Ultra Eichmanns

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Sunday July 29, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Ultra Eichmanns
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`
Under the Wednesday July 25th headline "Colorado Prof Fired
After 9-11 Remarks," AP reports [1]:
`
WOW
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"The University of Colorado's governing board on Tuesday
fired a professor whose essay likening some Sept. 11 victims
to a Nazi leader provoked national outrage...."
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DOUBLE WOW
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"[Ward] Churchill's essay mentioning Sept. 11 victims and
Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann prompted a chorus of demands for
his firing...."
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`
OH, WOW
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The essay's titled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice Of
Roosting Chickens"; its URL is at [2].
`
and
`
The URL of "Ward Churchill Responds to Criticism of 'Some
People Push Back'" is at [3].
`
`
Now for the gist of the matter.
`
Hannah Arendt wrote in her book *Eichmann in Jerusalem: A
Report on the Banality Of Evil* [4]:
`
"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were
like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor
sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and ter-
rifyingly normal.
`
"From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our
moral standards of judgement, this normality was much
more terrifying than all the atrocities put together, for
it implied...that this new type of criminal, who is in
actual fact *hostis generis humani* [an enemy of mankind],
commits his crimes under circumstances that make it
well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he
is doing wrong." (page 276)
`
Arendt speaks of the "hardly deniable possibility that
similar crimes may be commited in the future."
`
"...whatever the punishment, once a specific crime appeared
for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its
initial emergence could ever have been.
`
"The particular reasons that speak for the possibility of
a repetition of the crimes commited by the Nazis are even
more plausible.
`
"The frightening coincidence
`
of the modern population explosion with the discovery of
technical devices
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that...will make large sections of the population 'super-
fluous' even in terms of labor,
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and that, through nuclear energy, make it possible to deal
with this twofold threat by the use of instruments beside
which Hitler's gassing installations look like an evil
child's fumbling toys,
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should be enough to make us tremble."
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"If genocide is an actual possibility of the future, then
no people on earth...can feel reasonably sure of its con-
tinued existence...." (p 273)
`
Arendt points to "...one of the fundamental problems posed
by crimes of this kind, namely, that they were, and only
could be, committed under a criminal *law* and by a crimi-
nal *state.*" (p 262)
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America was born July 4, 1776.
`
America died August 6, 1945 while giving birth to
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THE SUPERPOWER and its Evil People
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Arendt wrote:
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"...the overwhelming majority of the German people believed
in Hitler --even after the attack on Russia and the feared
war on two fronts, even after the United States entered the
war, indeed even after Stalingrad, the defection of Italy,
and the landings in France." (p 98f)
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Germany had only one Hitler.  In The Superpower, Wall Street
is rich enough to maintain a whole stable of fuehrers.
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`
`

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[1} AP:
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AP
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[2] Essay:
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Essay
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[3] Response:
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Response
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[4]
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Hannah Arendt
`
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Revised and Enlarged Edition
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Penguin Books
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1994 [first published: 1963]
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312+ pages
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Paperback ISBN: 0 14 01.8765 0
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“Known” Unknowns

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Sunday July 22, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
"Known" Unknowns
`
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Under the July 21st Headline "Iraq Pullout Would Face Many
Unknowns," AP reports:
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"...perhaps the biggest question on planners' minds is...: 
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"Will it be a 'fighting withdrawal'?
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"Will some in Iraq's wide array of armed groups attack the
hundreds of convoys needed to move U.S. equipment south?"
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In itself. this is a truly absurd question!
`
Additionally, it presupposes a couple of things:
`
(1) "The easiest thing is getting the troops out."  (AP is
quoting a retired general.)
`
(2) Getting gear out by way of Kuwait is no problem.
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Finally. the headline indicates yet another presupposition:
the withdrawal will be a pullout rather than a rout.
`
Additionally, note the word "Iraq" in the headline.
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Whichever --pullout or rout--, it belongs to The Superpower.
`
`
`

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AP:
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AP
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From my August 3, 2005 "Memo - August 1 / 2, 2005" essay:
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You may have noticed the Iraq-Syria border is a hot-spot.
`
The Superpower needs to keep its options open for getting
out of Iraq without losing most of its troops.
`
Leaving via tiny Kuwait invites Iran's army to fall upon
what's left of The Superpower's troops without further ado.
`
So leaving --being driven out-- via Syria/Israel is attrac-
tive. Preparations have been made.
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Essay
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Opportunity Missed

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Friday July 20, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Opportunity Missed
`
`
We all know about Puppet-uk's role as troublemaker in the EU
for The Superpower.
`
The latest troublemaking: ousting 4 Russian Federation diplo-
mats.
`
Instead of making a really new reply to such troublemaking,
the RF continued in the old rut: 4 Puppet-uk diplomats were
ousted.
`
What else might the RF have done?
`
(1) Close its embassy in London except, perhaps, for a couple
of visa clerks.
`
(2) Let the Puppet-uk embassy in the RF be.
`
(3) Notify Puppet-uk that all strictly diplomatic business
can only be handled via London-Moscow or Moscow-London email.
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(4) Notify Puppet-uk that therefore there's no strictly dip-
lomatic business to be handled by its embassy in the RF.
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(5) Invite Puppet-uk participation in regularizing the new
setup.
`
(6) Publicize training institutes to teach the new email-
diplomats how to effectively write, saying only what needs
to be said and not inadvertently saying anything else.
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Continuing in the old rut is a costly mistake.
`
`
`

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Anybody

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Thursday July 19, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Anybody
`
`
In the same calendar day
`
(A) a Circus Minimalist began in the Senate that night,
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(B) a Circus Maximalist was declared by Bu$h in broad day-
light.
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(A) = 0
`
(B) is aimed potentially at every citizen who dares oppose
The Superpower's invasion and occupation of Iraq.
`
A little after noon, the Black House snowjob got underway.
`
Bu$h's press secretary began with a free-for-all of words:
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"Today the President signed an executive order to block the
property of persons who threaten stabilization efforts in
Iraq, either through financial, material, logistical or
technical support that undermine economic reconstruction,
political reform, or humanitarian assistance.
`
"The executive order targets terrorists and insurgent groups,
including those assisted by Syria and Iran, that are not
covered by existing authorities.
`
"In other words, what we have is something that fills a gap
left in other executive orders to make sure that we have the
means to go financially after anybody who is trying to go
after the efforts to secure freedom and democracy in Iraq."
`
Bu$h's catch-all kit can easily be made to include:
`
(a) not only the various players in Iraq
`
(b) but also the antiwar citizens in The Superpower.
`
The better to conceal (b), (a) is stressed:
`
"Q[uestion] Specifically who, Tony?  Who is this aimed at?
`
"MR. SNOW: Well, what this is really [!] aimed at is in-
surgents and those who come across the border [of Iraq]."
`
`
Moving on...
`
What may "block the property" mean for citizens who oppose
the war?
`
Practically, it means The Superpower seizes their every penny!
`
That'll teach 'em not to get in Wall Street's way.
`
`
The Constitution died when America died on August 6, 1945
while giving birth to
`
THE SUPERPOWER and its Declaration of World $lavery.
`
It took a while for what was really aimed at to become fully
apparent.
`
`
`

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The Snowjob:
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Snowjob
`
And AP:
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AP
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Lowell On Political Independence – 5

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Monday July 16, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Lowell On Political Independence - 5
`
`
In James Russell Lowell's book "Political Essays" published 
in 1888 there's an essay "The Place Of The Independent In 
Politics" beginning at page 295. 
`
This essay began life as "An address delivered before the 
Reform Club of New York, at Steinway Hall, April 13, 1888."
`
Here's an excerpt running from page 317 to page 320 and from
the tailend of 323 to 326:
`
`
Parties being necessary things, it follows, of course, that
there must be politicians to manage and leaders to represent
and symbolize them.
`
The desire of man to see his wishes, his prejudices, his
aspirations, summed up and personified in a single represen-
tative has the permanence of an instinct.
`
Few escape it, few are conscious of its controlling influence.
`
The danger always is that loyalty to the man shall insensibly
replace loyalty to the thing he is supposed to represent,
till at last the question what he represents fades wholly out
of mind.
`
The love of victory as a good in itself is also a powerful in-
gredient in the temperament of most men.
`
Forty odd years ago it would have been hard to find a man, no
matter how wicked he may have believed the Mexican War to be,
who could suppress a feeling of elation when the news of Bue-
na Vista arrived.
`
Never mind the principle involved, it was our side that won.
`
`
If the dangers and temptations of parties be such as I have
indicated, and I do not think that I have overstated them, it
is for the interest of the best men in both parties that there
should be a neutral body,
`
not large enough to form a party by itself, nay, which would
lose its power for good if it attempted to form such a party,
`
and yet large enough to moderate between both [parties], and
to make both more cautious
`
in their choice of candidates 
`
and in their connivance with evil practices.
`
If the politicians must look after the parties, there should
be somebody to look after the politicians,
`
somebody to ask disagreeable questions and to utter uncomfort-
able truths;
`
somebody to make sure, if possible, before election, not only
what, but whom the candidate, if elected, is going to repre-
sent.
`
What to me is the saddest feature of our present methods is
the pitfalls which they dig in the path of ambitious and able
men
`
who feel that they are fitted for a political career, that by
character and training they could be of service to their coun-
try,
`
yet who find every avenue closed to them unless at the sacri-
fice of the very independence which gives them a claim to what
they seek.
`
As in semi-barbarous times the sincerity of a converted Jew
was tested by forcing him to swallow pork, so these [ambitious
and able men] are required to gulp without a wry face what is
as nauseous to them.
`
I would do all in my power to render such loathsome compli-
ances unnecessary.
`
The pity of it is that with our political methods the hand is
of necessity subdued to what it works in.
`
It has been proved, I think, that the old parties are not to
be reformed from within.
`
It is from without that the attempt must be made, and it is
the Independents who must make it.
`
If the attempt should fail, the failure of the experiment of
democracy would inevitably follow.
`
But I do not believe that it will fail. The signs are all
favorable. Already there are journals in every part of the
country —-journals, too, among the first in ability, circu-
lation, and influence-— which refuse to wear the colors of
party.
`
Already the people have a chance of hearing the truth, and
I think that they always gladly hear it.
`
Our first aim should be, as it has been, the reform of our
civil service, for that is the fruitful mother of all our
ills.
`
It is the most aristocratic system in the world,
`
for it depends on personal favor and is the reward of personal
service,
`
and the power of the political boss is built up and maintained,
like that of the mediaeval robber baron, by his freehandedness
in distributing the property of other people. 
`
From it is derived the notion that the public treasure is a
fund to a share of which every one is entitled who by fraud or
favor can get it,
`
and from this again the absurd doctrine of rotation in office
so that each may secure his proportion,
`
and that the business of the nation may be carried on by a
succession of apprentices who are dismissed just as they are
getting an inkling of their trade to make room for others who
are in due time to be turned loose on the world, past masters
in nothing but incompetence for any useful career.
`
From this, too, has sprung the theory of the geographical
allotment of patronage, as if ability were dependent, like
wheat, upon the soil,
`
and the more mischievous one that members of Congress must be 
residents of the district that elects them, a custom which
has sometimes excluded men of proved ability, in the full
vigor of their faculties and the ripeness of their experi-
ence, from the councils of the nation.
`	
`
All reforms seem slow and wearisome to their advocates, for
these are commonly of that ardent and imaginative temper
which inaccurately foreshortens the distance and overlooks
the difficulties between means and end.
`
If we have not got all that we hoped from the present ad-
ministration, we have perhaps got more than we had reason to 
expect,
`
considering how widely spread are the roots of this evil,
`
and what an inconvenient habit they have of sending up suckers
in the most unexpected places.
`
To cut off these does not extirpate them.
`
It is the parent tree that must go.
`
It is much that we have compelled a discussion of the question
from one end of the country to the other, for it [this evil]
cannot bear discussion, and I for one have so much faith in
the good sense of the American people as to feel sure that
discussion means victory. 
`
That the Independents are so heartily denounced by those who
support and are supported by the system that has been grad-
ually perfected during the last fifty years is an excellent
symptom.
`
We must not be impatient.
`
Some of us can remember when those who are now the canonized
saints of the party which restored the Union and abolished
slavery were a forlorn hope of Mugwumps, the scorn of all
practical politicians. 
`
Sydney Smith was fond of saying that the secret of happiness
in life was to take short views, and in this he was but re-
peating the rule of the Greek and Koman poets, to live in
every hour as if we were never to have another.
`
But he who would be happy as a reformer must take long views,
and into distances sometimes that baffle the most piercing
vision. 
`
...
`
It is through its politics, through its capacity for govern-
ment, the noblest of all sciences, that a nation proves its
right to a place among the other beneficent forces of nature.
`
For politics permeate more widely than any other force, and
reach every one of us, soon or late, to teach or to debauch.
`
We are confronted with new problems and new conditions.
`
We and the population which is to solve them are very unlike
that of fifty years ago.
`
As I was walking not long ago in the Boston Public Garden, I
saw two Irishmen looking at Ball's equestrian statue of Wash-
ington, and wondering who was the personage thus commemorated.
`
I had been brought up among the still living traditions of
Lexington, Concord, Bunker's Hill, and the siege of Boston.
`
To these men Ireland was still their country, and America a
place to get their daily bread.
`
This put me upon thinking.  What, then, is patriotism, and
what its true value to a man ?
`
Was it merely an unreasoning and almost cat-like attachment
to certain square miles of the earth's surface, made up in
almost equal parts of lifelong association, hereditary tra-
dition, and parochial prejudice?
`
This is the narrowest and most provincial form, as it is also,
perhaps, the strongest, of that passion or virtue, whichever
we choose to call it.`
`
But did it not fulfil the essential condition of giving men
an ideal outside themselves, 
`
which would awaken in them capacities for devotion and heroism
that are deaf even to the penetrating cry of self?
`
All the moral good of which patriotism is the fruitful mother,
my two Irishmen had in abundant measure, and it had wrought in
them marvels of fidelity and self-sacrifice which made me blush
for the easier terms on which my own duties of the like kind
were habitually fulfilled.
`
Were they not daily pinching themselves that they might pay
their tribute [remittances] to the old hearthstone [family] or
the old cause [of freedom] three thousand miles away?
`
If tears tingle our eyes when we read of the like loyalty in
the clansmen of the attainted and exiled Lochici [Donald Came-
ron], shall this leave us unmoved?
`
I laid the lesson to heart.  I would, in my own way, be as
faithful as they to what I believed to be the best interests
of my country.
`
Our politicians are so busy studying the local eddies of
prejudice or interest that they allow the main channel of our 
national energies to be obstructed by dams for the grinding
of private grist.
`
Our leaders no longer lead, but are as skilful as Indians in
following the faintest trail of public opinion.
`
I find it generally admitted that our moral standard in
politics has been lowered, and is every day going lower.
...
`
What we want is an active class who will insist in season
and out of season that we shall have a country whose great-
ness is measured,
`
not only by its square miles, its number of yards woven, of
hogs packed, of bushels of wheat raised,
`
not only by its skill to feed and clothe the body, 
`
but also by its power to feed and clothe the soul;
`
a country which shall be as great morally as it is material-
ly;
`
a country whose very name shall not only, as now it does,
stir us as with the sound of a trumpet,
`
but shall call out all that is best within us
`
by offering us the radiant image of something better and
nobler and more enduring than we,
`
of something that shall fulfil our own thwarted aspiration,
when we are but a handful of forgotten dust
`
in the soil trodden by a race whom we shall have helped to
make more worthy of their inheritance
`
than we ourselves had the power, I might almost say the means,
to be. 
`
`
`

`
A
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Lowell's book is online at: 
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Lowell
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To get to desired page AND to be able to highlight text--
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At homepage, click "View plain text" in righthand frame. 
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When plain-text webpage comes up: in lefthand frame, scroll 
down to page desired.
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The page you're at is indicated in page box at top of scroll-
bar.
`
Be patient: loading pages takes a moment or so.
`
B
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Page 317 is correctly numbered; page 318 is unmarked; pages
319 and 320 are correctly numbered..
`
Page 323 is correctly numbered; page 324 is unmarked; pages
325 and 326 are correctly numbered.
`
C
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In 1888 Lowell called for America to be a country that shall
call out all that is best within us.  But 57 years later, on
August 6, 1945, America died while giving birth to
`
THE SUPERPOWER and its Declaration of World $lavery.
`

Puppet-uk’s Game In Pakistan

`
Monday July 16, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Puppet-uk's Game In Pakistan
`
`
Waco-1 called forth Payback in the Citadel.  How could The
Superpower's rulers possibly forget *that* lesson?
`
But The Superpower's rulers figured Waco-1 was a long time
ago, no one remembers, we can get away with it this time...
`
So TIS (The Incredible Superpower) directed Puppet-pakistan
to stage Waco-2 in Islamabad, capital of Puppet-pakistan.
`
Ach, already there's Payback!
`
Under the July 15th headline "2 days, 2 Deadly Bombings In
Pakistan," AP reports Payback is centered in "the restive
border region" where even before Waco-2 "some 90,000 troops
[were] already in the region."
`
And now "reinforcements [have] been sent...."
`
`
Under the July 10th headline "Troops Storm Red Mosque, Kill-
ing Cleric," AP reports a Lahore university political scien-
tist says killing the cleric "could provoke a 'violent out-
burst' in the country" --the whole country, not just a part.
`
Who knows what might happen?
`
So Puppet-uk is selling insurance.
`
"Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister long regarded as
Musharraf's chief political rival, agreed that [a violent
outbreak] might happen, but said the president [Musharraf]
made the right decision in assailing the mosque."
`
AP reports the attitude of the Puppet-uk darling:

"'I'm glad there was no cease-fire with the militants in the
mosque because cease-fires simply embolden the militants,'
she told Sky TV from exile in Britain.
`
"'There will be a backlash, but at some time we have to stop
appeasing the militants.  We can't afford to keep appeasing
them.'"
`
So when Musharraf-1 is run out of town and, duh, democracy
is restored, Musharraf-2 will be parachuted into Islamabad by
the Puppet-uk's SOS.
`
Whether TIS likes it or not!
`
`
`

`
AP 1:
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AP1
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AP 2:
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AP2
`

Lowell On Political Independence – 4

`
Friday July 13, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Lowell On Political Independence - 4
`
`
In James Russell Lowell's book "Political Essays" published 
in 1888 there's an essay "The Place Of The Independent In 
Politics" beginning at page 295. 
`
This essay began life as "An address delivered before the 
Reform Club of New York, at Steinway Hall, April 13, 1888."
`
Here's an excerpt running from page 310 to page 316:
`
`
The theory of equality was as old, among men of English
blood, as Jack Cade's rebellion [in 1450], but it was not
practically conceived even by the very men who asserted it.
`
Here, on the edge of the forest, where civilized man was
brought face to face again with nature and taught to rely
mainly on himself, mere manhood became a fact of prime im-
portance. 
`
That century and a half of apprenticeship in democracy stimu-
lated self-help, while it also necessitated helpfulness for
others and mutual dependence upon them.  Not without reason
did "help" take the place of "servant" in our vocabulary.
`
But the conditions of life led to other results that left
less salutary effects behind them.
`
They bred a habit of contentment with what would do, as we
say, rather than an impatience of whatever was not best;
`
a readiness to put up with many evils or inconveniences, 
because they could not be helped;
`
and this has, especially in our politics, conduced to the
growth of the greatest weakness in our American character —-
`
the acquiescence in makeshifts and abuses which can and
ought to be helped,
`
and which, with honest resolution, might be helped.
`
Certainly never were the auguries so favorable as when our
republic was founded, a republic sure from inherent causes
to broaden into a more popular form.
`
But while the equality of which I have been speaking existed
`
in the instincts, the habits, and obscurely in the conscious-
ness of all,
`
it was latent and inert.
`
It found little occasion for self-assertion, none for aggres-
sion, and was slow to invent one.
`
A century ago there was still a great respect for authority
in all its manifestations;
`
for the law first of all,
`
for age, for learning, and for experience. 
`
The community recognized and followed its natural leaders,
and it was these who framed our Constitution, perhaps the
most remarkable monument of political wisdom known to his-
tory.
`
The convention which framed it was composed of the choicest 
material in the community, and was led astray by no theories
of what might be good, but clave closely to what experience
had demonstrated to be good. 
`
The late [French statesman Francois] Guizot once asked me
"how long I thought our republic would endure."
`
I replied: "So long as the ideas of the men who founded it
continue dominant,"
`
and he assented [agreed].
`
I will not say that we could not find among us now the con-
stituents of as able an assembly [as the 1787 Constitutional
Convention],
`
but I doubt if there be a single person in this audience [at
the NY Reform Club] who believes that with our present polit-
ical methods we should or could elect them.
`
We have revived the English system of rotten boroughs, under
which the electors indeed return the candidate, but it is a
handful of men, too often one man, that selects the person
to be so returned.
`
If this be so, and I think it is so, it should give us matter
for very serious reflection.

After our Constitution got fairly into working order it real-
ly seemed as if we had invented a machine that would go of
itself,
`
and this begot a faith in our luck which even the civil war
itself but momentarily disturbed. 
`
Circumstances continued favorable, and our prosperity went on
increasing.  I admire the splendid complacency of my country-
men, and find something exhilirating and inspiring in it.
`
We are a nation which has *struck ile* [oil], but we are also
a nation that is sure the well will never run dry.
`
And this confidence in our luck [together] with the absorb-
tion in material interests, generated by unparalleled
opportunity, has in some respects made us neglectful of our
political duties.
`
I have long thought that the average men of our revolution-
ary period were better grounded in the elementary principles
of government than their descendauts.
`
The town-meeting was then a better training-school than the
caucus and the convention are now, and the smaller the com-
munity the greater the influence of the better mind in it.
`
In looking about me, I am struck with the fact that while we
produce great captains, financial and industrial leaders in
abundance,
`
and political managers in overabundance,
`
there seems to be a pause in the production of leaders in
statesmanship.
`
I am still more struck with the fact that my newspaper often
gives me fuller reports of the speeches of Prince Bismarck
[in Germany] and of Mr. Gladstone [in England] than of any-
thing said in Congress.
...
`
Why are we interested in what these [two] men say?  Because
they are important for what they are, as well as for what
they represent.
`
They are Somebodies, and their every word gathers force from
the character and life behind it.  They [each] stand for an
idea as well as for a constituency.
`
An adequate amount of small change will give us the equiva-
lent of the largest piece of money, but what aggregate of
little men will amount to a single great one, that most
precious coinage of the mint of nature ?
`
It is not that we have lost the power of bringing forth great
men.  They are not the product of institutions, though these
may help or hinder them.
`
I am thankful to have been the contemporary of one [such man]
and [he being] among the greatest,
`
of whom I think it is safe to say that no other country and
no other form of government could have fashioned him,
`
and whom posterity will recognize as the wisest and most
bravely human of modern times.
`
It is a benediction to have lived in the same age and in the
same country with Abraham Lincoln.
`
Had democracy borne only this consummate flower and then per-
ished like the century-plant, it would have discharged its
noblest function.
`
It is the crown of a nation, one might almost say the chief
duty of a nation, to produce great men, for without them its
history is but the annals of ants and bees.
`
Two conditions are essential : the man, and the opportunity.
`
We must wait on Mother Nature for the one, but in America we
ourselves can do much to make or mar the other.
`
We cannot always afford to set our house on fire as we did
for Lincoln, but we are certainly responsible if the door to
distinction be made so narrow and so low as to admit only
petty and crouching men. 
`
A democracy makes certain duties incumbent on every citizen
which under other forms of government are limited to a man or
to a class of men. 
`
A prudent despot looks after his kingdom as a prudent private
man would look after his estate ; in an aristocratic republic
a delegated body of nobles manages public affairs as a board
of railroad directors would manage the property committed to
their charge;
`
in both cases, self-interest is strong enough to call forth
every latent energy of character and intellect;
`
in both cases the individual is so consciously important a
factor as to insure a sense of personal responsibility.
`
In the ancient democracies a citizen could see and feel the
effect of his own vote.
`
But in a democracy so vast as ours, though the responsibility
be as great..., yet the infinitesimal division of power well-
nigh nullifies the sense of it,
`
and of the responsibility implied in it.
`
It is certainly a great privilege to have a direct share in
the government of one's country, but it is a privilege which
is of advantage to the commonwealth only in proportion as it
is intelligently exercised.
`
Then, indeed, its constant exercise should train the facul-
ties of forethought and judgment better,
`
and should give men a keener sense of their own value than
perhaps anything else can do.
`
But under every form of representative government, parties
become necessary for the marshalling and expression of
opinion,
`
and, when parties are once formed, those questions the dis-
cussion of which would discipline and fortify men's minds
tend more and more to pass out of sight,
`
and the topics that interest their prejudices and passions
to become more absorbing.
`
What will be of immediate advantage to the party is the first
thing considered,
`
what of permanent advantage to their country the last.
`
I refer especially to neither of the great parties which
divide the country.  I am treating a question of natural
history [of every form of representative government].
`
Both parties have been equally guilty, both have evaded, as
successfully as they could, the living questions of the day.
`
As the parties have become more evenly balanced, the diffi-
culty of arriving at their opinions has been greater
`
in proportion to the difficulty of devising any profession
of faith meaningless enough not to alarm,
`
if it could not be so interpreted as to conciliate, the
varied and sometimes conflicting interests of the different
sections of the country.
`
If you asked them [the parties], as Captain Standard in Far-
quahar's comedy asks Parley,
`
"Have you any principles?"
`
the answer, like his [Parley's], would have been,
`
"Five hundred." 
`
Between the two a conscientious voter feels as the traveller
of fifty years ago felt between the touters of the two rival
hotels in the village where the stage-coach stopped for din-
ner.
`
Each side deafened him with depreciation of the other estab-
lishment till his only conclusion was that each was worse
than the other,
`
and that it mattered little at which of them he paid dearly
for an indigestion. 
`
`
`

`
A
`
Lowell's book is online at: 
`
Lowell
`
To get to desired page AND to be able to highlight text--
`
At homepage, click "View plain text" in righthand frame. 
`
When plain-text webpage comes up: in lefthand frame, scroll 
down to page desired.
`
The page you're at is indicated in page box at top of scroll-
bar.
`
Be patient: loading pages takes a moment or so.
`
B
`
Page 312 is missing from the text-only version.  I supplied
it from the images version.
`
C
`
The traveller's tale adduced by Lowell now fits Wall Street's
One Party to a T.
`

Failure Folly – Part 2

`
Saturdayday July 14, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Failure Folly - Part 2
`
`
A
`
From my May 7th "Clear Vision" essay:
`
{start}
`
Under the headline "Al-Qaida No. 2 Mocks Iraq Pullout Bill,"
AP on May 5th quotes a spokesman of the Iraqi Resistance:
`
"This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the
American forces which we have caught in a historic trap.
`
"We ask Allah that they (U.S. troops) only get out of it after
losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the
spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable
lesson."
`
{end}
`
`
Under the headline "Al-Qaida [Operations] Show [Al-Qaida]
Leadership In Control," AP on July 13th reports:
`
"Congressional Democrats in the United States passed a bill
tying funding for the war in Iraq to a timetable for with-
drawal of American troops, and al-Zawahri responded in a
mocking videotape just nine days later."
`
AP's got the mock-word stuck in its craw.
`
The Iraqi Resistance has Superpower troops in its sights.
`
`
B
`
As regards aQ, AP quotes an analyst at a Singapore counter-
terrorism center, who claims al-Zawahri is speaking "as the
leader of the al-Qaida organization and its associated home-
grown groups."
`
Homegrown groups?
`
Resistance groups spring up wherever there's aggression by
The Superpower or its puppets.
`
To prevent people seeing the Elephant in the living room, The
Superpower's military aggression is accompanied by its psywar
aggression which blares Goebbelsese around the world claiming
(a) there is an aQ and (b) aQ's the only one.
`
But as hot air cools, the real homegrown groups assert them-
selves, even in the chitchat of, duh, analysts.
`
`
`

`
Essay:
,
Essay
`
At the tailend of the essay:
`
In an English translation of the full text of the December 26,
2006 Baath Party statement "To the American Administration: A
warning to anyone who harms President Saddam Hussein and his
comrades," note paragraph 2:
`
"The execution of the President [Saddam Hussein] and his com-
rades will make further negotiations between the Resistance
and the Baath on the one hand and the occupation on the other
impossible; the US forces in Iraq will be regarded as hostages
to be slowly destroyed and not allowed to withdraw peacefully."
`
AP:
`
AP
`

Lowell On Political Independence – 3

`
Thursday July 12, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Lowell On Political Independence - 3
`
`
In James Russell Lowell's book "Political Essays" published 
in 1888 there's an essay "The Place Of The Independent In 
Politics" beginning at page 295. 
`
This essay began life as "An address delivered before the 
Reform Club of New York, at Steinway Hall, April 13, 1888."
`
Here's an excerpt running from page 306 to page 310:
`
`
It is time for lovers of their country to consider
`
how much of the success of our experiment in democracy has
been due to such favorable conditions as never before con-
curred [came together] to make such an attempt plausible;
`
whether those conditions have changed and are still changing
for the worse;
`
how far we have been accessories in this degeneration, if
such there be,
`
and how far it is in our power, with the means furnished by
the very instruments of destruction, to stay its advance and
to repair its ravages. 
`
`
Till within a few years of our civil war, everything conduced
`
to our measuring the success of our institutions by the evi-
dence of our outward prosperity,
`
and to our seeing the future in rose-colori [rosy colors]
`
The hues of our dawn had scarcely faded from the sky.
`
Men were still living who had seen the face and heard the
voice of the most august personage in our history [Washing-
ton], and of others scarce less august than he.
`
The traditions of our founders were fresh.
`
Our growth in wealth and power was without precedent.
`
We had been so fortunate that we had come to look upon our
luck as
`
partly due to our own merits
`
and partly to our form of government.
`
When we met together it was to felicitate [congratulate]
each other on our superiority to the rest of mankind.
`
Our ears caught from behind the horizon the muffled thun-
ders of war, only to be lulled as with the murmurs of the
surf on a far-off shore.
`
We heard of revolutions, but for us Fortune forgot to turn
her wheel.
`
This was what may be called the Fourth of July period of
our history.
`
Among the peoples of the earth we were the little Jack Horner.
We had put in our thumb and pulled out a plum,
`
and the rest of mankind thought that we were never tired of
saying, "What a good boy am I!"
`
`
Here is a picture of our growth, drawn by a friendly yet im-
partial hand:
`
"Nothing in the history of mankind is like their progress.
For my part, I never cast an eye on their flourishing com-
merce and their cultivated and commodious life but they seem
to me
`
rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long
series of fortunate events and a train of successful industry
accumulating wealth in many centuries
`
than the colonies of yesterday.
...
`
Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood
than they spread from families to communities, and from
villages to nations."
`
But for a certain splendor of style these words seem to be of
yesterday, so pertinent are they still.
`
They were uttered in the British Parliament more than a year
before the battle of Lexington, by Edmund Burke.
`
There is no exaggeration in them.  They are a simple statement
of fact. 
`
Burke, with his usual perspicacity [clearsightedness], saw and
stated one and [also] a chief cause of this unprecedented phe-
nomenon. 
`
He tells us that the colonies had made this marvellous growth
because, "through a wise and salutary neglect [by the Crown],
a generous nature has been suffered [allowed] to take her own
way to perfection."
`
But by that " wise and salutary neglect" he meant
`
freedom from the petty and short-sighted meddlesomeness of a
paternal government;
`
he meant being left to follow untrammelled the instincts of
our genius under the guidance of our energy.
`
The same causes have gone on ever since working the same
marvels.
`
Those marvels have been due in part to our political system.
`
But there were other circumstances tending to stimulate per-
sonal energy and enterprise,
`
especially land to be had for the taking,
`
and free trade over a larger share of the earth's surface
peopled by thriving and intelligent communities than had ever
been enjoyed elsewhere. 
`
I think, however, that there was one factor more potent than
any other, or than all others together. 
`
Before we broke away from the mother country politically, a
century and a half of that " wise neglect" of which Burke
spoke had thoroughly made over again and Americanized all the
descendants of the earlier settlers,
`
and these formed the great bulk of the population.
`
The same process was rapidly going on in the more recent im-
migrants.
`
So thorough had this process been that many, perhaps most, of
the refugees who, during or after the Revolutionary War, went
to England, or home, as they fondly called it, found them-
selves out of place and unhappy there [in England].
`
The home they missed was that humane equality, not of condi-
tion or station, but of being [independence] and opportunity,
which by some benign influence of the place had overcome them
here, like a summer cloud, without their special wonder.
`
Yet they felt the comfort of it as of an air wholesome to
breathe.
`
I more than suspect that it was the absence of this inesti-
mable [supreme] property of the moral atmosphere that
`
made them aliens in every other land,
`
and convinced them that an American can no more find another
country than a second mother. 
`
This equality had not then been proclaimed as a right;
`
it had been incorporated in no constitution, 
`
but was there by the necessity of the case —-a gift of the sky
and of the forest,
...
`
and whose singular good-fortune it has been that no dispari-
ties except those of nature's making [color] have ever been
known there [in America].
`
Except in the cities of the seaboard, where the habits of the
Old World had to some extent been kept alive by intercourse
and importation,
`
the defecation of the body politic and the body social of all
purely artificial and arbitrary distinctions had been going on
silently and surely among the masses of the people for genera-
tions.
`
This was true (in a more limited sense) even of communities
where slavery existed, for as that was based on complexion,
every white, no matter what his condition, belonged to the
privileged class, just as in Hungary every Magyar was a noble.
`
This was the American novelty, no bantling [newborn] of theory,
no fruit of forethought, no trophy of insurgent violence, but
a pure evolution from the nature of man in a perfectly free
medium. 
`
The essential triumph was achieved in this tacit recognition
of a certain privilege and adequacy in mere manhood,
`
and democracy may be said to have succeeded before it was ac-
cepted as doctrine or embodied as a political fact.
`
Our ancestors sought a new country.
`
What they found was a new condition of mind.
`
It is more than questionable whether the same conditions in
as favorable combination of time and place will ever occur
again,
`
whether equality, so wholesome when a social evolution, as I
have described it, may not become harmful as a sudden gift
in the form of dogma....
`
`
`

`
A
`
Lowell's book is online at: 
`
Lowell
`
To get to desired page AND to be able to highlight text--
`
At homepage, click "View plain text" in righthand frame. 
`
When plain-text webpage comes up: in lefthand frame, scroll 
down to page desired.
`
The page you're at is indicated in page box at top of scroll-
bar.
`
Be patient: loading pages takes a moment or so.
`
B
`
Plain-text pages 306 - 310 are correctly marked.
`
C
`
Note Lowell's questioning whether equality "may not become
harmful as a sudden gift in the form of dogma."
`
That fits The Superpower's sudden imposition, by way of in-
vasion and occupation, of democracy-as-dogma to a T.
`

Lowell On Political Independence – 2

`
Wednesday July 11, 2007
POLITICAL ESSAYS
Lowell On Political Independence - 2
`
`
In James Russell Lowell's book "Political Essays" published 
in 1888 there's an essay "The Place Of The Independent In 
Politics" beginning at page 295. 
`
This essay began life as "An address delivered before the 
Reform Club of New York, at Steinway Hall, April 13, 1888."
`
Here's an excerpt running from page 303 to page 306:
`
`
...while we [the American people] were yet in the gristle
[still in the forming], we produced statesmen, not, indeed,
endowed with Burke's genius, though fairly comparable with
him in breadth of view, and sometimes his superiors in
practical sagacity.
`
But I think there is a growing doubt whether we are not
ceasing to produce them [statesmen],
`
whether perhaps we are not losing the power to produce them.
`
The tricks of management are more and more superseding the
science of government. 
`
Our methods force the growth of two kinds of politicians to
the crowding out of all other varieties, — him who is called
practical, and him of the corner grocery. The [corner groc-
ery] one trades in that counterfeit of public opinion which
the other [the practical one] manufactures. 
`
Both work in the dark, and there is need that some one should
turn the light of his policeman's lantern on their doings.
`
I believe that there is as much of the raw material of states-
manship among us as ever there was, but the duties [tariffs]
levied by the local rings of majority-manufacturers are so
high as to prohibit its entrance into competition with the
protected article.
`
Could we only have a travelling exhibition of our Bosses, and
say to the American people,
`
"Behold the shapers of your national destiny!" 
`
A single despot would be cheaper, and probably better looking.
`
It is a natural impulse to turn away one's eyes from these
flesh-flies that fatten on the sores of our body politic, and
plant there the eggs of their disgustful and infectious pro-
geny.
`
But it is the lesson of the day that a yielding to this repul-
sion by the intelligent and refined is a mainly efficient
[direct] cause of the evil, and must be overcome, at whatever
cost of selfish ease and aesthetic comfort, ere [before] the
evil can be hopefully dealt with. 
`
It is admitted on all hands that matters have been growing
worse for the last twenty years, as it is the nature of evil
to do.
`
It is publicly asserted that admission to the Senate of the
United States is a marketable thing. I know not whether this
be true or not, but is it not an ominous sign of the times
that this has been asserted and generally believed to be
possible, if not probable?
`
It is notorious that important elections are decided by votes 
bought with money, or by the more mischievous equivalent of
money, places in the public service. 
`
What is even more disheartening, the tone of a large part of
the press in regard to this state of things is cynical, or
even jocular.
`
And how often do we not read in our morning paper that such
and such a local politician is dictating the choice of dele-
gates to a nominating convention,
`
or manipulating them after they are chosen?
`
So often that we at last take it as a matter of course, as
something beyond our power to modify or control, like the
weather, at which we may grumble, if we like, but cannot
help.
`
We should not tolerate a packed jury which is to decide on
the fate of a single man, yet we are content to leave the
life of the nation at the mercy of a packed convention.
`
We allow ourselves to be bilked of our rights and thwarted
in our duties as citizens by men in whose hands their very
henchmen would be the last to trust anything more valuable
than their [zero] reputation.
`
Pessimists tell us that these things are the natural inci-
dents [by-products] and necessary consequences of represen-
tative government under democratic conditions;
`
that we have drawn the wine, and must drink it.
`
If I believed this to be so, I should not be speaking here
[at the NY Reform Club] to-night.
`
Parties refuse to see, or, if they see, [then] to look into,
vicious methods which help them to a majority, and each is
thus estopped [prevented] from sincere protest against the
same methods when employed by the other.
`
The people of the Northern States thought four years' war
not too dear a price to prevent half their country [the
Confederacy] being taken from them.
`
But the practices of which I have been speaking are slowly
and surely filching from us the whole of our country, —-all,
at least, that made it the best to live in and the easiest
to die for.
`
If parties will not look after their own drainage and ven-
tilation, there must be people who will do it for them, who
will cry out without ceasing till their fellow-citizens are
aroused to the danger of infection. 
`
This duty can be done only by men dissociated from the in-
terests of party.
`
The Independents have undertaken it, and with God's help
will carry it through.
`
A moral purpose multiplies us by ten, as it multiplied the
early Abolitionists.
`
They emancipated the negro; and we mean to emancipate the
respectable white man.
`
`
`

`
A
`
Lowell's book is online at: 
`
Lowell
`
To get to desired page AND to be able to highlight text--
`
At homepage, click "View plain text" in righthand frame. 
`
When plain-text webpage comes up: in lefthand frame, scroll 
down to page desired.
`
The page you're at is indicated in page box at top of scroll-
bar.
`
Be patient: loading pages takes a moment or so.
`
B
`
Plain-text page 303 is correctly marked; plain-text page 304
is unmarked except for the heading "POLITICA"; plain-text page
305 is marked 30£ instead of 305; plain-text page 306 is cor-
recly marked.
`
C
`
Note Lowell's emphasis on "the more mischievous equivalent of
money, places in the public service."
`
That now fits The Superpower's herd of eichmanns to a T.
`