonon-lobbying firms, firms that lobby on average havea significantly lower hazard rate of being detected for fraud, evade fraud detection 117 days longer, andare 38% less likely to be detected by regulators.” 85 Hill, Kelly, Lockhart, and Van Ness havedemonstrated how “lobbying firms significantly outperform non-lobbying firms.” 86 All of these studiesconfirm what is otherwise intuitive: as the returns fromlobbyists’ investments increase, the willingness toinvest in lobbyists will increase as well. Thus, as journalist Ken Silverstein puts it, while clients can payretainers “easily reaching tens of millions of dollars…such retainers are undeniably savvy: the overallpayout in pork is many times that, totaling intobillions.” 87
Finally, lobbyists get an ever-ghe at M. derowingand increasingly profitable business. The lobbyingindustry has exploded over the past twenty years. Itsgrowth and wealth match almost any in our economy.In 1971, Hacker and Pierson report, there were just175 firms with registered lobbyists in D.C. Ten yearslater, there were almost 2,500. 88 In 2009 there were13,700 registered lobbyists. They spent more than$3.5 billion—twice the amount spent in 2002, 89 representing about $6.5 million per elected representative in Congress.
And as the lobbying industry grows, D.C. gets rich, too.Nine of Washington’s suburban counties are now listed bythe Census Bureau as among the nation’s twenty with thehighest per capita income. 90 As former labor secretaryRobert Reich describes,
When I first went to Washington in 1975, man of the restaurants along Pennsylvania Avenuefeatured linoleum floors and an abundance of cockroaches. But since then the city has becomean increasingly dazzling place. Today, almosteverywhere you look in downtown Washington youfind polished facades, fancy restaurants, andtrendy bistros. There are office complexes of glass, chrome and polished wood; well appointedcondos with doormen who know the names and needs of each inhabitant; hotels with marble-floored lobbies, thick rugs, soft music, granite counters; restaurants with linen napkins, leather-bound menus, heavy silverware. 91 (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.116-8)
First elected to Congress in 1982 (at the age of twenty-eight), Cooper has a longer perspective on the institutionthan all but twenty-nine of its members. 103 Early into mywork, Cooper captured one part of it for me with a singlebrilliant distillation. As he told me one afternoon, while wewere sitting in his office overlooking the Capitol, with aportrait of Andrew Jackson overlooking us: “Capitol Hill is a farm league for K Street.”
Cooper worries that too many now view Capitol Hill asa stepping stone to life as a lobbyist—aka K Street. Too many have a business model much like my students at Harvard Law School: They expect to work for six to eight years making a salary just north of $160,000 a year. Then they want to graduate to a job making three to ten times that amount as lobbyists. Their focus is therefore not so much on the people who sent them to Washington. Their focus is instead on those who will make them rich inWashington.
This, too, is an important change. In the 1970s, 3percent of retiring members became lobbyists. Thirty yearslater, that number has increased by an order of magnitude.Between 1998 and 2004, more than 50 percent of senatorsand 42 percent of House members made that career transition. 104 As of June 2010, 172 former members of Congress were registered lobbyists. 105 In 2009 thefinancial sector alone had 70 former members of Congresslobbying on its behalf. 106 Indeed, as Jeffrey Birnbaumreports, there are members who are explicit about the planto become lobbyists. 107 Ken Silverstein reports on one particularly pathetic example:
While still a senator, [Bob] Packwood hadconfided to his fatal diaries that he regarded theSenate, where he dwelled for twenty-seven years,as but a stepping-stone to a more lucrative career as an influence peddler. Perhaps someday, hemused, “I can become a lobbyist at five or six or four hundred thousand” dollars a year. Less than ayear after he resigned in disgrace, Packwoodformed a firm called Sunrise Research and wasmaking lavish fees representing timber firms andother corporate clients seeking lower businesstaxes. 108
The system thus feeds itself. It’s not campaigncontributions that members care about, or not directly. It isa future. A job. A way to imagine paying for the life thatother professionals feel entitled to. A nice house. Fancycars. Private schools for the kids. This system gives bothmembers and their staff a way to have it all, at least if theycontinue to support the system.
What exactly is the wrong in what they’re doing, giventhe system as it is? The wannabe lobbyists get to do their wonky policy work. They get to live among the mostpowerful people in the nation. Their life is interesting andwell compensated. And they never need to lie, cheat, or steal. What could possibly be bad about that? Indeed,anyone who would resist this system would be a pariah onthe Hill. You can just hear the dialogue from any number of Hollywood films: “We’ve got a good thing going here,Jimmy. Why would you want to go and mess things up?” (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.123-4 )
What So Damn Much Money Does
Consider two statements by two prominent Republicans. The first by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.; 2005-): “Thousands of instances exist where appropriations are leveraged for fundraising dollars or political capital.” 1
The second, by former Federal Elections Commissionchairman Bradley Smith: “The evidence is pretty overwhelming that the money does not play much of a rolein what goes on in terms of legislative voting patterns andlegislative behavior. The consensus about that amongpeople who have studied it is roughly the same as theconsensus among scientists that global warming is taking place.” 2
To be clear, Smith is a corruption denier, not a globalwarming denier. What he is saying is that the evidence from political science suggests—contrary to Senator Coburn and to the whole thrust of this book—that the moneydoesn’t matter. Indeed, he says more than just that: Hemeans to say that anyone who suggests that the moneymatters—to “legislative voting patterns and legislativebehavior”—is as crazy as global warming deniers. That no honest scholar (let’s put aside politicians) could maintainthat we have any good evidence to suggest that there’s aproblem with the current system. That any honest scholar would therefore focus his work elsewhere.
I’ve found that people have two very different reactionsto Chairman Smith’s statement. The vast majority react instunned disbelief: “Is he nuts?” is the most common retort. Itis also among the kindest. Almost all of us react almostviscerally to corruption deniers, just as most (liberals, atleast) react to global warming deniers.
A tiny minority, however, react differently. If they’re careless in listening precisely to what Chairman Smith said (“money does not play much of a role in what goes on in terms of legislative voting patterns and legislative behavior”), they say something like this: “Yeah, it is surprising, but the data really don’t support the claim that money is corrupting Congress.” And if they’re more on the activist side of the spectrum, and less on the academic side, they’re likely to buttress this observation with something like “So you, Lessig, need to take this evidence seriously, and justify your campaign, since the facts don’t support it.” (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.125)
America doesn’t believe the denials. The vast majorityof Americans believe money buys results in Congress: 75percent believe “campaign contributions buy results inCongress.” 19 And this commonsense view is confirmed,albeit more subtly, by some current members of Congress,and more frequently by former members of Congress. In anexcellent series, the Center for Responsive Politics hasinterviewed retired members of Congress about theinfluence of money in politics. Again and again, bothDemocrats and Republicans insist that of course themoney matters. For example:
Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.; 1995-2001) (yes, that Joe Scarborough): “Across the spectrum, money Changed votes. Money certainly drove policy at the White House during the Clinton administration, and I’m sure it has in every other administration too.” 20
Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.; 1981–1987, 1989–2001) (Asked: Have you seen votes in the Senate where you just knew that certain votes were lining up certain ways because of the money?): “The answer to that question certainly has been yes.” 21
Rep. Tim Penny (D-Minn.; 1983–1995): “There’s not tit for tat in business, no check for a vote. But nonetheless, the influence is there. Candidates know where their money is coming from.” 22
Rep. Mel Levine (D-Calif.; 1983–1993): “On thetax side, the appropriations side, the subsidyside, and the expenditure side, decisions areclearly weighted and influenced… bn03essitics. Agay who has contributed to the candidates. Theprice that the public pays for this process, whether it’s in subsidies, taxes, or appropriations, is quite high.” 23
Rep. Eric Fingerhut (D-Ohio; 1993–1995): “Thecompletely frank and honest answer is that themethod of campaign funding that we currentlyhave… has a serious and profound impact on notonly the issues that are considered in Congress,but also on the outcome of those issues.” 24 (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.133)
(Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” also cited in Americans Against Auctioning America.
1. Distraction
First, and most obviously: the Fund-raising Congress is distracted.
If members spend up to 30 to 70 percent of their time raising money, 43 that means they have less time to do the sort of things members of Congress traditionally did. For example, deliberate. If you compared our Congress in 1792 to the British House of Commons in1792, we’d fare pretty well. Today, Congress compared totoday’s Commons is an embarrassment. The Britishactually take time to deliberate as a body (as our Framersintended us to do). Our Congress does not. Or to read thebills: As Washington lobbyist Wright Andrews respondedwhen asked about whether members read “most of thebills,” “Most of the bills? [They read a]lmost none of them! Any member that was honest will tell you that.” 44 (In aprivate session, Bill Gates reported that when he was acongressional page, he read “every bill.” That may havebeen possible in the 1960s, even for mere mortals [whichGates plainly is not], but it is literally impossible today: thecomplexity of the bills Congress considers is vastly greater than in the past. The Senate version of the health carereform bill, for example, was more than two thousand pages long when introduced.) 45 Instead, the job of members is increasingly that of raising campaign funds. AsFritz Hollings (D-S.C.; 1966–2005) wrote after he retiredfrom the Senate:
I had to collect $30,000 a week, each and everyweek, for six years. I could have raised $3 millionin South Carolina. But to get $8.5 million I had totravel to New York, Boston, Chicago, Florida,California, Texas and elsewhere. During everybreak Congress took, I had to be out hustlingmoney. And when I was in Washington, or backhome, my mind was still on money. 46 Even twenty years ago, then–Senate majority leader Robert Byrd wanted reform for campaign finance becausethe Senate had become “full-time fund-raisers instead of full-time legislators.” 47 “Members,” as Anthony Corrado of Brookings describes, “are essentially campaigning andraising money all the time.” 48 This is an important change.“For most of American history,” Norman Ornstein andThomas Mann write, “campaigns generally were confinedto the latter half of election years.” 49 Now that the campaignis permanent, the other work that was customarily doneduring the balance of the term must, in some ways, suffer.
The numbers support what common sense predicts.Between 1983 and 1997 the total number of non-appropriations oversight committee meetings fell from 782 to 287 in the House, and 429 to 175 in the Senate. 50 Totalcommittee meetings tanked as well. Averaging for eachdecade since the 1970s is shown in Figure 9: 51 (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.138-9)
Such shape-shifting is perfectly consistent with Hall and Deardorff’s model. Indeed, the conditions they identify where it does make sense for a lobbyist to try to persuade turn out to be precisely the sort of cases that Fingerhut, Birnbaum, and Weber are describing: obscure issues that a representative has no strong reference about, that are to be publicly voted upon, the results of which are uncertain. 84 As Martin and Susan Tolchin quote former congressman and governor James Blanchard (D-Mich.; 1983–1991), “In Congress, people feel strongly about two or three issues….On almost all [other] issues, there’s no moral high ground.” 85
Shape-shifting is thus one reason the effect of money on legislative voting would be invisible. It is distinct from another dynamic that would also be invisible to the regressions. The rankings of members by groups such asthe Chamber of Commerce is based upon roll call votes.But roll call votes are the very end of a very, very longlegislative process. A bill gets introduced. It gets referred toa committee. Very few of the bills referred to a committeeget a hearing. Even fewer get referred to the floor for avote. On the floor, there are any number of ways in whichthe proposal can be stopped. Or folded into somethingelse. Or allowed to die. There is only one way to pass a billin Congress, and a million ways to kill it.
But influence can be exercised—and hence acampaign contribution rewarded—in any of the stages of the potential life of a bill. If it is, it is invisible to theregressions. If a senator puts an anonymous hold on a bill,that doesn’t enter any one ranking. If a chairman decidesnot to assign a hearing to the bill, he doesn’t get tagged asa result. In a whole host of ways, legislative power can beexercised without a trace. And where it is exercised withouta trace, the regressions cannot map cause and effect. As the House Select Committee on Lobbying Activitiesdescribes, “Complex government inevitably meansgovernment with bottlenecks at which pressure can bequietly and effectively applied…. The prevention of governmental action, and this is the aim of many lobbies, isrelatively easy under these circumstances.” 86 “Mostissues,” Baumgartner and his colleagues find, “do notreach those final stages and most are not highly publicized,even within the Beltway.” 87 That means, again, theopportunity for invisible influence is great. Senator LarryPressler (R-S.D.; 1979–1997) describes a particular example, drawn from the recent battle over health care:
There should have been an up or down vote on[single-payer health insurance], or a vote at leaston cloture. There was neither. For some reason, it just went away. Barack Obama abandoned itcompletely, although he had said he was for it.Some Republicans are for it—I was for it wayback and Nixon was for it… on a much moresignificant basis. Bob Packwood had a plan for it.But the point is, when they really started doing thehealth care bill, everybody disappeared who wasfor a single payer system. I would suspect that isbecause of the insurance companies’contributions, especially to the Democrats. 88
Pressler’s example could be multiplied a million timesover. Indeed, it is almost too obvious to remark.
“You say,iti aYo” the skeptic insists, “that this competingdependency upon money draws the members away fromwhat they otherwise would have done. But is there anyevidence for this? Do we have a way to calibrate the extentof this distortion, or even any measure to demonstrate thatthere is distortion?”
There are two ways we might measure distortion. Onemaps the gap between what “the People” believe about anissue and what Congress does about that issue. Call this substantive distortion . The other way maps the gapbetween what Congress actually works on and what isimportant or, alternatively, what the people want them towork on. Call this agenda distortion.
The evidence for substantive distortion is compelling,at the level not of roll call votes—that’s the fight we’ve justrehearsed—but of actual policy decisions. This is the storyof “regulatory capture.” 89 Consistent with the argument of this book, regulatory capture does not “imply that regulatorsare corrupt or lack integrity.” 90 And even without proof of acontribution-based distortion, we know enough to concludewith very high confidence that the distortion at the level of policy is real and significant. A wide range of importantwork in political science makes it possible to argue withconfidence that, first, there is a wide gap in the policypreferences of “the funders” and “the People,” and second,in the face of that gap, Congress tracks not “the People”but “the funders.” (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.150-1)
The word just in that sentence, however, shouldn’t be passed over too quickly. For one thing the current system plainly does is filter out a wide range of people who might otherwise be plausible and powerful candidates for Congress. 124 Under the current system, the ability to raise money is a necessary condition to getting party support. As Hacker and Pierson report about the DemocraticCongressional Campaign Committee, “If a candidate proved a good fund-raiser, the DCCC would provide support…. If not, the committee would shut him out.” 125 The point was reportedly made quite clear by Rahm Emanuel when he was chairman of the DCCC: “The first third of your campaign is money, money, money. The second third is money, money, and press. And the last thirdis votes, press, and money.” 126
The more important point, however, is not about what the money does. It’s about what has to be done to get the money. The effect of the money might be (democratically)benign. But what is done to secure that money is not necessarily benign.
To miss this point is to betray the Robin Hood fallacy:the fact that the loot was distributed justly doesn’t excusethe means taken to secure it. Take an extreme case tomake this critical point: Imagine a lobbyist signaled to acongressman that he could ensure $1 million in campaignfunds so long as the congressman delivered a $10 millionearmark for the lobbyist’s client. Even if the $1 million is for the benign purpose of persuasion, there is an obviousproblem in the deal made to secure it. The distortion is inthe deal, not in the way the money is spent. The problemcomes from the distortion necessary to secure the deal, notfrom the effect of the money spent in a campaign.
Of course, in this example the deal is a crime. And I’vealready said I don’t think such crime happens (much). Butthe same point is true even if we substitute the more benign(as in legal) dance of the gift economy I described in theprevious chapter for the quid pro quo game. Here again: If we assume the congressman has shape-shifted himself inall sorts of predictable ways for the purpose of ensuringfunds for his campaign, even if that shape-shifting dance isnot illegal, and even though the money he secures getsspent for the wholly positive purpose of persuading peoplein an election, that doesn’t acquit the shape-shifting. For,again, the problem is not the money; the problem is thedistortion created to produce the money. Senator WycheFowler (D-Ga.; 1987–1993) tells a related story that makesthe same point:
The brutal fact that we all agonize over is that if you get two calls and one is from a constituentwho wants to complain about the Veterans Administration mistreating her father, for the 10thtime, and one is from somebody who is going togive you a party and raise $10,000, you call backthe contributor. And nobody likes that. There’s noway to justify it. Except that you rationalize that you have to have money or you can’t campaign.You’re not in the game. 127
There’s nothing wrong with the effect the $10,000 willhave. Nor is there anything wrong with the member callingback the contributor. The wrong here—tiny in the scale of things but standing for the more general wrong—is the call not made.
Consider one final example. Birnbaum describes acongressman in the mid-1980s who was undecided aboutwhether to support funding to build the B-1 bomber.Reagan was “frantic for support” for the bomber, so thecongressman was a “hot commodity.” A deal was struck toget the congressman’s vote. What was his price? A dam or some special funding for road construction in the district?No such luck (for his constituents). His price: “a VIP tour of the White House for twenty or thirty of his largest doe alaand most loyal campaign contributors.” 128 Again, there’snothing wrong with the White House giving VIP tours. But Isuspect a constituent in this congressman’s district wouldbe right to ask whether there wasn’t a better deal, for thedistrict, that could have been made.
Once this distinction is made clear, the bigger pointshould be obvious. We don’t excuse a bank robber if hedonates the money he stole to an orphanage. Neither should we excuse a political system that bends itself because of its dependency upon funders just because itdonates the proceeds it collects to funding political speech.It is the bending, the distortion, the distraction, that is the problem, and all that is produced by this competingdependency upon the funders rather than the people. (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.161-3)
The problem for us, however, is that major markets in America have become heavily concentrated, and on key issues it has become much easier for allies to coordinate. Indeed, in the critical markets for reform—finance, for example—firms are more concentrated today than ever before. That concentration makes coordination much simpler.
As Barry Lynn has described this concentration:
Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble split more than 80 percent of the U.S. market for toothpaste;
Almost every beer is manufactured or distributedby either Anheuser-Busch InBev or MillerCoors;
Campbell’s controls more than 70 percent of theshelf space devoted to canned soups;
Nine of the top ten brands of bottled tap water inthe United States are sold by PepsiCo (Aquafina),Coca-Cola (Dasani and Evian), or Nestlé (Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Deer Park, Ozarka, Zephyrhills, and Ice Mountain);
Wal-Mart exercises a de facto complete monopoly in many smaller cities, and it sells as much as half of all the groceries in many big metropolitan markets. [It] delivers at least 30 percent and sometimes more than 50 percent of the entire U.S. consumption of products ranging from soaps and detergents to compact discs and pet food;
The world’s supply of iron ore is controlled bythree firms (Vale, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton);
A few immense firms like Mexico’s Cemexcontrol the world’s supply of cement;
Whirlpool’s takeover of Maytag in 2006 gave itcontrol of 50 to 80 percent of U.S. sales of washingmachines, dryers, dishwashers and a very strongposition in refrigerators;
Nike imports up to 86 percent of certain shoetypes in the United States—for basketball, for instance—and more than half of many others;
As of March 2009, Google had captured 64percent of all online sear/fony ches in the United States;
TSMC and UMC have together captured 60percent of the world’s demand for semiconductor foundry service—in which a company serves as asort of printing press for chips that are designed andsold by other firms—and have concentrated that business mainly in one industrial city in Taiwan;
Corning has captured a whopping 60 percentshare of the business of supplying [LCD glass]. 13
These are just market concentration statistics. For antitrust purposes, they don’t necessarily translate intomarket power (though they are certainly high), and it is market power that triggers the special limits of antitrust law. So by pointing to these concentrated markets, I’m notsuggesting that the Antitrust Division of the JusticeDepartment or the Federal Trade Commission is not doingits work.
These concentrated markets do, however, translate intoa greater opportunity for coordinated political action: for the fewer corporations there are with interests at stake, thefewer it takes to persuade to support a campaign to defendthose interests. Thus, concentrated markets may notnecessarily signal economic risk, but they do raise thepotential for political risk. 14
This insight has led even free-market proponents suchas Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales to argue for a“political version of antitrust law—one that prevents a firmfrom growing big enough to have the clout in domesticpolitics to eventually suppress market forces.” 15 We don’thave that kind of antitrust today. Indeed, we have practicallyno limits on the ability of the capitalists to protectthemselves from either reform or capitalism. Antitrust law(as interpreted in light of the First Amendment) exemptsconspiracies for the purpose of changing the law, even if the change is simply to protect the conspirators. 16 Thus, nomatter what reform a new government might try, there is awell-funded and well-connected gaggle of lobbyists on theother side. Those lobbyists know that politicians will listento their arguments quite intently, because their argumentsabout good policy carry with them (through the complicateddance that I described inchapter 9) campaign cash. These lobbyists thus get to go to the front of the line. Their concerns get met first, long before the concerns of the voter. (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.176-8)
My point, however, is not to map an economically ideal compromise—even assuming there is one. It is instead to track the president’s position on these complicated policyquestions. For when Congress passed the PrescriptionDrug Act, there was no ambiguity in Barack Obama’sreaction. He was outraged. As he said on the floor of theSenate, this was just another example of “the power andthe profits of the pharmaceutical industry… trump[ing] goodpolicy and the will of the American people.” It was “atremendous boon for the drug companies.” And as headded, “When you look at the prices the FederalGovernment has negotiated for our veterans and militarymen and women, it is clear that the government can—andshould—use its leverage to lower prices for our seniors as well. Drug negotiation is the smart thing to do and the right thing to do.” 23
Obama continued the criticism during his campaign.On the Obama-Biden website, the campaign stated:“Barack Obama and Joe Biden will repeal the ban on directnegotiation with drug companies and use the resultingsavings, which could be as high as $30 billion, to further invest in improving health care coverage and quality.”
And the example was the subject of the campaign adnamed “Billy”:
Narrator: “The pharmaceutical industry wrote intothe prescription drug plan that Medicare could notnegotiate with drug companies. And you knowwhat, the chairman of the committee, who pushedthe law through, went to work for thepharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year.
”The screen fades to black to inform the viewer that “Barack Obama is the only candidate whorefuses Washington lobbyist money,” while the candidate continues his lecture:
“Imagine that. That’s an example of the sameold game playing in Washington. You know, I don’t want to learn how to play the game better, I wantto put an end to the game playing.” 24
So just as clearly as the public was led to think that Obama’s reform would include a public option, the publicwas also led to think that Obama’s reform would never include another “tremendous boon for the drug companies”in the form of a(nother) free pass from the forces of the market.
On both fronts, of course, we were wrong.
As the story is told by Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic, Obama took on health care almost as “a test”: “Could the country still solve its most vexing problems? If he abandoned comprehensive reform, he would be conceding that the United States was, on some level, ungovernable.” 25
But the question was on what terms America would begoverned. As Cohn writes: “Obama had promised tochange the way Washington does business. No morenegotiating in the anterooms of Capitol Hill. No morecrafting bills to please corporate interests. But Obama alsowanted to pass monumental legislation. And it wasn’t longbefore the tension between the two began to emerge.” 26
This statement is almost right, but not quite. CertainlyObama had promised to end the practice of “crafting billsto please corporate interests.” (“[U]nless we’re willing tochallenge the broken system in Washington, and stopletting lobbyists use their clout to get their way, nothing elseis going to change.”) 27 But that’s different from promising togive up politics. (“No more negotiating in the anterooms of Capitol Hill.”) There’s nothing wrong with negotiating, andwith compromise, so long as the driving force in thatcompromise is the single dependency that this democracyis to reveal: the people. Maybe voters in Nebraska needsomething from California before they can support healthcare. There’s no sin in making that deal.
The sin, as Obama descontned. As Cribed it, and as I certainly believe it, is when forces not reflecting the people force compromise into the system. It is the “ undue influence of lobbyists” 28 —undue because not tied to the proper metric for power within a democracy.
Yet the story that Cohn tells is the story of such “undueinfluence” again and again. The administration strikes adeal to get PhRMA’s support for the bill. The price? Apromise to protect PhRMA in just the way President Bushdid with the Prescription Drug Act: no bargaining to lower prices. That administration estimated that a health care billwould increase the revenue to the drug companies by $100billion. This deal struck by Obama with the lobbyists fromPhRMA assured PhRMA that it would keep much of thatincrease. (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.182-3)
I do this as an act of respect. The Supreme Court is not, in the sense I have described, corrupt. Quibble as we might about its sensitivity to politics, the Court is a gem of institutional integrity. If the Court just reflected a bit on why it had that integrity, it would understand a bit more why it must give Congress the opportunity to secure the same for itself. The ordinary meaning of corruption—at least when we’re speaking of government officials, or public institutions—is clear enough. Corruption means bribery. Taking this (money) in exchange for that (special favor or privilege from the government). Quid pro quo. (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.226)
What You Can Do, Now
This is not a book about changing Congress written by acandidate for Congress. I promise (and indeed, havepromised my first child if I break that promise). As I’vedescribed, this book is a call for a politics withoutpoliticians. That means we need a way to motivate citizensthat doesn’t in the end connect to some campaign for someimportant national office. It needs to be about ideals, or principles, not about a person and his or her inevitableflaws.
That campaign begins by spreading a certain kind of understanding, a recognition of how a wide range of issuesget affected by one common influence: campaign cash.The group I helped start,Rootstrikers.org, works to spreadthat recognition by asking supporters to tag stories thatevince this connection, and help spread those stories to asmany souls as possible.
These stories sometimes simply present themselves: journalists, encouraged in part by fantastic resources provided by groups such asOpenSecrets.org,FollowTheMoney.org,OpenCongress.org, and Map Light, are increasingly including references to the obvious issue of campaign funding as they describe almost every issue of public policy.
But the stories sometimes require people to connect the dots. Rootstrikers.org asks citizens to help others seethe connection, and spread this understanding. It also asks people from many different political perspectives to contribute to this common understanding. I recognize that the issues that upset friends on the Right will upset me less, and vice versa. But if we can begin to see that there is a common root, we might begin to address that common root.
So the first most important thing that you can do is to make it a practice to point: Whenever you see a money-in-politics story, tag it on twitter with #rootstrikers. Or add it to.Rootstrikers.org, and ask others to comment. Or put it on your Facebook wall or, ideally, your blog. Describe it in a way that helps others understand the issue. Help build a constant campaign driven by citizens to educate all of us about this issue.
The understanding that will grow from this grass-rootseffort must then manifest itself in specific organizationsdriving for specific reforms. I’ve described my ownpreferred reform. But the most prominent recent example of reform like this was the effort to enact the Fair ElectionsNow Act.PublicCitizen.org,PublicCampaign.org, and CommonCause.orgwere the most engaged and effectiveorganizations pushing to enact that act. They continue topush politicians to sign the Voters First Pledge atVotersFirstPledge.org.
These groups have inspired a new organization, whichlaunched in the summer of 2011. The Fund for the Republic (FundfortheRepublic.org) promises to gather a politicallydiverse mix of rich people who commit to spending a greatdeal of their wealth to reform this system. Of all theorganizational developments that have happened, this isamong the most promising, as the Fund for the Republic isled by one of the very best organizers in this field, and hasthe potential to rally a great deal of support.
The second most important thing you can do is todemand that candidates for Congresss take a pledge tosupport small-dollar-funded campaigns. Whenever theyspeak publicly, get this question asked. Only by making thisissue a constant focus of campaigns will we get enoughrepresentatives to commit to doing something about it. Letthere never be another public meeting of a congressman or a candidate for Congress without this question asked, andasked again. And when it is asked, record it and post it onYouTube or blip.tvor Vimeo, and point us and others to theresponse.
For the Internet is the only tool we can rely upon justnow. For at least the next five years, it will be the one toolthat gives grass-roots movements an edge. You can beconfident that this medium, too, will evolve. That soon it willfeel as professional as magazine ads or televisioncommercials. But for now there is enormous credibility thatcomes from authentic engagement. We can build thatengagement, one click at a time.
There is also important work to do now to support theidea of a convention. Most important immediately is to pushfor mock conventions. You can find out how to support a mock convention atCallAConvention.org. These mockconventions, I believe, will begin to show Americans thatwe’re not so dumb. That, in fact, the work we do asamateurs to reform this democracy is much better than thework the professionals do. If there were five hundred mockconventions in the next four years, there would be a strongnational movement to support a constitutional convention. Inthe end, I confess, this may be the only real path to reform.We should educate the people to practice it well.
Finally, there is critical work to be done now to buildunderstanding across the insane political divide thatdefines politics in America today. There are entities whosebusiness model depends u [del, tpon dividing us: FoxNews, MSNBC, the Tea Party,BoldProgressives.org. Butthe souls who are fans of each of these extraordinaryinstitutions must begin to see that we are more than theseinstitutions allow us to be. However far from my views amember of the Tea Party is, we still agree about certainfundamentals: that it is a republic we have inherited; that itought to be responsive to “the People alone”; that this oneis not.
This isn’t just a hypothesis for me. I’ve seen it firsthand.I stood in the middle of a national Tea Party convention. Irecognized the people around me. They may not haveagreed with me about gay rights. I don’t know if they did, for their convention was not focused on that kind of issue. Wecertainly didn’t agree about taxes or the need to “endgovernment regulation.” But we were united in the view thatthis republic can do better.
We need to remember how different our forebears were. Two hundred–plus years later, they all look the same to us. But they had very different values and radically different ideas about what their republic should be.
They put those differences aside, and saved their nation from ruin. We must do the same. Not after the next election. Now. (Lawrence Lessig “Republic, Lost” 2011 p.323-6)
So how do companies get their products talked about among the Miley Cyrus set? One technique is hiring the Girls Intelligence Agency, which recruits a stable of forty thousand girls from across the United States to act as Guerrilla marketers. The agency gives these girls exclusive offers for products, events, and free online fashion consultations and then sends them into the world to talk up the products to their friends and classmates. The GIA even organizes events it calls “Slumber Parties in a Box.” “innocent” overnight parties these tween brand ambassadors host for eleven friends (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.22)
These days, we’re being persuaded to ask our doctors for medications to address what were once considered nothing more than every- day inconveniences. A recent study by two York University researchers found that Big Pharma spends nearly twice as much on promotion and advertising as it does on research and development. No wonder Ameri- cans are the most overmedicated people on earth, with overall domestic sales of prescription drugs totaling $235.4 billion. 33 (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.44)
(Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” chapter two at susiesurteeslifedesigner.files
The prices for the fl owers, as for all the fresh fruits and vegetables, are scrawled in chalk on fragments of black slate, which is a tradition of outdoor European marketplaces. It’s as if, or so we are meant to believe, the farmer or grower pulled up in front of Whole Foods just this morn- ing, unloaded his produce (chalk and primitive slate boards in hand), then hopped back in his fl atbed truck and motored back upstate to his country farm. The dashed- off scrawl also suggests the price changes daily or even throughout the day, just as it might at a roadside farm stand or local market. But in fact, most of the produce was shipped in by plane days ago, its price set and fi xed at the Whole Foods corpo- rate headquarters. Not only does the price not change daily, but what may look like chalk on the board is actually indelible; the signs have been mass- produced in a factory. In industry parlance, marketers use the term “Farmgate” to refer to this strategy of planting a (false) image of a real, all- natural working farm in our minds, and “Factorygate” to refer to the fact that most everything we see before us is actually manu- factured by a large corporation.
These same “Farmgate” tactics are behind the coolers of chipped ice planted everywhere you look. Ever notice that there’s ice everywhere in this store? Why? Does hummus really need to be kept ice- cold? What about cucumber- and- yogurt dip? No and no. This ice is another “symbolic”—an unconscious suggestion that what’s before us is burst- ing with freshness. To our irrational, germ- fearing minds, tortillas, hot dogs, pickles, and other nonperishables must be fresher— and thus safer to eat— when they’re sitting on a bed of ice, especially when the soda or juice perspires a little, a phenomenon the industry dubs “sweat” (the re- frigerators in most juice and milk aisles are deliberately kept at the exact temperature needed for this “sweating” to occur). Similarly, for years now supermarkets have been sprinkling select vegetables with regular dew drops of water— a trend that came out of Denmark. Why? Like ice displays, those sprinklerlike drops serve as a symbolic, albeit a bogus one, of freshness and purity. (Ironically, that same dewy mist makes the vegetables rot more quickly than they would otherwise. So much for perception versus reality.)
When carrying out experiments on consumer behavior across the world, I often ask people a truly obnoxious question: would they mind emptying the contents of their fridge and freezer onto the kitchen table, then, one by one, ranking and replacing the items depending on how “fresh” they perceive the products as being?
You would be surprised at how the extraordinarily persuasive effects of advertising play into people’s perceptions of freshness. The one prod- uct consistently at the top of people’s lists? Heinz ketchup. That’s right, consumers rank bottled ketchup as being fresher than lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and so on. “Why Heinz?” I always ask, noting that the expira- tion date on the bottle isn’t for another six months. “You’re right,” the majority reply after a moment. “I have no idea why I put that there.”
So what’s behind this bizarre impression that ketchup is fresh? It’s all in the way it’s marketed. Heinz subtly plays up the “tomato- ness” of ketchup, with its deep red color— the shade of a picked- right- off- the- vine beefsteak tomato— even though it’s actually made from tomato concen- trate. Moreover, Heinz does not, in fact, have to be refrigerated once the seal is broken, as we are led to believe. That’s yet another illusion meant to trick us into thinking the product is fresh.
My extensive work for McDonald’s shows that symbolics like these can alter our perception of everything from freshness to value or even quality. I once helped McDonald’s incorporate symbolics of freshness in its restaurants throughout Europe. We painted green leaves on the insides of the lamps and even went so far as to display fresh tomatoes and vegetables behind glass displays. In France, McDonalds went so far as to transform its fabled logo from yellow to a dark, leafy green. And trust me, it worked.
Another powerful “symbolic” of purity and freshness? Fruit. In the juice world, it’s a general rule of thumb that the more fruit a man- ufacturer displays on the side of the juice carton, the greater will be our perception of freshness. Note the spill of kiwis, oranges, mangoes, strawberries, and raspberries that blanket most juice cartons. Would it surprise you to fi nd out that many of these blends contain only the ti- niest trace amounts of the more expensive, exotic fruits like kiwi and mango, and are typically more water and sugar than actual fruit juice? (By the way, even though you might think of brands like Dole, Min- ute Maid, Just Juice, and Odwalla as “natural” brands, in fact they are owned by Coca- Cola, while Pepsi owns Tropicana. And guess who has a true monopoly on the entire category of fruit juices, not to mention milk, buttermilk, and lemonade? A Swedish conglomerate called Tetra Pak, the global manufacturer of those rectangular plastic containers in which our juices and milks are packaged.) (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.48-9 )
(Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.)
According to a new study published in Nature Neuroscience, high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in a way that is nearly identical to cocaine and heroin. When two researchers from Florida’s Scripps Research Institute fed rats high-fat-content foods, including cheesecake, candy bars, and even bacon, every single one of the foods activated a release of dopamine, just as the drugs do. (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.66-7?)
(Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” Kindle highlights
In the case of best-selling lip-balm Carmex, it is even more sinister than that, according to Dr. W. Steven Pray, Bernhardt Professor at the College of (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.70)
…. numbered like a clock. Researchers then handed out slips of paper to 10 ‘informed individuals’ that read, ‘Go to nine o’clock, but do not leave the group.’ The others were given no specifc instructions, just notes that read, ‘Stay with the group.’ For a while, the group seemed to mix and mingle fairly randomly. But soon enough, the ‘informed individuals’ had led all the others to the designated nine o’clock target (Miller, 2010).
In 2007, the Washington Post rolled out an intriguing and now famous experiment. The newspaper hired one of the best musicians in the world to play a US $3.5 million Stradivarius violin on a subway platform during morning rush hour in the US capital city. Most if not all commuters walked right by and ignored him. Just another downtrodden street musician after my loose change, they undoubtedly thought. The violinist’s total income for the entire morning was US $32.17 – just a fraction of what a single ticket to one of his performances would cost. On the face of it, it might seem these commuters were just philistines who wouldn’t know musical talent if it hit them over the head. But I believe this was an example of our collective consciousness, our herd mentality, at work. Think about it. One harried commuter ignores the performer (maybe he or she was in a particular hurry that morning or is tone deaf), and so the commuter behind the frst person, (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.106-7)
(Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 at my.safaribooksonline.com
Studies have shown that when tweens ask for a pair of Hollister jeans or the latest hot Wii game for Christmas, they’re asking for more than the latest, hippest product; what they’re really asking for is a dose of self-esteem. Deborah Roedder John at the University of Minnesota recruited 250 kids aged eight to 18 and asked them to select from 100 words and images items to create a collage answering the question ‘What makes me happy?’ When she looks at the results she found that the children with higher self-esteem chose words that represented nonmaterial activities and achievements, like getting good grades or skateboarding with friends, whereas children with lower levels of self-esteem chose possessions, like new clothes or an iPod.
Thanks to the deliberate marketing strategies by purveyors of everything from cigarettes (look at those smiling, laughing, white-toothed smokers surrounded by friends and having a grand old time) to razors (if you shave with the Venus razor, the ads suggest, you, too, can end up with a hot, hunky boyfriend) these days, many children are socialized to believe they can buy themselves into popularity and acceptance. Approximately 60 per cent of the 2,035 US teenagers we polled in our national SIS study for this book believed that wearing or owning the right brand of clothes, gadgets or cars could help them ‘buy’ happiness. Moreover, compared to adults, teens were more likely to buy famous brands, more likely to believe that having the right clothes, gadgets and cars could help them become more popular, and more likely to display expensive items such as makeup and perfume conspicuously in their bedrooms and bathrooms. While teens believed that their favourite brands made them feel cool, confdent, friendly, self-expressive, creative and passionate – they couldn’t have cared less about whether a brand actually did! – the adults said their favourite brands made them feel more reliable, practical, effective and – yes – nostalgic. According to Beckstrom (2008), ‘Starting at 11 or 12, children begin to understand so much about the complex meanings of products and brands, and that is the exact time when their self-esteem drops. They’re thinking, “I don’t think I’m so popular. I don’t think kids like me. How do I solve that? Well, I know that popular kids wear Gap clothes and Nike shoes. So if I wear those, then I’ll be popular.”’ In short, the less confdence or self-esteem they had, the more they seemed to be dependent on brands. (One might even conclude from this that the larger the logo we wear, the less self-esteem we have.) In a way, it makes sense; it’s easier, after all, to ft in with your peer group by buying the same brand of sneakers than it is to transform your personality. According to Amanda Grum, a psychologist who specializes in play and parenting, peer pressure ‘is most effective in children aged fve to 12, as they are starting to develop their own identity... Belonging is a powerful urge for young children, especially before their sense of self is fully developed. By aligning themselves with an external force, they are able to use the attributes of that object or group to help defne themselves’ (quoted in an article written by Kevin Rawlinson, entitled ‘Coming soon to a wrist near you... the craze that’s sweeping America’ published in the Independent (London) on 20 May 2010). (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.121)
(Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 at my.safaribooksonline.com
l Am a Celebrity and the Brand Is Me
Believe it or not, we’re still not finished at Sephora. And what better place to see celebrity marketing in action than the perfume aisle, where among the brands for sale are perfumes named after Halle Berry, Celebrities have long been aware of their value not just to fragrance and beauty companies but also to fashion designers. Giorgio Armani, the Italian designer (now a celebrity in his own right), got his start by setting up a Los Angeles studio and recruiting celebrities to wear his outfts, thus helping to create today’s obsession with the outfts celebrities wear to the Oscars, Baftas, Golden Globes and countless other awards shows.
In recent years, however, celebrities have taken this even one step further, as fading stars have realized that owning and launching their own product line can not only be lucrative but can help breathe new life into their careers. For Jennifer Lopez, who’s licensed her name to a handful of scents, this tactic has paid off staggeringly well. In 2006, according to Forbes’s list of the 20 richest women in entertainment, sales of her fragrances not only accounted for US $77 million of her net worth of US $100 million (Sherman, 2007) but gave JLo the added visibility and publicity boost that undoubtedly helped her end a dry period and snag a series of producer gigs as well as roles in the flms Monster-in-Law and, more recently, The Back-up Plan.
A fragrance executive who had been involved in the launch of a global celebrity’s line of perfume once told me an interesting story. The famous singer/actor in question had never worn cologne in his life (sssshh!) and hadn’t a clue what he was doing, so US fragrance company representatives visited the star at his home in search of inspiration. They went from room to room, jotting down notes about his sense of style and design (which weren’t much to speak of, according to my friend) in an attempt to work out both the values he projected and what he symbolized to his worldwide fan base. From there, the fragrance reps went back and created an assortment of scents. The star selected one, and the rest was all proft. The bottle and ‘the juice’ cost next to nothing to produce, but thanks to the celebrity brand name, people in the United States were happy to shell out US $60, US $80, US $100, or more for a few mere ounces of it.
Of course, celebrity brands are inordinately successful in other product categories, too. If you were to ask a group of 15-year-olds today who Paul Newman is, most of them would answer, ‘a salad dressing’ or ‘lemonade’. That’s because in 1982, after Paul Newman retired from his long flm career, he rolled out a small Connecticut-based packaged foods business with his friend, the writer A E Hotchner. Having started the company on a whim, Newman had anticipated sales of roughly US $1,200 annually; instead, over the past 26 years, Newman’s Own has made close to US $300 million (which it has distributed to various charities).
Then there are those countless celebrities who don’t just create and sell a brand but are the brand. David Bowie was the frst big pop icon to use classic marketing tactics to brand (and re-brand) himself. Just as successful brands like Pepsi, Old Spice and Nike are constantly revamping their packages, redesigning their logos, and reinventing their public images, in 1973, at the height of his fame, Bowie shed his multiple identities as a glam rocker, a disaffected friend of Warhol and Ziggy Stardust. Good-bye Ziggy, hello, well, you name it. On the cover of Diamond Dogs, Bowie appeared as half male, half canine. For his next album, he’d transformed himself again into …. …. herself, a new attitude, a new act, and a new design. And every time it is successful’ (quoted in McGregor, 1997).
Now I’m going to let you in on how she does it. For each new CD, Madonna creates a collage of magazine photos, illustrations and news stories about the latest and most cutting-edge trends in today’s – and tomorrow’s – culture. Rumour has it that she and her creative and production team then proceed to create a persona, to which they tailor everything from the CD case to the clothes she wears to the rhythm of the actual music. This is one way Madonna manages to maintain her strong brand while simultaneously remaining culturally relevant, even one step ahead of the game. It is also why her audience never perceives her as getting old (as evidenced by the fact that the number of teenagers in her audience is legion, even though she’s old enough to be their mum). It’s also how she manages to remain, in some respects, ‘out of time’. ……
In 2002 the hosts of the US Today show decided to roll out a monthly book club. The day they announced the selections, those books immediately shot up to the top of the Amazon rankings, and the following week occupied prominent positions on the New York Times bestseller list. The only thing that could have catapulted their sales higher was if they’d been recommended by Oprah.
If you’ve ever visited one of those ginormous Barnes & Noble or Tesco superstores or, for that matter, any oversized superstore, be it Sainsbury’s or Walmart, it’s easy to understand why consumers appreciate being steered through the seemingly bottomless pool of choices and pointed in the direc- tion of a worthy book.
It’s an intriguing truism that more choice often leaves consumers less satisfed and less likely to buy something. You heard that correctly: when it comes to shopping, less is always more (and you’ve wondered why you generally walk out empty-handed or why a 12-page restaurant menu makes you want to walk straight out and fnd the nearest McDonald’s). Quite simply, we are paralysed by the fear of making a wrong, and expensive, choice.
To prove this point, in one of my all-time favourite experiments, I gave a dozen people two options: they could choose a chocolate from a box that contained 30 different types of chocolate, or they could pick one from a box that contained only six varieties. Can you guess what happened? A huge majority ended up picking from the box with only six chocolates – another argument that the fewer choices and selections we face, the more likely we are to pick up, and buy, something.
Recently I had a long conversation with the managers of a well-known bookshop chain. As I was leaving, I asked the employees to carry out a similar experiment for me: to remove all but one of the seven or eight display tables situated at the front and in the centre of the shop. On that single table, I had shop assistants place only a dozen or so books. (The average table a bookshop holds at least 40.) A week later, we looked at the shop’s overall revenue. In the course of only seven days, book sales had gone up 2 per cent (which may not sound like a lot but is a huge margin for a bookshop). In short, when they didn’t have to deal with all those choices, hundreds more readers walked away with a purchase.
So given how petrifed we are of making choices, wouldn’t it be great if someone else – and not just anyone, but a celebrity – made that choice for us? After all, even the UK royal family issues a century-old ‘royal warrant’, a seal of approval, prestige and high quality that appears on a range of luxury goods. ‘People apply for the warrant because it is a mark of excel- lence,’ said Pippa Dutton of the Royal Warrants Association. ‘It’s very helpful for trade because people say, well, if the Queen shops there, then it must be good. It’s very good for trade abroad’ (quoted in Boyer-King, 2004). For a company or manufacturer, gaining recognition as a royal supplier means reaching the top of the aspirational hierarchy – while consumers, in turn, believe that if the royal family uses it, it must be of the highest possible quality. As a result, thousands of product samples turn up every month at the royal doorsteps. (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.171-7)
(Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 at my.safaribooksonline.com
Don’t you miss the good old days, when coupons showed up in the Sunday newspaper? You'd put down your steaming mug of coffee, get out your ….. (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.206-215)
It may shock you to know that Walmart, the biggest and most profitable retailer in the world, also operates one of the most massive databanks in the world. …..
It’s amazing what a sophisticated data miner can learn from a credit card. In 2002, J P Martin, an executive at Canadian Tire (which, in addition to tyres and car accessories, sells electronics, sporting goods and kitchen appliances), began analysing the data gleaned from the credit card transactions the company had processed the year before. Among the many things Martin found were that people who bought carbon monoxide monitors practically never missed payments and neither did people who bought those little soft pads that keep furniture legs from scratching your foor. He also found that people who bought cheap, no-name motor oil were much more likely to miss a credit card payment than people who got the expensive, brand-name product, and that if a person bought a chrome-skull car accessory, he or she ‘was pretty likely to miss paying his [or her] bill eventually’ (reported in the Huffngton Post article entitled ‘Apps secretly sharing personal data with third parties – without telling you’, referred to earlier). From all this Martin concluded that the brands we buy are ‘the windows into our souls – or at ….
No matter which credit card you use, each and every time you charge some- thing on it, the company records how much you spent and on what type of product. And while cagey company representatives refuse to reveal how they use this data, the least you should know is that every single credit card transaction (online or off) is assigned a ‘merchant category code’, a four- digit number that indicates what kind of business or service the charge was for. The category codes include everything from ‘wig and toupee stores’ to ‘packaged beer, wine and liquor stores’ to ‘pawnshops’ to ‘wholesale clubs’ to ‘bail and bond payments’ (Prater, 2009), all of which, when you think about it, tell the credit card companies a whole lot about you and your life- style. Men: please note that if you happen to be among the 87 per cent of males in the United States who buy less-spoken-about products or subscrip- tions on websites promising that some vague and discreet wording like ‘international trading company’ will appear on your credit card statement (rather than, say, Carl’s Adult Videos), that little merchant category code will still reveal the truth to the credit card company. …..
….. levels, car makes, TV cable service providers and even magazine subscriptions, to banks, credit card companies, and mortgage brokers, who then fercely compete to fnd untapped customers – even those who would normally face an uphill battle getting credit in the frst place! Yes, that’s right: the companies responsible for maintaining and updating your credit scores are the very same ones selling your fnancial information to credit card companies and mortgage lenders.
Most people write it off as a timely coincidence when an offer for a new home equity loan arrives in the post just as they’ve started struggling to make their mortgage payments. But it isn’t. ‘We called people who were astounded,’ said Allan E Geller, Chief Executive of Visions Marketing Services, a Pennsylvania-based company that carries out telemarketing campaigns for banks offering new terms of credit. ‘They said, “I can’t believe you just called me. How did you know we were just getting ready to do that?”’ He adds, ‘We were just sitting back laughing.’ The goal of this incredibly devious tactic is to create ‘the appearance of almost irresistible serendipity’ (quoted in the New York Times article entitled ‘The debt trap’, referred to earlier), like a devil whispering into our ears at the precise moment our defences are at their lowest and our needs are highest.
Thanks to data-mining practices, banks and lenders know enough about our fnances to tailor the specifc wording in unsolicited letters to our indi- vidual situations. Often they even go so far as to calculate, to the dollar or pound, what we would save on a mortgage or a monthly credit card payment if we ‘took advantage’ of the offer in question. A few years back, one US bank took this personalization to an extreme. It actually took satellite snapshots of a particular neighbourhood and then highlighted each home- owner’s property on the envelope accompanying the personalized credit offer. Not surprisingly, most consumers were spooked, and the campaign was withdrawn.
Again, while neither banks nor credit card companies will confrm their precise internal methodologies, it’s widely acknowledged that property deeds are one of their major sources of data. Since property deeds are public records, each time we buy a piece of property we get put on a list, known in the industry as a ‘trigger list,’ indicating that we’ve just moved or are about to move. Companies then purchase these ‘trigger lists’ and use them to shower us not just with loan offers and credit card offers but also with decorating catalogues, magazine subscriptions and more. Knowing that US homeowners spend close to US $12,000 furnishing their new property within the frst six months of moving into it, and a good percentage of that in the frst weeks or days, a US company known as ALC Milestones New Movers and New Homeowners, for example, sells companies and businesses in the United States – such as Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn – updates every 24 hours about who has just purchased a property and may be in need of brand-new furnishings (see www.alcmilestones.com/new- movers-homeowners-lists.php).
Using a technique known as ‘predictive modelling’ (which is essentially comparing your behaviour to that of consumers who ft roughly the profle you do), data compilers and banks know whether you are likely to need new home credit before even you do. The US rating agency Equifax (yes, one of the companies that maintains consumers’ credit scores) even offers lenders a brochure called ‘TargetPoint Predictive Triggers’ whose ‘advanced profling techniques’ promise to help them sniff out consumers who show a ‘statistical propensity to acquire new credit’ (see www.alcmilestones.com/new-movers- homeowners-lists.php). …….
In 2010, the U.S. congress passed a bill designed to protect unsuspecting consumers (especially young consumers) from predatory credit card companies. Among the requirements of the new act was that colleges and universities publicly reveal the long-standing secret contracts they enjoy with credit-card companies. That’s how it was discovered that in 2007 hundreds of institutions of higher learning (including some very prestigious ones, like Yale University) had entered into highly lucrative “affinity agreements” by which they were essentially selling Chase bank access to the alumni, staff, sports fans and even students, as reported in an article entitled ‘Bank pays millions to Yale to market its credit cards’ written by Rob Varnon and published in the Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) on 7 June 2010. This is also how it was revealed that a staggering 800 of the United States’ two-year colleges and 700 of the country’s four-year colleges maintained similar agreements with various credit card companies or banks.
Under some of these agreements, the colleges received a cut of every new bank account a student opened; under others, they got a percentage of every retail purchase a student made with his or her new card; under still others, the schools actually earned money if an alumnus took on debt. Obviously, this was a huge incentive for these schools to encourage their students to rack up credit, which is why so many permitted credit card companies to advertise on campus, with some even granting the companies access to private campus events (according to the Connecticut Post article entitled ‘Bank pays millions to Yale to market its credit cards’, referred to earlier).
Why were the credit card companies so aggressively going after these young customers? Simple. These students, with their meagre incomes, irresponsible spending habits and high credit limits (thanks to the fact that many of them ……
……. Report (New York) entitled ‘Inside the deals: contracts allow credit card marketing to students’ published on 8 June 2010.
What your shopping basket says about you
The loyalty card is another sneaky yet powerful tool companies use to turn every intimate detail about our lives into marketing gold. Today the average person carries around 15 so-called loyalty cards, now being issued by every retailer under the sun, from your local Boots to Tesco to Best Buy to Starbucks. Yet most of us forget we’ve even signed up for all these loyalty schemes. In a study I once conducted in the UK, when I asked a group of middle-aged females how many loyalty programmes they belonged to, most were able to recall only half (and when, to jog their memories, I asked them to empty their wallets, most were shocked by the number of cards that fell out). So what’s so bad about loyalty cards, you might be wondering? Isn’t the whole point of them to save me money? No, not exactly. Of course, the language and terminology that retailers use in talking about these programmes – ‘reward card’, ‘loyalty programme’, ‘preferred customer …… (Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 p.209-10,12)
(Martin Lindstrom “Brandwashed” 2011 at my.safaribooksonline.com limited excerpts
Scaling up from there are building endowments and naming rights. ... company, for example, snagged naming rights for The Nature Conservancy's ExxonMobil Education and Volunteer Center at Galveston Bay Prairie Preserve in Texas. (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.69)
Catering to corporate sponsors is only one facet of a conservation group's marketing .... Until 2003, TNC also derived large revenues from oil drilling on its conservation lands (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.78-9)
When John Sawhill took over The Nature Conservancy in 1990, it was already far ... on Earth.1
He had come from McKinsey & Co., one of the foremost management consulting groups in the world with a client list of Fortune 500 companies. (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.82-3)
The year before Sawhill's death, TNC gave a “conservation leadership award” to Shell Oil Company, at a time when Shell needed a PR ... Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa for opposing oil drilling by Shell that had devastated the Niger Delta. (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.86-7)
"Remembering an establishment revolutionary" review of John Sawhill etc. at High Country News
Conservation groups were also fielding attacks by indigenous rights ... through the environmental world with their essay “The Death of Environmentalism,” which declared that the movement was coasting on its past victories.15 It had become (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.92-3)
Grist: Don’t Fear the Reapers: On the alleged “Death of Environmentalism”
In the space of two years in the nid-2000's BP had among a raft of lesser violation the most deadly refinery accident and the biggest pipeline rupture, and was caught illegally cornering the U.S. propane market. The company was on probation until 2010. (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.100-1)
Shortly after Browne's momentous speeches on global warming, BP hired the British advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather to launch the “Beyond Petroleum” (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.104-5)
Rising Tide had taken a page from "The Yes Men" the satirical performance artist/activists who have wrecked havoc at international trade meetings and (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.110-1)
Nevertheless, mining companies continue to receive government permits to operate mines where they know acid drainage ... Newmont Mining Corporation's Phoenix Mine on the outskirts of Battle Mountain, Nevada, is one of these sites. ... In the mid-2000s, Newmont sought to reopen and expand existing open-pit mines, .. (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.124-5)
They also pointed out that Wal-Mart's entire business strategy is predicated on people ... Indeed, Patrick Jackman, a Bureau of Labor statistics economist who studies Wal-Mart's prices as part of his job calculating the country's consumer price ....
... along with most journalists and many ordinary people, from the fundamental fact ...
.... Mitchell argues. Along with the gasoline the cars guzzle is a massive amount of greenhouse gas emitted by Wal-Mart shoppers that the company hasn't even begun to contemplate in its carbon footprint, she says.
Big-Box Impact
To be fair to Wal-Mart, it's not the only big retailer with a harsh impact on the planet. Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, IKEA, Macy's, and other big retailers have also been named as accessories to environmental crimes.
Researchers from TerraChoice Environmental Marketing published a study in late 2007 examining the environmental claims advertised on the labels of more than one-thousand consumer goods sold at six leading big-box retail chains. They found all but one misleading or flatly untrue.
Nearly sixty percent of the products were guilty of "the hidden trade off," they touted one environmentally friendly attribute but ignored other unfiendly considerations that cancelled out the positives. For instance, paper towels and other paper products touted their recycled content, but glossed over the air and water pollution and global warming impacts of their manufacturing process.
More than a quarter of the products offered no proof of the environmental claims on the labels, while 11 percent made such broad claims researchers concluded they would likely be misunderstood by consumers. Other products advertised themselves as free of certain environmentally damaging chemical compounds, but failed to mention those chemicals had been illegal in the country for nearly three decades. Some cited certifications and standards that don't exist or misrepresented existing ones. Then, there were items that confused organic with environmentally friendly, the study concluded.
(Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.154-5)
Limits should also be introduced governing the number of corporate executives allowed on nonprofit boards. While business leaders bring some valuable insights to an organization, many groups, where corporate board members dominate, ...
When you buy new furniture, ask the salesperson where the wood came from and weather it is certified sustainable. NRDC has a wood guide on its Web site that gives the lowdown on environmental and the human rights abuses associated with the different endangered species to help you steer clear of stolen timber. You can download it here: Natural Resources Defense Council: Know the Forest and the Trees
A Consumer's Guide to Buying Wood. With the wood guide in hand, you're in a strong position to make an ethical purchase and send the message to the retailer that customers care about where their products come from. When you go to the supermarket, get to know the manager. Ask about the company's sustainability policy. Inquire about the origin of the produce, and make it clear you want answers. If every supermarket, big-box retailer, and department store in the country receives just a few comments, letters, and e-mails a day from customers concerned about the environment, they will react to protect their reputation and profitability. (Christine MacDonald “Green Inc.” 2008 p.238-9)
Natural Resources Defense Council: Know the Forest and the Trees
A Consumer's Guide to Buying Wood
Is Wal-Mart Really Going Green?
Your air, your water is contaminated. Your forests, jungles trees, and plant life are dying When Sparks asked the beings in the "meeting" why those methods were not being used, he said that he was told that “those in power” view such measures as “a military and security threat.” (John Mack “Pasport to the Cosmos” 1999 p.107)
The Secret History of Extraterrestrials
Working under direct and indirect CIA contracts, distinguished American behavioral scientists-Albert Biderman, Irving L. Janis, Harold Wolff, and Lawrence Hinkle-advised the agency about the role of self-inflicted pain in Communist interrogation. (Alfred McCoy “A Question of Torture” 2006 p.32 )
At last, the CIA had a scientist eager to conduct “terminal experiments in sensory deprivation,” and one with his own ready supply of human subjects. As soon as Cameroon’s grant application arrived at human Ecology’s New York office on January 23, 1957, the CIA’s local mole forwarded it to agency headquarters where Dulles, who knew the doctor well from their wartime work on Nazi psychology, personally approved the project on February 25….
After the press exposed Cameron’s CIA funding in 1980, nine of his former patients filed a civil suit against the agency in Washington…. (Alfred McCoy “A Question of Torture” 2006 p.43-5 )
In searching for other university research that contributed to the CIA’s evolving torture paradigm, the famed Yale obedience experiments by a young psychologist, Stanley Milgram, seem a likely candidate. Since the agency regularly laundered MKUltra funds through other federal agencies to some 185 nongovernment researchers and has refused to release their names, we have no way of knowing the full scope of academic investigation that might have advanced the CIA’s study of torture. But the timing at the peak of the agency’s academic involvement and the topic torture raise the possibility that Milgram’s work may well have been part of its larger mind-control project. And, of equal import, his close ties to the ONR lend substance to this speculation. Moreover, Yale’s senior psychologist, Irving L. Janis, had written the seminal Air Force study of the Soviet mind-control threat, recommending the sort of experiment Milgram now proposed. (Alfred McCoy “A Question of Torture” 2006 p.47 )
One Yale colleague complained about this aspect to the American Psychological Association, which denied Milgram membership for a year. After finishing his contract at Yale, he moved on to Harvard, where he was later denied tenure, largely for the same reason. However, Milgram’s intelligence connections apparently saved his career. He was soon hired, with a promotion to full professor, by the new graduate dean at the City University of new York, Mina Rees, who had recently retired as deputy director of the Office of Naval research.
Nobody asked even decades later, why the ONR would have been so solicitous of Milgram’s career and why the NSF would have funded an experiment of so little value. Although Milgram himself said he was testing theories about Nazi torturers, world war II was long over and his ONR patrons, like their intelligence confreres at the CIA, were now obsessed with winning the Cold War. (Alfred McCoy “A Question of Torture” 2006 p.49 )
Parallel inquiries into the compromised role of medical personnel added to the sinking sense of an ethical miasma at Guantánamo Bay. One military interrogator, describing the role of the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams [BSCTs] in detainee interrogation, told the New York Times that "their purpose was to help us break them." After similar interviews, two Georgetown University lawyers, writing in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, found that psychiatrists and psychologists "have been part of a strategy that employs extreme stress, combined with behavior-shaping rewards, to extract actionable intelligence from resistant captives."*nbsp; Since August 2002, moreover, the Southern Command had ordered medical personnel to "convey any information . . . obtained from detainees in the course of treatment to non-medical military or other Untied States personnel," meaning CIA operatives. Indeed, former military interrogators to the Times that doctors, either psychologists or psychiatrists, had given them information from prisoner medical files and advised them how to play upon "a detainee's fears and longings to increase distress," including one prisoner's "fear of the dark" and another's "longing for his mother." Following General Miller's original guidelines, the first BSCT psychologist, Major John Leso, had "prepared psychological profiles for use by interrogators . . . sat in on some interrogations, observed others from behind one-way mirrors, and offered feedback to interrogators." Instead of treating patients, these mental health professionals had joined the guards to become, in the words of the New England Journal of Medicine, "part of Guantánamo's surveillance network." As the controversy continued, the assistant secretary of defense for health matters, Dr. Willima Winkenwerder Jr., claimed that Defense Department rules allowed doctors to assist lawful interrogations and called press criticism of their role "an outrageous distortion." A senior Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, insisted that doctors advising interrogators were "behavioral scientists" exempt from "ethics strictures." [Note 65: New York Times, June 24, June 27, July 6, 2005; M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks, "Doctors and Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay", New England Journal of Medicine 353, no. 1 (July 7, 2005), 6-8.]
But many psychiatrists unreservedly rejected the Pentagon's logic. In condemning the practices at Guantánamo as a clear ethical violation, these doctors cited the American Medical Association's advice to "diligently guard against exploiting information furnished by the patient," to "release confidential information only with the authorization of the patient," and, finally, to avoid evaluating "any person charged with criminal acts prior to access to . . . legal counsel." [Note 66: New York Times, June 24, June 27, July 6, 2005; The Principles of Medical Ethics: With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 2001), 7-9.] The AMA's guidelines, are, of course, applications of broader ethical principles — from the ancient Hippocratic oath to do no harm, all the way to the World Medical Association's 1975 ban on participation in "torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading procedures," and the UN's 1982 Principles of Medical Ethics prohibiting any physician contact with prisoners "which is not solely to evaluate, protect or improve their physical and mental health." [Note 67: Ole Vedel Rasmussen, "Medical Aspects of Torture," Danish Medical Bulletin 37, no. 1 (1990), 43, 84, 86.]
By contrast the American Psychological Association (APA), reflecting its long involvement in military research and CIA behavioral experiments, claimed that its members were not barred from "national security endeavors." In fact, the APA's code of ethics has stricter, more specific standards for the treatment of laboratory animals than for human subjects such as the Guantánamo detainees. In response to this crisis of ethics, the APA formed a special task force, including military psychologists, which ultimately rejected the Pentagon's proposition that Guantánamo practitioners were ethically exempt, and insisted that "psychologists do not engage in, direct, support, facilitate, or offer training in torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." But this APA conclusion, released June 2005, failed to bar members from military interrogations outright, saying, simply and vaguely, that they should be "mindful of factors unique to these roles . . . that require special ethical consideration." The task force also refused to recommend that members be bound by "international standards of human rights," neglected to specify their obligations to detainees, and even recommended research to "enhance the efficacy . . . of psychological science . . . to national security," including the "effectiveness of information-gathering techniques." [Note 68: New York Times, June 24, June 27, July 6, 2005; American Psychological Association, "Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security" (June 2005), 1, 5, 8-9, http://www.apa.org/releases/PENSTaskForceReportFinal.pdf; accessed July 7, 2005. In its "ethical principles," updated in June 2005, the APA suggests that researchers "make reasonable efforts to minimize the discomfort, infection, illness, and pain of animal subjects" but only requires that its members "take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients/patients" who happen to be human beings. (American Psychological Association, "Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct," ; accessed June 29, 2005). In a letter to the New York Times, the APA president Ronald F. Levant, faulted the critical tone of the paper's July 6 coverage of his association's ambiguous stance in this controversy, insisting that "using a phobia to inflict severe psychological distress is clearly prohibited by the task force report." But the task force report, cited in the text above, indicates that the Times's account did indeed capture the unresolved ambiguity of the APA's relationship with national security. (New York Times, July 7, 2005.)] (Alfred McCoy “A Question of Torture” 2006 p.183 )
Alfred McCoy “A Question of Torture” cited United for Peace in Pierce County
In another incident, Stanley and Joel were having a friendly tussle on the living room floor….French provisional coffee table… (Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 p.3 )
Milgram was soundly scolded by his mother, making him cry. He felt miserable about his misdeed, even though it was an accident and he hadn’t meant to hurt his cousin. “Still, to be blamed for such things was a burden. But whether I learned my lesson remains unclear. For many years later, was I not again to become the object of criticism for my efforts to measure something without due regard to the risks it entailed others?” (Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 p.5 )
He took two courses at each school. At Brooklyn College he signed up for Psychology of Personality and a course titled An Eclectic Approach to Social Psychology; at Hunter he enrolled in General Psychology and Gestalt Approach to social Psychology; at New York University he audited two courses-child Psychology and Language and Society, a sociology course. He completed each of the four graded courses with As. (Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 p.15)
Williams (hereafter referred to as the experimenter) then continued: ”I’d like to explain to both of you about our Memory Project. Psychologists have developed several theories to explain how people learn various types of material.” ….One kind of application of the theory would be when a parent spanked a child for doing something wrong. The expectation being that the form of punishment will teach the child to remember better, teach him to learn more effectively. But actually we know very little about the effect of punishment on learning because almost no truly scientific studies have been made on human beings. (Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 p.77 )
Most cases involved a similar modus operandi. A call is received by a restaurant’s manager from a person claiming to be a police officer who says that a particular employee-usually a female teenager or a young woman-is suspected of stealing money, and that she needs to be strip searched to see if money is found on her possession. (Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 p.297 )
(Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 p. )
(Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 p. )
“Like when a parent spanks a child when he does something wrong. But actually, we in the scientific community know very little about the effect of punishment on learning, because almost no documented studies have been made on human beings. For instance, we don’t know how much punishment is best for learning, and we don’t know how much difference it makes as to who’s giving the punishment — whether an adult learns best from an older or younger person and many things of this sort. So what we’re doing with this project is bringing together a number of adults, of different occupations and ages, and are asking some of them to be teachers, and some to be learners. We want to find out just what effect people will have on each other as teachers and learners, and also what effect punishment will have on learning in this situation.” The learners: the book after "The cheese monkeys" By Chip Kidd
Thomas Blass, "The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram" 2004 review
(Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 Chapter One
... and the Great Depression.
The new environmental predicaments have long tested mainstream economics. In 1990, not long after scientists unveiled the computer models showing just how dire global warming really was, Yale economist William Nordhaus calculated how much America should be willing to spend in order to deal with the problem. Not much, in his widely publicized estimation, because “climate has little economic impact upon advanced industrial societies. (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.24-9)
Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" additional excerpts XXXXXXX
Four companies slaughter 81 percent of American beef. Cargill Inc., controls 45 percent of the globe's grain trade, while its competitor Archer Daniels Midland controls another 30 percent. (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.52-5)
Additional figures on centralization of the food corporations.
The specialization and consolidation are so intense that sociologists now designate many parts of rural America “food ......
If the damage to community is arguable, an industrialized food system has costs that are both (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.58-61)
Say you're a dreamer. Imagine the most ruined city in America. That would be Detroit, which has lost half its population in the last few decades. A million people have moved away; as much as a third of the city's 139 square miles consists of empty lots and dilapidated buildings, "an urban core giving way to an urban prairie," in the words of the New York Times. But slowly, some of that land is coming under cultivation: forty community gardens and microfarms, some covering entire city blocks, have sprung up in recent years. A farmer named Paul Weertz farms ten acres spread over seven lots, prducing hay, alfalfa, honey, eggs, goats' milk, even beef cattle. His tractor barn is an old garage. In 2000, a group of architects, urban planners, and local activists convened by the University of Detroit spent six months coming up with an ambitious plan for expanding such farms, connecting four and a half square miles of the city's east side into a self-sustaining village "complete with farms, greenhouses, grazing land, a dairy, and a cannery." "When you first look at this, people say it's wild and crazy," says the dean of the local architecture school. "But when you look at it closer, it's not so wild and crazy after all. What we are talking about doing are all very pragmatic things." (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.82-3)
(Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 cited at "I am not Hamlet"
Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" Part 2 - Center for Sustainable Systems PDF difficult to use
But they could add up a lot faster if they didn't have to depend on the students in the environmental (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.86-7)
The Economist recently tried to sum up all such measures into a single quality-of-life index. Even though America trails only Luxembourg in gross domestic product per person it comes in thirteenth in total quality of life. ......
“Wrong,” said Sanders. “Scandinavia has a higher standard of living.” (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.102-4)
dislike, expanding your sense of who's in your community and how it fits together
Almost no one who has studied the issue continues to claim that Wal-Mart or its big-box brethren are good for the communities where they locate. By now the ... (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.106-7)
... Businesses were built on local capital investment, and "to be solicitous of one's neighbor was prudent insurance against future personal need." For the most part, people felt a little constrained about showing off wealth; indeed, until fairly recently in American history, someone who was making tons of money was often viewed with mixed emotions, at least if he wasn't giving back to the community. "For the rich," Whybrow notes, "the reward system would be balanced between the pleasure of self-gain and the civic pride of serving others. By these mechanisms the most powerful citizens would be limited in their greed."
Once communities grow past a certain point, however, "the behavioral contingencies essential to promoting social stability in a market-regulated society—close personal relationships, tightly knit communities, local capital investment, and so on—are quickly eroded." ....... Consider the three heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, who are among the ten richest people on earth. They’re worth $90 billion. But according to Fortune, the town of Bentonville, Arkansas, where their family began to make its fortune, runs a budget deficit and can’t afford a new sewerage treatment plant. The family is too “thrifty,” as one local official puts it. A better way to say it might be that they don’t really live there, residing instead in the place-less world of the wealthy, where they’re unlikely to meet their neighbors. If they don’t care about Bentonville, what do they care about your town, your state, even your community? And the Waltons are simply an extreme example. Recent statistics show that, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates notwithstanding, Americans making $50,000 to $100,000 give away two to six times as much of their money (in percentage terms) as people who make more than $10 million. .....
"But we need people to invest who will take a three percent return, not a fifteen percent rate of return," he said. Last fall in Los Angeles, for instance, (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.124-5)
(Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" cited at Mother Jones with additional excerpts. XXXXXXX
I could listen to Ken Squier most of the night. He's a talker, and he comes by it honestly, having spent the better part of six decades in front of the microphone at the radio station his father helped building - 'WDEV, Radio Vermont ... the friendly pioneer (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.130-3)
(Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" cited at WDEV: A radio community
Such a vision makes sense in part because our current way of thinking is extraordinarily wasteful— in fact, it's almost as .... When they burn coal, an enormous amount of the energy is wasted as heat that simply goes up into the air; one recent British study indicated that 61 percent of the energy value of the coal just disappears. Another 4 percent vanished in the transmission process, .... and another 13 perfect was wasted because people were using inefficient refrigerators and dryers and other appliances in their homes. ....
Some of these ideas are still science fiction, but not all.
Plenty of hospitals and universities already have “cogeneration
plants,” where waste heat from the generation of electricity
is captured and used to provide hot water. Some European
countries have begun building precisely the sort of local networks
I’ve described. Finland, the Netherlands, and Denmark
get between one-third and one-half of their power through
such decentralized energy projects. In England, a pilot project
in the town of Woking used sixty different local generators—
including gas-fired cogeneration boilers and photovoltaic
arrays—to power, heat, and cool municipal buildings and the
town’s housing projects, as well as many of the downtown
businesses. Carbon emissions fell 77 percent; in the event of a
nationwide blackout, the town could be isolated from the
main grid and go on working. (There wasn’t even much for potential
terrorists to attack.) Woking was able to pay for the pioneering
system through energy savings, and pension funds
across Europe now invest in such schemes because they like
the steady low-risk returns they offer. The pace of such change
could pick up considerably if, instead of subsidizing big fossil-
fuel plants, governments offered substantial tax breaks for putting
in solar panels, changed building codes, and required the
large utilities to purchase surplus electricity from such networks
at premium prices. You could even offset some of the cost by
taxing the waste heat that spews from utility smokestacks.12
Twenty years ago, all this would have been impossible. Solar
and wind power were still so marginal that only well-heeled
enthusiasts could afford to employ them. But that’s changing,
and quickly. Global wind capacity has shot up at an average
annual rate of nearly 30 percent in the last decade, and the
power generated by bigger turbines is nearly as cheap as coal.
(And the bigger the blade, the less danger to migrating birds.)
Solar power seems poised for a similar takeoff. It’s still more
expensive, but the cost is dropping fairly fast. In Japan, solar
power used to be only for pocket calculators, but with strong
government promotion, the country now has three times as
much photovoltaic capacity as the United States, even though
it has far less land, and gets half as much sun as California.
With low interest loans, rebates for homeowners, and laws that force utilities to buy back excess power, Japan has become the world's leader in photovoltaic use-and, not surprisingly, the leader in manufacturing solar panels as well. The program has worked so well that government subsidies are now being eliminated, while the growth in capacity continues.
If the United States were to get serious about doing the same thing, we could match the Japanese achievements. Even after factoring in shade from trees and south-facing exposures, and regions that are too cloudy, "residential and commercial rooftop space in the U.S. could accommodate up to 710,000 megawatts
of solar electric power,” according to a nonprofit consortium
called the Energy Foundation. That’s three-quarters of all the
electricity the United States uses.14 And around the world? By
one estimate, a mere two-thirds of what the rich world spends
in one year subsidizing fossil fuels would suffice to provide renewable
power to all the currently nonelectrified parts of sub-Saharan Africa. If China set up a decentralized system instead
of the massive power plants it’s now rushing to build, its eventual
carbon emissions would be less than half of what is now
predicted.15 (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.144-9)
Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 cited at Gaiam
I remember visiting on of America's cohousing communities, EcoVillage in Ithaca New York, shortly after it opened in 1996. As the name implies (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.154-5)
EcoVillage in Ithaca New York
But Kerala is statistically the oddest place on earth. despite its poverty—despite its low rate of economic growth in caparison with the dynamic ‘software cities’ in the rest of India—its life expectancy is now seventy-three years for males. As Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, points out, that means the average resident lives longer than the average black person in the United States, and not much less than the general American average. ...
The story of how all this happened is long, complicated, and
fiercely debated by development experts, but it makes it clear
that “doing things the old way” is not the main answer. Kerala
was the most caste-ridden corner of Hinduism in the nineteenth
century: Brahmins there strolled the streets preceded
by criers to make sure that they wouldn’t have to even see
“Untouchables.” But a wave of religious reform prepared the
ground for Gandhi’s ideas to strike deeper than elsewhere; after
Indian independence, elected left-wing governments managed
to enact the world’s most sweeping land reforms, breaking up
the industrialized plantations of the British and giving almost
everyone some land of his or her own. The spirit of volunteerism
stayed strong; even today, groups such as the Kerala
People’s Science Movement carry out huge projects such as the
detailed mapping of individual villages, enabling residents to
see where the soil and water will allow for improved farming.
Such work is always in the context of community: in one region,
for instance, owners of paddy fields were asked to allow
their land to be used, free of charge, as community gardens between
rice crops. This allowed the vegetables to be sold at market
for less than agribusiness imports. In a rough-and-tumble
way, Kerala comes closer to an experiment in sharing than any
place on earth. Not surprisingly, then, it feels different from
much of the rest of the developing world. On the streets of
Trivandrum and in the fields of the broad central plateau, Keralites
greet visitors straightforwardly, as equals, with none of
the combined servility and resentment that often marks the divide
between the FirstWorld and the Third. Keralites are proud
of what they’ve accomplished.
Kerala is far from perfect. Because unemployment is high,
many of its educated youth go abroad to work, helping support
the economy with their remittances home. And the economy
is stagnant, because it’s hard to attract big factories to a place
so concerned with economic justice. Even some of its fans have
said it’s perennially in danger of becoming a “populist welfare
state.” An Indian economist, Joseph Tharamangalam, recently
called the lack of economic growth a “debacle”; as budget
deficits escalate, services are harder to maintain. ......
The point is not that Europe is perfect. Anyone who has
watched Muslims rioting in France in recent years knows the
continent has plenty of unresolved problems. European unemployment
rates are higher than ours (though some economists
have pointed out that we simply don’t bother counting “discouraged
workers” and that having 2 percent of the potential
male adult workforce behind bars further reduces our total).49
On the other hand, European workers are every bit as productive
as ours; both German and French workers, for instance,
produce more per hour than American workers. So why do
Americans make 29 percent more money than Europeans? Because
we work longer hours. Much longer hours—Americans
average 25.1 working hours per person per week, but the Germans
average 18.6; the average American works 46 weeks a
year, while the French average is 40.50 Europeans work to live,
not the reverse; they spend more time with their families,
which may have something to do with why their divorce rates
are much lower. And of the money Europeans make, more
goes toward taxes, to support health care and university education
and the other things that they have to worry less about
than we do.
For Americans caught up in the orthodoxy of getting and
spending, that may not seem like such a bargain. A writer
based in Oslo, for instance, recently wrote a piece for the New
York Times with the lovely title “We’re Rich, You’re Not. End
of Story.” He pointed out that while Americans had $32,900
per person to devote to “private consumption,” the European
averages ranged between $13,850 and $23,500. That is indeed
a big difference; the Europeans were definitely “poorer” than
we, and the writer delighted in listing the ways. “They hang
on to old appliances and furniture that we would throw out,”
for instance. And this: “One image in particular sticks in my
mind. In a Norwegian language class, my teacher illustrated
the meaning of the word matpakke—‘packed lunch’—by
reaching into her backpack and pulling out a hero sandwich
wrapped in wax paper. It was her lunch. She held it up for all
to see. Yes, teachers are underpaid everywhere. But in Norway
the matpakke is ubiquitous, from classroom to boardroom. In
New York, an office worker might pop out at lunchtime to a
deli. . . . In Norway she will sit at her desk with a sandwich
from home.”51 (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.218-25)
(Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" cited at renegadehealth.com
Driven by such new data, NASA's James Hansen, the worlds premier climate modeler, decided to speak out in the course (Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" 2007 p.230-1)
TED: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change
Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future A Review, excerpts and Commentary of McKibben's Novel
A Review on Bill McKibben's "Deep Economy" excerpts included.
Bill McKibben's "Deep Economy" PDF copy.
…. How did time dilate, and "100 or 200 years from now" become yesterday?
The answer, more or less, is that global warming is a huge experiment. We've never watched it happen before, so we didn't know how it would proceed. Here's what we (Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 p.13)
As Larry Summers, now President Obama’s chief economic advisor, put it while he was still President Clinton’s treasury secretary: we "cannot and will not accept any 'speed limit' on American economic growth. It is the task of economic policy to grow (Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 p.47)
The sole even remotely plausible way out of this box canyon would be, as I’ve said, massive investment in green energy; but our mountains of accumulated debt make that harder, not easier. The current Australian government was elected on the promise of fighting global warming, but the economic slowdown quickly cooled its ardor, delaying the start of even modest plans for carbon reductions by two years. In equally progressive New York, Democratic Governor David Paterson quietly undercut the state's plan to control greenhouse gas emissions, a plan that had been crafted by a Republican predecessor, but in better economic times. On the other side of the globe... China was backing down on plans to close some polluting factories: "Money is increasingly needed to pay the salaries of workers whose companies have gone bankrupt and to provide social services for the rural poor who are having trouble selling their crops. There has been less money left over for environmental initiatives." (Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 p.70-1)
Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 cited on the energy bulletin
And the fact that so much of the world remains so poor is also one of the biggest obsticles to actually doing something about the climate. (Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 p.)
(Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 p.76)
In the short run, Reagan took the solar panels off the White House roof, and he froze the mileage standards that had helped cut oil demand by more than a sixth in a decade. …. In the slightly longer run, his worldview gave us not only the Bush administrations but also the Clinton years, with their single-minded focus on economic expansion. The change was not just technological; it wasn't simply that we stopped investing in solar energy and let renewables languish. It's that we repudiated the idea of limits altogether - we laughed at the idea that there might be limits to growth. (Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 p.95)
Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 cited in naturally peaceful.
Here’s Ed Legge of the Edison Electric Institute, the chief lobbyist of the nation’s utilities: “Were probably not going to be in favor of anything that shrinks our business. All investor-owned utilities are built on the central-generation model that Thomas Edison came up with. You have a big power plant…. Distributed generation is taking that out of the picture – it’s local.” (Bill McKibben “Eaarth” 2110 p.190)
Indeed, the Soviets now officially maintain that they would not be the first to make use of nuclear weapons. This declaration was first officially articulated in a message from Brezhnev to the United Nations Assembly on June 12, 1982: “The union of Soviet Socialist Republics assumes an obligation not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.” In the same year, Defense Minister Dmitri Ustinov stated, “Only extraordinary circumstances-a direct nuclear aggression against the Soviet state or its allies-can compel us to resort to a retaliatory nuclear strike as a last means of self-defense.” These statements represented a change in position for the USSR. Previously, Soviet spokesmen had only been willing to say they would not use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear powers. (Robert McNamara “Blundering into Disaster” 1986 p.27)
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/Articles/1995/1995%20boldrick.pdf
When I served in the Kennedy Administration, I learned that the capability to launch a first strike that would virtually eliminate the capability Soviet nuclear forces was indeed the goal of some in the U.S. Air Force. In a 1962 memorandum to the President, I quoted from an Air Force document:
The Air Force has rather supported the development of forces which provide the United States a first-strike capability credible to the Soviet Union, as well as to our Allies, by virtue of our ability to limit damage to the United States and our Allies to levels acceptable to the light of the circumstances and the alternatives available. (Robert McNamara “Blundering into Disaster” 1986 p.51)
Memorandum to the President 11/21/1962 non-searchable declassified dod.gov
History of Strategic Arms competition 1945-1972 Part 2 non-searchable declassified dod.gov
Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security advisor said of Gorbachev’s proposal, “It is a plan for making the world safe for conventional warfare. I am therefore not enthusiastic about it.” (Robert McNamara “Blundering into Disaster” 1986 p.87)
For example, a declassified 1954 document reveals that General Curtis Lemay, head of the Strategic Air Command, stated, “I want to make it clear that I am not advocating a preventive war; however, I believe that if the U.S. is pushed in the corner far enough we would not hesitate to strike first. I don’t care [if this is not official national policy.] It’s my policy.” (Robert McNamara “Blundering into Disaster” 1986 p.99)
The Nuclear Button and The Nuclear Football www.bibliotecapleyades.net
The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett III gordonmccabe.wordpress.com
And in 1980 Vice President Bush, when discussing how to win a nuclear exchange, said that one side could win such a war if “you have survivability of command and control, survivability of industrial potential, protection of a percentage of your citizens, and you have the capability that inflicts more damage on the opposition than it can inflict on you. That’s the way you can have a winner.” *
* Statements such as these drew adverse comments from critics. We therefore hear fewer of them today. But the Pentagon’s strategic planning, weapons development, and arms procurement continue to be driven by a determination to maintain dominance at each stage of a nuclear conflict, which it is assumed could last for days or weeks until one side or the other prevailed. (Robert McNamara “Blundering into Disaster” 1986 p.)
The Social Psychology of Good and Evil on Scribd
The Social Psychology of Good and Evil Scribd
A Situationist Perspective on the psychology of Good and Evil Scribd
The Socialization of Evil: How the “Nazi Hate Primers” Prepared and Conditioned the Minds of German Youth to Hate Jews
The second broad class of operational principles by which otherwise good people can be recruited into evil is through education/socialization pro- cesses that are sanctioned by the government in power, enacted within school programs, and supported by parents and teachers. A prime example is the way in which German children in the 1930s and 1940s were system- atically indoctrinated to hate Jews, to view them as the all-purpose enemy of the new (post–World War I) German nation. Space limitations do not allow full documentation of this process, but I touch on several examples of one way in which governments are responsible for sanctioning evil.
In Germany, as the Nazi party rose to power in 1933, no target of Nazification took higher priority than the reeducation of Germany’s youth. Hitler wrote: “I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men. A violently active, dominating, brutal youth—that is what I am after” (The New Order, 1989, pp. 101–102). To teach the youth about geography and race, special primers were created and ordered to be read starting in the first grade of elementary school (seeThe New Order,1989). These “hate primers” were brightly colored comic books that contrasted the beautiful blond Aryans with the despicably ugly carica- tured Jew. They sold in the hundreds of thousands. One was titledTrust No Fox in the Green Meadows and No Jew on His Oath.What is most in- sidious about this kind of hate conditioning is that the misinformation was presented as facts to be learned and tested upon, or from which to practice penmanship. In the copy of theTrust No Fox text that I reviewed, a series of cartoons illustrates all the ways in which Jews supposedly deceive Ary- ans, get rich and fat from dominating them, and are lascivious, mean, and without compassion for the plight of the poor and the elderly Aryans.
The final scenarios depict the retribution of Aryan children when they expel Jewish teachers and children from their school, so that “proper disci- pline and order” could then be taught. Initially, Jews were prohibited from community areas, like public parks, then expelled altogether from Ger- many. The sign in the cartoon reads, ominously, “One-way street.” In- deed, it was a unidirectional street that led eventually to the death camps and crematoria that were the centerpiece of Hitler’s Final Solution: the genocide of the Jews. Thus, this institutionalized evil was spread perva- sively and insidiously through a perverted educational system that turned away from the types of critical thinking exercises that open students’ minds to new ideas and toward thinking uncritically and close-mindedly about those targeted as the enemy of the people. By controlling education and the propaganda media, any national leader could produce the fantas- tic scenarios depicted in George Orwell’s (1981) frightening novel1984.
The institutionalized evil that Orwell vividly portrays in his fictional account of state dominance over individuals goes beyond the novelist’s imagination when its prophetic vision is carried into operational validity by powerful cult leaders or by agencies and departments within the current national administration of the United States. Previously I have outlined the direct parallels between the mind control strategies and tactics Orwell at- tributes to “The Party” and those that Reverend Jim Jones used in dominating the members of his religious/political cult, Peoples Temple (Zimbardo, 2003a). Jones orchestrated the suicide/murders of more than 900 U.S. citizens in the jungles of Guyana 25 years ago, perhaps as the grand finale of his experiment in institutionalized mind control. I learned from former members of this group that not only did Jones read1984, he talked about it often and even had a song commissioned by the church’s singer, entitled “1984 Is Coming,” that everyone had to sing at some ser- vices. I will leave it to the reader to explore the similarities between the mind control practices in1984 and those being practiced on U.S. citizens in the past few years (see Zimbardo, 2003b).
THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT: A CRUCIBLE OF HUMAN NATURE WHERE GOOD BOYS ENCOUNTERED AN EVIL PLACE
Framing the issues we have been considering as, in essence, who wins when good boys are put in an evil place casts it as a neo-Greek tragedy sce- nario, wherein “the situation” stands in for the externally imposed forces of “the gods and destiny.” As such, we can anticipate an outcome unfavor- able to humanity. In more mundane psychological terms, this research on the Stanford prison experiment synthesized many of the processes and variables outlined earlier: those of place and person anonymity that con- tribute to the deindividuation of the people involved, the dehumanization of victims, giving some actors (guards) permission to control others (pris- oners), and placing it all within a unique setting (the prison) that most so- cieties throughout the world acknowledge provides some form of institu- tionally approved sanctions for evil through the extreme differentials in control and power fostered in prison environments.
In 1971, I designed a dramatic experiment that would extend over a 2-week period to provide our research participants with sufficient time for them to become fully engaged in their experimentally assigned roles of either guards or prisoners. Having participants live in a simulated prison set- ting day and night, if prisoners, or work there for long 8-hour shifts, if guards, would also allow sufficient time for situational norms to develop and patterns of social interaction to emerge, change, and crystallize. The second feature of this study was to ensure that all research participants would be as normal as possible initially, healthy both physically and men- tally, and without any history of involvement in drugs or crime or vio- lence. This baseline was essential to establish if we were to untangle the situational versus dispositional knot: What the situation elicited from this collection of similar, interchangeable young men versus what was emitted by the research participants based on the unique dispositions they brought into the experiment. The third feature of the study was the novelty of the prisoner and guard roles: Participants had no prior training in how to play the randomly assigned roles. Each subject’s prior societal learning of the meaning of prisons and the behavioral scripts associated with the op- positional roles of prisoner and guard was the sole source of guidance. The fourth feature was to create an experimental setting that came as close to a functional simulationof the psychology of imprisonment as possible. The details of how we went about creating a mindset comparable to that of real prisoners and guards are given in several of the articles I wrote about the study (see Zimbardo, 1975; Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, & Jaffe, 1973).
Central to this mind set were the oppositional issues of power and powerlessness, dominance and submission, freedom and servitude, control and rebellion, identity and anonymity, coercive rules and restrictive roles. In general, these social-psychological constructs were operationalized by putting all subjects in appropriate uniforms, using assorted props (e.g., handcuffs, police clubs, whistles, signs on doors and halls), replacing corri- dor hall doors with prison bars to create prison cells, using windowless and clock-less cells that afforded no clues as to time of day, applying insti- tutional rules that removed/substituted individual names with numbers (prisoners) or titles for staff (Mr. Correctional Officer, Warden, Super- intendent), and that gave guards control power over prisoners.
Subjects were recruited from among nearly 100 men between the ages of 18 and 30 who answered our advertisements in the local city newspa- per. They were given a background evaluation that consisted of a battery of five psychological tests, personal history, and in-depth interviews. The 24 who were evaluated as most normal and healthiest in every respect were randomly assigned, half to the role of prisoner and half to that of guard. The student-prisoners underwent a realistic surprise arrest by offi- cers from the Palo Alto Police Department, who cooperated with our plan. The arresting officer proceeded with a formal arrest, taking the “felons” to the police station for booking, after which each prisoner was brought to our prison in the reconstructed basement of our psychology department.
The prisoner’s uniform was a smock/dress with a prison ID number. The guards wore military-style uniforms and silver-reflecting sunglasses to enhance anonymity. At any one time there were nine prisoners on “the yard,” three to a cell, and three guards working 8-hour shifts. Data were collected via systematic video recordings, secret audio recordings of con- versations of prisoners in their cells, interviews and tests at various times during the study, postexperiment reports, and direct, concealed obser- vations.
For a detailed chronology and fuller account of the behavioral re- actions that followed, readers are referred to the above references, to Zimbardo, Maslach, and Haney (1999), and to our new website: www.prisonexp.org.For current purposes, let me simply summarize that the negative situational forces overwhelmed the positive dispositional ten- dencies. The Evil Situation triumphed over the Good People. Our pro- jected 2-week experiment had to be terminated after only 6 days because of the pathology we were witnessing. Pacifistic young men were behaving sadistically in their role as guards, inflicting humiliation and pain and suf- fering on other young men who had the inferior status of prisoner. Some “guards” even reported enjoying doing so. Many of the intelligent, healthy college students who were occupying the role of prisoner showed signs of “emotional breakdown” (i.e., stress disorders) so extreme that five of them had to be removed from the experiment within that first week. The prison- ers who adapted better to the situation were those who mindlessly fol- lowed orders and who allowed the guards to dehumanize and degrade them ever more with each passing day and night. The only personality variable that had any significant predictive value was that ofF-scale au- thoritarianism: The higher the score, the more days the prisoner survived in this totally authoritarian environment.
I terminated the experiment not only because of the escalating level of violence and degradation by the guards against the prisoners that was ap- parent when viewing the videotapes of their interactions, but also because I was made aware of the transformation that I was undergoing personally (see the analysis by Christina Maslach of how she intervened to help bring light to that dark place and end the study; in Zimbardo et al., 1999). I had become a Prison Superintendent in addition to my role as Principal Investi- gator. I began to talk, walk, and act like a rigid institutional authority fig- ure more concerned about the security of “my prison” than the needs of the young men entrusted to my care as a psychological researcher. In a sense, I consider the extent to which I was transformed to be the most pro- found measure of the power of this situation. We held extended debriefing sessions of guards and prisoners at the end of the study and conducted pe- riodic checkups over many years. Fortunately, there were no lasting nega- tive consequences of this powerful experience.
Before moving on, I would like to share parts of a letter sent to me re- cently (e-mail communication, October 18, 2002) by a young psychology student, recently discharged from military service. It outlines some of the direct parallels between the aversive aspects of our simulated prison many years ago and current despicable practices still taking place in some mili- tary boot-camp training. It also points up the positive effects that research and education can have:
I am a 19-year-old student of psychology [who watched] the slide show of your prison experiment. Not too far into it, I was almost in tears. . . . I joined the United States Marine Corps, pursuing a childhood dream. To make a long story short, I had become the victim of repeated illegal physical and mental abuse. An investigation showed I suffered more than 40 unprovoked beatings. Eventually, as much as I fought it, I became suicidal, thus received a discharge from boot camp. . . .
The point I am trying to make is that the manner in which your guards carried about their duties and the way that military drill instructors do is un- believable. I was amazed at all the parallels of your guards and one particular D. I. who comes to mind. I was treated much the same way, and even worse, in some cases.
One incident that stands out was the time, in an effort to break platoon solidarity, I was forced to sit in the middle of my squad bay (living quarters) and shout to the other recruits “If you guys would have moved faster, we wouldn’t be doing this for hours,” referencing every single recruit who was holding over his head a very heavy foot locker. The event was very similar to the prisoners saying #819 was a bad prisoner. After my incident, and after I was home safe some months later, all I could think about was how much I wanted to go back to show the other recruits that as much as the D. I.s told the platoon that I was a bad recruit, I wasn’t.
Other behaviors come to mind, like the push-ups we did for punish- ment, the shaved heads, not having any identity other than being addressed as, and referring to other people as, “Recruit So-and-So”—which replicates your study. The point of it all is that even though your experiment was con- ducted 31 years ago, my reading the study has helped me gain an understand- ing I was previously unable to gain before, even after therapy and counseling. What you have demonstrated really gave me insight into something I’ve been dealing with for almost a year now. Although, it is certainly not an excuse for their behavior, I now can understand the rationale behind the D. I.’s actions as far as being sadistic and power hungry. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.37-41)
Affection and Nurturance versus Neglect and Harsh Treatment
Temperamental characteristics of children enter into the development of altruism and aggression (Coie & Dodge, 1998; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998). For example, impulsiveness and related early temperamental characteris- tics have been linked to boys’ aggression (Staub, in preparation-b). How- ever, these characteristics are most likely to exert their influence in interac- tion with social experience. The expression of these characteristics is shaped by harsh treatment or lack of support and appropriate guidance by parents and other people. Similarly, temperamental dispositions appear to play a role in the emergence of empathy, but so do early socializing experi- ences (Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow, 1990). Social conditions such as poverty also play an important role, but they appear to exert influence primarily by affecting how parents relate to and guide their children (McLoyd, 1990).
Here, I focus on child-rearing practices. Becoming a caring, helpful, altruistic person or a hostile and aggressive one is the result of combina- tions or patterns of child-rearing practices (Staub, 1979, 1996a, 2003, in preparation-b). Early responsiveness by parents to their infants’ needs and the provision of continuing nurturance, warmth, and affection are the core socializing practices and experiences for the development of helpful ten- dencies in children (Eisenberg, 1992; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Hoffman, 1970a, 1970b, 1975a; Shaffer, 1995; Staub, 1971, 1979, 1996a, 1996b, 2003, in preparation-b; Yarrow & Scott, 1972). Neglect and harsh treat- ment—that is, rejection, hostility, the extensive use of physical punish- ment, and physical or verbal abuse—are the core socializing practices and experiences that contribute to the development of aggression (Coie & Dodge, 1998; Eron, Gentry, & Schlegel, 1994; Eron, Walder, Lefkowitz, 1971; Heussman, Eron, Lefkowitz, & Walder, 1984; Huesman, Lager- spetz, & Eron, 1984; Lykken, 2001; Staub, 1979, 1996a, 1996b, 2003, in preparation-b; Weiss et al., 1992; Widom, 1989a, 1989b).
Providing warmth, affection, and nurturance indicates that caretakers are responsive to the needs of the young child. Responsiveness to the in- fant’s physical and social needs provides (fulfills the basic needs for) secu- rity and connection. Sensitive responding to the infant’s signals also satisfies the need for efficacy and control. Responding to signals and satisfying needs also affirms the child and begins to develop the rudiments of a posi- tive identity. Such sensitive parental responding is associated with the de- velopment of secure attachment (Ainsworth, Bell, & Stayton, 1974; Bretherton, 1992; Shaffer, 1995; Waters, Wippman, & Sroufe, 1979). In turn, secure attachment is associated with the development of sympathy (i.e., the feeling of sorrow or concern for the distressed or needy other; Eisenberg, 2002, p. 135), with helping peers by the time children are 3½ years old (Waters et al., 1979), and with the emergence of prosocial behav- ior in preschool (Kestenbaum, Farber, & Sroufe, 1989).
As children get older, love, affection, and caring about a child’s wel- fare can take varied forms. For example, an in-depth, important study found that an essential characteristic of the parents of boys who have high self-esteem was caring about the child’s welfare, expressed in many ways, and not necessarily by physical affection (Coopersmith, 1967). Sensitivity in caring about and responding to the child’s feelings and needs—to who the child is—fulfills all basic needs. The child in such care develops con- nection to important adults and forms a positive orientation toward peo- ple in general. That this is the case is suggested by research findings that show that securely attached children are also capable ofcreating positive connections. Such children have positive relationships with peers in the early school years (Waters et al., 1979). Further in the developmental con- tinuum, college students who rate their parents as affectionate and caring also have a positive view of their fellow humans and express con- cern about, and feelings of responsibility for, others’ welfare (Staub & Operario, unpublished data). As noted earlier, such a prosocial value ori- entation is related to varied forms of helping.
In contrast, experiencing neglect and the ineffectiveness of one’s sig- nals, such as crying, to bring about the satisfaction of essential biological (and social) needs has severe negative effects. Research on institutionalized infants has shown that in institutions with poor caretaking, infants be- come depressed and die in significant numbers. Children who had lived in such institutions later show deficiencies in their capacity for human con- nection and in other domains (Shaffer, 1995; Thompson & Grusec, 1970). The conditions in such institutions frustrate infants’ basic needs for secu- rity, connection, and effectiveness/control. Given inadequate staffing, in- fants are fed and cared for on schedule, and in sequence, when it is their turn, not when they are hungry or distressed. Their crying brings no re- sponse. They have no significant connection to anyone. Neglect beyond in- fancy also has extreme negative consequences. Emotional neglect—that is, inattention to the child as a person and to his or her efforts to feel connec- tion and affirmation—has even more severe consequences than harsh treatment (Erikson & Egeland, 1996).
Harsh treatment also frustrates basic needs, increasingly so as it be- come more severe and abusive. Especially when it is unpredictable, it creates insecurity. When it is unavoidable, in that the child cannot prevent it, it creates a feeling of ineffectiveness. The child feels diminished; his or her connection with the caretaker is broken, and the child forms a view of peo- ple and the world as hostile and dangerous. This view, formed so early in life, interferes with the child’s ability to develop connections to people in general.
Aggressive boys, as well as adults, may come to use aggression as a destructive mode of fulfilling needs for security, efficacy, positive identity, and even connection. They learn to interpret others’ behavior toward themselves as hostile (Dodge, 1980, 1993) and consider aggression to be normal, appropriate, and even inevitable (Huesmann & Eron, 1984). When children are victimized by caretakers and also have models who coach them in aggressive responses (referred to as “violentization”), they may become intensely aggressive (Rhodes, 1999). (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.68-70)
There can be little doubt that, from the victim’s perspective, their killers or would-be killers would be considered evil. Before we consider the possible evolution of a universal cognitive category of evil, however, it is critical to consider the evolutionary events that would be set into motion once killing entered the human strategic repertoire. Because of the dramatic fitness costs of being killed, selection would act strongly to create defenses against killing—what we have called anti-homicide mechanisms (Duntley & Buss, 1998). (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.108)
That good and evil exist in the world is clear. Of that, there is little debate. We know that some people are capable of great selflessness, and that most people maintain high moral standards for themselves and others, give the welfare of others high priority, and place equality among their most cen- tral values (Kluegel & Smith, 1986). We also know that some people are capable of doing great harm, intentionally and unintentionally, to others. Racism reflects an essential kind of selfishness and evil that has pervaded human existence across cultures and across time (Jones, 1997). Racism provides both psychological benefits (e.g., enhanced self-esteem; Fein & Spencer, 1997) and material advantages (e.g., access to economic re- sources; Dovidio & Gaertner, 1998; see also Blank, 2001) to the perpetra- tor. The problem is that the same people—average people, “good” people—can be responsible for both good and bad deeds. Good people are often racist, and they are often racist without being aware of it….
In this initial study of contemporary racism (Gaertner, 1973), white participants residing in Brooklyn, New York, were selected for a field ex- periment on helping on the basis of their liberal or conservative orienta- tions, as indicated by their political party affiliations, which were a matter of public record. Both the liberal and the conservative households received wrong-number telephone calls that quickly developed into requests for as- sistance. The callers, who were clearly identifiable from their dialects as being black or white, explained that their car was disabled and that they were attempting to reach a service garage from a public phone along the parkway. The callers further claimed that they had no more change to make another call and asked the participant to help by calling the garage. If the participant agreed to help and called the number, ostensibly of the garage, a “helping” response was scored. If the participant refused to help or hung up after the caller explained that he or she had no more change, a “not helping” response was recorded. If the participant hung up before learning that the motorist had no more change, the response was con- sidered to be a “premature hang-up.”
The first finding from this study was direct and predicted. Conserva- tives showed a higher “helping” response to whites than to blacks (92% vs. 65%), whereas liberals helped whites somewhat, but not significantly, more than blacks (85% vs. 75%). By this measure, conservatives were more biased against blacks than were liberals. However, what is good and bad behavior is not always obvious or straightforward. Additional inspec- tion of the data revealed an unanticipated finding. Liberals “hung up pre- maturely” much more often on blacks than they did on whites (19% vs. 3%), and especially often on a black male motorist (28%). Conservatives did not discriminate in this way (8% vs. 5%). From the perspective of black callers, the consequence of a direct “not helping” response and of a “premature hang-up” was the same: They would be left without assistance. From the perspective of the participants, however, the consequences were different. Whereas a “not helping” response was a direct form of dis- crimination because it should have been clear to participants that their help was needed, a “premature hang-up” was a more indirect form be- cause participants disengaged from the situation before they learned of the other person’s dependence on them, and thus participants never overtly refused assistance. Consequently, both conservative and liberal whites dis- criminated against blacks but in different ways.
These findings and the conceptual work of Kovel (1970) challenged our views of good and bad and prompted us to reevaluate our assumptions about the nature of liberals’ racial attitudes and good intentions. They also stimulated a line of research on contemporary racism that we have con- ducted over the past 30 years. Specifically, this work has focused on a par- ticular type of contemporary racism, “aversive racism.” Aversive racism is hypothesized to be qualitatively different from the old-fashioned, blatant kind, and it is presumed to characterize the racial attitudes of most well- educated and liberal whites in the United States. It is more indirect and subtle than the traditional form of prejudice, but its consequences are no less evil. In this chapter, we first consider the nature of aversive racism. Second, we offer experimental evidence of its existence and operation in the behavior of whites toward blacks. Third, we examine how aver- sive racism can contribute to interracial miscommunication and distrust. Fourth, we explore approaches for combating aversive racism. And finally, we discuss the social implications of aversive racism. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.141-3)
Research from several perspectives reveals that a wide variety of risk and protective factors influence the incidence of individual and collective vio- lent evil between and within various societies. Examples of these factors include accessibility of guns (O’Donnell, 1995), global warming (Ander- son, Bushman, & Groom, 1997), different cultural norms about violence (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996), and the widespread exposure to violent enter- tainment media (Anderson et al., in press; Anderson & Bushman, 2001, 2002b). However, no one causal factor, by itself, explains more than a small portion of differences in violence. For example, it is now well estab- lished that exposure to media violence is a risk factor for development of aggressive and violent individuals. Four broad types of converging evi- dence provide consistent results on this point: Cross-sectional correlation studies, longitudinal studies, laboratory experiments, and field experi- ments all point to the same simple conclusion (Anderson & Bushman, 2002c). Compared to the effect sizes of other more well-known medical ef- fects, such as secondhand smoking effects on lung cancer (Bushman & An- derson, 2002a), the media violence effects are sizeable but still account for only 3–4% of the variance in aggression. The effect size on the most ex- treme forms of violent evil is likely smaller. But the same is true for other violence risk factors. Violent evil is most likely to emerge in environments with multiple risk factors, environments that provide aggressive models, frustrate and victimize people, reinforce aggression, and teach people that aggression is acceptable and successful. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.182)
TABLE 8.1.Proximate and Distal Causal Factors in Violent Evil
Proximate causal factors
Person
Unstable high self-esteem Narcissism Self-image Long-term goals Self-efficacy beliefs for violent and nonviolent behavior Normative beliefs about aggression, retaliation, etc. Attitudes toward violence Hostile attribution, expectation, and perception biases Aggression scripts Dehumanization of others Cultural stereotypes Moral justification for violence Displacement of responsibility
Situation
Social stress Provocation Frustration Pain/discomfort Bad moods Weapons Violent scenes Violent media Noise Temperature Threatening or fearful stimuli Exercise Alcohol and other drugs
Distal Causal Factors in Violent Evil
Environmental modifiers
Maladaptive families and parenting Violent neighborhood Cultural norms that support violence Victimization experiences Deprivation Difficult life conditions Group conflict Fear-inducing events Lack of bystander intervention in violent encounters Diffusion of responsibility Exposure to violent media Association antisocial peers
Biological modifiers Low arousal Low serotonin ADHD Hormone imbalances Executive functioning deficits (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.184)
Although the most common interpretation of Milgram’s findings is that participants did not personally wish to harm the learner, the motives gen- erated in this paradigm may well have been more mixed or ambivalent in many participants. Unfortunately, the manner in which people actually re- gard the act ofpunishing others when they make mistakes—that is, the key behavior in the Milgram paradigm—has been virtually ignored in discus- sions of the obedience research. However, an examination of recent research oncorporal punishment suggests that this form of harming is a widely accepted form of child discipline (Gershoff, 2002; Strauss, 1994). Most people are hardly unequivocally opposed to the use of physical punishment under absolutely any circumstances. That a majority approve the use of capital punishment in this country might serve as another illustra- tion. It is also likely that in the late 1950s, the rationale of administering physical pain (i.e., shocks) to induce better learning may have seemed at least somewhat less surprising than it would today.
Key aspects of the arguments linking the obedience studies to the Ho- locaust rest not simply upon what actions people perform in these studies but why they perform them, and what they are experiencing while doing so.Many participants may have had a complex mixture of feelings about what they were being ordered to do; that is, they may not have beentotally opposed personally to shocking the learner, even though they did have res- ervations and were not willing to inflict significant punishment when left to their own accord. Precisely how people regard punishment, both physi- cal and nonphysical, is thus one of the many unanswered questions with important relevance to the M–H argument.
The Issue of Generalizing Research Findings
Research findings rarely “speak for themselves.” Generalizing the results of research to specific nonresearch contexts frequently produces disagree- ment because the applicability of a study is often a matter ofinterpretation rather than empirical or statistical fact, and people obviously may differ in their interpretations (e.g., Banaji & Crowder, 1989; Miller, 1995). Often, it is not the superficial similarities between a research project and an anal- ogous “real world” setting that are crucial to the generalization process (Henshel, 1980). Rather, as Mook (1983) has noted: “Ultimately, what makes research findings of interest is that they help us understand every- day life. That understanding, however, comes from theory or the analysis of mechanism; it is not a matter of ‘generalizing’ the findings themselves” (p. 386). At times, the linkage between research and nonresearch settings is relatively straightforward. For example, a number of generalizations from Milgram’s studies have been made to the kinds of obedience pres- sures that exist in hierarchical social organizations, corporations, and other bureaucracies (e.g., Brief, Buttram, Elliott, Reizenstein, & McCline, 1995; Darley, Messick, & Tyler, 2001; Hamilton & Sanders, 1999; Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). These analyses have provoked no noticeable controversy. Hamilton and Sanders (1995), for example, see great value in the Milgram experiments in terms of explaining how contemporary bu- reaucratic organizations may create conditions for subordinate deference to authorities:
Most of the organized ways in which people do wrong happen when they go to work. It is part of Milgram’s (1974) legacy that psychologists realize no question is more important for the next millennium than that of how human social organization can be made more humane. We need to learn, literally, who in the world really expects organizational actors to be autonomous moral beings. Perhaps then we may better understand when and why they are not. (p. 85)
As will be noted, however, generalizing the obedience research to the Ho- locaust has been anything but noncontroversial.
The First Challenge to the Obedience Interpretation of the Holocaust
In her influential ethical criticism of Milgram’s studies, Baumrind (1964) was extremely skeptical of linking the obedience research to the Holo- caust. She noted that the SS officers were not under the impression that the ultimate authority, Hitler, was kindly disposed toward the victims. The victims also were not social peers of the SS but rather were dehumanized to an extreme degree. Baumrind contended that the conflict expressed by many subjects was evidence of their concern for the learner—another ma- jor weakness in the Nazi analogy.
In Milgram’s (1964) rebuttal, he agreed partially with Baumrind— that is, he noted that he was not attempting to study the Holocaust per se. Arguing that his paradigm was only an analogy to the Holocaust, he clari- fied that his primary intent was not to explain the Holocaust:
Baumrind mistakes the background metaphor for the precise subject matter of investigation. The German event was cited to point up a serious problem in the human situation: the potentially destructive effect of obedience. But the best way to tackle the problem of obedience, from a scientific standpoint, is in no way restricted by “what happened exactly” in Germany. What hap- pened exactly cannever be duplicated in the laboratory or anywhere else. The real task is to learn more about the general problem of destructive obedience using a workable approach. (p. 851)
If Milgram and others had subsequently continued studying the processes of destructive obedience without a continuous preoccupation with its link- age to the Holocaust, the course of scholarship relating to the obedience research would likely have been very different. However, connections to the Holocaustwere to become the most salient reaction to the obedience studies. Indeed, the obedience studies were soon to become world re- nowned, and Milgram often extrapolated his laboratory findings to a vari- ety of global instances of destructive obedience—in addition to the Holo caust, he opined on the mass suicides under Jim Jones at Jonestown, the My Lai massacre, and other horrific events (e.g., Milgram, 1974, pp. 179– 189).
Why Is the Generalizability Issue Controversial?
Preexisting points of view or theoretical orientations held by the observer of a study (i.e., critics, students, readers) are a major source of contro- versy. One’s initial position or perspective may induce powerful biases in terms of how a research finding is interpreted or appraised (e.g., Green- wald, Pratkanis, Leippe, & Baumgardner, 1986; Kunda, 1990; Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). Information that contradicts one’s prevailing attitude or theory is likely to be devalued and subjected to intense scrutiny. Informa- tion that is consistent with one’s theoretical view or leads to a preferred conclusion is more likely to be readily endorsed. Contributing to the im- portance and often insidious effects of these biases is the fact that people are likely to be unaware of these effects, claiming, instead, that their reac- tions to a particular study are objective and factually based.
The sources of these confirmatory biases are diverse—it could be a formal theoretical orientation, a political position, a religious or ethical conviction, a highly personal, emotional feeling, etc. Social psychologists who adopt a strongly situationist view of behavior invariably endorse the obedience experiments, whereas social psychologists taking a more dispositional or personality-oriented view of behavior are more criti- cal (e.g., Berkowitz, 1999), particularly in terms of their generaliza- tion to the Holocaust. In dramatizing the power of situations, social psychologists frequently note that the lay observer is not similarly at- tuned to situational pressures but rather biased toward dispositional explanations—what is often termed the fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias (Gilbert & Malone, 1995)—that is, if you do not agree with the situational view, you are simply committing a serious attributional error.
Generalizations from a social-psychological explanatory perspective are convincing only to the degree that the conceptualization of the do- main to which the research is generalized (e.g., Holocaust) is also plausi- bly construed in compatible terms. Thus, for a social-psychological anal- ysis of the Holocaust to be convincing—that is, to be persuasive to those who might not initially think about the Holocaust in social-psychologi cal terms—it must describe the Holocaust as caused, in key respects, by processes of social influence and external pressure in addition to (or per- haps rather than) personality factors or traits of moral character in indi- vidual actors. In essence, there must be a conceptual fit or match be- tween both elements of the generalization: the research and the target domain of the generalization. If this match is not present, disagreement will automatically ensue.
THE HOLOCAUST: A DEFINITION
In this chapter, the termHolocaust refers to the systematic and planned killing of millions of Jews, largely during the latter parts of the war. The Holocaust is generally considered to have been the result of a highly efficient bureaucracy or social organization (Darley, 1992; Hilberg, 1985). It is virtually uncontested that the policy of genocide was instigated by Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials (Mandel, 2002). It is further assumed here that the murder of Jews on the scale of genocide would not have occurred without this key factor of authorization from the upper ech- elons of the Nazi hierarchy. In describing the motives of the instigators, there is a general consensus that an ideological world view of Jews was of central importance. Bauer (2001) has noted that the Nazi regime extended anti-Semitism to a radically new form, essentially coupling it with a more elaborate ideology of racial purification: “Nazi ideology saw in the Jews a universal devilish element, so the pursuit of Jews was to have been a global, quasi-religious affair, the translation into practice of a murderous ideology” (p. 27). Sabini and Silver (1980) describe the diverse actions, performed by those who were given orders, that comprised the Holocaust:
It is not the angry rioter we must understand but Eichmann, the colorless bu- reaucrat, replicated two million times in those who assembled the trains, dis- patched the supplies, manufactured the poison gas, filed the paper work, sent out the death notices, guarded the prisoners, pointed left and right, super- vised the loading–unloading of the vans, disposed of the ashes, and per- formed the countless other tasks that also constituted the Holocaust. (p. 330)
A central question in this chapter concerns the perpetrators’ primary mo- tives in the killing operations. In terms of the M–H thesis, the issue of mo- tives is of critical importance and a source of great controversy.
GENERALIZING FROM THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENTS TO THE HOLOCAUST (M–H): ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THE M–H THESIS
What can the obedience experiments tell us about the Holocaust? Posi- tions on this issue can generally be divided into those that endorse the gen- eralizations and those opposing them. I begin with an examination of the pro-generalization arguments.
Milgram’s Position
In the opening paragraph of his first publication on the obedience re- search, Milgram (1963) made an explicit association between the experi- ments and the Holocaust:
Obedience, as a determinant of behavior, is of particular relevance to our time. It has been reliably established that from 1933–45 millions of innocent persons were systematically slaughtered on command. Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of appliances. These inhumane poli- cies may have originated in the mind of a single person, but they could only be carried out on a massive scale if a very large number of persons obeyed or- ders. (p. 371)
Given that the Holocaust, itself, has been the focus of intense controversies within a host of academic disciplines—for example, reactions to Gold- hagen’sHitler’s Willing Executioners (1996)—it is understandable that any scientific experiment claiming a meaningful connection to the Holocaust would prompt similar reactions. Certainly this controversy accompanied the obedience studies. My impression is that it was Milgram’s reference to the Holocaust in conjunction with the startling results of his 1963 report that set into motion the unparalleled impact of this study. Baumrind’s ethical criti- cisms (1964) inThe American Psychologist, appearing only a few months af- ter the original obedience publication, also had the unintended effect of in- troducing the obedience studies to a large readership.
People, Milgram stated, are often obsessed with carrying out their jobs; they become dominated by “an administrative, rather than a moral, outlook” (1974, p. 186). He emphasized the role of the mission itself, its noble purpose: “In the experiment, science is served by the act of shocking the victim against his will; in Germany, the destruction of the Jews was represented as a ‘hygienic’ process against ‘jewish vermin’ (Hilberg, 1961)” (p. 187). He addressed the role of silence in the process of destruc- tive obedience: “In Nazi Germany, even among those most closely identi- fied with the ‘final solution,’ it was considered an act of discourtesy to talk about the killings. . . . Subjects in the experiment most frequently experience their objections as embarrassing” (p. 187). Milgram was careful to note that obedience was not, in its essence, a bad or dangerous activity, and that it could have life-enhancing consequences.
Milgram’s Recognition of Distinctions between His Research and the Holocaust
By the appearance of Milgram’s 1974 book, the linkage of the obedience research to the Holocaust had already become extremely well known and cited in diverse texts. Here Milgram explicitly recognized importantdiffer- encesbetween his experimental paradigm and the Nazi Holocaust:
The experiment is presented to our subjects in a way that stresses its posi- tive human values: increase of knowledge about learning and memory pro- cesses. . . . By contrast, the objectives that Nazi Germany pursued were themselves morally reprehensible, and were recognized as such by many Germans. [Milgram does footnote the idea that the regime itself viewed killing Jews as a virtuous activity to cleanse the Reich of subhuman ver- min.]The maintenance of obedience in our subjects is highly dependent upon the face-to-face nature of the social occasion and its attendant surveil- lance. . . . The forms of obedience that occurred in Germany were in far greater degree dependent upon the internalization of authority . . . to resist Nazism was itself an act of heroism, not an inconsequential decision, and death was a possible penalty. Penalties and threats were forever around the corner, and the victims themselves had been thoroughly vilified and por- trayed as being unworthy of life or human kindness. Finally our subjects were told by authority that what they were doing to their victim might be tempo- rarily painful but would cause no permanent damage, while those Germans directly involved in the annihilations knew that they were not only inflicting pain but were destroying human life. So, in the final analysis, what happened in Germany from 1933 to 1945 can only be fully understood as the expres- sion of a unique historical development that will never again be precisely rep- licated. (pp. 176–177)
Thus, Milgram explicitly articulated key distinctions between his studies and the Holocaust—precisely what many critics have accused him (and legions of his advocates) of completely ignoring in his analysis. Nev- ertheless, Milgram’s position on the M–H issue varied. At times, he was a strong proponent of the linkage. He felt that he had identified a fundamen- tal psychological process that was common to both the laboratory and the real-world context:
Yet the essence of obedience, as a psychological process, can be captured by studying the simple situation in which a man is told by a legitimate authority to act against a third individual. This situation confronted both our experi- mental subject and the German subject and evoked in each a set of parallel psychological adjustments. (1974, p. 177)
Milgram’s views could thus be termed complex and diverse by his support- ers or inconsistent and ambiguous by his detractors. Clearly, however, the linkage between Milgram’s studies and the Holocaust was to become the prevailing thesis in the eyes of most social psychologists. Numerous schol- ars, other than social psychologists, have both championed and refuted the M–H thesis (Miller, 1986).
Social Psychology Textbooks: Positions on the M–H Linkage Where can we find discussions of the obedience experiments? I am tempted to answer, “Not quite everywhere, but close to it!” I wish to fo- cus, however, on social psychology textbooks, which have been the pri- mary source for generations of students and social scientists. To assess the current treatment of the M–H thesis, I examined seven recent editions of popular textbooks. The Milgram obedience research continues to receive extraordinary attention. The number of pages allotted to the obedience re- search varied between five and 15, most accounts featuring detailed analy- ses of the many experimental variations in Milgram’s paradigm and pho- tographs from his laboratory. Contemporary authors emphasize a point that Milgram himself regarded as highly underappreciated, namely the ex- traordinary degree to which harmful obedience to authority is responsive to variations in the specific experimental context:
The degree of obedience varied sharply depending upon the exact manner in which the variables of the experiment are arranged in an experimental condi- tion. Yet, in the popular press, these variations are virtually ignored, or as- sumed to be of only minor importance. (1979, pp. 7–8)
In this context, there is a tendency for many people to misunderstand the obedience experiments even after hearing a discussion of the research and watching Milgram’s filmed account of the study (Safer, 1980). Instead of recognizing (correctly) the situationally specific nature of obedience, that is, that (the same) people may be highly obedient in some circum- stances but very defiant in others, many observers conclude, erroneously, that most people are simply obedient to destructive ordersregardless of the situation.For example, one frequently observes the assertion that Milgram’s primary finding is that people are “blindly obedient” to author- ity, a finding virtually completely at odds with Milgram’s actual observa- tions. As I have noted, this tendency to infer personal or internal causes of behavior, even when it occurs under highly constraining circumstances, is viewed by many social psychologists as a major judgmental error or attributional bias (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.198-9)
Does Milgram’s Interpretation Exonerate Those Who Obey Malevolent Authority?
In my view, the answer to this question is a qualified “yes.” Consider the following from Milgram (1974):
It is the old story of “just doing one’s duty” that was heard time and time again in the defense statements of those accused at Nuremberg. But it would be wrong to think of it as a thin alibi concocted for the occasion. Rather, it is a fundamental mode of thinking for a great many people once they are locked into a subordinate position in a structure of authority. The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority (p. 8). . . . For the social psychology of this century reveals a ma- jor lesson: Often, it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act. (p. 205) (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.218)
In his address to the nation on March 17, 2003, prior to ordering the invasion of Iraq, Pres- ident George W. Bush recognized but explicitly disavowed the exonerating implications of obedience to authority: “And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen care- fully to this warning. . . . Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders.’ ” (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.219 footnote)
Furthermore, a gender-similarities approach could result in a backlash against feminist activism aimed at addressing violence against women. For example, reports of women’s violence toward men have been used by op- ponents of the women’s movement to argue against funding shelters for battered women (Gelles & Strauss, 1988). (Note, however, that gender- differences approaches have also resulted in backlash. Researchers taking gender-differences approaches have been a target of critics such as Gilbert [1991] and Roiphe [1993], who argued that feminists have exaggerated the prevalence and seriousness of violence against women.) (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.250)
WHERE SHOULD WE FOCUS OUR RESEARCH ON RAPE PREVENTION: ON VICTIMS, PERPETRATORS, OR SOCIETY?
The Israeli parliament suggested a curfew on women when the rape rate increased. However, Prime Minister Golda Meir suggested a curfew on men because they were the ones doing the raping. —BART AND O’BRIEN (1985, p. 2)
Rape researchers and activists face political and ethical dilemmas when choosing the focus of their efforts. Researchers can choose to focus on vic- tims by exploring attitudes, behaviors, and personality characteristics that increase or decrease the risk of being raped. Alternatively, researchers can focus on the attitudes, behaviors, and personality characteristics of perpe- trators. Finally, researchers can focus on society, identifying stereotypes, social norms, and institutions that support and perpetuate rape. Similarly, activists can focus their rape-prevention efforts on potential victims, on potential perpetrators, or on society. Each of these approaches could help address the problem of rape, but each is also controversial in its political and ethical implications.
Research Focusing on Victims
Rape research focused on victims has provided valuable information about risk factors for victimization. For example, research suggests that women are at greater risk of rape if they frequently get intoxicated (Muehlenhard & Linton, 1987; Testa & Dermen, 1999), engage in casual sex (Testa & Dermen, 1999), or attend fraternity parties (Ullman, 1997), or if they have a history of child sexual abuse (Muehlenhard, Highby, Lee, Bryan, & Dodrill, 1998).
Such findings can help reduce the risk of rape. Identifying risky situa- tions and behaviors can help individuals make informed choices about their behaviors. Identifying background factors or personality characteris- tics that lead to patterns of repeated victimization can suggest appropriate therapeutic interventions to help alter these patterns.
However, different rape prevention strategies implicitly suggest differ- ent views of responsibility for rape (Krulewitz & Kahn, 1983). Rape prevention based on findings about victims’ traits and behaviors may im- plicitly suggest that those who are most at risk for rape—that is, women— should alter and restrict their behavior to avoid being raped. For example, information suggesting that attending parties is risky might be interpreted to mean that women should avoid parties in order to avoid being raped. This approach puts the burden of preventing rape on potential victims rather than potential perpetrators and limits women’s freedom.
Furthermore, focusing rape prevention on victims may be viewed as blaming the victim. Individuals who engage in risky behaviors and are raped might be blamed—by others and by themselves—for contributing to their own victimization. Such victim blaming is often evident in the legal system; when crime victims are seen as behaving in ways that contribute to their own victimization, legal cases against perpetrators are sometimes dis- missed or the charges are reduced (Miethe, 1985).
An alternative to focusing on risk factors for victimization is to focus on resistance strategies women have used to thwart rape attempts. For ex- ample, research shows that active resistance strategies (e.g., physically fighting, screaming, and running away) are more strongly associated with thwarting attempted rape, whereas passive resistance strategies (e.g., pleading, crying, reasoning, or doing nothing) are associated more strongly with experiencing completed rape (Bart & O’Brien, 1985; Ullman 1997; Ullman & Knight, 1993; Zoucha-Jensen & Coyne, 1993). (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.251-2)
ACKNOWLEDGING THAT SEXUAL VIOLENCE DOES NOT HAVE UNIFORMLY SEVERE CONSEQUENCES
The politics of research have caused many studies to have been undertaken in a less than complete way. For example, we know very little about what kinds of circumstances mediate positive and negative outcomes after sexual abuse. There has been little acknowledgement of the fact that although rape, child sexual abuse, and wife battering are terrible experiences to have gone through, many people have “survived” and moved beyond them, feeling as if their victimization is not something that has defined them or continues to affect them. —LAMB(1996, p. 46)
On July 12th the U.S. House of Representatives voted 355–0 to condemn certain conclusions of our article; the Senate quickly followed suit. —RIND, TROMOVITCH, ANDBAUSERMAN(1999, p. 11)
Does sexual violencealways have severe consequences? This question in- volves issues of politics, definitions, and meaning.
An article published inPsychological Bulletin illustrates the politics of this issue. Rind, Tromovitch, and Bauserman (1998) conducted a meta- analysis of 59 studies comparing the adjustment of college students who reported having experienced child sexual abuse (CSA) with those who did not report CSA. Their meta-analysis revealed small differences between the two groups, with CSA accounting for less than 1% of the variance in adjustment (ru= .09, with a 95% confidence interval from .08 to .11). It also revealed that the outcomes reported by men were less negative than those reported by women.
These results could have been interpreted as a message of hope for victims of CSA and their families, contradicting the idea that individuals experiencing CSA are doomed to a life of depression and despair. Instead, through a complicated series of events, the authors—and the American Psychological Association, which publishesPsychological Bulletin—found themselves under attack (Rind et al., 1999).
The attack was initiated by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, a psychoanalytically oriented group that still regards homosexuality as a mental disorder. Conservative talk show host “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger and the conservative lobbying group, The Family Research Council, joined the attack (Rind et al., 1999). Finally, on July 12, 1999, the U.S. Congress voted to condemn the study and “any suggestion that sexual relations between children and adults . . . are anything but abusive [and] destructive” (Rind et al., 1999, p. 11).
The question of whether sexual violence has uniformly severe conse- quences—and, if not, what conditions affect the consequences—deserves careful thought. There are many aspects to consider. Here we discuss two such issues: other experiences that reproduce the dynamics of sexual vio- lence, and individual differences in the meaning of sexual violence. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.257-8)
One extremely harmful form of aggression that appears to result, in part, from the pursuit of self-esteem, is domestic violence. Research has docu- mented the self-perpetuating nature of domestic violence. Many abusive men either have witnessed violence in their family of origin or been the vic- tim of child abuse and experienced parental rejection (Mischel & Shoda, 1995); domestic violence is highly correlated with child abuse (Osofsky, 1999).
Infants who are maltreated either through exposure to abuse or as a direct victim of abuse are more likely to experience insecure relationships with caregivers (Kaufman & Henrich, 2000). As a result of their unmet needs, attachment relationships are compromised, leaving these individuals with a pattern of sensitivity to rejection, insecure attachment styles, and unsatisfying relationships (Feldman & Downey, 1994). Insecure attachment is also implicated in tendencies to inhibit or exaggerate negative emotions and other emotional regulation problems (Kaufman & Henrich, 2000). Unmet attachment needs, anxiety, and rejection fears are thus hy- pothesized to be important factors in the occurrence of domestic violence (Downey, Feldman, & Ayduk, 2000; Mischel & Shoda, 1995), which is used as a coping strategy to feel better following felt rejection (Bushman et al., 2001). Abusive men seek attention from their spouse through an inter- action pattern of low-level conflict that, at times, erupts into violence (Gottman, Jacobson, Rushe, & Shortt, 1995), or they use aggression to maintain the spouse’s closeness and control her behavior. In other words, it seems that abusive men use defensive strategies to cope with an excessive need for reassurance and approval.
Domestic violence is clearly linked to behavioral and emotional dysregulation and the inability to cope with emotion in the context of interpersonal relationships with significant others. At the physiological level, behavioral regulation patterns indicate that most abusive men expe- rience heart rate increases and other signs of emotional arousal during conflict-laden discussions. Abusive men who experience increased physio- logical arousal may also rely more on a self-regulatory style that is impul- sive, based on emotions, fears, and passions (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999) that undermine self-control. A smaller subgroup of abusive men who are the most violent display decreased physiological arousal under conditions of low-level conflict with a significant other. This group of men is also more likely to use violence against others as well as their domestic partner (Gottman et al., 1995). (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.280-1) Evil is a strong word when applied to behaviors, but even more so when applied to persons. Many people are uncomfortable with the notion of identifying or labeling others as evil. For some, the concern is the strong value judgment inherent in the term. For others, the concern is the heavy religious connotations associated with the notion ofevil. Still others worry that the term is damning, implying an intractable trait with no hope for redemption. “What do we gain by using the term evil at all?” asked one of our graduate students. “How does it help us to better understand human behavior to develop an index for evil?”
No question about it,evil is a hot term—emotionally loaded, morally judgmental, full of brimstone and fire. But it is a construct that has been with us—often, centrally so—throughout human history. It is a deeply en- trenched construct that will not go away. Precisely because it is such an emotionally “hot” construct, it may be especially important to develop ob- jective measures, based in rational methods, preferably using “cooler” ter- minology. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.338)
We wish to emphasize that use of the PCL-R to assess psychopathy— or “evil”—does not imply any particular etiology of this construct. The PCL-R is “descriptive”: It measures certain traits and behaviors that are considered to be indicative of psychopathy. It contains no implications as to the root cause of psychopathy, which could be genetics, bad parents, bad childhood, impaired superego, the devil, a “disorder of emotion” caused by brain dysfunction, or just bad luck (Blair, 1995, 2001, 2002; Blair, Colledge, Murray, & Mitchell, 2001; Karpman, 1948; Mealey, 1995a, 1995b; Porter, 1996; Weiler & Widom, 1996). The jury’s still out on the causes of psychopathy, but in order to answer the all-important eti- ology question, we need a reasonably objective, repeatable (e.g., reliable and valid) method for measuring characteristics associated with evil. A de- scriptive scientific index is a prerequisite.
Use of the PCL-R to assess psychopathy is not cheap. It requires an average 6 hours of time from a specially trained clinician, including client interview, records review, scoring, and interpretation. But if one is inter- ested in quantifying “evil” by using strict, empirically-derived criteria in order to minimize subjectivity (Hare, 1991); if one is interested in predict- ing recidivism (Harris, Rice, & Quinsey, 1993; Hart, Kropp, & Hare, 1988; Serin & Amos, 1995); or if one is interested in identifying the root causes of psychopathy in order to effectively intervene, the PCL-R is clearly the instrument of choice. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.340)
Our guess is that an important part of what sets psychopaths apart from nonpsychopaths is that the latter have some capacity for moral emo- tions. They may engage in bad (even evil) deeds, but they are not bad evil people. When they do commit bad acts, they know they have done some- thing bad, and they feel bad about it (even if they do not readily acknowl- edge these feelings to others). The key question to explore regarding this large majority of current and future inmates is, Whatkind of moral emotion(s) do they feel? Are they inclined to feelguilt about their specific mis- deeds and feel a proactive press to repair and make amends to the harmed person? Or are they likely to feelshame as a person? Shame leads to de- nial, defense, and retaliation in response to the mistaken notion that be- cause they did bad (even evil), theyare bad, evil persons….
For most of the past century the predominant model in the field of correc- tions was one of rehabilitation. This perspective changed during the 1970s and 1980s, when the concept of “nothing works” gained ground based on several reviews of the treatment literature (Martinson, 1974; Sechrest, White, & Brown, 1979). Recently, due to the development of more sophis- ticated methods, such as meta-analysis, and tighter control over program implementation, studies have begun to show that rehabilitationcan effec- tively change some offenders (Cecil, Drapkin, MacKenzie, & Hickman, 2000; Cullen & Gendreau, 2000; MacKenzie, 2000; Wilson, Gallagher, & MacKenzie, 2000). There is now a call for more “evidence-based” correc- tions’ models (Farrington, Petrosino, & Welsh, 2001; MacKenzie, 2001). As Cullen and Gendreau (2001) state, we need to now move from “noth- ing works” to “what works.” An even more important question may be “What works withwhom?” In the search for “what works,” criminolo- gists and forensic psychologists now emphasize that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not terribly effective when designing treatment for criminal offenders. What is needed is a better understanding of the key moderators of response to treatment—an understanding ofwhat works forwhom. Based on a comprehensive meta-analysis of four decades of correctional research, Andrews and colleagues (1990) identified three elements—risk, need, and responsivity—as the variables most strongly linked to successful outcome. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.342-4)
One of life’s lessons is that nothing is all good. Even chocolate cake has calories and cholesterol. This lesson makes us leery of terms such asgood andevil, value assessments that present pure opposites. Has anyone ever seriously and sanely admitted to being evil? People admit to misbehavior, to moral shortcomings, even to crimes, but not to evil. Yet with increasing frequency political leaders and pundits are ready to apply this label to oth- ers with phrases such as “the Evil Empire,” “the Great Satan,” “a war be- tween the forces of good and the forces of evil.” These labels are applied not simply to point out the others’ shortcomings but to justify totally dis- missing the others’ point of view and agenda. Talk of good and evil is used to imply the speaker’s own innocence, virtue, and license to punish, even to kill. Not surprisingly, those who bandy charges of evil are often seen as the very incarnation of evil by the targets of their epithets. To avoid fan- ning these flames of moral one-upsmanship that blind more than illumine, we shall speak not of good and evil, but of benefits and liabilities. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.359)
Second, Milner, Halsey, and Fultz (1995) examined the empathic re- sponsiveness of mothers while they watched videotaped segments of an in- fant who was smiling, was looking around, or was crying. The mothers were in two matched groups, those identified as being at high risk of phys- ically abusing a child and those identified as being at low risk. On average, the high-risk mothers showed no reliable change in empathy across the in- fant conditions, whereas low-risk mothers showed a highly significant in- crease in empathy while watching the crying infant. Rather than empathy, high-risk mothers reported feeling more personal distress and hostility while watching the crying infant (see Frodi & Lamb, 1980, for parallel physiological data). These responses of the high-risk mothers are congru- ent with clinical reports that physical child abusers experience less empa- thy and more hostility in response to a crying child. Also related is the finding that clinical interventions aimed at increasing empathy reduce the reported likelihood of abuse, rape, and sexual harassment on the part of men identified as being at high risk for committing sexual assaults (Schewe & O’Donohue, 1993). (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.364)
There is also evidence that empathy-induced altruistic motivation can in- crease cooperation in conflict situations. Paradigmatic of such situations is the one-trial “prisoner’s dilemma.” In this dilemma, it is always in one’s own best interest to defect (compete) regardless of what the other person does. Accordingly, game theory and the theory of rational choice both pre- dict no cooperation in a one-trial prisoner’s dilemma because each theory assumes that only one motive exists: self-interest. The empathy–altruism hypothesis predicts, however, that if one person in such a dilemma is induced to feel empathy for the other, then for this person two motives exist: self-interestand empathy-induced altruism. Although self-interest can be best satisfied by defecting, altruism can be best satisfied by cooperating. So the empathy–altruism hypothesis predicts that empathy should lead to mo- tivational conflict and to increased cooperation. Batson and Moran (1999) reported an experiment in which they found precisely these results.
In a subsequent experiment, Batson and Ahmad (2001) tried an even more stringent test of the ability of empathy to increase cooperation in a conflict situation. Rather than the standard one-trial prisoner’s dilemma, in which participants make their decisions simultaneously without know- ing what the other has done, Batson and Ahmad altered the procedure so that when each of the female research participants made her decision, she knew that the other participant had already defected. Thus, she knew that if she cooperated, the other participant would receive a very high payoff and she would receive nothing; if she defected, the other participant would receive the same moderate payoff as she. Predictions for behavior in this situation from game theory, from the theory of rational choice, and even from theories of justice and social norms are clear and obvious. There is no longer a dilemma at all; the only rational thing to do is to defect. Not only will defection maximize one’s own outcome, but it will also satisfy the norms of fairness and distributive justice. Moreover, there is no longer any need to fear feeling guilty about having taken advantage of the other, should one defect and the other cooperate, as can happen in a simulta- neous decision dilemma. The other has already defected. Not surprisingly, in the very few previous studies that have bothered to look at responses in such a situation, the proportion of participants cooperating has been ex- tremely low (around 5%). (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.365-6)
In a number of studies, investigators have examined the role of parents’ reactions to, and discussion of, emotion in children’s empathy-related responses. When parents reactions to children’s emotions are positive and supportive they may foster an environment wherein children feel free to experience and express emotions….. (Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil" 2005 p.404)
58 a paperback edition with introduction by Gore Vidal (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.295)
On September 17, Blackwell limited the use of provisional ballots, effectively disenfranchising over 100000 citizens, according to Bob Taft, Ohio's Republican governor. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.27)
Contrary to a prior understanding, Blackwell also kept foreign monitors from the Ohio polls. … OSCE… kept out…. Blackwell, who refused them letters of approval, on the basis of a very narrow reading of the Ohio law. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.29)
Throughout Perry County, the number of Bush votes somehow exceeded the number of registered voters, leading to voter turnout rates as high as 124 percent.
Ohio was bizarrely stricken with an epidemic of pro-Bush “machine…. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.31)
1-19 Anita Miller, ed., What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election (Chicago: Chicago Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005), p. 2. (In the interests of full disclosure, I note here that Academy Chicago is owned (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.296-7)
In fact, as of this writing, Blackwell has not filed a compliance report with the Government Services Administration, which had given him $41 million to enforce the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in Ohio. In other words, the secretary of state has not accounted for the funding, which he clearly spent not for the good of the electorate but on wholly partisan devices, tactics, litigators. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.37)
Sometime on the night of Friday, July 2, or in the wee hours of that Saturday, persons unknown somehow stole into the offices of Burges and Burges, an Akron consulting firm employed by the Ohio Democratic Party. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.44-5)
Peter King (R-NY), seemingly a tad inebriated at some function ... "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting." Despite all that and much more, the press seemed not to bat a single eye at the anomalous victory (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.51)
Such irony is based on Tom Delay’s perception that “Almighty God” is his team captain, coach, co-pilot, comrade, co-conspirator-or, as they say in Texas, his “asshole buddy”….
Like Clarence Thomas’s “defense,” DeLay’s long jihad has been an exercise in projectivity, his every bilious shot (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.70-1)
DeLay has called the EPA “the Gestapo of government,” the International Criminal Court “Kofi Annan's kangaroo court,” the House Democrats intoxicated by “the arrogance of power.”1 But who, really, are those swaggering, jackbooted martinets goose-steppiong through the congressman’s vituperation? (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.82)
On March 21, 2005, for instance, three local residents were forcibly removed from a museum in Denver, where Bush had come to give a speech on Social Security…. They were thrown out because there was an antiwar bumper sticker (“No More Blood for Oil”) on the car that they had parked outside (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.85-7)
* programming codes are deemed proprietary information, that the machines are highly insecure and, most important, that they leave no paper trail. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.104)
On July 16, Sean Hannity reported that Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) had “had a virtual meltdown” in the House, “while debating a bill that would allow international monitoring of the presidential election in November.” They showed a clip of Brown's remarks:
I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure that it doesn’t happen again…
Her remarks were stricken from the record on a vote of 219 to 187, with 28 abstaining… (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.107)
(Moreover, while OSCE did, in its executive report, approve the contest overall, its individual members were less sanguine. “Monitoring elections in Serbia a few months ago was much simpler,” noted Konrad Olszewski, an OSCE observer stationed in Miami, in a post-election interview with the International Herald Tribune.) (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.123)
It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever loss. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable longstanding American concepts of "fair play” (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.128-9)
Quote from Doolittle Report on at least ten additional books
107. Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, also know as the Doolittle Report, 9/30/54, Appendix A. 108. Stephen Ambrose, Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment (Jackson, Mississippi, 1999) (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.314)
John Pappageorge (R-MI) as speaking very frankly of his party’s prospects in his state” “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election.” (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.134)
In Clark County, Nevada, on October 10, Dan Burddish, former executive director of the state Republican Part, tried to have 17,000 voters, mostly Democrats, disqualified from voting. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.135-45)
And so it was a bit of a surprise when Bush apparently outdid all expectations by winning 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, while Kerry’s margin was a mere 9 points. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.146-8)
There was a different kind of pro-Bush computer glitch in Craven County, another small Republican domain just north of Carteret… There Bush go 11,283 more than entire number of votes cast for president. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.183)
(Other Busheviks have posed as Democrats-Theresa LePore, the infamous designer of the Palm Beach County “butterfly ballot,” among them (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.)
In late July, flyers were sent out to party members in Miami, urging them to vote by absentee ballots-because the touch-screen machines would leave no paper trail, and therefore could not “verify your vote.” (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.212-3)
At one point journalist Irene Dische, covering the convention for the German magazine Die Zeit, was hustled into temporary custody when, chancing onto the floor before the president’s appearance, she refused to take and wave a tiny U.S. flag-a story that, in the United States, ran only in Salon.
*Michael Morre’s film and Moore himself, were vigerously censored in October. On October 1, it was reported that TV networks had refused to air ads for the movie-which, on Oct. 16, was itself pulled from Time-Warner’s In Demand pay-per-view service “for legal reasons.” (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.262-3-5)
“Journalists from England, Sweden, Holland and other friendly countries are being detained at U.S. airports, strip-searched and deported,” Salon reported on June 16. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.267-8)
"Reporters in Chains" By Robert Schlesinger Boston Globe June 15, 2004 www.american-pictures.com
When, three days before Election Day, a Pennsylvania school board voted to include “intelligence design” in the curriculum, the news came forth in press releases from the Center for Inquiry (CFI) and the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). As with such local symptoms, so the press ignored the far more dangerous national drive towards theocracy. When, on September 23, the House passed legislation to prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on the question as to whether “under God” should be deleted from the Pledge of Allegiance, the motion was for once, reported widely. The purpose of that legislation, however, was to pave the way for passage of the Constitution Restoration Act, which would establish God, not the Constitution, as the sovereign basis of all law in the United States-a step that would enable any judge to base his rulings on the tribal strictures in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. When this book was introduced into both houses of Congress, on February 11, 2004, it was not covered anywhere; and in the months to come, the only journalists to right about it were Katherine Yurica on her excellent Web site (yuricareport.com) and Chris Floyd in the Moscow Times (in Russia).
When, in October, the White House announced its approval of a book claiming that the Grand Canyon was formed by Noah’s flood-a book therefore available at bookstores in our national parks-the news was broken by a press release from Public Employees for environmental Responsibility (PEER). When the white House distributed, free to churches, 300,000 DVDs of a film entitled “GWB Faith in the white House”-in which Bush appears at one point in a split-screen tableau with Jesus-that stroke of propaganda was reported by Frank Rich in his weekend column in the Sunday New York Times. When, at the 2004 Republican convention in New York, there were crosses clearly visible in the design of both the podium and a small table next to it, that blasphemous display was either laughed off by the press (the RNC denied that they were crosses), or reported as a grievance by non-Christians, as in the Reuters story on September 1,……. (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.275-6)
Trish Bowcock is a retired attorney…. Debi Smith is a homemaker
Silenced By The President By Trish Bowcock
A few weeks before my father died, he woke me in the wee hours of the morning. He needed to talk. He was worried about Attorney General John Ashcroft and the destruction of American civil liberties. I comforted my father, believing he was delusional from medications. I was wrong.
I write this from my home in Jacksonville Oregon (population 2,226). President George W. Bush came here this week. The purpose of his visit was political. Southern Oregon has been deemed a "battle ground" area in the presidential race. John Kerry has made incredible inroads in this traditionally Republican stronghold. President Bush's campaign stop was an attempt to staunch the slide.
Jacksonville is an old gold mining town. Our main street is only five blocks long, lined with restored storefronts. The sidewalks are narrow. We are a peaceful community. The prospect of an overnight presidential visit was exciting, even to me, a lifelong Democrat. My excitement turned to horror as I watched events unfold during President Bush's visit.
In the mid 1800s, when Indians invaded Jacksonville, citizens clambered upon the roof of the old library. It was the one building that would not catch fire when flaming arrows were shot. This week it was a different scene. Police armed with high powered rifles perched upon our rooftops as the presidential motorcade approached. Helicopters flew low, overhead. A cadre of motorcycle police zoomed into town. Black SUVs followed, sandwiching several black limousines carrying the president, his wife and their entourage as they sped to the local inn where they would eat and sleep.
The main street was lined with people gathered to witness the event. Many supported the president. Many did not. Some came because they were simply curious. There were men, women, young and old. The mood was somewhat festive. Supporters of John Kerry sported signs, as did supporters of George Bush. Individuals, exercising their rights of free speech began chanting. On one side of the street, shouts of "four more years" echoed in the night air. On the other side of the street, chants of "three more weeks" responded. The chants were loud and apparently could be heard by President Bush. An order was issued that the anti-Bush rhetoric be quieted. The local SWAT team leapt to action.
It happened fast. Clad in full riot gear, at least 50 officers moved in. Shouting indecipherable commands from a bullhorn, they formed a chain and bore down upon the people, only working to clear the side of the street appearing to be occupied by Kerry supporters. People tried to get out of their way. It was very crowded. There was nowhere to move. People were being crushed. They started flowing into the streets. Pleas to the officers, asking, "where to go" fell upon deaf ears. Instead, riot police fired pellets of cayenne pepper spray into the crowd. An old man fell and couldn,t get up. When a young man stopped to help, he was shot in the back with hard pepper spray balls. Children were hit with pepper spray. Deemed "Protesters" people were shoved and herded down the street by the menacing line of armed riot police, until out of the President's ear-shot.
There the "Protesters" were held at bay. Anyone vocalizing anti-Bush or pro-Kerry sentiments were prohibited from venturing forward. Loud anti-Bush chants were responded to by the commanding officer stating: "FORWARD," to which the entire line of armed police would move, lock-step, toward the "Protesters," forcing backward movement. Police officers circulated filming the crowd of "Protesters." Some were people like me, quiet middle-aged women. Some sported anti-Bush signs, peace signs, or Kerry signs. A small group of youth, clad in black with kerchiefs wrapping their heads chanted slogans. A young woman in her underwear, sporting a peace sign sang a lyrical Kumbaya. Mixed among the "Protesters" were supporters of the President. One 19 year- old man shouted obscenities at anyone expressing dissatisfaction with the president, encouraging the police to "tazar" the "Stinking Protesters." Neither the "Protestors," nor the police harassed this vocal young man. Across the street, individuals shouting support for the president were allowed to continue. Officers monitored this group but allowed them to shout words of support or hurl derisions toward Kerry supporters, undisturbed. Honking cars filled with Bush supporters were left alone. A honking car full of Kerry supporters was stopped by police on its way out of town.
The standoff with "Protesters" continued until the President finished his dinner and was secured in his hotel cottage for the night. Only then were the riot police ordered to "mount-up," leaping upon the sideboard of a huge SUV, pulling out of town, and allowing "free speech" to resume.
In small town American I witnessed true repression and intimidation by law enforcement. I saw small children suffering from the effects of being fired upon by pepper bullets. I felt legitimate fear of expressing my political opinions: a brand new feeling. Newspaper accounts state the chaos started when a violent "Protester" shoved a police officer. No one I talked to witnessed this account.
It is reputed that President Bush and his staff will not allow any opposition activity to occur within his ear or eye sight. I can confirm, that in tiny Jacksonville, Oregon, this was true. Physically violent means were taken to protect the president from verbal insults. Freedom of speech was stolen.
My father was not paranoid as he lay dying. He was expressing great insight into the dangers of our current presidential administration and its willingness to repress personal freedoms. If I could talk to my father today, I would say, "I am sorry Daddy for doubting you." And, no matter what, I will continue to exercise my individual right to freely express my opinions. Americans cannot take four more years.
“Silenced By The President” By Trish Bowcock
“To Be Silenced, Or Not to Be: That is the Question” by Debi Smith
Last week, both vice presidential nominee John Edwards and President George W. Bush visited Southern Oregon. Considering the area is relatively rural, sparsely populated, and Oregon is a state that usually gets little attention in a presidential election, it was an unprecedented and rather exciting occasion. I decided to try and get tickets to both events for my kids and myself.
Getting tickets from the Jackson County Democratic Party Headquarters for the Edwards event was pleasant and easy. They didn’t ask me to declare a party, didn’t ask who I was voting for, didn’t ask me to provide personal information or a DNA sample.
Not so at the Jackson County GOP headquarters. First they wanted to know my name, address, phone number, email, and my driver’s license number. "Do they really have the time, funds, and need to run all this data through some security check? What are they afraid of?" I asked myself. But hey, if it’ll get me some tickets, I’ll grudgingly fill out the application.
It didn’t get me the tickets. "Are you a Bush supporter?" I was asked. I explained that I was a registered Independent and not necessarily a Bush supporter. "Are you going to vote for Bush?" I was asked. "No," I honestly, and out of curiosity to see what would happen, replied. I was summarily told that if I wasn’t planning on voting for Bush, I wasn’t welcome. "John" came over to make sure I got the message. I told him I’d taken my kids to similar events (we saw Clinton and Gore in 1996) and didn’t he think it was good to get my kids involved in the democratic process early? To take them to events such as these and let them make up their own minds? I guess not. He just kept repeating, in a rather intimidating way, that if I wasn’t a supporter, I wasn’t welcome. (Funny how he wasn’t worried about how this sort of attitude might affect the future of the Republican Party. Hmm.)
I initially found the whole thing absurdly funny even though I was shaking (intimidation will do that to you) as I walked out of GOP headquarters. As the day wore on and the more I reflected on the starkly different experiences I’d had at both headquarters, the more frustrated and indignant I became. What is happening in this country that my children and I are kept out of a rally for the man who is currently our president? I had no intention whatsoever of causing any disturbances or protesting the event in any way. We’re a homeschooling family that uses a variety of life experiences and opportunities as our classroom. This was simply just another unique event for my children and I to attend and learn from.
Incidentally, I observed nary a protest during the entire Edwards rally the following day, despite the fact that there had been no effort to keep anyone out based on their viewpoints or political affiliations. Why couldn’t the Bush Campaign and the GOP behave in the same congenial and democratic fashion I wondered, and again asked myself, "What are they afraid of?" I even tried to come up with a new acronym for the GOP. Grand Old Paranoia came to mind.
Feeling more and more outraged by the sanitation of the Bush event, I decided to attend the unWelcome Bush rally to be held in Jacksonville. Jacksonville is a tiny little dot on the map (pop. 2245). It’s a well-preserved gold mining town that now houses museums, tiny boutiques, eateries, and small inns. Bush would be spending the night here following his presumptuous and premature "Victory Rally" being held a few miles away in Central Point. A politically active friend of mine had organized the peaceful demonstration and had spoken several times with local authorities, informing them of the event, and asking all the pertinent questions. She was told that as long as people remained on the sidewalks, there should be no problem and that they were there to protect the president as well as our right to peaceably assemble.
Our group started out small, 70 or so people carrying signs, water bottles, video cameras, and children. As the evening wore on more people began gathering-Bush supporters, and protesters alike. There were several blockades, manned by security, at different intersections to the west of where we were. People, to my knowledge, were respecting the requests not to move beyond the blockades as well as continuing to respect the request to keep to the sidewalks. When a helicopter started making low passes overhead, a portion of the motorcycle motorcade came by, and a throng of riot cops made their appearance guarding the west end of the block, we assumed the President was on his way. Everything continued to remain fairly calm, even with the mixture of chanting from both sides.
Suddenly, an officer within the line of riot cops ordered the crowd to move back two blocks to 5th Street. They allowed about four seconds for this to sink in and then started pushing us back by moving forward in a line. The sidewalks could not contain the sudden movement of people, and subsequently the streets became crowded and chaotic. If their desire for us to move had been communicated earlier, or if that portion of the street had been blocked off to begin with, people probably would have, in general, respected it, even though we were in our legal right to be in the vicinity. But instead, the authorities in charge chose to create confusion and conflict instead of wisely diffusing it ahead of time. And the result was an unnecessary melee: sudden gunfire; people running, falling, being shot with pepper bullets; children upset by the gunfire, and coughing from the pepper; women who were carrying their children being grabbed and pushed violently; people daring to ask questions being forcibly pushed and intimidated. It must be reiterated, this event was organized to be peaceful, non-violent, and family friendly. And, even though there was a mixed demographic on the street, the event remained non-violent and relatively peaceful…except for the actions of a few of the less than restrained riot cops. Riot cops, who were, we have to remind ourselves, taking orders from a higher command.
I fully expected to see the presence of the secret service, the snipers, and a multitude of officers at this event. What I didn’t expect to see was a completely unnecessary use of extreme force in a situation that clearly didn’t warrant it. If there was, and to my knowledge there wasn’t, anyone doing something illegal or outside their constitutional rights, then why couldn’t a couple of these well-trained officers peacefully remove the offenders? I was at the front of the crowd when the mayhem broke out and I saw nothing that would warrant shooting pepper bullets, especially into a crowd so full of young children. After returning home from this disturbing event, I turned on the news. The only thing that aired on my local NBC affiliate regarding the event was an interview with a Bush supporter in the darkened street. I did learn later that a couple other outlets offered a slightly more balanced, though still sanitized, viewpoint. Several independent video clips documenting the overuse of force have also been sent to various media outlets over the past few days, and to my knowledge, none have been aired. More sanitation. Could this be happening all over the country? How many valid stories are going unreported by the major media? Or are so sanitized as to be a faint glimmer of the actual truth? (Mark Crispin Miller “Fooled Again” 2005 p.281-8)
“To Be Silenced, Or Not to Be: That is the Question” by Debi Smith at common Dreams
During the early 1970s, the women of urban Afghanistan enjoyed a level of personal freedom and autonomy that was relatively liberal for a conservative Muslim society. According to the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, a significant percentage of the women in Kabul worked for a living--tens of thousands of them serving in medicine, law, journalism, engineering, and other professions. In the country's rural areas, of course, the opportunities for female education and employment were far more limited; but in Kabul itself, unveiled females could be seen inside factories and offices, on television newscasts, and walking the streets wearing Eastern European-style dresses and high heels. Within the first week of taking Kabul, the Taliban stripped away these privileges and summarily rendered the female population silent and invisible.
In every major city and town across the country, women were now forbidden to go outside their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative and clad in an ink-blue burka. The few who dared venture out in public were not allowed to purchase goods from male shopkeepers, shake hands with or talk to men, or wear shoes whose heels made a clicking sound. Any woman who exposed her ankles was subject to whipping, and those who painted their nails could have the tips of their fingers cut off. Young girls were banned from washing clothing in rivers or other public places, participating in sports, or appearing on the balconies of their homes. Any street or town that bore the name of a female had to be changed. (Greg Mortenson “Stones into Schools”2009 p.73)
When we met in his office, the minister informed me that less than a quarter of the aid money that President George W. Bush had promised to his country had actual y been delivered. Of those funds, Dr. Ghani explained, $680 million had been "redirected" to build runways and bulk up supply depots in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar for the upcoming invasion of Iraq. Afghanistan was now receiving less than a third of the per-capita assistance that had been plowed into reconstruction efforts in Bosnia, East Timor, or Rwanda--and of that, less than half was going to long-term development projects such as education. Moreover, to administer this inadequate stream of cash, a massively expensive bureaucracy had sprung up.
As bad as this sounded, I learned later that the situation was even more bleak. A significant amount of the development money offered by the United States was, it turned out, simply recirculating into the hands of American contractors, some of whom were paying Afghan construction workers five or ten dollars a day to construct schools and clinics whose price tags could exceed a quarter million dollars per building. Equal y disturbing, almost none of the tiny amount of money that was actual y reaching Afghan citizens in Kabul was flowing beyond the capital and into the rural areas, where the devastation was even greater and the need for assistance even more desperate. Twenty miles beyond Kabul's suburbs, most of the country was largely on its own--a state of affairs that seemed to be lost on Dr. Ghani, overwhelmed as he was by the devastation at his feet. (Greg Mortenson “Stones into Schools”2009 p.81)
The upheaval of Partition produced one of the largest migrations of refugees in modern history (twenty-five mil ion people) and the slaughter of nearly one mil ion civilians, as Hindus and Sikhs fled south into India while Muslims raced in the opposite direction toward Pakistan. Another casualty was India's northernmost principality, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which had a Muslim-majority population ruled by a Hindu maharaja named Hari Singh, whose great-grandfather had purchased Kashmir from the British in 1846 for 7.5 mil ion rupees, or about 5 rupees per citizen--the cost of a cup of tea at an Indian roadside cafe. (Greg Mortenson “Stones into Schools”2009 p.162-3)
Unfortunately, some of the smartest and most effective assistance was provided by groups of Islamic militants. Within seventy-two hours of the earthquake, Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a dramatic videotaped message urging Muslims around world to help the victims of this disaster. "I cal on al Muslims in general, and I cal on al Islamic humanitarian associations in particular, to move to Pakistan to provide help to their Pakistani brothers, and that they do it quickly," he declared. "Al of us know the vicious American war on Muslim humanitarian work." In response, resourceful and energetic young jihadis were often the first to show up during the earthquake's aftermath, in many cases appearing days or even weeks before the Pakistani army or the international aid organizations arrived. According to Ahmed Rashid, author of Descent Into Chaos and the foremost independent journalist reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan, seventeen extremist groups that were either on the United Nations' list of terrorist organizations or banned by the Pakistani government were reactivated during this time as Islamic NGOs. They did an impressive job of putting together sophisticated relief operations, delivering supplies and medical care to victims with speed and efficiency when no one else could.
One of the first such groups on the scene was Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political arm of the banned extremist militia Lashkar-e-Taiba, the pro-Taliban, Pakistan-based organization that would carry out the horrific terrorist attacks in Bombay in November 2008 that resulted in the deaths of 173 civilians. Another elaborate operation was run by the extremely conservative group Jamaat-e-Islami. After setting up base camps in several ravaged towns, Jamaat's Al-Khidmat Foundation began dispatching its operatives to remote areas where motorized vehicles could not penetrate. Not far from the Jamaate-Islami operation in Muzaffarabad was another camp sponsored by the Al Rashid Trust, which was created by Dr. Amir Aziz, a British-trained orthopedic surgeon who has admitted to treating Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
Amid the rush to provide tents, food, and medical supplies, few of the western NGOs seemed to be giving much thought to schools. Based on past experience, however, the militant groups who were busy setting up their aid networks ful y understood the power of education under such circumstances. Back in the winter of 1989, when the Soviets had pul ed out of Afghanistan and the country was struggling to get back on its feet after ten years of war, the Saudi government had sponsored thousands of conservative madrassas, religious institutions open only to boys and designed to instil a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law. During the 1990s, about eighty thousand boys who had received hard-line religious instruction in these madrassas were fed directly into the ranks of the Taliban. Now, it seemed a similar dynamic was beginning to unfold in Azad Kashmir. Within a year, a number of these camps would become fertile recruiting grounds for Islamic militants looking for new followers. ,p. Inside one refugee camp that I saw in Muzaffarabad, the mess tent where families came to receive their daily rations had been set up directly adjacent to an enormous tent that functioned as a madrassa where young boys were being tutored on the nuances of jihad. Many of the refugee parents were not happy about the fact that their children were attending these extremist schools, but because the jihadis were providing them with food, shelter, and medicine, they were reluctant to object.
Combining aid with ideology was a highly effective strategy--and this same formula would repeat itself four years later when two mil ion Pakistani civilians were displaced by the Pakistani army's offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Val ey. (By the summer of 2009, hard-line Islamist charities had established precisely the same kind of foothold and were pushing their anti-western agenda among the residents of the Swat refugee camps.)
I have always been dismayed by the West's failure--or unwil ingness--to recognize that establishing secular schools that offer children a balanced and nonextremist form of education is probably the cheapest and most effective way of combating this kind of indoctrination. Despite the fact that the American government has never grasped its importance, this calculus has been at the heart of what we do from the very beginning--and with Sarfraz in the lead, we continued to pursue this agenda in Azad Kashmir during the winter of 2005.
By January, Sarfraz had managed to commandeer several UNICEF tents from army depots in Balakot and Muzaffarabad. After transporting these tents to the most distant vil ages in the Neelum Val ey, such as Nouseri, Pakrat, and Behdi, Sarfraz set about identifying the leaders--the most energetic people, who were the survivors in the broad sense of the word. With their help, he then located teachers, arranged for their salaries, and then started rounding up the parents and kids in order to get the schools going.
Within a couple of months, Sarfraz had set up more than a dozen of these little operations in places that lay beyond the reach of the most outstretched NGO or government authority. Needless to say, in a region where every school in every community had been completely destroyed, this was barely a drop in the bucket. But everyone who works with the Central Asia Institute believes in the value and the power of this little drop. On the grand scale of things, Sarfraz's tent schools were miniscule; but among the people at the end of the road, these projects offered a catalyst for hope.
Amid the devastation of Kashmir that autumn, this is what passed for sharing three cups of tea. (Greg Mortenson “Stones into Schools”2009 p.178-81)
In 2001, my initial support for the U.S. decision to go to war in Afghanistan quickly faded after I began hearing about the high level of civilian casualties inflicted by the American bombing campaign-and estimated 2,700 to 3,400 deaths between October 7 and December 10 according to Marc Herold, an economist at the University of New Hampshire. What disturbed me was not only the level of suffering inflicted by the Department of Defense on the Afghan population but also the manner in which these tragedies were described. In his daily press briefings, Donald Rumsfeld triumphantly cataloged the losses inflicted on Taliban and Al Qaeda forces by American bombs and cruise missiles that were dropped into heavily populated areas. But only when pressured by reporters- and even then, resentful y and as an afterthought--did he bother to mention the "collateral damage."
In my view, Rumsfeld's rhetoric and his demeanor conveyed the impression that America's army of laptop warriors was largely indifferent to the pain and misery that were being inflicted on innocent women and children. This impression was reinforced by the Bush administration's complete disinterest in acknowledging, much less compensating, those civilian victims. In the end, the signal that this wound up sending--both to me and to the Central Asia Institute's staff and friends in Afghanistan--was that the United States placed little or no value on the lives of noncombatants in one of the poorest and most desperate countries on earth. (Greg Mortenson “Stones into Schools”2009 p.249-51)
Prior to these meetings, my judgment of the American military’s conduct in Afghanistan was harsh and rather uncompromising- and even after these encounters, I still have my objections. (Greg Mortenson “Stones into Schools”2009 p.257)
So eager were many Mormon faithful to accumulate wealth (and blessings), and so trusting of Church leaders, that they would buy the Brooklyn Bridge-twice. Or better yet, “gold certificates” worth, according to the nice young Mormon man who sold them, a hundred or even a thousand times the up-front investment. When he was finally caught, the nice young man had unloaded $612 billion worth of bogus certificates-an amount equal to half the national debt. “What you have out here,” says a local newspaper reporter, “is a bunch of people who are basically educated from birth to unquestioningly believe what they’re told, and they do right up through adulthood. The conditions for fraud are perfect.” (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.25-8
Sometime in 1839, while conversing with St. Peter-he held frequent dialogs with biblical figures-Smith happened to mention the problems he was having with the dissident members of the Church. According to Smith’s own telling,…the punishment for dissent in his Church would be death. (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.39-41)
One like Ervil Lebron When Ron Lafferty was arrested, the police found a written revelation in the pocket of his shirt: (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.42-5)
By all accounts, Mark William Hoffman was the ideal Mormon child….
Obedient
“Your faith’s not strong enough,” he insisted. “If you have a testimony, your religion doesn’t need proof.” When Mark pressed, his father flew into a rage. (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.60-5)
Gradually as the Church was transformed from a radical sect into an ultraconservative social institution, the crackdown on polygamy grew teeth. By 1904, a man could be excommunicated for taking a second wife. References to polygamy were expunged from official Church histories,… (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.65)
And what a history it was. Beginning with the story of the Israelites sailing to America in 600 B.C. on a boat designed by God, it was a curious history indeed. (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.75-80)
Ever damaging revelations about the Church’s bitter campaign against the ERA (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.90)
Somewhere in all the excitement someone suggested that perhaps they aught to authenticate. (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.92)
Dawn Tracy believed that too-until Tuesday, May, 19, 1983.
…. intellectuals called to their Bishops daily (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.116-21)
But there were, in fact, two Steve Christensens, and men like Gordon Hinckley saw only one of them. (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.136)
Joseph Smith was the butt of many jokes during his lifetime, but none more famous than the joke played on him by three men from the town of Kinderhook, Illinois. (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.218)
“We’re not talking to them. We’ve got to call your father. I want to call your father.” Yengich had known Hoffman only since eleven that morning, when Bill Hoffman first contacted him. But he had already seen enough to know that Mark Hoffman obeyed his father.… At the mention of his father Hoffman’s blood pressure/heart rate alarm went off. (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.271-2)
His tactics gave bleeding heart-liberals heart failure, but the people loved him.....
Like a twister, throwing everything they could find into a big green garbage bag. No grids, no diagrams, no tweezers, no magnifying glasses. As a result, the sheriff’s men had missed several key pieces of evidence, including major bomb part at the Sheets house. (The ATF’s Jerry Taylor found them on a follow-up search days later.) (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.291-3)
But they could trust the heavily Mormon FBI, which worked hand-in-glove with Brent Ward.....
At last thought Farnsworth, they’re going to let us see what they’ve got. But it turned out that by “sharing information,” Ward meant that the local agents should share their information with the federal agents, not the other way around.
Police weren’t the only ones who began to wonder whom exactly Brent Ward was collecting this information for. Confidential FBI files were known to have wound up on certain desks in the Church Office Building. Was Ward running a damage-control operation for the Church, sending FBI men out ahead of local police to find out just what the church exposure was? (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.294-9)
There was one last obstacle to the deal, an obstacle that even Bob Stott’s inexplicable enthusiasm couldn’t overcome.
That obstacle was Bill Hoffman.
At the hospital only a day after the third bomb exploded and the police announced that Mark was their primary suspect, Bill Hoffman had gone to his son’s bedside and said very gravely, “If you did it you should turn yourself in and ask for the death penalty, because that’s the only way your soul can be saved.” Bill Hoffman believed in Blood Atonement.
But Mark had assured him: “I didn’t do it.”
Since then, Bill Hoffman had gone on television to proclaim his son’s innocence. He had mortgaged his house to pay for his defense. And finally, he had announced that God himself had reassured him that his son was blameless. No one who knew Bill Hoffman was surprised. When he was right he was a rock.
Lu Hoffman, on the other hand, apparently had doubts, even in the beginning….
But Bill Hoffman continued to believe. Like Dorie, he protected his certainty by refusing to read newspaper accounts of the case or watch reports on television….
Brent Metclalfe was visiting Mark one day when Hoffman Senior walked into the living room and found several books on evolution that Mark had bought for his kids. He looked at them and said in a grave voice, “These kinds of books should not be lying around the house. This isn’t the view presented at the Temple.” Mark Hoffman was thirty-two years old and he still hadn’t found the courage to tell his father about his views on evolution.
How could he ever tell him he was guilty of murder? .....
Mark went white. “Get that guy out of here.” (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.421-4)
Judge Rigtrup would sentence Mark immediately after the plea was entered and he would be led directly from the court room to prison. Mark Hoffman wanted it that way (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.428)
Marion G. Romney was “released” as first counselor on November 5, 1985, making room for Gordon B. Hinkley (Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith “The Mormon Murders” 1988 p.442)
Several years later Isaac referred to his son-in-law as a “careless young man not very well educated, and very saucy and insolent to his father.” There is no account of Joseph’s father ever registering that complaint against his son (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.17)
Once, as he translated, the narrative mentioned the walls of Jerusalem. Joseph stopped. "Emma," he asked, "did Jerusalem have walls surrounding it?" Emma told him it did. "O, I thought I was deceived,"5 was his reply.
….. Emma continued, “It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.” (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.26)
Another cried “Simonds, Simonds where’s the tar bucket?”
"I don't know where 'tis, Eli's left it," came the answer.
They sent someone to fetch the crude bucket made from a hollowed-out log with a rope handle.
"Let's tar up his mouth.” (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.42)
Journal of discourses v.13 p.105)
Anti-Mormon sentiment exploded. Before the month was over a manifesto circulated through the countryside. ... Phelps watched several men hoist his press through a second-story window and toss trays of type after it. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.49)
Emma spoke of the boy with warmth and asked Joseph to write "some words of ... he shouted.30
The pleasant aspects of Emma's life, however, were being overshadowed by rumors that Joseph had an unconventional view of marriage. His and Emma's abrupt departure from Harmony in 1830 may have been because her cousin, Hiel Lewis, accused Joseph of improper conduct with women. Fifty years later he repeated thirdhand stories that Joseph attempted "to seduce E.W. (Eliza Winters)," and that Joseph and Martin Harris had said "adultery was no crime."….
….. Nancy Marinda….. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.64-6)
Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” cited at UTLM
The sealing of Marinda [Nancy Johnson] Hyde in April 1842 [to Joseph] consummated a relationship that had begun ten years earlier but had stalled the previous December. Between Smith's polyandrous marriages to the Huntington sisters in late autumn 1841, he courted Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde, wife of the absent missionary Apostle Orson Hyde. George D. Smith (no relation to Joseph Smith) “Nauvoo Polygamy” cited at UTLM
FN# 39 Donna Hill “Joseph Smith: The first Mormon” p. 146 1977 (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.318)
Behind her in Kirtland, Hepsibah Richards woke at one o'clock in the morning to see the eerie light of burning buildings flickering on the walls. The printing office (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.68)
FN# 53 Hepsibah Richards to Willard Richards 1/19/1838 HC 190-9 (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.319)
Its decision, handed to Brigadier General Alexander W. Doniphan, read:
Sir: You will take Joseph Smith and the other prisoners into the public square of Far West and shoot them at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning….
…. Doniphan refused … (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.74)
Another case involved Alexander and his older brother, Joseph. In the middle of a quarrel between the two the younger child bit the older. When Emma learned of the incident she calmly examined the teeth marks on Joseph's arm, rolled up Alexander's sleeve, and bit him in same place. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.90)
She reasoned with her son, forbid that particular game, and repeatedly watched reason fail. Finally, willow in hand, Emma marched Young Joseph to a secluded spot and applied reason in a lower place. She had to take him to the same place two more nights, then he played with Frederick and remained in her sight. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.93)
"No, it was an angel of God," Joseph reassured her. ... Mary Elizabeth said Joseph told her that the last time the angel had come with a drawn sword and threatened his life. "Joseph said I was his before I came here and all the Devil (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.101)
Other children came from the Whitney, Partridge, Knight, and Marks families. ... 9
The students occasionally found an obstacle on the steps of their school in the form of Joseph's clerk, Willard Richards. A man of medium height, Richards weighed nearly three hundred pounds and his size intimidated the schoolchildren. Ordinarily he had a pleasant manner, but the boisterous youngsters who scrambled up and down the stairs disturbed his work. According to young Joseph, Richards would sometimes plant his stocky body firmly on the steps and growl at the children for being rude and noisy. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.132)
“Brother Joseph ….. I want to do just as you tell me and I will try. But if I ever Should know that you do this to Dishonor & debauch my Sister I will kill you as Shure as the Lord lives." Johnson explained why he granted Joseph's request. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.145-6)
Contrary to the tone of the 1830 Elect revelation, the new revelation was threatening and strident. First, Emma was commanded to ignore an unexplained previous instruction that seemed to have been given as a test. …. “If any man have a wife ….then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God.” (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.153-4)
Still smarting from finding Eliza’s letters to Joseph the previous day, Emma went for a short carriage ride with her husband on August 22. She called on the Lucian Woodworth family while Joseph attended to some business at the temple…… Joseph told Clayton she continued “her abuse” after they arrived home, and said he finally had to employ “harsher measures” to stop her. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.159)
When Hyrum arrived with Maria Jane she heard him ask, "Well Sister Emma, what ... 12
When William Law was asked if Emma talked to him about Joseph's ... He reported that Emma once said, "The revelation says I must submit or be destroyed. ... When Law saw her submit, he then concluded, "Emma was a full accomplice of Joseph’s crimes.” (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.161)
Although Emma's attempt to accept plural marriage brought temporary peace to the Smith household, neither Emma's resolve nor the peace lasted long. Emily Partridge commented that Joseph “would walk the floor back and forth, with his hands clasped behind him (a way he had of placing his hands when his mind was deeply troubled), his countenance showing that he was weighed down with some terrible burden.” The strain in his private life, coupled with threats from marauders and dissension within the church and community, began to affect Joseph's health. On Sunday, November 5, Joseph became suddenly sick and vomited so hard that he dislocated his jaw and “raised fresh blood.” His self-diagnosis was that he had every symptom of poisoning. But he was well enough in the evening to attend an Endowment Council meeting in the room over the red brick store. According to current medical literature, no poison available in 1844 was caustic enough to pool blood in the stomach so rapidly after ingestion as Joseph's symptoms indicate and still be so ineffective as to allow the victim to pursue normal activities within a few hours
Twenty-two years later Brigham Young described a “secret council,” probably the November 5 meeting, at which he said Joseph accused Emma of the poisoning and “called upon her to deny it if she could . . . . He told her that she was a child of hell, and literally the most wicked woman on this earth, that there was not one more wicked than she. He told her where she got the poison, and how she put it in a cup of coffee; said he, 'You got that poison so and so, and I drank it, but you could not kill me.' When it entered his stomach he went to the door and threw it off. He spoke to her in that council in a very severe manner, and she never said one word in reply. I have witnesses all around, who can testify that I am now telling the truth. Twice she undertook to kill him.' [Young] did not elaborate on the alleged second occurrence, but in 1866 Brigham's rhetoric could well have been stronger that Joseph's actual words, for it came at a time when Brigham was particularly hostile toward Emma.
Evidence suggests that Joseph indeed accused Emma of poisoning his coffee. His diary records that he and Emma did not participate in the Prayer Circle at that meeting . . . . This is particularly significant because members were asked not to join the Prayer Circle if they had feelings of antagonism toward anyone else in the group. Only unusual circumstances would have restrained them. Apparently Joseph believed at the time that Emma poisoned him, but strong evidence suggests that his self-diagnosis was mistaken and, therefore, so was his accusation of Emma.
Five weeks later Joseph again experienced sudden nausea and vomiting. “I awoke this morning in good health but was soon suddenly seized with a great dryness of the mouth and throat, and sickness of the stomach, and vomited freely . . . . I was never prostrated so low, in so short a time, before, but by evening was considerably revived.” He mentioned being “somewhat out of health” on January 21, “somewhat unwell” on April 2, and “suddenly taken sick,” on April 28. Acute indigestion, food poisoning, ulcers, gallstones, and other diseases cause a reaction similar to Joseph's. Certainly Joseph's life was filled with the emotional tension and conflict that traditionally accompany ulcers. When he had his second attack of vomiting early in December, his diary states: “My wife waited on me, assisted by my scribe, Willard Richards, and his brother Levi, who administered some hers and mild drinks.” In this instance Joseph portrayed Emma as a helper and nurse instead of the instigator of the attack. He apparently failed to correct the conclusions held by Brigham Young and John Taylor, for Emma remained forever suspect in their minds.
Stories of poisoning drew in another suspect: Samuel Smith's daughter Mary later wrote to her cousin Ina Coolbrith that Eliza R. Snow poisoned Joseph. She said that while Eliza resided in her Uncle Joseph's house Emma fixed Joseph a cup of coffee and Eliza poured something in it, then Joseph drank and vomited. Eliza had not lived in the house for nearly a year. Desdemona Wadsworth Fullmer, a plural married to Joseph by Brigham Young in July, wrote an autobiography in 1868 and related a bizarre dream that may have been prompted by rumors of Emma poisoning Joseph. She stated: “In the rise of polygamy [Emma] Smith was going to poison me. I told [the dream] to brother Joseph. He told me it was true. She would do it if she could.” The talk of poisoning may have prompted Emily Partridge to say of this period: “There were times, one in particular that I was really afraid of my life.” She was far more likely to fear retribution from Emma than Emma was to administer it. But circulation of poisoning stories gave rise to apprehension and suspicion directed toward Emma. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.163-5)
Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” cited at ExMormon.org
Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” cited at Runtu’s Rincon
Blessed of the Lord is my son Joseph, who is called the third— for the Lord knows the integrity of his heart, and loves him, because of his faith, and righteous desires. And, for this cause, has the Lord raised him up; Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984 p.169-70 not in second edition instead cited in "Mormon Murders" and debunked as a forgery.
"Brother Taylor," Joseph is reported to have answered, "Sister Emma would dethrone Jehovah himself, if she could, for the accomplishment of her purposes."5
Emma became increasingly outspoken. A young woman from Carthage reported: [My….
Emma was not alone in opposing plural marriage. Lucy A. Young, married to Brigham’s brother Phineas, wrote, (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.172-3)
She explained that the women had met to lend their collective voice to a proclamation that countered Orsimus Bostwick’s slander of Hyrum Smith. Emma read the “Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo” aloud to the group. …
Emma received a unanimous positive vote from the women, who were willing to “receive the principles of Virtue, keep the commandments of God, and uphold the Prest. in putting down iniquity.” With a remark that may have seemed pointed toward Elizabeth Whitney and Vilate Kimball, whose young daughters had married Joseph, Emma told the women, “It is high time for Mothers to watch over their daughters and exhort them to keep the path of virtue”…
“We therefore warn you, and forwarn you … we do not want anyone to believe anything as coming from us contrary to the old established morals & virtues, & scriptural laws. … All persons pretending to be authorized by us … are and will be liars and base imposters & you are authorized … to denounce them as such … whether they are prophets, Seers, or revelators, patriarchs, twelve apostles … you are alike culpable & shall be damned for such evil practices”
…. She then presented both the “Voice of Innocence” and the presidency’s letter, stating that the two documents contained the principles the society had started upon, but she “was sorry to have to say that all had not adhere’d to them.” Referring to Joseph’s original charge to search out iniquity, Emma reminded the women that she was the president of the society by the authority of Joseph. The minutes record, “If there ever was any Authority on earth [to search out iniquity] she had it–and had [it] yet.” Emma urged the women to follow the teachings of Joseph Smith as he taught them “from the stand,” implying that his private teachings should be disregarded. Reminding them that “there could not be stronger language than that just read,” she emphasized that those were Joseph’s words”….
The “Voice of Innocence” was published in the Nauvoo Neighbor March 20, but the Relief Society did not meet again in Nauvoo…. When Emma had the women take a public oath with their hands raised in support of virtue, she caused enough consternation in the men’s councils to stop Relief Society meetings…..
….. Church president John Taylor explained that the “reason why the Relief Society did not continue from the first organization was that Emma Smith the Pres. taught the Sisters that the principle of Celestial Marriage as taught and practiced by Joseph Smith was not of God” (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.173-5)
Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” additional Google excerpts
What Law formed a Church with Book of Mormon no plural marriage. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.178)
During this period the men who supported William Law's attempts to reform the church had ordered their own printing press. William and Wilson Law, two brothers named Foster, and the two sons of Judge Elias Higbee opposed Joseph and they found other persons dissatisfied with the conditions in Nauvoo…..
The first and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor appeared on June 7, 1844. The front page stated, “We all verily belive, (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.180-1)
On June 12 Joseph and seventeen others were arrested on charges stemming from the destruction of the press. Judge Daniel H. Wells, a friendly non-Mormon, acquitted them all. Word soon arrived at the Mansion House that ruffians had crossed the river from Iowa and Missouri in pursuit of Joseph, while crowds gathered at Warsaw and Carthage. Fiery speakers whipped emotions to a peak.
Vilate Kimball wrote to Heber, who was still on a mission: “I have ben thrown into such confusion I know not what to write …. Nothing is to be heard of but mobs collecting on every side. The Laws and Fosters and most of the dissenting party, with their families, left here a day or two after their press was destroyed …. Between three and four thousand brethren have been under arms here the past week,…” letter not exactly as written in Mormon enigma additional copies of letter available on Google
When men with eyes intent and jaws set rapped on Emma’s door bearing news and messages for Joseph, the accounts were strikingly similar to those of past events in Missouri. She must have kept her home atmosphere calm, for the children later had difficulty remembering those days even though Julia, age thirteen, and young Joseph, eleven and a half, certainly were old enough to be aware of unusual events.
Joseph responded to lynching threats by declaring martial law and calling out the Legion. Dressed in his uniform, he reviewed his militia as they marched past the Mansion on June 18 and stopped smartly in front of Porter Rockwell's partially completed bar and barbershop. Joseph climbed up the framework, then spoke for an hour and a half, warning the crowd of approaching danger. "Will you all stand by me to the death, and sustain at the peril of your lives, the laws of our country, and the liberties and privileges which our fathers have transmitted unto us, sealed with their sacred blood?"
The people shouted, "Aye!"
With a swift motion he drew his sword and thrust it up. "I have unsheathed my sword with a firm and unalterable determination that this people shall have their legal rights, and be protected from mob violence, or my blood shall be spilt upon the ground like water, and my body consigned to a silent tomb."
Emma saw little of Joseph in the following four days. He spent most of his time sequestered in his office, planning a defensive strategy, aware that in a short time he could be arrested again. . . . (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.183-4)
Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” also cited at UTLM
Meanwhile Governor Ford decided to investigate the volatile situation himself and rode to Carthage. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.185)
The Carthage Conspiracy (Joseph Smith Murder) Trial: A Chronology at law2.umkc.edu
A group designed to rid the city of undesirables called themselves the "whistling and whittling brigade " When ... 19
Marks recalled his reasons for leaving. He claimed Joseph had asked for his help in ridding the church of polygamy. "I mentioned the circumstances of these conversations with Joseph, to many of the brethren, (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.214)
(Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.215)
(Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.218)
In August William Smith published a pamphlet declaring that he should be guardian of the church and hold the presidency in trust for the young heir. At the fall conference on October 6 William Smith was dropped from the Quorum of the Twelve ... Brigham would acknowledge that the sons of Joseph should one day have leadership positions in the church. …
He had expected Emma to support his claims against the Twelve and was affronted when she would not. From St. Louis he wrote, “Judge my surprise Emma when you now refuse to help me reform the Church after the many times I have talked with you in the subject and asked what I should do to save my fathers family and all my friends and the answer was for me to come out and proclame against spiritual wife doctrine [and] the usurpation of the 12. Now Emma I have done it and all hell is in rage and every lie that can be set on foot is on hand and you believe them.”
Emma’s hope that William would change evaporated. Since his public speech favoring plural marriage three months earlier, area newspapers accused him of practicing the “doctrine with an English girl in his family.” Emma had opposed Brigham over polygamy and would not now encourage William Smith. She refused to let her son be used as a pawn to forward someone else’s personal ambitions. William’s letter concluded with a defense of his own purity, and swore he would never look at another woman again. His statement did not move Emma.
At this time James Arlington Bennt visited Emma. This was their first meeting, but Emma greeted him as Joseph’s friend, not knowinghe would use her name in a scheme that would adversely affect her reputation. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.219-20)
“It has been determined to make you so poor that you will be willing and glad to go out there for protection," Babbitt threatened. "1 have been appointed to accomplish that purpose and I propose to do so.”
“Almon Babbit,” she retorted, “it may be possible for you to make me poor, but you could never make me poor enough to induce me to follow Brigham Young!” (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.245-6)
If Brigham Young realized Emma's financial plight, or if he knew the outcome of Joseph's estate and its effect on her, he never acknowledged it. Instead, he referred to Emma's wealth in public discourses, giving the impression that she had usurped it from the church. The church got nothing from the final settlement of the estate, but even the property Brigham thought he and the trustees had given Emma had to be repurchased by her with the money she received from the court. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.259-60)
Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” cited at ExMormon.org
Only a month passed ……. They told her only that they were on a mission preaching the gospel but did not mention their special purpose for seeking out her son: to urge Joseph to become the prophet of a reorganized group of the Mormon church. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.267)
(Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.268)
William Marks “Thus saith the Lord; O thou man of God! (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.271)
In the spring of 1863 Edmund C. Briggs and his companion Alexander McCord, departed for Utah to preach. Brigham “Emma Bidamon is a wicked, wicked, wicked woman and (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.281-2)
“Emma Smith is one of the damndest liars I know of on this earth; yet there is no good thing I would Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” other Google excerpts
Joseph avoided the issue by not asking her at the time. “I never questioned her upon the subject [polygamy]……But nineteen years after ….. An interview published in the Saints ' Herald asked, "Did your mother ever deny that your father entered polygamy?" Joseph said, "Yes sir, more than once." Joseph's cousin Mary, who had cared for their grandmother for so many years, commented, “In regard to the guilt or innocence of his father [Joseph] knows comparatively but little-His mother of course said nothing to them to prejudice them against their father. She tried to hold his memory sacred.
Many years earlier Emma had come to terms with the question of plural marriage and the process appeared to come in steps. When Lucy M. Smith, George Albert’s wife, pressed Emma about women who were having children in plural marriage Emma told her, “Joseph never taught any such thing, they were only sealed for eternity they were not to live with them.” …. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.291-2)
Joseph also recalled visits with other cousins, John Smith and Samuel HB Smith, but specifically avoided asking any straightforward questions.
Although the Smith family welcomed Joseph, he remembered, “I had walked about the streets without recognition or friendly overtures from many, even from those who by family ties were not distinctly related to me.” Brigham Young had already taken pains to inform his people that “While the sun shines, the water runs, the grass grows, and the earth remains, young Joseph Smith never will be the leader of the Latter day Saints!”….accused him of associating with his fathers murderers….
The letter said, “When you were here, Mother, they made you say that I was not your son. I saw it in a moment. You simply went up to the corner of that office square and touched it and they set it down against me …. You did not mean that I was a post. You were under their influence too much,” David rambled. “I never say grace comfort any longer.”
Joseph write to the director of the asylum asking that David be accepted and describing his condition. A warrant for David’s commitment directed Joseph Smith to take David to the hospital. On January 22,, 1877, Emma’s youngest son entered the Illinois State asylum. “I was forced to take David to the hospital for treatment, Joseph confided to a friend. For years he harbored hope that David could be helped. After eight years, on April 11, 1885, Joseph released David from his position in the first presidency of the church.
Some Utah church members worried that David had returned to Illinois converted to their beliefs and Emma and Joseph institutionalized him to avoid embarrassment. Some RLDS people suspected that something had happened to David in Utah and that he was poisoned while away from his regular boarding place. Neither view is based on any evidence. Joseph believed that David could have willed away his illness. When the subject of a church-wide fast and prayer day came up a year after David’s commitment, Joseph commented, “The one thing that has operated in my mind against it, was the thought that he gave himself up to the influence that took him captive.” Joseph wrote, “God pardon me; how I have rebelled when I have thought of David’s condition …. God forgive me if I have staggered under it all.
Emma also sorrowed at the fate of her son. Joseph expressed by one of the hospital physicians that “David might at any time return to himself, suddenly, and be returned of his difficulty.” In Nauvoo Emma became old and tired, and waited for a miracle that would cure her son. It never came. (Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.294-5)
(Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.)
(Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.)
(Linda King Newell, Valeen Tippetts Avery “Mormon enigma: Emma Hale Smith” 1984/1994 p.)
I have often heard ladies in the East say that they considered Utah way in advance of the age in one respect at least; that there the equality of the sexes was so far regarded that the ballot was in the women's hands, and that there they had received the right of suffrage. And I know that for this one act Brigham Young is commended by some of the leaders of the Woman Suffrage party, and he is viewed by them with a lenient eye, in spite of all his other acts of gross injustice. If these same radical reformers only understood the reason that the franchise was extended to Utah women, and the peculiar "freedom" and intelligence with which they are allowed to exercise this privilege, I think they would not be so scathing in their denunciations of the Poland bill. To the men and women engaged in this reform there seems to be no possibility that there can be cases where positive harm would ensue when the ballot was given to women; they evidently believe that with universal suffrage will be ushered in the millennium.
It may have that effect in other portions of the States, but in polygamous Utah, ruled over by a treacherous tyrant, this very right; which they claim will loosen the legal and political shackles by which women are bound, and render them absolutely free, only binds the chains the tighter and makes them greater slaves than ever. And the most hateful part is, that they are helping to tighten their own bonds, and are doing it, too, under compulsion.
The reason of this wonderful act of "justice" on Brigham Young's part can easily be given. When the Union Pacific Railroad was completed, and the influx of miners and other outsiders from the Gentile world began to flood the Territory and make homes for themselves in the very midst of Mormondom, the chiefs of the Mormon hierarchy grew very fearful and apprehensive lest the power should pass from their grasp into Gentile hands by the gradual change of population. By adopting female suffrage they would treble their voting power at once. There was no longer any hesitation; the measure was adopted, and so general and generous was it, that in Utah to-day every person of the female sex, from the babe in the arms to the oldest, bedridden, imbecile crone, has the right of elective franchise, and is compelled to use it.
To illustrate the intelligence with which women vote, and the freedom of opinion in political matters which is allowed them, I think I can do no better than give my own first experience in exercising the prerogative of a free woman.
It was the first election-day that occurred after the right of suffrage had been, not granted, but commanded. I was standing in front of my husband's office, talking with a friend, when he came out. His first question, put before he had offered either myself or my friend any greeting, was, -
"Have you voted to-day?"
“No, Brother Young, I have not."
"Then I suppose you intend doing so at once."
"Not at all," I replied; "I have no intention of voting at all."
"And why not?" he asked, somewhat angrily.
"Because I have not yet become sufficiently acquainted with the political situation to understand what it is best to do, and I prefer not to vote ignorantly."
"But I wish you to vote," was his peremptory reply.
"Excuse me, please, Brother Young," pleaded I; "I don't know who or what to vote for, and I really had much rather not." I was quite in earnest. I did not know any thing then of politics, and I must confess I had no interest in them.
"Get into the carriage," commanded he, so sternly that I knew I must obey, and further parley would be useless. "I want you to vote, and at once. Mr. Rossitur will take you to the polls and tell you how to vote."
Mr. Rossitur, to whose care I was committed, was Brigham's coachman, and was to be my political instructor. All the information I gained will never harm nor help me very materially. I was driven to the polls, a ticket was handed me, and hustled along without the opportunity of examining it, and to this day I am in blissful ignorance of what or who I cast my only vote for. I know, however, that among other officers they were electing a delegate to Congress, and I suppose I must have voted for George Q, Cannon. There is an encouraging and inspiring picture for the advocates of female suffrage, who are jubilant over the triumph of their cause in Utah. A polygamous wife of the President of the church conveyed to the polls by her husband's coachman, and compelled to cast the vote he gives her without an opportunity of exercising her judgment or her choice, and ignorant even of what she is doing. By all means let us have the suffrage in Utah, in spite of Judge Poland.
After the Council had disposed of Sidney Rigdon to its satisfaction, and "all the people" had signified theirs by saying "Amen," he turned about and prepared to fight them. His resistance, however, was short and feeble. He returned to Pittsburgh, and attempted to resurrect the "Latter-Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate," a Mormon publication that had died some years before. His attempt was futile, and he gave up the contest with his failure to revive that sheet, and Mormonism has known little or nothing of him since.
In the mean time the Twelve Apostles were to rule over the church until such time as a change in the Presidency should seem necessary. This was Brigham's first step, and the rest came easily and naturally enough. To all intents and purposes he was as much the ruler of the Mormons as he is now, although he did not then arrogate so much to himself. He knew very well that it would not do to declare himself too suddenly; so he quietly worked and waited until he found himself in the position which he now holds - a position which has never been contested by his followers.
He was always a hard worker, quite successful in making converts, and the steady determination of his character, which amounted to decided obstinacy, united with a scheming cunning, helped him very much at this period of his life.
He was shrewd enough not to attempt, as Rigdon had done, to play the prophet; he knew very well that in that role he would not meet success. He announced that no one should take Joseph's place, and to this day he maintains to those who remember what he said then, and contrast his past assertions with his present position as head of the church - "No one can take the place of Joseph;" he is in his place as the spiritual head of the church, and will always be there, through time and eternity."
that she was readily convinced of its devine origin, and accepted it at once as the true religion. When it became known that she had become a convert to the obnoxious faith, she was the object of bitter Ann Eliza Young “Wife No. 19: Or The Story of a Life in Bondage, Being a Complete Exposé of Mormonism” 1875 Google
Part of the challenge now was to establish that mindset in the thousands of new workers being hired — to "Wal-Martize" them, as it came to be called. To make workers feel that despite their low wages, they had a stake in Wal-Mart, and they would prosper as the company did. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.86-7)
Workers would be gathered at the front of the store. "Gimme a W!" he'd shout. "W!" the workers would shout back, and on through the Wal-Mart name. At the hyphen, Walton would shout "Gimme a squiggly!" and squat and twist his hips at the same time; the workers would squiggle right back. The cheer always ended with Walton shouting “Who’s number one?” and the workers shouting back “The customer!” (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.91)
And fast may not be strong enough a word. Once the man who invented the concept, Sol Price, got it working right, his warehouses sold goods at such (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.140-1)
When Sam Walton flew out to San Diego to sniff around in late 1982, he took Rob Walton with him. ... operation from tip to floor, the deeply impressed Waltons called on Sol Price (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.144-5)
As he would struggle over the next few years to change his merchandise, to offer better service, and to find other ways to compete, Falgoust also would begin (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.170)
.... It was in this climate that Alice developed an aggressive trading program in stock options" with another E.F. Hutton account executive, Donald LoCoco. It was a high risk strategy that produced fat commissions for her LoCoco, and EF Hutton; and it was a strategy many other commission starved brokerage houses were diving into, too. But when turns in the market led to heavy losses, and complaints from clients began to mount, the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to investigate the brokers pushing these trading programs.
E.F. Hutton was the third brokerage house that the SEC trained its sights on for making what it called “unsuitable” trades. In early 1979, the commission accused Alice, LoCoco, and ten other E.F. Hutton employees in eight cities of violating anti-fraud provisions of securities laws in connection with their options trades. According to the charges, trades that she and LoCoco made had netted the pair about $129,000 in commissions, while costing customers $197,000 in losses. The SEC staff said the two, along with others at the brokerage, made false and misleading statements, didn’t fully disclose how risky the strategies were , and illegally used trading strategies unsuited to the “financial situations, investment sophistication and investment objectives” of some of their clients.
The firm and most of those accused, Alice Walton included, agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying them. She would later deny the charges and say she only settled to avoid a drawn-out legal fight. Ten years later, when she applied to register an investment firm of her own with the SEC, she claimed on the form that all the investors who complained had been solicited by LoCoco and that “if these persons were misinformed as to the guidelines and objectives of the program it was the fault of Mr. LoCoco,” not Alice Walton. The SEC staff, though, seemed to have felt that she was no innocent bystander. As part of the settlement, she was suspended for six months from holding any job with a broker, dealer, investment company, investment adviser or affiliate; LoCoco was suspended for two months. No other EF Hutton employee in the settlement drew a suspension longer than three months.
Walton left the firm. She got divorced again, and moved back to Arkansas. Then came her accident in Acapulco.
Alice, like both her parents and her brother Bob, had a reputation as a fast driver. The Walton’s leaden feet had long been a popular topic of banter in Bentonville. Helen’s pastor, the Reverend Gordon Garlington, joked that Helen’s silver Lincoln continental …..
a woman trying to cross the road, killing her instantly. Fifty-year-old Oleta Hardin, mother of two fully grown sons, had been waiting for a ride to her job at a nearby canning factory when she decided to step down off her porch …..
Neither she nor Alice Walton saw each other until too late. Hardin was carried up onto the hood of the car. Her head smashing through the windshield before her body was thrown off as the Porsche skidded to a stop. ....
Oleta Hardin's husband, Harold, who worked the night shift at a nearby tool plant, arrived home from work barely an hour later to find a policeman waiting on his front porch with the terrible news. He was still in shock when Alice showed up a little later that day and tried as best she could, stumblingly, to apologize to him. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.199-204)
First, the background: Studies estimated that, in 1985, 43 percent of all apparel sold was imported. Hundreds of U.S. manufacturers had been moving production overseas, especially to Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America. In the case of the latter two regions, U.S. companies were getting active encouragement and financial help to go abroad from the U.S. State Department’s Agency for International Development. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.204)
The New York Times lauded him as a man swimming against the tide. Walton made the Buy American theme a centerpiece of the company's raucous annual (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.205-6)
Meanwhile, Helen and Alice began lobbying Sam on behalf of their own candidate: Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was a rarity in Arkansas: a powerful, articulate woman who resisted conforming to the Southern belle stereotype expected of prominent women there. That may have been one reason the two Walton women felt a kinship with her. Sam Walton knew her too, of course, and not just because she was Bill Clinton's wife and a shareholder. The Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, where she was a partner, had represented Wal-Mart many times. And she had personally enlisted Sam Walton’s help back in 1983, when she took charge of getting an ambitious education reform plan through the Arkansas legislature, a plan that would later be called Bill Clinton’s biggest achievement as governor.
…. Hilary Clinton convinced them to back education reform, and got Walton and other Moguls, such as chicken processing king Don Tyson, to contribute to a political fund to pay for ads to push the initiative.
Arkansas’s schools ranked among the worst in the country. …. Mandatory kindergarten, smaller classes, testing of teachers, higher sales taxes….. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.212)
Even as the case was being argued in court, the commission's new chairman, Clarence Thomas Jr., told the Washington Post "I've been trying to get out of this since I've been here."6 In the end, the commission's lukewarm handling of the case (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.214-5)
In the television studio at Wal-Mart headquarters from which Sam Walton so often had delivered his homespun soliloquies over the satellite system, David Glass now sat down for an unprecedented interview with an NBC television correspondent. It was early December 1992.
Walton generally had avoided reporters. In fact, not long before his death he’d turned down an interview request from the same news show, Dateline NBC, that Glass had now agreed to talk to. But in the eight months since Walton’s death, many things had begun to change.
Cool and composed, his left leg casually crossed over his right, Glass fielded a few softball questions from correspondent Brian Ross about Sam Walton and Wal-Mart’s buy American program. Behind him, watching intently, Don Shinkle hovered off camera as both NBC’s and Wal-Mart’s cameras rolled. But then the questions turned much, much tougher. Ross told Glass he’d visited 11 Wal-Mart stores and found, in one department after another, goods made in Bangladesh, Korea, and China under the signs saying MADE IN THE USA. Glass sat still. “It shouldn’t have been signed that way on the rack,” he said. “That’s-that would be a mistake at the store level.”
Ross looked at him quizzically. “But rack after rack, in a number of stores in Florida and Georgia, we found that.” He said.
“On apparel racks?”
“Ye.” Ross said, …. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.223) “The Children who work in this plant are locked in until all hours of the night, until they finish that day’s production.” His camera man zoomed in tight on Wal-Mart’s chief executive.
“Yeah,” said Glass, sitting back and making a tent with his crossed fingers under his chin, "there are tragic things that happen all over the world,"
Ross looked at him incredulously. "That's all you have to say about it?" Shinkle couldn’t wait any longer. “Excuse me, let’s-“ he started to say, as Glass staring at Ross, said “I-I don’t know what else I would say about it.”
At that Shinkle ordered a halt to the interview, and Wal-Mart’s crew cut the lights and cranked up music to prevent NBC from doing any further taping, Glass walked off and took Shinkle and some other Wal-Mart people back into the studio’s control froom. An angry voice-whose it wasn’t clear-floated back to the studio. “Are you ahppy now?” it demanded. Ross was very happy. Astonished at his luck, he packed up his crew and left.
This was going to be very, very bad, the Wal-Mart men knew. Charges of child labor smuggled Chinese goods, misleading MADE IN THE USA signs. And that interview! They had to do something. Glass said he wanted someone sent to check out the Saraka factory immediately. And, after some tense debate, Glass decided he would try to recoup by doing a second interview with Ross. Rather than phone Ross directly, though, he called and complained about being ambushed to Jack Welsh, the chairman of General Electric Co., which owned NBC. Welch called NBC president Robert Wright. Wright talked to Ross, who readily agreed to go back and interview Glass again.
Two weeks after the first interview, Ross and his crew flew back to Bentonville, Ross’s producer, Rhonda Schwartz, had phoned Bangladesh, and they knew a Wal-Mart man had visited the Saraka factory. By now, Ross expected, Wal-Mart would certainly have cleaned up the problem. Probably they would say that it was just a local mistake, that theyd been appalled to find children there, but they’d corrected it as quickly as they could. No doubt they would say it wouldn’t happen again. It would make Ross’s story a bit less dramatic, but that was fair enough he supposed.
This time, Glass would be prepared to handle him. At least, that was the theory. What actually happened was that Ross polished him off like a piece of buttered toast.
Before the interview, Glass took Ross and Schwartz off to his modest office for a tête-à-tête. He told them offhandedly about his call to Welch; but Glass tried to be friendly, seemingly anxious to get this interview off to a better start. Once they set up in the studio, Glass began by telling Ross that Wal-Mart had inspected the Saraka factory and others Ross had cited- but he added firmly, they hadn’t found any evidence of children working there. …….
…….
“But they are,” Ross insisted. “We saw them.”
Still doggedly trying to put his denial across, Glass said, “Well, we have not been able to substantiate that.”
But Ross kept pushing. “How can you believe that, given what we showed you?”
“Why should I not believe that?” Glass retorted.
”The pictures of the young woman don’t contradict the assurances you received from an employer or boss in Bangladesh?” Ross asked.
Glass, looking as though the interview wasn’t going quite as he’d expected, stammered. “The-the picture-the-the-the pictures you showed me mean nothing to me. I’m-I’m not sure where they were or who they were, you know. Could have been anything, I’m not sure.”
“I'm telling you,” Ross said directly, “they're not of anything, they're of the Saraka factory, of children making Wal-Mart clothing.”
“Well,” said Glass, “I'm - I'm comfortable with what we have done.”
And that, more or less, was that. The interview rambled on on a bit longer. Among other observations, Glass saidAsian workers just looked young because they were so small. Afterward, Glass seemed satisfied that he’d aquited himself well. As he and Ross walked back to Glass’s office, the chief executive confided in the reporter that his peopae had let him donw a bit the first time, that he hadn’t been prepared.
But it wasn’t long before Gl;ass began to realize that perhaps neither he nor Wal-Mart was going to come off quite so well as he initially believed. When Ross got back to NBC, Wright sat down with him to watch the tape. Wright was stunned at how poorly Glass handled the interview. He asked Ross why Glass seemed so unprepared. Ross shrugged.
At Wal-Mart, as the advance preparations for damage control began, executives muttered about the unions being behind this-which, as it happened, was at least partly true. But then, that was something that Glass, Shinkle, and the rest really should have anticipated. After all, these questions that Ross raised had come up before.
Nearly a year before Sam Walton’s death, in May of 1991, on Mother’s Day, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union had held a press conference and handed out leaflets in front of Wal-Mart stores in ten cities, calling on Walton to have Wal-Mart stop buying goods in Bangladesh because of the use of child labor there. Pat Scarelli, a union vice president, had specifically fingered two shirt brands sold at Wal-Mart as being made by children at a factory in the capital city, Dacca. The media had almost entirely ignored the event, but the Wal-Mart men should have known that the UFCW wouldn’t let the matter drop and that Wal-Mart ran the risk, sooner or later, of being called to account for how its goods were made. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.225)
Yes, You Can Blame Wal-Mart for Outsourcing American Jobs at Dailykos
Yes, You Can Blame Wal-Mart for Outsourcing American Jobs at Walmart Watch
Seay and others at Wal-Mart staunchly maintained that none of these leases were sweetheart deals and that every one of them had been reviewed by Wal-Mart’s real estate committee (which of course included Sam and Bud Walton), but Curtis Barlow, a Wal-Mart vice president in the real estate section with fourteen years at the company, had a different view. In 1991, he was assigned to look over a proposed Sam’s Club site in Dallas that Stan Kroenke wanted to lease to Wal-Mart. Kroenke wanted $10 a square foot, or about $1.3 million a year, for a 130,000-square-foort building. Barton told the real estate committee that, given Dallas rents, Wal-Mart shouldn’t pay any more than $6 a square foot.
“We can do better,” Barlow said. “We should push for our numbers instead of his numbers.” But the committee quickly agreed to Kroenke’s price; and after the meeting, Barlow said Seay pulled him aside and scolded him saying, “You’re not being a team player.” Then, Barlow said, Seay warned him that “if I ever got in a position where it was me against the family, that I would be the loser ….[and] that I could either accept it and go on and do things the way they wanted things done, or I should look at going someplace else.” (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.235-6)
Wal-Mart served the shareholders free soda, pretzels, and cookies, all made in America, as red-white-and-blue signs proudly announced. The usual parade of celebrities-singer Conway Twitty, the latest Miss USA, and porky gymnast and tout Mary Lou Retton, among others-were on hand to liven up the proceedings. There were the usual company cheers, flag waving and songs. Much of the meeting was a memorial for Sam Walton who had who’d died two months earlier. It began with a video tribute to him on three huge screens at another point, a Wal-Mart employee even pretended to talk with Walton in heaven, declaring that Mr. Sam wanted everyone to sing “God Bless America.” They did.
When the time came, Harbrant read his resolution aloud and then turned the microphone over to Wu, who was given three minutes to make his case. In his halting accented but impassioned voice, Wu told the share-holders briefly about his nineteen years as a political prisoner working in forced labor camps and stressed that he was asking Wal-Mart to make every attempt to ensure it wasn’t importing products made with slave labor. He specifically asked the board to investigate whether the company’s New Order jeans used prison-made denim.
“The need for an investigation is not an admission of wrong doing,” he said. “It is a recognition of the reality of the pervasiveness of the gulag. It would show a willingness and determination not to be used by the Communists. It would tell the world that Wal-Mart is a responsible corporation.”
Rob Walton cut Wu off, telling him his three minutes were up and to close his comments. Then David Glass gave a three-minute rebuttal, saying Wal-Mart already had strong policies in place. “I view this as nothing more than a disruption of our meeting and I recommend that you simply mark your ballot against it,” he said. Later announcing that 94 percent of the shares had voted against the resolution, Rob Walton told the cheering crowd with satisfaction that they could “pitch it” away. Leaving the meeting, a somber Wu told Harbrant and Fielder that he hadn’t seen a meeting like that since the last Communist rally he’d been forced to attend in China.
Fiedler meanwhile had been digging up whatever he could find on child labor, especially in Bangladesh. Earlier, he had run across a news photo showing the 1990 fire in the Saraka factory. On a hunch, he’d called the AFL-CIO’s office in Dacca and had them buy photos of the fire and morgue shots from a Bangladeshi newspaper. Now, not long after the Wal-Mart annual meeting, …. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.240)
To fight back in public, executives decided to draft others to defend Wal-Mart, in what would be made to look like a spontaneous outburst of support. Wal-mart public relations people designed newspaper ads for the company’s vendors to sponsor, defending the Buy American program. Suppliers were given sample ads with phrases such as “Thanks, Wal-Mart” and “We Support Wal-Mart BUY AMERICA Program” in huge print. Wal-Mart buyers were to ask vendors to use their own words, to make the ads seem their own. Wal-Mart “recommended” that vendors, depending on their size, either buy full page ads in national newspapers such as USA Today (for $65,810) and Wall Street Journal (for $110,629) or buy ads in local newspapers. Wal-Mart helpfully included a list of newspapers, phone numbers, and names of whom to contact, and what the rates for a full-page ad would be ($2,790 at the Biloxi Sun-Herald, for example). Vendors were supposed to say the ads were their idea and were warned not to run them before Wednesday morning, the day after the broadcast. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.242)
day at the bustling local market, making and selling corn tortillas with her mother. ......
Not that Guatemala was unique. Studies by United Nations and U.S. government agencies described similar conditions in other Central American, Caribbean, and Asian countries. Such conditions, on their face, would seem to violate U.S. U.S. retailers' codes of conduct. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.249)
Workers couldn’t count on being protected by Guatemala’s labor laws, which, thanks to corruption and indifference, were practically meaningless. Government labor officials estimated that half of the 80,000 workers in the apparel industry were paid less than minimum wage. Factory owners, workers, workers and government officials agreed that the commonest way to settle a complaint was by bribing the inspector. “There is a lot of trafficking of influence,” said labor inspector Juan Castillo Rodriguez matter-of-factly, sitting at his battered desk in a grimy office in Guatemala City. At factories exporting to the United States, “workers often aren’t paid for overtime,” he said.
“It is common for these companies to close the doors and force workers to stay all night working,” he said, shrugging. “There are many minors working.”
Legally, factories weren’t allowed to make youths between fourteen and seventeen work more than seven hours a day. But that law was ignored as faithfully as all others. Ana Mendoza de Rivera, chief of the Labor Ministry’s child-worker protection office, said, “We don’t have the people to investigate” what she estimated to be 300,000 child workers under fourteen across all industries. Her office, with a staff of five, had no telephone.
“Many children want to work” because their parents’ wages are too low to support the family, Mendoza said.
……
“The ethics of the world market are very clear,” said Carlos Arias Macelli, one factory owner. Retailers and manufacturers, he said, “will move wherever it’s cheapest or most convenient to their interests.”
The other potential worker protection, unions, were a scary proposition in Guatemala. During the country’s decades-long civil war, trade unions were targeted by the military-dominated, conservative government. In the first half of the 1990’s, more than 40 unionists were murdered of “disappeared,” including several working for makers of United States bound apparel, according to human rights organization. Kidnapping, death threats, rapes, and beatings were all common. Human rights observers generally blamed right-wing death squads, allied to business and military interests, for most of the violence. In any event, by 1997, Guatemala’s national police hadn’t charged anyone in conection with the murder of a single trade unionist in the previous ten years.
……
When workers began organizing in the fall of 1994 at Disenos y Maquilas S.A. an apparel making clothes for Kmart and Penny an assistant plant manager and a gun-toting guard drove seven union leaders into the countryside, according to the workers, and ordered them to sign resignation papers on the spot. “They said we would disappear or be killed if we didn’t sign, “said Jose Amilear del Cid Arias, one of the seven. They signed.
How did retailers respond when told of the incident by a human rights group? They asked their supplier, CHR Industries of New York to look into it. Bothe Penny and Kmart declared themselves satisfied after GHB’s vice president, Robert Rahn, told the retailers he’d gotten assurances from the factory that there was nothing to the claims and that no one had filed any complaints with the police or the attorney general’s office. As it happened that simply wasn’t true: Detailed complaints had been filed. Rahn also neglected to mention one other little fact: GHB owned the factory and he was the factory’s president.
For a retailer to let a contractor investigate itself might see problematic, to say the least. But even after GHR’s ownership of the factory was brought to their attention, both Penny and Kmart continued having clothes made there.
While it would be hard to spend much time in Guatemala, or visit many factories there, without becoming aware of how workers were treated, Wal-Mart and most United States retailers usually took action only when they were forced to-say by a group such as U.S. Guatemala Labor Education Project. This Chicago based, union-funded group tried to encourage organizing and improve work conditions in Guatemala City. The project tried to pressure factory owners there by taking abuses to United States retailers, using the threat of public exposure to get the retailers to push their contractors to clean the factories up.
…..
(Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.251-3)
There was a weird disconnect here. David Glass was considered by his friends and family to be a fine, upstanding, morally correct, and honest man. Don Soderquist was a devout Christian once named lay churchman of the year by a national Baptist organization. And yet these two men ran a company that profited from the exploitation of children, and in all likelihood, from the exploitation of Chinese prisoners, too. Time and again it was put before them, by Dateline, by Harry Wu, by the wall Street Journal, by others. And yet their response was to do the very least they could, to hold up, time and again their feeble code, as if its mere existence-forget monitoring, forget enforcement-was enough: as if uttering once more that “our suppliers know we have strict codes” would solve any problem. And nothing would change. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.258-9)
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Norman had immediately plunged into opposition research and poured whatever he found into more ads. When he discovered that the campaign finance (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.290-)
Before the town council’s July vote, Wal-Mart had funded a telephone poll in which Greenfield residents were asked such question as “Do you think that the town council should follow the will of the people in voting along the lines of the [April] referendum, or should they vote against the will of the people?” Anyone saying they favored the zoning change had been urged to phone the town council members.
Wal-Mart ran an even more aggressive version of the poll about the same time in Westford, a northeastern Massachusetts town where it also faced well-organized opposition to a proposed store. These pollsters asked people to reveal their income, their education level, and their shopping preferences, before popping the question: “Are you prepared to support your local town officials in an expensive and losing legal battle if [the proposes store] is denied a permit?”
But such heavy handed tactics irked many Westford residents and seem to have inadvertently boosted opposition to the store. …… (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.291)
Everybody building big stores and malls knew there were already too many out there: but everyone seemed convinced that they could be the one to snatch someone else’s business away, rather than being the victim. It got to the point that few commercial developers could get any money fo build shopping space, not that this slowed the retail frenzy. And in a deposition for a lawsuit, tom Seay described why, “We have more shopping space in the US than is needed. We’re in an overbuilt situation. So most people cannot get financing to build a center. And so if we want to continue our program of expanding stores, relocating stores, building new stores, [continueing] our growth and serving the customer and taking care of that customer, then in today’s financial environment we have to fund it ourselves>” And that’s just what Wal-Mart and many other big retailers did. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.294)
National Grassroots specialized in fighting grassroots efforts through what has come to be known as “AstroTurf” operations: creating the appearance of grassroots-support for a project, irrespective of whether any exists or not, and then cultivating local community leaders to come on board. That had been one strategy in Greenfield, where early ads favoring the Wal-Mart store had been signed as paid for by citizens for Economic Growth, even though the funding actually came from Wal-Mart. Eventually, local spokesmen had been recruited by a public relations agency to front the efforts.
Whitney explained the approach to public relation industry conference in Chicago. “One of the things we don’t like to do is hire a local PR firm,” she said. “They are not part of the community.” (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.296-7)
The owner, Reubin \Veiner, said he'd seen a letter Robinson had written to the local paper saying a Wal-Mart store would bring jobs and push local prices down.
…..
“It won’t do us any good to have them go and tell the Ithaca Journal or Times that we apparently have something to hide,” said Robinson exasperated. “if they aren’t in this room in five minutes, I’ll bet I can talk to everyone we have here from Ithaca for Wal-Mart and get them to come with me and leave.”
Reithmeyer agreed to let them film.
The more he dealt with the Wal-Mart people the more disheartened Robinson became. It bothered him that they referred to the planning board members, people he knew, as sons of bitches It bothered him, too, that Wal-Mart made an issue of even the most picayune accommodations that planning board members suggested-such as planting more trees in the parking lot. “I very rapidly developed a distaste for the way they do business,” he said.
I ended up on several occasions in an adversarial situation with representatives of Wal-Mart or east Coast Developers because they’d say, “We’re going to do this,” and I’d say, “Wait a minute, who’s we?” and they’d say, “Your organization,” and I’d say, “You can’t tell us what to do, all you’ve done is cause us problems. …. If you say soothing that makes sense to us, we’ll work with you. If it doesn’t, we won’t, and if that isn’t good enough, you can disassociate yourselves from us publically and go hire your own people.”
Members of the Sto Wal-Mart group mercilessly spotlighted short-comings in Wal-Mart’s filings and studies. Though not guided by al Norman, they’d picked up one of his packets and had taken to heart his admonition to do their research. When a consultant hired by the city to study Wal-Mart’s impact came back with a glowing report, Stop Wal-Mart delivered a withering critique describing in exquisite detail how the consultant had used misleading, incomplete, and inaccurate data to reach skewed conclusions. The group also pointed out that the consultant not only worked for Wal-Mart in other towns, but had written newspaper editorials praising the company.
At a public hearing, when opponents complained about the store hurting the view from the state park, a Wal-Mart spokesperson replied, “It’s not like it’s the Grand Canyon” which might be true but was hardly likely to win the company friends.
It was a bizarre debate (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.312)
From that point on, Falgoust became one of Wal-Mart’s harshest and most active critics. He fired off columns around the country, warning against letting Wal-Mart …. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.312-3)
It was just a small rectangle of cardboard, a few inches across, with a photo of a pretty, brightly smiling woman on it. The young Honduran girl who’d smuggled it out of the factory had no idea who the woman was or what the writing below the photo said, but the tall norteamericano had asked her to bring anything labels, hangtags like this one- that would tell him what brands of clothing she and the other assembly-line workers were making.
The face on the picture didn’t mean anything to the tall American, either. Charlie Kernaghan had come to Honduras to track down factories making clothes for the Gap, a mid-scale clothing chain he’d been investigating. A grizzled professional type with a nose that looked like someone had once punched it very hard indeed. Kernaghan was head of the National Labor Committee Education Fund in Support of Worker and Human Rights in Central America-a rather grand name for the tiny three-person outfit working out of a shoe-box office in lower Manhattan and scraping by on donations from sympathetic unions and churches.
When some of the women at this factory, Global Fashion, had heard that he was asking people at other factories about conditions and how workers were treated, they had approached him to complain about their 14-hour days, the forced overtime without pay, the locked bathrooms, the way they were screamed at and hit. Kernghan had asked how old the workers were and had been intrigued to find some were as young as twelve years old. But like most apparel workers in Honduras the women at Global Fashions had no idea who they made clothes for. …..
This Kathie Lee was the seemingly inescapable Kathie Lee Gifford, cohost of one of the country’s most broadly syndicated TV talk shows, Live with Regis (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.318-)
Gifford’s combination of fizzy glamor and down-home, clean cut appeal had seemed to make her the perfect celebrity for Wal-Mart, with it’s flag waving, mom-and-apple-pie image.For Wal-Mart, of course, there was the added bonus of getting effectively getting free advertising every day her show was on the air. And her clothing line had roared off to a phenomenal start-with an estimated $300 million in sales its first year. Gifford’s cut was 3 percent, $9 million, of which she gave roughly 10 percent to children’s charities. .....
She described this as an Orwellian experience. “I sensed then and later on throughout the Christian movement of the 1970s” she said, “an unmistakable worship of money and power.” She said it made her sick to watch the revival teams counting up the money after each meeting, to see the manipulation of the poor and the sick, to note the contrast between Robert’s own wealthy lifestyle and his haranguing of the poor to give money. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.320-1)
It was another to be able to say that the Gap paid workers 16 cents a shirt and to compare that cost with the shirt’s $20 retail price-to be able to say that the labor made up less than one percent of the shirt’s cost. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.326-7)
This wasn’t the progress he’s had in mind. It was time to go public. On April 29, Keraghan testified at a hearing on Capitol Hill about child labor and work conditions in overseas factories. At first, Kernaghan was surprised to see that there (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.330-)
When he was accused of exaggerating or misrepresenting the situations, Kernaghan would unapologetically cite example after example of times when the companies had lied, fudged, or twisted the truth.
But in league with Reich’s campaign and various union efforts he got results, inch by inch: JC Penney said any supplier caught violating its code would lose all future contracts unless they put independent monitoring in place. Disney which had to be hyper-vigilant about its Snow-White image as did Gifford about hers quietly investigated his accusations against it in Haiti, even as it denied everything and then said it would appoint monitors to look over its factories. So did Kmart. So did Eddie Bauer. Kernaghan’s main goal remained getting independent monitors to keep an eye on factories, as he’d done with the Gap. And bit by bit, he kept pushing the industry in that direction.
Kernaghan repeatedly argued that retailers were pitting US workers against poor teenagers in Third World countries in a race to the bottom, forcing them to compete over who would accept the lowest pay and most miserable conditions. He blamed the presence of US sweatshops on retailers demands “that their US contractors meet the same production prices they get off shore, which is impossible to do legally.
“The corporations tell us that they go off shore to provide the U.S. consumer with lower prices. What they conveniently leave out is that the traditional 100 percent markup when a product goes from a U.S. manufacturer to the retailer becomes a 500 percent to 600 percent markup when the production goes off-shore,” he said.
Kernaghan was exaggerating a bit the typical markup on imports was closer to 400 percent. But his basic point was true: At the same time that retailers, Wal-mart included, were complaining that they had to go wherever they could get the cheapest production to compete, they were tripling and quadrupling their markup by importing good. And there was no question about the race to the bottom: By 1997, many of the 28-cent-anhour jobs Kernaghan complained about in Honduras would have moved to Nicaragua, where workers made as little as 14 cents an hour, or to Indonesia or Burma, where wages were as low as 11 cents an hour.
This wouldn’t be a struggle with a clear-cut ending. In April 1997, the white house anti-sweatshop task force announced a watered down agreement for companies to put “No Sweat” tags on their goods. The code of conduct called for recognizing workers right to organize, for a ban on child labor (with a minimum of age of fourteen) and for independent monitoring. Left unsettled was who would do that monitoring accounting; accounting firms and private security firms reporting to the companies, as the retailers and apparel makers wanted, or human rights groups, as some labor and watchdog organizations proposed.
Meanwhile, Gifford’s rehabilitation, steered by Rubenstein, continued, Over the fall of 1996 and the following winter, he negotiated flattering cover stories about her in various woman’s magazines. Good Housekeeping described her on its
(Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.342)
In 1996, 150 Wal-Mart pharmacists filed two suits seeking class action status and trying to force the company to pay all its pharmacists millions of dollars in overtime back pay. Wal-mart considered the Pharmacists to be on salary but at the same time it sent them home during slow periods and docked their pay. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.351)
Still, Regalado was insistent, so he agreed to help. Wal-Mart disputes what happened next. However, according to a petition filed by the National Labor Relations Board seeking a federal court injunction against Wal-Mart, and according to (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.358)
While the New York lawsuit was pending, Wal-Mart changed its dating rule to forbid only supervisors from dating their direct employees. …. Rhoads, who subsequently married Beuman, of course, wasn’t fired. …..
Early one morning in 1992, while restocking shelves on the night shift at a Wal-Mart in Savannah, Georgia, thirty-eight-year-old Annette Bryant, a single mother, collapsed. Neither her co-workers nor the paramedics they called could open the store's locked doors until police drove to an assistant manager’s home to get a key. By then it was too late. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.360-)
One day in 1995, Eric Matthys, a software salesman in St. Charles, Illinois, bought four new tires at the local Sam’s Club for his pickup truck. ….. his tool box were gone, along with the truck’s stereo. Mirrors and most of it’s insides. Matthy’s had to pay $220 to get what was left towed back.
Matthy’s, reasonably enough, felt that Wal-Mart should make him whole. One might justifiably suspect that Sam Walton, who advocated tossing in something extra, say a free pair of socks, whenever a customer had to return so much as a defective pair of shoes, wouldn’t have balked for a moment at making restitution. But when Matthy’s called Bentonville officials there told him Wal-Mart wasn’t responsible and refused to give him any compensation, until Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Boyko etched a scathing account of the whole affair in one of his nationally syndicated columns. At that point, Wal-mart officials abruptly decided they could compensate Matthy’s after all. (Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” 1998 p.365-6)
One of the great success stories of our time is Wal-Mart. That homespun company that knows how to make money.
And Eric Matthys, a customer, says he recently got an idea of why they have done so well.
Matthys, 28, of St. Charles, Ill, needed some new tires for his pickup truck, so he went to Sam’s Club, a Wal-Mart warehouse outlet that sells all sorts of basic stuff.
“I bought the tires, then drove around to the service area where they put the tires on.
“They said it would be done in 45 minutes to an hour, so I did shopping.”
“He warned me that I could be held liable for anything bad I said against Wal-mart. I told him that I don’t see how I could be held liable for the truth Tire Job At Wal-mart Costs Man His Truck . - Google News
“Truck Stolen, Stripped, But Still Gets Owner Runaround” by Mike Boyko Chicago Tribune
Wal-Mart's Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association
Sprawl-Busters
Oppose Wal-Mart (OWM)
PBS Frontline: Secrets - Wal-Mart And China - A Joint Venture | Is Wal-Mart Good for America?
(Bob Ortega “In Sam We Trust” NYT review
'It's the children,' said Mrs Parsons, casting a half-apprehensive glance at the door. 'They haven't been out today. And of course----'
She had a habit of breaking off her sentences in the middle. The kitchen sink was full nearly to the brim with filthy greenish water which smelt worse than ever of cabbage. Winston knelt down and examined the angle-joint of the pipe. He hated using his hands, and he hated bending down, which was always liable to start him coughing. Mrs Parsons looked on helplessly.
'Of course if Tom was home he'd put it right in a moment,' she said. 'He loves anything like that. He's ever so good with his hands, Tom is.'
Parsons was Winston's fellow-employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms--one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended. At thirty-five he had just been unwillingly evicted from the Youth League, and before graduating into the Youth League he had managed to stay on in the Spies for a year beyond the statutory age. At the Ministry he was employed in some subordinate post for which intelligence was not required, but on the other hand he was a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organizing community hikes, spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns, and voluntary activities generally. He would inform you with quiet pride, between whiffs of his pipe, that he had put in an appearance at the Community Centre every evening for the past four years. An overpowering smell of sweat, a sort of unconscious testimony to the strenuousness of his life, followed him about wherever he went, and even remained behind him after he had gone.
'Have you got a spanner?' said Winston, fiddling with the nut on the angle-joint.
'A spanner,' said Mrs Parsons, immediately becoming invertebrate. 'I don't know, I'm sure. Perhaps the children----'
There was a trampling of boots and another blast on the comb as the children charged into the living-room. Mrs Parsons brought the spanner. Winston let out the water and disgustedly removed the clot of human hair that had blocked up the pipe. He cleaned his fingers as best he could in the cold water from the tap and went back into the other room.
'Up with your hands!' yelled a savage voice.
A handsome, tough-looking boy of nine had popped up from behind the table and was menacing him with a toy automatic pistol, while his small sister, about two years younger, made the same gesture with a fragment of wood. Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies. Winston raised his hands above his head, but with an uneasy feeling, so vicious was the boy's demeanour, that it was not altogether a game.
'You're a traitor!' yelled the boy. 'You're a thought-criminal! You're a Eurasian spy! I'll shoot you, I'll vaporize you, I'll send you to the salt mines!'
Suddenly they were both leaping round him, shouting 'Traitor!' and 'Thought-criminal!' the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gambolling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters. There was a sort of calculating ferocity in the boy's eye, a quite evident desire to hit or kick Winston and a consciousness of being very nearly big enough to do so. It was a good job it was not a real pistol he was holding, Winston thought.
Mrs Parsons' eyes flitted nervously from Winston to the children, and back again. In the better light of the living-room he noticed with interest that there actually was dust in the creases of her face.
'They do get so noisy,' she said. 'They're disappointed because they couldn't go to see the hanging, that's what it is. I'm too busy to take them. and Tom won't be back from work in time.'
'Why can't we go and see the hanging?' roared the boy in his huge voice.
'Want to see the hanging! Want to see the hanging!' chanted the little girl, still capering round.
Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in the Park that evening, Winston remembered. This happened about once a month, and was a popular spectacle. Children always clamoured to be taken to see it. He took his leave of Mrs Parsons and made for the door. But he had not gone six steps down the passage when something hit the back of his neck an agonizingly painful blow. It was as though a red-hot wire had been jabbed into him. He spun round just in time to see Mrs Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult.
'Goldstein!' bellowed the boy as the door closed on him. But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish face.
Back in the flat he stepped quickly past the telescreen and sat down at the table again, still rubbing his neck. The music from the telescreen had stopped. Instead, a clipped military voice was reading out, with a sort of brutal relish, a description of the armaments of the new Floating Fortress which had just been anchored between Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother--it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which 'The Times' did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak--'child hero' was the phrase generally used--had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police.….
He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too obvious, while to invent a victory at the front, or some triumph of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, might complicate the records too much. What was needed was a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances. There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed. Today he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence…..
'For Hate Week. You know--the house-by-house fund. I'm treasurer for our block. We're making an all-out effort--going to put on a tremendous show. I tell you, it won't be my fault if old Victory Mansions doesn't have the biggest outfit of flags in the whole street. Two dollars you promised me.'
Winston found and handed over two creased and filthy notes, which Parsons entered in a small notebook, in the neat handwriting of the illiterate.
'By the way, old boy,' he said. 'I hear that little beggar of mine let fly at you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him a good dressing-down for it. In fact I told him I'd take the catapult away if he does it again.'
'I think he was a little upset at not going to the execution,' said Winston.
'Ah, well--what I mean to say, shows the right spirit, doesn't it? Mischievous little beggars they are, both of them, but talk about keenness! All they think about is the Spies, and the war, of course. D'you know what that little girl of mine did last Saturday, when her troop was on a hike out Berkhamsted way? She got two other girls to go with her, slipped off from the hike, and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man. They kept on his tail for two hours, right through the woods, and then, when they got into Amersham, handed him over to the patrols.'
'What did they do that for?' said Winston, somewhat taken aback. Parsons went on triumphantly:
'My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy agent--might have been dropped by parachute, for instance. But here's the point, old boy. What do you think put her on to him in the first place? She spotted he was wearing a funny kind of shoes--said she'd never seen anyone wearing shoes like that before. So the chances were he was a foreigner. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?'…..
The quacking voice from the next table, temporarily silenced during the Ministry's announcement, had started up again, as loud as ever. For some reason Winston suddenly found himself thinking of Mrs Parsons, with her wispy hair and the dust in the creases of her face. Within two years those children would be denouncing her to the Thought Police. Mrs Parsons would be vaporized. Syme would be vaporized. Winston would be vaporized. O'Brien would be vaporized. Parsons, on the other hand, would never be vaporized. The eyeless creature with the quacking voice would never be vaporized. The little beetle-like men who scuttle so nimbly through the labyrinthine corridors of Ministries they, too, would never be vaporized. And the girl with dark hair, the girl from the Fiction Department--she would never be vaporized either. It seemed to him that he knew instinctively who would survive and who would perish: though just what it was that made for survival, it was not easy to say.
It was enough. Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed….
It was rather more of a shock to him when he discovered from some chance remark that she did not remember that Oceania, four years ago, had been at war with Eastasia and at peace with Eurasia. It was true that she regarded the whole war as a sham: but apparently she had not even noticed that the name of the enemy had changed. 'I thought we'd always been at war with Eurasia,' she said vaguely. It frightened him a little. The invention of aeroplanes dated from long before her birth, but the switchover in the war had happened only four years ago, well after she was grown up. He argued with her about it for perhaps a quarter of an hour. In the end he succeeded in forcing her memory back until she did dimly recall that at one time Eastasia and not Eurasia had been the enemy. But the issue still struck her as unimportant. 'Who cares?' she said impatiently. 'It's always one bloody war after another, and one knows the news is all lies anyway.'
Sometimes he talked to her of the Records Department and the impudent forgeries that he committed there. Such things did not appear to horrify her. She did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of lies becoming truths. He told her the story of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford and the momentous slip of paper which he had once held between his fingers. It did not make much impression on her. At first, indeed, she failed to grasp the point of the story.
'Were they friends of yours?' she said.
'No, I never knew them. They were Inner Party members. Besides, they were far older men than I was. They belonged to the old days, before the Revolution. I barely knew them by sight.'
'Then what was there to worry about? People are being killed off all the time, aren't they?'…….
'You are prepared to give your lives?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to commit murder?'
'Yes.'
'To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of innocent people?'
'Yes.'
'To betray your country to foreign powers?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases--to do anything which is likely to cause demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?'
'Yes.'
'If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to throw sulphuric acid in a child's face--are you prepared to do that?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to lose your identity and live out the rest of your life as a waiter or a dock-worker?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to commit suicide, if and when we order you to do so?'
'Yes.'……
As the door opened, the wave of air that it created brought in a powerful smell of cold sweat. Parsons walked into the cell. He was wearing khaki shorts and a sports-shirt.
This time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness.
'YOU here!' he said.
Parsons gave Winston a glance in which there was neither interest nor surprise, but only misery. He began walking jerkily up and down, evidently unable to keep still. Each time he straightened his pudgy knees it was apparent that they were trembling. His eyes had a wide-open, staring look, as though he could not prevent himself from gazing at something in the middle distance.
'What are you in for?' said Winston.
'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston and began eagerly appealing to him: 'You don't think they'll shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you haven't actually done anything--only thoughts, which you can't help? I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that! They'll know my record, won't they? YOU know what kind of chap I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the Party, didn't I? I'll get off with five years, don't you think? Or even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty useful in a labour-camp. They wouldn't shoot me for going off the rails just once?'
'Are you guilty?' said Winston.
'Of course I'm guilty!' cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?' His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. 'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said sententiously. 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit--never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?'
He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity.
'"Down with Big Brother!" Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again, it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank you," I'm going to say, "thank you for saving me before it was too late."'
'Who denounced you?' said Winston.
'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.'…….
The tradition--the unspoken tradition: somehow you knew it, though you never heard it said--was that they shot you from behind; always in the back of the head, without warning, as you walked down a corridor from cell to cell…..
One day they would decide to shoot him. You could not tell when it would happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be possible to guess. It was always from behind, walking down a corridor. Ten seconds would be enough. In that time the world inside him could turn over. And then suddenly, without a word uttered, without a check in his step, without the changing of a line in his face--suddenly the camouflage would be down and bang! would go the batteries of his hatred. Hatred would fill him like an enormous roaring flame. And almost in the same instant bang! would go the bullet, too late, or too early. They would have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaim it. The heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in their own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.
'Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me----'
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother. (George Orwell “1984”)
“If you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough.” Albert Einstein
Glaxo was inventive, all right, but not in discovering AZT. A Professor Jerome Horowitz synthesised the drug in 1964, under a grant from the US government's National Institutes of Health (NIH). A Glaxo unit bought the formula to use on pet cats.
In 1984, an NIH lab discovered the HIV virus. The government lab urgently asked drugmakers to send samples of every anti-retrovirus drug on their shelves. NIH spent millions inventing a method to test these compounds. When the tests showed AZT killed the virus, the government asked Glaxo, as the compound's owner, to conduct lab tests.
Glaxo refused. You can't blame it. HIV could contaminate labs, even kill researchers. So NIH's Dr Hiroaki Mitsuya, combining brilliance, bravery and loads of public cash, performed the difficult proofs on live virus. In February 1985, NIH told Glaxo the good news and asked the company to conduct human trials.
Glaxo refused again. Here's where Glaxo got inventive. Within days of the notice, the company filed a patent in Britain for its 'discovery'. Glaxo failed to mention the US government work. (Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” 2002 p.63-4)
original article Greg Palast “Keep taking our tablets (no one else's)” 2000
Gats Got His Tongue
When Churchill said, "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others," he simply lacked the vision to see that in March 2001, the WTO would design a system to replace democracy with something much better -- Article VI.4 of GATS. (Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” 2002 p.67-9)
(Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” original article on Palast.com
Gilded Cage: Wackenhut’s Free Market in Human Misery
On August 31, 1999, they took the opportunity to run amok, stabbing an inmate, then Garcia, several times. Why was Garcia left alone among the convicts? Let’s begin with Wackenhut’s cutrate Jails "R" Us method of keeping costs down. They routinely packed two prisoners into each cell. They posted just one guard to cover an entire "pod," or block of cells. This reverses the ratio in government prisons—two guards per block, one prisoner per cell. Of course, the state’s own prisons are not as "efficient" (read "cheap") as the private firm’s. But then, the state hadn’t lost a guard in seventeen years—where Wackenhut hadn’t yet operated seventeen months. (Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” 2002 p.113-5)
(Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” original article on apfn.net
Bush Family Finances: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
George W. Bush may have lost at the ballot box but he won where it counts, at the piggy bank. The Fortunate Son rode right into the White House on a snorting porker stuffed with nearly half a billion dollars: My calculation of the suffocating (Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” 2002 p.146-7)
Bush Family Finances: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy at Palast.com
"Exporting Corporate Control" by Joe Conason
Republicans and Democrats, Hand in Hand, to Save the Billionaire Boys’ Club
And they succeeded. With $21 million spent to establish the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, $30 million to start the Citizens for a Sound Economy and tens of millions more for think tanks, political action committees and the like, they constructed a nonpareil policy apparatus that reinvigorated the antigovernment movement with a new intellectual legitimacy backed by fearsome political clout. From Cato and the Koch machine came Newt Gingrich’s “Contract for America” and the funds to put Gingrich in power in the 1994 elections.
Not that the Kochs don’t call in favors. In 1989, the US Senate Special Committee on Investigations concluded that “Koch Oil, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, is the most dramatic example of an oil company stealing by deliberate mismeasurement and fraudulent reporting.” FBI agents had watched Koch Industries truckers appearing to take, but not fully paying for, oil from small gathering tanks on Indian reser- vations. An expert for Indian tribes calculates that $1.5 billion of Koch Industries’ wealth comes from pilfered oil. Koch denies it. (Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” 2002 p.150-1)
(Greg Palast “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” cited at investorvillage.com
Thomas L. Kane, traveling through shortly thereafter, described the scene in his 1850 book The Mormons:
I looked, and saw no one. I could hear no one move; though the quit everywhere was such that I heard the flies buzz, and the water-ripples break against the shallow of the beach. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.19)
“I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt.”
Smith's Second Vision came (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.)
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof." Joseph Smith's First Vision from http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,104-1-3-4,00.html
The Kirtland bank he tried to establish fared no better. One way of getting lots of money is to print it, and Smith tried that. Since he did not have the capital to establish a licensed bank, he took the pile of notes on which he had already printed “the Kirtland Safety Society bank” and instructed the printer to ad the prefix anti- and the suffis –ing to the word Bank on each note. For a brief while in early 1837 everyone seemed to have lots of money, but it soon became clear that the notes were worthless paper, and merchants in places like Cleveland were not amused. Failed land speculation and failed banks elsewhere in the nations added to the general economic malaise. Since Smith’s society could not redeem the notes with coin, and land values had collapsed so that real estate also failed to secure the notes, a predictable string of law suits followed. There was even an usnseemly brawl in the temple itself. When a warrant was issued on January 12, 1838, on a charge of banking fraud, Smith and First Counselor Rigdon fled on horseback in the middle of the night, one step ahead of the law. Their horses were pointed towards Missouri. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.31-2)
(Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.)
(Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.)
(Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.)
Evidence of Smith's unconventional ideas about marriage dates back to 1830, when contradictory accounts imply his hasty exit from Harmony may have been because Emma's cousin, Hiel Lewis, “accused Joseph of improper conduct with women told in a vision Marinda Nancy Johnson’s brother tarred and feathered Fanny Alger (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.60)
Nancy Rigdon… Mayor John C. Bennet Smith letter published (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.64-5)
But polygamy continues to break into the news and the courts every now and then. … By Melton’s count, at least seventeen polygamous leaders were murdered in the 1970’s mostly members of the LeBaron clan or its rivals. Additional lurid murder cases were splashed into the headlines in the 1980s and later, regarding the Singer Swapp-clan, the LeBarons, and others-the stuff of pulp fiction.…..
(Additional information from 2007 edition not in the first edition includes info on Warren Jeffs and Elizabeth Smart)
Polygamy was the catalyst for change in the LDS Church, and the issue that rallied the country, but for some the deeper issue was political. Senator Frederick T. Dubois of Idaho wrote in his autobiography, ….. “opposed domination of church (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.74-5)
The following February the First Presidency issued a “political manifesto” requiring General Authorities to sign a statement that they would seek church approval first before seeking public office. Both Roberts and Thatcher refused to (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.83)
Mauss believes …. There is no reason for even the most orthodox Mormon to be threatened by the realization that the prophets do not do everything by revelation and never have." Conversion and retention may be a looming difficulty among US blacks, (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.106)
In 1940 the General Authorities drafted a joint anti-FDR statement but never issued it. Hostility to Roosevelt’s New Deal as an affront to economic gumption and individualism produced a benign by-product. In 1936, after a survey showed. …(later the Church Welfare Program) …. There was much mythology; it was hardly true that all Mormons went off the government dole. But neither was the program “fictitious,” as one FDR agent claimed…..
Senator It took until 1950, but conservative Mormon Republicans finally whipped Thomas with one of their own, Wallace F. Bennet. ….and author of the 1958 testimonial book Why I Am A Mormon. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.109)
When the estimates given here…LDS formal reply:
“Your estimates were greatly exaggerated” not provided hints In 1978 Los Angeles-based reporter Jeffrey Kaye tried to expose the western ranges of the Mormon financial empire for New West magazine in a piece titled “An Invisible Empire: Mormon Money in California.”
A few years earlier Kaye had Shupe (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.115-6)
The talented church managers run a tight and profitable financial ship and can spend the cash any way they choose. They are not held accountable to the unquestioning flock in any way. The officials make their investment decisions in secret and report no dollar figures to anyone outside of the group of white-haired, life tenured gentlemen at the top. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.118)
Does the Mormon Welfare system actually work? The best assessment an outsider can make is that, yes, it seems to. A recipient of Mormon welfare may be paid…. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.127)
But no where is the Mormon presence more solidly expressed as a voice in the American mainstream than in the world of politics. After the 1998 elections a record sixteen Mormons were seated in congress, signifying their people’s secure place in the American establishment. 16-5/11 (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.131-7)
Another colorful Washington personality, though briefly, was Paula Hawkins, the crusading housewife who was elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida in 1980. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.135-6)
These three versions may combine to cover most of the segment; the following is part of the updated version
Mormon prominence in American public life escalated considerably in 2007 with republican Mitt Romney’s decision to run for president and the simultaneous installation of Democratic Harry Reid as the U.S. Senate’s majority leader, considered the most influential LDS office holder in American History. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.131-7 significant updates in 2007 edition for the 2008 election)
(differences between editions?):
Huntsman professed that the Book of Mormon “allows us to understand how a civilization existed on the American continenet and what the role of the Savior was in coming forth to this continent.” He said “there has never been a question in my mind that Jesus Christ established this church at this point in time so that men and women could derive happiness and could prepare themselves for his second coming and perform the ordinances necessary in this mortal state.”
President Hinckley’s own nephew, Mark WIlles, became a more controversial Mormon executive when he moved from General Mills to become chairman of the Times Mirror media company and publisher of the flagship Los Angeles Times.... (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.138)
It is only 6 percent of the deaths from emphysema, asthma, homicide, (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.176)
In this article Arrington quoted from an 1861 speech by the colorful Brigham Young, who took note that “many of the brethren chew tobacco” and ended with these instructions: “We request all addicted to this practice, to omit it while in this house [the tabernacle].… Publication was suspended for a year. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.177-8)
Education here is a bargain. President Merrill J. Bateman, former professor, dean, and senior vice president of the Mars candy company, declined to divulge a figure, but reportedly about 70 percent of the budget comes from church tithes ... to provide the university with an annual recommendation from their ward bishops, a significant control mechanism. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.222)
The church itself, however, has stated that it will not formally support any additional institutions of higher learning.
Instead, the LDS is focusing on strengthening the Church Educational System (CES). Mormon wards operate weekly…..
…..Writes Mauss, “A struggle thus ensued within CES between the original philosophy of reconciliation with outside learning and the emergent philosophy of particularistic indoctrination.
Mauss maintained the latter philosophy has “gained clear ascendancy,” since the new teachers selected by CES are those “much more amenable to the indoctrination philosophy.” The remarks of Apostle Mark E. Petersen at a 1962 CES staff summer school made a strong impression on George S. Tanner, longtime director of the institute at the University of Utah. As Tanner recorded the message in his journal, loyalty had priority over learning, and CES teachers were to develop faith and testimony in their students while avoiding intellectualizing. The CES had no room for academic freedom or intellectual inquery, and teachers who did not like it were to go elsewhere. Since then, writes Mauss, CES has become increasingly anti-scientific and anti-intellectual, more inward-looking, more intent on stressing the uniqueness and exclusiveness of the Mormon version of the gospel as opposed to all other interpretations, whether religious or scientific.” (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.227-9)
Other denominational schools blacklisted by the American Association of University Professors have included the Yeshiva University (1982),….
BYU’s first purge occurred in 1911 when the hot issues were evolution and higher criticism of the bible….. Wilkinson organized students into spy rings to report on their professors. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.232)
The earliest clear example of this is the checkered history of mother Lucy Mack Smith’s Biographical sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and his Progenitors for Many Generations, first published by Orson Pratt (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.250)
“Most damaging to our work were the steps he took to remove all the scholars from the department,” Arrington wrote. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.257)
The older polemical traditions split on two sides of a simple prophet/ fraud dichotomy: either Joseph Smith was everything he claimed to be, a true prophet entrusted with a new scripture from authentic ancient golden plates, or he was a charismatic fraud…..
Some friendly non-Mormons celebrate Joseph Smith as a highly creative religious original….
Stark thinks Mormonism may be the most important new word religion to arise since Islam appeared in the seventh century A. D., providing interesting phenomena for sociologists to observe…..
For Stark the divine acts through history with human agents, and application of a social science model does not necessarily imply hostility to the supernatural. Stark thinks that ideology plays almost no role in the beginnings of conversion, which occurs almost entirely through human networking. As he sees it, questions of literal historicity are not central to the Mormon religion…. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.261-2)
The older true prophet or charismatic fraud middle path
Stark thought Mormonism may be the first new world religion to arise since Islam appeared in the seventh century A.D., providing an interesting phenomena for sociologists to observe…..
Apostle Orson Pratt, in his 1851 works wrote, “The Book of Mormon claims to be a divinely inspired record….This book must be either true or false….If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions who will sincerely receive it as the word of God, and will suppose themselves securely built upon the rock of truth until they are plunged with their families into hopeless despair.
Apologists from the earliest times to the present day have stressed Smith’s lack of education as proof that he was not the author of the Book of Mormon. How could a simple farm boy have written such a complex literary work as the Book of Mormon, and so quickly, dictating while he looked into his hat? Lucy Mack Smith laid the ground work for this defense in her 1853 family biography, saying that he was thoughtful but less bookish than her other children; Emma hale Smith at the end of her life reminisced that Joseph was not capable of writing a literate letter, let alone composing so complex a work as the Book of Mormon. A current expression of the same idea comes from Richard bushman, a Columbia University history professor and devout Mormon: “How did these 584 pages of text come to issue from the mind of an untaught, indolent ignoramus, notable only for his money-digging episodes?” Yet some of smith’s contemporaries believed he had a startlingly unique knowledge of divine things. Pious Islamic tradition similarly maintains that Muhammad was not literate, and the Quran is also highly complex, though Mormons do not recognize it as scripture.
Every copy of the Book of Mormon is printed with the Testimony of the Three Witnesses and of the Eight Witnesses…..none of them disavowed their written testimonies even though most of them broke with Smith’s church. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.261-7)
additional Google citations of Orson Pratt quote
Jon Lloyd Stephens 1841 “Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan”
Smith went to work on the papyri and, with the help of his scribes, developed a working list of characters, his Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, which is in the Utah church’s possession, as are four manuscript copies of the Book of Abraham…..
plurality of Gods,….out of nothing. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.279)
Joseph Smith Translation (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.289)
According to Joseph Smith’s scriptural account of his 1820 First Vision, he asked god and jesus which of the competing “sects” was correct. “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight: that those professors were all corrupt; that: "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof." (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.320)
Does “Mormonism Attack Other Religions?” at Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry
Extracts from the “History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet” at lds.org
Joseph Smith's First Vision at lds.org
The “Anti-Mormon” literary movement has long antecedents, dates back to 1834, when phosphorescent materials about the origins of the newborn faith were collected and published in Painesville, Ohio, by the journalist E. D. Howe. His title:
Mormonism Unveiled: or, a faithful Account of that Singular Imposition and Delusion, from its Rise to the Present Time. With Sketches of the Characters of its Propagators, and a Full Detail of the Manner in Which the Famous GOLDEN BIBLE Was Brought Before the World. To Which are Added, Inquiries into the Probability that the Historical Part of the Said Bible Was Written by One Solomon Spalding, More than Twenty Years Ago, and By Him Intended to Have Been Published as a Romance.
The affidavits that Howe published were a collection from the Mormon dropout D. P. Hurlbut and included statements from people in Palmyra and Manchester who had known the Smith family…..
….as in the case with other religious and political ideologies. Almost without exception, they are Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestants, who simultaneously view Mormon as moral soulmates and major religious rivals. The U.S. Catholic Church expends little effort on the LDS issue, perhaps because it’s too big to bother and it has not yet reacted significantly to competition in Latin America. The mainline and Liberal Protestant denominations generally lack the evangelistic and theologic energy. The conservative Southern Baptist convention, America’s biggest Protestant body, seems to be the only denomination that invests much sustained effort in the Mormon wars, through its Interfaith Witness division in Atlanta.
Most of the combatants are independent “para-church” organizations that together constitute a cottage industry. The 1996 Directory of Cult Research Organizations lists 752 anti-cult agencies and individuals, of which 561 are motivated by Evangelical religion and 102 focus on Mormonism. Some of the Evangelical groups work against a whole range of so-called cults, for instance, the Christian Research Institute of Rancho Santa Margarita, California, and the Watchman Fellowship of Arlington, Texas, James R. White’s Phoenix-based Alpha and Omega Ministries takes on everyone from Catholics to Jehovah’s witnesses, but his first love is targeting Mormonism. His volunteers are often seen disseminating tracts during LDS conference time in Salt Lake.
Writing for FARMS, the LDS stalwart Louis Midgley rates five organizations in the first tier of “anti-Mormon” ministries: the southern Baptists; the Utah Lighthouse Ministry (discussed later in this chapter); Bill McKeever’s Mormonism Research Ministry (also known as Religious Research Institute) of Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Ed Decker’s Saints Alive in Jesus Issaquah, Washington. The directory lists four others in the front rank: Dick Baer’s Ex-Mormons and Christians Allience of Orangevale, California; Chuck sackett’s Sword of the Shepherd Ministries of Westlake, California; Thelma’s “Granny” Geer’s To Mormons With Love of Safford, Arizona; and John L. Smith’s Utah Missions Inc. of Marlow, Oklahoma.
In addition there’s the enormous exmormon.org website run by the anonymous Recovery from Mormonism (eleven links to temple endowments, thirteen on blood atonement, and links to other ex-Mormon web pages). This site make religious, secular, and feminist attacks on the LDS system and includes 104 anonymous personal stories in the “Why We Left” section. There is also an e-mail news group and a nationwide list of ex-Mormon contacts. The site claimed to receive 1.85 million hits in a year’s time.
Decker’s outfit, known for its “God Makers” books and videos, is harshest in the attacks. It has been condemned by the liberal Mormon Alliance and accused of “religious bigotry” by the National conference of Christians and Jews. But Decker’s most damaging critics are Jerald and Sandra Tanner of the Utah Lighthouse Ministry, fellow Evangelicals and fellow ex-Mormons, and the only important foes based in Salt Lake City. The Tanners, self-taught historical researchers, had previously gained credibility in 1984 by early proclaiming Mark Hoffman’s Martin Harris “salamander letter” to be a phony. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.345-8)
E. D. Howe. His title “Mormonism Unveiled” 1834
E. D. Howe. His title “Mormonism Unveiled” 1834 brief review and selected excerpts
Mormon Outreach: defending Christianity from Mormon doctrine
Concerned Christians: bringing Jesus to Mormons
Jerald and Sandra Tanner of the Utah Lighthouse Ministry
Anderson also coedits Case reports of the Mormon Alliance. ….. BYU refused to let woman professors issue a study of seventy-one LDS women who had suffered childhood abuse; two of the professors quit and published the research in 1999……
Anderson was never informed exactly what her 1993 “apostasy” consisted of. But everyone knows that she is being punished for delivering a paper at the 1992 Sunstone Symposium, and publishing a version of it in Dialogue in 1993 that compiled data on more than one hundred examples of church repressions against intellectuals. After the article came out, church members sent her information on another hundred cases. Rather than being removed for heresy, in other words, Anderson is suffering church discipline because she conveyed information on church discipline. Her most incendiary accusation was that headquarters operates a systematic clipping service to monitor individual Saints, carefully filing their letters to the editor, other writings, quotes in the media, and public activities. ‘We must protest, expose, and work against an internal espionage system that creates and maintains secret files on members of the church,’ she has declared.
The First Presidency later admitted that it had established the Strengthening Church Members Committee, led by two apostles, which ‘serves as a resource to priesthood leaders throughout the world.’ The Presidency cited precedent in Joseph Smith’s 1839 scriptural command that Saints document ‘abuses’ against them and collect the ‘libelous publications that are afloat’ (D&C 123). A spokesman said that Salt Lake officialdom merely supplies the data and that local church officials are responsible for any resulting actions taken against members.
No other sizable religion in America monitors its own followers in this way. The files are only one aspect of a meticulous system of internal discipline through which contemporary Mormonism operates more like a small cult than a major denomination….see google …But other denominations usually remove those who are found guilty from their jobs without expelling them from the church altogether. The LDS Church, however, is unusual in penalizing members for merely criticizing officialdom or for publishing truthful—if uncomfortable—information. Also, mainstream churches openly state the charges that are at issue (and Protestants often conduct public tribunals), while Mormon officials shroud their procedures with secrecy. The Mormon Church prosecutes many more of its members than do these other religious groups, which tend to focus discipline on clergy in important positions such as theology professorships. Such discipline of rank-and–file members in other churches is virtually unknown. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.353-5)
Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 see also Mormoninfo.org
Paul Toscano, a Salt Lake City attorney, was a founder of the Mormon Alliance and longtime critic of the church leadership. His excommunication trial dealt largely with his observations about the general Authorities in a Sunstone Symposium address titled “All is not well in Zion: False Teachings of the True church.”
D. Michael Quinn, the most important scholar among the six and a resigned Brigham and Young historian, wrote a 1985 Dialogue article…. on the Early Mormonism and the Magic World View…. Deborah Laake Secret Ceremonies (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.356-7)
Action was indeed take nearly on against a feminist pioneer, Sonia Johnson. Like Lavina Anderson, Johnson had a conventional upbringing, in her case as the daughter of a teacher in the church’s high school seminary system..... “Mormons for the EPA” excommunicated
Though….;and refusal to let the two female professors publish their study on Mormon survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The AAUP concluded that BYU “has a history of suppressing scholarship and artistic expressions representing the experience of women.” (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.367)
Yet Joseph Smith Jr. was nothing if not a dissenter in his own time. And dissent has its uses, four of which are listed by Roger D. Launius and Linda Thatcher in their anthology on Mormon dissidents, Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History. (Richard N. Ostling, Joan K. Ostling “Mormon America” 1999/2007 p.370)
In 1898, when pondering what to do with the Philippines (after having forcibly wrested them from the Spanish), President McKinley ….. McKinley tells how, after praying to "Almighty God for light and guidance," he was visited with the revelation that it (Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” 1989 p.86)
Concerned that the invasion of Russia would be ineffective, Woodrow Wilson was more hesitant to intervene than some other leaders. But he never made secret his distaste for the Bolsheviks and never offered friendly relations to them. (Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” 1989 p.138-9)
During the 1980s millions of Americans were treated to movies like Red Dawn and Invasion USA and television series like ABC’s “Amerika,” which portrayed imaginary Soviet invasions of the United States. Most Americans would probably be (Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” 1989 p.140,1,3)
With few exceptions, like Winston Churchill, Western leaders were more concerned with the Bolshevik specter than the fascist reality. They feared Hitler's emergent power but they did not look upon fascism with the same fear and loathing as they did communism. Unlike the communists, the fascists were not a threat to business enterprise; if anything, the fascists had crushed socialist organizations in Germany and Italy and had made those countries safer and more profitable than ever for private capital. (Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” 1989 p.142) a similar version is also cited on JR’s free thought pages
Supposedly devoid of any hostile intent of its own and hoping to build relations with the USSR, the United States suffered a rude awakening and was reluctantly obliged to assume world leadership in response to "the Soviet Challenge.” (Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” 1989 p.146)
It should be clear by now that every attempt to gain military superiority has fostered only a more costly, more dangerous arms escalation. Nuclear weapons make us "stronger" yet less secure. The more quickly (Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” 1989 p.164)
(Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” Third World Travelers excerpts
(Michael Parenti “The Sword and the Dollar” Home page
Michael Parenti “Against Empire” PDF
After the ensuing outcry and an international boycott of Nestle in 1977 breast feeding began to rebound. In response, the formula industry rejiggered its (Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” 2008 p.56-7)
For the past twenty-five years, Diane Levin, the Wheelock College development specialist, has taken prospective teachers to a local mass-market toy (Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” 2008 p.98-9)
In 2006, the Alliance for Childhood, an advocacy group conducted a study of kindergarten teachers in Atlanta. The goal was to investigate the apparent (Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” 2008 p.108-11)
Videos from Baby Einstein to you baby can read! fall into what's called the infant development media category
On the surface, at least, it looks like much thought goes into what constitutes educational baby programing. Most baby videos avoid cartoons in order to better fit what many parents think of as more appropriately educational: puppets, photographs, live animals, outdoor scenes, and the ever-present ... (Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” 2008 p.120-1)
Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” extended excerpts
Similar review from Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds
By Susan Gregory Thomas
The Center for a Commercial Free Childhood filed a complaint with the Federal trade Commission charging Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby with false advertising (This didn't stop ... (Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” 2008 p.128-33)
The popularity of baby signing can be largely attributed to the efforts of psychologists Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn (Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” 2008 p.156-61)
Parents are receiving carefully marketed messages that good parents expose their children to every opportunity to excel buy a plethora of enrichment tools (Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” 2008 p.174-5)
(Pamela Paul “Parenting Inc.” also cited in later article "Building Resilience in Early Childhood: The Value of Play"
CHAPTER 1
Kill Them All
"I am here for the money." —Afghan Gen. Zia Lodin to the CIA
"The solution is to let them kill each other," the small, energetic senior citizen in the Windbreaker tells me over a fiesta omelet with extra jalapenos at a Florida Waffle House. He points upward. "Send up a satellite and take pictures. Keep the Special Operations teams in the hills, fifty miles out of the towns. Then go in at night and do your work. Kill them. Kill like we did in Germany. Flatten the place. You have to not mind killing innocents. Even the women and children."
These are the words of seventy-five-year-old Billy Waugh, Special Forces legend, seasoned CIA paramilitary, renowned assassin, covert operator, and the world's longest operating "Green Badger"--or CIA contractor. Over breakfast we discuss my most recent trip to Iraq with contractors and the deadly and confused situation there. Billy is giving me his frank opinions on what needs to be done in Iraq to stop the ever-mounting toll of dead Americans. His reference to tactics in Germany and other wars is not based on a book but on events in his lifetime.
The best clue to Billy's age comes from the vast historical and geographical area over which he can roam in the first person. Billy Waugh tried to sign up to fight during the closing year of World War II but was sent back to his home in Bastrop, Texas, because he was only fifteen at the time. He finally became an army paratrooper in 1947 at age seventeen; joined the barely two-year-old Special Forces (SF) in 1954; worked off and on with the CIA starting in 1961, fully enjoying his long career in the business of killing and espionage. Waugh is a decorated veteran of Korea, a twenty-seven-month decorated veteran of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam era, an eleven-year Special Forces veteran, and a veteran of a yet-to-be-determined number of CIA operations as either an employee (Blue Badger) or as a contractor (Green Badger). He knows many people and has been to many places--Vietnam, Bosnia, Sudan, Kosovo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, and dozens of other countries. Just as an employee and contractor for the CIA, Billy has worked and traveled in sixty-four countries since 1989.
Billy exudes obvious pride regarding his work for the Agency and has not only written a book about some of his adventures, called Hunting the Jackal, but also travels around speaking to graduation classes, SF associations, and even football teams. His three-month-old metallic-champagne Lincoln Town Car already has twenty-two thousand miles on it, mostly from driving between Florida and Washington. "I can't fly anymore," he admits. It's not that he is afraid of crashing; he just carries too many weapons. When he gives his motivational speech, he says, "It's all about being shot up and how to keep on going. How to be tough." At his age and with his experiences, Billy Waugh should not be alive. His custom front license plate provides clues. While his rear plate advertises WOUNDED WAR VET, the front plate spells it out in simpler terms: 8 HITS, with an illustration of a Purple Heart medal.
Our waitress at the Waffle House probably assumes this short, compact man with thinning hair and thick glasses is an energetic grandfather. His black Members Only jacket, golf shirt, and nondescript pants wouldn't spark her curiosity, unless she noticed the grinning skull patch on his jacket--a Special Operations Association logo. Billy's culture and style is rooted in the U.S. Special Forces. He wears two large army rings, an SF pendant on a gold chain, and a gold Rolex Daymaster with diamonds around the bezel--not in a decorative fashion, but more like tribal badges common among ex-Special Forces soldiers. Billy Waugh is also a Texan, famously outspoken, and doesn't suffer fools. Despite his age and limping gait--the result of old combat injuries--Billy has the mental and physical vigor of a twenty-one-year-old. He speaks in staccato bursts like machine-gun fire, beginning every conversation with a barrage of questions and finishing up with a few bursts of opinions.
I first met Billy over the phone, and he immediately began interspersing his spiel with questions, like an opening mortar bombardment designed to confuse or narrow in on an opponent. Even in person, Billy likes to sort out the person across the table as friend or foe. If enough names and answers click, he becomes your friend. If not, the conversation comes to an end. His only caveat to the curious is, "I ain't gonna tell you any classified stuff" or make the Agency look bad.
Billy talks about killing like civilians might talk about their golf game. It's what he does, what he did, and what he knows--something the U.S. government trained him and paid him to do for many years. Billy's descriptions of death and killing are not intended to impress but to assure the listener of the difference between good and bad people. Billy must be excused for his blunt talk. He normally seeks out the company of soldiers who understand such things. The Special Operations community lauds him as a living legend, and just the way he refers to himself in the third person, speaking his own name in compressed syllables--"billywaugh"--gives him a ring of uniqueness and celebrity.
In his biography, Hunting the Jackal, Waugh describes himself as someone who simply functions in combat, someone who does not spend too much time worrying, complaining, or examining what he does. Billy has killed countless people, has had people try to kill him, been nearly dead, and has lost many friends. He has worn the smell of death, whether by retrieving maggot-infested booby-trapped bodies of comrades killed in battle, or in the private weight of burying dozens of close friends. Despite this, even at his advanced age, he would gladly go anywhere his country would send him under any conditions to kill or help others to kill America's enemies. But his days of killing and hunting America's enemies are over now. Even in America's new "dead or alive" War on Terror, Billy sees a change in how contractors and paramilitaries are allowed to operate.
Billy tells me how Special Forces tactics have changed since his early career. "Closing in and doing hand-to-hand with the NVA [North Vietnamese Army] was not a very bright tactic, but it was the only tactic we knew during the sixties and early seventies. The new tactic is to use Special Forces accompanied by some of the OGA [other governmental agencies] and not allow our friendlies to close with the enemy. The new tactic is to fight a 'standoff' type of war in most cases. Usually a four to five kilometer standoff is the recommended distance to close with the enemy." Today's CIA and Special Forces method of training proxy armies is designed to create a "hands-off" relationship. He explains that the license to kill once accorded special operations has been finessed or outsourced to avoid direct liability. "We don't pull the trigger but we sure as hell give them a gun, bullets, show them the target, and teach them how to pull that trigger. It didn't use to be that way." Given his long career in covert operations, Billy should know how it "used to be."
From its founding in 1952, the mission of Special Forces was to operate behind enemy lines, train insurgent troops, and act as a force multiplier. They were recruited from the more elite airborne units and were usually aggressive, independent-minded men with high IQs and good moral character--men who would follow orders but could think for themselves under great pressure while working in hostile environments. All the early members of the Special Forces had basic foreign language skills, held at least a sergeant's rank, and were willing to work behind enemy lines in civilian clothes. Due to the Special Forces's covert nature and links to the CIA, most people did not know they existed until the early 1960s, when President Kennedy became a major supporter and expanded their role dramatically in the newly emerging Vietnam conflict, first as advisors and later as ground troops. Their close relationship with the CIA was kept in the background.
The CIA also had their own paramilitary teams, some of them contractors, others seconded from the military. I ask Billy what the difference was.
Billy rubs his thumb and finger together. "Money. The CIA had money, lots of it. We [Special Forces] did the legwork."
The concept of Special Forces was not new, but America was confronting an unfamiliar style of warfare in Southeast Asia--a communist insurgency that did not stand and fight in big battalions, but rather sent agents in plainclothes to recruit, train, and equip insurgents. What the CIA and the Special Forces did in Southeast Asia was modeled on what the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) did in occupied France with the Jedburghs, whose mission was to drop in covert operators to coordinate supply efforts and provide communications and intelligence. The training and operational efforts of Special Forces were greatly expanded from the simple tactics taught by the Jedburghs in World War II.
Billy joined the Special Forces in the mid-1950s and began working occasional covert assignments for the CIA starting in 1961. At the time, Billy didn't really think of himself as a covert operator, though in March of 1965, Waugh was asked to form an "A" team and to set up an operational base from which to run the northeast section of the Binh Dinh Province in South Vietnam. Billy's mission was to recruit and train up an army of mercenaries--a Civilian Irregular Defense Group, or CIDG--to disrupt the NVA's movements within enemy-controlled territory. The CIA's Combined Studies Division would supply the funding, and the Special Forces would do the legwork.
Billy and his team built a rudimentary fort along the An Lao River and an airstrip using the labor of about a hundred mercenaries recruited from the lowlands. Once set up, his team was to coordinate efforts to harass the enemy in a twenty-kilometer circle around their base. The North Vietnamese Army had full knowledge of the base but did not try to overrun it. Unlike the Jedburghs, who would work inside cities or out on farms in occupied France, the Americans were running a covert war from fixed military bases.
On June 18, 1965, Billy, a small team of three SF, and eighty-six South Vietnamese mercenaries left their roughly hewn A-team fort and hiked along a trail that followed the An Lao River on a seventeen-kilometer recce to a small NVA camp. They planned a stealthy brutal attack in darkness to convince the Vietcong that the area was too dangerous for a base camp. Billy and his group had killed over one hundred sixty sleeping soldiers when they heard a bugle sound a call to arms for the approximately four thousand NVA troops who had just landed the day prior.
Nearly all of the Vietnamese mercenaries were gunned down as they fled across a rice paddy. As Billy ran, a bullet shattered his right knee and another destroyed his right foot. A third bullet penetrated Billy's left wrist, knocking his watch off. Waugh lay on the ground, soaked in blood, his leg bones glistening white through his ripped uniform, left for dead. It should have been the end of Billy Waugh. He remembers counting how long the green tracers of bullets glowed as he tried to judge the distance of NVA troops, and smelling and feeling the heat of kerosene from napalm dropped by American reinforcements, until a final bullet clipped him in the head and knocked him out cold.
Thirty-five-year-old Master Sergeant Billy Waugh awoke a few hours later to find himself stripped naked by the enemy. The sun burned down on his exposed body, crusting his blood in sticky patches, as the pain from his wounds exploded in his head. Around him the fighting continued. A helicopter arrived under fire to lift him out, but the soldier who tried to carry Billy in was shot twice through the heart and lungs. Waugh crawled the final few feet and was helped onto the helo. As Billy lay there on the floor of the slick, he looked up in time to see a bullet hit the helicopter gunner's arm, almost severing it. Billy made it to a hospital in a heap of the dead. When the battle stopped raging, the enemy had lost six hundred men, and out of Billy's eighty-six mercenaries, only fifteen had escaped. One American from the A-team had been killed, and three, including Billy, had made it out alive.
For the next few months, Waugh lived in a hazy painkiller-numbed world. It would take over a year for his wounds to begin to heal. At the other end of this dark tunnel, he realized his ultimate calling: Waugh wanted to get back into not just what he calls the "vanilla" SF, but the "blackside" SF who worked directly with the CIA. He had already died once and so had no fear of death. His injuries meant he might never again function in normal special operations, but Billy wasn't about to let injury end his lifelong dream of being a soldier. Most soldiers would accept that they had used up their luck, but Billy wanted back in, demonstrating a tenacious pit-bull approach that would be the hallmark of his combat career and scare off others whenever Billy asked for volunteers on missions. It is no surprise that in the future, Billy would take great pride in working alone.
Despite being barely able to walk, he talked his way into being assigned to a CIA-funded group called Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Special Observation Group (MACV-SOG), and by doing so took the journey from the overt "white" side of military operations to the "black" side of warfare--deniable TOP SECRET-level covert and clandestine operations that were never intended to be revealed to the American public. His knowledge of Special Forces and his eagerness to go into combat got him accepted with friends who put him up in an aircraft to do forward air controlling, observation, and rescue. When the pus stopped oozing out of his legs and they began to mend, he started working on the ground.
The MACV-SOG was created in 1964 as a clandestine, unconventional warfare joint-operations group working in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Although essentially a military project, the joint military and intelligence program reunited two halves of what used to be combined under the World War II-era OSS. The MACV-SOG combined CIA, Special Forces, mercenaries, counterinsurgents, independent contractors, and private front and legitimate corporations in the war against the North Vietnamese. The joint operations made use of both CIA officers and active military that both funded and directed the actions of hired indigenous paramilitaries. The use of mercenaries provided an element of deniability not allowed uniformed U.S. troops, particularly in countries not considered part of the hostilities, like Cambodia and Laos.
Robert Young Pelton “Licensed to Kill” 2006 p.17-
He shifts his AK, then smiles. “These days the Agency is looking for Mormons and born-agains. People with a lot of patriotism and the need to do good. At least we start that way…I don't drink, smoke, or eat crap," he says, smiling. "My only weaknesses? Pepsi and women." Robert Young Pelton “Licensed to Kill” 2006 p.61
Robert Young Pelton “Licensed to Kill” 2006 cited on NY Daily News
On September 10, 2001, Jonathan Keith Idema was living the less-than- idyllic existence of an ex-soldier and convicted felon in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The next day, as he watched thousands Robert Young Pelton “Licensed to Kill” 2006 p.227-
Noam Chomsky: "Deterring Democracy" 1991 for free online copy click here
"Rethinking Camelot: JFK, Vietnam and the political culture" by Noam Chomsky
Sam Harris “The End of Faith” 2004 on line copy
Jeremy Scahill: “Blackwater” 2007 on line copy at issuu.com
Jeremy Scahill: “Blackwater” on-line copy at knizky.mahdi
Bob Woodward “State of Denial” download site source
Howard Zinn: "A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)" 2005 for free copy click here
http://www.ebookf.com/
http://www.socialist-federation.org/Books.html
http://www.lumkan.com/leptis-magna-regularly-looted.html
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ConsentPOP_Chom.html
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3402/
Report of the Select Committee of Assassinations of the US House of representatives
additional information available at History Maters.com
Copy of JFK’s “Peace Speech” at American University
James Douglass Ground Zero Center for nonviolent Action website
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