More Evidence American Democracy is an Illusion

Many Americans believe their country is the greatest nation on Earth.  Why?  Because of America's "freedom".  Because of her "democracy".  America holds democracy in such high esteem, its citizens don't balk at spending billions to join numerous conflicts abroad if they're told it's in the name of this beloved virtue, even while the country struggles to pay its own bills.  Perhaps it would be best for America's military to stop fighting for democracy overseas, and start fighting for democracy here at home.

What follows is an article written by Bev Harris, founder of BlackBoxVoting.org.  She and that organization have worked long and hard to expose electronic vote rigging ever since the Bush V. Gore debacle in 2000.  If you consider yourself a patriotic American, you might consider it your duty to examine this issue.  Sure, you may feel discomfort as you realize election results are handily fabricated in your "greatest nation on Earth".  And if you're not the most patriotic American and instead believe she ain't what she used to be, you owe it to yourself to learn and understand how America's democracy is undermined at every level.  It's not just money in politics influencing elections through lobbyists and campaign contributions.  It's not just gerrymandering skewing district results.  With electronic voting machines, election results can be - and are - fabricated.  

That is, by definitiong, the undermining of democracy.

Black Box Voting has done the hard work - the research.  Your part is easy.  All you have to do is read.  Extra credit if you pass it on.

CIBER THE BRIBER, AND OTHER ELECTORAL LAUNDRY 
By Bev Harris 

Next time you hear that voting machines are reliable and safe "because they have been tested and certified," think of this important article, which reveals proven corruption, payoffs and bid-rigging connected to Ciber, Inc., a firm that signed off on our voting machines. Ciber's okay was the foundation for federal acceptance of voting machines all over the USA. 

A few weeks ago, I decided to examine electoral fraud from the other end. What happens if we start with known public corruption cases and work backwards to the intersection with elections? 

What I found were kickbacks and bid-rigging schemes in New Orleans and Pennsylvania which both connect back to Ciber, the firm that supposedly tested and then signed off on most of the U.S. voting machines currently in use in all fifty states, on behalf of the federal government. 

I learned of a now-admittedly corrupt government technology official who had placed, as one of his first priorities, setting up an Internet voting system. 

And while looking into money-laundering systems, the mechanism that provides the juice for such corruption, I learned of a particularly odious situation: a New York City Democrat who bribed New York City Republicans to help him run for Mayor (as a Republican). "You pull this off, you can have the house. I'll be a tenant," he said. 
As part of the New York deal, the bribe facilitator was to be appointed New York City Deputy Chief of Police when the would-be-mayor got into office. 

My purpose in writing this is not to disgust you with politics. My goal is to show you what kind of corporations and people will inevitably end up in positions of control, to illustrate that insiders must never be "trusted" when it comes to conducting elections. There can never be a place where counting votes in secret, or governmental snooping on how we voted, or hidden money behind campaigns, or hiding records on elections, can be accepted by the public, yet that is happening right now. 

THE REAL WORLD IS NOT ON TV 

Vendors who do business with the government do participate in bid-rigging and kickback schemes, and both politicians and government employees sometimes deprive the public of honest services. 

Take the situation in New Orleans, for example, involving former Mayor Ray Nagin, his chief technology officer Greg Meffert, technology vendor Mark St. Pierre, and go-between Ed Burns, who was facilitating payments through a company called Ciber Inc. These guys were doing an overhaul on the city's technology infrastructure after Hurricane Katrina. They were providing traffic and crime cameras. They were paying themselves for work never performed. They were taking kickbacks. They were bid-rigging. They were lavishing donations, trips and perks on candidates they chose. 

What hit the front page was crime cameras and infrastructure, but a small news item contained this gem: One of them, Greg Meffert, was also hoping to set up Internet voting for the city of New Orleans. 

"Greg Meffert, the New Orleans CIO ... said today that one of his priorities is to provide a secure Internet voting system," write Ellen O’Brien and Charlie Russo of SearchCIO.com. They quote Meffert as saying: 

"Hey, we’re going to do Internet voting for real, in a real election, and you're going to vote and use kiosks..." 

And they report that: "Meffert plans to model the New Orleans Internet voting system on the controversial model the Department of Defense had proposed using for overseas military." [1] (The Pentagon later scrapped that idea due to concerns about fraud.) 

When you understand that whoever controls the Internet server controls the election, and that with online voting, the public loses its ability to see or authenticate any of the essential processes; when you learn that a technology official who has admitted to taking $860,000 in bribes,[2] planned to set up his own Internet voting system for New Orleans; when you discover that around this time, the same guy setting up the Internet voting system was making ten-thousand-dollar bets on election outcomes[3], you realize that Internet voting is nothing more than a large number of people acting dumb in the dark. 

CIBER THE BRIBER? 

Ciber HQ in Greenwood Village, CO

But that's not all. While the New Orleans bid-rigging and kickback scheme focused on Nagin, Meffert and St. Pierre, money flowed through Ed Burns, in his position as president of state and local government contracts at Ciber, Inc.,[4] a company that in addition to acting as a conduit in the New Orleans technology money, acted as the "Independent Testing Authority" -- ITA, that handled testing for most of the voting systems in use in America today, and signed off on them, enabling election officials everywhere to tell us not to worry, the machines are safe, they have been "tested and certified." 

A testing model will never suffice to replace public right to scrutinize its own election counts, but Ciber's testing turned out to be especially slipshod. How did Ciber get into position become, as the New York Times reported in 2007, "the largest tester of the nation’s voting machine software"? 

Ciber's authorization to test voting machines was finally pulled in 2007, but only after Black Box Voting and others proved that a Ciber subcontractor, Huntsville Alabama's Shawn Southworth, was signing off on systems he had not really checked out, and a Black Box Voting hidden-camera interview of Ciber's Southworth ended up on national TV in the HBO documentary Hacking Democracy.[5] The US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) pulled Ciber's authorization as an "independent" test lab [6] but reinstated Ciber a couple years later. (Ciber's authorization is currently shown on the EAC Web site as lapsed.)[7] 

One wonders how Southworth became Ciber's subcontractor, especially after three previous companies for whom Southworth did ITA testing bailed out. The mechanism in New Orleans may shed light on a hidden mechanism for voting machine authorization. 

Ciber, the voting system ITA that signed off on Diebold voting machines, including the GEMS system with its double set of books and ability to count backwards, got caught in the middle of a contract-rigging and kickback scheme in New Orleans, on a different technology project. Here's how that worked: 

A subcontractor named Mark St. Pierre worked together with New Orleans CIO Greg Meffert on a multimillion-dollar technology assignment. But it was not St. Pierre, but Ciber that invoiced New Orleans for exorbitant and sometimes impossible tasks and hours by St. Pierre's company (these charges included one person being in two places at the same time). [8] Ciber simply explained that they didn't believe they had the responsibility to oversee the work or check the hours for their subcontractor. 

As reported by David Hammer of the Times Picayune: "Ed Burns, Ciber's former president for state and local government contracts, testified on Tuesday that his company's role in New Orleans was to serve as a billing mechanism for St. Pierre's Imagine Software and that the company had nobody in New Orleans overseeing the subcontractors. He said Meffert directed him to give all of the work to Imagine and "considered it an order." [9] 

Ciber billed the City of New Orleans, then passed the money they got from New Orleans back to Mark St. Pierre. St. Pierre, in turn helped fill the pockets of New Orleans CIO Greg Meffert. 

"The subcontracts [from Ciber to Imagine (St. Pierre's company)] appeared to be little more than a mechanism for directing payment from the city to Imagine and its related companies, " the city's independent inspector general alleged.[10] 

THE PAYOFF: A RIGGED BID 

Burns admitted that the payoff for Ciber's role as a "pass-through", or conduit, for these payments was Ciber getting the contract to update New Orleans computer systems, a $5.5 million-a-year deal. Though Burns referred to getting that contract as "winning a bid", it was a rigged bid. 

Meffert arranged for St. Pierre to meet Ed Burns in San Francisco, to create the bid's requirements, thus assuring that Ciber would win the work. "So they were literally able to have the answers before the questions were even posted," Meffert is quoted as saying. "It's not open and fair. This was done to make sure Ciber would win the contract." [9] 

And it wasn't just New Orleans: St. Pierre's company, NetMethods, also got government contracts working under Ciber in other locations in Cook County, Ill (Where Ed Burns current company is located] and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality in Jackson, Miss.[11] 

If the "carrot" for Ciber was a New Orleans contract, we should be looking into the "carrots" for Ciber in Chicago and Mississippi as well. 

St. Pierre is now serving an 18-year prison sentence on the pass-through and bid-rigging schemes. Meffert pleaded guilty and is expected to receive eight years, though his sentencing has been delayed several times. Former mayor Ray Nagin also went down, likely to the tune of 15 years. 

But Ciber's Ed Burns quietly waltzed away after testifying for the prosecution. He now runs a Chicago-based company called SLG Innovation, offering more help for the government, paid for by the taxpayer. According to its Web site,www.slginnovation.com/ the firm provides technology services for justice and public safety, and works with state and local health and human service agencies. 

CIBER TROUBLES IN PENNSYLVANIA 

Ciber secured more contracts paid for by the taxpayer, two of which were with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation (PennDOT), which also handles the Pennsylvania motor voter program.On Sept. 4, 2008, Ciber announced a $19 million contract with PennDOT's Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC), following an initial $8 million deal. [12] 

But last month, a corruption investigation hit Ciber and its employee, Dennis Miller, listed as a Ciber vice president, and charged with bid-rigging, theft, and conspiracy. Criminal charges have been filed against eight current and former turnpike officials, employees and contractors. One of the whistleblowers in the case says $82 million in toll-payer funds have gone to or through Ciber. [13] 

I have not got the documents on Ed Burns involvement in Pennsylvania, but one of my sources says he was there too. Was Burns involved in the Cook County deal? How about Mississippi? Why is he still out there tapping taxpayers instead of in jail? 

For its part, Ciber is reportedly trying to distance itself now from both its own former president of state and local government contracts, Ed Burns, and vice president Dennis Miller. 

Ciber's connection with electronic voting still exists, because voting systems Ciber signed off on are still widely used in U.S. elections. 

This story should underline that trust in a secret counting process is dangerous, and that testing by any corporation or government employee can never replace public right to see the actual counting of the vote. 

AND NOW, FOR A DIFFERENT INTERSECTION OF PUBLIC CORRUPTION CASE AND ELECTIONS: THE NEW YORK CASE 

In New York, both Democrats and Republicans have been charged with selling access to the ballot for the New York City mayoral race. Malcolm A. Smith, a New York state senator since 2000 and acting Lt. Governor under former Governor David A. Patterson, paid bribes to at least two Republican leaders in exchange for ballot access (as a Republican, even though he's a Democrat) in the New York Mayor's race. 

Like St. Pierre in New Orleans, Smith used a middleman as a money conduit. Whereas St. Pierre set up a deal with Ciber, whereby Ciber would hire him as a subcontractor and pass through payments to him from the City of New Orleans, New York State Senator Smith is alleged to have cooked up an even more off-the-books deal using former New York City Councilman Charles Halloran. 

Halloran facilitated meetings with New York City Republican officials for the Democratic Senator Smith, who needed the cooperation of at least three of New York's five Republican party bosses in order to run for mayor as a Republican. Halloran, according to the US Attorney's office, helped negotiate bribes to Republican bosses on behalf of Malcolm Smith. For his work as a go-between he received both bribes and a promise that Smith would appoint Halloran to the position of Deputy Chief of Police for New York City. 

This repulsive police-position-deal would intersect with elections in another way: Unlike other counties in New York, which run ballot chain of custody through the county election office, New York City places its police force in the middle of the electoral chain of custody. In 2008, for example, it was the police department that relayed election results to the public, instead of an elections office. 

Political corruption spreads like cancer. According to charging documents , the New York bribery scheme spilled over into Rockland County, to a village mayor and deputy mayor for Spring Valley. Assisted by some of the same people involved in the Malcolm Smith election case, they offered to snatch up some village land using eminent domain in order to sell it off to a developer. The mayor had secretly cut herself into a partnership with the developer, and the deputy mayor received a bribe. 

Corruption creates a neural system of one politician beholden to another. The public always needs to retain its right to know, to examine documents, and to see what's going on. Otherwise, who's gonna tell? 

As Halloran explains, "That's politics, that's politics, it's all about how much. Not about whether or will, it's about how much, and that's our politicians in New York, they're all like that, all like that," (on this occasion, fortunately for us, he said this on tape and in front of an FBI agent.) "Money is what greases the wheels - good, bad, or indifferent." [14] 

AND THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS... 

Before we go skipping down the road trusting any politician to know what's best for us regarding our own right to see and authenticate elections... 

Before we agree to some pie-in-the-sky idea that secret vote counting processes are safe because some company tested them... 

Before we accept the idea that some legislators can pass a law telling us we have to cede over our right to know... 

We need to understand that when it comes to elections, trust is childlike. It's wishful thinking. It's immature. 

It's not how the world works, and we owe it to our children to remember that. 

* * * * 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] NEW ORLEANS CIO: KATRINA SPURS INTERNET ELECTION: SearchCIO.com - 09.26.2005,
By Ellen O’Brien and Charlie Russo
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/news/1129153/New-Orleans-CIO-Katrina-spurs-Internet-election

[2] Convicted vendor Mark St. Pierre seeks deal for aiding Ray Nagin probe: The Times-Picayune - August 27, 2012, By Gordon Russell
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/08/convicted_vendor_mark_st_pierr.html

[3] Trial's first stones thrown; Ex-City Hall vendor accused of bribery: The Times-Picayune - 10 May 2011, by David Hammer
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/government_begins_bribery_case.html

[4] Former contractor Ciber gave tickets, parties to Mayor Ray Nagin, but saw no conflict: The Times-Picayune - May 10, 2011, By David Hammer
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/former_contractor_ciber_gave_t.html

[5] Black Box Voting; Chapter 6, "Who's Beholden to Whom?", by Bev Harris
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-6.pdf
and
Hacking Democracy: HBO Pictures, 2006

[6] U.S. Bars Lab From Testing Electronic Voting: The New York Times - January 4, 2007, By Christopher Drew
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/washington/04voting.html

[7] Expired Accreditation Test Labs - Ciber Inc.: US Election Assistance Commission Web site, as of April 4, 2013
http://www.eac.gov/testing_and_certification/accredited_test_laboratories.aspx

[8] City aide cleans up after the storm ; Doing errands nets him $75.28 per hour: Times-Picayune - 18 March 2007, by Gordon Russell
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2007/03/city_vendor_gives_meffert_a_bo.html

[9] Greg Meffert testimony puts Colorado-based Ciber in crosshairs: The Times-Picayune - May 11, 2011, By David Hammer
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/greg_meffert_testimony_puts_co.html

[10] Public, private lines blur at City Hall; Former tech chief's deals face scrutiny: Times-Picayune - 5 April 2009, by David Hammer
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/publicprivate_lines_blurred_at.html

[11] Mark St. Pierre defends 'strategic partnership' with contractor Ciber Inc.: The Times-Picayune - May 24, 2011, By David Hammer
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/05/mark_st_pierre_defends_strateg.html

[12] CIBER Wins $19 Million SAP Support Contract for Pennsylvania Turnpike: Press Release: Associated Press Newswires - 4 September 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=CBR:US&sid=aiPk4NDCGtTE

[13] Turnpike insiders who decided to blow the whistle were threatened, sometimes fired, says attorney general: Philadelphia Inquirer - March 14, 2013, by Paul Nussbaum
http://articles.philly.com/2013-03-15/news/37717290_1_grand-jury-ciber-turnpike-job

[14] Complaint against Malcolm Smith et. al.: US District Attorney Southern District of New York - 3/29/2013,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/133604402/Smith-Malcolm-Et-Al-Complaint

---

The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.

My thoughts on this whole North Korea business

Am I the only person who finds it interesting that the only country to ever nuke another country is the one country that's decided to elect itself to police the entire rest of the planet to make sure they don't do the same?

Why do Americans listen to and incorporate into their own "thinking" the demonizing of nations like North Korea and Iran by the American media for wanting to develop nuclear weapons?  How can they allow themselves to become indoctrinized to believe these regimes are evil for simply wanting to procure the most lethal weapon on the planet?  The United States was first to have them and has had them since.  What does that make US?!  We have given nukes freely to our ally Israel.  What does that make them?

Why is it okay for us to have them, but not other nations?

Does no one else think it's weird that Barack Obama, given a Nobel Peace Prize less than a year after taking office, has killed more innocent people with drone stikes and sent our country into more conflicts than his war criminal predecessor George W. Bush?

Why is this supposedly peaceful president sending armadas toward North Korea?  Why is he flying fleets of bombers in practice runs nearby?  In a time when the federal government itself is forced to cut spending through broad cuts, how much money is it taking to fuel all those war machines?

Another question I have:  If Islamic fundamentalists in middle eastern countries are the greatest threat to our "freedom", and sending UAV drones is the best way of taking care of business where they're concerned, why is Barack Obama readying the entire United States military - not to mention the whole of the country - for old school war?

Furthermore, what has North Korea even done?  Bluster.  That's it.  It's immature playground bully bullshit.  They haven't even done anything, yet our president and our media have cranked up the propaganda machine to full throttle.

Reminds me of the winter of 2003 when the Bush Administration was busy selling the world on WMD and yellow cake uranium, and massing troops in Kuwait.  It's as if there's some sort of ten-year time loop the war profiteering banksters of the world are operating on.

Question is, how are Americans so hideously  blind to all of these paradoxes and coincidences?

My two cents on the prohibition of guns

I just unsubscribed from the boldprogressives.org mailing list.  Why?  Because I received a message from them asking me to join their push to pressure lawmakers to pass "common-sense gun legislation".  That's a fancy way of saying "make it harder for people to get guns that can kill other people".

Although I lean progressive, I'm also for increased freedom.  That means I'm opposed to less freedom.

I want everyone to have the freedom to do whatever they choose so long as it doesn't violate someone else.  Owning a gun - any kind of gun - violates no one in and of itself.  It's how the gun is used that carries that potential.  I was under the impression murder is already illegal. Prohibition is by definition the restriction of freedom.  I'm not down with that.

Listen, unlike many of my friends, I don't dig guns.  I don't own one, and I rarely fire one.  I'm a dude who believes that if you want peace you must be peaceful.  But I'm not going to join anyone in the push to keep other people from a freedom so important the founders of the American nation saw only freedom of expression as more important within the Bill of Rights.

Are you aware that a man in China attacked a bunch of school children with a knife the day before the Connecticut shooting?  People in America are "up in arms" over guns.  Kind of ironic, huh?  They want to ban this gun or that gun.  Hell, what if they were successful in banning ALL guns?!  Would they try to outlaw cutlery next?  That's just ridiculous.  People need it to cook.  Even if they did, the darkness in human hearts is what kills people.  Not weapons.  Weapons are just tools.  Take one away, another can easily be chosen.  Easily.

Besides, when has prohibition of anything ever worked?  How's that working for pot smokers?  How did that work with booze in the '20s?  We got the gang wars.  Prohibition of drugs today fuels the same thing, just making a few people rich off the danger.  The danger that is created by prohibition!  The danger that would be eliminated by ending prohibition.

Also, it is my spiritual belief that we are all born sovereign beings.  You do not have the right to remove choices from other sovereign beings, much in the same way our country does not have the right to dictate what another sovereign nation can or cannot do.  Yet, we operate as if we do.

Obviously there has been a noticeable surge in incidents of gun violence.  It's an understandable knee-jerk reaction to think we should restrict access to guns to keep these things from happening.  I just don't think less freedom is going to make us safer, and I believe there's evidence to show that any time society tries to restrict something it simply adds to the danger attached to whatever it is.  It makes me sad to see good people caught up in the furor over guns.  Guns didn't kill the those poor kids in Connecticut.  Adam Lanza did.  At least that's what we've been told.  We've also been told he killed himself.  If his mission was suicide, he could have made a home made bomb and accomplished the same thing.  He could have slit their throats with a cook's knife before jumping off a bridge.

Outlawing guns will never keep guns away from killers any more than the Drug War has kept pot away from college students.  It will just make them more expensive, and more dangerous - while making every one of us just a little less free to make our own choices.  

Ford makes 75mpg car, won't sell to America

FACT:
Ford makes a car that gets 75mpg.  In the US.  But won't sell it to Americans.

Ask yourself what that's about.  Then realize that Obamney won't do anything to change it.

FYL

W.: Stuck in America

It's a good thing for George W. Bush he loves America so much.  Unless he wants to be arrested for war crimes, it looks as if he'll be spending the duration of his life here. 

According to The Guardian U.K., the cancelled trip to Switzerland is just the beginning.  Human rights groups outraged by Bush's admitted use of torture techniques in the Lie Against Terror have promised to track his every move - and if he dares to step foot outside his now relatively small circle of protection, he will go down.

"The reach of the convention against torture is wide. This case is prepared and will be waiting for him wherever he travels next."

Of course, Bush's staff alledged the Switzerland trip was cancelled due to fear of protests - but if the man truly feared a little protest he wouldn't have attended his first inauguration after stealing the presidency from Al Gore.  It's just another lie from The Real Evil Doer to cover up a severe embarrassment; that the former leader of the "free" world is now stuck in his own country. 

So, welcome to Amurrika, Georgie.  Shall I send you a post card from Switzerland?

America: Headed for an abrupt end?

History repeats itself.  We all know this axiom well, but how many of us believe it actually applies to our times, our lives, our country?  We know empires fall.  We know revolutions sweep societies.  But could it happen here in America?  And could it happen soon?

Recently I read a chapter on cyclology from the unpublished book The End of Our Century by Francois Masson, originally written in French and translated to English by David Michael Steinberg.  Though never actually published, it can be read for free on David Wilcock's site Divine Cosmos.  The book was written in 1979-80, and as the title connotes, it focuses on the end of the 20th century - now obviously in our past.  But while the overall work spotlights one particular moment in time, the chapter on cyclology is perhaps still pertinent today. 

What this section of the book postulates and subsequently supports with multitudinous examples is that history does literally repeat itself.  This is not a new idea.  Plato made the theory famous, giving the figure of 25,920 years to a complete cycle.  Incidentally, this corresponds to the amount of time the Earth cycles through the Great Year, or precession of equinoxes.  It might be interesting to note here that the Mayans knew about this 25,920 year cycle, too.  The calendar you've heard so much about is based on it.  Furthermore, you might be interested in knowing that the Hindus, the Bible, and the Zodiac all have cycles that are based on this number or a factor thereof. 

There are many cycles which have been used by various civilizations: the Manvantara and the Yuga of the ancient Hindus, the cycle of Daniel, the polar or ternary cycle and the Biblical cycle of seven times 77 years. But every one of these is found in the perfect number, 25920 years, by simple division or multiplication.

Here are the various basic cycles obtained by this method:

25920 / 2 = 12960. 12960 x 5 = 64800 years, the Manvantara cycle.

25920 / 10 = 2592 years. The Daniel cycle.

25920 / 6 = 4320 years or Yuga cycle in the tradition of India.

25920 / 12 = 2160 years, cycle of a civilization or a religion and corresponding to the precessional passage from one constellation of the Zodiac to the next.

25920 / 12 = 2160 and 2160 / 2 = 1080 years, cycle of opposition to what was created at the start of the 2160-year cycle.

2160 / 3 = 720 years, so-called polar phase or ternary division pointed out by Rev. Father Poucel.

Being French, Masson applies his cyclical analysis to French history, which may not be very exciting for classically French-hating Americans (although the ties and similarities between the French and Russian revolutions are intriguing!).  Perhaps I might be able to grab a little more of your attention if I told you that by using his system he predicted the fall of the Soviet Union a full decade before it happened. 

Around the first of March 1990, coup d'etat in the non-European part of the USSR, putting an end to the Bolshevik revolution. Inauguration of a new regime January 1991?

Remember, that's a prediction he made circa 1980!  Who would have thought then that the USSR would become week, let alone completely dissolve?  The official date is Christmas Day, 1991 - the same year Masson predicted. 

But he also connects the history - and downfall - of Rome with that of America.  That's right.  Hits a little closer to home and now you're interested, right?

His analysis is detailed and extensive.  I'll save you the minutia and hit you with the hilights:

To show the importance of numbers, we will take for example the US, which Michel Helmer and many other observers consider the new Rome: the same spirit of enterprise, the same general morality, the same kind of laws as republican Rome.

There's a detailed comparison between Roman leaders and Nixon and Carter.

In 187 B.C., Scipio Africanus, who defeated Antiochus, was being tried, and:


2160 years later in 1973 it was the Watergate scandal that forced Nixon, who had honorably terminated the Vietnam War, to resign and retire to his estate, just as Scipio had done 2160 years earlier.

In 184 B.C. the famous Cato, called the Censor, was elected, and 2160 years later, in 1976. J. Carter was elected.

For the sake of comparison, let us review Cato's life: he came from a family of plebeian farmers and always remained a rustic. Upon his father's death Cato quit the armed forces and cultivated his land, as did Carter.


Cato came up through the ranks from private to military Tribune and served in the Roman wars. In 198 B.C. he was elected plebeian edile and proved merciless toward usurers [sic] when he was governor of Sardinia.
The life and acts of J. Carter so far strongly resemble that archetype. He is first and foremost a man of the soil. He was a sailor and Navy officer, a follower and disciple of Admiral Rickover when the latter pushed through the launching of atomic submarines, a practically absolute weapon which led to a long American supremacy.
To return to the future: Cato, during his government, his "censorship," tried to bring Rome back to the pristine morality of the first Romans, in opposition to the moral laxity of Hellenistic culture.

To this end Cato issued several decrees on the economy and life style of the Romans and a famous decree on women's luxuries.


Carter, 2160 years later, follows the same route with his economic measures on big cars and their excessive consumption, and his famous remark about the underwear of the western settlers to combat the cold.

I suspect you get the point.  Francois Masson was able to look at the history of Rome and see a cyclical relationship between events in antiquity and corresponding events in what were relatively current American events.
This reminds me of another euphemism:  Rome didn't fall in a day.

Enter Pulitzer-winner and former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges, who watched the fall or the Soviet Union firsthand.  In an exclusive interview with Raw Story today, Hedges unleashes a dire prediction:  The U.S. empire could collapse at any time.

Speaking to Raw Story on Wednesday night, he said the signs of US collapse are plain to see and compared the country's course through Afghanistan to Soviet Russia's.

"We're losing [the war in Afghanistan] in the same way the Red Army lost it," he said. "It's exactly the same configuration where we sort of control the urban centers where 20 percent of the population lives. The rest of the country where 80 percent of the Afghans live is either in the hands of the Taliban or disputed."

Hedges was one of roughly 135 activists who participated in an act of civil disobedience that resulted in their arrests outside the White House yesterday, even as Obama was unveiling a new report on progress of the war in Afghanistan.

Hedges said he attended the protest and planned to get arrested because he is against the corporate powers that have enveloped the nation. "We've undergone a corporate coup d'état in slow motion," he said.

America's military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is unattainable.

"The when and how is very dangerous to predict because there's always some factor that blindsides you that you didn't expect. It doesn't look good. But exactly how it plays out and when it plays out, having covered disintegrating societies, it's impossible to tell."

And if America falls, what are the chances she would go by herself?  The civilized world is on the brink of economic collapse.  The future looks precarious even just based on what we regular folk get to see from the bottom of the planetary pyramid scheme.  Who knows what's really going on at the top.  From the news being leaked and trickled down by insiders, there's a literal war going on that's far from the headlines. 

In closing, I'd recommend you try to read the headlines of the day through a new prism.  Not that you can do anything to stop it if it's coming - but at least you won't be surprised.  Keep your eye on anything to do with currency, unrest, and China. 

I'm not saying I believe America is going to end soon.  I'm just noticing that other people are.  After all, as we all know, history repeats itself.

The meat of the argument for more regulation of industry

Industry does not care about you. Industry is not concerned about your well-being. Industry does not worry about your family's safety. Sounds kinda like the first verse of "Head Like a Hole" by NIN, doesn't it? Well, you could replace every "Got Money" with the word "Industry", because they're one and the same. All industry wants is to bilk you for every cent it can.

That is all. That is everything they want. They want everything. They don't care what they have to do to get it. They don't care who is affected.

We need MORE government regulation of industry. Not less. Regulation is there to protect YOU. To protect me. More importantly, to protect my family.

Case in point: For the past 8 years (read: most of the Bush Administration), much of the ground beef you've consumed has had ammonia in it. Only, the people selling you the crap you were eating didn't have to tell you what they were putting in it.

I urge you to read as much of this expose by the New York Times as your stomach can handle.

Of course, this bastion of progressive journalism isn't alone in exposing ways the Assholes of Industry hide thier poisoning of the world for profit. The Washington Post recently did a piece on how 20% of the 84,000 chemicals available for commerical use in America are kept secret in order to protect industry's "trade secrets". You don't get to know what they are because someone might lose a buck. Nevermind being able to track how they affect the population.

I have to go for now, but I will pick this blog up and finish soon. More to come later.

Don't even think about leaving a comment defending Industry or your beloved Free Market Principles unless you've read both pieces in their entirety.

Compromising the Compromised Compromise

So there's a Democrat in the White House and both houses of Congress have Democratic majorities. Right? I could SWEAR that's where things stood last time I checked. So why do these people continue to whittle down health care reform?

Health care costs too much. Businesses can't afford to provide it for their employees. State governments are having a hard time providing it to their employees. Stand alone citizens are having a difficult time providing it for themselves. The people who can't afford it, just don't have it and have to hope they don't need it. Ever.

But the companies in the health care game are raking it in.

In my view, health care should not be a business. There should not be a health care "market". As a species, I feel we owe it to ourselves to provide for ourselves the best care for the health and survival of the body so that we can experience life. I think we should make it a human RIGHT.

Easiest way to do that? Single payer system. We pay taxes, taxes pay for health care. For ALL. Just because.

But of course the real world requires a compromise. Enter the Public Option. Compromise #1. Allow citizens to opt in to a government-run option to compete with insurance companies to help bring the cost of health care down. Because THAT's the problem, you'll remember. It looked like we were going to get the public option when the reform package left the House of Representatives.

But it got scrapped in the Senate. Apparently The Club thought it would be too popular and successful and their Owners would lose too much money. They say it's an unwanted intrusion into the health care system. Unwanted by whom? If it's unwanted, it won't get used and is therefor not a problem. The problem is it IS wanted! A Survey USA poll shows up to 77% of Americans WANT THE PUBLIC OPTION!

So they decided instead of a public option, they'd at least open up Medicare to younger citizens and help cover a FEW more people than today. Not even close to substantial reform, but it's something. Compromise #2.

But TODAY there's talk that Dems are scrapping THAT, too! They're apparently afraid they won't get the package passed before Christmas. They're more worried about getting it done before an arguably arbitrary date than they are giving the American people what they want and deserve! Compromise #3.

So I'm confused. After this, where is the reform in health care reform? What's going to substantially change, at all, let alone reduce the cost of providing health care to companies and individuals in this supposed greatest nation on the planet with the supposedly best health care system?

There's no reform left. It's all been compromised away by a bunch of frightened little schmucks who have the power to do real good for the people of this country but are too scared of how it hurts their shot at reelection. Or perhaps they're worried about losing the GREAT HEALTH CARE that comes with being a legislator at the federal level?!

Where is there an incumbent (after all, they're ALL incumbents) who will put the good of her/his constituency above their personal political ambitions? One could say it's incumbent upon them.

I swear if substantial health care isn't passed because this group of bastards sold us all out, I will be a VERY loud voice for firing every one of them. Every last one, regardless of party - because as you know the American Deviant is an independent voter. Emphasis on voter.

They're failing us.

Particulates Matter - Smoking Bans Render Proof of Secondhand Smoke Danger

If you've been on the fence about whether secondhand smoke is really all that dangerous, even to nonsmokers, your feet are about to touch down on the side of "DUH!"

CNN.com posted a story Tuesday on a correlation between communities that have enacted smoking bans and a decrease in heart attacks. The results are pulled from two large studies looking at communities both in North America and Europe, and the results are HUGE!

After just one year under the public smoking ban, cities experienced an average 17% decline in heart attacks. The LOWEST decline was 15%! That's after one measley year. After three years the average decline in heart attacks was 26%, with some places experiencing up to a 36% reduction.

This is grade school math, kids.

NO PUBLIC SMOKING = UP TO 1 in 3 HEART ATTACKS NEVER HAPPENS

Something else that can be deduced from this data: You parents who claim to love your children need to stop smoking around them YESTERDAY! This is all the proof you need to confirm secondhand smoke kills. 'Cause guess what else those studies learned: Those who benefitted most from smoking bans - women, nonsmokers, and young people.

"How harmful is secondhand smoke? Nonsmokers have a 25 percent to 30 percent higher risk of heart attack if they inhale smoke at home or at work, and smoke has been shown to affect heart health within minutes," says Dr. David Meyers of the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

"We can measure chemical changes within 20 minutes," he says. "The changes that occur primarily involve the clotting system. Basically, exposure to smoke makes your blood sticky and real clot-y and that's what causes heart attacks."

How do those chemicals get into the body? Not just by inhalation! Smoke is made up of tiny little particles. Those particles stick to every surface with which they come in contact. Smoke in your car, get it all over everything. Smoke in your house, get it all over everything. If you can smell it, it's there. Someone comes along and touches anything and WHAM! Heart attack risk just went up by a double-digit percentage.

It's fucking science.

So pull your damn head out of your ass and stop pretending you care about anyone other than yourself if you think you have the right to smoke around anyone or anything someone else might come into contact with. Because you don't.

It's your karma, bitches. Smoke at your own risk. And everyone else's.