Sunday, July 20, 2014
Saturday, March 12, 2011
WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP
The Plan to Steal Everything and Sell the People into Slavery
Wisconsin Death Trip
By Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers
March 11, 2011 "Counterpunch" - -On Wednesday evening, in a veritable Night of the Long Knives, Wisconsin's integrity was brutally murdered on the floor of the state Capitol in Madison. On 9 March, integrity and trust built up over a century was obliterated as Wisconsin state senators quickly reversed course and cleaved its budget "repair bill" in half. Financial items require a quorum, thus, collective bargaining was split off from the budget repair bill and voted on separately so as to permit its being voted on now. Even so, this still broke the state's open meeting law requiring 24 hours' notice to ensure transparency. Instead, the Wisconsin senate Republicans pulled out this new legislation without advance notice and began voting, leaving only a stunned Democratic legislator, Peter Barca, to read the open meeting law out loud to prevent the senators from voting. The senate voted over his objections anyway.
The Wisconsin brand has always centered on integrity. This was really about the only distinctive comparative advantage the state could lay claim to. Now, it is gone. With collective bargaining abolished, huge issues remain beyond labor. The privatization of public assets is now on the agenda, with the yet-to-be-voted-on budget repair bill.
Wisconsin is a state that invented Progressive Era Republican rule in the 19th and early 20th centuries under such progressive populists as Robert LaFollette. Under their tenure, rent-seeking from the public domain and similar insider corruption were checked by a strong public sector anchored in integrity. The state's long history of reforms nurtured a prosperous middle class and made it a model of clean government, solid infrastructure, trade unionism and high value-added industry managed by socialists and the LaFollette Progressives.
Fast-forward to Scott Walker today. Representing a new breed apart from Wisconsin's earlier Republicans, he is seeking to re-birth the asset-grabbing Gilded Age. A plague of rent-seekers is seeking quick gains by privatizng the public sector and erecting tollbooths to charge access fees to roads, power plants and other basic infrastructure.
Economics textbooks, along with Fox News and shout radio commentators, spread the myth that fortunes are gained productively by investing in capital equipment and employing labor to produce goods and services that people want to buy. This may be how economies prosper, but it is not how fortunes are most easily made. One need only to turn to the 19th-century novelists such as Balzac to be reminded that behind every family fortune lies a great theft, often long-forgotten or even undiscovered.
But who is one to steal from? Most wealth in history has been acquired either by armed conquest of the land, or by political insider dealing, such as the great US railroad land giveaways of the mid 19th century. The great American fortunes have been founded by prying land, public enterprises and monopoly rights from the public domain, because that's where the assets are to take.
Throughout history the world's most successful economies have been those that have kept this kind of primitive accumulation in check. The US economy today is faltering largely because its past barriers against rent-seeking are being breached.
Nowhere is this more disturbingly on display than in Wisconsin. Today, Milwaukee – Wisconsin's largest city, and once the richest in America – is ranked among the four poorest large cities in the United States. Wisconsin is just the most recent case in this great heist. The US government itself and its regulatory agencies effectively are being privatized as the "final stage" of neoliberal economic doctrine.
A peek into Governor Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" reveals a shop of horrors that is just the opposite of actually repairing the budget. Among the items listed in the bill until Wednesday night were selloffs of state power generation facilities – in no-bid contracts notoriously prone to insider dealing.
The 37 facilities he wants to sell off that produce heating and cooling at low cost to the state's universities and prisons. Walker's budget repair bill would have unloaded them at a low price, presumably to campaign contributors such as Koch Industries – and then stick the bill for producing this power at higher rates to Wisconsin taxpayers in perpetuity. (And this is all being sold as a "taxpayer relief" plan!) Invariably, this will make its way into new legislation once attention is diverted from the current controversy.
The budget bill also plans to tear down the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS). This is not New Jersey, where a succession of corrupt governments have underfunded (read: stolen) the state pension system in order to shift resources to pay for budget shortfalls in general revenues caused by tax breaks for the rich. The WRS is one of the nation's most stable, well-funded and best-managed pension systems. Although Wisconsin is not a big state, the WRS has amassed $75bn in reserves, and pays out handsome pensions to its public retirees, without needing new public subsidy. The Walker bill has language providing for tearing down this system, raiding its assets to pay for further tax cuts for the rich (especially property owners), and then throwing Wall Street a meaty bone as public employees would be shifted to 401k plans handled by money managers on commission.
In a separate proposal, Governor Walker would start privatizing the University of Wisconsin's two flagship doctorate-granting campuses. Ironically, the land grant universities – of which Wisconsin has long been among the best – were created by protectionist 19th-century Republicans as an alternative approach to British free-market doctrine, which dominated the prestigious and largely anglophile Ivy League universities. These universities, like their German counterparts, taught a new economic policy of state management and public enterprise that formed the basis for subsequent US and German development.
Walker would kill off this tradition, and return intellectual production to the highest bidder.
Other proposals suggest selling off Wisconsin's public northwoods lands with their cornucopia of mineral and timber wealth. And much more is said to be in the works.
So Walker's war is not only against the Democrats and labour, it is against Wisconsin's Progressive Era institutions. His policy threatens to pauperize the state and deal a coup de grace to Progressive Era institutions and impoverish the state's middle class. Contra John Maynard Keynes's gentle suggestion of "euthanasia of the rentier", it is the middle class that is being euthanized – throughout North America and Europe.
Michael Hudson is professor of Economics at the University of Missouri (Kansas City) and chief economic advisor to Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). He is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002). He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.com.
Jeffrey Sommers is a professor at Raritan Valley College, NJ, visiting professor at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, former Fulbrighter to Latvia, and fellow at Boris Kagarlitsky’s Institute for Global Studies in Moscow. He can be reached at jsommers@sseriga.edu.lv.
Wisconsin Death Trip
By Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers
March 11, 2011 "Counterpunch" - -On Wednesday evening, in a veritable Night of the Long Knives, Wisconsin's integrity was brutally murdered on the floor of the state Capitol in Madison. On 9 March, integrity and trust built up over a century was obliterated as Wisconsin state senators quickly reversed course and cleaved its budget "repair bill" in half. Financial items require a quorum, thus, collective bargaining was split off from the budget repair bill and voted on separately so as to permit its being voted on now. Even so, this still broke the state's open meeting law requiring 24 hours' notice to ensure transparency. Instead, the Wisconsin senate Republicans pulled out this new legislation without advance notice and began voting, leaving only a stunned Democratic legislator, Peter Barca, to read the open meeting law out loud to prevent the senators from voting. The senate voted over his objections anyway.
The Wisconsin brand has always centered on integrity. This was really about the only distinctive comparative advantage the state could lay claim to. Now, it is gone. With collective bargaining abolished, huge issues remain beyond labor. The privatization of public assets is now on the agenda, with the yet-to-be-voted-on budget repair bill.
Wisconsin is a state that invented Progressive Era Republican rule in the 19th and early 20th centuries under such progressive populists as Robert LaFollette. Under their tenure, rent-seeking from the public domain and similar insider corruption were checked by a strong public sector anchored in integrity. The state's long history of reforms nurtured a prosperous middle class and made it a model of clean government, solid infrastructure, trade unionism and high value-added industry managed by socialists and the LaFollette Progressives.
Fast-forward to Scott Walker today. Representing a new breed apart from Wisconsin's earlier Republicans, he is seeking to re-birth the asset-grabbing Gilded Age. A plague of rent-seekers is seeking quick gains by privatizng the public sector and erecting tollbooths to charge access fees to roads, power plants and other basic infrastructure.
Economics textbooks, along with Fox News and shout radio commentators, spread the myth that fortunes are gained productively by investing in capital equipment and employing labor to produce goods and services that people want to buy. This may be how economies prosper, but it is not how fortunes are most easily made. One need only to turn to the 19th-century novelists such as Balzac to be reminded that behind every family fortune lies a great theft, often long-forgotten or even undiscovered.
But who is one to steal from? Most wealth in history has been acquired either by armed conquest of the land, or by political insider dealing, such as the great US railroad land giveaways of the mid 19th century. The great American fortunes have been founded by prying land, public enterprises and monopoly rights from the public domain, because that's where the assets are to take.
Throughout history the world's most successful economies have been those that have kept this kind of primitive accumulation in check. The US economy today is faltering largely because its past barriers against rent-seeking are being breached.
Nowhere is this more disturbingly on display than in Wisconsin. Today, Milwaukee – Wisconsin's largest city, and once the richest in America – is ranked among the four poorest large cities in the United States. Wisconsin is just the most recent case in this great heist. The US government itself and its regulatory agencies effectively are being privatized as the "final stage" of neoliberal economic doctrine.
A peek into Governor Walker's so-called "budget repair bill" reveals a shop of horrors that is just the opposite of actually repairing the budget. Among the items listed in the bill until Wednesday night were selloffs of state power generation facilities – in no-bid contracts notoriously prone to insider dealing.
The 37 facilities he wants to sell off that produce heating and cooling at low cost to the state's universities and prisons. Walker's budget repair bill would have unloaded them at a low price, presumably to campaign contributors such as Koch Industries – and then stick the bill for producing this power at higher rates to Wisconsin taxpayers in perpetuity. (And this is all being sold as a "taxpayer relief" plan!) Invariably, this will make its way into new legislation once attention is diverted from the current controversy.
The budget bill also plans to tear down the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS). This is not New Jersey, where a succession of corrupt governments have underfunded (read: stolen) the state pension system in order to shift resources to pay for budget shortfalls in general revenues caused by tax breaks for the rich. The WRS is one of the nation's most stable, well-funded and best-managed pension systems. Although Wisconsin is not a big state, the WRS has amassed $75bn in reserves, and pays out handsome pensions to its public retirees, without needing new public subsidy. The Walker bill has language providing for tearing down this system, raiding its assets to pay for further tax cuts for the rich (especially property owners), and then throwing Wall Street a meaty bone as public employees would be shifted to 401k plans handled by money managers on commission.
In a separate proposal, Governor Walker would start privatizing the University of Wisconsin's two flagship doctorate-granting campuses. Ironically, the land grant universities – of which Wisconsin has long been among the best – were created by protectionist 19th-century Republicans as an alternative approach to British free-market doctrine, which dominated the prestigious and largely anglophile Ivy League universities. These universities, like their German counterparts, taught a new economic policy of state management and public enterprise that formed the basis for subsequent US and German development.
Walker would kill off this tradition, and return intellectual production to the highest bidder.
Other proposals suggest selling off Wisconsin's public northwoods lands with their cornucopia of mineral and timber wealth. And much more is said to be in the works.
So Walker's war is not only against the Democrats and labour, it is against Wisconsin's Progressive Era institutions. His policy threatens to pauperize the state and deal a coup de grace to Progressive Era institutions and impoverish the state's middle class. Contra John Maynard Keynes's gentle suggestion of "euthanasia of the rentier", it is the middle class that is being euthanized – throughout North America and Europe.
Michael Hudson is professor of Economics at the University of Missouri (Kansas City) and chief economic advisor to Rep. Dennis Kucinich. He has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). He is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002). He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.com.
Jeffrey Sommers is a professor at Raritan Valley College, NJ, visiting professor at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, former Fulbrighter to Latvia, and fellow at Boris Kagarlitsky’s Institute for Global Studies in Moscow. He can be reached at jsommers@sseriga.edu.lv.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm
War Is A Racket
A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
Smedley Butler
WAR is a racket. It always has been
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.
The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?
Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:
"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."
Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.
Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.
But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?
Yes, and what does it profit the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.
CHAPTER TWO
WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?
The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.
Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.
Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump – or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!
Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.
There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.
Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.
Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.
Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.
A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.
Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's take leather.
For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.
International Nickel Company – and you can't have a war without nickel – showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.
American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.
Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.
And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public – even before a Senate investigatory body.
But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.
Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought – and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.
There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it – so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.
Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches – one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to France!
Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.
There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.
Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000 – count them if you live long enough – was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per cent.
Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them – a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers – all got theirs.
Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment – knapsacks and the things that go to fill them – crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them – and they will do it all over again the next time.
There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.
Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.
The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The seams opened up – and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.
It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.
Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee – with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator – to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.
Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses – that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.
There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.
Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.
CHAPTER THREE
WHO PAYS THE BILLS?
Who provides the profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us – the people – got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par – and above. Then the bankers collected their profits.
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men – men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.
Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.
Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.
In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.
There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement – the young boys couldn't stand it.
That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead – they have paid their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically wounded – they are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too – they paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam – on which a profit had been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain – with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.
But don't forget – the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.
Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In the Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got their share – at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.
Napoleon once said,
"All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them."
So by developing the Napoleonic system – the medal business – the government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.
In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.
So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side...it is His will that the Germans be killed.
And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies...to please the same God. That was a part of the general propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.
All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed.
But wait!
Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance – something the employer pays for in an enlightened state – and that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.
Then, the most crowning insolence of all – he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.
We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back – when they came back from the war and couldn't find work – at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!
Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly – his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.
When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too – as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.
And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET!
WELL, it's a racket, all right.
A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers –
yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket – that and nothing else.
Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people – those who do the suffering and still pay the price – make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.
Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant – all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war – voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms – to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.
There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide – and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.
At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.
The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.
To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
We must take the profit out of war.
We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
CHAPTER FIVE
TO HELL WITH WAR!
I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into another war.
Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied promise that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go forth to suffer and die.
Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?
Money.
An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the President and his group:
"There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars.
If we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money...and Germany won't.
So..."
Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars."
Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.
And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.
Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?
The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.
The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any potential foe.
There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.
The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.
But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.
If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war – even the munitions makers.
So...I say, TO HELL WITH WAR
A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
Smedley Butler
WAR is a racket. It always has been
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.
Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.
The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?
Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:
"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."
Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.
Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.
But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?
Yes, and what does it profit the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.
CHAPTER TWO
WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?
The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven't paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children's children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.
Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed. Let's just take a few examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn't one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn't much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let's look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.
Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump – or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!
Or, let's take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.
There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let's look at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.
Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.
Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.
Let's group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.
A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.
Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren't the only ones. There are still others. Let's take leather.
For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That's all. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.
International Nickel Company – and you can't have a war without nickel – showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.
American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.
Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.
And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public – even before a Senate investigatory body.
But here's how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.
Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought – and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.
There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn't any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it – so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.
Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches – one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to France!
Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.
There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.
Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000 – count them if you live long enough – was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per cent.
Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them – a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers – all got theirs.
Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment – knapsacks and the things that go to fill them – crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them – and they will do it all over again the next time.
There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.
Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn't ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.
The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn't float! The seams opened up – and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.
It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.
Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee – with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator – to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.
Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses – that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.
There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.
Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.
CHAPTER THREE
WHO PAYS THE BILLS?
Who provides the profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation. We paid the bankers their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and sold them back at $84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy for them to depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us – the people – got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them. Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par – and above. Then the bankers collected their profits.
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men – men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.
Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.
Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.
In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.
There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden cutting off of that excitement – the young boys couldn't stand it.
That's a part of the bill. So much for the dead – they have paid their part of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically wounded – they are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too – they paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam – on which a profit had been made. They paid another part in the training camps where they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the trenches where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time; where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain – with the moans and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.
But don't forget – the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.
Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government, or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In the Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels, the soldiers all got their share – at least, they were supposed to. Then it was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier anyway. Then soldiers couldn't bargain for their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but the soldier couldn't.
Napoleon once said,
"All men are enamored of decorations...they positively hunger for them."
So by developing the Napoleonic system – the medal business – the government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.
In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription. They were made to feel ashamed if they didn't join the army.
So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To kill the Germans. God is on our side...it is His will that the Germans be killed.
And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the allies...to please the same God. That was a part of the general propaganda, built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.
All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed.
But wait!
Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance – something the employer pays for in an enlightened state – and that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.
Then, the most crowning insolence of all – he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.
We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back – when they came back from the war and couldn't find work – at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!
Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly – his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters.
When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too – as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices.
And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET!
WELL, it's a racket, all right.
A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers –
yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn't they?
They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket – that and nothing else.
Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people – those who do the suffering and still pay the price – make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.
Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant – all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war – voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms – to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.
There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide – and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.
At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.
The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.
To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
We must take the profit out of war.
We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war.
We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
CHAPTER FIVE
TO HELL WITH WAR!
I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed into another war.
Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had "kept us out of war" and on the implied promise that he would "keep us out of war." Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare war on Germany.
In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go forth to suffer and die.
Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?
Money.
An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic language, this is what he told the President and his group:
"There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters) five or six billion dollars.
If we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we, England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money...and Germany won't.
So..."
Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were told it was a "war to make the world safe for democracy" and a "war to end all wars."
Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy.
And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.
Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?
The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.
The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more armament for itself and less for any potential foe.
There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That is for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were possible, would not be enough.
The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships, not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built, for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.
But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.
If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war – even the munitions makers.
So...I say, TO HELL WITH WAR
Saturday, January 29, 2011
by Kassim Ahmad on Wednesday, 26 January 2011 at 11:12
TRAGEDI BERNAMA ISLAM
Oleh: Kassim Ahmad
kassim311@yahoo.com
25 Januari, 2011
Bayangkan jika hari ini Nabi Muhammad turun balik ke Malaysia (tentunya tiada siapa yang mengenal beliau), apa akan jadi? Beliau akan melihat orang Islam mendakwa nama "Allah" itu milik mereka saja; orang Islam tidak mahu berdebat tentang agama dengan orang bukan-Islam kerana takut; orang Islam bergaduh sama sendiri kerana berbeza mazhab; orang Islam mahu bergaduh dengan orang bukan Islam kerana azan; orang Islam melarang orang bukan-Islam memberi salam; orang Islam ada kasta paderi, seperti orang Hindu dan Kristian; dan banyak lagi ajaran baru yang tidak diajar oleh beliau tetapi yang diamalkan oleh orang Islam. Beliau akan menitiskan air-mata, dan akan menegur mereka. Lalu orang Islam akan menghalau beliau keluar dari Malaysia, kerana beliau bahaya kepada ketenteraman awam!
Inilah "Islam" setelah ia berada di Malaysia selama 600 tahun lebih!
Malah beliau akan menghadapi nasib yang sama di Mekah tempat lahir beliau dan tempat beliau menerima dan menyampaikan Quran kepada dunia.
Inilah sebabnya saya menamakan esei ini "Tragedi Bernama Islam." Tragedi, kerana agama Islam yang direadi Allah bertukar menjadi agama yang tiada bezanya daripada agama-agama lain yang telah menyeleweng, seperti Yahudi, Kristian, Hindu dan lain-lain; namun orang Islam sendiri tidak menyedari penyelewengan mereka. Saya boleh ketawa, kerana lucunya, tetapi mana boleh saya ketawa? Ini perkara serius. Mana boleh kita ketawa? Kita harus mencari jalan keluar dari penyelewengan besar ini. Sekarang juga.
Saya telah menulis buku, risalah dan banyak esei tentang kejatuhan Islam dan penyelewengan umat Islam. Tentu ramai orang telah membaca tulisan-tulisan ini. Di antara orang-orang yang telah membacanya tentulah termasuk kaum sarjana dan pemimpin-pemimpin politik dan agama. Mengapa mereka tidak bertindak dan mengambil langkah-langkah untuk mengatasinya? Mungkin kerana, dalam masa, katalah 100 tahun yang lalu, bermula dengan Jamaluddin al-Afghani (m. 1897) dan Muhammad Abduh (m. 1905), beberapa rumusan penyelesaian yang berbeza telah dikemukakan oleh beratus, mungkin beribu, orang sarjana dan cerdik-pandai yang telah mengkaji perkara ini. Mengapa belum diketemui jawapannya?
Ini bermakna orang Islam sendiri keliru! Umat Islam di seluruh dunia sudah jatuh sejak lama. Tidakkah ini nyata? Tidak perlu kajian!
Ingat kembali amaran Tuhan yang jelas dalam Quran. "Rasul akan berkata: "Tuanku, umatku telah membelakangkan Quran ini. Demikianlah Kami wujudkan bagi setiap nabi musuh dari kalangan mereka yang berdosa. Tuanmu cukup sebagai pembimbing dan penolong." (25: 30-31). Dua ayat yang dahsyat ini wujud dalam Quran dari awal. Bermakna Tuhan Maha Mengetahui nampak kemungkinan umat Islam (zaman Nabi Muhammad) akan melakukan kesilapan yang sama, seperti umat-umat lain dulu, lalu, melalui mulut rasul-Nya Muhammad, mengeluarkan amaran besar ini. Mengapa tokoh-tokoh agama kita tidak memberi perhatian yang cukup kepada amaran ini? Umpamanya, adat kita, di seluruh dunia Islam, melagukan Quran tanpa faham (bagi mereka yang bahasa Arab bukan bahasa ibunda) jelas melanggar peringatan ini. Bagi mereka yang bahasa Arab bahasa ibunda, mereka diajar supaya merujuk makna ayat-ayat Quran kepada golongan ulama (dengan bahasa lain, kasta paderi!). Kononnya, huraian para paderi ini cukup dan muktamad (istlahnya, ijmak )! Saya menulis dalam memoir saya, Mencari Jalan Pulang: Tidak ada kaedah yang lebih pintar daripada ini untuk menyembunyikan Quran daripada umat Islam. Seperti yang diungkapkan oleh pegawai-pegawai raja dalam zaman feudal Melayu dulu apabila sesorang itu hendak dihukum: "Sudah sampailah takdir Tuhan kepada anda!" Yakni untuk disembeleh!) Demikianlah umat Islam juga membuat kesilapan yang sama, seperti masyarakat-masyarakat agama lain.
Dalam penyelidikan saya, apa yang dipanggil Hadith atau Sunnah itulah punca utama penyelewengan umat Islam. Quran dibuat buku nyanyian; Hadith dibuat buku pegangan! Selepas itu, umat Islam mewujudkan suatu kasta paderi (disebut ‘ulama’, yang tiada dalam ajaran Islam yang asal)) untuk mentafsirkan agama bagi mereka, seperti orang Yahudi, Kristian dan Hindu. Kemudian mereka pisahkan ilmu kepada dua kelompok yang berlainan: ilmu agama dan ilmu dunia.
Ketiga-tiga faktor ini menjaminkan mereka akan kekal terperangkap dalam penjara yang mereka bina sendiri! Malang seribua kali malang! Mereka anggap penjara itu istana yang cantik! Mereka bangga duduk di dalamnya!
Kalau saya hendak menceritakan ini semua dengan terperinci, saya kena tulis sepuluh jilid. Malangnya, saya tidak ada masa. Kita semua pun tidak ada masa. Kita perlu keluar dari penjara ini dengan segera. Nasib baik Quran, satu-satunya buku yang dijamin oleh Tuhan terpelihara daripada korupsi, masih ada pada kita. Quran akan datang balik kepada kita dan kepada seluruh dunia "inilah yang akan mengeluarkan kita dari penjara dan akan menyelamatkan kita daripada kemusnahan yang menanti
TRAGEDI BERNAMA ISLAM
Oleh: Kassim Ahmad
kassim311@yahoo.com
25 Januari, 2011
Bayangkan jika hari ini Nabi Muhammad turun balik ke Malaysia (tentunya tiada siapa yang mengenal beliau), apa akan jadi? Beliau akan melihat orang Islam mendakwa nama "Allah" itu milik mereka saja; orang Islam tidak mahu berdebat tentang agama dengan orang bukan-Islam kerana takut; orang Islam bergaduh sama sendiri kerana berbeza mazhab; orang Islam mahu bergaduh dengan orang bukan Islam kerana azan; orang Islam melarang orang bukan-Islam memberi salam; orang Islam ada kasta paderi, seperti orang Hindu dan Kristian; dan banyak lagi ajaran baru yang tidak diajar oleh beliau tetapi yang diamalkan oleh orang Islam. Beliau akan menitiskan air-mata, dan akan menegur mereka. Lalu orang Islam akan menghalau beliau keluar dari Malaysia, kerana beliau bahaya kepada ketenteraman awam!
Inilah "Islam" setelah ia berada di Malaysia selama 600 tahun lebih!
Malah beliau akan menghadapi nasib yang sama di Mekah tempat lahir beliau dan tempat beliau menerima dan menyampaikan Quran kepada dunia.
Inilah sebabnya saya menamakan esei ini "Tragedi Bernama Islam." Tragedi, kerana agama Islam yang direadi Allah bertukar menjadi agama yang tiada bezanya daripada agama-agama lain yang telah menyeleweng, seperti Yahudi, Kristian, Hindu dan lain-lain; namun orang Islam sendiri tidak menyedari penyelewengan mereka. Saya boleh ketawa, kerana lucunya, tetapi mana boleh saya ketawa? Ini perkara serius. Mana boleh kita ketawa? Kita harus mencari jalan keluar dari penyelewengan besar ini. Sekarang juga.
Saya telah menulis buku, risalah dan banyak esei tentang kejatuhan Islam dan penyelewengan umat Islam. Tentu ramai orang telah membaca tulisan-tulisan ini. Di antara orang-orang yang telah membacanya tentulah termasuk kaum sarjana dan pemimpin-pemimpin politik dan agama. Mengapa mereka tidak bertindak dan mengambil langkah-langkah untuk mengatasinya? Mungkin kerana, dalam masa, katalah 100 tahun yang lalu, bermula dengan Jamaluddin al-Afghani (m. 1897) dan Muhammad Abduh (m. 1905), beberapa rumusan penyelesaian yang berbeza telah dikemukakan oleh beratus, mungkin beribu, orang sarjana dan cerdik-pandai yang telah mengkaji perkara ini. Mengapa belum diketemui jawapannya?
Ini bermakna orang Islam sendiri keliru! Umat Islam di seluruh dunia sudah jatuh sejak lama. Tidakkah ini nyata? Tidak perlu kajian!
Ingat kembali amaran Tuhan yang jelas dalam Quran. "Rasul akan berkata: "Tuanku, umatku telah membelakangkan Quran ini. Demikianlah Kami wujudkan bagi setiap nabi musuh dari kalangan mereka yang berdosa. Tuanmu cukup sebagai pembimbing dan penolong." (25: 30-31). Dua ayat yang dahsyat ini wujud dalam Quran dari awal. Bermakna Tuhan Maha Mengetahui nampak kemungkinan umat Islam (zaman Nabi Muhammad) akan melakukan kesilapan yang sama, seperti umat-umat lain dulu, lalu, melalui mulut rasul-Nya Muhammad, mengeluarkan amaran besar ini. Mengapa tokoh-tokoh agama kita tidak memberi perhatian yang cukup kepada amaran ini? Umpamanya, adat kita, di seluruh dunia Islam, melagukan Quran tanpa faham (bagi mereka yang bahasa Arab bukan bahasa ibunda) jelas melanggar peringatan ini. Bagi mereka yang bahasa Arab bahasa ibunda, mereka diajar supaya merujuk makna ayat-ayat Quran kepada golongan ulama (dengan bahasa lain, kasta paderi!). Kononnya, huraian para paderi ini cukup dan muktamad (istlahnya, ijmak )! Saya menulis dalam memoir saya, Mencari Jalan Pulang: Tidak ada kaedah yang lebih pintar daripada ini untuk menyembunyikan Quran daripada umat Islam. Seperti yang diungkapkan oleh pegawai-pegawai raja dalam zaman feudal Melayu dulu apabila sesorang itu hendak dihukum: "Sudah sampailah takdir Tuhan kepada anda!" Yakni untuk disembeleh!) Demikianlah umat Islam juga membuat kesilapan yang sama, seperti masyarakat-masyarakat agama lain.
Dalam penyelidikan saya, apa yang dipanggil Hadith atau Sunnah itulah punca utama penyelewengan umat Islam. Quran dibuat buku nyanyian; Hadith dibuat buku pegangan! Selepas itu, umat Islam mewujudkan suatu kasta paderi (disebut ‘ulama’, yang tiada dalam ajaran Islam yang asal)) untuk mentafsirkan agama bagi mereka, seperti orang Yahudi, Kristian dan Hindu. Kemudian mereka pisahkan ilmu kepada dua kelompok yang berlainan: ilmu agama dan ilmu dunia.
Ketiga-tiga faktor ini menjaminkan mereka akan kekal terperangkap dalam penjara yang mereka bina sendiri! Malang seribua kali malang! Mereka anggap penjara itu istana yang cantik! Mereka bangga duduk di dalamnya!
Kalau saya hendak menceritakan ini semua dengan terperinci, saya kena tulis sepuluh jilid. Malangnya, saya tidak ada masa. Kita semua pun tidak ada masa. Kita perlu keluar dari penjara ini dengan segera. Nasib baik Quran, satu-satunya buku yang dijamin oleh Tuhan terpelihara daripada korupsi, masih ada pada kita. Quran akan datang balik kepada kita dan kepada seluruh dunia "inilah yang akan mengeluarkan kita dari penjara dan akan menyelamatkan kita daripada kemusnahan yang menanti
Saturday, January 22, 2011
THE BENEFITS OF BEING WIFE NO 2
The benefits of being wife number two
It's natural for wife number two to wonder about the woman he married first, but don’t let your curiosity get out of hand, warns Cristina Odone (right). Instead, focus on the advantages of having a second-hand husband.
I call it the ‘Rebecca’ complex: the suspicion that as a second wife I’m second best. The original Rebecca, the first wife in Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel of that name, was dead and a dead-glamorous man-eater who nearly sabotaged her surviving husband’s second marriage. Thankfully most of us don’t come in the wake of such a powerful ghost. But many second wives, like me, find that the first wife casts a very long shadow over the new relationship.
When I married Edward, his ex-wife Claudia insisted we meet. I was going to play an important role in their sons’ lives, and she wanted to size me up. At a shabby hotel near Victoria train station, over several shots of whisky, we had a long and very amicable evening during which we discussed every possible aspect of the future.
The past, however, was left untouched – and there’s the rub. No matter how friendly relations are – between the ex-spouses, the new spouses, the children, the former in-laws – the second wife inevitably comes up against the question: what really happened? What was it like when they were in love, when they quarrelled, went on holiday, when – and this can make you go mad – they were in bed? These questions raise their ugly little heads during a second marriage, and how you deal with them will shape your relationship.
Who can blame the present Mrs for having a few queries about the former? After all, loving someone means wanting to know a lot more than what they’re like right now. If the second wife is confident and wise, she will allow questions about his previous marriage to intrigue her rather than obsess her.
In the ex-wife’s hands, the mobile is a hand grenade: she’s constantly ringing him about some child-related matter.
It is only natural to wonder whether his dexterity in the kitchen is down to the first wife not cooking. Is his need to share diaries at the beginning of each week a new habit, or because they’d rowed over the need for transparency? Can one attribute his amazing punctuality to upbringing or to the fact that he let down wife number one so often, she finally threw a wobbly that traumatised him into keeping a constant eye on the clock?
For some second wives, however, curiosity about the first can tend to get out of hand. They badger husbands and friends, relatives and even the children with questions about everything from her sense of humour to her taste in underwear. They fear that, if kept in the shadows, the first wife appears alluring, sophisticated and all-powerful. Knowing that she had an awful line in ‘dumb blonde’ jokes, or wore big pants, makes the ghost more disposable.
Most husbands try to contain such inquisitiveness. They prevent a veil of mystery from shrouding the first wife, and subscribe to the theory that he who keeps no secrets carries no burning torch. But a few husbands actually encourage their second wives’ endless comparison. Guilt, nostalgia or regret prompt them to hold up their first Mrs as a yardstick to measure the new one by. She may have been dumped to make way for her successor, but suddenly she was the best at everything. Cooking, cleaning, child-rearing: it can seem like the first wife achieved a level of perfection in all areas; in contrast the new one looks like a sad little wannabe.
For the husband, creating this inferiority complex can be a convenient form of control. If he wants his present wife to get a job, discipline the children or stop nagging, pillow talk may take ages, and even then fail. Holding up the ex-wife as a role model instead will have the new one gnashing her teeth – but rising to the challenge.
Equally bad are the men who claim that constantly hailing the past (and the ex) keeps the new wife on her toes. She’ll never be complacent, they argue, with the ghost of her predecessor haunting every corner of her life.
Such mind games, according to Susanna Abse, director of the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, reveal the husband’s problem with intimacy: ‘The ex-wife is being used by the husband as a way of asserting his need for separateness: “I can’t give myself to you completely, I have this other family too...”’
They can prove destructive: in the UK half of all second marriages end in divorce (for first time marriages, the proportion is slightly lower, with two out of five failing; for third marriages it is worse, with 60 per cent failing).
Outsiders, too, can stoke the fires of your curiosity about wife number one. I remember vividly sitting at a dinner party and hearing the rather drunk hostess ask Edward, ‘So why did you and Claudia break up? Was it fast and furious sex followed by fast and furious rows?’ I felt as if I’d received an electric shock: what would he answer? What was the truth? But Edward deftly changed the topic, and within minutes the hostess was answering questions about her son’s GCSE results. She was robbed of her answer…but I was robbed of my peace of mind.
I sat through the rest of the dinner incapable of concentrating on anything anyone was saying, trying to push away the images that the words ‘fast and furious sex’ kept raising. Did my husband see me as a less exciting but more manageable choice? Was our marriage a case of ‘anything for a quiet life’ after the stormy sexual rapture of his first marriage? I felt miserable, as if I’d been demoted to the mousey second try after the spectacular Claudia had proved too hot to handle.
It was only later that night, when we were on our own, and Edward treated the incident as a joke, that I realised I’d been wandering down a dangerous track.
I pulled back in time, but I’d had a glimpse of how a first wife could sabotage a second marriage. Getting married to a divorcé or a widower can trigger a real identity crisis: am I a replacement, a relief, or a reproach? Am I a pale imitation of the one who got away?
Susanna Abse places these concerns in a psychological context: ‘Feeling left out, being the third, or left behind: these fears are quickly evoked in us in all kinds of situations. But in the crucible of family life, the feelings about exclusion, when one feels unsure or uncertain, become particularly intense and difficult to deal with.’
Some first wives positively relish the power they wield. I’ve encountered women who refuse to ‘move on’ when their husbands remarry. This is particularly true when there are children from the first marriage, as the children give them a claim on their ex-husband. For this nightmare first wife, there are no boundaries. She offers advice to her successor, though it’s not sought, and treats their new home as an extension of her own.
In her hands, the mobile is a hand grenade: she’s constantly ringing him about some
child-related matter, timing her calls to coincide with supper or Sunday lunch or bath time. One ex-wife managed to ruin the first Christmas a friend was enjoying with her new husband by manufacturing a succession of domestic dramas – broken heating, a stalker’s phone calls… The solution to all these horrors was simple: she should come and stay over for the holidays. Ho ho ho.
Boundaries can be invisible to the second wife too. In my new novel The Good Divorce Guide, Linda, the new woman on the scene, is constantly asking first wife Rosie for recipes and tips to keep her man. This is a fictional account of a friend who, although dumped for a ‘younger model’, found herself assailed by telephone calls, text messages and invitations from her successor. It was as if the first wife had to be co-opted into the new relationship; the new union needed her blessing to blossom, the marriage-breakers sought absolution.
Whether relations are friendly enough to have Christmas together in one big happy family, or so strained that the only conversations are held through the divorce lawyers, first wives will always be in the background of a second marriage. When there are children, this is especially so: first and second wives need to communicate on practical details such as flights and orthodontist appointments, as well as larger issues such as dealing with the school bully. Retreating behind an icy, unforgiving silence may offer instant gratification, but it doesn’t get the braces off or the bully stopped.
As we second wives shoulder the burden of dealing with wife number one, we should draw strength from seeing our man’s first stab at marriage as a practice run that has made him all the better for the real thing. We should be grateful to the ex-wife who taught him a thing or two about picking his wet towels off the floor and taking the rubbish out when it stinks up the kitchen. In fact, some of us suspect that, had we met Mr Right before he’d been broken in by Mrs Wrong, we wouldn’t have taken a second look.
It's natural for wife number two to wonder about the woman he married first, but don’t let your curiosity get out of hand, warns Cristina Odone (right). Instead, focus on the advantages of having a second-hand husband.
I call it the ‘Rebecca’ complex: the suspicion that as a second wife I’m second best. The original Rebecca, the first wife in Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel of that name, was dead and a dead-glamorous man-eater who nearly sabotaged her surviving husband’s second marriage. Thankfully most of us don’t come in the wake of such a powerful ghost. But many second wives, like me, find that the first wife casts a very long shadow over the new relationship.
When I married Edward, his ex-wife Claudia insisted we meet. I was going to play an important role in their sons’ lives, and she wanted to size me up. At a shabby hotel near Victoria train station, over several shots of whisky, we had a long and very amicable evening during which we discussed every possible aspect of the future.
The past, however, was left untouched – and there’s the rub. No matter how friendly relations are – between the ex-spouses, the new spouses, the children, the former in-laws – the second wife inevitably comes up against the question: what really happened? What was it like when they were in love, when they quarrelled, went on holiday, when – and this can make you go mad – they were in bed? These questions raise their ugly little heads during a second marriage, and how you deal with them will shape your relationship.
Who can blame the present Mrs for having a few queries about the former? After all, loving someone means wanting to know a lot more than what they’re like right now. If the second wife is confident and wise, she will allow questions about his previous marriage to intrigue her rather than obsess her.
In the ex-wife’s hands, the mobile is a hand grenade: she’s constantly ringing him about some child-related matter.
It is only natural to wonder whether his dexterity in the kitchen is down to the first wife not cooking. Is his need to share diaries at the beginning of each week a new habit, or because they’d rowed over the need for transparency? Can one attribute his amazing punctuality to upbringing or to the fact that he let down wife number one so often, she finally threw a wobbly that traumatised him into keeping a constant eye on the clock?
For some second wives, however, curiosity about the first can tend to get out of hand. They badger husbands and friends, relatives and even the children with questions about everything from her sense of humour to her taste in underwear. They fear that, if kept in the shadows, the first wife appears alluring, sophisticated and all-powerful. Knowing that she had an awful line in ‘dumb blonde’ jokes, or wore big pants, makes the ghost more disposable.
Most husbands try to contain such inquisitiveness. They prevent a veil of mystery from shrouding the first wife, and subscribe to the theory that he who keeps no secrets carries no burning torch. But a few husbands actually encourage their second wives’ endless comparison. Guilt, nostalgia or regret prompt them to hold up their first Mrs as a yardstick to measure the new one by. She may have been dumped to make way for her successor, but suddenly she was the best at everything. Cooking, cleaning, child-rearing: it can seem like the first wife achieved a level of perfection in all areas; in contrast the new one looks like a sad little wannabe.
For the husband, creating this inferiority complex can be a convenient form of control. If he wants his present wife to get a job, discipline the children or stop nagging, pillow talk may take ages, and even then fail. Holding up the ex-wife as a role model instead will have the new one gnashing her teeth – but rising to the challenge.
Equally bad are the men who claim that constantly hailing the past (and the ex) keeps the new wife on her toes. She’ll never be complacent, they argue, with the ghost of her predecessor haunting every corner of her life.
Such mind games, according to Susanna Abse, director of the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, reveal the husband’s problem with intimacy: ‘The ex-wife is being used by the husband as a way of asserting his need for separateness: “I can’t give myself to you completely, I have this other family too...”’
They can prove destructive: in the UK half of all second marriages end in divorce (for first time marriages, the proportion is slightly lower, with two out of five failing; for third marriages it is worse, with 60 per cent failing).
Outsiders, too, can stoke the fires of your curiosity about wife number one. I remember vividly sitting at a dinner party and hearing the rather drunk hostess ask Edward, ‘So why did you and Claudia break up? Was it fast and furious sex followed by fast and furious rows?’ I felt as if I’d received an electric shock: what would he answer? What was the truth? But Edward deftly changed the topic, and within minutes the hostess was answering questions about her son’s GCSE results. She was robbed of her answer…but I was robbed of my peace of mind.
I sat through the rest of the dinner incapable of concentrating on anything anyone was saying, trying to push away the images that the words ‘fast and furious sex’ kept raising. Did my husband see me as a less exciting but more manageable choice? Was our marriage a case of ‘anything for a quiet life’ after the stormy sexual rapture of his first marriage? I felt miserable, as if I’d been demoted to the mousey second try after the spectacular Claudia had proved too hot to handle.
It was only later that night, when we were on our own, and Edward treated the incident as a joke, that I realised I’d been wandering down a dangerous track.
I pulled back in time, but I’d had a glimpse of how a first wife could sabotage a second marriage. Getting married to a divorcé or a widower can trigger a real identity crisis: am I a replacement, a relief, or a reproach? Am I a pale imitation of the one who got away?
Susanna Abse places these concerns in a psychological context: ‘Feeling left out, being the third, or left behind: these fears are quickly evoked in us in all kinds of situations. But in the crucible of family life, the feelings about exclusion, when one feels unsure or uncertain, become particularly intense and difficult to deal with.’
Some first wives positively relish the power they wield. I’ve encountered women who refuse to ‘move on’ when their husbands remarry. This is particularly true when there are children from the first marriage, as the children give them a claim on their ex-husband. For this nightmare first wife, there are no boundaries. She offers advice to her successor, though it’s not sought, and treats their new home as an extension of her own.
In her hands, the mobile is a hand grenade: she’s constantly ringing him about some
child-related matter, timing her calls to coincide with supper or Sunday lunch or bath time. One ex-wife managed to ruin the first Christmas a friend was enjoying with her new husband by manufacturing a succession of domestic dramas – broken heating, a stalker’s phone calls… The solution to all these horrors was simple: she should come and stay over for the holidays. Ho ho ho.
Boundaries can be invisible to the second wife too. In my new novel The Good Divorce Guide, Linda, the new woman on the scene, is constantly asking first wife Rosie for recipes and tips to keep her man. This is a fictional account of a friend who, although dumped for a ‘younger model’, found herself assailed by telephone calls, text messages and invitations from her successor. It was as if the first wife had to be co-opted into the new relationship; the new union needed her blessing to blossom, the marriage-breakers sought absolution.
Whether relations are friendly enough to have Christmas together in one big happy family, or so strained that the only conversations are held through the divorce lawyers, first wives will always be in the background of a second marriage. When there are children, this is especially so: first and second wives need to communicate on practical details such as flights and orthodontist appointments, as well as larger issues such as dealing with the school bully. Retreating behind an icy, unforgiving silence may offer instant gratification, but it doesn’t get the braces off or the bully stopped.
As we second wives shoulder the burden of dealing with wife number one, we should draw strength from seeing our man’s first stab at marriage as a practice run that has made him all the better for the real thing. We should be grateful to the ex-wife who taught him a thing or two about picking his wet towels off the floor and taking the rubbish out when it stinks up the kitchen. In fact, some of us suspect that, had we met Mr Right before he’d been broken in by Mrs Wrong, we wouldn’t have taken a second look.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Kita
Kita
Tak perlu menjadi tua
andai seharian sebok dengan fail
dan folder didokumentasikan
sebagai bukti kerja kita lakukan
Tak perlu menjadi tua
Andai yg wajib, yg sunat, yg haram
Tak nak ditentu
Hanya nak ikut kehendak tertentu
Tak perlu menjadi tua
andai yg miskin dipergunakan
dieksploitasikan untuk mendokumentasikan
amal kebajikan telah dilaksanakan
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai tipu muslihat
ditentatifkan
mengabui mata yang berkuasa
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai kawan sendiri digigit jari
tuduhan palsu ke atas kawan diwar-warkan
diminit mesyuaratkan
dibiarkan tanpa diperbetulkan
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai skt, pangkat, ganjaran, profesionalisme
dijadi senjata mengumpan bawahan
membuat kerja
tak perlu menjadi tua
Andai bebudak yg baik
dan yg pandai saja ditumpu
yang bodoh, yg nakal, yg undisiplined
dibiar melalak, menghilai, menjerit-jerit macam hantu
dikutuk dicaci dihina hanya di belakang pintu
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai kecemerlangan dikejarkan
adab sopan budaya bangsa tak diendahkan
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai yang berdahi licin menutup mata
meng’sah’kan segala tanpa disemak dibaca
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai masih terkial-kial
yang mana emas yang mana kaca
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai hidup masih berpura
di depan memuji menyokong merangsang
mengutuk mengeji membenci di belakang
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai masih tak kenal AKU siapa
hamba siapa
siapa siapa
Tak perlu menjadi tua
andai seharian sebok dengan fail
dan folder didokumentasikan
sebagai bukti kerja kita lakukan
Tak perlu menjadi tua
Andai yg wajib, yg sunat, yg haram
Tak nak ditentu
Hanya nak ikut kehendak tertentu
Tak perlu menjadi tua
andai yg miskin dipergunakan
dieksploitasikan untuk mendokumentasikan
amal kebajikan telah dilaksanakan
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai tipu muslihat
ditentatifkan
mengabui mata yang berkuasa
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai kawan sendiri digigit jari
tuduhan palsu ke atas kawan diwar-warkan
diminit mesyuaratkan
dibiarkan tanpa diperbetulkan
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai skt, pangkat, ganjaran, profesionalisme
dijadi senjata mengumpan bawahan
membuat kerja
tak perlu menjadi tua
Andai bebudak yg baik
dan yg pandai saja ditumpu
yang bodoh, yg nakal, yg undisiplined
dibiar melalak, menghilai, menjerit-jerit macam hantu
dikutuk dicaci dihina hanya di belakang pintu
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai kecemerlangan dikejarkan
adab sopan budaya bangsa tak diendahkan
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai yang berdahi licin menutup mata
meng’sah’kan segala tanpa disemak dibaca
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai masih terkial-kial
yang mana emas yang mana kaca
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai hidup masih berpura
di depan memuji menyokong merangsang
mengutuk mengeji membenci di belakang
tak perlu menjadi tua
andai masih tak kenal AKU siapa
hamba siapa
siapa siapa
Saturday, December 4, 2010
talkin untuk 'yang tersayang'
*Obituary printed in the London Times*
- Interesting and sadly rather true.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who
has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was,
since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more
than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in
charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy
charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended
from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for
reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the
job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly
children. It declined even further when schools were required to get
parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student;
but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted
to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses;
and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense
took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your
own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to
realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in
her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was
preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife,
Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now,
Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If
you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do
nothing.
- Interesting and sadly rather true.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who
has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was,
since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more
than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in
charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy
charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended
from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for
reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the
job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly
children. It declined even further when schools were required to get
parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student;
but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted
to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses;
and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense
took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your
own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to
realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in
her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was
preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife,
Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now,
Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If
you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do
nothing.
Monday, November 29, 2010
KONTRADIKSI DAN DILEMA POLITIK MALAYSIA KINI
KONTRADIKSI DAN DILEMA POLITIK MALAYSIA KINI
Oleh: Kassim Ahmad
28 November, 2010
sidangruh@gmail.com
Bukan pada tahun 2008, apabila Barisan Nasional gagal mendapat majoriti dua pertiga dalam Parlimen dan hilang kuasa di empat buah negeri, tetapi lama sebelum itu, ahli-ahli UMNO sendiri teleh mengutuk pemimpin-pemimpin mereka sendiri, kerana korupsi dan penyelewengan. Tentunya bukan semua yang korup dan seleweng. Tetapi, seperti kata pepatah, kerana nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga!
Lumrahlah yang berkuasa terlalu lama akan lupa daratan, lupa akan amanah yang mereka pikul, dan mengundang kemarahan rakyat. Demikianlah gerakan reformasi bermula di Indonesia dan menjatuhkan Suharto. Penyingkiran dan penahanan Anwar Ibrahim menyebabkan gerakan reformasi tumbuh dan berakar-umbi di Malaysia. Aliran politik baru ini berkembang selaras dengan tumbuhnya sentimen di kalangan pengundi untuk mengadakan sistem dwi-parti di negara kita, satu “barisan alternatif” untuk menggantikan Barisan Nasional. Inilah yang melahirkan Pakatan Rakyat, yang sebelum ini gagal diwujudkan di antara parti-parti pembangkang.
Setelah berkuasa selama dua tahun, Pakatan Rakyat menghadapi masalah-masalah dalamannya sendiri. Tidak syak lagi, dengan kebolehan berpidatonya disertakan dengan strategi dan taktik yang licik, Anwar Ibrahim, “anugerah Tuhan kepada rakyat Malaysia” mengikut Presiden PKR, telah memainkan peranan yang utama bagi kemenangan Pakatan Rakyat dalam pilihanraya umum ke-12. Tetapi, harus diingat, kepimpinan yang baik tidak terletak kepada kebolehan berpidato dan strategi dan taktik yang licik. Ia terletak kepada visi dan falsafah yang utuh, kejujuran, kecerdikan dan kebijaksanaan.
Sedar atau tidak, sebuah parti atau sebuah gabungan parti-parti mesti tumbuh dan berdiri di atas suatu falsafah perjuangan yang jelas dan kukuh. Tanpa asas ini, ia tidak akan kekal. Kita tahu UMNO dan Barisan Nasional diwujudkan untuk mencapai dan mengisi kemerdekaan nasional kita. “Nasional” di sini ditakrifkan sebagai perkongsian kuasa di antara tiga komponen penting: Raja-Raja Melayu, Orang Melayu, dan Orang Bukan-Melayu. Ketiga-tiga komponen penting ini dan hak-hak mereka dilembagakan dengan kukuh dalam Perlembagaan negara.
Setelah lima puluh tahun lebih, di samping banyak kejayaan yang telah dicapai oleh semua kaum, banyak pula yang mula dipertikai, Dasar Ekonomi Baru khasnya. Orang Melayu tidak berpuas hati dengan kecapaian mereka; orang bukan-Melayu pun tidak berpuas hati dengan apa yang mereka peroleh berdasarkan kecapaian mereka. Ini menimbulkan kontradiksi antara kaum, yang mengakibatkan menebalnya rasa perkauman, dan melahirkan pertubuhan bukan-Kerajaan, seperti Perkasa dan lain-lain.
Kaum cendekiawan Melayu, khasnya, tidak berpuas hati dengan kecapain bahasa Melayu sebagai Bahasa Kebangsaan dan bahasa ilmu. Mereka mengkritik Kerajaan kerana tidak tegas mendaulatkan Bahasa Melayu sebagai bahasa rasmi negara, dan kerana mengajar ilmu Matematik dan ilmu Sains dalam bahasa Inggeris. Mereka bukan tidak sedar dan iktiraf bahasa Inggeris sebagai bahasa internasional dan bahasa ilmu yang penting. Mereka yakin tamadun bangsa mestilah diasaskan di atas bahasa kita sendiri.
Sejak Najib mengambil-alih pimpinan negara, beliau telah memperkenal dan melancarkan dasar-dasar transformasi dalam bidang-bidang ekonomi, Kerajaan, politik dan parti. Dalam keadaan krisis ekonomi dunia, dan tidak kurang keadaan kacau-bilau politik dunia dan dalam negeri, adakah beliau akan berjaya dalam pelbagai progrem transformasi ini? Saya harap beliau akan berjaya. Namun, banyak bergantung kepada pasukan kepimpinan beliau yang komited kepada tarnsformasi besar-besaran ini, serta pemantauan mereka pada setiap masa untuk membaiki proses transformasi ini.
Perlu diingat bahawa sistem dwi-parti (Kerajaan/Pembangkang) ini sistem yang berasal dari Barat. Barat telah menjajah negara-negara Dunia Ketiga selama beratus tahun. Malaysia satu daripada banyak negara yang telah mereka jajah. Dengan sendirinya, tidak semua benda yang boleh dan patut kita tiru daripada mereka. Kita harus belajar sains and teknologi mereka. Kita harus belajar pemodenan masyarakat daripada mereka. Dengan semangat ini, boleh dan patutkah kita ambil-alih sistem pemerintahan dwi-parti mereka bulat-bulat?
Ahli falsafah Inggeris Thomas Hobbes (m. 1679) medefinisikan masyarakat sebagai sebuah medan perang – “satu lawan semua”. Jelaslah kejiwaan ini merujuk kepada kejiwaan binatang. Manusia tidak harus kekal pada peringkat gasar primitif ini! Mereka harus cepat-cepat meningkat kepada kejiwaan yang lebih sesuai dengan taraf mereka sebagai khalifah Tuhan di Bumi.
Teori sanggah dan imbang (check and balance) ini berpunca dari falsafah politik Hobbes. Walaupun manusia muncul dari alam binatang, dia tidak perlu beku di tahap itu. Ia perlu berhijrah ke tahap kejiwaan yang lebih tinggi, mencipta sebuah masyarakat bukan sebagai medan perang “satu lawan semua”, tetapi masyarakat sebagai medan kerjasama “saling membantu satu sama lain” untuk kebaikan masyarakat itu.
Teori “sanggah dan imbang” mengandaikan kritikan hanya boleh dibuat dari luar. Ia mendakwa sebuah parti pembangkang perlu untuk mengkritik penyeleweng Kerajaan. Dakwaan ini tidak benar, kerana kritikan boleh dibuat dari dalam. Dari permulaan tamadun manusia, tesis bertembung dengan anti-tesis untuk melahirkan sintesis. Demikian tamadun manusia berkembang.
Tuhan memberikan manusia dua tangan supaya kedua-dua tangan itu boleh dimanfaatkan. Tidak wajar sama sekali kita gunakan sebelah tangan saja, apalgi dengan sebelah tangan merungkaikan kerja taangan yang satu lagi!
Lihatlah apa yang telah dicapai oleh sistem pemerintahan Barat itu. Bolehkah mereka memberi keadilan kepada rakyat mereka sendiri? Bolehkah mereka memberi keselamatan dan keadilan kepada dunia? Nyata mereka gagal. Jadi, apakah sebabnya kita harus meniru mereka?
Ini tidak bermakna saya menganjurkan pemerintahan autokratik. Pemerintahan mesti adil, mesti dilakukan melalui musyawarah, dan anggota-anggotanya mestilah terdiri dari orang-orang yang layak (layak dari segi kebolehan dan moralnya). Saya menganjurkan sebuah sistem pemerintahan yang lebih baik daripada sistem Westminster. Pemikir-pemikir politik kita metilah menyusun sebuah sistem pemerintahan yang lebih sesuai dengan cita-cita rakyat kita. Parti-parti politik, mewakili pelbagai jalur ideologi atau kaum, boleh wujud, tetapi mereka mestilah berpegang kepada sebuah falsafah politik nasional yang disusun bersama dan yang akan membolehkan semua parti bekerjasama untuk membangunkan tamadun bangsa kita.
Oleh: Kassim Ahmad
28 November, 2010
sidangruh@gmail.com
Bukan pada tahun 2008, apabila Barisan Nasional gagal mendapat majoriti dua pertiga dalam Parlimen dan hilang kuasa di empat buah negeri, tetapi lama sebelum itu, ahli-ahli UMNO sendiri teleh mengutuk pemimpin-pemimpin mereka sendiri, kerana korupsi dan penyelewengan. Tentunya bukan semua yang korup dan seleweng. Tetapi, seperti kata pepatah, kerana nila setitik, rosak susu sebelanga!
Lumrahlah yang berkuasa terlalu lama akan lupa daratan, lupa akan amanah yang mereka pikul, dan mengundang kemarahan rakyat. Demikianlah gerakan reformasi bermula di Indonesia dan menjatuhkan Suharto. Penyingkiran dan penahanan Anwar Ibrahim menyebabkan gerakan reformasi tumbuh dan berakar-umbi di Malaysia. Aliran politik baru ini berkembang selaras dengan tumbuhnya sentimen di kalangan pengundi untuk mengadakan sistem dwi-parti di negara kita, satu “barisan alternatif” untuk menggantikan Barisan Nasional. Inilah yang melahirkan Pakatan Rakyat, yang sebelum ini gagal diwujudkan di antara parti-parti pembangkang.
Setelah berkuasa selama dua tahun, Pakatan Rakyat menghadapi masalah-masalah dalamannya sendiri. Tidak syak lagi, dengan kebolehan berpidatonya disertakan dengan strategi dan taktik yang licik, Anwar Ibrahim, “anugerah Tuhan kepada rakyat Malaysia” mengikut Presiden PKR, telah memainkan peranan yang utama bagi kemenangan Pakatan Rakyat dalam pilihanraya umum ke-12. Tetapi, harus diingat, kepimpinan yang baik tidak terletak kepada kebolehan berpidato dan strategi dan taktik yang licik. Ia terletak kepada visi dan falsafah yang utuh, kejujuran, kecerdikan dan kebijaksanaan.
Sedar atau tidak, sebuah parti atau sebuah gabungan parti-parti mesti tumbuh dan berdiri di atas suatu falsafah perjuangan yang jelas dan kukuh. Tanpa asas ini, ia tidak akan kekal. Kita tahu UMNO dan Barisan Nasional diwujudkan untuk mencapai dan mengisi kemerdekaan nasional kita. “Nasional” di sini ditakrifkan sebagai perkongsian kuasa di antara tiga komponen penting: Raja-Raja Melayu, Orang Melayu, dan Orang Bukan-Melayu. Ketiga-tiga komponen penting ini dan hak-hak mereka dilembagakan dengan kukuh dalam Perlembagaan negara.
Setelah lima puluh tahun lebih, di samping banyak kejayaan yang telah dicapai oleh semua kaum, banyak pula yang mula dipertikai, Dasar Ekonomi Baru khasnya. Orang Melayu tidak berpuas hati dengan kecapaian mereka; orang bukan-Melayu pun tidak berpuas hati dengan apa yang mereka peroleh berdasarkan kecapaian mereka. Ini menimbulkan kontradiksi antara kaum, yang mengakibatkan menebalnya rasa perkauman, dan melahirkan pertubuhan bukan-Kerajaan, seperti Perkasa dan lain-lain.
Kaum cendekiawan Melayu, khasnya, tidak berpuas hati dengan kecapain bahasa Melayu sebagai Bahasa Kebangsaan dan bahasa ilmu. Mereka mengkritik Kerajaan kerana tidak tegas mendaulatkan Bahasa Melayu sebagai bahasa rasmi negara, dan kerana mengajar ilmu Matematik dan ilmu Sains dalam bahasa Inggeris. Mereka bukan tidak sedar dan iktiraf bahasa Inggeris sebagai bahasa internasional dan bahasa ilmu yang penting. Mereka yakin tamadun bangsa mestilah diasaskan di atas bahasa kita sendiri.
Sejak Najib mengambil-alih pimpinan negara, beliau telah memperkenal dan melancarkan dasar-dasar transformasi dalam bidang-bidang ekonomi, Kerajaan, politik dan parti. Dalam keadaan krisis ekonomi dunia, dan tidak kurang keadaan kacau-bilau politik dunia dan dalam negeri, adakah beliau akan berjaya dalam pelbagai progrem transformasi ini? Saya harap beliau akan berjaya. Namun, banyak bergantung kepada pasukan kepimpinan beliau yang komited kepada tarnsformasi besar-besaran ini, serta pemantauan mereka pada setiap masa untuk membaiki proses transformasi ini.
Perlu diingat bahawa sistem dwi-parti (Kerajaan/Pembangkang) ini sistem yang berasal dari Barat. Barat telah menjajah negara-negara Dunia Ketiga selama beratus tahun. Malaysia satu daripada banyak negara yang telah mereka jajah. Dengan sendirinya, tidak semua benda yang boleh dan patut kita tiru daripada mereka. Kita harus belajar sains and teknologi mereka. Kita harus belajar pemodenan masyarakat daripada mereka. Dengan semangat ini, boleh dan patutkah kita ambil-alih sistem pemerintahan dwi-parti mereka bulat-bulat?
Ahli falsafah Inggeris Thomas Hobbes (m. 1679) medefinisikan masyarakat sebagai sebuah medan perang – “satu lawan semua”. Jelaslah kejiwaan ini merujuk kepada kejiwaan binatang. Manusia tidak harus kekal pada peringkat gasar primitif ini! Mereka harus cepat-cepat meningkat kepada kejiwaan yang lebih sesuai dengan taraf mereka sebagai khalifah Tuhan di Bumi.
Teori sanggah dan imbang (check and balance) ini berpunca dari falsafah politik Hobbes. Walaupun manusia muncul dari alam binatang, dia tidak perlu beku di tahap itu. Ia perlu berhijrah ke tahap kejiwaan yang lebih tinggi, mencipta sebuah masyarakat bukan sebagai medan perang “satu lawan semua”, tetapi masyarakat sebagai medan kerjasama “saling membantu satu sama lain” untuk kebaikan masyarakat itu.
Teori “sanggah dan imbang” mengandaikan kritikan hanya boleh dibuat dari luar. Ia mendakwa sebuah parti pembangkang perlu untuk mengkritik penyeleweng Kerajaan. Dakwaan ini tidak benar, kerana kritikan boleh dibuat dari dalam. Dari permulaan tamadun manusia, tesis bertembung dengan anti-tesis untuk melahirkan sintesis. Demikian tamadun manusia berkembang.
Tuhan memberikan manusia dua tangan supaya kedua-dua tangan itu boleh dimanfaatkan. Tidak wajar sama sekali kita gunakan sebelah tangan saja, apalgi dengan sebelah tangan merungkaikan kerja taangan yang satu lagi!
Lihatlah apa yang telah dicapai oleh sistem pemerintahan Barat itu. Bolehkah mereka memberi keadilan kepada rakyat mereka sendiri? Bolehkah mereka memberi keselamatan dan keadilan kepada dunia? Nyata mereka gagal. Jadi, apakah sebabnya kita harus meniru mereka?
Ini tidak bermakna saya menganjurkan pemerintahan autokratik. Pemerintahan mesti adil, mesti dilakukan melalui musyawarah, dan anggota-anggotanya mestilah terdiri dari orang-orang yang layak (layak dari segi kebolehan dan moralnya). Saya menganjurkan sebuah sistem pemerintahan yang lebih baik daripada sistem Westminster. Pemikir-pemikir politik kita metilah menyusun sebuah sistem pemerintahan yang lebih sesuai dengan cita-cita rakyat kita. Parti-parti politik, mewakili pelbagai jalur ideologi atau kaum, boleh wujud, tetapi mereka mestilah berpegang kepada sebuah falsafah politik nasional yang disusun bersama dan yang akan membolehkan semua parti bekerjasama untuk membangunkan tamadun bangsa kita.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
LUNG CANCER
What is The Causes of Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is the most common cause of death due to cancer in both men and women throughout the world. The American Cancer Society estimates that 219,440 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S. will be diagnosed and 159,390 deaths due to lung cancer will occur in 2009. According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, approximately one out of every 14 men and women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer of the lung at some point in their lifetime.
Lung cancer is predominantly a disease of the elderly; almost 70% of people diagnosed with lung cancer are over 65 years of age, while less than 3% of lung cancers occur in people under 45 years of age.
Lung cancer was not common prior to the 1930s but increased dramatically over the following decades as tobacco smoking increased. In many developing countries, the incidence of lung cancer is beginning to fall following public education about the dangers of cigarette smoking and the introduction of effective smoking-cessation programs.
Nevertheless, lung cancer remains among the most common types of cancers in both men and women worldwide. In the U.S., lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in women.
What Causes Lung Cancer?
Smoking
The incidence of lung cancer is strongly correlated with cigarette smoking, with about 90% of lung cancers arising as a result of tobacco use. The risk of lung cancer increases with the number of cigarettes smoked and the time over which smoking has occurred; doctors refer to this risk in terms of pack-years of smoking history (the number of packs of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by the number of years smoked). For example, a person who has smoked two packs of cigarettes per day for 10 years has a 20 pack-year smoking history. While the risk of lung cancer is increased with even a 10-pack-year smoking history, those with 30-pack-year histories or more are considered to have the greatest risk for the development of lung cancer. Among those who smoke two or more packs of cigarettes per day, one in seven will die of lung cancer.
Pipe and cigar smoking also can cause lung cancer, although the risk is not as high as with cigarette smoking. Thus, while someone who smokes one pack of cigarettes per day has a risk for the development of lung cancer that is 25 times higher than a nonsmoker, pipe and cigar smokers have a risk of lung cancer that is about five times that of a nonsmoker.
Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds, many of which have been shown to be cancer-causing or carcinogenic. The two primary carcinogens in tobacco smoke are chemicals known as nitrosamines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
The risk of developing lung cancer decreases each year following smoking cessation as normal cells grow and replace damaged cells in the lung. In former smokers, the risk of developing lung cancer begins to approach that of a nonsmoker about 15 years after cessation of smoking.
Passive smoking
Passive smoking or the inhalation of tobacco smoke by nonsmokers who share living or working quarters with smokers, also is an established risk factor for the development of lung cancer. Research has shown that nonsmokers who reside with a smoker have a 24% increase in risk for developing lung cancer when compared with nonsmokers who do not reside with a smoker. An estimated 3,000 lung cancer deaths that occur each year in the U.S. are attributable to passive smoking.
Asbestos Fibers
Asbestos fibers are silicate fibers that can persist for a lifetime in lung tissue following exposure to asbestos. The workplace is a common source of exposure to asbestos fibers, as asbestos was widely used in the past as both thermal and acoustic insulation. Today, asbestos use is limited or banned in many countries, including the U.S. Both lung cancer and mesothelioma (cancer of the pleura of the lung as well as of the lining of the abdominal cavity called the peritoneum) are associated with exposure to asbestos. Cigarette smoking drastically increases the chance of developing an asbestos-related lung cancer in workers exposed to asbestos. Asbestos workers who do not smoke have a fivefold greater risk of developing lung cancer than nonsmokers, but asbestos workers who smoke have a risk that is 50- to 90-fold greater than nonsmokers.
Radon Gas
Radon gas is a natural, chemically inert gas that is a natural decay product of uranium. Uranium decays to form products, including radon, that emit a type of ionizing radiation. Radon gas is a known cause of lung cancer, with an estimated 12% of lung-cancer deaths attributable to radon gas, or about 20,000 lung-cancer-related deaths annually in the U.S., making radon the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. As with asbestos exposure, concomitant smoking greatly increases the risk of lung cancer with radon exposure. Radon gas can travel up through soil and enter homes through gaps in the foundation, pipes, drains, or other openings. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one out of every 15 homes in the U.S. contains dangerous levels of radon gas. Radon gas is invisible and odorless, but it can be detected with simple test kits.
Familial Predisposition
While the majority of lung cancers are associated with tobacco smoking, the fact that not all smokers eventually develop lung cancer suggests that other factors, such as individual genetic susceptibility, may play a role in the causation of lung cancer. Numerous studies have shown that lung cancer is more likely to occur in both smoking and non-smoking relatives of those who have had lung cancer than in the general population. Recently, the largest genetic study of lung cancer ever conducted, involving over 10,000 people from 18 countries and led by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), identified a small region in the genome (DNA) that contains genes that appear to confer an increased susceptibility to lung cancer in smokers. The specific genes, located the q arm of chromosome 15, code for proteins that interact with nicotine and other tobacco toxins (nicotinic acetylcholine receptor genes).
Lung Diseases
The presence of certain diseases of the lung, notably chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), is associated with an increased risk (four- to sixfold the risk of a nonsmoker) for the development of lung cancer even after the effects of concomitant cigarette smoking are excluded.
Prior History of Lung Cancer
Survivors of lung cancer have a greater risk of developing a second lung cancer than the general population has of developing a first lung cancer. Survivors of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs, see below) have an additive risk of 1%-2% per year for developing a second lung cancer. In survivors of small cell lung cancers (SCLCs, see below), the risk for development of second lung cancers approaches 6% per year.
Air pollution
Air pollution from vehicles, industry, and power plants can raise the likelihood of developing lung cancer in exposed individuals. Up to 1% of lung cancer deaths are attributable to breathing polluted air, and experts believe that prolonged exposure to highly polluted air can carry a risk for the development of lung cancer similar to that of passive smoking.
Lung cancer is the most common cause of death due to cancer in both men and women throughout the world. The American Cancer Society estimates that 219,440 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S. will be diagnosed and 159,390 deaths due to lung cancer will occur in 2009. According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, approximately one out of every 14 men and women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer of the lung at some point in their lifetime.
Lung cancer is predominantly a disease of the elderly; almost 70% of people diagnosed with lung cancer are over 65 years of age, while less than 3% of lung cancers occur in people under 45 years of age.
Lung cancer was not common prior to the 1930s but increased dramatically over the following decades as tobacco smoking increased. In many developing countries, the incidence of lung cancer is beginning to fall following public education about the dangers of cigarette smoking and the introduction of effective smoking-cessation programs.
Nevertheless, lung cancer remains among the most common types of cancers in both men and women worldwide. In the U.S., lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in women.
What Causes Lung Cancer?
Smoking
The incidence of lung cancer is strongly correlated with cigarette smoking, with about 90% of lung cancers arising as a result of tobacco use. The risk of lung cancer increases with the number of cigarettes smoked and the time over which smoking has occurred; doctors refer to this risk in terms of pack-years of smoking history (the number of packs of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by the number of years smoked). For example, a person who has smoked two packs of cigarettes per day for 10 years has a 20 pack-year smoking history. While the risk of lung cancer is increased with even a 10-pack-year smoking history, those with 30-pack-year histories or more are considered to have the greatest risk for the development of lung cancer. Among those who smoke two or more packs of cigarettes per day, one in seven will die of lung cancer.
Pipe and cigar smoking also can cause lung cancer, although the risk is not as high as with cigarette smoking. Thus, while someone who smokes one pack of cigarettes per day has a risk for the development of lung cancer that is 25 times higher than a nonsmoker, pipe and cigar smokers have a risk of lung cancer that is about five times that of a nonsmoker.
Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds, many of which have been shown to be cancer-causing or carcinogenic. The two primary carcinogens in tobacco smoke are chemicals known as nitrosamines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
The risk of developing lung cancer decreases each year following smoking cessation as normal cells grow and replace damaged cells in the lung. In former smokers, the risk of developing lung cancer begins to approach that of a nonsmoker about 15 years after cessation of smoking.
Passive smoking
Passive smoking or the inhalation of tobacco smoke by nonsmokers who share living or working quarters with smokers, also is an established risk factor for the development of lung cancer. Research has shown that nonsmokers who reside with a smoker have a 24% increase in risk for developing lung cancer when compared with nonsmokers who do not reside with a smoker. An estimated 3,000 lung cancer deaths that occur each year in the U.S. are attributable to passive smoking.
Asbestos Fibers
Asbestos fibers are silicate fibers that can persist for a lifetime in lung tissue following exposure to asbestos. The workplace is a common source of exposure to asbestos fibers, as asbestos was widely used in the past as both thermal and acoustic insulation. Today, asbestos use is limited or banned in many countries, including the U.S. Both lung cancer and mesothelioma (cancer of the pleura of the lung as well as of the lining of the abdominal cavity called the peritoneum) are associated with exposure to asbestos. Cigarette smoking drastically increases the chance of developing an asbestos-related lung cancer in workers exposed to asbestos. Asbestos workers who do not smoke have a fivefold greater risk of developing lung cancer than nonsmokers, but asbestos workers who smoke have a risk that is 50- to 90-fold greater than nonsmokers.
Radon Gas
Radon gas is a natural, chemically inert gas that is a natural decay product of uranium. Uranium decays to form products, including radon, that emit a type of ionizing radiation. Radon gas is a known cause of lung cancer, with an estimated 12% of lung-cancer deaths attributable to radon gas, or about 20,000 lung-cancer-related deaths annually in the U.S., making radon the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. As with asbestos exposure, concomitant smoking greatly increases the risk of lung cancer with radon exposure. Radon gas can travel up through soil and enter homes through gaps in the foundation, pipes, drains, or other openings. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that one out of every 15 homes in the U.S. contains dangerous levels of radon gas. Radon gas is invisible and odorless, but it can be detected with simple test kits.
Familial Predisposition
While the majority of lung cancers are associated with tobacco smoking, the fact that not all smokers eventually develop lung cancer suggests that other factors, such as individual genetic susceptibility, may play a role in the causation of lung cancer. Numerous studies have shown that lung cancer is more likely to occur in both smoking and non-smoking relatives of those who have had lung cancer than in the general population. Recently, the largest genetic study of lung cancer ever conducted, involving over 10,000 people from 18 countries and led by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), identified a small region in the genome (DNA) that contains genes that appear to confer an increased susceptibility to lung cancer in smokers. The specific genes, located the q arm of chromosome 15, code for proteins that interact with nicotine and other tobacco toxins (nicotinic acetylcholine receptor genes).
Lung Diseases
The presence of certain diseases of the lung, notably chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), is associated with an increased risk (four- to sixfold the risk of a nonsmoker) for the development of lung cancer even after the effects of concomitant cigarette smoking are excluded.
Prior History of Lung Cancer
Survivors of lung cancer have a greater risk of developing a second lung cancer than the general population has of developing a first lung cancer. Survivors of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs, see below) have an additive risk of 1%-2% per year for developing a second lung cancer. In survivors of small cell lung cancers (SCLCs, see below), the risk for development of second lung cancers approaches 6% per year.
Air pollution
Air pollution from vehicles, industry, and power plants can raise the likelihood of developing lung cancer in exposed individuals. Up to 1% of lung cancer deaths are attributable to breathing polluted air, and experts believe that prolonged exposure to highly polluted air can carry a risk for the development of lung cancer similar to that of passive smoking.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
sembang 6
kalau betul.....why not try?.....
Tolong baca sampai habis*.buah fikiran yg sangat baik*.mari kita renung
dan fikir fikirkan*kemudian kita lakukan.
Idea daripada orang-orang yang kerja kat PETRONAS - price control
Idea yang sangat menarik? Tapi adakah ianya berkesan?
> Nampaknya menjelang tahun depan harga petrol
> akan menghampiri RM 2.00. Mahu
> supaya harga petrol turun? Kita perlukan satu
> tindakan bijak dan bersepadu.
> Philip Hollsworth menawarkan idea bagus ini.
> Ianya LEBIH BERKESAN berbanding kempen
> "jangan beli petrol pada hari tertentu" yang
> dilakukan pada April atau Mei lalu. Syarikat
> minyak hanya akan mentertawakan seba b mereka
> tahu dengan tidak membeli petrol, kita akan
> menyusahkan diri sendiri. Ia lebih menyusahkan
> pengguna sendiri
> berbanding penjual.
> Tapi, tak kiralah dari siapa idea ini yang
> mencadangkan pelan yang benar-benar berkesan..
> Sila teruskan membaca dan ambillah bahagian
> dalam rancangan ini.
> Mengikut kenyataan dari negara-negara pengeluar
> minyak anggota OPEC harga seliter petrol adalah
> semurah 89 hingga 95 sen sahaja. Tetapi syarikat
> syarikat pembekal minyaklah yang mengaut
> keuntungan besar dari situasi sekarang ini.
> Kita sebagai pengguna perlukan tindakan agresif
> untuk 'mengajar' mereka bahawa PEMBELI juga
> ada kuasa untuk yang mengawal harga, bukan
> penjual sahaja.
> Dengan harga petrol yang naik begitu tinggi
> sekarang ini, kita pengguna perlu bertindak
> segera. Satu cara yang disarankan untuk
> menurunkan harga petrol ialah dengan
> memberikan tamparan 'market leader' industri
> berkenaan, iaitu dengan tidak
> membeli petrol dari penjual tertentu. Ini dapat kita
> lakukan tanpa menyusahkan diri kita sendiri.
Ideanya begini :-
Untuk sepanjang tahun ini, JANGAN beli petrol dari TIGA SYARIKAT
MINYAK
TERBESAR DIDUNIA iaitu
1) ESSO/MOBIL
2) SHELL
3) PROJET
Tiga syarikat gergasi inilah yang sebenarnya
> mengawal harga runcit petrol dan mengaut
> keuntungan untuk diri mereka sendiri. Sistem ini
> sejajar dengan cara business kapitalis Yahudi
> yang tidak langsung mempunyai perasaan
> bertimbang rasa sesama manusia.
> Jika mereka tidak merasa penjualan petrol mereka
> menurun secara tiba-tiba sedangkan pesaing
> mereka akan terus maju, mereka akan mula
> menurunkan harga. Dan jika mereka berbuat
> demikian yang lain akan turut serta. Tetapi, untuk
> kaedah ini memberi kesan, kita kena memberitahu
> berjuta pembeli ESSO/MOBIL,SHELL dan
> PROJET.
> Ia sangat mudah dilakukan. Saya akan terangkan
> disini caranya:-
> Saya menghantar mesej ini kepada ramai
> orang.Jika setiap kita menghantar kepada
> sekurang2nya 10 orang atau lebih (30 x 10 = 300)?
> Dan 300 orang ini hantar kepada sekurang2nya 10
> orang atau lebih (300 x 10 = 3,000)? dan
> seterusnya.
> Sebaik mesej ini sampai kepada generasi
> penerima yang ke 6, ia sebenarnya telah
> disebarkan kepada lebih TIGA JUTA pengguna
> petrol. Sekali lagi, apa yang perlu anda lakukan
> ialah :
1) Menghantar mesej ini kepada 10 orang atau lebih, itu saja.
2) Berhenti dengan serta merta membeli petrol dari ESSO/MOBIL, SHELL dan
PROJET.
Itu sahaja.....
Berapa lama ia akan berlaku? Jika setiap kita
> menghantar email kepada 10 orang dalam satu
> hari, semua 3 JUTA orang akan dapat dihubungi
> dalam masa 8 hari sahaja.
> Saya cabar anda, jangan sangka anda tiada
> kuasa, bertindak secara bersama.
> Ia pasti akan membuahkan hasil.
Jika anda terima sar ana n ini, sila sebarkan email ini.
TOLONG KEKALKAN KOMITMEN ANDA
SEHINGGA MEREKA TURUNKAN HARGA
DALAM LINGKUNGAN 80 SEN SELITER.
Mudah saja, anda cuma perlu....... .....
1. Forwardkan email ini kepada kawan-kawan dan kenalan,
2. Beli petrol dari PETRONAS , dan CALTEX sahaja ..... jauhi diri anda
dari stesyen petrol ESSO/MOBIL, SHELL dan PROJET
Tolong baca sampai habis*.buah fikiran yg sangat baik*.mari kita renung
dan fikir fikirkan*kemudian kita lakukan.
Idea daripada orang-orang yang kerja kat PETRONAS - price control
Idea yang sangat menarik? Tapi adakah ianya berkesan?
> Nampaknya menjelang tahun depan harga petrol
> akan menghampiri RM 2.00. Mahu
> supaya harga petrol turun? Kita perlukan satu
> tindakan bijak dan bersepadu.
> Philip Hollsworth menawarkan idea bagus ini.
> Ianya LEBIH BERKESAN berbanding kempen
> "jangan beli petrol pada hari tertentu" yang
> dilakukan pada April atau Mei lalu. Syarikat
> minyak hanya akan mentertawakan seba b mereka
> tahu dengan tidak membeli petrol, kita akan
> menyusahkan diri sendiri. Ia lebih menyusahkan
> pengguna sendiri
> berbanding penjual.
> Tapi, tak kiralah dari siapa idea ini yang
> mencadangkan pelan yang benar-benar berkesan..
> Sila teruskan membaca dan ambillah bahagian
> dalam rancangan ini.
> Mengikut kenyataan dari negara-negara pengeluar
> minyak anggota OPEC harga seliter petrol adalah
> semurah 89 hingga 95 sen sahaja. Tetapi syarikat
> syarikat pembekal minyaklah yang mengaut
> keuntungan besar dari situasi sekarang ini.
> Kita sebagai pengguna perlukan tindakan agresif
> untuk 'mengajar' mereka bahawa PEMBELI juga
> ada kuasa untuk yang mengawal harga, bukan
> penjual sahaja.
> Dengan harga petrol yang naik begitu tinggi
> sekarang ini, kita pengguna perlu bertindak
> segera. Satu cara yang disarankan untuk
> menurunkan harga petrol ialah dengan
> memberikan tamparan 'market leader' industri
> berkenaan, iaitu dengan tidak
> membeli petrol dari penjual tertentu. Ini dapat kita
> lakukan tanpa menyusahkan diri kita sendiri.
Ideanya begini :-
Untuk sepanjang tahun ini, JANGAN beli petrol dari TIGA SYARIKAT
MINYAK
TERBESAR DIDUNIA iaitu
1) ESSO/MOBIL
2) SHELL
3) PROJET
Tiga syarikat gergasi inilah yang sebenarnya
> mengawal harga runcit petrol dan mengaut
> keuntungan untuk diri mereka sendiri. Sistem ini
> sejajar dengan cara business kapitalis Yahudi
> yang tidak langsung mempunyai perasaan
> bertimbang rasa sesama manusia.
> Jika mereka tidak merasa penjualan petrol mereka
> menurun secara tiba-tiba sedangkan pesaing
> mereka akan terus maju, mereka akan mula
> menurunkan harga. Dan jika mereka berbuat
> demikian yang lain akan turut serta. Tetapi, untuk
> kaedah ini memberi kesan, kita kena memberitahu
> berjuta pembeli ESSO/MOBIL,SHELL dan
> PROJET.
> Ia sangat mudah dilakukan. Saya akan terangkan
> disini caranya:-
> Saya menghantar mesej ini kepada ramai
> orang.Jika setiap kita menghantar kepada
> sekurang2nya 10 orang atau lebih (30 x 10 = 300)?
> Dan 300 orang ini hantar kepada sekurang2nya 10
> orang atau lebih (300 x 10 = 3,000)? dan
> seterusnya.
> Sebaik mesej ini sampai kepada generasi
> penerima yang ke 6, ia sebenarnya telah
> disebarkan kepada lebih TIGA JUTA pengguna
> petrol. Sekali lagi, apa yang perlu anda lakukan
> ialah :
1) Menghantar mesej ini kepada 10 orang atau lebih, itu saja.
2) Berhenti dengan serta merta membeli petrol dari ESSO/MOBIL, SHELL dan
PROJET.
Itu sahaja.....
Berapa lama ia akan berlaku? Jika setiap kita
> menghantar email kepada 10 orang dalam satu
> hari, semua 3 JUTA orang akan dapat dihubungi
> dalam masa 8 hari sahaja.
> Saya cabar anda, jangan sangka anda tiada
> kuasa, bertindak secara bersama.
> Ia pasti akan membuahkan hasil.
Jika anda terima sar ana n ini, sila sebarkan email ini.
TOLONG KEKALKAN KOMITMEN ANDA
SEHINGGA MEREKA TURUNKAN HARGA
DALAM LINGKUNGAN 80 SEN SELITER.
Mudah saja, anda cuma perlu....... .....
1. Forwardkan email ini kepada kawan-kawan dan kenalan,
2. Beli petrol dari PETRONAS , dan CALTEX sahaja ..... jauhi diri anda
dari stesyen petrol ESSO/MOBIL, SHELL dan PROJET
Friday, September 10, 2010
war on drug
Our 'war on drugs' has been an abysmal failure. Just look at Mexico
The west's refusal to countenance drug legalisation has fuelled anarchy, profiteering and misery
By Simon Jenkins
September 10, 2010 "The Guardian" -- It is wrecking the government of Mexico. It is financing the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is throwing 11,000 Britons into jail. It is corrupting democracy throughout Latin America. It is devastating the ghettoes of America and propagating Aids in urban Europe. Its turnover is some £200bn a year, on which it pays not a penny of tax. Thousands round the world die of it and millions are impoverished. It is the biggest man-made blight on the face of the earth.
No, it is not drugs. They are as old as humanity. Drugs will always be a challenge to individual and communal discipline, alongside alcohol and nicotine. The curse is different: the declaration by states that some drugs are illegal and that those who supply and use them are criminals. This is the root of the evil.
By outlawing products – poppy and coca – that are in massive global demand, governments merely hand huge untaxed profits to those outside the law and propagate anarchy. Repressive regimes, such as some Muslim ones, have managed to curb domestic alcohol consumption, but no one has been able to stop the global market in heroin and cocaine. It is too big and too lucrative, rivalling arms and oil on the international monetary exchanges. Forty years of "the war on drugs" have defeated all-comers, except political hypocrites.
Most western governments have turned a blind eye and decided to ride with the menace, since the chief price of their failure is paid by the poor. In Britain Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown felt tackling the drugs economy was not worth antagonising rightwing newspapers. Like most rich westerners they relied on regarding drugs as a menace among the poor but a youthful indiscretion among their own offspring.
The full horror of drug criminality is now coming home to roost far from the streets of New York and London. In countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, drugs are so endemic that criminalising them merely fuels a colossal corruption. It is rendering futile Nato's Afghan war effort, which requires the retraining of an army and police too addicted either to cure or to sack. Poppies are the chief source of cash for farmers whose hearts and minds Nato needs to win, yet whose poppy crop (ultimately for Nato nations) finances the Taliban. It is crazy.
The worst impact of criminalisation is on Latin America. Here the slow emergence of democratic governments – from Bolivia through Peru and Columbia to Mexico – is being jeopardised by America's "counter-narcotics" diplomacy through the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Rather than try to stem its own voracious appetite for drugs, rich America shifts guilt on to poor supplier countries. Never was the law of economics – demand always evokes supply – so traduced as in Washington's drugs policy. America spends $40bn a year on narcotics policy, imprisoning a staggering 1.5m of its citizens under it.
Cocaine supplies routed through Mexico have made that country the drugs equivalent of a Gulf oil state. An estimated 500,000 people are employed in the trade, all at risk of their lives, with 45,000 soldiers deployed against them. Border provinces are largely in the hands of drug barons and their private armies. In the past four years 28,000 Mexicans have died in drug wars, a slaughter that would outrage the world if caused by any other industry (such as oil). Mexico's experience puts in the shade the gangsterism of America's last failed experiment in prohibition, the prewar alcohol ban.
As a result, it is South American governments and not the sophisticated west that are now pleading for reform. A year ago an Argentinian court gave American and British politicians a lesson in libertarianism by declaring that "adults should be free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state". Mexico declared drugs users "patients not criminals". Ecuador released 1,500 hapless women imprisoned as drug mules – while the British government locks them for years in Holloway.
Brazil's ex-president Fernando Cardoso and a panel of his former judges announced emphatically that the war on drugs had failed and that "the only way to reduce violence in Mexico, Brazil or anywhere else is to legalise the production, supply and consumption of all drugs". Last month, Mexico's desperate president, Felipe Calderón, acknowledged that his four-year, US-financed war on the drug cartels had all but failed and called on the world for "a fundamental debate on the legalising of drugs".
The difficulty these countries face is the size of the global industry created by the west to meet its demand for drugs. That industry is certain to deploy lethal means against legalisation, as the alcohol barons did against the ending of prohibition. They have been unwittingly sponsored for decades by western leaders, and particularly by the United Nations which, with typical fatuity, declared in 1998 that it would "create a drug-free world" by 2008. All maintained the fiction that demand could be curbed by curbing supply, thus presenting their own consumers as somehow the victims of supplier countries.
The UN's prohibitionist drugs czar, Antonio Maria Costa, comfortably ensconced in Vienna, holds that cannabis is as harmful as heroin and cocaine, and wants to deny individual governments freedom over their drug policies. In eight years in office he has disastrously protected the drug cartels and their profits by refusing to countenance drug legalisation. He even suggested recently that the estimated $352bn generated by drug lords in 2008-09 helped save the world banking system from collapse. It is hard to know whose side he is on.
The evil of drugs will never be stamped out by seizing trivial quantities of drugs and arresting trivial numbers of traders and consumers. That is a mere pretence of action. Drug law enforcement has been the greatest regulatory failure in modern times, far greater in its impact on the world than that of banking. Nor is much likely to come from moves in both Europe and America to legalise cannabis use, sensible though they are. In November Californians are to vote on Proposition 19, to give municipalities freedom to legalise and tax cannabis. One farm in Oakland is forecast to yield $3m a year in taxes, money California's government sorely needs.
This will do nothing to combat the misery now being visited on Mexico. The world has to bring its biggest illegal trade under control. It has to legalise not just consumption but supply. There is evidence that drug markets respond to realistic regulation. In Britain, under Labour, nicotine use fell because tobacco was controlled and taxed, while alcohol use rose because it was decontrolled and made cheaper. European states that have decriminalised and regulated sections of their drug economies, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Portugal, have found it has reduced consumption. Regulation works, anarchy does not.
In the case of drugs produced in industrial quantities from distant corners of the globe, only international action has any hope of success. Drug supply must be legalised, taxed and controlled. Other than eliminating war, there can be no greater ambition for international statesmanship. The boon to the peoples of the world would be beyond price.
The west's refusal to countenance drug legalisation has fuelled anarchy, profiteering and misery
By Simon Jenkins
September 10, 2010 "The Guardian" -- It is wrecking the government of Mexico. It is financing the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is throwing 11,000 Britons into jail. It is corrupting democracy throughout Latin America. It is devastating the ghettoes of America and propagating Aids in urban Europe. Its turnover is some £200bn a year, on which it pays not a penny of tax. Thousands round the world die of it and millions are impoverished. It is the biggest man-made blight on the face of the earth.
No, it is not drugs. They are as old as humanity. Drugs will always be a challenge to individual and communal discipline, alongside alcohol and nicotine. The curse is different: the declaration by states that some drugs are illegal and that those who supply and use them are criminals. This is the root of the evil.
By outlawing products – poppy and coca – that are in massive global demand, governments merely hand huge untaxed profits to those outside the law and propagate anarchy. Repressive regimes, such as some Muslim ones, have managed to curb domestic alcohol consumption, but no one has been able to stop the global market in heroin and cocaine. It is too big and too lucrative, rivalling arms and oil on the international monetary exchanges. Forty years of "the war on drugs" have defeated all-comers, except political hypocrites.
Most western governments have turned a blind eye and decided to ride with the menace, since the chief price of their failure is paid by the poor. In Britain Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown felt tackling the drugs economy was not worth antagonising rightwing newspapers. Like most rich westerners they relied on regarding drugs as a menace among the poor but a youthful indiscretion among their own offspring.
The full horror of drug criminality is now coming home to roost far from the streets of New York and London. In countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, drugs are so endemic that criminalising them merely fuels a colossal corruption. It is rendering futile Nato's Afghan war effort, which requires the retraining of an army and police too addicted either to cure or to sack. Poppies are the chief source of cash for farmers whose hearts and minds Nato needs to win, yet whose poppy crop (ultimately for Nato nations) finances the Taliban. It is crazy.
The worst impact of criminalisation is on Latin America. Here the slow emergence of democratic governments – from Bolivia through Peru and Columbia to Mexico – is being jeopardised by America's "counter-narcotics" diplomacy through the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Rather than try to stem its own voracious appetite for drugs, rich America shifts guilt on to poor supplier countries. Never was the law of economics – demand always evokes supply – so traduced as in Washington's drugs policy. America spends $40bn a year on narcotics policy, imprisoning a staggering 1.5m of its citizens under it.
Cocaine supplies routed through Mexico have made that country the drugs equivalent of a Gulf oil state. An estimated 500,000 people are employed in the trade, all at risk of their lives, with 45,000 soldiers deployed against them. Border provinces are largely in the hands of drug barons and their private armies. In the past four years 28,000 Mexicans have died in drug wars, a slaughter that would outrage the world if caused by any other industry (such as oil). Mexico's experience puts in the shade the gangsterism of America's last failed experiment in prohibition, the prewar alcohol ban.
As a result, it is South American governments and not the sophisticated west that are now pleading for reform. A year ago an Argentinian court gave American and British politicians a lesson in libertarianism by declaring that "adults should be free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state". Mexico declared drugs users "patients not criminals". Ecuador released 1,500 hapless women imprisoned as drug mules – while the British government locks them for years in Holloway.
Brazil's ex-president Fernando Cardoso and a panel of his former judges announced emphatically that the war on drugs had failed and that "the only way to reduce violence in Mexico, Brazil or anywhere else is to legalise the production, supply and consumption of all drugs". Last month, Mexico's desperate president, Felipe Calderón, acknowledged that his four-year, US-financed war on the drug cartels had all but failed and called on the world for "a fundamental debate on the legalising of drugs".
The difficulty these countries face is the size of the global industry created by the west to meet its demand for drugs. That industry is certain to deploy lethal means against legalisation, as the alcohol barons did against the ending of prohibition. They have been unwittingly sponsored for decades by western leaders, and particularly by the United Nations which, with typical fatuity, declared in 1998 that it would "create a drug-free world" by 2008. All maintained the fiction that demand could be curbed by curbing supply, thus presenting their own consumers as somehow the victims of supplier countries.
The UN's prohibitionist drugs czar, Antonio Maria Costa, comfortably ensconced in Vienna, holds that cannabis is as harmful as heroin and cocaine, and wants to deny individual governments freedom over their drug policies. In eight years in office he has disastrously protected the drug cartels and their profits by refusing to countenance drug legalisation. He even suggested recently that the estimated $352bn generated by drug lords in 2008-09 helped save the world banking system from collapse. It is hard to know whose side he is on.
The evil of drugs will never be stamped out by seizing trivial quantities of drugs and arresting trivial numbers of traders and consumers. That is a mere pretence of action. Drug law enforcement has been the greatest regulatory failure in modern times, far greater in its impact on the world than that of banking. Nor is much likely to come from moves in both Europe and America to legalise cannabis use, sensible though they are. In November Californians are to vote on Proposition 19, to give municipalities freedom to legalise and tax cannabis. One farm in Oakland is forecast to yield $3m a year in taxes, money California's government sorely needs.
This will do nothing to combat the misery now being visited on Mexico. The world has to bring its biggest illegal trade under control. It has to legalise not just consumption but supply. There is evidence that drug markets respond to realistic regulation. In Britain, under Labour, nicotine use fell because tobacco was controlled and taxed, while alcohol use rose because it was decontrolled and made cheaper. European states that have decriminalised and regulated sections of their drug economies, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Portugal, have found it has reduced consumption. Regulation works, anarchy does not.
In the case of drugs produced in industrial quantities from distant corners of the globe, only international action has any hope of success. Drug supply must be legalised, taxed and controlled. Other than eliminating war, there can be no greater ambition for international statesmanship. The boon to the peoples of the world would be beyond price.
The ‘Meaning’ of 9/11
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The ‘Meaning’ of 9/11
It’s not what you think
By Justin Raimondo
September 10, 2010 "Antiwar" - - One would think that after nine years at least some of the anger, the horror and shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would have dissipated: but no. A glimpse at the headlines, a few days before the somber anniversary, disabuses us of this hopeful notion: a crazed pastor out in the boonies somewhere is burning Korans, and the commander of our forces in Afghanistan feels compelled to respond, as does the President. The proposal to build a Muslim community center blocks from "ground zero" – modeled on Jewish community centers ubiquitous in New York – is met with furious opposition, and the "anti-Islamization" movement spearheaded by bigots takes off, with mosques all over the country under attack. Physical attacks on Muslims, or people perceived as Muslim, escalate: a New York City cabbie is assaulted by a crazed Islamophobe, and people who have lived in this country for the whole of their lives are afraid.
What’s going on? Andrew Sullivan, writing on his popular blog, writes he is "at a loss to understand why so many have reacted so ferociously to this project." After all, Imam Feisel Rauf, the Muslim cleric who wants to build Cordoba House, is a moderate who has condemned Islamic extremism: Rauf was sent by the Bush administration overseas to act as an ambassador of good will to Muslim countries. So where is the ferocity coming from?
To find the answer to this question, we just have to follow the money, and thankfully Ken Vogel and Giovanni Russonello over at Politico have done just that. After detailing the money coming into the Cordoba House project from mainstream donors like the Rockefellers, they write:
"There’s also big money behind the mosque opposition, as highlighted by the relationship between [David] Horowitz’s Los Angeles-based nonprofit, Jihad Watch – the website run by Spencer "dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world" – and Joyce Chernick, the wife of a wealthy California tech company founder.
"Though it was not listed on the public tax reports filed by Horowitz’s Freedom Center, Politico has confirmed that the lion’s share of the $920,000 it provided over the past three years to Jihad Watch came from Chernick, whose husband, Aubrey Chernick, has a net worth of $750 million, as a result of his 2004 sale to IBM of a software company he created, and a security consulting firm he now owns.
"A onetime trustee of the …Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Aubrey Chernick led the effort to pull together $3.5 million in venture capital to start Pajamas Media, a conservative blog network …
"The David Horowitz Freedom Center had a budget of $4.5 million last year, according to its tax filings, of which $290,000 came from the conservative Bradley Foundation, which also gave $75,000 to the Center for Security Policy last year. Horowitz has received an average of $461,000 a year in salary and benefits over the past three years, while Spencer has pulled in an average of $140,000, according to the center’s IRS filings."
Laura Rozen follows up on her Politico blog, detailing the trail of donations from 2008 990 filings for Chernick’s charitable foundation, the Fairbrook Foundation, listing all the familiar suspects – CAMERA, Horowitz, MEMRI, Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, the Israeli nationalist "Stand With Us" campus project – and a few less familiar, such as the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, dedicated to thwarting our stated policy of no more settlements where it counts: in East Jerusalem.
Millions pour into the coffers of these groups, all of which are dedicated to one overriding principle, one goal: advancing Israel’s national interests in the US. The serpentine convolutions of the Chernick connection, linking one front group to another, encircle the political and temperamental spectrum, ranging from the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles (over $900k) to the many hundreds of thousands given to hardline neoconservative outfits like the Hudson Institute, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, not to mention Pajamas Media ($7 million, in collusion with venture capitalist James "extensively experienced in multimillion-dollar technology transfer and license agreements " Koshland) and a mass campaign to distribute DVDs of the virulently anti-Muslim film "Obsession."
The aim of all this giving is to create and sustain an obsessive hatred of Muslims, all Muslims, and garner support for Israel. The fulminations of Newt Gingrich and the flaxwn-haired harpies of Fox News, who rail against the "ground zero mosque" seem, on the surface, to make no sense. Are they really saying that they want the US to declare war on the billion-plus Muslims who inhabit the planet earth? This, after all, is precisely what Osama bin Laden has repeatedly said: that all the world’s Muslims must unite under al-Qaeda’s bloody banner because the West, in alliance with Israel, is out to destroy Islam, and it is therefore the duty of the faithful to wage jihad against the US.
The Israelis, having long ago declared war on all the other nations of the region, want us in their camp, and that is precisely what occurred with stunning speed before the smoke cleared from the site where the World Trade Center once stood. "We’re all Israelis now!" exulted Martin "Palestinians are subhuman" Peretz, over at The New Republic. Benjamin Netanyahu, who is today the Prime Minister of Israel, told an audience at Bar Ilan University “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” according to the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. The attack, he averred, “swung American public opinion in our favor” – and now that he and his fellow extremists are in power in Tel Aviv, they are making sure public opinion stays in their favor.
The craziness that ensued in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks had to be sustained if Israel was to take full advantage of the moment – a moment their intelligence operatives anticipated, according to Fox News, in a four-part series by their topnotch journalist Carl Cameron, which started out as follows:
"Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
"There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are “tie-ins.” But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, ‘evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It’s classified information.’"
Fox News has never retracted a word of this story, although they did – after pressure from the Israel lobby – delete it from their web site. It was never mentioned again, at least in "respectable" quarters, and, to be sure, it was never forgotten, thanks to the Internet, where Carl Cameron will be exposing the Israeli connection to the 9/11 terrorist attacks unto eternity.
Cameron’s noting that "more than sixty" Israelis had been arrested immediately after 9/11, along with and under the same legal rubric as thousands of Arabs, had also been noted here in this space, before the Fox News broadcasts. Why, I asked in a column, was the US government rounding up Israelis, of all people – unless there was some kind of Israeli connection to the attacks? The answer came in Cameron’s reporting, and subsequent stories in the "mainstream" media: the Israelis, whose intelligence services had been very active on our soil in the months leading up to 9/11, had been following the hijackers, shadowing their every move, without telling us – almost as if they were protecting them rather than trying to stop them.
What happened on September 11, 2001, has changed the shape of history, and certainly determined the utterly disastrous course of US foreign policy since that day. We have launched a war of retribution against the entire Muslim world, a vast campaign of bombings, drone attacks, occupation, and terror unleashed on the peoples of the Middle East, from Iraq to Pakistan. This is precisely why the Israelis didn’t tell us what Mohammed Atta and his co-conspirators were up to, although – if we take Fox News seriously, and I realize there are plenty who don’t – there is no doubt that they had it in their power to stop the whole operation before the hijackers had a chance to strike. All they had to do was tell us – and they didn’t. This is the "intelligence failure" – not the lack of centralized information, not the competition between the CIA and the FBI – that made the 9/11 terrorist attacks possible: the perfidy of our Israeli "ally."
The Israelis didn’t dive-bomb the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with commandeered airliners: Atta and his gang did. Yet they could have prevented it – but why should they have? After all, the attacks have swung public opinion in their favor, as Netanyahu boasted – surely a foreseeable development.
Today, nine years after the event, the Israel lobby is using the anniversary of the attacks to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria to a fever pitch, and they have plenty of bucks to do it. These people – who, as Juan Cole points out, represent a minuscule fraction of the pro-Israel population in the US, and stand out like a couple of sore thumbs from the overwhelmingly liberal Jewish community – mean business, and there’s only one way to fight them. It’s time to play hardball – just like they do.
I was warned, before raising the possibility of an Israeli connection to 9/11, that I was touching a live wire, that my career – such as it is – would be destroyed, and that I would be banished to the hinterlands, where various obsessives trade conspiracy theories and argue over whether it’s the Bilderbergers or the Illuminati who control the world.
It hasn’t happened, but I wouldn’t care if it did. As Ayn Rand once said: I’m not brave enough to be a coward – I see the consequences too clearly. We see the consequences of 9/11 all around us, in the hate-wrinkled face of the Koran-burning preacher, in the shrill shrieking of Pamela Geller whose anti-Muslim rallies in the vanished shadow of the Trade Towers are as ugly as she is: we see it in the faces of Pakistani refugees, huddled in disease-infested camps, as they flee the US invasion of death-dealing drones.
Think about it: the leadership of a nation that betrayed us, that watched, impassively – or, perhaps, gleefully – as Islamist terrorists wreaked deadly havoc on our two biggest cities, has a vast and well-funded propaganda network in this country dedicated to stoking hatred of Muslims. And they are certainly doing a very good job of it.
How do they get away with it?
So, you want to know the "meaning" of 9/11? It is, as Martin Luther King put it, this:
"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I’m taking my show on the road this autumn, to campuses around the country, talking about some of the ideas expressed in Wednesday’s column on "Anti-Interventionism: The Left-wing Tradition." My talk is entitled "Why Has the Left Sold Out the Antiwar Movement?" – which is sure to provoke a controversy, or at least that’s the hope.
The libertarian student movement, organizing nationally under the leadership of Young Americans for Liberty, is the most exciting – and important – development since the birth of contemporary libertarianism itself. Murray Rothbard, who founded the modern libertarian movement in his living room (and, back then, believe me, it was just big enough to fit in his modest-sized living room), would be thrilled if he were alive today. That’s because they’re hard core, and hard workers, busy building a burgeoning organization dedicated to ending the Fed and ending the wars the Fed makes possible. Who would’ve thought?! That’s one reason I’m taking this tour, but another is to engage in dialogue with the left: to wake them up to the fact that a united antiwar movement, organized around the single issue of US military intervention overseas, is a moral imperative.
If you’re interested in booking me at your campus, write wendy@antiwar.com, or call the Antiwar.com office, at: 510-217-8665.
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (ISI, 2008), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).
He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
The ‘Meaning’ of 9/11
It’s not what you think
By Justin Raimondo
September 10, 2010 "Antiwar" - - One would think that after nine years at least some of the anger, the horror and shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would have dissipated: but no. A glimpse at the headlines, a few days before the somber anniversary, disabuses us of this hopeful notion: a crazed pastor out in the boonies somewhere is burning Korans, and the commander of our forces in Afghanistan feels compelled to respond, as does the President. The proposal to build a Muslim community center blocks from "ground zero" – modeled on Jewish community centers ubiquitous in New York – is met with furious opposition, and the "anti-Islamization" movement spearheaded by bigots takes off, with mosques all over the country under attack. Physical attacks on Muslims, or people perceived as Muslim, escalate: a New York City cabbie is assaulted by a crazed Islamophobe, and people who have lived in this country for the whole of their lives are afraid.
What’s going on? Andrew Sullivan, writing on his popular blog, writes he is "at a loss to understand why so many have reacted so ferociously to this project." After all, Imam Feisel Rauf, the Muslim cleric who wants to build Cordoba House, is a moderate who has condemned Islamic extremism: Rauf was sent by the Bush administration overseas to act as an ambassador of good will to Muslim countries. So where is the ferocity coming from?
To find the answer to this question, we just have to follow the money, and thankfully Ken Vogel and Giovanni Russonello over at Politico have done just that. After detailing the money coming into the Cordoba House project from mainstream donors like the Rockefellers, they write:
"There’s also big money behind the mosque opposition, as highlighted by the relationship between [David] Horowitz’s Los Angeles-based nonprofit, Jihad Watch – the website run by Spencer "dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world" – and Joyce Chernick, the wife of a wealthy California tech company founder.
"Though it was not listed on the public tax reports filed by Horowitz’s Freedom Center, Politico has confirmed that the lion’s share of the $920,000 it provided over the past three years to Jihad Watch came from Chernick, whose husband, Aubrey Chernick, has a net worth of $750 million, as a result of his 2004 sale to IBM of a software company he created, and a security consulting firm he now owns.
"A onetime trustee of the …Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Aubrey Chernick led the effort to pull together $3.5 million in venture capital to start Pajamas Media, a conservative blog network …
"The David Horowitz Freedom Center had a budget of $4.5 million last year, according to its tax filings, of which $290,000 came from the conservative Bradley Foundation, which also gave $75,000 to the Center for Security Policy last year. Horowitz has received an average of $461,000 a year in salary and benefits over the past three years, while Spencer has pulled in an average of $140,000, according to the center’s IRS filings."
Laura Rozen follows up on her Politico blog, detailing the trail of donations from 2008 990 filings for Chernick’s charitable foundation, the Fairbrook Foundation, listing all the familiar suspects – CAMERA, Horowitz, MEMRI, Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, the Israeli nationalist "Stand With Us" campus project – and a few less familiar, such as the American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, dedicated to thwarting our stated policy of no more settlements where it counts: in East Jerusalem.
Millions pour into the coffers of these groups, all of which are dedicated to one overriding principle, one goal: advancing Israel’s national interests in the US. The serpentine convolutions of the Chernick connection, linking one front group to another, encircle the political and temperamental spectrum, ranging from the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles (over $900k) to the many hundreds of thousands given to hardline neoconservative outfits like the Hudson Institute, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, not to mention Pajamas Media ($7 million, in collusion with venture capitalist James "extensively experienced in multimillion-dollar technology transfer and license agreements " Koshland) and a mass campaign to distribute DVDs of the virulently anti-Muslim film "Obsession."
The aim of all this giving is to create and sustain an obsessive hatred of Muslims, all Muslims, and garner support for Israel. The fulminations of Newt Gingrich and the flaxwn-haired harpies of Fox News, who rail against the "ground zero mosque" seem, on the surface, to make no sense. Are they really saying that they want the US to declare war on the billion-plus Muslims who inhabit the planet earth? This, after all, is precisely what Osama bin Laden has repeatedly said: that all the world’s Muslims must unite under al-Qaeda’s bloody banner because the West, in alliance with Israel, is out to destroy Islam, and it is therefore the duty of the faithful to wage jihad against the US.
The Israelis, having long ago declared war on all the other nations of the region, want us in their camp, and that is precisely what occurred with stunning speed before the smoke cleared from the site where the World Trade Center once stood. "We’re all Israelis now!" exulted Martin "Palestinians are subhuman" Peretz, over at The New Republic. Benjamin Netanyahu, who is today the Prime Minister of Israel, told an audience at Bar Ilan University “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” according to the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. The attack, he averred, “swung American public opinion in our favor” – and now that he and his fellow extremists are in power in Tel Aviv, they are making sure public opinion stays in their favor.
The craziness that ensued in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks had to be sustained if Israel was to take full advantage of the moment – a moment their intelligence operatives anticipated, according to Fox News, in a four-part series by their topnotch journalist Carl Cameron, which started out as follows:
"Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
"There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are “tie-ins.” But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, ‘evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It’s classified information.’"
Fox News has never retracted a word of this story, although they did – after pressure from the Israel lobby – delete it from their web site. It was never mentioned again, at least in "respectable" quarters, and, to be sure, it was never forgotten, thanks to the Internet, where Carl Cameron will be exposing the Israeli connection to the 9/11 terrorist attacks unto eternity.
Cameron’s noting that "more than sixty" Israelis had been arrested immediately after 9/11, along with and under the same legal rubric as thousands of Arabs, had also been noted here in this space, before the Fox News broadcasts. Why, I asked in a column, was the US government rounding up Israelis, of all people – unless there was some kind of Israeli connection to the attacks? The answer came in Cameron’s reporting, and subsequent stories in the "mainstream" media: the Israelis, whose intelligence services had been very active on our soil in the months leading up to 9/11, had been following the hijackers, shadowing their every move, without telling us – almost as if they were protecting them rather than trying to stop them.
What happened on September 11, 2001, has changed the shape of history, and certainly determined the utterly disastrous course of US foreign policy since that day. We have launched a war of retribution against the entire Muslim world, a vast campaign of bombings, drone attacks, occupation, and terror unleashed on the peoples of the Middle East, from Iraq to Pakistan. This is precisely why the Israelis didn’t tell us what Mohammed Atta and his co-conspirators were up to, although – if we take Fox News seriously, and I realize there are plenty who don’t – there is no doubt that they had it in their power to stop the whole operation before the hijackers had a chance to strike. All they had to do was tell us – and they didn’t. This is the "intelligence failure" – not the lack of centralized information, not the competition between the CIA and the FBI – that made the 9/11 terrorist attacks possible: the perfidy of our Israeli "ally."
The Israelis didn’t dive-bomb the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with commandeered airliners: Atta and his gang did. Yet they could have prevented it – but why should they have? After all, the attacks have swung public opinion in their favor, as Netanyahu boasted – surely a foreseeable development.
Today, nine years after the event, the Israel lobby is using the anniversary of the attacks to whip up anti-Muslim hysteria to a fever pitch, and they have plenty of bucks to do it. These people – who, as Juan Cole points out, represent a minuscule fraction of the pro-Israel population in the US, and stand out like a couple of sore thumbs from the overwhelmingly liberal Jewish community – mean business, and there’s only one way to fight them. It’s time to play hardball – just like they do.
I was warned, before raising the possibility of an Israeli connection to 9/11, that I was touching a live wire, that my career – such as it is – would be destroyed, and that I would be banished to the hinterlands, where various obsessives trade conspiracy theories and argue over whether it’s the Bilderbergers or the Illuminati who control the world.
It hasn’t happened, but I wouldn’t care if it did. As Ayn Rand once said: I’m not brave enough to be a coward – I see the consequences too clearly. We see the consequences of 9/11 all around us, in the hate-wrinkled face of the Koran-burning preacher, in the shrill shrieking of Pamela Geller whose anti-Muslim rallies in the vanished shadow of the Trade Towers are as ugly as she is: we see it in the faces of Pakistani refugees, huddled in disease-infested camps, as they flee the US invasion of death-dealing drones.
Think about it: the leadership of a nation that betrayed us, that watched, impassively – or, perhaps, gleefully – as Islamist terrorists wreaked deadly havoc on our two biggest cities, has a vast and well-funded propaganda network in this country dedicated to stoking hatred of Muslims. And they are certainly doing a very good job of it.
How do they get away with it?
So, you want to know the "meaning" of 9/11? It is, as Martin Luther King put it, this:
"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
I’m taking my show on the road this autumn, to campuses around the country, talking about some of the ideas expressed in Wednesday’s column on "Anti-Interventionism: The Left-wing Tradition." My talk is entitled "Why Has the Left Sold Out the Antiwar Movement?" – which is sure to provoke a controversy, or at least that’s the hope.
The libertarian student movement, organizing nationally under the leadership of Young Americans for Liberty, is the most exciting – and important – development since the birth of contemporary libertarianism itself. Murray Rothbard, who founded the modern libertarian movement in his living room (and, back then, believe me, it was just big enough to fit in his modest-sized living room), would be thrilled if he were alive today. That’s because they’re hard core, and hard workers, busy building a burgeoning organization dedicated to ending the Fed and ending the wars the Fed makes possible. Who would’ve thought?! That’s one reason I’m taking this tour, but another is to engage in dialogue with the left: to wake them up to the fact that a united antiwar movement, organized around the single issue of US military intervention overseas, is a moral imperative.
If you’re interested in booking me at your campus, write wendy@antiwar.com, or call the Antiwar.com office, at: 510-217-8665.
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (ISI, 2008), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the Balkans (1996).
He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute, and an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.
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