Issue #53: "I Want My Country Back"
[July 2005]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

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

==>  "Consumer spending accounts for two thirds of the overall U.S. economy." — C.N.N. Radio July 2005

==>  Paul Hackett is a US Marine Reserve officer & volunteer to Iraq now running for Congress in Ohio's
        2nd District; he chose to run as a Democrat. http://www.hackettforcongress.com/

==>  http://www.fundingfactory.com/ will recycle your printer cartridges & old cellphones with proceeds
        going to schools & other legitimate charities.

==>  National Public Lands Day [Sept 25th 2005 = #12]: http://www.NPLD.com/

==>  Find other great email newsletters & ezines at the Cumuli Ezine Finder: http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/

==>  Call the national DO NOT CALL list and it will block your number/s from telemarketers for 5 years. It takes only
        a minute of your time. For cell phones, call 888-382-1222 from the number you do not want to be called on.
        Or go to http://www.donotcall.gov/ and enter the phone numbers of your whole family.

==>  I am now officially, though not completely, moved to New Mexico.

==>  The topic “Theory Z” is postponed, what with America being in a Constitutional crisis over the TreasonGate cover-up.

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I    W A N T    M Y    C O U N T R Y    B A C K
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        Karl Rove committed treason and he will be convicted and imprisoned. George Dubya Bush conspired to lead America into an unjustified war in Iraq by perjuring himself before Congress, a felony for which he will be impeached.
        Both men are cold-blooded killers – 1800 American soldiers in Iraq, 100,000 Iraqi civilians, and more on both sides in Afghanistan – plus unknown numbers of secret agents connected with Valerie Plame’s C.I.A. operation.
        George Dubya has dishonored his family and his country and all of humanity. Karl Rove is a psychopath.
        But the most heinous crime committed by these two twisted megalo-maniacs is the crime of theft. George Dubya Bush and his fellow thugs stole an election or two, but that is still minor compared to their stealing the heart of America, right from under our noses.

        America is reviled around the world for actions taken by the Bush Administration in the name of freedom, in the name of democracy, and in the name of world peace. These precious values were cited by them merely as a pretense to reduce liberty, to consolidate power, and to reap criminal gains from war profiteering.
        The world is unsafe as long as Bush and his administration retain power, and the survival of America depends on ‘regime change’ in the November 2006 elections.

        The Bush Administration and the Republican Party are controlled and directed by neo-con fascists. They stole America’s heart and they will not give up easily, so lovers of freedom must take power away from them. A Democratic majority in one or both houses of Congress will open these matters to full investigation, the inevitable result of which will be impeach-ment of Bush and Cheney and criminal indictments against half the White House staff.
        Every adult in America has from today a simple choice: either consenting to and condoning the Bush Gang’s unbridled lust for money and deceit and death — or taking America back and returning this country to rule under our sacred Constitution.

---

Timeline of the TreasonGate Cover-Up

2 0 0 2 Feb: VP Dick Cheney asked for more information about Iraq's nuclear program, and about a possible deal with Niger for 'yellow cake' uranium; W.M.D. expert Valerie Plame suggested to a superior at the C.I.A. that her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson, be considered due to his experience and good relations with government ministers in Niger; higher-ups approved Wilson for a fact-finding mission to Niger.

19 Feb: Wilson met with C.I.A. & State Dept. officials in preparation for the trip.

26 Feb: Wilson arrived in Niger.

5 March: Back home in Virginia, Wilson reported to two C.I.A. officers that "it was highly unlikely that anything was going on" in Niger.

8-9 March: The intelligence report based on Wilson's visit was circulated thru routine channels.

23 July: Meeting of U.K. Prime Minister & others about U.S. intentions to invade Iraq, summarized in the secret Downing Street Memo.

2 0 0 3 23 Jan: Bush's State of the Union Address included the 16 crucial words, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

19 March: Having falsely & feloneously justified his intentions to Congress, Bush announced America's invasion of the nation of Iraq.

23 June: Per Judith Miller’s testimony [Oct 11, 2005], she talked with Libby.

6 July: Wilson's article "What I Didn't Find In Africa", revealing Bush's deceit, appeared in the New York Times.

7 July: White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer retracted Bush's 16 word statement as 'incorrect'.

7 July: A classified memo containing 'secret no foreign' information on Plame's role at the C.I.A. was circulated by Secretary of State Colin Powell on board Air Force One while enroute to Africa.

8 July: Columnist Robert Novak called Karl Rove, who revealed Plame's identity as a C.I.A. agent (as 'Joe Wilson's wife'), a clear violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 – an act of treason.

8 July: New York Times reporter Judith Miller met with Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby.

11 July: Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper called Rove, who revealed Plame's identity as a C.I.A. agent, again committing treason.

11 July: C.I.A. Director George Tenet officially conceded that “the 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President".

12 July: Libby told Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus that Valerie Plame was a C.I.A. operative.

12 July: Cooper called Libby, who confirmed that Plame was a C.I.A. operative.

14 July: Novak's syndicated column revealed Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative.

15 July: Having been publicly compromised by Novak's article, Plame's entire operations network was 'rolled up'.

22 July: Newsday published a story saying that senior administration officials “violated the law and may have endangered [Plame's] career and possibly the lives of her contacts in foreign countries.”

July & Sept: The C.I.A. formally demanded a criminal investigation into the leak, in letters to the Justice Dept. dated 30 July and 5 September 2003.

29 Sept: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that Rove denied involvement in the leak.

10 Oct: Novak's syndicated column revealed the name of Plame's 'brass plate' C.I.A. front company, Brewster-Jennings & Assocs.

30 Dec: Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself and appointed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (of Illinois) as Special Prosecutor to investigate the C.I.A.'s concerns.

2 0 0 4 21 May: Fitzgerald's Grand Jury subpoenaed Cooper; Time Magazine vowed to fight against reporters being ordered to reveal sources.

6 June: The Washingtom Post confirmed and printed a report that VP Cheney was recently interviewed by investigators for the Grand Jury.

24 June: President Bush answered prosecutor's questions in the Oval Office for less than an hour; he was not under oath.

12 Aug: The Grand Jury subpoenaed New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

15 Oct: Rove testified before Fitzgerald's Grand Jury regarding the leak.

2 0 0 5 8 Feb: Bush promoted Rove to 'Assistant to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor'.

1 May: Publication of the secret Downing Street Memo in Britain’s Sunday Times.

27 June: The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear TIME Magazine's appeal of the court order requiring Cooper & Miller to reveal their sources to the Grand Jury, thus letting the lower court ruling stand.

30 June: Over Cooper’s objections, Time Magazine released Cooper's notes to the Grand Jury.

1 July: Cooper testified, later explaining that his source released him from the promise of confidentiality.

6 July: Judge Thomas Hogan ordered Judith Miller taken to jail for refusing to testify.

25 July: Time Magazine published a cover story on Rove, with an article by Cooper entitled "What I Told the Grand Jury".

NOTE: Because further events have revealed other incidents that belong on this timeline, those updates
are now being added to the 'Timeline of the TreasonGate Cover-Up' Page at Spirit of America Bookstore.

---

•       The Grand Jury term expires in October 2005.

•       The Downing Street Memo is the 'smoking gun' for impeachment of George Dubya Bush, and the so-called 'liberal media'
        are suppressing it (thus proving who owns the U.S. media). You can read the memo online at The London Times:
        http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

•       Joseph Wilson's booksite: http://www.politicsoftruth.com/default.htm

•       Online text of the 2003 State of the Union Address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

•       Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 {Title 50: War & National Defense - Chapter 15: National Security
        - Subchapter IV: Protection of Certain National Security Information - Section 421} is online at
        http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html

[copyright 2005 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
=============

"In activity there should be calmness, and in calmness there should be activity."
— Suzuki Shunryu Daiosho [1904-71]

"All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare."
— Spinoza [1632-77]

"There is no such thing as justice – in or out of court."
— Clarence Darrow [1857-1938]

"The Bush administration feels no compunction to honor the truth or seek it; it conceives truth as a tactic,
valuable only insofar as it is useful against one's enemies."
— Russ Rymer, editorial in May-June 2005 Mother Jones Magazine

"The creationists' ... case is so weak that the only way [that] they can feel sure of maintaining it
is to make sure their victims never hear of anything else."
— Isaac Asimov [1920-92]

"I now fully realize that only the powers of the Presidency will reveal the secrets of my brother's death."
— Robert F. Kennedy [1925-68] on 3 June 1968 (2 days before his own death)

"Iraq is the new Afghanistan."
— Garry Trudeau ["Doonesbury"]

"Correction: Better to say 'No risk, no gain'."
— G.E. Nordell

"It's even worse than it appears / But ... that's all right."
— Grateful Dead band

"Always get it in writing. If they say don't worry, then I do."
— Richard Nordell

"Each and every moment is multiple choice."
— G.E. Nordell

"It is better to know useless things than to know nothing."
— Tom Stoppard

"It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."
— Bruce Springsteen

"The revolution is in your neighborhood, it's in your house, it's in your mind."
— Bill Cosby

"You were born with the power of a locomotive."
— Bruce Springsteen

"We need a revolution in this country when it comes to parenting around education."
— David Baltimore, Nobel Prize-winner & president of Cal Tech

"Right now there is no honor in the Republican Party."
— C.I.A. analyst Larry Johnson (a registered Republican)

 

N E X T   I S S U E: “Watts’s Circle”

FOLLOWED BY: “F*** the Fed” and then “Theory Z”

Issue #54: "F*** the Fed!"
[September 2005]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

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

==>  Talked to railroad workers in Arizona, who are real clear about the state of the economy: lots of inbound (imports)
        container traffic, but more and more containers going back to the ports are empties.

==>  Truckers are taking two steps in reaction to gas prices that I’ve noticed: Some are driving slower (more efficient mileage),
        and scads are skipping motel stops and sleeping in their truck beside the freeways or truck stops. Good survival move for
        the truckers, but bad for the innkeepers. And this was before post-Katrina gas prices.

==>  My house in New Mexico is now completely paid off, so I should be able to weather the coming World Depression.
        Dubya can’t win in Iraq, and he failed totally in Louisiana, and the same blindness that caused the thousands of deaths in
        New Orleans will also trigger the collapse of the world economy.

        You can take steps as below in this issue’s essay and also per previous essays to (a) protect your personal situation, and
        (b) protest the continuing war profiteering by and fascist politics of the Oligarchy.

        See http://www.working-minds.com/WMailindex.htm and especially look at Issue #19 “Virtual Tea Party”
        and Issue #35 “Debt & the Working Mind”.

==>  I will start a blog in a few weeks, and have already reserved the URL, which is http://www.DatelineChamesa.com
        (it will point to the actual blogsite). Topics will be beyond the WM philosophy itself, with timelier response to political
        crimes, economic crises, etc. Stay tuned!

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F * * *    t h e    F e d !
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        The business of buying a new house in New Mexico and selling my place in California is an entirely new realm for me, and since I am built as an auto-didact – someone who is self-taught – I had a really cool time absorbing the jargon and the ‘moves in the game’ and the different people-styles that showed up during the process.
        The original plan was to make an offer on a place in rural New Mexico, put maybe 50% down, get a short-term mortgage, move out of my trailer home in West Los Angeles, fix it up as needed, and use the money from sale of the trailer to pay off the house in New Mexico – no mortgage, no monthly payment of interest to the minions of the Oligarchy, the place to be all mine, with no chance it can ever be taken away.

        Well, breakdowns did occur. Banks don’t lend on trailer homes, long prior stretches of unemployment lowered my credit rating, and the rotten (soon to tank) economy makes it difficult for others (potential buyers) to get a loan as well. But things did move along, although slowly, and escrow on my house in New Mexico closed May 31st.
        I had meanwhile been reading the L.A. Times Sunday Real Estate Section a little deeper, and paying more attention to radio news and ads about mortgage lenders, and even got ahold of Sumichrast’s book on home buying. Phone calls & emails went to mortgage people in four states.
        With this all happening around the annual tax-filing season, I also realized that I will probably not file 1040-EZ next go-round, as the interest on the mortgage (even a short-term one) and the expenses of both buying and selling a home have to be documented and later filled in in the proper boxes on federal and maybe two state tax filings. New realm, indeed.

* *          * *          * *          * *
FREE RIDE
        Pertinent diversion: There are a host of haters of the guvermint who are spewing all sorts of rants about conspiracies of every kind, about the dollar not being real, about the crooks of Zion & Bilderberg, about unworkable flat-tax schemes, and about compli-cated & illogical reasons to move to a mountaintop wilderness and dig a well and stock up with several years worth of food (cartons of surplus MREs) & other necessities.
        Mostly loonies and mostly incoherent when they attempt to explain their reasoning.

         Well, one of the advantages of being self-taught is deciding, for example, that what I am is an ‘intuitive economist’. The self-taught Individual can look at something and see what others do not, simply from having no preconceptions.
        What I have discovered in this area is that the banking industry has a free ride.
        The Oligarchy – the One Percent of the population who own 60% of everything – and the Wealthy Class – the overlapping 20% who now own 83% of everything – at least wield their pseudo-power from being owners of all that they survey!
        Bankers actually own nothing, and they siphon off your tax dollars in an unchecked flood, in several ways.

* *          * *          * *          * *
BANKING - SCAM #1
        Here is how the scam works:
        The Federal Reserve Bank System was created by act of Congress in 1913, run by a Board of Directors. In February of 1936, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency were removed from that Board, so that the federal government actually has no vote on any matter. (Board members serve terms of fourteen years, often renewed; Alan Greenspan has been Chairman of ‘the Fed’ since 1987.)
        The original requirement for reserves of actual deposits (for each member bank) was 25% against the sum of their outstanding loans, an important improvement at the time. Bad deal actually, and the rate has since steadily shrunk until in 1981, the rate was dropped from 12% to 10%, where it now stands (with a rate of only 3% in some cases).
        What this means is that deposits of a million dollars can provide $900,000 in loans. But, assuming that the loans are re-deposited somewhere, the next level is to reserve 10% and loan out $810,000. The cycle repeats, so that the million dollars produces TEN million dollars in loans. (Mostly I got this part from a 1965 article by Craig S. Karpel.)
        Very scary, when the ephemeral underpinnings of the worldwide banking industry become clearly understood – and very dangerous. Should a crisis or crises occur at some point and cause havoc in massive ways – an unstable ‘housing bubble’ bursts, or a series of devastating hurricanes in the Gulf Coast or Atlantic Coast (one down, how many more after Katrina & Ophelia?) – then the economy will collapse beginning with the USA and reverber-ating around the world as fast as modems can spread the damage.
        This is one reason why the U.S. dollar has shrunk 25% since Dubya has been at the helm.

        The above is the tired, old formulaic rant that the Fed-haters have been trying to communicate, though their message has been poorly designed and absent of compelling logic. The banks say that they are fine, Chairman Greenspan issues vague sooth-statements, Dubya’s cohorts lie about every aspect of the economy, and the man on the street has no time to read about or think about such matters, what with being stuck in traffic enroute to two jobs anyway.

* *          * *          * *          * *
TAXES – SCAM #2
        A further point is almost obvious, but I have never heard others cover the subject – if someone has, it has not crossed my path.
        Much of the talk about getting a mortgage to buy a house promotes the ‘free lunch’ principle, that interest on your mortgage loan is a tax deduction, so there is no actual cost to you. But wait a minute. The reduction of your taxes is not by the amount of the interest, but a subtraction that results in a reduction of the taxes that you pay. What happens is actually a repayment to you for a portion – say 20% to 30% – of the interest paid to the bank.
        (The mortgage interest is posted to Schedule A and treated as an itemized deduction – that is, the amount of your interest is subtracted from your total income and no tax paid on it. The government excuses the tax, which is in effect a subsidy paid to the banks with you serving as innocent middle-man.)
        And where do these mortgage interest subsidy tax dollars come from? From the workers of America, either directly or indirectly.
        Fact: Sixty percent of US corporations pay no taxes. And any taxes that they do pay is covered by revenue, which comes from the buyer. And if the buyer is a wholesaler, then their tax amount comes from the retailer, and eventually from the end-user – YOU!
        Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve stated publicly, during testimony before Congress 21 May 2003 {quoted in WMail Issue #42} that: "Capital doesn't pay any taxes, only people pay taxes. What happens is, you impose taxes on organizations which then deflect them elsewhere. But at the end of the day, all taxes are paid by people."

* *          * *          * *          * *
IT GETS WORSE: SCAM #3
        Yes, it does get worse. With a million dollars in the bank – call this the Real Money amount – inflated to ten times that in loans as above, the banks are making interest, NOT on the Real Money amount, but on the Expanded Amount, which is merely Virtual Money.
        Real estate mortgages run about 5% interest these days. So laying this out precisely for you, we’ll take the sum of the checking & savings accounts of a bunch of workers, which comes to a million dollars [Real Money amount] scattered among banks or savings & loans or credit unions. The institutions pay the workers a measly 2% per annum on the savings accounts and nothing on the checking accounts. And then the bank smirks and loans it out thru nine-plus levels – and the banks rake in 5% interest on TEN million dollars in loans.
        Thus the true yield for your deposited Real Money amount is FIFTY PERCENT INTEREST per annum.
        And the banks reluctantly pay the owners of the Real Money amount the cheapo, rip-off rate of 2% per annum – or less.

        Take a deep breath, it gets still worse.
        If the million dollars of Real Money is expanded into ten million dollars by loaning it out for credit card debt, then the interest can reach, let’s say, 20% interest on average – miss just one payment and you lose your ‘low’ teaser rate – which computes out to TWO-HUNDRED PERCENT INTEREST against the Real Money deposits of one million dollars.
        You deposit a hundred dollars, the profit of the banks is $200, less the interest paid to you of two bucks at best.
        I asked a local bank branch manager if I had this figured out correctly, and she agreed with me, quite surprised that I had seen behind the wizard’s curtain. Her exact response was "Well, um, yes, if you want to look at it that way." Equivocal, but agreement.
        Take another deep breath and let this sink in.

        So no wonder that the banks push additional credit cards on even the worst credit-rated among you. If you have a job, the banks give you a card and then the Culture-Structure bombards you with advertising so that you will go out and over-spend – no sense having a card and not using it – so that the banks can double their money. And you are in debt forever, and working two jobs and tossing at night from rumors of down-sizing, and the wife thinks she may be pregnant again, and the soap opera continues.

* *          * *          * *          * *
FULL CIRCLE SCAM
        People with delicate hearts may not want to read further – still worse it does get.
        Taxes on your wages – and on products such as gasoline – go into local & state & federal coffers, which are stashed in banks as Real Money earning 50% to 200% interest – for the banks. And then those taxes go to cover your mortgage interest payments to the banks, which profits are then siphoned off by the Oligarchy.
        The Oligarchy makes from 50% to 200% pure unearned profit on every deposited Real Money dollar, whether worker savings or government accounts. Like Scrooge McDuck, the Oligarchy’s vaults are overflowing, so the Oligarchy makes loans to the Federal Government, making another 10% in interest on the National Debt, to the tune of a TRILLION-plus in unearned interest – an amount that is double the cost of the Defense Department budget, a mere piece of which is the Iraq War debacle.

        Every year.
        For every dollar that you have in the bank.
        For every citizen & resident of the USA, with similar rip-offs around the world.

        So that is why I don’t hold with the Fed-haters. They apparently smell something is wrong, but have not located the design of the mechanism, and failing to do so gives them no useful solution.
        The banking systems around the world are designed to be money-machines for the Oligarchy.

* *          * *          * *          * *
THE WORKING MINDS SOLUTION

•       Pay off your credit cards now.

•       Be very careful to use your bank debit card or cash only. (On long cross-country trips, I utilize credit cards and then pay off the cards online as soon as I get home.)

•       Make double payments on your car and then on your mortgage.

•       Get out of the stock market. Employer equity programs are okay – ESOP, 401k, stock options – but speculative stocks are a game that you will lose.

* *          * *          * *          * *
        Ayn Rand created the heroic character John Galt [in "Atlas Shrugged" 1957], whose mysterious intention was revealed as "stopping the engine of the world".
        John Galt lives! (And Hayduke lives!)
        You have the ability to stop the ‘engine of the world’, and I say that it is your responsibility to do so. Take the simple actions above. Each Individual can take direct action that restores their Individual Power, by refusing to blindly hand Power to the Oligarchy.
        Each and every reader has this Power, and your friends and neighbors do also. Tell them how to retrieve their lost Power.

        This is the beginning of the Revolution
        You will be either witness or participant.
        Or casualty.
        Choose.

* *          * *          * *          * *
WMail essay #18 at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay18.htm is entitled "The Stock Market Casino".
WMail essay #32 at http://www.working-minds.com/WMessay32.htm is entitled "Standing On Ayn Rand".

For info on Ayn Rand and on John Galt, go to http://working-minds.com/AynRand.htm.
For info on Hayduke, go to http://www.genordell.com/stores/western/EdwardAbbey.htm.
The Federal Reserve website is at http://federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/fract/.
See also Maison d'Être / Economics / Federal Reserve Page

[copyright 2005 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
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"The Big Three Unresolved Issues that neither party has much to say about [are] jobs, education, and health care."
— columnist Marc Cooper

"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad."
— Aldous Huxley [1894-1963]

"The Old Saying ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it’ was coined by Bert Lantz. To which I say,
'You, the Individual, do not need permission to fix what is broken and to improve what is not."
— G.E. Nordell

"The news is first."
— N.P.R. Radio slogan

"Fox News is an oxymoron."
— G.E. Nordell

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82]

"The path to true patriotism is confronting your government when it lies."
— Patrick Tillman, Sr. – father of sports star & war hero Pat Tillman [1976-2004]

"Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary's life.
When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime."
— Angela Davis

"They have no constitution over there [in England]."
— Limp Rushbaugh

"Stupidity is a powerful force in human affairs."
— Edward Abbey [1927-89]

"We must have people capable of real heroism. Not the kind of heroism which ends up in glory, but the kind of heroism which ends up
in the truth, in what works, in what is honest and real being brought out and made available to others."
— Werner Erhard

"Chance furnishes me with what I need. I am like a man who stumbles along. My foot strikes something,
I bend over and it is exactly what I want."
— author James Joyce [1882-1941]

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers.
To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
— Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

 

N E X T   I S S U E: 'Watts's Circle'

FOLLOWED BY: 'Theory Z'

Issue #55: "Joining the Circle"
[December 2005]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

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

==>  Great article on the billions of bribery money unaccounted for in Iraq
        at http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_24/cover.html

==>  A long list of Iraq War veterans are running for Congress as Democrats
        http://www.fightingdems.com/

==>  Postal rates are going up January 8th, overall 5.4% – the fourth time since this ezine began;
        back in mid-2000 the stamps were 27¢ each. That is an increase of 44% in 5 years – like your paycheck, right?.

==>  Having fun posting on my new blog, for matters that aren’t entirely philoso­phical or activist. The domain
        DatelineChamesa.com is a redirect to Google’s Blogger at http://DatelineChamesa.blogspot.com/ .

==>  Regime change in November 2006!! See the latest on the TraitorGate / TreasonGate / PlameGate scandal
        at http://www.working-minds.com/TreasonGate.htm

==>  2005 was an exciting year: My move to New Mexico is complete, the year-long Team Management &
        Leadership Program at Landmark Education was outstanding, my noir detective novel “Backlot Requiem”
        was published in the U.S.A and in Croatia, and Patrick Fiztgerald is indicting the White House cabal. Hooray!

        I’m already back at work on the [delayed] sequel novel “Desert Riff”, and my new scanner was purchased
        expressly to be able to scan the 600-page “Working Minds: Philosophy of Empowerment” manuscript back
        onto disk (don’t ask!) – so the plan is to publish both books in 2006.

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        Alan W.Watts [1915-73] is generally acknowledged as a leader in bringing Zen Buddhist teachings to America. He was connected with the Beat movement in the late Fifties and was considered a mentor to the hippie movement of the Sixties. He lectured and wrote poetry & articles, and one major method of his influence was radio broadcasts from San Francisco that were widely syndicated; many of his published books are transcripts of those radio programs.
        Playboy Magazine’s December 1965 issue included a short article by Watts entitled “The Circle of Sex”, which stuck with me all these years; I located a copy and re-read it as background for this essay. Watts gives credit in the article to Gavin Arthur [1901-72] for the original ideas, which are also dependent on prior thinkers. Arthur was a classic eccentric of San Francisco: astrologer, gay activist, and mentor to major Beat figures, such as Cassady & Ginsberg & Snyder (Ginsberg wrote a well-known poem about Gavin Arthur); one internet reference says that Watts was his son-in-law. (There is a rare book published in 1966 with the title “The Circle of Sex” and naming the author as Gavin Arthur.)

* *          * *          * *          * *
        This essay has two parts: a re-telling of the principles of the Circle of Sexuality, and then a description of the evolutionary basis for homosexuality. The two ideas are correlates. [There is nothing in the following discussion that need be withheld from any age group, though ‘parental guidance may be advised’. Anyone easily offended probably already is.]

        The central premise, and magazine illustration, is modelled on a clock face, with twelve positions. The topic requires being clear about the difference between sex and gender. Herein ‘sex’ means biology, as having either XX or XY chromosomes; sexuality has to do with physical actions. The term ‘gender’ has to do with sexual expression, which is somewhat malleable.
        The descriptions below are suggestive, rather than definitive – using the information found here as labels or precise types, to pigeon-hole oneself or another, defeats the purpose.

        The base axis is 12 o’clock versus 6 o’clock.
        Watts names these positions Darby and Joan. For the 12 o’clock position I prefer John: the basic male of Western civilization, happily married & monogomous, with full-time career employment, wife and kids. The suburban wage-earner, the urban blue-collar worker, the independent farmer or trucker.
        The 6 o’clock position is John’s mate, Wilma: the basic female of Western civilization, also happily married & monogomous, whether homemaker or wage-earner, with husband and kids. The suburbanite, the urban mother-figure, the engine of many small towns.

        Their diametric opposites are the 9-3 positions; Watts calls these Sappho and Dorian. I’ll call the 3 o’clock position Bruce: he looks and acts masculine, but his sexual desire is focused on males – basic unembarrased homosexual. I’ll call the 9 o’clock position Ellen: looking and appearing feminine, but with lesbian sexual desires. These are the gay-lesbian individuals who know who they are and have nothing to prove; if they are in any way neurotic or unhappy, it is because they have the same internal problems as John and Wilma – dealing with life at any position on the Circle takes work, and the Culture-Structure is designed to prevent success.

        Movement on the Circle is generally clockwise; the 9-3 axis rotates to the 10-4 positions. Individuals here often suffer societal rejection, and thus often do not accept themselves as they are. Watts names the 10 o’clock position the Dyke – the very masculine female – but I like Gertrude (after Gertrude Stein, a pioneer in Self-hood). Watts names the 4 o’clock position the Quean – note the spelling: Webster’s defines this word as ‘base or slutty woman’, which may have evolved into the derogatory term ‘queen’. Let’s instead call this type Oscar (after Mr. Wilde) – the feminine male.

        The line between the sexes is between the 10-11 and 4-5 breaks.
        Watts describes the 11 o’clock position as a lesbian in a female body (the reverse of the masculine-female Gertrude) and calls him Don Juan – the foppish but secure seducer of women, with no intention of middle-class monogomy. The name Hugh comes to mind, after Mr Hefner, of course.
        Watts names the 5 o’clock position Lady C., after a combination of Lady Chatterly and Catherine the Great. I like the name Kate, which has an air of Ms. Hepburn (regardless of her life’s details) – this gender-clock position is the tomboy and-or nymphomaniac. This is the gay male in the female body.
        In both types, the individual is most comfortable with the opposite sex, for either friendship or sex.

        The 1-7 axis is less sexual than the ones above; the common thread is strong devotion to some vocation outside family, individuals who live for the joy of work. Watts calls the 1 o’clock position Pioneer, the male who is never home, perhaps spending time out of doors or watching sports with buddies, or running an organization or business. I’ll call this guy Bud (Bubba invokes too much cultural bias). Watts calls the 7 o’clock position the Clubwoman, and refines that by invoking Jacqueline Kennedy – the woman who is never home, perhaps out shopping or running an organization or business. Jackie works for position 7.

        Watts describes a second ‘watershed’, one between masculine and feminine (gender) as occurring at the 7-8 and 1-2 breaks. Watts also makes the point that each individual may waver among a few nearby gender-clock positions over the years, either in practice or merely in attitude or social behavior.
        He names the 8 o’clock position Career Girl, defined as sexually ambiguous or bi-sexual; the male 2 o’clock position is Caesar, the insecure tough guy. For both of these positions, sexuality is merely a tool in one’s arsenal, used for manipulation of others, secondary to ambition. Soap opera people, the ball-breaker and the knee-breaker; let’s call them Stacy and Gino.

* *          * *          * *          * *
        The 1965 article further expands on the principles by stating that the Circle itself is really a sphere, with the twelve types along the equator, the hot ‘sexual latitude of love’. Lots of points on the spherical surface to move among and between over a lifetime, as one navigates from society to culture to peer-group.
        The twelve described gender-types – John, Bud, Gino; Bruce, Oscar, Kate; Wilma, Jackie, Stacy; Ellen, Gertrude, Hugh – may or may not fit who you believe yourself to be. You are infinitely more complex than that.
        What the concept of the twelve types provides, however, is an understanding that nobody else quite fits a specific gender-clock position either.
        So why is so much effort expended in force-fitting everyone into the John-Wilma model?
        The force-fit itself is unnatural, otherwise, no force would be required. If one or several gender-types seem somewhat parallel to your internal experience, then give yourself permission to *BE* that gender-type. Nature is there, why mess with it?
        Much simpler, though, is to work at being your Self – let your Working Mind guide your behavior, and look not to the anti-Self propoganda of the Culture-Structure for guidance. Nor to the twelve positions on the Circle of Sexuality.
        Be your Self; the rest will work out just fine.

* *          * *          * *          * *
        One of the central arguments by the troglodytes that try to ‘prove’ that homosexuality cannot be ‘natural’ is that no progeny result, and thus no evolutionary benefit can exist. Now re-think that in light of the Circle of Sexuality above.
        First, if the 12 gender-clock positions describe reality; that is, if you know people in each gender-type, there must be some benefit, otherwise that reality would not be in place. Suffice it to say that the multiplicity of positions on the gender-clock produces a rich variety to choose from, for oneself and for selecting one’s partner. (Or partners: triads & menages make for a too-complcated array of options for this essay.)
        If one chooses and commits to the John-Wilma career-track, or the mommy-track, then have at it. Be monogomous, drive a Toyota to work, attend P.T.A. meetings, spend the holidays with the multi-generational clan.
        But if such is not your ideal, even for this stage in life, then no outside person has the power or the right to force any Working Mind into conforming to their ideal. The planet has too many bodies anyway, sucking up too much oxygen and spewing noxious gases, so tell them to back off.
        The Right To Choose covers more than what is on the tube or on the shelves at Wal-Mart.

* *          * *          * *          * *
        When I worked in security, one of the radio shows that I listened to on weekend patrol was often Dr. Dean Edell’s health show. One short news item that he read also stayed with me, as it clearly explained the existence of homosexuality, which remains a topic of ‘controversy’ even after the strides made by the women’s rights movement and by the gay liberation movement.
        The gist of that radio paragraph is that one of the evolutionary changes in homo sapiens is the development of the milder male and the more-macho female. The evolutionary benefit is producing the male who spends more time at home and-or the female who can take care of herself, which works well in a civilized – i.e. modern, Western – culture that no longer requires the John Wayne macho male or the subservient Stepford Wife. The milder male is a better parent, and the strong female needs less supervision.
        Where evolution kicks in is with the operation of Mendelian genetic inheritence. Though unproven, the passing down in the DNA of a milder male trait or a stronger female trait is conceivable and possibly quite beneficial.
        What is often overlooked is the machinery of genetic inheritence, which repeatedly includes random results. Certain such genetic results are called ‘sports’, wherein either long suppressed traits – body hair, eye color, forehead ridge – reappear after seeming to be lost for generations or when new combinations just happen. Thus people with six fingers or albinism or eyes of two different colors.
        What Dr. Dean’s reportage points to is that a certain amount of milder male or stronger female will be handed down by both parents, and the result may be people located on the left and right side of the Circle of Sexuality, the 9-3 axis.
        Two doses of such a gene would produce an extra amount of something. This could indeed explain the butch lesbian (two doses of stronger female?) and the gay male (two doses of milder male?). Add in multiple gene-strands, and the twelve positions on the gender-clock are explained.
        The point here is not to prove this evolutionary process, but to open the concept to examination. The non-straight male or female may not be directly beneficial for the species, BUT the concept certainly matches the processes of Mendelian genetics, wherein the true benefit is the milder [civilized] male and the stronger [liberated] female – each of whom is better suited for life in urbanized, industrialized, technocentric 21st Century life.
        The albino or the six-fingered individual is rare enough to lack formation of a rights movement, but the 15 percent or so of the population who might define themselves as other than John and Wilma or Hugh and Kate or Bud and Jackie have (a) a right to exist because they exist (pure Ayn Rand Objectivism), and (b) have a right to be left alone (per the U.S. Constitution) – at the very least.

        Repositioning others from one gender-clock position to the artificial John-Wilma ideal is absurd.
        The U.S. taliban should just shut up and get to work on really important matters that affect us all, such as the U.S. National Debt, treason in high places, pollution in our physical world, economic slavery and over-population.
        No one is going to save you from the imminent extinction of Mankind – the predictable result of rampant ignorance, superstition, greed and cultural irresponsibility.
        You and many others must join the fight for Mankind, or Mankind is extinct.

Alan W. Watts Pages at Maison d'Être Philosophy Bookstore

[copyright 2005 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
=============

“Set yourself the bolder course.”
— Bob Seger song lyric

“Knowledge liberates mankind from superstition.”
— James D. Watson

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction
depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another.
¶ “We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from
fearful men – not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend just causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”
— Edward R. Murrow, on "See It Now" [CBS News] 6 April 1954

“To teach faith as science . . . to impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.”
— Charles Krauthammer, Time Magazine columnist

“Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.”
— R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]

“I have strong opinions of my own, but I don't always agree with them.”
— George H.W. Bush [1924-2019]

“Temples are to be dedicated to the gods, and books to good men.”
— Aristides the Just [530-468 BCE]

“The threat from global warming is greater than that posed by international terrorism...
London, New York and New Orleans are seriously threatened by melting ice caps.”
— Sir David King, the British government's chief scientific adviser [in 2004]

“There is no right time for the truth.”
— Emile du Châtelet [1706-49]

“When the people who are supposed to be running this country go around saying [that] they aren't crooks
and everyone knows [that] they are, this country is in very big trouble.”
— Brad Solomon

“This world is not a practice world.”
— G.E. Nordell

“Keep your eyes upon the road / And your hands upon the wheel”
— The Doors band song lyric

“Success is overrated.”
— Keith Olberman

“Before Osama, [Dubya] let Sosa get away.”
— Michael Feldman on "What D'ya Know?" radio program

“The Self is the individual who is responsible and who can tolerate risk.”
— G.E. Nordell

“All that we have to do is make the people in our lives feel special; all that requires is to tell them the truth.”
— G.E. Nordell

“The economic status quo cannot be maintained long into the future. If radical changes are not made,
we face loss of well-being and possible ecological catastrophe.”
— Scientific American Magazine, September 2005

“If you don't go to somebody's funeral, they won't come to yours.”
— Yogi Berra

“Go ye forth and share.”
— Roy Fultun

 

N E X T   I S S U E: 'The 51% Solution'

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