The Meaning of Mean; the significance of meanness; the recremental case.

"I've seen the meanness of humans till I dont know why God aint put out the sun and gone away." From Outer Dark, by Cormac McCarthy

This is from the parable of The Creation. It is not possible for The Creator to be God of THIS creation. Such a "creator" begs the question of what was At the Beginning -- what created The Creator? -- and abandons us at what obviously should be The End of the erstwhile business. We are AT the "gone away" been done.

Believers who cling to this parable are perhaps not coming to terms with the depth, the extent and variety, of the unkind things that have been done among men. The belief that any God worth its station in any pantheon of divinity would stand for THIS "creation", this abomination, can only stand upon idiocy or blindness.

Such a belief is itself a form of indifference, a kind of sin. Like Prussians pretending that the Third Reich was not loading Jews and Gypsies and lawyers into cattle cars assigned and logged into any of 1200 camps built for unpleasant dying. Like Saudi princes pretending that Saudis did not train and fly pirated aircraft into the World Trade Center. Like all of us who try to pretend that innocents have not been tortured on our watch, the tyrants using our money and our indifference.

We try to get rid of evil, expel it. But it is recremental. It is quickly re-absorbed even as we identify it. The Creation is wallowing in its dross.

Regret - remorse, remonstration, reproach, rue,

Regret is so much better than mere Gret. Remorse, more convincing than Morse. Reproach has better mouth-feel than mere Proach. I listen to the affectations of the Pure, and it sounds like Rue.

Parable of the Shepherd and the Shoemaker

Parable. There was once a shepherd renting land from an absentee landlord. The land was too salty to raise crops but the shepherd could raise sheep and goats, and he built a house on the land. One day the absentee landlord stopped collecting the rent and the man stopped paying for the land. A few years later, a shoemaker from a faraway land arrives and claims that he bought the land from the absentee landlord.

This shoemaker knows nothing about farming or raising sheep. But he does some engineering and draws water from the nearby shore of an inland sea, and although it is brackish water, he uses it to wash the salts from the soil. The shoemaker is desperately hungry so he buys meat from the shepherd, and then starts planting in his newly-flushed soils. To everyone's surprise, the soil is made fertile again after several thousand years of over-tilling. The shoemaker brings his friends, a candlemaker, and a watchmaker. They all start farming and building new buildings.

Now the shepherd can sell more goat meat to the new arrivals. Also his sons start working in the construction industry. Some more friends of his arrive from distant lands looking for work, and the farmers and goat-herds together raise enough food for everyone. Although the first man had to move out of the first house he had built, he just went and built more houses. Together, the families begin to build graceful cities. People are working and have jobs.

Together, they all built a garden in what had become an infertile desert. Together, they built some of the most beautiful cities in Africa.

Then one day a mob of idiots started making speeches on the radio. They talked about killing "cockroaches" with machetes. They taught hatred in schools. Mothers would raise their sons to hate other tribes they heard described on the radio. One day, at a signal from the idiots, thousands of people who had been shepherds and had immigrated into the garden, began killing tens of thousands of craftsmen who had become gardeners. After a few months of this genocide, there were many broken families and hopes, and destroyed cities.

And although many died, and now we are trying to forgive the killers, and repair the orphans, still, after all the deaths, life did not get better for anyone. It got worse.

It is better, perhaps, instead of leading chants -- "Death!" "Kill!" -- perhaps it is better to just build homes, plant your gardens, raise the goats. What did all the killing and hatred accomplish?

Depression is psychological. So is Recovery. But empty suits are not the answer.

We do not have a "broke" economy. Our house has been burgled, from inside. All our intelligence, information and good humor remain available to us. We can use what we have to refill the house, looted as it may be.

Remember the "Peace Premium" and the budget surpluses set up after the Carter and Clinton Administrations?

In eight years, Reagan managed to convert the world's largest creditor nation into the world's largest debtor nation, with virtually nothing to show for it. We bought B1 bombers and Space War systems which do not work and cannot be built, and Polaris submarines with nuclear weapons which cannot be used.

In eight years, Bush Jr managed to appoint people who despise "government" and had no experience with large organizations (public or private) into positions of authority, doing nothing. The people in charge of the SEC (under Orange County's politician, Cox!) devoted their entire working days in the entire year of 2008 to collecting pornography. Apparently they believed it was not necessary to glance occasionally at the nonproductive re-tranching of low-risk mortgages into high-risk securities which could be used by predators to bet against in forms of credit default swaps which had been illegal since the Great Depression, but which were made available once again by a Congress owned by the Lending Industry.

Now, the people who own this country--having seized most of its real estate in foreclosure and shipped most of the industrial capacity off-shore--have frozen credit and refuse to make loans. This leaves any possible "recovery" at a stand-still, and they know it. They want to find another empty suit to run as President so they can take back that branch of government which they lost. The surest and really at this point only viable way to pull this off in 2012 is simply continue to refuse to make sensible old-fashioned secured loans to small business, which has always been the fastest, surest, most reliable engine of recovery. The Lenders can put anyone they want up for President, and the voters will vote against all incumbents because "it's the economy".

Is the Lending Industry making loans to the middle class? No. Why not? This is the same group of people who created the financial crisis by making highly leveraged high risk investments in which they lost their shirts, in which the CEOs destroyed the institutions they were managing, only to turn to taxpayers and, during the Bush Administration (we have to remember this little detail), extorted a bail out to the tune of TRILLIONS of dollars. Remember, the Lenders got this bail out with the "promise" they would then loosen up credit and have it to make available to borrowers and business once again. They did not do this, in spite of being GIVEN the money and having made that solemn promise.

So, here we are waiting for the benefit, the loan availability accommodated by the tax payers' cash through the banks...and we are still waiting. It simply looks like the predators, having given themselves additional commissions and billion-dollar bonuses AGAIN as a result of taking tax payer bail-out money, are once AGAIN looting the country.

The good news is that at some point, the middle class, or you or I, or even some civic authority that has not already handed all of its collection to a predator, will set up a new, fresh and actual, "bank". This new bank will loan money to the middle class. The producers will get back to work producing value. And rapidly, and surely -- nothing miraculous or remarkable about it -- the whole country and the world will start to enjoy prosperity and good business.

Of course, bear in mind that the Lending Industry is still huge, and they own everything and they do not want this to happen -- because we have elections coming up, and they badly want to put another tranche of empty suits into Congress and the Executive Branch. The same people who stole our infrastructure also own our media, including the blogosphere and the twittering venues. They overwhelm us with their naysayings and attacks, without offering solutions or even mentioning implementation.

Kotlikoff is simply one of these Voices of Dooooooom. Where was he when the bankers were earning billion-dollar bonuses to perform non-productive conversions of wealth into air? Where was he when banks became bingo parlors, gambling our pension funds into toxic dumps? What possible insight does this obviously blinded and blinkered man have for us now when we need ... real insight?

For that matter, where did Kotlikoff just now get this expertise on "bankruptcy"? Where was he when the Lending Industry fought against bankruptcy reform and left consumers trapped in nondischargeable credit card schemes that treble the cost of purchases? Where was he when the bankers systemmatically went after municipalities and States and drew the entire country down into a spiral of debt? A million towns are now "bankrupt"!

If we stopped paying bankers enormous amounts of money to steal from the public weal, or stopped rewarding CEO's who destroy their own companies -- these are extraordinary times -- the engine of recovery can rapidly turn on.

Within a few months, think "over-nite", people could be hired to rebuild the infrastructure which has been completely ignored for the previous 8 years. We need engineers and designers. We need scientists to engage the stem cell, solar, and toxic clean up industries which are so promising. These would not be the low-wage jobs offered by the lame "tourist" hotels and patronizing "service" industries so eagerly touted by well, Las Vegas style cities.

The solution, in sum: Loans should be made available -- obviously not from the bailed out predator banks -- they simply refuse and will continue to withhold money in order to kill the recovery which they do not want. Go to credit unions and small banks. Start a bank on your own. Loan to small businesses, using traditional collateral. Multiply. Ignore the fact that the headlines continue to scream "Greece" and "distress". In the history of economics, business profits have never been bigger. There is plenty of money. Vast treasures were not actually destroyed. Just...stop giving it to predators. Stop.

And stop electing empty suits into positions of authority. We will prosper. Good health will break out like a pandemic. Intelligent people are much more fun than the hate-mongering little bashers who are confused and baffled by this utterly natural world.

Leaving Religion in the name of God/Allah/Enlightenment

One of Catholicism's most notable adherents recently announced her withdrawal from the Church, "in the name of Christ". Twelve years after her conversion, and while retaining her belief in God, she renounces the Pope, the Church, the bizarre political agenda: "I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life".

It is significant that it is BECAUSE of her faith, and BECAUSE of her love of the core principles of the teachings of the Christ, that she raises her voice, Je'Refuse!

It was not just one thing; there were many. The Pope went to Africa, where genocidal campaigns continue to break out, where Islam is terrorizing Christians and infidels, and where Africans are facing a widespread AIDS epidemic. His Holiness' big message, his choice of focus, was on same-sex marriage.

And "the very last straw" was when the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, publicly condemned Sister Margaret McBride for authorizing a life-saving abortion to save a dying mother.

It remains significant that there are impulses today which have usurped Religion with an idiosyncratic agenda; the agenda is not Biblical. There is nothing in Paul's letters or in Christ's teaching that supports the Pope's hierarchy, or a virulent position on natural behavior and re-victimization of victims. Would Christ ignore molested children, or the suffering in Darfur and Congo and on the streets of all major cities? How can the leader of the Church be silent in the face of the genocide of Armenians by Islamic Turks, or the extermination of Christians in Ethiopia and Egypt(Copts), Iraq (Chaldeans), and Turkey and Lebanon (Orthodox)?

What distortion of the mind enables one to ignore these facts while devoting oneself to making sure there is clarity and certainty in completing the excommunication of Sister McBride whose heart was entirely charitable. In the name of Christ, has the Pope YET managed to name and condemn the "money-lenders" whose devotion to greed managed to impoverish entire nations?

ShariaPetition.com Welcome.

ShariaPetition.com Welcome.

Shorn Again Believers: America is waging a war against Islam - Say What?

Shorn Again Believers: America is waging a war against Islam - Say What?

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html

Sadly, the Bush Legacy lives on...BP, Pentagon-gate, overpaid corrupt officials

Just from a few items reported in the LA Times today...it appears that the Bush Legacy just keeps on giving:

1. PENTAGON ACCOUNTING. The Defense Department has never accounted for billions of dollars given to and entrusted to it. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction was created in 2004 to oversee $53 billion appropriated by Congress for reconstruction. For the most part, there are no records, and billions have not been accounted for at all.

2. CITY OF BELL. The Mayor, Manager, and Council of a charter city were exposed for giving themselves high salaries and benefits, while cutting back services and depleting municipal resources to do it: $787,637 to Robert Rizzo as City Manager, $457,000 to Randy Adams as Police Chief, etc. Documents show that the employment records go back to 2003 when the wholesale looting began.

3. BLAGOJEVICH. The trial of this former Governor of Illinois is concluding. Among other evidence was the $12,000/month income for his wife who performed no services and had no qualifications for a real estate firm, Rezko.

4. WIKILEAKS re Afghanistan War. New documents have been outed from the secrecy under which they had been wrapped which "offer insight primarily into the war-fighting of the recently departed George W. Bush administration". [A10] The document reveal the deliberate killing of two Reuters journalists in July 2007 , and the absence of any leadership from the Bush administration. Any. Basically the documents reveal the fact that what administrative officials were telling us was pure fabrication. The troops on the ground were not trained for what conditions they found, and the mission was compromised from the beginning.

5. LEVERAGED BUYOUT OF TRIBUNE. The court-appointed examiner in the Chicago Tribune's bankruptcy determined that the 2007 leveraged buy-out was marred by the "dishonesty" of its senior management--to the extent that the $8.2 billion transaction was a fraudulent conveyance [AA2].

UPDATES:

6. ARLINGTON CEMETERY. During the 8 years of Bush appointees "taking charge" of the government which they openly despised, the displacement of remains and records at Arlington occurred. Over 6000 are in disarray. No one is being held accountable, but even worse, it is astonishing to see that the appointees who were paid to be responsible have such little honor that they do not step forward, take responsibility, and devote themselves to correction of this sad state.

7. SPILLED OIL. Not just the spill in the Gulf, but simultaneously, there have been spills in Alaska, and even in the Great Lakes region. The scale of this depredation is significant, but it pales in significance to the scale of the ignorance, incompetence, and mindless denials of the Bush-Cheney-Rowe appointees and the Limbaugh-Breitbart-Fox network of idiologues who continue to rant with such indifference to science, honor, responsibility, and recovery.


Once the Government is dismantled and its positions filled with blind idiots, the predators come out of the bushes and actively destroy what is left. The destruction is far worse than mere entropic neglect -- it is pillage driven by the open invitation for spoil. After 8 years of irresponsible authorities, society now pays the price.

America is waging a war against Islam - Say What?

Source: Leslie Stahl, 60 Minutes segment, July 25, 2010 (repeat).

By invading Iraq, the West demonstrated that it is in fact in an undeclared War Against Islam, according to The Narrative now being used by the rulers with the resources to distort Religious commitments and hatreds.

The Stahl investigation ventilated the story of a great hero, Majid Nawaz. He has survived torture, listening to torture of others, prison, radicalization, mis-education, and religion itself. In prison, he discovered other "radicals" who had in fact discovered the layered hypocrisy of religious extremists. He has discovered the key factor for peace -- countering the Narrative. The would-be caliph of the world, Osama bin Laden, teaches that Believers must be taught that the West is making War against Islam.

The Narrative is built upon fiction, not facts. But truth is not the test of efficacy for an ideology to function as an incentive to die. The Nazis used a remarkably similar Narrative -- scapegoating unarmed and vulnerable groups to justify attacking them. The Narrative has already been shown to be effective. The fact that it is not supported by facts -- by the archeology, the things, the money, the stuff behind the torrent of words -- is its soft underbelly.

Theodor Herzl and Sayyid Qutb - founders of the Zionist State and Moslem Brotherhood...

Inbox - tkey@tustinlawcenter.com - Tustin Law Center Mail

Compare the writings of Theodore Herzl and Sayyid Qutb.

At the turn of the 19th century, a German journalist witnessed the persecution of millions of people excluded from participation in education, the legal systems and institutions, and the public life of Europe. He witnessed injustice reaching an invidious height in the Dreyfus prosecution. Herzl's response was to create a place where people could thrive and work for a better life without persecution. He became one of the Founding Fathers of modern Zionism.

In 1949, a wealthy Egyptian educational reformer, came to the United States to study and write. He was given a scholarship. He was invited to participate in social, educational, cultural and institutional life. He saw crassness and materialism, and lust for life which disgusted him. He saw women, none of whom met his standards of subservience. He went on to become the intellectual light of the Moslem Brotherhood.

The similarities and differences between the two "founders" are worthy of study.

Qutb was quite devoted to writing, which he regarded as his art and livelihood, although it was not the source of his income, which derived from his family wealth. His two most important works: a commentary of the Qur'an Fi Zilal al-Qur'an (In the Shade of the Qur'an), and a manifesto of political Islam called Ma'alim fi-l-Tariq (Milestones). These works represent the final form of Qutb's thought, encompassing his radically anti-secular and anti-Western claims based on his interpretations of; the Qur'an, Islamic history, and the social and political problems of Egypt.

Qutb focused on issues that occupied Egypt after Great Britain voluntarily turned the control of the political power over to Egyptians. Gamel Abdel Nasser, a secular dictator seized power in 1952, with the aid of the Moslem Brotherhood. After an assassination attempt on Nasser's life, Qutb was imprisoned for 8 months and then executed in 1966 after a "show trial".

Ironically, Herzl had witnessed one such "show trial" himself, although not as a defendant. The defendant was Theodore Dreyfus, a Jew. The trial demonstrated that all Jews in Europe were subject to such "trials".

Working Paper in progress...

Religious Fundamentalism falls from inside itself; it is entropic enhancement.

Notes on Religious Fundamentalism, and its erosion of itself from within:

1. HEAVEN. The Fundamentalist is seeking to control. He chooses the easiest path -- to suppress others. It is easier to stop things than to permit things to grow, and the hardest of all is to contribute to growth. The Fundamentalist does not desire Heaven, but rather is jealous of it. The jealousy of kite-flying, of music, of dance, of the arts, is not because these activities are not righteous, but because they move us closer to heaven, wholesale. The Fundamentalist is buried in Hell. He wants to charge us for Grace, retail.

2. TIME. The Fundamentalist wants to stop the passage of Time. He seeks to stop everything. For example, it seems inconceivable to forbid the playing of music. One can only wonder that anyone would do such a thing. Yet that is one of the first things a Fundamentalist insists upon. To stop the flow of music is exactly like trying to stop the passage of time. The Fundamentalist forsakes the Past, dispenses with NOW, and lives only for his hope of Vengence in the future.

3. BELIEF. The Fundamentalist appears to be strict in his observances. He claims to believe certain things. however, this is an illusion. He is profligate -- throwing even his own better talents and judgments into the bushel basket of suppression. This can only be understood as a great waste. And his nihilism is revealed to the extent that he seeks to prevent others from flowering as they would. There is no Belief which justifies suppression of others. No real Truth requires suppression of error. The suppression of others' reveals the lack of substance or Truth in the Fundamentalists' beliefs.

4. FEAR. The Fundamentalist is all about fear. All attempts to extinguish or annihilate disbelievers are admissions of the insecurity of the Believer. Religion is the mother of fear. Curiously, the Cave Paintings of Lescaux and Chauvet (and 10,000 other preserved sites) are very revealing about true "fundamentals". There is not a single depiction of a King, a Priest, a God, or even a hierarchy. The works created prior to any of the current "religions" seem designed to inspire many things, but they do not inspire FEAR!

5. CONCLUSIONS. We are left with a few hard conclusions. Let's review. We have heaven and hell, here and now. People who leave others alone, enable others to choose and even create their heaven or hell. The Fundamentalist fights for hell. He wants to stop the passage of time, as if there is no difference between our episodes of eternity. The Fundamentalist does not believe in "fundamental" things, except Fear alone. He believes in nothing, but his many fears. He must suppress others, because he has nothing to offer. Fundamentalism is entropic. A dead end.

God is Moot;

David Gelernter provides some unique, although ahistorical, insights for all in his book, JUDAISM: A WAY OF BEING (2010). He presents Judaism, with its ranges of beliefs, practices and philosophy, as the "world's first monotheistic religion". Of course, it is not that, and Abraham was not its first practitioner. (Abraham lived and died believing in multiple gods and angels, according to the very words of Genesis). But it does appear that Jews created the idea of congregational worship and "study" of religious texts -- of which they provide the earliest examples. Powerful texts.
While Gelernter's provocative themes of "Separation", "Veil", "Perfect asymmetry", and "Inward pilgrimage" are beautiful but unprovable, I must here preserve two concepts he richly rewards us with:

"The problem of evil is man's problem. The central question is not why God hasn't saved the world, but why YOU haven't." This moots theodicy as well as Belief.

And he draws from the Lamentations: "Make us new again, as we used to be."

Law's futility < Love's Labour's Lost > Act I, scene I

"These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn." Lord Biron's soto voce as he is tasked with delivery of Costard the Clown to the keep for his violation of King Ferdinand's proscription against wenching.

King. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran and water.
Cost. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

Dog Person God

LibraryThing: State of the Thing -- March 2010 - tkey@tustinlawcenter.com - Tustin Law Center Mail

I want to be the person my dog thinks I am. Is it possible to be different from what a knowing-God thinks I am? The very suggestion pierces the inflation of belief. Uncanny certitudes. I bark, therefore...

Desiderius Erasmus Quotes

Desiderius Erasmus Quotes

Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.
Desiderius Erasmus

Lucille Clifton 1936-2010 gritty optimism thru hardships passing in the night

From Blessing the Boats:

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back. may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

Those who prey upon credulity and hope
take away the lives of their victims.
That is to say, fraud is a capital offense,
greater in scale and consequence than
taking bread or things. For prudent persons
can guard their stuff from thieves, but
honesty has no protection from cunning.

Where fraud is permitted, where it has no severe consequences visited by law upon the perpetrator, then honest traders are always undone by knaves. Decency is at a great disadvantage in the face of misrepresentations of fact made by fraudsters who are not punished in any way.

This truth was observed in laissez faire Europe by the dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin in 1726. The good dean wrote GULLIVER's TRAVELS among other great satires and reports. Jonathan Swift lived 1667-1745, tirelessly exposing the graft, corruption, and mendacity of hypocrites. His efforts had little effect upon the morality and laws he sought to uphold, and he was driven insane in his last years.

Theodor Herzl and Wagner - add to collection of Ironies

In 1895, a modest but highly educated German journalist was sent to Paris by his Editors to report on the "trial of the century". Theodor Herzl duly reported the details of the trial, of which he was an eye-witness. The French Army had imprisoned and then tried the highest ranking Jew in its ranks, convicting him on the facially implausible charge of being a spy for Germany. These legal proceedings were the culmination of the notorious event known as the Dreyfus Affair. The conviction of the Jewish officer was confirmed by the Supreme Court of France, even though there was not a scintilla of "evidence" supporting the charge, and in fact, another man admitted to having served as a spy.

Herzl walked away from the trial with the CERTAINTY that Jews, without a homeland, would not be treated with justice in Europe at that time. Where Captain Dreyfus, a fine officer, with undeniable competence and accomplishment, unsullied by any taint or corruption of any kind, could be blamed for losses in a military campaign in which he was not even involved, and where it was shown to the Supreme Court of France that there was no evidence in support of the charges, which were brought by incompetents who needed a scapegoat, his conviction was upheld on the single ground that he was a Jew. Blaming Jews, a largely unarmed people, had become a successful method for avoiding responsibility on the part of authorities across Europe. Here, it reached an apex.

After filing his reports during the day, Herzl would attend the Opera in the evenings in Paris. By coincidence, the Ring Cycle composed by the German composer, Richard Wagner, was being performed. Herzl was well-aware of the ugly anti-semitism of Wagner, who was a prolific essayist as well as composer. Yet, to his credit, he was able to appreciate the artistry and sublimely beautiful compositions. Even more extraordinary, he was able to take inspiration from the libretto itself.

The operas are loosely drawn from the bardic saga mythology of a Norse people. Wagner obtained copies and outlines and translations of the Poetic Edda, the Volsunga Saga, and the German Nibelungenlied. Like many intellectuals in this period of relative peace (late 1800's), Wagner found "Romantic" inspiration -- profound feelings -- in the epic literature of pagan gods.

Contrasted with his other compositions, Wagner's Ring Cycle is positively sunny and refreshing. Wagner invented most of the plot of the first music drama, the Rhinegold, by combining three unrelated Edda stories, developing a theme of Love versus Greed and Power. In the Valkyrie, the theme is Lover versus Law. In Siegfried, he practically defines Love as Freedom (from law and greed), and in Twilight of the Gods, he develops Love as a redeemer for those who resign themselves to it.

Virtually all of the sagas available to Wagner came out of Iceland, centuries after the isolated island had become Christianized by force. Transmitted with both apologist and euhemerist views, Wagner took the Myths as proto-science (explaining the mysteries) and proto-psychology (explaining ourselves).

Wagner was dead before Hitler was even born. However, Wagner's anti-Semitic views had been published, and he stooped to inventing a character in the Cycle who mimics the public caricature of greedy Jews -- although the character is in fact, a Germanic divinity. The Nazis did not invent anti-Semitism, or much of anything else. Nor do anti-semites, even talented ones, bother with logical consistency or decency. And to be "fair", Wagner did not express any great love for Germans or "Deutschland" -- which was not yet an independent united State, but from its various communities he had to flee on several occasions, and in which his music was banned until 1861.

So, what did Herzl draw from the musical dramas which had been drawn from ancient pagan poetry by a talented "Romantic" German exile?

Herzl was inspired to create Zionism. It was the only, the ONLY, remedy for anti-semitism. His fellow-German's artistry and the bardic ideas about community-building helped shape the concept of a Jewish homeland. Recovery of what was lost. Herzl, the Founding Father of Israel, was a devoted, lifelong Wagnerian.

Bold Action and Big Ideas

President Obama said, as he took the office he is re-making: "History reminds us that, at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas."

Somehow, incredibly, there are folks who hear this challenge and think that he meant "bold talk and big government". No. Just not what he said, and not what he is leading us toward. Still, where are the bold and the brave? Who has ideas, large and looming with hope?

Financial Crisis - Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. and the Cause

Former Secretary of Treasury Henry M. Paulson, Jr. has written a book entitled ON THE BRINK; Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System. His account is revealing. He clearly had no concept of any oversight function, although he had a background and employment exposure to investment banking opportunities and risks.

Of particular note is that he dealt with the crisis -- as it came to a head in the 48 hours (48 hours!) preceding the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 13, 2008 -- by seeking to find another lender to cover the obligations which were due. In other words, he was trying to solve a situation created by bad loans (securities tied to defaulting mortgages) by finding a bank willing to chase good money after bad. Knowing the nature of the toxic assets, he looked for a sucker.

When Barclays (President Bob Diamond) was unwilling to make the deal because the British Financial Services Authority (Finance Minister Alistair Darling) did not support it, "we were beside ourselves". To the group of CEO's he had assembled in his lobby, he blurted, "The British screwed us!" I'll bet he used other words. He was "stunned" that Mr. Darling was unwilling to permit him to unload the problem "on the British tax payer".

In the book, Mr. Paulson falls upon his faith (Christian Science). He asks his wife "to pray for me". She immediately quotes Timothy II, 1:7 : "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind".

The problem is that he admits he kept bottles of pills -- sleeping pills -- which is medication prohibited by his invoked religion and contrary to the Scientist belief that he cannot sleep. In addition, exactly WHAT is he fearing? For his failure to find a sucker to be the last one holding the bag of increasingly toxic assets? Does he understand that the only "risks", the only thing at stake, is the collapse of Lehman, and of course, with that, the spiraling problems that would hit the insurer, AIG.

However, the real danger was that the failure of large financial institutions would cause all of his chums to lose their shirts. All of his associations were with investment bankers. (He had been Chairman of Goldman Sachs).

In Spring 2007, Secretary Paulson told an audience at the Shanghai Futures Exchange that "An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention."[19] He actively lobbied to remove all regulatory oversight from the financial industry while at the same time subjecting consumer rights organizations (lawyers, loan modification consultants, etc) to increased and burdensome regulation).

In August 2007, Secretary Paulson explained that U.S. subprime mortgage fallout remained largely contained due to the strongest global economy in decades.[20] The economy was already tanking and was way down from the levels reached during Clinton.

On July 20, 2008, after the failure of Indymac Bank, Paulson reassured the public by saying, “it's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation.”[21] He had to know that the people pretending to be "our regulators" were in fact the predators who had already scammed homeowner-borrowers by placing them into inappropriate loans and OptionARMS.

On August 10, 2008, Secretary Paulson told NBC’s Meet the Press that he had no plans to inject any capital into Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.[22] On September 7, 2008, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went into conservatorship.[23]

Quoted from Wikipedia.