You can’t really blame George Bush.  There are more zeroes in a yotta than George Bush or even Al Gore has fingers and toes. There might be many in Gore’s Tennessee that have sufficient fingers and toes, according to unverified reports, but evem those so blessed have perhaps gotten to wearing shoes which would greatly hamper their math abilities.

You see yotta is the number of joules of dependable, steady electric power that might theoretically be produced from Mother Earth’s own nuclear power plant in the crust of the earth. That is according to the calculations of MIT’s Professor Jon Tester and his panel of experts. Mother’s own heat might be mined without pollution of the atmosphere and poisoning of the earth for eons or a boon to nuclear bombers.

George Bush’s Department of Energy has proposed zeroing out research on an energy source that theoretically could produce thousands of times all the electricity produced today.  Anybody here thought about the potential of geothermal energy, which Prof. Testor probably underestimated?  I mean beyond a handful of us environmental wackos that think maybe we ought to get serious about real solutions.

Very odd thing about geothermal power, the homely stepchild of environmentalists in the U.S..  The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of electric power from geothermal.  The Philippines is second.

While the Phillipines is most eager to greatly increase its geothermal electricity production, the U.S. geothermal developers must often seek funding from sources such as Canada or even an Icelandic bank. That bank is eagerly promoting and investing in geothermal power as well as direct use heating and cooling around the world.  Iceland itself would perhaps be an unpopulated island without geothermal power and heating but is far from the largest producer of geothermal power.

How did the U.S. become the world’s leading producer of electric power from geothermal acquifers when so few in this country give a damn about the most potent and greenest source of power of them all?  The answer is a true story saga beyond the imagination of a Zane Grey of a western pioneer with a vision that far outshone most any tinsel legend dreamt of by Hollywood writers and producers.

B. C. McCabe was drilling holes all over the U.S.’s west coast looking for “underground sources of energy” when Saudi light crude went for maybe %5/barrel and gas was about 35 cents/gallon.

The Crump Geyser was one result.  The geyser actually erupted months after McCabe plugged and abandoned the drilling in the remote high desert country of eastern Oregon.  The nearest “town” of Adel, named after somebody’s sweetheart or a cow, was an all-purpose general store, gas pump, watering hole and pool table all packed into one weathered building.  Fittingly another pioneer’s covered wagon today sits outside the building that is the whole of the town of Adel, named for somebody’s sweetheart or a cow.

Well I tell you that geyser was the talk of the town in bone dry country that Douglas Adams called a whole lot of nothing. That geyser shot a steady stream of hot water some 40′ high for many months while county officials debated over what might be done with that treasure trove of water in dry desert country.  While expert panels met and debated and planned, the geyser began to dwindle and finally  reduced to a gurgling spring spring and then just another dry hole.  About a half century later some folks are looking again at the Crump Geyser for “an underground source of energy” near the building that is the town of Adel, named for somebody’s sweetheart or a cow.  If some furriners spring for a loan, it might even be developed.

The Geysers north of San Francisco was somewhat more successful.  The Geysers became the second “dry steam” goethermal power source in all the world and the largest geothermal power producer that ever was.  It remains so today despite decades of neglect after Union Oil raided McCabe’s small empire and broke the heart of the crusty old curmudgeon in a Wall Street shootout.  McCabe was left rich and broken.  Union Oil and later Calpine drained much of the acquifer producing power, somewhat reminiscent of the county officials in Oregon dealing with their own geyser.  Today waste water is being piped from a distant locale  to replenish some of the water taken from the acquifer without replenishment.  The Geysers may return to its full former glory and more.

Nicaragua is in dire straits these days.  Actually Nicaragua has always been in dire straits as the second poorest country, after Haiti, in the Western Hemispher.  Hugo Chavez has come bearing gifts from fossil fuels but also some costly propositions, as such lusty suitors are wont to do.  Friendly Iranians have been asked to help out with additional hydroelectric power projects but seem none to eager to aid a friend.  And so Nicaragua is looking more fondly these days on the hated gringos continuing development of some of Nicaragua’s magnificent geothermal resources.

Might not be such a blessing for Costa Ricans.  The hungry darker-skinned “Nicas” are treated by the “Ticas” much like the “illegal immigrants” in the u.s. these days.

The Nicaraguan economy, never a model of health, has grown sicker with frequent blackouts of very high-priced electric power from overstressed decaying power plants. Geothermal promises bountiful, low-priced energy with funding from – you guessed it – Canada, and a Brazilian bank.

In the U.S. there is some talk of restoring funding cuts for research in finding geothermal acqufers and drilling through hard granite as opposed to the softer sedimentary strata where gas and oil are found and even – glory be – favorable tax treatment.

Wouldn’t that be something.

Don’t hold your breath.

For the record, I purposely neglected to mention that Prof. Tester and his ivory tower experts talked only about hot dry rock technology.  They called it something else so perhaps people wouldn’t remember experimentation with a large geothermal resource in New Mexico that came up – well – dry.  Today the upside down folk Down Under are in heat over hot rocks.  The most advanced development is in the Outback.  The problem has always been that the water to be used to mine the heat goes down all right but, like the little kid’s boomerang, don’t always come back.  The Outback wouldn’t seem to be the sort of place where you would want to lose a lot of water.

A bit of work to be done yet.  Nuke ’em Hillary has proposed a $13B Apollo project.  Prof. Tester and gang estimated $1B would be enough to develop Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).  Slim chance EGS would get any considering Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi together can find few others interested in a “regional” resource.  The region where geothermal might be economically developed is Earth.

Texas, where volcanic activity is limited to political hot air, as Molly Ivins so wonderfully recorded in her day, is developing geothermal resources. My own New York, where a Known Geothermal Resource Area (KGRA) has been known about for decades in the fingerlakes area, isn’t.

Best,  Terry

(this is worth the read. thanks techno, great stuff… – promoted by pfiore8)

Class analysis is most commonly practiced by the political left.  In fact, many consider class analysis a Marxist practice to this day.  I personally never found Marxist class analysis very satisfying because I could think of so many examples that did not fit into his scheme.  That did not, however, stop my interest in the subject.

So when I discovered in my early 30s that my favorite political economist, Thorstein Veblen, had postulated a VERY non-Marxist class analysis that described social reality much better than Marx ever did, I was quite excited.  Veblen’s class analysis was several orders of magnitude more complex and nuanced and came buried in an even more complicated intellectual strategy called Institutional Analysis, so it is sometimes difficult to separate out.

What follows is my best estimate of Veblen’s ideas–described with modern examples.  For example, the Business / Industry dichotomy is Veblen’s.  Calling it an example of a rivalry between Predators and Producers is mine–with a hat tip to Ignatius Donnelley.

What is the proper way to define a class?

1) prove the existence of a group with boundaries;
2) explain what the members of the group have in common.

Class analysis is often based on income, but because a Producer-Predator analysis postulates that there are rich and poor members of Producers and Predators, the difference is fundamental yet esoteric.

Certain social scientists believe that membership in a class is determined by an individual’s class awareness. This seems a reasonable requirement except the problems it creates in a country such as the United States where the notions of class and class interest have not been discussed in public for at least 50 years.

The Producers’ existence is validated by the common intuition. We know that Producers exist because we can see what they have built. A building implies a builder. Similarly, we know Predators exist because we can see people taking by force or fraud something that belongs to someone else. The main defining criteria is their differing strategies for survival. In a real sense, Producers and Predators are occupational rather than monetary definitions.

Establishing the existence of Producers and Predators is simple enough, but as we shall see, many people are not clear examples of either one. Modern social scientists classify most occupations of advanced industrialization as service occupations.

The existence of service occupations does not destroy the producer-predator duality. Service, after all, implies an allegiance to another person or agenda. For most of recorded history, “service” was merely another name for Producers. Societies were pretty simple–there were those who ruled and those who served.

Because service often implies loyalty, it has become a tradition for those who would consider themselves a part of the service sector to identify with the ruling values of Predators. Disruption to this social order did not occur until producing servants became economically important enough to forge a separate agenda and value set.

Figure : 01

These illustrations are also animated:

Pre-Industrial Revolution
Upper (those who rule–Predators)
Lower (those who serve–Producers)

There were layers of stratification within each group, but one thing was absolutely clear: the lowest member of the ruling classes was above the highest member of the serving classes.

The industrial revolution ended this neat arrangement. For the first time, Producers achieved real power, but because industrialization, especially in England, was grafted onto feudal stock, the social arrangements were only slightly modified. Rich and powerful Producers acted much like the worst of the old Predators. This was the world as Marx described it.

Figure: 02
Early Industrialization (esp. England)

Marx’s petit bourgeoisie were the servants who did the dirty business of predation–not to be confused with the servants who cleaned the stalls. These latter were still lumped together with the producing peasants, builders, and mechanics to form the proletariat.

The late nineteenth-century American Populist writers were not as critical of business enterprise as Marx. Going into business, after all, was the main element of the American dream. Though there was not much evidence, the populists believed that Producers could become successful and still maintain their producer attitudes. It was possible to reach the top without cheating anyone.

Figure: 03
Socio-Economic Distribution
Late 19th–Early 20th Century esp. USA

This graph is meant to show that, though a few Producers had become rich, most were to be found at the bottom of the social order in any meaningful sense. The gap is meant to represent the emerging awareness of a separate agenda. Populists, Marxists, and progressives of all stripes agreed to and organized around the notions of difference.

The world got its first populist-producer billionaire in Henry Ford. Social progressives were enchanted. Ford seemed to have found the magic formula. He made his fortune producing something, paid his workers well, hired racial minorities, and embraced the 8-hour day. Better yet, when he made his fortune, he spent it on improving his product, opening a museum glorifying the history of the producing classes, and promoting causes like the end of World War I. John Reed, the American Marxist buried in the Kremlin wall, was convinced for a time that Ford’s production theories and Marx’s social theories would result in a Utopia.

By the same token, Ford’s capitalist comrades were horrified. In spite of his incredible wealth and power, Ford was shunned by the wealthy and powerful for his ideas. As shown in the chart, the Predators still held power and chose to make the 1920s miserable for both Ford and the class he championed. The idealism at Ford Motor lost its luster when the firm began to lose money.

In the end, Ford was to become a tightfisted, union-busting tyrant. Even so, important Producer legacies remain:

Producers have their own business-management-leadership style that is successful–there is no need to emulate the Predators;

Clean fortunes are possible–class conflict need not be between the rich and poor but between the Producers–who believe everyone can be rich in every meaningful sense; and the Predators–who believe only a few can be really rich.

The Producers now had an economic agenda with a proven track record. This led to political success. It can be argued that, in the period between 1945 and 1970, the producer agenda dominated the political economy of the industrial states and the thinking of most of the rest.

Power, in all its forms, in the later stages of industrialization is far too fragmented to enable one to state clearly that the Producers are absolutely ascendant. (It seems as if most modern social science is dedicated to proving that no one has any power anymore. In a sense they are correct. No one seems to have real power because many persons and groups seem to have some. If a social scientist chooses to ignore the possibility of producer power, the fragmentation of power looks even more bewildering.)

In fact, a chart of power–both economic and political–might look something like this.

Figure 04
Economic Distribution (by occupational type)

This graph is probably misleading even if accurate. The newly significant service sector is, in reality, a convenient, but confusing, classification device because garbage collectors, bankers, and kings can be so classified.

With a huge service sector that can include bankers and royalty, there remain genuine Predators. At the top are persons whose income is derived from ground rent or bonds, military rulers, and the like. At the bottom are the petty thieves.

Figure: 05
Social Distribution (by interest group)

There may be three basic occupational types but there remain only two agendas. Those who would serve are forced to choose between those who would produce and those who will not. It is possible for royalty and bankers, persons once considered the essence of predation, to serve the interests of Producers. Kings and princes can be regularly seen pushing the products of their native countries worldwide. Bankers who live modest lives while promoting the economies of their communities were once a regular fixture of the American Midwest. And the best current examples are the investment bankers trying to bankroll environmentally sustainable technologies.

Unfortunately, such are exceptions. Most bankers are Predators, think as Predators, and if not, serve the interests of Predators. It is rare for any royalty (or anyone else living off inherited wealth for that matter) to justify income with real service.

An interesting picture emerges. It turns out that industrial societies do not need many real Producers because they are so efficient. A single farmer can produce enough food to feed several hundred people. A punch press operator can make more parts in one year than he can consume in a century.

Producers find few natural allies in the service sector. The exception concerns those associated with industrial maintenance. The difference between building an automobile and repairing one is very small. If the goal is not merely an automobile but an automobile that runs, they are economically identical since an automobile that is inoperative has no (or negative) value.

Socially, maintenance and production people share an important similarity–both must understand and use tools. If the fundamental difference is between Producers who use tools, and the Predators who use weapons, then maintenance people are, in fact, Real Producers though they are usually classified as service workers.

If maintenance allies itself naturally with production, the rest of the service industries pose more problems for producer recruitment to their agenda. It seems the only certain way to create Producers is to put tools in their hands and teach them to use them well.

Producers have appealed to the lower classes of the service sector through notions of class solidarity. This has not worked well. Trade unions look down on industrial unions and have joined forces only out of dire necessity. Producers can be awful snobs.

The upper classes of the service sector produce a whole different set of problems for producer recruitment. Because upper class members of the service sector are unlikely to use tools to produce anything, the predisposition of history is toward the predator agenda.

Even this picture is still pretty primitive. As societies have become more complex, more sophisticated representations are necessary. Late 20th Century industrialized societies are at least three-dimensional;

Fig. 06

In purely economic terms, whether a person is rich or poor, politically conservative or progressive is of minor importance compared to whether he or she produces goods or services that materially benefit the community i.e. make the economic “pie” expand.

Class Conflict

The rise to prominence and power of the producing classes would tend to mitigate, one would suppose, the conflicts of class. In fact, something of the sort happened. Serious scholars have portrayed the United States as a classless society. Ninety-five percent of the Japanese think of themselves as members of the middle class.

People do not talk of America as a classless society any longer, but class conflict has grown exceedingly complex since the issue was last raised. Any simplistic description of class conflict in terms of rich versus poor is probably doomed to fail because it is irrelevant.

The fact that both major interest groups contain upper, middle, and lower economic classes does not end battles between these groups but, in fact, provides a wider assortment of possibilities for conflict. The conflicts are of four major types: predator against producer, predator against predator, producer against producer, and producer against predator.

Predators against Producers

This is the oldest conflict. One who does not produce food and shelter for oneself must get someone else to do it. The Predators have been extremely inventive over the years. Their methods have included slavery, imperialism, usury, ground rents, tithes, and taxation.

Of course, since the very upper predator crust does not do anything productive at all, servants who share the predator mentality have always surrounded them to do the actual work of profit taking, tax gathering, and rent collection. The real work of predation has been done by sheriffs, IRS agents, lawyers, judges, and an army of bureaucrats. Overseeing all this activity is the clergy (or other moral leaders) whose job it is to see that everyone agrees this is the best possible arrangement.

Predators against Predators

This conflict is usually called war. History books are filled with the lurid accounts of these conflicts to which nothing can be added here. Within a given society, predator-predator conflicts are rare because loyalty is a big predator virtue while treason is a big predator sin. As a result, while tales of revolution and coups d’etat are common, historically they are quite rare. There are also recorded instances of bankers ruining kings, but these are even more rare.

Producers against Producers

Though widely misunderstood, producer-producer conflicts are common. They usually center around the issues of automation. The sophisticated tools associated with industrialization enable anyone with access to this tooling to copy exactly any product. The producer with the best original design and the best tooling will eliminate those Producers with inferior products.

In the beginning of the industrial revolution, these producer-producer conflicts boiled over in social revolt as artisans were displaced by factories. The Luddite movement saw these displaced artisans smash sophisticated factory tools. The Luddite movement generated little sympathy. Few consumers were likely to complain about cheap factory-produced goods that were clearly superior to the more expensive goods produced by artisans. What really finished the Luddite impulse, however, was the realization that industrialization would also produce cheap, but sophisticated, tools. These tools would allow the small producer to fill the gaps in production left, deliberately or otherwise, by the large producer.

Small Producers seek niches for their efforts for very good reason. Direct competition with a large, established producer is extremely difficult. A large producer has production experience, established ties to suppliers, known marketing outlets, and access to finance. Unless the technology of the small producer is far superior, there is no chance in a direct competition.

There are examples of new Producers displacing old ones–such as when the $5 quartz crystal-microchip watch proved to be more accurate than the $5000 mechanical watch produced by the Swiss. Even today, the Swiss, with a four-hundred year head start in watchmaking, have not fully recovered from the competition of an upstart. Such examples are not rare.

Producers against Predators

When one thinks of attacks of Producers on Predators, strikes, boycotts, and sabotage are what come to mind. And in fact, these are about the only options available to lower class Producers.

Upper class Producers have an option that they have frequently exercised: simply make things so very complicated that only those who made them know how they work. This has been the strategy of choice as Producers have sought to increase their power. It has been highly effective. The world that Producers have created by the end of the twentieth century is so complex that it is a rare predator who has even the vaguest notion how the world works.

Even the specialist servants of predation have a hard time understanding the smallest slice of the world they pretend to govern, regulate, or defraud. Producers go out of their way to make matters difficult (the most interesting little producer secret is that every extant process of production can be explained to any reasonably alert 9-year-old.) What makes a producer a genius is the ability to solve problems that have not been solved before. Once found, a good solution is “obvious.” Even so, the Predators and their servants exhibit an odd trait that makes this process of obfuscation easy.

Preservation of Archaic Traits

Predators do not know much about Producers (and their work) for an interesting reason that goes beyond the producer’s tendency to make his work obscure. In many respects, Predators do not know about the work of Producers because they believe it to be beneath their dignity to know. They are fashionably ignorant.

The automobile provides a perfect example of a subject about which ignorance is quite fashionable indeed.

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the automobile on industrial society. It affects everything from city planning to sex. It is economically very important with millions of jobs at stake. Its impact on the environment in the form of resource depletion, air and water pollution, and the production of toxins is enormous.

Resource requirements affect international relationships. Rhodium, necessary for the production of catalytic converters used to fight air pollution, can only be found in commercial quantities in the Russia and South Africa. To fight air pollution, the United States has been forced to deal with one government or the other on a normal commercial basis. The choice of South Africa was for years the subject of a loud political debate and an object lesson in Cold War insanity.

One might assume that a subject of this import would demand widespread knowledge. In fact it has, but an odd phenomenon has occurred–those most likely to make major judgments on the future of the automobile are the ones with the least knowledge. Government transportation officials, environmentalists, car critics, and the like regularly make public pronouncements in which they mispronounce basic automotive terms, confuse facts, and generally give the impression they know absolutely nothing about the real automobiles that people drive.

More oddly, they seem genuinely pleased with their ignorance–treating it as if it were a badge of social stature. They even claim that their ignorance of the nuts and bolts of a subject allows them to arrive at more objective policy decisions. Now it is a fact that automotive policy decisions can be well formulated without knowing how a transmission operates. It is also a fact that such people regularly make preposterous decisions because they do not understand the subject.

Even if a person were to arrive at a policy-making group with genuine automotive knowledge, that person would be tempted to hide this knowledge for fear of being labeled a motorhead. In the august company where such policies are formed, the motorhead would be found guilty of a cultural crime–knowing what only the servants are supposed to know.

Producers know this social rule well. They have learned that scientific and technological issues are not to be discussed in polite company. As Veblen pointed out, the ability to do anything useful is suspect. Thorough knowledge of a subject demonstrates ability and experience, precisely the sorts of thing “important” members of society cannot have.

Ironically, people are not born fashionably ignorant–they pay good money to become that way. This cost is usually involved in getting a “liberal” education.

The Danger of Preserved Predatory Traits

The greatest problems facing the industrial states do not stem from conflict, but rather from a rough sort of cooperation. Such cooperation is not voluntary but is rooted in the oldest of the power arrangements: predator power is cultural, economic, military, and political while producer power stems from a mastery over physical processes.

In spite of its seeming obsolescence, predator power is still very real. In the United States, predator values dominate the cultural forums. There are many reasons but one is significant. The National Security Act of 1947 put the United States on a perpetual wartime footing–a fact which dominates economic decisions, distorts political institutions, censors newspaper reporting, and muddles the educational processes. The Soviet Union, the putative object of this war, was forced by this action to choose a similar set of values which have caused similar problems. Because of their commitment to the predatory values of militarism, these two nations were often called superpowers. They have also been called the “Klutzes of the North” by Gore Vidal for their persistent problems with production.

Unwilling to challenge predator power or its values directly, Producers historically have found themselves in the unfortunate position of increasing the powers they seek to thwart. Producers have made war more deadly with their weapons, authoritarianism more pervasive with big-brother computers and surveillance technologies, and demagogues more influential with television. If this were not enough, the producer’s failure to challenge the notions of wealth, monetary policy, and usury has multiplied the predatory aspects of their own industrial enterprise. To succeed under such assumptions, a producer is forced to violate nature even as he is exploited. As a result, the main crises of industrialization is the environmental crises.

The Predators disavow any responsibility for their role in the industrial rape of the planet and their response is as old as history. Return, they say, to the Garden of Eden. Go backward to a time when the Producers did not present such ghastly problems. Roll back the social gains of the Producers and the problems they have caused will disappear.

There is no retreat from producer problems. Industrial-environmental problems have already been created and they would not vanish even if the Producers and industrialization were to disappear overnight. There is no Garden of Eden solution. Producers are responsible for the magnitude of our environmental problems. Only they understand their scope. Only they can create a solution for problems that already exist.

The implications of this reality are enormous. It means that rather than a return to predator values that have so characterized the 1980s worldwide, producer influence must be extended further into the cultural, economic, and political arenas–arenas where Producers traditionally have feared to tread.

Don’t.

Period.

If you have to ask “is this outting?”

It is.

Don’t do it.

Period.

.

There are a lot of people who think so.  Whenever I hear Masons mentioned, it is always as a put-down; brought up as an example of nutty people, or conspiracy people believing Freemasons run the world.  As everyone knows a lot of influential people in the past of America, and the world, were Masons.  And a few bad ones, too.  George Washington was a Mason: Benedict Arnold was a Mason.  In any group of this size there are bound to be a few bad apples.

So, are Freemasons evil?

I don’t believe they are.  You see–I am a Freemason.

Follow below for my story and a discussion.

I was brought up as a Mormon.  When I was 10 years old, and about to be baptized, my instructor told me that I had to say that I believed in Jesus and the miracles attributed to him.  Even at that young age I was struck by the way he didn’t say, “You have to believe”; he said, “You have to say you believe”.  I didn’t believe, but for the sake of my family I did say that I believed.

I’ve long been a compulsive reader–reading on a wide array of topics.  One of my early passions was the mythologies of different peoples.  After reading about differing world views, and creation myths, I was able to recognize myths when I saw them–and that is what I thought of the Jesus stories, and the Bible in general.  I read the Bible twice through by the time I was 13.  Walking on water, curing the sick, raising the dead; I saw all of these as metaphors for a message of helping people and leading a better life through good works.  I saw the virgin birth, and Jesus as the son of God, as the writers trying to elevate their hero above what he actually said he was, “I am the Son of Man”.

I’ve never been an atheist–I’ve had many rousing conversations with an old friend who espouses atheism.  Whenever he says, “There is No God”, my reply is always. “How the Hell do you know?”.  I’ve always seen atheists as holding just as fast to their faith as any fundamentalist–of any religion–do to theirs.  Will Rogers said it best,

And no one can know there is no god unless they can define god.

I worked many years doing construction work while drinking away everything I earned.  Once I had pleurisy; where every breath Hurt.  I wasn’t trying to commit suicide when i took all those pain pills and drank all that beer–I just didn’t care if I woke up again.  That’s when I had my  Near Death Experience (NDE).

In my experience (dream, drug-addled hallucination; whatever) the colors were Vivid.  I didn’t hear voices, but things were communicated to me in a flash of insight.

First: that suicide is wrong–not going to Hell wrong–but not the way to do things.

Second: the God-in a box thing; the vastness of God (The Almighty Grand Architect of the Universe, the Deity, the Supreme Being, Allah; whatever–names are made by humans, for humans.  I’ll use God, because its a title not a name) means that our tiny minds cannot encompass even the smallest part of God.  And, any attempts at understanding God from our frame of reference is doomed to failure. 

It was a life changing event.  I immediately quit drinking and started getting my life together.  And the all encompassing Love, Joy and utter Acceptance that I felt have left me with no fear of death.  I’m not crazy–I still fear pain–but the constant fear of the unknown, and eventual for everyone, after death has no hold on my mind anymore.  I didn’t get the whole light at the end of the tunnel thing, just the flash of insight, good feelings and hope for the future.  My best friend had the experience of floating above the operating table and watching the doctors try to restart his heart; he no longer fears death either.  There are no words in English–probably in any human language–to describe the peace that we both felt during our very different experiences, and we both know that that is what is waiting for us after we leave this place for the other–from whose bourn no traveler returns.

Years later, I saw the movie Rosewood, a good movie about a terrible event that took place in Florida in the 1920’s.  The town rioted and killed hundreds of their black neighbors.  In watching the film one part grabbed my attention.  I thought, “Wait a minute, Black Masons?  In the South–in the 1920’s?”.  I had read a few books about masonry, but had seen nothing that would explain this, so I started reexamining the history of Freemasonry.

Prince Hall lived in Boston in the mid-1700’s, he was a property owner and a registered voter.  He was also an African-American and worked in the Abolitionist movement.  He was also a Freemason.  Hall, along with other African-Americans, was initiated, passed and raised as a Mason.  Because of the intolerance of white America at the time, Hall and his fellow Masons formed what is now called Prince Hall Freemasonry, in order to continue with their craft. 

By reading a lot, I’ve been able to fine tune my bullshit detector.  After reading many different books I noticed that–although the Masons are attacked from all sides–they don’t defend themselves against these attacks.  Oh sure, some individuals may respond, but no organized ad campaigns.  It was very easy to tell which books were just vicious attacks and which were thoughtful discussions.  And, I liked what I read about the Freemasons (the books that I trusted).  Yes, they had their problems in the past, but I wanted to see what was going on today.

I walked into the Masonic Temple in Boise and introduced myself to the guy running the vacuum cleaner.  I told him I would like to talk to someone about Freemasonry.  In our short discussion he told me that Idaho was the third state where the Grand Lodge had opened formal, masonic relations with the local Prince Hall masons.  He also told me that the two states that did it before Idaho had not actually opened up as much as Idaho.  Yes, my friends, Idaho Masons have–full and open–relations with Prince Hall Masons.  And this, from a group that is known as a generally conservative bunch (conservative by nature: not necessarily by politics).  I talked to a couple more people and decided to join.  That was six years ago and I’m proud to be a Master Mason.

As far as the rumors that abound about Masons getting all the good jobs–I’ve been outsourced.  I work a crappy night, temp job.  Anyone who thinks I can just go up to some rich guy and get a good job–for just a handshake–please point this guy out.

I’m not going to tell you all the history and processes of Freemasonry; you can learn anything you want to know by reading about it–and keeping your bullshit detector on at all times.

And, for the people who’ll say, “An NDE is just the last flicker of dying neurons”–I have only this to say.  Out of all the possible reactions to dying there could possibly be–we get Peace, Love and Joy;
How Lucky Are We?  If I had one iota of that much luck I’d hit the lottery every time.

I know there are going to be people that don’t believe this story.  I know its pretty wild–a drunk druggie gets so wasted one night he trips out and joins the Freemasons. 
But, every word is true.  This is My life and I’m going to enjoy it for as long as possible.

This is cross posted at Street Prophets

(“Trouble, oh trouble, set me free…”

Long past time for a little peace.

(FP’ed 12:15 AM, PDT, September 18, 2007) – promoted by exmearden)

In the summer of 1970 an English singer/songwriter by the name of Steven Demetre Georgiou wrote a song about peace. 

The world needed to hear one.  Two million men, women, and children had been killed in Vietnam.  50,000 young American soldiers were also dead.  Despite Pentagon reports of progress; years of bombing villages, shelling villages, and burning villages from the Mekong Delta to the DMZ had somehow failed to win the hearts and minds of the traumatized survivors.  Concerned that America’s honor and resolve had not been sufficiently displayed yet, Richard Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia, and the consequences were horrific as two million more human beings died in the killing fields of the Khymer Rouge. 

Steven Demetre Georgiou knew that writing and recording Peace Train would not end the killing in Southeast Asia. But since its release in 1971, this Cat Stevens song has won more hearts and minds around the world than Pentagon weaponry ever has or ever will.  Cynics dismiss it as futile and naive cheerleading for peace, but as Iraq descends into barbarity and the BushCo/corporate media drumbeat for attacking Iran grows louder, fearful millions weary of hate and greed and killing are hoping that somewhere, out on the edge of this gathering darkness, there rides a peace train.

I admire heartfelt appeals for peace.  Like Yusuf Islam, I believe in the power of hope and optimism, they can sustain us through the darkest of times when all else seems lost. But seven years of Bush/Cheney treachery and Democratic cowering have drained our hope and optimism until there’s very little left. Pathological liars and moral cowards in Washington keep taking turns posturing as responsible American leaders while our soldiers keep dying and the bullets keep flying and the NSA keeps spying and we all keep trying to be heard so we can finally bring this nightmare to an end. 

Many of us hope that Peace Train Yusuf Islam is singing about is out there somewhere, but it doesn’t seem to be heading our way.  It doesn’t seem to be moving at all.  So some of us have given up waiting for it.  Some of us want to go find it.  Others are hoping it will roll into view on January 20, 2009 with Al Gore at the throttle, or Obama, or Edwards, or Kucenich, or Dodd, or Mrs. Bill Clinton.

But there is no Peace Train waiting to be found out there on the edge of darkness somewhere, it’s not going to head our way simply because we hope it will.  The Peace Train we seek, the Peace Train this country longs for, the Peace Train this world so desperately needs is in each of us.  I’m a peace train, you’re a peace train, Buhdy and Turkana and OPOL and Nightprowlkitty are peace trains.  Every progressive is a peace train.  Everyone who speaks out against injustice is a peace train. 

Thousands of peace trains rolled into Washington DC on September 15, hundreds of thousands of peace trains will be seen in towns and cities across this country on September 21, Iraq Moratorium Day.  Millions of peace trains will throw these warmongers out of power next year. 

We have to take back this country, we have to bring it home again.

Believe in it.

Think about the good things to come, dream about the world as one.

Someday it’s going to come.  And when it does, generations living in a world of peace and justice will look back on these dark days and remember what we did here.

In Naomi Klein’s new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism she lays bare the truth behind George Bush’s Modus operandi in pushing through radical free-market reforms. The entire Bush Presidency has been about economics and the playbook was written by Milton Friedman.

Friedman believed in a radical vision of society in which profit and the market drive every aspect of life, from schools to healthcare, even the army. He called for abolishing all trade protections, deregulating all prices and eviscerating government services.

These ideas have always been tremendously unpopular, and understandably so. They cause waves of unemployment, send prices soaring, and make life more precarious for millions. Unable to advance their agenda democratically, Friedman and his disciples were drawn to the power of shock.

Shock and Awe was not just a clever turn of phrase. It was a peak inside their playbook!

In one of his most influential essays, Friedman articulated contemporary capitalism’s core tactical nostrum, what I have come to understand as “the shock doctrine”. He observed that “only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change”. When that crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. Some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas. And once a crisis has struck, the University of Chicago professor was convinced that it was crucial to act swiftly, to impose rapid and irreversible change before the crisis-racked society slipped back into the “tyranny of the status quo”. A variation on Machiavelli’s advice that “injuries” should be inflicted “all at once”, this is one of Friedman’s most lasting legacies.

Video and text are posted from the excellent interview Amy Goodman did with Naomi Klein today over at Democracy Now

Goodman introduced the interview with:

Pinochet’s coup in Chile. The massacre in Tiananmen Square. The collapse of the Soviet Union. September 11th, 2001. The war on Iraq. The Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Award-winning investigative journalist Naomi Klein brings together all of these world-changing events in her new book

These are all examples of a society in shock and an open opportunity to advance this radical fantasy free market that Bush and his Neo Con advisors want. Unpopular and next to impossible to implement democratically they rely on shocking the body politic when it is most vulnerable.

From the very beginning Ms. Klein has had Bush’s number as evidenced by this blistering expose Baghdad year zero from September of 2004. In that article for Harpers she explains how “Economic Shock Therapy” would work in Iraq.

In one place on Earth, the theory would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen. Every policy that liberates multinational corporations to pursue their quest for profit would be put into place: a shrunken state, a flexible workforce, open borders, minimal taxes, no tariffs, no ownership restrictions. The people of Iraq would, of course, have to endure some short-term pain: assets, previously owned by the state, would have to be given up to create new opportunities for growth and investment. Jobs would have to be lost and, as foreign products flooded across the border, local businesses and family farms would, unfortunately, be unable to compete. But to the authors of this plan, these would be small prices to pay for the economic boom that would surely explode once the proper conditions were in place, a boom so powerful the country would practically rebuild itself.

With this new book -extensive excerpts available- she expands on the thesis and gets to the heart of what is behind so many of the perplexing polices of the Bush administration. Put simply in their minds “blank is beautiful” If an economy and society can be wiped out by whatever means, bombs, hurricane, tsunami, whatever, it creates the blank slate that allows them to execute Friedmans playbook. We could not understand why they would let New Orleans fall apart so completely in the days after the storm. The sad truth is that is exactly what the wanted. It did not make sense to us that they let Baghdad fall into chaos in those first few weeks of American occupation. It made perfect sense to those who wanted a clean slate to work with.

Some insight into why there was so little official interest in stopping the looting has since been provided by two men who played pivotal roles in the occupation – Peter McPherson, the senior economic adviser to Paul Bremer, and John Agresto, director of higher education reconstruction for the occupation. McPherson said that when he saw Iraqis taking state property – cars, buses, ministry equipment – it didn’t bother him. His job, as Iraq’s top economic shock therapist, was to radically downsize the state and privatise its assets, which meant that the looters were really just giving him a jump-start. “I thought the privatisation that occurs sort of naturally when somebody took over their state vehicle, or began to drive a truck that the state used to own, was just fine,” he said. A veteran bureaucrat of the Reagan administration and a firm believer in Chicago School economics, McPherson termed the pillage a form of public-sector “shrinkage”.

His colleague John Agresto also saw a silver lining as he watched the looting of Baghdad on TV. He envisioned his job – “a never-to-be-repeated adventure” – as the remaking of Iraq’s system of higher education from scratch. In that context, the stripping of the universities and the education ministry was, he explained, “the opportunity for a clean start,” a chance to give Iraq’s schools “the best modern equipment”. If the mission was “nation creating,” as so many clearly believed it to be, then everything that remained of the old country was only going to get in the way. Agresto was the former president of St John’s College in New Mexico, which specialises in a Great Books curriculum [which emphasises an education based on broad reading]. He explained that although he knew nothing of Iraq, he had refrained from reading books about the country before making the trip so that he would arrive “with as open a mind as I could have”. Like Iraq’s colleges, Agresto would be a blank slate.

Here is a link to a short film promoting the book:

Also from Youtube here is the first of a 6 part video of Ms. Klein talking about her book:

In a recent speech, also archived on Democracynow.org, Naomi dropped my favorite quote in recent memory.

We who say we believe in this other world need to know that we are not losers. We did not lose the battle of ideas. We were not outsmarted, and we were not out-argued. We lost because we were crushed. Sometimes we were crushed by army tanks, and sometimes we were crushed by think tanks. And by think tanks, I mean the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks.

over at democracy now

cross posted at Daily Kos