The WMail Newsletter
Volume VII   [Year 2006]   Part 1

Issue #56: "State of Emergency"
[January 2006]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

N E W S    &    L I N K S    o f    I N T E R E S T

==>  Not a lot of other news, the essay subject matter is enough to keep us all awake & tossing at night.

==>  Meanwhile, my weblog — http://www.DatelineChamesa.com — is growing, with occasional pieces that
        are less philosophical or political or more urgent than this monthly WMail ezine.

------------------------------------------------------
S T A T E    O F    E M E R G E N C Y
------------------------------------------------------

        In July 1776, a gathering of 56 men knowingly & proudly signed the Declaration of Independence, after the phrase "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
        For thirteen days in 1836, an estimated 200 Texians & Tejanos & patriotic outsiders stood fast at the Alamo and fought to the death against General Santa Anna's army of thousands to establish the independence of the Republic of Texas.
        This week, before & during & after Dubya’s State of The Union speech, the one hundred men & women of the U.S. Senate will, by their actions and words, determine the future – or dissolution – of the United States of America.

        Readers who are not U.S. citizens or residents have the right to be very afraid, as they watch from afar while Mad King George attempts to extinguish the flame of liberty, to end rule 'by the people' on this planet.

        Readers who are U.S. citizens have the responsibility to be very afraid, and very angry: What will YOU do to prevent the Bush Gang from revoking the Constitution, as is their intention?

        The situation has America on the brink of civil war, and major historic events are likely to occur in the next few days.

        Every U.S. citizen will soon be called to choose between the fascism of the neo-cons and a return to government within the constraints of the U.S. Constitution of 1787, as amended.

Choose very carefully which side you are on:
• One side includes the Tory Brown Shirts, the 'military-industrial complex', the religious far-right fringe (the Baptist Taliban), the corporatists (big business, big money, big media), the whores of K Street, and the Oligarchy.
• The other side will be those who stand up to be an American, a patriot, a revolutionary.

"You have nothing to lose but your chains."
"Death before dishonor."
"Freedom exists in the exercise thereof."
"Don't tread on me."

* *          * *          * *          * *

John Kerry’s Filibuster Petition
http://www.johnkerry.com/action/filibuster/

World Can’t Wait is setting up demonstrations on January 31st and February 4th
http://worldcantwait.net/

The No Crony website has simple access to your Congresspeople and others
http://www.nocrony.com/

The main index of the U.S. Senate to contact all U.S. Senators
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

[copyright 2006 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

Each issue of WMail is posted on the Working Minds website; quotations are posted alphabetically by author.

=============
Q U O T E S
=============

“What kind of man am I if I do not help make this world better?”
— Jesus Garcia, Jr. of Lynwood, California

“Action is the strongest form of communication.”
— G.E. Nordell

“There is no reason [that] good can't triumph over evil, if only angels will get organized along the lines of the Mafia.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [1922-2007]

“The art of living is the art of bringing dreams and reality together.”
— Tom Hodgkinson

“When conservatism was a movement of ideas, it attracted oddballs;
now that it is a movement with power, it attracts sleazeballs.”
— David Brooks, New York Times columnist

“Dream big and dare to fail.”
— Norman Vaughn [1905-2005]

“Power is the ability to achieve purpose. Power is the ability to effect change.”
— Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

“[Politics] is never a struggle between good & evil, but between the preferable and the detestable.”
— Raymond Aron

“The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
— Joseph Stalin [1878-1953]

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
— Sinclair Lewis [1885-1951]

“All governments are liars.”
— I.F. Stone [1907-89]

“Walking on water wasn't built in a day.”
— Jack Kerouac [1922-69]

“With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for developing character in man, than any other association of men.”
— Clarence Darrow [1857-1938], in 1909

“We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world ... and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
— Howard Zinn [1922-2010]

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
— Henry de Braxton [XIIIth Century]

“Shake off your chains like dew / You are many, they are few.”
— poet Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1827]

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
— Anais Nin [1903-77]

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
— Thomas Paine [1737-1809]

“I have the same rights that you do, the same rights that I afford you.
We each have only the collective rights given to all.”
— G.E. Nordell

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House
will be adorned by a downright moron.”
— H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]

 

N E X T   I S S U E: "The 51% Solution"

MARCH ISSUE: "The Distinction Source"

Issue #57: "Civil Disobedience"
[March 2006]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

N E W S    &    L I N K S    o f    I N T E R E S T

==>  Visit the new Working Minds ‘Boycott W-9 Project’ website

==>  Halliburton’s Kellogg-Brown-Root division got another no-bid government contract, with maximum total value
        of $385 million over a five-year term, to build concentration camps in the United States
        see their press release dated 24 January 2006

==>  A website about replacing ‘In God We Trust’ with Reason: http://www.trustreason.com/

==>  FREE service by VeriSign® to remove you from paper mail offers for insurance or credit cards
        (takes 2-3 minutes, save piles of trees, I did the 5-year option): http://www.OptOutPrescreen.com/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
C i v i l    D i s o b e d i e n c e
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

         The U.S. tax deadline of April 15th fast approaches, and the need for Civil Disobedience is clear – the vote of the People continues to be a choice for the lesser of several evils offered by the corrupted party machinery, even if the black box ballot process actually counts all votes. But you can vote with your pocketbook, for that is where the Oligarchy lives, and where the Culture-Structure operates.

        I wrote in the WMail Issue #21 in 2002 about a ‘Tax Revolt’, and about a ‘Virtual Tea Party’ in Issue #19. Since then, Bush has busted the economy, bungled a war in Iraq, and is now preparing for a second major front, the unprovoked invasion of Iran. The U.S. military is incapable of any such increase in efforts, and the only solution will be to re-instate the draft – the Rangel-Hollings Bill has been on the table in Congress for several years, and is now 109 HR 2723 “Universal National Service Act of 2005” (as reported in several WMail issues, as far back as #33).
        The neo-con fascist Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang will use some specious excuse – another attack by Al Qaeda, another environmental disaster (like Katrina), some event elsewhere on the planet – in order to proceed with their apocalyptic agenda. Or they may decide that Congress and the people have become so powerless that the Gang can just take any action that they want, rule of law be damned, and declare the U.S. Constitution null & void.
        When any such event happens, it will be too late.
        So the best plan is prevention. Activism, mass Civil Disobedience, and non-violent protests will at least slow down the imminent civil war, and at best may indeed intervene and prevent events that belong in the history books. If the people do not regain control of both houses of Congress in November, future generations may have no idea that Individual Freedom ever existed in the world.
        Our lives are at stake, our freedoms are at stake, America is at stake. Freedom and democracy are at the brink of extinction.

* *          * *          * *          * *
PROTEST
        The study of Objectivist philosophy led me to a concern for economics, which is the engine of civilization. Economics and politics work hand in hand, though they should not be so intertwined as they are today. (Fascism is defined as the merger of business and government; theocracy is the merger of religion and government.) Politics should be about solving the problems of living, making a better life for all, extending the natural freedoms and values formerly enjoyed by Americans to all our fellow humans, and to ensuring a good life for future generations.
        Not happening now, dude.
        Given the situation at this moment in history, economic action is where indivi­duals can and must grab back the rights lost (or surrendered) to the machinery of the Oligarchy.

        First, revisit the WMail Issue #51 essay “The Three Economies”, which details actions that everyone – you and members of your family and communities – can likewise perform, the result of which will be taking back your personal sovereignty and revocation of your status as indentured servants under the Oligarchy.

        For those who are employed, there are simple actions available that serve multi­ple purposes – still further removal from the Virtual Economy, a tad more protection against economic cataclysm, the act of Civil Disobedience – which also protest ‘taxation without representation’, a traditional American complaint.
        Go to your personnel or human resources department and request a W-9 or W-4 tax form. (Or print one from www.boycottW9.org, the site built and announced last month.) Sign the W-9. Or fill out the W-4 with NINE dependent deductions, and sign it. Turn your form in. For most employees, this will reduce your state and federal tax withheld to zero.
        The I.R.S. takes the withholding by force; you all think that there is no choice. But the guvvermint pays NO interest on the year-long extraction of funds, presuming that taxpayers are without power, and, like slaves, have no will to protest. This act of Civil Disobedience is simple, and people in personnel / payroll / H.R. must comply with your form submission.

        This does require Responsibility, however – see WMail Issue #37 – which for many is an undeveloped value or practice. (The matter is measurable: Do you even know how much you owe on your credit cards? Are all your cards paid off every month?)
        Look at a recent pay stub. Responsibility requires that after revising your W-9/W-4 form, you set aside the amount that was formerly deducted for state & federal withholding and deposit that amount (or more) in a savings account. One of the symptoms of the rocky, Bush-damaged economy is that the latest statistics on American savings practices for last year showed a negative figure: Savings deposits by Ameri­cans shrank last year, net savings went down, a dire circumstance not seen since The Great Depression.
        Keep retaining your withholdings and add to the savings account from each paycheck. Then when your taxes come due in April of 2007, you will have earned interest on your self-deducted tax monies – nyah, nyah, nyah I.R.S.!

* *          * *          * *          * *
INVEST
        U.S. banks and savings & loans pay a pittance in interest on savings accounts, recently below 1%. Tie your money up in money market CDs or other non-liquid financial instruments, and you might make 2½%. Big deal. I found a Dutch bank [ www.INGdirect.com ] operating in the U.S. that is giving 4.75% until April 15th on completely liquid savings accounts. Simple choice here: 4.75% paid to you versus zero interest on your withheld tax monies. (Credit unions also are usually better than banks and S&Ls.)

        Given the scary and unstable state of the U.S. and world economies, I suggest another investment strategy, not from direct knowledge (nor suggested from any benefit to me).
        When the Air Force sent me on temporary duty to Thailand, I was surprised to find that the rural peasants had learned that the best hedge against the uncertainties of war – all of Southeast Asia was a war zone in 1968 – was the personal ownership of gold. The farmers and merchants and bar-girls and samlor-drivers of Takhli set aside whatever they could and bought gold jewelry. Their gradual accumulation of wealth could be used for a down payment on a rice-paddy farm or on a house or automobile or motor-scooter, or used as a dowry. Central to their concerns was the fact that gold is real and compact and portable.
        Forget the 'make a fortune in gold' hype, just make the investment. When Bush's idiocies come home to roost and the world economy nose-dives, those who own their homes and-or have some stash of gold (or gems), those who take the lesson from the peasant wisdom of Asia, will have a slight edge for survival over those who do not. The cataclysm that seems to be the intention of the Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang – holy war! Armageddon! whoo-hah! – may not be survivable, but if you wait until the next Pearl Harbor cum September 11 event suddenly appears on your home or office TV screen, it will be too late.

        Somebody – each of us – must take steps to prevent such a recurrence of Pearl Harbor. Political activism, personal responsibility and economic prudence are manda­tory. Those who also take steps to prevail against impending mass disaster will be able to lead others back toward the free and just civilization that is being lost (destroyed from within) and soon may disappear altogether.
        The poor underclass of New Orleans never had a chance against hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Dubya’s intentional elimination of the levee-building efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers wiped out a culture and shattered millions of lives – thousands of American citizens are still missing, and F.E.M.A. has no interest in what happened to them, nor any interest in restoring the infrastructure in Louisiana and Mississippi.
        The middle class of New Orleans might have been able to restore their lives, or at least recover their communities, had they been willing or able take the actions set forth here:

••      Pay off your debt immediately – credit cards (to halt usury), automobiles (for independence), and mortgage (for sovereignty). The mortgaged residents of New Orleans have lost their homes and chattel AND the G.O.P.’s recent changes to the bankruptcy laws require them to pay off those mortgages (on nothing) or go to jail!
••      Retain and save your withheld tax monies from each paycheck. In the event of some economic cataclysm (beware the imminent change from petro-dollars to petro-euros), you and your loved ones will have a meager nest egg, while your neighbors do not. If your nest egg consists of in-hand gold or gems, you can restart somewhere else in a trice.
••      Remove yourself from the Virtual Economy, and operate in the Cash Economy: If you don’t have the cash to pay for an object or event or toy, then do not buy it. [WMail Issue #51 essay “The Three Economies”]

* *          * *          * *          * *
TAX REVOLT
        With the above changes in place, or in the works, you then have an entirely new option. On April 15th, all American residents are required to file and pay income taxes. But what if you don’t?
        (Taxes are valid; what government does with taxes is cause for serious doubt and concern. In other countries, adjust for your local conditions.)
        If enough Americans simply ‘forget’ to send in the money that they owe this April, the I.R.S. may notice. And if the shortfall is significant, the problem will be reported up the chain of command. You can protest what is being done to the economy by reclaim­ing sovereignty over your personal finances, and by bringing others in your family & workplace & other communities into the protest.
        Think of it: Millions of taxpayers say “No!”, with possibly billions of dollars that are needed for bribery and pork-barrel projects and war-profiteering NOT coming in to the Treasury. The economy will teeter and the Oligarchy will have to dig into their deep pockets to keep the system going, to maintain the flow of the ‘fountain of wealth’ that they drain dry by their greed and stupidity.
        (But of course, do file if you are owed a return, and note that no interest is paid to you on your ‘loan’ of the excess withholdings to the Treasury. Deposit that return in your ‘protest’ savings account.)
        And in April 2007, when you have a nice pile earning interest in a savings account, you will again have the option of not filing, a double whack at the greed of the Oligarchy, whose puppet is George Dubya Bush.
        What makes this a real protest, however, with Responsibility included, is that the end of the protest is declared when the Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang is impeached, all of’em. On the day that they are removed from office, you mail the check/s for your back taxes to the I.R.S. And in the meanwhile, you live inside the revolutionary stance that the government cannot tax you without your consent.

        The Oligarchy has taken away your vote (redistricting, black-box tampering by Diebold, etc.), has stripped power from Congress (oversight is not happening), and has placed neo-con Federalist ideologues on the Working Minds / Action / Supreme Court – Constitutional checks & balances are impossible while the Oligarchy has absolute control of the government.
        If the attempt to remove the Republi-fascists from office, to take back Congress, is not successful, then the Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang will be free to declare Dubya dictator before he steps down in January 2009. If progressives do win either the House or the Senate in November 2006, there will be an impeachment trial, in which case the Bush-Cheney-Rove Gang will manufacture some excuse in 2007 to declare martial law, to rescind the Constitution – ‘for national security sake’, of course – and history starts to unravel.
        In the event that any scenario such as the above comes to pass – September 11th plus Al Qaeda plus Dubya gives Armageddon – the only recourse for Americans will be further Civil Disobedience. When Pearl Harbor III appears on your tele­vision screen, consider that your job is a trap, and stay home and protect your family. The country cannot hum merrily along if the workers, the laborers, if all the indentured servants and wage slaves, refuse to participate. Buy food on your credit card/s and huddle around the campfire until the men in brown shirts come for you.
        Or fight back.

        The one place where you (still) have control is in the economic sphere, because, while the Oligarchy can & will repeal the Constitution, there is no way that they can repeal any Law of Nature – and one of the Laws of Nature is that “Labor is the source of all wealth.” Retain and maintain the results of your labors and the Oligarchy will starve like a cancer starved of blood.
        Though the Oligarchy tells you different, you are responsible for your Future, which is determined not by the Past, but by the actions that you take in the Present.
        Be very concerned about the Future that is coming our way.

Working Minds ‘Boycott W-9 Project’ website

WMail: the free Working Minds Philosophy ezine

Working Minds: A Philosophy of Empowerment website

[copyright 2006 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

Each issue of WMail is posted on the Working Minds website; quotations are posted alphabetically by author.

=============
Q U O T E S
=============

"There should be a biblical commandment 'Thou shalt not hate'."
— Elie Wiesel

"Where there is no hope, one must invent hope."
— Albert Camus [1913-60]

"How eager you all are to become slaves."
— Tiberius Caesar [42 BCE–37 AD]

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
— George Orwell [1903-50]

"When they came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew. When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."
— Pastor Martin Niemöller [1892-1984]

"Life is awful. Ain't it fun to watch?"
— Sam Peckinpah [1925-84]

"The struggle for freedom is never lost, because it is never won."
— Russell Kirk

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
— Will Durant [1885-1981]

"I consider [my life] a private performance that will never be repeated."
— pianist Cecil Walker

"Put not your faith in men, but bind them down with the chains of the constitution."
— Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826] {in the Kentucky Resolutions 1798}

"There's no limit to how complicated things can get on account of one thing leading to another."
— E.B. White [1899-1985]

"Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it."
— J. Robert Oppenheimer [1904-67]

"There are only two divine medicaments to help us bear the poison of reality and prevent it from killing us prematurely
and these are intelligence and indifference."
— Sándor Márai [1900-89]

"There is no such thing as a minus quantity except in mathematics."
— Rex Stout [1886-1975]

"Nothing works and nobody cares."
— Robert Ruark [1915-65]

"The political machine triumphs because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority."
— Will Durant [1885-1981]

"Intelligent design cannot explain Darwinian evolution. Darwin's whole point is that variation and change are random and without higher purpose.
We cannot imagine that God designed this disproof of His own existence."
— James K. Galbraith

"Church and state are, and must remain, separate."
— Ronald Reagan [1911-2004]

"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
— Pablo Picasso [1881-1973]

"Speak truth to power."
— Marian Wright Edelman

"You miss 100 percent of the shots [that] you don't take."
— Wayne Gretzky

 

N E X T   I S S U E: “The 51% Solution”

FOLLOWED BY: “The Distinction Source”

Issue #58: "The 51% Solution"
[April 2006]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

N E W S    &    L I N K S    o f    I N T E R E S T

==>  "This is a revolution, dammit, we're going to have to offend somebody."
        — John Adams [1735-1826] (during debates on the Declaration of Independence, 1776)

        The time for joining the Working Minds ‘Boycott W-9 Project’ is now, today, for 2006.
        See the website — http://www.boycottW9.org — for details, plus steps to take for the 2007 tax boycott,
        where you stop payroll with-holding deductions until Bush is impeached.

        Regime Change in November 2006 !!

==>  The pressure is building! Democratic Party State Committees in five states (so far) have voted to urge Congress
        to impeach Bush. These leading states are New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin & Vermont.

==>  Osama bin Laden's offer on the January 2006 videotape for a truce with the infidel West made no sense to me
        until an Islamic scholar pointed out that the Q'uran requires jihadists to offer such a truce to the enemy before
        launching any to-the-death attack on the infidels. Expect such a major attack very soon.

==>  "American households experienced negative savings [in 2005] – they spent $42 billion more than they earned –
        for the first time since 1933, the depths of The Great Depression."
        — William Greider in The Nation Magazine (20 Feb 2006 issue)

        "The personal savings rate in 2005 [was] minus 0.5%, the first year since The Great Depression
        that Americans spent more than they made."
        — Time Magazine (13 Feb 2006 issue)

==>  Congress is still tweaking the Federal Budget for fiscal 2007. The general facts are that every department and office
        received severe budget cuts — except Rumsfeld's War Department, which got an increase. Meanwhile, the G.O.P.'s
        top priority (besides ducking the string of ethics scandals) is making permanent the economically destructive tax cuts
        for the Oligarchy.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
T h e    5 1 %    S o l u t i o n
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

        This announced topic on the ezine has been delayed for a while, due to breaking news events, but this needs to be in your hands before the June primary elections in the U.S.A.; for folks in other countries, the principal still applies and may be quite useful (if you have free elections where you are).

        There is a classic study of animal herds and bird flocks which found that the herd would move – toward water, over a hill, across a stream – whenever 51% were facing in that direc¬tion. Camera footage showed repeatedly that individual animals would graze in random directions, but after a time each would ultimately point themselves in a particular direction. The study found that as soon as 51% (by head count) was facing or drifting in the same direction, then the herd or flock as an entity would move in concert toward the new goal.

        The principle also applies to humans, and can be used to cause the 'herd' to shift as wanted. In business, in the world of commerce, skip ads in national magazines or other media and promote to niche publications and target the people within walking distance of your store or potential customers in your city or neighborhood.
        Intra-corporation, when working on some project, skip the bureaucracy and chain of command and enroll relevant depart-ments: the guys on the loading dock, in the plant, in accounting or sales.

        In politics, where there are often narrow election races, the principle provides a natural strategy for causing success. Working to convince The Voters that OUR candidate is better may be a difficult task, especially if one is on the side of, say, Justice and in opposition to the overfunded, underhanded, anti-truth machinery of the Oligarchy. Forget TV and radio broad-casts; time and effort are better spent working on enlightening the undecided or the misinformed.

        The Oligarchy controls 60% of this nation's wealth, but the herd cannot move when blinded by the anti-Reason propa-ganda spewed by the Oligarchy-owned media monopolies. The goal is to get 51% of voters heading in the direction of individual rights and a world that works for the People. Said another way, the game is getting the attention of 51% of voters off of propa-ganda and toward a return to government of the people and for the people and by the people.

        If the voter polls show 45% or so for the Good Guys, then pre-election activity should not be directed to convince the 'other side' en masse, but toward locating and connecting with some small sub-group of several percent (or several such) and negotiate a coalition which would tip the 'herd' into voting for the Good Guys.
        Local campaign professionals of any worth will be able to 'cherry pick' potential groups and bring them aboard such a coalition and then direct targeted enrollment conversations to individual members that communicate the benefits of moving together along a common path, such as ethical government, better schools, a clean environment, and local jobs.

* *          * *          * *          * *
CASE ONE
        As an example of effective recruiting (even though done by the bad guys), now-indicted lobbyist Jack Abramov and tax lobbyist Grover Norquist were working together in Massachusetts during the 1980 presidential campaign. They convinced the 'Bostoner Rebbe' to endorse candidate Ronald Reagan. The Hasidic leader's influence was estimated at around 3,000 voters, which was the margin of Reagan's upset victory in that state!

CASE TWO
        I listen on the internet to Air America Radio, and since Albuquerque's outlet has no internet bandwidth for online broad-cast, I lately connect online to the San Diego station.
        A special election there was just held for replacement of imprisoned G.O.P. Congressman Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, with Francine Busby – http://www.busbyforcongress.com/ – as the main Democratic candidate and several males running for the Republican side. If Busby had gotten 50.1%, she would have served out the remainder of Cunningham's term, and then run in November as the incumbent. But she got only 44%, which is quite a feat for that very red 50th District. The next event is the June primary, where she is facing former Congressman Brian Bilbray (multimillionaire Eric Roach placed third).
        Applying the 51% Solution, such as alignment with labor or some other local political bloc, can easily put Busby over the next 50.1% requirement, while the G.O.P. goofs fight each other and spend megabucks to capture more of the existing base than the other. They can attack Busby, and the national G.O.P. will likely go to the trouble, but if she keeps her existing 44% and adds a local bloc or two, the primary may be a success for the Constitution.

* *          * *          * *          * *
        Am I worried about the anti-Constitution G.O.P. reading this and taking advantage of this 'secret strategy'?
        Nope. For one thing, the G.O.P. is very familiar with the principle, and the Dems are not. If both sides use the principle, or even minor party groups, the alignments will still never exceed 100%. Application of the principle requires getting undecided blocs and non-voters to align with one side or another, which will ultimately bring more and more players, more VOTERS, into the game, thus defusing the power of the money-based machinery of the Oligarchy.
        The G.O.P. can run, but they can't hide.

        The basis of the 51% Solution is very grass roots. If you have the task of moving a real herd of animals, you need to gain the attention of 51% of the individual members of the flock or herd, and then attract them toward you.
        Standard operating procedure for most herders is to evoke fear and push the herd toward the pens (or whatever), which does indeed work for the Oligarchy – but the usual destination for such activity is always the slaughterhouse. Which is exactly how the fear-mongering Culture-Structure utilizes the principle – the mantra of "September 11th plus Al Qaeda equals more war!" has worked quite well for five years with the sheep of America.
        The enlightened activist is the one who guides the herd toward progressive ends, such as liberty and equality and ethical responsibility.

        We can do this. We must do this.
        The alternative is the slaughterhouse of the Oligarchy.

[copyright 2006 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

Each issue of WMail is posted on the Working Minds website; quotations are posted alphabetically by author.

=============
Q U O T E S
=============

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
— Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"Well, I really think that [George W. Bush] shatters the myth of white supremacy once and for all."
— Congressman Charles B. Rangel of New York

"Well behaved women rarely make history."
— Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
— Edward Abbey [1927-89]

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared
that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
— Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]
(in the ‘Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association’, January 1, 1802)

"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together."
— James Madison [1751-1836] {in 'Letter to Edward Livingston', 10 July 1822}

"Congress belongs to the highest bidder."
— journalist Bill Moyers (2006)

"The only place they can shoot you when you are out in front is in the back."
— talk show host Ed Schultz [1954-2018]

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
— rock legend Jimi Hendrix [1942-70]

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose."
— Robert Byrne

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."
— Thomas Pynchon (in "Gravity's Rainbow", 1973)

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point
where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism:
ownership of the government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945]

"Continue to express your dissent and your needs, but remember to remain civilized,
for you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrified in the turbulence of change."
— Will Durant [1885-1981]

"All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out from time to time. The difference between an average person and a warrior is awareness of this, and one of the tasks is to be alert, delib-erately waiting, so that when the cubic centimeter pops out he or she has the necessary speed and prowess to pick it up."
— Carlos Castañeda [1925-98]

"It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake."
— Frederick Douglass [1818-95]

N E X T   I S S U E: "The Distinction Source"

---

        You can obtain a free e-version copy of the Preview Edition of "Working Minds: A
Philosophy of Empowerment" by visiting the WM website ebooks page at
http://www.working-minds.com/ebooks.htm
        The free Preview Edition can also be requested via the link here:
GENordell [at] Working-Minds.com - just put "FreePrvwEdition" in the Subject field, and specify your choice of Adobe Acrobat PDF file or Microsoft Reader LIT file or M/S Word DOC file.

==>  Visit and-or bookmark the Working Minds website:
        http://www.working-minds.com     [note the dash!]

==>  Forward this e-mail to anyone who is into philosophy or economics.

==>  Take a serious look at the Working Minds Manifesto: For a World
        That Works, Where Quality of Life is the Most Important Value
        http://www.working-minds.com/manifesto.htm [now in eight languages]

==>  Participate in these philosophical webrings:
        http://www.working-minds.com/ringpage.htm
        ..and the Ayn Rand Webring at
        http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=aynrandwebring

==>  Take a look at previous issues at
        http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm

        EDITORS: Want one of the previous essays for your publication?
        Not difficult. Just make a request & agree to attribute to WMail.
        See all previous issues at http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm