Junior Johnson Appreciation Day

HERE

Junior Johnson, is a retired moonshiner in the rural South (North Carolina) who became one of the early superstars of NASCAR in the 1950s and 1960s. He won 50 NASCAR races in his career before retiring in 1966. In the 1970s and 1980s, he became a NASCAR racing team owner; he sponsored such NASCAR champions as Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. He now produces a line of fried pork skins and country ham. (& Midnight Moon - Carolina Moonshine) He is credited with discovering drafting. He is nicknamed "The Last American Hero" and his autobiography is of the same name.

One more lap.

Midnight Moon - Carolina Moonshine

I wanted one, but the $6/7K was too much in '65, so I settled for a Hi-Po Fastback at $3.5K. This particular setup held the C stock record for a number of years.

This is virtually identical to one I came within a hair of getting in a three part trade for my '69 C-10. Mine, fortunately didn't have a blower sticking out of the cut hood. Blasphemy!:)

Got a nice flask engraved with Junior Johnson's Midnight Moon Carolina Moonshine.

Similar to my Hi-Po. There were others, also more Cobras. The infield was full of hundreds of classics.

One from the Dale Earnhardt collection.

Racing begins the first week of June. They have nice facilities including cabins, restaurant and garage. The track still needs to be paved, but I don't see much else that needs done. About the only complaint I heard today was that their beer license wouldn't be approved until February.:) Zero police. I guess they figured the 99% Southern accent people could take care of any problems.:) My only complaint? Wish it was a drag strip instead, but beggars can't be choosers.:)

Conservatives and American Empire

Via Rebellion

American conservatives who claim to value liberty and limited government but continue to take pride in the country’s bloated military establishment would do well to remember Randolph Bourne’s pithy declaration “war is the health of the state.”

Conservatives will argue that the basic function of the state is to defend the country against foreign invasion or attack; therefore, allowing the government to make provisions for such exigent circumstances is necessary in a hostile world.

The problem with this argument is that not since the War of 1812 has the U.S. military been deployed to defend the country from foreign attack. The U.S. military, rather than being an instrument of national defense, has been used as an offensive weapon in an imperial project that goes back more than a century.

Now, many conservatives will dismiss the charge that the United States is an empire as left-wing rhetoric, but they must contend with the fact that many within their own ranks have openly boasted of the American Empire.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said in 2002, “People are coming out of the closet on the word ‘empire.’” Krauthammer even boasted that America is “no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome.” Robert Kagan has written of “The Benevolent Empire.” Dinesh D’Souza, after writing in 2002 that “America has become an empire,” approvingly added that it is “the most magnanimous imperial power ever.”

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Gay Kiss During High School Musical Leads to a Student Walk-Out

Some people aren’t comfortable with public displays of affection. Don’t believe me? Consider the scene that unfolded at a Hartford Public High School (in Hartford, Connecticut), when audiences reacted to a pro-gay advocacy play featuring two boys locking lips.

The musical, called “Zanna, Don’t!,“ is about an ”opposite world” of sorts in which heterosexuals are the minority and homosexuals are the majority. In the play, straight individuals are outcasts and the most popular guy in school is — gasp — a gay student who is on the chess team.

“Zanna, Don’t” was brought to the school by the Leadership Greater Hartford’s Quest, which is described by the Hartford Courant newspaper as, “a program for professionals that develops leadership skills.” The paper also reports that the group put on the show in an anti-bullying effort that members hoped would help gay, bisexual, transgendered or “questioning youth.” The Courant continues:

In a partnership with the nonprofit True Colors, one Quest team raised $10,000 to show the musical three times at Hartford High this month. The Knox Foundation and the Samuel Roskin Trust at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving gave sponsorship money.

But not everyone was enthusiastic about the show. As soon as the kiss took place, there was instantaneous clamoring. Screams, loud voices and disgust broke out and the school’s football team stomped out in protest. Some people were so anxious to leave the auditorium that they allegedly jumped over seats to get to the exit.

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From the "DUH" category: Cybercommand chief opposes U.N. net control

The commander of the U.S. Cyber Command said Thursday that he does not favor giving the United Nations the power to regulate the Internet.

Some regulations are needed to protect critical networks that control electrical power, banking, transportation and other key elements of society, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who is also director of the National Security Agency, said after a speech to a security conference.

But asked whether the U.N. should have a regulation role, Gen. Alexander said: “No. I’m not for regulating, per se. I’m concerned about it, and this is a tough question. I would say, generally speaking, I’m not into that portion of regulating as you would espouse.”

Last month, Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan submitted a resolution to the U.N. General Assembly calling for giving individual states the right to control the Internet. The resolution, submitted Sept. 14, calls for “an international code of conduct for information security.”

It requests “international deliberations within the United Nations framework on such an international code, with the aim of achieving the earliest possible consensus on international norms and rules guiding the behavior of states in the information space.”

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Did You Know Feds Will Temporarily Cut Off All TV and Radio Broadcasts on Nov. 9?

Via pumabydesign

If you have ever wondered about the government’s ability to control the civilian airwaves, you will have your answer on November 9th.

On that day, federal authorities are going to shut off all television and radio communications simultaneously at 2:00PM EST to complete the first ever test of the national Emergency Alert System (EAS).

This isn’t a wild conspiracy theory. The upcoming test is posted on the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau website.

Only the President has the authority to activate EAS at the national level, and he has delegated that authority to the Director of FEMA. The test will be conducted jointly by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS).

In essence, the authority to seize control of all television and civilian communication has been asserted by the executive branch and handed to a government agency.

The EAS has been around since 1994. Its precursor, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), started back in 1963. Television and radio broadcasters, satellite radio and satellite television providers, cable television and wireline video providers are all involved in the system.

So this begs the question: is the first ever national EAS test really a big deal?

Probably not. At least, not yet.

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Tarborough Junior Cotillion

Reminds me of Madame Duval's dancing classes in Middleburg, Virginia.
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Cotillion members dancing at the Holly Ball

TARBORO – The Tarborough Junior Cotillion is taking a French word from yesterday and making it a common word for today.

“In the seventeenth century, King Louis XIV hosted lavish garden parties at his French chateau. His guests would often walk through the grass, pick the flowers and wade in the fountains. Since the guests didn’t have gardens at their homes, they were unsure of how to behave. The King placed little signs reading, ‘Keep on the paths’ and ‘Please don’t litter’ around his chateau to give the guests an idea of what to do when attending his parties,” said Laura Ashley Lamm, executive director.

“The French word for ‘little signs’ is etiquette and centuries later the rules of etiquette still guide us in what we should do in unfamiliar situations.”

The Tarborough Junior Cotillion is taking etiquette lessons that are useful for today and teaching them to young adults in the Twin Counties as they learn to dance socially. The TJC will begin its third season on October 29 and children in grades fifth through seventh are invited to participate in this unique social education experience.

The purpose of each session is to provide youth with both memories and instruction of proper etiquette techniques and social graces. Cotillion sessions will consist of lessons in basic etiquette through the use of ballroom dancing during seven hour-and-a-half sessions. Sessions are held one Saturday evening a month from 5 – 6: 30 p.m. at Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church in Tarboro.

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National Police Misconduct NewsFeed Daily Recap 10-21-11

Injustice Everywhere

VERBATIM POST

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Here are the 18 reports and one updated report tracked in our National Police Misconduct News Feed for this Friday, October 21, 2011:

• Chicago IL cop under investigation over 3 shooting incidents, 2 of which were fatal, after a video apparently showed that he fatally shot an unarmed person who was laying face-down on the ground. [0] http://trib.in/rnfzip

• In an update to a previous report, Escondido CA revealed it settled a lawsuit for $7.25mil over psychologically abusive interrogations of murdered child’s brother and false arrests. (update) bit.ly/oCC3FR

• Washington DC cop was sentenced to 15yrs for acting as lookout during a botched armed robbery attempt on a drug dealer that left one person dead [0] wapo.st/qE0r0X

• 3 Union City NJ cops were arrested on agg assault & weapons charges after allegedly threatening a man with a gun and dragging a woman out of his car while off-duty [1] bit.ly/mQZGz0

• New York NY undercover cop sparked a confrontation at protest against the NYPD stop-and-frisk policies when he tried to arrest a photojournalist that he shoved without cause [4] bit.ly/r5PX9Y

• Beaufort Co SC deputy arrested on allegations he was sending inappropriate text messages to a 15yr-old girl [0] bit.ly/p8huUm

• Columbia SC cop arrested on allegations he had sex with a 17yr-old prostitute while in uniform then left in his police cruiser afterward [0] bit.ly/nltk68

• Forsest City IA cop charged w/arson & burglary after admitting to setting fire to a police station & stealing a rifle [0] bit.ly/o6yWhn

• Tempe AZ cop sentenced to probation for stealing items from evidence including gift cards and a refrigerator [0] bit.ly/oxZwJW

• Barre MA cop convicted on 5 of 7 counts of perjury involving his testimony at the trial of his girlfriend [0] bit.ly/qfOh8r

• Philadelphia PA cop convicted on misd theft charge for stealing $825 from an open safe while responding to call at a bar [0] bit.ly/pCFA6g

• Elkins WV cop revokes police cert in plea deal for harassment, dropping felony & misd kidnapping & DV charges [0] bit.ly/noIjCB

• Yuma AZ cop fired and may face charges for abuse of authority involving unspecified on-duty sexual activity [1] bit.ly/ppzyWo

• Fife WA police lieutenant was suspended while investigated for unspecified misconduct, possibly sexual harassment [2] bit.ly/qwsH6C

• Cape Breton NS cop charged w/assault & unlawful confinement involving multiple unspecifed incidents [3] bit.ly/q4brKM

• Mint Hill SC cop fired for lying when he claimed he retreived equip from ex-cop he supervised who now faces charges [0] bit.ly/n1DyNA

• 2 Miami-Dade FL cops, a detective & major, face suspensions & demotions over unspecified misconduct allegations [2] cbsloc.al/nhYjyt

• Bristol CT police lieutenant charged w/disorderly conduct after investigation into unspecified domestic incident [1] bit.ly/nk8vCM

• Florida Highway Patrol officer fired after arrested on drunk driving charge after alleged hit & skip crash w/tree [0] bit.ly/owtND0

Before I go, I wanted to see what our readers thought about this report and it’s associated video out of New York city…

A word of caution, it is graphic…

Withdrawal of US Troops From Iraq Highly Suspect

Via California Tree of Liberty

Think-tank designs for Iran leave only Israeli attack & coaxed provocation for total war on table.

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

For ten months the Obama administration has presided over the "Arab Spring," a geopolitical gambit years in the making, and executed simultaneously in multiple nations throughout the Middle East and North Africa in the beginning of 2011.

The regional conflagration was stoked by a steady stream of denial, even feigned surprise, with covert support for US-backed opposition groups, then more overt support, and finally NATO airstrikes, weapons, training, and special operations forces lent to the rebellion in Libya and weapons and support sent to Syria's militants.

These collective efforts stretching from Tunisia and leading up to Iran's doorstep serve a singular agenda -- that is, to contain and ultimately overturn the reemergence of Russia as well as to contain the rise of China.

Toppling Iran

Integral to this stated agenda, is the toppling of Iran's government and its integration into the Wall Street-London "international order." Efforts to topple Syria's government by US-backed and now apparently armed opposition groups aim to isolate and even provoke the Islamic Republic into a suitable justification for US or Israeli (or both) retaliation. As reported on extensively, the literal playbook from which these stratagems are drawn is the Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" report. In it, it specifically states:

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SA Crime summary Oct 22 2011

Afrikaners increasingly targetted, abused by black-racist ANC-regime officials

Summary: Afriforum fights back: anti-white racism crimen-injuria complaint against Black SAPS brig Vuyokazi Ndebele by Afrikaner constable Angelique Kok; black cops charged with criminal racism by attorney Lyell in Vereeniging; Jan and Maryna Prinsloo found dead with heads mutilated by explosives in Welkom; two murder-suspects of Pietz Bezuidenhout denied bail in Potchefstroom; Groblersdal farmer Piet Swart charged with shooting dead a black youth; Mohammed Adams in court for kidnapping school girl at Afrikaans Burger High in Florida; SA showjumping champ Roger Hessen survives a mystery shooting with exploding 9mm bullets; A new hatespeech song was born: ‘Kill the White People’ coined by Ancyl member Tokyo Nhlapo on Oct 14 2011 at Wits University.

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A Long Day’s Journey Out of Night, Part III

Gates of Vienna
VERBATIM POST
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Below is the third article in a four-part series on history, human development, and Islam by our English correspondent Seneca III. A slightly different version of this essay was previously published at Crusader Rabbit.

by Seneca III

On a chill Thursday morning, February 17th in the year 1600, just sixteen years before Galileo Galilei barely escaped the same fate, the fifty-one-year-old Benedictine friar Giordano Bruno was led naked and with an iron spike through his tongue into the Campo de’Fiori in Rome, burned at the stake for committing “heresy in matters of dogmatic theology”, and his ashes dumped in the Tiber. His crime had been to comment on the work of Nicolaus Copernicus and suggest that there were infinite worlds in the universe with intelligent life, some perhaps with beings superior to humans.

[“I can imagine an infinite number of worlds like the Earth, with a Garden of Eden on each one. In all these Gardens of Eden, half the Adams and Eves will not eat the fruit of knowledge, and half will. But half of infinity is infinity, so an infinite number of worlds will fall from grace and there will be an infinite number of crucifixions.” — Giordano Bruno, ‘On the Cause, Principle, and Unity’, 5th dialogue.]

This was an extremely brave thing to do. Within the Roman Catholic Ecumene of the 16th and 17th Centuries — just as it is today within the Islamic Umma — it was invariably fatal to challenge the Church’s doctrinal power base, a fate Copernicus, a curate and Renaissance polymath, had managed to avoid by publishing his seminal work ‘On the Revolutions of Celestial Spheres’ in 1543, only shortly before his death by natural causes at the age of seventy.

Whether the timing of its publication and his passing were planned or simply fortuitous is a moot point, although circumstances do point to the latter. But being the essential pragmatist that he was Copernicus may well have understood that the failure of the human mind to come to terms with the fundamental difference between faith and doctrine, between apostasy and heresy, has been a prime cause of conflict and atrocity throughout our history.

Bruno was also a cosmologist and polymath of high standing — his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of spatial paradigms of geometry to language are considered a classic of their time — but in other respects he was a very different kettle of fish to Copernicus. Recent examination of the background to the case indicates that another dynamic had just entered stage left, Renaissance Hermeticism. Bruno subscribed to the mysticism verging on magic that lay at the core of Hermeticism, esoteric beliefs originating in the ancient Greek writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and which to some extent still exist today within Rosicrucianisn, Freemasonry and Coptic scripture.

In this context it is worth noting the seventh of the eight charges that Bruno faced:

• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.
  
• Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ’s divinity and Incarnation.
  
• Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.
  
• Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
  
• Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.
  
• Believing in metempsychosis* and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.
  
• Dealing in magics and divination.
  
• Denying the Virginity of Mary.
  

Faith, belief in superior beings, gods if you will, is a metaphysic probably as old as our species, and a very slippery one it is; in its purest form it is spiritual and personal but its fellow traveller, theology, or dogma, is temporal, a human attempt to explain the unexplainable and invariably it does so in what are the perceived best interests of a particular power elite, the priesthood or clerics.

Bruno’s statement about the nature of the Universe was clearly a challenge to the elite of his day. It undermined their theological position, their ‘raison d’etre’, it condemned him to a dreadful fate and caused his works to be placed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (along with those of Copernicus) for fear they would infect others. Yet today these statements do not even raise an eyebrow, they might even be considered passé in some quarters, and this must therefore beg the question “How was the ruthless power of the Christian clergy and the theological dogmatism that sustained it shattered, and hence why are Inquisitions and burning stakes no more?”

Broadly speaking, the short answer can be found among the headstones of those men and women who each walked their own small stretch of the long trail that began with the Renaissance in the 14th century, struggled through the devastation of the Thirty Years War — which ended in the predominantly secular settlements of the Peace of Westphalia — and culminated in the Enlightenment, an era of Western philosophy, intellectual, scientific and cultural life centred upon the 18th century in which reason was advocated as a primary source for legitimacy and authority.

However, that said, another question raises its ugly head “Why did the need arise in the first place and why, after all those centuries of blood and pain do we now face the prospect of having to do it all over again to an atavistic Imamate?”

One answer may lie in a subtle difference between the three major Religions that arose in the area of the fertile crescent — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — and those of the East such as Hinduism, Confucianism, Shintoism and that most humanitarian of them all, Buddhism.

These Eastern religions share several characteristics that are in essence quite different from those of the Western Triumvirate:

• They tend to be more ethical and philosophical systems and less the rigid practice of a set of clearly defined rules imposed from above.
  
• They do not insist upon monotheistic worship.
  
• In general, whilst they acknowledge the existence of gods, they do so without the overriding concept of sin and punishment that bedevils the Triumvirate.
  
• They are mostly older having evolved slowly, either uniquely or out of a precursor system, rather than springing into existence over a relatively short time frame.
  

They are not, of course, immune from sectarianism or internecine strife but, with the exception of certain caste systems, this sectarianism is overall more benign than malignant. Indeed, Shintoism wholeheartedly embraces Buddhism and many of its practises, and both systems ease along together in complete harmony.

On the other hand Judaism, Christianity and Islam are ‘revealed’ belief systems burdened with revelations, instructions cast in stone in the wording and in the light of the limited understanding of their time, the word of God delivered through the inadequate mouth of man out of the traditions of Hellenistic and Roman metaphysics, belief systems that were riddled with oracles, seers and prophets.

And, when it comes to prophets, predestination and reason meet at a Philippi both far more ancient and modern than the Roman one, one where, in an era of WMD, we should all be thinking pretty damn hard about what the future holds and what we are going to have to do if we want to hold onto it.


Offhand I can only think of two recent publications that have elicited a similar medieval response as did the works of Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo: The Bell Curve (1994, Hernstein & Murray**) and The Satanic Verses (1988, Rushdie). Both challenged established ‘dogmatic theology’, the former in the field of cognition, particularly its application within the politically correct constraints of ethno-social doctrine, and the latter in the swamp of Islamic revelation. Their authors also faced trial before a court of vested interests.

Although Rushdie has managed to survive the wrath of the demented ‘Slaves of Allah’, others have not been so fortunate. Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator, was stabbed to death in 1991, and a few days later Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was stabbed and seriously injured. William Nygaard, the Norwegian publisher, just managed to survive an assassination attempt in Oslo in 1993.

Conversely the The Bell Curve did not generate any physically lethal fatawa, but as Professor Richard Hernstein died before the book was released, he was unable to defend his thesis during the coruscating ideological storm that followed. His co-author, Charles Murray, lived on through a long period of media and academic debate and comment, both pro and con, including some sustained attacks on the personal integrity and academic standing of the authors. This proved again that one diddles with dogma at one’s peril, and therefore one should not be that surprised that recently there has been a demand from the ‘Intelligent Design’ tendency for the teaching of this devious repackaging of Creationism as equal to and alongside that of Evolution.

If nothing else this illustrates that priesthoods continue to cling tenaciously to those simplistic, doctrinal explanations that have for so long sustained their sinecures. And, having only these to offer in support of their postulates, such clergy are by necessity reduced to negative campaigning where the rationale behind their premise pushes credulity to its limit by proposing that the Universe is far too complex to have happened by chance and, a priori, must have been ‘designed’.

Consequently, and irrespective of whatever my own metaphysic is or is not, I suggest that if the universe is too complex to have just happened and therefore must have been designed, then it is axiomatic that the Designer must be infinitely more complex than the design. Hence, compelled by the imperative illogic of the original premise, I must ask, “What, then, designed the Designer?”

There is, of course, no answer to be found in such an infinity of mirrors, and those who need to embrace their existence within the constraints of revealed belief systems could ease their pain by simply recognising evolution as the Designer’s chosen methodology. After all, who are they, mere mortals, to deny the gods — whom, one presumes, have all of time and unlimited options on their side — this particular tool of their choice?

Or, to put it another way, from what moral position can we set out to deal with the pre-medieval, unenlightened dogmatism of Islam whilst still burdened with the detritus of our own?

That said, let the floodgates open, but before they do I would dare to suggest that Intelligent Designers and the non-inquiring minds of the Islamic Umma might care to note Bruno’s reply to the Inquisition: “Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it” Wherewith he demonstrated that a human mind under the lonely lens of a rational microscope is a prime example of evolution in action.


Notes:

*		Metempsychosis is the belief in the transmigration of the human soul into the new body of the same or a different species. My personal take on the wording of this charge is that it is interesting in as much as it does not specifically deny the concept of human reincarnation, possibly because it might bring into question the matter of Jesus rising from the dead.
**		An interesting consequence of this publication was the subsequent modification of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (and test) into an acultural version (SB5, in 2003) — to my mind a classic case of rigging the game in order to achieve a desired result, a procedure not entirely alien to all belief system

1936 Delahaye 135 Competition Court Figoni et Falaschi Coupe

14 pictures

The Lost Decade

Via James

America's ruling class lost the "War on Terror." During the decade that began on September 11, 2001, the U.S. government's combat operations have resulted in some 6,000 Americans killed and 30,000 crippled, caused hundreds of thousands of foreign casualties, and spent—depending on various estimates of direct and indirect costs—somewhere between 2 and 3 trillion dollars. But nothing our rulers did post-9/11 eliminated the threat from terrorists or made the world significantly less dangerous. Rather, ever-bigger government imposed unprecedented restrictions on the American people and became the arbiter of prosperity for its cronies, as well as the manager of permanent austerity for the rest. Although in 2001 many referred to the United States as "the world's only superpower," ten years later the near-universal perception of America is that of a nation declining, perhaps irreversibly. This decade convinced a majority of Americans that the future would be worse than the past and that there is nothing to be done about it. This is the "new normal." How did this happen?

September 11's planners could hardly have imagined that their attacks might seriously undermine what Americans had built over two centuries, what millions of immigrants from the world over had come to join and maintain. In fact, our decline happened because the War on Terror—albeit microscopic in size and destructiveness as wars go—forced upon us, as wars do, the most important questions that any society ever faces: Who are we, and who are our enemies? What kind of peace do we want? What does it take to get it? Are we able and willing to do what it takes to secure our preferred way of life, to deserve living the way we prefer? Our bipartisan ruling class's dysfunctional responses to such questions inflicted the deepest wounds.

Wars in general increase the power of any polity's ruling class to answer such questions in its way, and to work its will. Hard times force regimes, as they force individuals, to prove what they are made of. That is why regimes are never more themselves, at home and abroad, than during wartime. After 9/11, at home and abroad, our bipartisan ruling class did the characteristic things it had done before—just more of them, and more intensely. In short, the War on Terror empowered this ruling class to show its mettle, and it did so. Ten years later, the results speak for themselves: the terrorists' force mineure proved to be the occasion for our own ruling elites and their ideas to plunge the country into troubles from which they cannot extricate it.

Most often, wars are won and lost by a faction of a diverse ruling class. Victories validate the winners and what they stand for. Defeats usher in competitors waiting in the wings. So for example, the defeat of Lord North's cabinet in the American Revolutionary War empowered William Pitt the Younger's faction, including Adam Smith. When John F. Kennedy's old-line liberals lost the Vietnam War, their discredit empowered Democratic and Republican successors who embodied an America more collectivist at home and more timid abroad. Such changes, though big, are evolutionary because they simply bring to the fore people and ways that had been gestating within the Establishment.

When, however, the losers are a whole ruling class, and when that class is pervasive enough to have banished to society's margins any people and ideas that diverge from it, its discredit really does put society in a revolutionary situation. For example, the Soviet regime's loss of the Cold War plunged that country into a downward spiral because three generations of Communist rule had utterly destroyed living memory of anything but dysfunctional people and ways.

America's current ruling class, the people who lost the War on Terror, monopolizes the upper reaches of American public life, the ranks of those who make foreign and domestic policy, including the leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties. It is more or less homogeneous socially and intellectually. In foreign affairs, the change from the Bush to the Obama Administrations was barely noticeable. In domestic matters, the differences are more quantitative than qualitative. Dissent from the ruling class is rife among the American people, but occurs mostly on the sidelines of our politics. If there is to be a reversal of the ongoing defeats, both foreign and domestic, that have discredited contemporary America's bipartisan mainstream, heretofore marginal people will have to generate it, applying ideas and practices recalled from America's successful past.

The world of 2011 is even less congenial to America and Americans than it was on September 10, 2001. The U.S. government is not responsible for all the ways in which the world was menacing then and is menacing now, of course. Regardless of what America did, China's challenge to the post-1945 Peace of the Pacific was going to become more serious. Vladimir Putin's neo-Soviet Russia was not and could not be anything but a major bother. Western Europe would be living off civilizational capital it had lost the will to replenish, irrespective of any American deeds or entreaties. The Muslim world would be choking on the dysfunctions inherent in its government and cultures.

But U.S. policy has made things worse because the liberal internationalists, realists, and neoconservatives who make up America's foreign policy Establishment have all assumed that Americans should undertake the impossible task of changing such basic facts, rather than confining themselves to the difficult but vital work of guarding U.S. interests against them. For the Establishment, 9/11 meant opportunities to press for doing more of what they had always tried to do.

At home, the American people are less free, less prosperous, more bitterly divided, and much less hopeful in 2011 than in 2001 because a decade of the War on Terror brought a government ever bigger and more burdensome, as well as "security" measures that impede the innocent rather than focusing on wrongdoers. Our ruling class justified its ever-larger role in America's domestic life by redefining war as a never-ending struggle against unspecified enemies for abstract objectives, and by asserting expertise far above that of ordinary Americans. After 9/11, far from deliberating on the best course to take, our rulers stayed on autopilot and hit the throttles.

We must, then, understand what our bipartisan ruling class wrought in international and domestic affairs during the post-9/11 war, and how differently the decade might have turned out had our rulers pursued the proper ends of domestic and international statecraft.

Degrading our Military

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Sheridan's 1864 campaign left Valley a 'barren waste'

Via SHNV

NEWSLEADER

VERBATIM POST

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For 13 days in 1864, columns of thick, black smoke — thousands of them — roiled skyward to foul the Shenandoah Valley's air and obliterate the autumn sun. Women and children, weeping and destitute, watched helplessly as soldiers torched their homes and belongings.

Horrified farmers saw their barns and mills consigned to the flames. Thousands of sheep, cattle and other livestock were gunned down in their tracks. Mountains of grain and feed were fired. Standing crops were burned to the ground. Homes were looted.

When the slashing and burning were over, the Breadbasket of the Confederacy was no more.

The Sept. 26-Oct. 8 Federal destruction of the Shenandoah Valley and its ability to support the Confederate military cause rivaled in severity Sherman's much ballyhooed "March to the Sea." In fact, the methodical, brutal campaign by Gen. Philip H. Sheridan in the Valley caused more damage and did more to hasten the end of the war than did Sherman's haphazard swing through Georgia.

While the great stronghold of Staunton had already fallen that summer, the Valley still provided plenty of sustenance for the Confederacy as well as a natural back door for invasions of the North. In the fall of 1864, Ulysses S. Grant, general-in-chief of the U.S. forces, decided to shut down the Shenandoah Valley once and for all.

"Give the enemy no rest," Grant told Sheridan in August 1864. "Do all the damage to railroads and crops you can. Carry off stock of all descriptions, and negroes, so as to prevent further planting. If the war is to last another year, we want the Shenandoah Valley to remain a barren waste."

Beginning at Staunton and working down the Valley to Winchester, Sheridan's men torched barns, mills, factories, warehouses, sheds, bridges — anything that could remotely be of use to the Confederate cause. Livestock was confiscated and whatever could not be used by the Federal army was killed. Farm implements of every description were smashed, burned or otherwise rendered useless.

One Federal soldier wrote of standing on a hill at night and seeing so many fires stretching from horizon to horizon that it appeared as if the stars had fallen from the sky.

While the decision to starve out the Confederate army by burning its breadbasket was sound, historians still argue about the necessity of laying waste to homesteads occupied by nothing more combative than women and children.

Tales of Yankee depredations abound. Women living alone watched helplessly as soldiers barged into their homes and stole whatever they wanted. Furniture and valuable heirlooms were smashed. What stores of food the women had managed to salvage were confiscated or destroyed.

And, in the worst instances, Union soldiers callously set fire to the homes themselves, instantly turning innocent women and children into starving refugees.

In Staunton, one of its two newspapers — the Spectator — had been destroyed in June when Union troops invaded the town, but the Vindicator had hidden its type and machinery and had survived. The Valley going up in flames did little to subdue the Vindicator editor's Confederate zeal.

"This war has been declared by the Yankee administration to have been commenced against those in arms against the government of the United States," he wrote. "But now Grant, wearied and sick of fighting the veterans of Lee with no avail, has turned his arms against the women and children of our land, hoping, doubtless, that he may gain a glorious victory (!) over them, a result already discovered by him impossible to be attained over the former."

He claimed that the campaign only harmed already poverty stricken civilians and that Confederate soldiers could draw their rations from other "equally plenteous sources." He predicted there would be, someday, retribution.

There already was, to an extent. Any Union soldier who strayed from the main body of his command — whether on purpose to forage or accidentally — rarely returned alive. Angry Southern bushwhackers and partisans invariably killed them, making the Yankee incursion into the Valley a deadly proposition.

The Vindicator's editorial defiance aside, Sheridan's burning of the Valley did destroy much of the Confederacy's ability to wage war. The final Confederate resistance was at Waynesboro in March the following year, with the end of the war coming just a month later.

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Sheridan's 1864 campaign left Valley a 'barren waste'

The Constitution: The God That Failed (To Liberate Us From Big Government)

Via Jim

Publisher’s Note: September 17 is the day the serfs in the tax jurisdiction known as America celebrate Constitution Day. We hear all the usual ill-informed and ahistorical notions celebrating what was in essence one of the most savvy and lucrative political coups in Western history. The Antifederalists were right, the Constitution was an elegant trap to shackle an entire nation to a system to empower the few over the many and the banksters over the entire system of commerce. The respective states which had signed separate peace agreements with the United Kingdom in 1783 were merely political and inferior subsidiaries to the greater national power emerging in Mordor on the Potomac. The Constitution created a Soviet style system well before the Bolsheviks were even contemplating such a scheme. Whenever you hear some of your friends and neighbors extolling the virtues of the Constitution, read them Spooner’s quote and see how they address that particular conundrum. -BB

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.

~ James Madison

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

~ Lysander Spooner

Today, 17 September 2009, is Constitution Day. There will be paeans, abundant commentary and church-like observances of the glories of this document in making us the most blessed nation on planet earth. This essay suggests a contrarian thesis. The Constitution is an enabling document for big government. Much like the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain is a fraud. In this case, for all the sanctimonious handwringing and the obsequious idolatry of the parchment, it sealed the fate of our liberties and freedoms and has operated for more than 200 years as a cover for massive expansion of the tools and infrastructure of statist expansion and oppression. Among the many intellectual travels I have undertaken, this is one of the most heart-breaking I have ventured on. I want to acknowledge the compass-bearers who sent me on this journey: Kenneth W. Royce (aka Boston T. Party) and his seminal book, The Hologram of Liberty and Kevin Gutzman’s Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution. For most of the political spectrum in America, the document represents their interpretation of how to make this mortal coil paradise. Even in libertarian circles, it is taken as an article of faith the Constitution is a brilliant mechanism to enlarge liberty and keep government at bay. That is a lie.

The document was drafted in the summer of 1787 behind closed doors in tremendous secrecy because if word leaked out of the actual contents and intent, the revolution that had just concluded would have been set ablaze again. They were in a race against time and did everything in their power to ensure that the adoption took place as quickly as possible to avoid reflection and contemplation in the public square that would kill the proposal once the consequences of its agenda became apparent. They were insisting that the states ratify first and then propose amendments later. It was a political coup d’état. It was nothing less than an oligarchical coup to ensure that the moneyed interests, banksters and aristocrats could cement their positions and mimic the United Kingdom from which they had been recently divorced.

The original charter of the drafters was to pen improvements to the existing Articles of Confederation. Instead, they chose to hijack the process and create a document which enslaved the nation. Federalist in the old parlance meant states rights and subsidiarity but the three authors of the fabled Federalist Papers supported everything but that. Their intent and commitment was to create a National government with the ability to make war on its constituent parts if these states failed to submit themselves to the central government.

As Austrian economists have discovered, bigger is not necessarily better. The brilliant and oft-dismissed Articles of Confederation (AoC) and Perpetual Union are a testament to voluntarism and cooperation through persuasion that the Constitution disposed of with its adoption. Penned in 1776 and ratified in 1781, the spirit and context of the Articles live on in the Swiss canton system and are everywhere evident in the marketplace where confederationist sentiments are practiced daily. The confederation’s design divines its mechanism from what an unfettered market does every day: voluntary cooperation, spontaneous information signals and the parts always being smarter than the sum A. confederation according to the Webster’s 1828 dictionary is:

1. The act of confederating; a league; a compact for mutual support; alliance; particularly of princes, nations or states.

I would advise the readership to use the 1828 Webster’s dictionary to accompany any primary source research you may undertake to understand American (& British) letters in the eighteenth century. It is the source for the contemporary lexicon. It is even available online now.

Here is a simple comparison of the two organizing documents:

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The System: How To Close Down A Court

Fight The Power
VERBATIM POST
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by Bernard Weckmann [a/k/a "Bernard: WeckMann"]

As originally posted on: runnymede1215.wordpress.com
August 24, 2011

There are many court room strategies to choose from. Which one you choose depends on many variables such as the nature of the case, your knowledge of the law and, of course, your level of confidence and ability to handle confrontations. The best thing is never to go into any court in the first place. Unfortunately, that is not always possible. In this post I share with you my experiences and my wife’s.

The most important consideration for my wife and myself is this: we do not want to waste our precious time on fools and thugs. Our strategy is therefore quite simple: rather than enter a court in order to argue with the judiciary about the law and the merits of a case we deny them jurisdiction right from the start!

Why spend precious time and energy on studying statutory law and admiralty jurisdiction when they do not even apply to living men and women – only to corporations? Why try to master the intricacies of court procedures – which are based on nothing more than sophistry and outright deception Why board their pirate ship and play their game according to their rules?

Summonses are nothing more than offers to enter into a contract with the court to do business (Surprise! Surprise! The government is after your money!) We have written letters to the court declining such invitations and we have sent affidavits in which we clearly and unequivocally denied consent to their presumption of jurisdiction! All to no avail! These crooks will happily ignore their own rules! So we decided to meet them in the court room and, in front of witnesses, show them up for the powerless pathetic critters that they are! We have done this successfully four times!

There is no way in the world I’d ever consider hiring a lawyer. A lawyer is an officer of the court and his loyalty is to the court – NOT to his client. Never Hire an Attorney

Hire a lawyer and you become a “ward” of the court with a diminished legal status -equivalent to that of a minor. The court will handle your affairs now and woe to you, then! To put this rather bluntly: your lawyer will hold your hand and console you while the court is raping you – and he will do this for a share of the loot!

But you do not need a lawyer. Anyone has the right to handle his own affairs.

Here now is the skeleton of our approach:

STEP ONE

We tell them in an affidavit well before the scheduled appearance in court, submitted in the form of registered mail with delivery confirmation, that they do not have nor will they get IN PERSONAM jurisdiction. It is almost certain that they will ignore the affidavit. We are therefore prepared for the the fact that they will go ahead with their kangaroo court proceedings.

If they know that they do not have jurisdiction, and if they know that we know why would they still want to continue? First of all, the lower levels of the judiciary do not necessarily know the law. Strange, but true! Furthermore, used to having their way they simply won’t accept that they are up against somebody who not only knows his rights but is also ready to assert them. They always assume that they can intimidate you into submission or manipulate you into granting jurisdiction unwittingly.

STEP TWO

When our names are called we rise and remain standing! Some people make a show of not rising, arguing that the court will not show the same courtesy to them. We rise, not out of respect for the court, but for a far more practical reason: psychologically speaking, you enhance your presence and your impact by standing. Quite literally, we stand up for ourselves and our rights! We are also more visible to everybody in the room and at the same time we are now more or less level with the magistrate or judge who usually is placed a bit higher than everybody else. Last but not least it is also easier to be assertive in a standing position.

We NEVER address the magistrate/judge with “Your Honour” or similar honorifics

We do NOT shy away from interupting – rudely if it must be

We raise our voice – if necessary to shout the magistrate/judge down

Just think of the impression this makes on the audience: they see and hear somebody who fearlessly faces a court, denies jurisdiction, humiliates and embarrasses the court and walks away! In fact, I once had one man come up to me after I had walked out of the court room giving me the thumbs up and saying, with a broad smile: “Good show!” He may or may not be ready to do the same but this is one man who now knows that these scoundrels in fancy dress and fancy wigs are essentially nothing but powerless pathetic clowns and he is likely to talk to his friends about what he witnessed and they in turn ……..

STEP THREE

We do NOT EVER cross the bar that separates the public gallery from the actual court; if we did we would be stepping from the jurisdiction and protection of Common Law, also known as the Law of the Land, into admiralty jurisdiction, or the Law of the Sea.

In the fantasy world of the legal fraternity you are considered to have boarded a ship if you cross the bar. Having crossed the bar you have lost the protection of Common Law and the captain (the magistrate or judge) of the imaginary vessel (a pirate ship), will deal with you according to the Law of the Sea. This captain, however, is nothing like the likeable rogue and decent Pirate Captain Jack Sparrow:

This captain is more like his opponent Davey Jones, a slimy many-tentacled denizen of the netherworld who will lie and steal and rape and cut your throat!

We deal with the court from the public gallery, i.e. from dry land, and always from the last row!

They cannot physically force us to cross the bar! If they did they would be committing a breach of the peace, i.e. assault, a criminal offence. Neither can they arrest us to get us into their jurisdiction; without probable cause such an arrest is likewise a breach of the peace, a criminal offence.

STEP FOUR

After rising we announce that we are NOT the name that has just been called; our names are Bernard or Edith. We are agents for the legal fiction! We refuse instructions to come forward: they are really nothing more than invitations to board their ship and enter into their admiralty jurisdiction.

We do not respond to being addressed as Mr or Mrs …………..

We tell the magistrate/judge that we claim protection of Common Law and that we do not consent to his or her jurisdiction!

STEP FIVE

We address the audience in the court room, asking this simple question:

Does anybody here have a claim against me?

Note: Claims MUST be backed up by an affidavit of probable cause or sworn statement showing amongst other things: the breach of the peace for which you have been summonsed, the name of the plaintiff who must be a human being (not a legal fiction such as a government agency or police) and the nature and extent of the harm done to the plaintiff.

Alternatively, the plaintiff needs to produce a lawful contract which you entered into knowingly and intentionally and which was subsequently not honoured by you, thus causing the plaintiff harm.

Obviously, few cases meet those criteria. If you are up for driving without a licence, for instance, ask yourself: What is the harm done? No harm was done to anyone! Is the plaintiff a human being or a legal fiction? The police officer who booked you is a human being but he has not been personally harmed, has he? He therefore has no case against you! The police, however, is a legal fiction and can neither make a claim nor sign an affidavit! Do you have a contract with police that obliges you to take out a drivers licence or do anything else, for that matter? I don’t and I’d be surprised if you did!!

To sum it up: without an affidavit of probable cause there is NO criminal case and without a lawful contract there is NO civil case!

We allow a few moments of silence to let anyone come forward who might have a genuine claim against us. If nobody comes forward (and there is, of course, never anybody with a valid claim) we wrap everything up with the following statement: “There is nobody here in this room who has a claim against me! My business here is finished!”

We warn the court of the serious consequences of trying to arrest us when leaving.

THEN WE WALK OUT !!! That’s it! That’s all!

We do not look back and do not respond to anything more coming from the court.

I have posted Edith’s case of “obstructing police” on the loveforlife website: the link below will get you there. You can read about the background of the case and you can listen to the audio recording which we made with our mobile . This recording will show you how our approach of denying them jurisdiction works in practice. Enjoy! http://loveforlife.com.au/node/8114

Mon amie la rose, Francoise Hardy

Françoise Hardy

A lifetime comes and goes
And as my friend the rose said only yesterday
"This morning I was born and baptised in the dawn
I flowered in the dew and life was fresh and new
The sun shone through the cold
And through the day I grew, by night-time I was old"
"At least there's never been
No, you have never seen, a rose more bright and gay"

A lifetime comes and goes
And as my friend the rose said only yesterday
"The good lord smiled on me, so why then should it be
I feel I'm falling now, oh yes, I'm falling now
My heart no-one can save
My head begins to bow, my feet are in the grave"
The rose God smiled upon
Tomorrow will be gone, forever gone away

A lifetime comes and goes
And so my friend the rose was dead at break of day
The moon is shining bright and in my dreams tonight
Beneath the starlit sky, my friend the rose goes by
He has seen my dreams I see
A soul that wouldn't die, still watching over me
Whatever fortune brings
I'll hope for better things or life will just be grey

"A lifetime comes and goes"
That's what my friend the rose said only yesterday.