- Signs of the Times for Mon, 13 Nov 2006 -

• Signs Editorials
• Yahweh's Stormtroopers
• The Lobby
• The Crusade Against Islam
• Business as Usual
• The Voting Scam
• Keep the Faith, Baby
• It Comes in Cycles
• Science on the March!
• You Are What You Eat
• The Tangled Web We Weave
• Holding on to Empire
• "Maggie" Royale
• Isolating the Bear
• Free Speech
• Bolivarian Revolution

Cross-dressing FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover presided over the greatest development of organized crime America has ever seen

Did you know that if we could reduce the world's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

60 Asians

14 Africans

12 Europeans

8 Latin Americans

5 North Americans AND Canadians

Of all of the above, 82 would be non-white and only 18 would be "white".

67 would be non-Christian and only 33 would be Christian.

5 would control 32% of the entire world's wealth, and all of them would be US citizens

80 would live in substandard housing

24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76% that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)

67 would be unable to read

1 (only one) would have a college education.

50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation

33 would be without access to a safe water supply

7 people would have access to the Internet

If there is a meal in your refrigerator, if you are dressed and have got shoes, if you have a bed and a roof above your head, you are better off, than 75% of people in this world.

If you have a bank account, money in your purse and there is some trifle in your coin box, you belong to 8% of well-provided people in this world.

If you are able to go to church, mosque or synagogue without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are better off than 3 billion persons in this world.

I guess you notice that Americans are in the minority population wise and yet they control the majority of the world's wealth. How do you think this happened? Divine intervention? An 'enterprizing spirit'? What do you think will happen if that majority of people ever really gets it in their head that America is an intolerable bully and must no longer be tolerated? Sure, America could bomb the hell out of the planet and reduce our lives to a Stone Age existence, but then that would be rather like cutting off our noses to spite our faces, now wouldn't it?

Today I want to look at some of the words and acts of John F. Kennedy in the last year - and days - leading up to his death, extracted from Farewell America. These words and deeds give us a deep insight as to how he wished to deal with America's place in the global village; that he saw the danger and sought to avert just what is happening today: the entire world is turning against America. As you read his words, and contemplate his acts, consider them in the light of what we have experienced in America since his death. We know where the assassins have led us: a world of terror and heartbreak, of endless war and privation for multiplied millions of human beings; where would we be today if they had not succeeded?

On January 9, 1961, John F. Kennedy addressed the Massachusetts State Legislature:

"We are setting out upon a voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that undertaken by the Arbella in 1630,"

"For of those whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each of us, recording whether in our brief span of service, we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state, our success or failure, in whatever office we hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:

"First, were we truly men of courage, with the courage to stand up to one's enemies, and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one's associates, the courage to resist public pressure as well as private greed?

"Second, were we truly men of judgment, with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past, of our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others, with enough wisdom to know what we did not know, and enough candor to admit it?

"Third, were we truly men of integrity, men who never ran out on either the principles in which we believed or the people who believed in us, men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?

"Finally, were we truly men of dedication, with an honor mortgaged not to a single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?

"Courage, judgment, integrity, dedication -- these are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State, the qualities which this state has consistently sent to Beacon Hill here in Boston and to Capital Hill back in Washington. And these are the qualities which, with God's help, this son of Massachusetts hopes will characterize our government's conduct in the four stormy years that lie ahead. Humbly I ask His help in this undertaking; but aware that on earth His will is worked by men, I ask for your help and your prayers as I embark on this new and solemn journey."

Less than two years later, the final year of this 'hazardous' voyage" began. On January 14, 1963, President Kennedy sent his last State of the Union Message to Congress:

"I can report to you that the state of this old but youthful Union, in the 175th year of its life, is good . . . At home the recession is behind us . . . There may now be a temptation to relax. For the road has been long, the burden heavy, and the pace consistently urgent. But we cannot be satisfied to rest here. This is the side of the hill, not the top. The mere absence of recession is not growth. We have made a beginning -- but we have only begun. Now the time has come to make the most of our gains -- to translate the renewal of our national strength into the achievement of our national purpose . . .

"Tax reduction alone, however, is not enough to strengthen our society, to provide opportunities for the four million Americans who are born every year, to improve the lives of 32 million Americans who live on the outskirts of poverty. The quality of American life must keep pace with the quantity of American goods. This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.

"Therefore, by holding down the budgetary cost of existing programs to keep within the limitations I have set, it is both possible and imperative to adopt other new measures that we cannot afford to postpone. These measures are based on a series of fundamental premises, grouped under four related headings:

"First, we need to strengthen our Nation by investing in our youth . . .

"Second, we need to strengthen our Nation by safeguarding its health . . .

"Third, we need to strengthen our Nation by protecting the basic rights of its citizens . . .

"Fourth, we need to strengthen our Nation by making the best and the most economical use of its resources and facilities . . .

"We are not lulled by the momentary calm of the sea or the somewhat clearer skies above. We know the turbulence that lies below, and the storms that are beyond the horizon this year. But now the winds of change appear to be blowing more strongly than ever, in the world of communism as well as our own. For 175 years we have sailed with those winds at our back, and with the tides of human freedom in our favor. We steer our ship with hope, as Thomas Jefferson said, 'leaving Fear astern.'"

On January 15, he wrote:

"Our 'bet' is that the future will be a world community of independent nations, with a diversity of economic, political and religious systems, united by a common respect for the rights of others . . . But history is what men make of it -- and we would be foolish to think that we can realize our own vision of a free and diverse future without unceasing vigilance, discipline and labor . . .

"Above all, we must both demonstrate and develop the affirmative power of the democratic ideal -- remembering always that nations are great, not for what they are against, but what they are 'for.'

On January 16th, he offered a toast:

"It reminds me of a story of Abraham Lincoln. After he was elected President, someone said, "What are you going to do with your enemies, Mr. President?' Lincoln said, I am going to destroy them. I am going to make them my friends.'"

On January 18th, he celebrated the second anniversary of his inauguration:

"I said the other day in the State of the Union that we were not on the top of the hill, but on the side of the hill. I don't think in this administration or in our generation or time will this country be at the top of the hill, but some day it will be, and I hope when it is that they will think we have done our part . . ."

On January 29th, he addressed Congress once again:

"Education is the keystone in the arch of freedom and progress . . . For the individual, the doors to the schoolhouse, to the library and to the college lead to the richest treasures of our open society: to the power of knowledge -- to the training and skills necessary for productive employment -- to the wisdom, the ideals, and the culture which enrich life -- and to the creative, self-disciplined understanding of society needed for good citizenship in today's changing and challenging world."

On February 5, he sent a 10,000 word message to Congress on the subject of mental illness and mental retardation.

On February 7th, he admonished his countrymen:

"Each morning and evening, let us remember the advice of my fellow Bostonian, the Reverend Phillips Brooks: 'Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.'"

On February 8th, he devoted another 8,000 words to the problem of improving the nation's health.

On February 14th, he sent 8,000 words to Congress on the subject of the need to improve conditions for all of America's young people.

On the 21st, 12,000 words were sent to Congress regarding the needs of the nation's senior citizens.

On March 5, he told a delegation representing the American Indians:

"I know that when I first took this office, one of the things which concerned me most was the fact that there were nearly 5,000 Indian boys and girls who had no school to go to. Now we built classrooms for about 7,000 in the last 2 years."

On February 14, President Kennedy had been asked at his press conference to comment on the attitude of the French government:

"It would seem like, in a way, that President De Gaulle's intention to develop France's own nuclear capability and his recent pact with Chancellor Adenauer would meet in perhaps a rather perverse way, and certainly not as you envisaged it, our desire to begin withdrawing from Europe and having Western Europe assume more of its own defense."

On March 11, he declared,

"Manpower is the basic resource. It is the indispensable means of converting other resources to mankind's use and benefit. How well we develop and employ human skills is fundamental in deciding how much we will accomplish as a nation."

On March 13th, he remarked:

"In front of the Archives building there is a statue and under it it says, 'The past is prologue.' Not necessarily, and it is because we do not wish to regard the past as necessarily a prologue in the 1960s that we have attempted to put forward our proposals . . . 'The great advantage of Americans,' wrote de Tocqueville in 1835, 'consists in their being able to commit faults which they may afterwards repair.' To this I would add the fact that the great advantage of hindsight consists of our applying its lessons by way of foresight. If this Nation can apply the lesson and repair the faults of the last 5 years, if we can stick to the facts, and cast out those things which really don't apply to the situation, then surely this country can reach its goals . . ."

On March 20th, he told his audience at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose:

"What Franklin Roosevelt said to the American people in the 1930s I say to you now: This generation of Americans, your generation of Americans, has a rendezvous with destiny . . .

"We are committed to four basic principles in this hemisphere in the Alliance for Progress. The first is the right of every nation to govern itself, to be free from outside dictation and coercion, to mold its own economy and society in any fashion consistent with the will of the people.

"Second is the right of every individual citizen to political liberty, the right to speak his own views, to worship God in his own way, to select the government which rules him, and to reject it when it no longer serves the need of a nation.

"And Third, is the right to social justice, the right of every citizen to participate in the progress of his nation. This means land for the landless, and education for those who are denied their education today in this hemisphere. It means that ancient institutions which perpetuate privilege must give way. It means that rich and poor alike must bear the burden and the opportunity of building a nation . . ."

On the 23rd, he told another audience, this time at Chicago,

"Twenty-five hundred years ago the Greek poet Alcaeus laid down the principle which best sums up the greatness of Chicago: 'Not houses firmly roofed,' he wrote, 'or the stones of walls well builded, nay, nor canals and dockyards, make the city -- but men able to use their opportunities.'"

On March 25, he welcomed twelve visiting French Generals:

". . . So we welcome you, coming as you do from a martial and distinguished race who have shown a mastery in the use of arms for a thousand years . . ."

On April 2, he told the Congress:

"'Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war,' wrote Milton . . . This, for the American people, is a time for vision, for patience, for work, and for wisdom. For better or worse, we are the pacesetters. Freedom's leader cannot flag of falter, or another runner will set the pace. We have dared to label the Sixties the Decade of Development. But it is not the eloquence of our slogans, but the quality of our endurance, which will determine whether this generation of Americans deserves the leadership which history has thrust upon us."

On April 11th, he remarked at the White House:

"This administration is watching closely the possibilities of a general across the board increase in steel. I opposed such an increase last year. I oppose such an increase now . . . What it needs is more business at competitive prices, not less business at higher prices . . . I urge similar restraint on the steel workers union. With over 100,000 steel workers still unemployed, their need is for more jobs with job security, not fewer jobs at higher wages."

On May 9, he spoke at Arlington National Cemetery:

"It is no accident that men of genius in music like Paderewski or Chopin should also have been great patriots. You have to be a free man to be a great artist."

On May 18th, he declared in Alabama:

"'At the Olympic Games,' Aristotle wrote, 'it is not the finest and the strongest men who are crowned, but they who enter the lists -- for out of these the prize-men are elected.' So too, in life, of the honorable and the good, it is they who act who rightly win the prizes . . .

"I have read much of George Norris from Nebraska, and his favorite phrase, recurring throughout all of his speeches, was his reference, and his dedication, to 'generations yet unborn.' The first of those generations is now enjoying the fruits of his labor, as will others for decades to come. So let us all, whether we are public officials or private citizens, northerners or southerners, easterners or westerners, farmers or city dwellers, live up to the ideals and ideas of George Norris, and resolve that we, too, in our time, 30 years later, will ourselves build a better Nation for generations yet unborn.'"

On May 23rd, speaking at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, he remarked:

"I think it is because the two political parties in our history have always been divided, as Emerson said, into the party of hope and into the party of memory. From the time of Jefferson, I think we have been the party of Hope. And therefore it is natural that artists, men and women who work in the theater and all the other related arts, should find themselves most at home in the party of hope. Up the way in this corridor tonight, the steel industry is presenting to my distinguished predecessor its annual award, to President Eisenhower, as the man who has done most for the steel industry this year. Last year I won the award and they came to Washington to present it to me, but the Secret Service just wouldn't let them in."

President Kennedy sometimes showed signs of bitterness, but that same morning he had seemed listless and pensive. Did he somehow know that his last trip was halfway over, that he had less than six months to live? That noon, in New York's Battery Park, he recited an old Breton fisherman's prayer:

"O God, the sea is so great and my boat is so small . . ."

On June 5, he was in Texas:

"I am glad to leave Washington, DC, and come to the Pass of the North, El Paso, a part of the Old West, but also a part of a new America . . ."

He had so little time left . . .

The following day he spoke at San Diego State College:

"No country can possibly move ahead, no free society can possibly be sustained, unless it has an educated citizenry whose qualities of mind and heart permit it to take part in the complicated and increasingly sophisticated decisions that pour not only upon the President and upon the Congress, but upon all the citizens who exercise the ultimate power."

On June 10, he gave the commencement address at American University in Washington:

"What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace for all time . . .

'When a man's way please the Lord,' the Scriptures tell us, 'he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.'

". . . The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war.

"This generation of Americans has already had enough -- more than enough -- of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to t to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just.

"We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on -- not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace."

On June 11, he addressed the American people from his office:

"This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened . . . One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln free the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free till all its citizens are free.

"We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

"Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise . . .

"We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the street. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative bodies, and above all, in all of our daily lives . . . Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law . . ."

On June 19, he asked the Congress to act:

"I therefore ask every member of Congress to set aside sectional and political ties, and to look at this issue from the viewpoint of the Nation. I ask you to look into your hearts -- not in search of charity, for the Negro neither wants nor needs condescension -- but for the one plain, proud and priceless quality that unites us all as Americans: a sense of Justice. In this year of the Emancipation Centennial, justice requires us to insure the blessings of liberty for all Americans and their posterity -- not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquillity -- but, above all, because it is right."

He also asked Congress to establish an Advisory Council on the Arts:

"As education needs schools, so art needs museums, actors and playwrights need theaters, and composers and musicians need opera companies and orchestras . . .

"The concept of the public welfare should reflect cultural as well as economic considerations. We have agencies of the Government which are concerned with the welfare and advancement of science and technology, of education, recreation, and health. We should now begin to give similar attention to the arts. I am particularly interested in the opportunities for young people to develop their gifts . . ."

At Frankfurt on June 25, he remarked:

"But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment, 'Stay, thou art so fair.' And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future . . .

"So we are all idealists. We are all visionaries. Let it not be said of this Atlantic generation that we left ideals and visions to the past, nor purpose and determination to our adversaries. We have come too far, we have sacrificed too much, to disdain the future now. And we shall ever remember what Goethe told us -- that the 'highest wisdom, the best that mankind ever knew,' was the realization that 'he only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew.'"

At Dublin on June 28, he declared:

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were, and ask why not . . ."

On June 29, as he left his beloved Ireland, he read a poem:

Tis it is the Shannon's brightly glancing stream, Brightly gleaming, silent in the morning beam Oh, the sight entrancing, Thus returns from travels long, Years of exile, years of pain, To see old Shannon's face again, O'er the waters dancing.

"Well, I am going to come back and see old Shannon's face again and I am taking, as I go back to America, all of you with me . . ."

He never went back except in spirit...

On July 17, he declared:

"The United States has to move very fast to even stand still . . . We are going to have to find in the next decade 22 million jobs to take care of those coming into the labor market and those who are eliminated by technological gains . . ."

On July 26, he told American people:

"Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness. Negations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water . . .

"This treaty is for all of us. It is particularly for our children and our grandchildren, and they have no lobby here in Washington . . . (But now) for the first time in many years, the path of peace may be open. No one can be certain what the future will bring. No one can say whether the time has come for an easing of the struggle. But history and our own conscience will judge us harsher if we do not now make every effort to test our hopes by action, and this is the place to begin. According to the Ancient Chinese proverb, 'A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.' My fellow Americans, let us take that first step. Let us, if we can, step back from the shadows of war and seek out the way of peace. And if that journey is a thousand miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step . . ."

On August 1, he remarked:

"I think we will see a very changing world in 1964 . . ."

And that same day he warned:

"The end of this summer of 1963 will be an especially critical time for 400,000 young Americans who, according to the experience of earlier years, will not return to school when the summer is ended. Moreover, without a special effort to reverse this trend, another 700,000 students will return to school in September, but will fail to complete the school year . . ."

And, turning to another subject:

"I think there has been a common recognition that there is the necessity for revolution in Latin America, and it is either going to be peaceful or bloody. But there must be progress, there must be revolution . . ."

On August 27, he remarked, ". . . To govern is to choose . . ."

On September 2,

"I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government (of South Vietnam) to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don't think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort and, in my opinion, in the last two months, the government has gotten out of touch with the people."

On September 20, John Kennedy addressed the United Nations General Assembly:

"The world has not escaped from the darkness. The long shadows of conflict and crisis envelop us still . . . My presence here today is not a sign of crisis, but of confidence . . . we believe that all the world -- in Eastern Europe as well as Western, in Southern Africa as well as Northern, in old nations as well as new --the people must be free to choose their own future, without discrimination or dictation, without coercion or subversion . . .

"Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such . . . expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries -- indeed of all the world -- cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending some day in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all our countries . . .

"The contest will continue -- the contest between those who see a monolithic world and those who believe in diversity -- but it should be a contest in leadership and responsibility instead of destruction, a contest in achievement instead of intimidation. Speaking for the United States of America, I welcome such a contest. For we believe that truth is stronger than error -and that freedom is more enduring than coercion. And in the contest for a better life, all the world can be a winner . . .

"Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world -- or to make it the last . . .

"For as the world renounces the competition of weapons, competition in ideas must flourish -- and that competition must be as full and as fair as possible. What the United Nations has done in the past in less important than the tasks for the future . . .

"My fellow inhabitants of this planet: let us take our stand here in this assembly of nations. And let us see if we, in our own time, can move the world to a just and lasting peace."

On September 23, he wrote:

"The American Presidency is a formidable, exposed, and somewhat mysterious institution. It is formidable because it represents the point of ultimate decision in the American political system. It is exposed because decision cannot take place in a vacuum: the Presidency is the center of the play of pressure, interest, and idea in the Nation; and the Presidential office is the vortex into which all the elements of national decision are irresistibly drawn. And it is mysterious because the essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer -- often, indeed, to the decider himself.

"Yet if the process of presidential decision is obscure, the necessity for it is all too plain. To govern, as wise men have said, is to choose. Lincoln observed that we cannot escape history. It is equally true that we cannot escape choice; and for an American President, choice is charged with a peculiar and daunting responsibility for the safety and welfare of the Nation. A President must choose among men, among measures, among methods. His choice helps determine the issues of his Presidency, their priority in the national life, and the mode and success of their execution. The heart of the Presidency is therefore informed, prudent and resolute choice -- and the secret of the presidential enterprise is to be found in an examination of the way presidential choices are made."

The following day he left to tour the West.

"We are reaching the limits of our fundamental needs -- of water to drink, of fresh air to breathe, of open space to enjoy, of abundant sources of energy to make life easier . . .

"Have we ever thought why such a small proportion of our beaches should be available for public use, how it is that so many of our great cities have been developed without parks or playgrounds, why so many of our rivers are so polluted, why the air we breathe is so impure, or why the erosion of our land was permitted to run so large as it has in this state (Pennsylvania), and in Ohio, and all the way to the West Coast . . .

"I don't know why it should be that 6 or 7 percent only of the whole Atlantic Coast should be in the public sphere and the rest owned by private citizens and denied to many millions of our fellow citizens."

On September 25, he declared:

"We must today prepare for those who are our heirs. The steps we take in conservation and reclamation will have very little effect upon all of us here immediately, and in this decade. What we are doing in the real sense is preparing for those who come after us . . ."

On September 26th, he added:

"I urge this generation of Americans who are the fathers and mothers of 350 million Americans who will live in this country in the year 2000, and I want those Americans who live in 2000 to feel that those of us who had positions of responsibility in the Sixties did our part . . ."

And the same day he revealed the key to his thinking:

"If this nation is to survive and succeed in the real world of today, we must acknowledge the realities of the world; and it is those realities that I mention now.

"We must first of all recognize that we cannot remake the world simply by our own command. When we cannot even bring all of our own people into full citizenship without acts of violence, we can understand how much harder it is to control events beyond our borders . . .

"Every nation has its own traditions, its own values, its own aspirations. Our assistance from time to time can help other nations preserve their independence and advance their growth, but we cannot remake them in our own image. We cannot enact their laws, nor can we operate their governments or dictate our policies.

"Second, we must recognize that every nation determines its policies in terms of its own interests. 'No nation,' George Washington wrote, 'is to be trusted further than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will depart from it.' National interest is more powerful than ideology, and the recent developments within the Communist empire show this very clearly. Friendship, as Palmerston said, may rise or wane, but interests endure.

"The United States has rightly determined, in the years since 1945 under three different administrations, that our interest, our national security, the interest of the United States of America, is best served by preserving and protecting a world of diversity in which no one power or no one combination of powers can threaten the security of the United States.

"The reason that we moved so far into the world was our fear that at the end of the war, and particularly when China became Communist, that Japan and Germany would collapse, and these two countries which had so long served as a barrier to the Soviet advance, and the Russian advance before that, would open up a wave of conquest of all Europe and all of Asia, and then the balance of power turning against us, we would finally be isolated and ultimately destroyed. That is what we have been engaged in for 18 years, to prevent that happening, to prevent any one monolithic power having sufficient force to destroy the United States.

"And third, we must recognize that foreign policy in the modern world does not lend itself to easy, simple black and white solution. If we were to have diplomatic relations only with those countries whose principles we approved of, we would have relations with very few countries in a very short time. If were to withdraw our assistance from all governments who are run differently from our own, we would relinquish half the world immediately to our adversaries. If we were to treat foreign policy as merely a medium for delivering self-righteous sermons to supposedly inferior people, we would give up all thought of world influence or world leadership.

"For the purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world. We cannot adopt a policy which says that if something does not happen, or others do not do exactly what we wish, we will return to 'Fortress America.' That is the policy in this changing world of retreat, not of strength . . .

"The position of the United States, I believe, is happier and safer when history is going for us rather than when it is going against us. And we have history going for us today, but history is what men make it. The future is what men make it . . ."[This passage is taken from a speech given by the President at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. Some commentators attacked it as "communistic."]

On September 27th, he mused, "what green grass will they see . . ." He had less than two months left...

On September 28, he learned that there were 190 million Americans. On October 9, he told the press that he had consented to the sale by private dealers of surplus American wheat or wheat flour to the Soviet Union. He also remarked:

"We are opposed to military coups, and it is the reason that we have broken off our relations with the Dominican Republic and Honduras . . . we are opposed to coups, because we think that they are defeating -- self-defeating, and defeating for the hemisphere . . ."

On October 12, he noted:

"That is always true, the first voyages are the hard ones and they require the perseverance and character. And I think that is a good lesson for all of us today as we attempt new things. The first voyages, as all of us know, are the more difficult, whether it is going into space, going to the bottom of the ocean, building a better country here, building a more prosperous country. The first voyage through our history has always been the most difficult . . ."

On October 18, he told a group of visitors from New Haven:

"New Haven is typical of many cities faced by complex, interwoven problems. Ours is an age of great mobility. Each year thousands of families move from rural areas to urban slums. They come seeking better lives, but often find only new, unexpected barriers. These people find themselves in strange alien surroundings. Many have the added problem of racial discrimination. Much of the housing available to them is substandard. Most of them come without skills, seeking jobs, at a time when modern technology is rapidly making skilled training essential to employment. Their children enter already overcrowded schools, and often believe their studies bear little relation to the realities of their lives. Many of them drop out of school, only to become part of the growing army of unemployed youth. Health and recreational facilities for these young people are inadequate, and they are surrounded by crime, illiteracy, illegitimacy, and human despair. Finding no work and little hope, too many of them turn to juvenile crime to obtain the material goods they think the society has denied them. Others turn to drink and narcotics addiction. And soon the cycle repeats itself, as this dispossessed generation bears children little better equipped than their parents to cope with urban life . . ."

That same day he reminded his listeners of that poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand. Come see my shining palace. It is built upon the sand.

On October 24, he concerned himself with the problem of retarded children. He had less than one month left...

On October 26th, at Amherst College, he honored poet Robert Frost:

"With privilege goes responsibility. Robert Frost said:

The roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

"In America, our heroes have customarily run to men of large accomplishments. But today this college and country honors a man whose contribution was not to our size but to our spirit, not to our political beliefs but to our insight, not to our self-esteem, but to our self-comprehension. In honoring Robert Frost, we therefore can pay honor to the deepest sources of our national strength. That strength takes many forms, and the most obvious forms are not always the most significant. The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us . . . When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses . . .

"I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth . . . Robert Frost was often skeptical about projects for human improvement, yet I do not think he would disdain this (American and world) hope. As he wrote during the uncertain days of the Second War:

Take human nature altogether since time began And it must be a little more in favor of man, Say a fraction of one percent at the very least . . . Our hold on the planet wouldn't have so increased . . .

On October 30th, he spoke at Philadelphia:

". . . May I repeat the words with which I summarized my view of America three years ago: 'I believe in an America that is on the march, an America respected by all nations, friends and foes alike, an America that is moving, doing, working, trying, a strong America in a world of peace.' That was my credo then and that is my credo now . . .

"In the words which concluded an historic address to our party by the great American Claude Bowers, some 35 years ago, in the '28 campaign:

Now has come the time for action. Clear away all thought of faction out from vacillating shame, every man no lie contain Let him answer to his name. Call the roll.

The following day, President Kennedy signed a bill providing for the construction of mental retardation facilities and community mental health centers.

Diem and Nhu were assassinated on November 1, 1963. Kennedy was accused of ordering or allowing it. However, that is doubtful considering the fact that he, himself, was already the object of an assassination plot by the same forces.

November 5 was Thanksgiving Day, and it marked John F. Kennedy's 1,019th day in office.

"Yet, as our power has grown, so has our peril. Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers -- for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings -- let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals -- and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world . . . On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist . . ."

On November 8th, the 1,022nd day he declared:

"The Family of Man is more than three billion strong. It lives in more than 100 nations. Most of its members are not white. Most of them are not Christians. Most of them know nothing about free enterprise or due process of law or the Australian ballot. If our society is to promote the Family of Man, let us realize the magnitude of our task. This is a sobering assignment. For the Family of Man in the world of today is not faring very well . . .

"Even little wars are dangerous in this nuclear world . . . The Korean conflict alone, forgetting for a moment the thousands of Americans who lost their lives, cost four times as much as our total world-wide aid budget for the current year . . .

"I do not want it said of us what T. S. Eliot said of others some years ago: 'These were a decent people. Their only monuments: the asphalt road and a thousand lost golf balls . . .'

"The struggle is by no means over. It is essential that we not only maintain our effort, but that we persevere; that we not only endure, in Mr. Faulkner's words, but also prevail. It is essential, in short, that the word go forth from the United States to all who are concerned about the future of the Family of Man that we are not weary in well-doing. And we shall, I am confident, if we maintain the pace, we shall in due season reap the kind of world we deserve and deserve the kind of world we still have."

In the days that followed he welcomed the members of the Black Watch regiment, met for the last time with the members of the press, turned once more to the problems of the children and the aged, and told this story to the delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention:

"Marshal Lyautey, the great French Marshal, went out to his gardener and asked him to plant a tree. The gardener said, "Why plant it? It won't flower for 100 years.' 'In that case,' the Marshal said, 'plant it this afternoon.'"

Now, let us continue to examine those forces that were gathering to destroy John Kennedy and how they looked at the Global Village. I think that the reader will agree that those things that John and Bobby Kennedy sought to change, the criminal element in our society, have only expanded to the point that there is no escaping the fate that awaits America the Bully. And since it was an alliance of Big Business, Political Interests, and Organized Crime that conspired to kill both of the Kennedy brothers, it may be reasonably assumed that those are the elements that have run this country ever since and that the Bush family are part of this consortium. Anyone with open eyes can see where it all is heading. And for those who dreamily believe that a change in party is going to make one bit of difference, think again. Keep in mind that the following was written in 1968.

From Farewell America:

"It's like Chicago in the Al Capone days," declared John Irwin, first assistant District Attorney of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in 1967, noting that in the past six years there had been 45 gangland murders in the Boston area alone. Writing in the Saturday Evening Post,(1) Bill Davidson added, "On an even higher level, the New England Mafia has contacts among a group of millionaire pillars of the community," and Charles Rogovin, head of the Organized Crime Section of the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, remarked, "Since I came here from President Johnson's Crime Commission, I feel as if I've been watching old gangster movies. The other families of the Mafia have become much more subtle in their killing. Their victims mostly just disappear -- and there's no heat, no hue and cry. But here they brazenly shoot them down at high noon on a busy street."

Despite theses remarks, Massachusetts is not first among the criminal states, and neither Boston nor Worcester nor Springfield figure among the key cities in the industry of crime, the foremost industry in the United States. The vigorous action taken by the Justice Department and the FBI against the New England Mafia in the past two years was inspired more by political than by technical considerations. The Empire of Crime remains intact. The annual budget of the private government of organized crime was estimated in 1960 at $60 billion, more than the budget of the Department of Defense ($47.5 billion).(2)

Organized crime could never have survived and developed on a large scale without the "protection of the law-enforcement agencies."(3) Face-to-face with organized crime, or rather side-by-side, stands a police force that often ignores its existence, and sometimes even supports it. On June 15, 1961, Attorney General Robert Kennedy declared, "The problem of organized crime will not really be solved as long as the attitude of the American people remains what it is -- acceptance of crime and corruption," and as long as Americans are only interested in "getting a bigger TV set, a bigger car, and earning an extra buck."

Robert Kennedy's career began in 1951 as a lawyer in the criminal division of the Justice Department. In 1953, he became one of the five assistants of Roy Cohn, chief legal counsel for Senator McCarthy, chairman of the Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. He took over Cohn's job when Senator McClellan(4) replaced McCarthy in 1954. In 1957, with a staff of 65, he became chief counsel of the Senate Rackets Committee, also headed by Senator McClellan. There, he encountered men like Antonio Corallo, who had been hired by a factory manager simply to keep his eye on the workers; dubious business consultants like George Fitzgerald and Eddie Cheyfitz;(5) industries like Kohler, Inc., a Sheboygan, Wisconsin manufacturer of plumbing fixtures, which in 1897 had cut its employees' salaries by 50 % and given each a bathtub, and pursued much the same policies in 1958. He exposed corruption in the labor unions -- primarily in the Bakers and Confectioners Union, but also in the Mechanics, the carpenters, the Hotel Employees, the New York Postal Workers, the Textile Workers, and even the Garbage Collecters unions. He became an expert on labor racketeering. In November 1957, he received the first annual award as "Outstanding Investigator of the Year" from the Society of Professional Investigators.

When he became Attorney General, Robert Kennedy already had a good idea of the importance of organized crime in the United States. The kingpins of crime, some of them survivors of the Chicago era, others more recent arrivals, had left the gangs for the big cities. The gambling industry alone supported 50,000 potentates, employed the services of 400,000 petty bookmakers, and ruined one million families every year. Gambling had become so big that it was capable of disturbing the national economy. There was also prostitution, the narcotics traffic and commercial pornography, not to speak of hold-ups and murders. This industry of vice, which had already contaminated the trade unions, was also active among the youth of the country. In the decade, between 1950 and 1960, crimes doubled and juvenile delinquency tripled, although the population increased by only 18%.(6)

The war against crime cost the United States $22 billion a year, or $120 per citizen. "Crime pays if it is well-organized. American gangsters have become specialists," noted C. Wright Mills. An expert on the question, Donald R. Cressey,(7) wrote: "The situation is more dangerous than the situation in the 1920's and the 1930's when the monopolies controlled by organized criminals were primarily monopolies on only the distribution of illicit goods and services. The real danger is that the trend will continue to the point where syndicate rulers gain such a degree of control that they drive supporters of free enterprise and democracy out of' business' and then force us to pay tribute in the form of traditional freedoms. Syndicate rulers are among the most active monopolizers in the American economy." And Cressey continued, "We agree with Senator Kennedy who . . . became convinced that if we do not on a national scale attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as effective as their own, they will destroy us." He wrote this in 1967, when organized crime, more prosperous than ever, was still in control of the empire that Robert Kennedy had tried to defeat five years before.

In 1951, the Kefauver Commission had concluded that organized crime, which it referred to as the Mafia, was run by Costello-Adonis-Lansky (the New York Syndicate) and Accardo-Guzik-Fischetti (the Chicago Syndicate). But between 1951 and 1961, the Kefauver Commission found it difficult to obtain reliable information about the nature of the Mafia and the extent of its activities. In 1957, it disclosed that 58 crime lords had met at the Appalachin Conference in upper New York State, but in 1960 the federal government and the Justice Department had little information about what had transpired at the meeting, and many of the participants were unknown to them.(8)

When Robert Kennedy was appointed Attorney General, the Crime and Rackets Section of the Justice Department employed only 17 people. They worked individually, without illusions, and received no comprehensive information on international and organized crime. By 1963, their number had swelled to 60, and they were able to draw on information which was available to the press and the public, but which had never been officially brought to their attention. Robert Kennedy opened federal investigative bureaus in six large cities outside of Washington. These bureaus were charged with gathering information on 1,100 notorious racketeers. In 1961 and 1962, Congress approved seven anti-crime laws authorized by the Attorney General, the most important anti-criminal legislation voted since 1954. The first result was the dismantling of the nationwide telegraphic betting system. In November 1962, a gambling and prostitution establishment in Detroit which had been doing a $20 million-a-year business was raided and closed down. In 1963, the illegal gambling organizations were obliged to cease their activities in many different parts of the country. In the first six months of 1963, 171 racketeers were indicted, as against 24 in 1960.(9)

In October 1963, Robert Kennedy persuaded Joseph Valachi, a member of the crime syndicate who had requested government protection in 1962 and who had been imprisoned since that date for second-degree murder, to testify. The Attorney General revealed that the crime syndicate, known to its members as Cosa Nostra, was directed by a board of between 9 and 12 active members whose names were known to him, and to whom the representatives in the various cities were responsible. On October 19, 1963, he declared to the New York Times that these racketeers were only able to operate by buying the protection of those in whom the communities placed their confidence. He denounced hired killers and the wall of silence surrounding them.

Joseph Valachi was the first member of Cosa Nostra to reveal the activities of this "cruel and calculating" organization. Since 1960, there had been 37 gangland murders in the city of Chicago alone, and 70 bombings in the region of Youngstown, Ohio. Kennedy named the principal ringleaders of the organization and declared that he was determined to put them out of action or in prison. He praised the Los Angeles and New York police departments for their cooperation, but he also cited the example of Newport, Kentucky, the type of American community where crime and corruption prevailed with the consent of the Mayor, several members of the city council, and the local police force.(10) He added that there were many Newports throughout the country, that organized crime had become particularly subtle, that it made the most of modern communications techniques, and that it had tremendous resources at its disposal to circumvent the law. It used extortion not only as a source of revenue, but also to take over control of businesses. It had infiltrated the clothing industry, bowling alleys and liquor stores, juke box companies, vending machines and the construction business. These rackets were often run by telephone, and from outside the state.

The Attorney General declared that he would ask Congress to vote new laws authorizing the use of wire-tapping devices and guaranteeing the immunity of witnesses. "Fighting organized crime is like working a jigsaw puzzle," he said. He emphasized that organized crime affected the entire community, that it was the concern of every citizen. "There is an old saying," he concluded, "that every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. It is equally true that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on."

The McClellan Committee decided that the term "American Confederation" represented the best definition of Cosa Nostra, which might be considered as a sort of private government, and not only as an economic cartel. The Confederation of Crime has its own Code of Ethics. Each member is expected to:

- Be loyal to members of the organization. - Be rational. Be a member of the team. - Be a man of honor. Respect womanhood and your elders. - Be a stand-up guy. Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut. - Have class. Be independent. Know your way around the world.

The Confederation is founded on the following principles:

1) Organized crime is a business venture that seeks every opportunity to corrupt or have influence on anyone in government who can or may in the future be able to do favors for organized crime.

2) Insulation serves to separate the leaders of the confederation from the illegal activities which they direct.

3) Members are subject to discipline of a quasi-military nature.

4) The public relations of the organization are of the utmost importance.

5) The structure of the organization must be such that it does not appear to be and cannot be attacked as an organization.

6) Job specialization is essential. The organization counts among its members the corrupters, the corruptees, the enforcers, the executioners, the money-movers, and the button men, representing the lowest echelon of the confederation. The corrupters are as essential to the organization as the negotiators to a trade union. The money movers are assisted by other specialists, who invest the funds of the organization in legal enterprises. The button men carry out the orders passed down through the hierarchy. The organization also has its own "accountants," and "lawyers."

The work of the confederation is greatly facilitated by the structure of the police. There are 420,000 police officers in the United States attached to 40,000 police stations, 50 of which are federal, 200 adjuncts of the state police, and 39,750 under the control of the local police.

The Task Force report entitled "The Police," published in 1967 by the Justice Department, acknowledges that in several cities in the United States a large proportion of police officers are engaged in various forms of criminal or immoral activities, and that a few dishonest policemen may spread corruption throughout the force. Such was the case in Denver, where it was discovered in 1961 that a small group of corrupt policemen had implicated dozens of other officers throughout the city in their criminal activities. The majority of those involved were not, in fact, active accomplices, but their oath and regulations required them to report any suspicious actions, and prohibited them from taking part in any illegal activity.(11) The report acknowledges that corrupt police chiefs may set a dangerous example for younger officers. "Corruption then becomes an element of promotion, and the existence of this corruption at the highest level of authority may influence all of the members of the police."

In Chapter 7, "The Integrity of the Police," the report recalls that the Mayor and Sheriff of Phoenix City, Alabama, were forced to resign in 1955, but that political corruption allied with organized crime and vice had continued to spread to several other cities in the state. The Justice Department discovered in 1961 that the head of the gambling syndicate in Syracuse, New York, had been living in that city for 25 years and had never been bothered by the local police.

The state police are no more trustworthy than the local police. Governor Claude Kirk of Florida preferred to hire a private detective agency to investigate crime and corruption in his state. The local police in certain states, California for example, are to all appearances fairly honest, but in other states, for instance Texas, they are thoroughly corrupt.

Many police departments refuse to acknowledge the existence of organized crime and concern themselves only with local and isolated criminal offenses. This attitude has the effect of guaranteeing the immunity of the crime syndicates. Other police departments even cooperate with the confederation by exchanging information with its local representatives.

There are substantial differences in the quality of police personnel in the United States. A white-collar worker earns an average of $7,124 a year. The average salary of a policemen is only $5,321.(12) In Seattle, a policeman earns $375 a month less than a cable splicer. In Nashville, an electrician makes $3.22 an hour, a policeman only $2.55. The disparity is even greater in the upper echelons. The salaries offered college graduates by the police are rarely competitive with those offered by private industry .The salary of a municipal police chief varies between $7,054 and $17,600 a year (in cities with a population of more than 500,000). Only eight out of the 38 cities with a population of between 300,000 and a million pay their police captains more than $11,000 a year. In only nine of these cities does a sergeant earn more than $9,600. In certain other cities with more than a million inhabitants, Dallas for example, the salaries paid police officers are even lower than these average figures. Nor is there much room for promotion within the official hierarchy. The maximum salary of a San Francisco patrolman is only $600 a year more than the minimum he received when he entered the force.

The excessive decentralization of the police, the dilution of its responsibilities and the diversity of its efforts also created numerous problems with regard to criminal arrests.(13) The leaders of the Confederation of Crime are "represented, in one form or another, in legislative, judicial and executive bodies all ever the country."(14) The late Chief William H. Parker of the Los Angeles police added, "Despite the most aggressive and enlightened leadership, law enforcement cannot rise above the level set by the electorate."

There are three varieties of official corruption: nonfeasance (failure to perform a required duty at all); malfeasance (the commission of some act which is positively unlawful); and misfeasance (the improper performance of some act).

Where does the FBI come into this paradise of crime? J. Edgar Hoover(15) controls the only police organization existing on the national level. In the 38 years that he has occupied this position, he has known seven Presidents and out-lasted 13 Attorney Generals.(16) As of August 31, 1962, the Federal Bureau of Investigation employed 14,217 people, including more than 6,000 federal agents. Congress has always granted Hoover's budgetary requests. J, Edgar Hoover has become something of a national monument. No one dares to contradict "the Director," nor to suspect him.

The FBI has two principal functions: it investigates violations of federal law, and it presents its conclusions to the Attorney General and the federal attorneys. It is concerned with investigation, not law-enforcement. All of the so-called "federal" crimes fall within its jurisdiction, but the list of these, although it covers some 165 subjects, is limited. The FBI has no jurisdiction over tax violations, narcotics, customs, the mails, or the protection of the President. On the other hand, it is concerned with kidnapping, bank hold-ups, stolen cars that have been driven across state lines, and other interstate infractions of the law. Theoretically, organized crime does not fall within its jurisdiction, since it thrives on gambling, frauds, rackets, and other crimes that constitute violations of state rather than federal law, but the FBI's highly-developed intelligence sources keep it informed about the Confederation of Crime and its activities.(17)

Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered the FBI to investigate the inter-state activities of the confederation, but this assignment irritated Mr. Hoover, who was nevertheless instructed by President Kennedy to defer to the Attorney General's wishes and to report directly to him.(18) When, in 1962, Robert Kennedy ordered the FBI to investigate the steel corporations, Hoover consented only reluctantly, and there is some indication that the order was carried out with "misfeasance."(19)

The Attorney General would have liked to create a National Crime Commission to bring together and coordinate all the available information on the confederation, its activities, and the movements of its members, but J. Edgar Hoover wants no competition, and he has his own ideas about how a federal law -- enforcement agency should be run.

The FBI has 55 main offices and 500 branch offices throughout the country, but it prefers not to work with the state and local police unless they are considered "honorable" (which singularly limits the possibilities for cooperation). Moreover, "honorable" in this case has a very special meaning.

Mr. Hoover, a puritan Presbyterian and a bachelor who is active in the Boy Scout movement (he is an honorary member of its National Council) has repeatedly declared, "I am opposed to a national police force. I have a total respect for the sovereignty of the states and the local authorities, to whom we furnish a considerable amount of information which helps them to solve local crimes." Hoover believes the FBI should devote itself first and foremost to its original function, that of protecting the nation against subversion and treason, both on the inside and from the outside.

In 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt charged the FBI with the surveillance of the Nazi agents and sympathizers in the United States. When the war broke out in 1941, it coordinated the internal security measures against spies and saboteurs and found its true vocation. When the Second World War gave way to the Cold War, the FBI turned its attention to the Communists. Hoover was charged with the task of "unmasking and dismantling Soviet espionage activities."

On October 19, 1960, Hoover declared, " We are at war with the Communists."(20) Certain generals had been forced to resign for similar statements, but even Kennedy hesitated to replace " the Director." Eleven days after Kennedy's assassination, on December 3, 1963, Hoover reaffirmed his creed. A month earlier he had declared, "President Kennedy's closest advisers are either Communists or Communist sympathizers." Hoover repeatedly emphasized the essential role played by the FBI in the struggle against Communism and in the protection of the "American way of life." Since the advent of Castro, the Caribbean area had taken on a special importance for the FBI, which showed a sudden interest in the Cuban exile groups. Hoover considered that "it is more important to prevent or circumvent espionage, sabotage, and other subversive activities than to prosecute the individuals who engage in this type of activity . . ." Such a rationale can have far-reaching consequences.

A self-appointed judge of what is good for the United States, Hoover refused to send FBI agents to Little Rock in 1957. Despite the injunctions of Robert Kennedy, he refused to engage his agents completely in the enforcement of civil rights legislation. It was a known fact that local FBI agents in several southern states cooperated with the segregationist local police force. When, on September 15, 1963, a bomb exploded in a Negro Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four Negro children, the FBI learned who was guilty, but failed to pass on this information officially, thereby becoming the passive accomplice of the local police.

Robert Kennedy had been aware of Hoover's power since entering the Justice Department in 1953, but he needed him, and he was obliged to postpone his retirement, although Hoover was 65. In August 1962, he even defended the FBI chief against the attacks of Wilbur H. Ferry, vice-president of the Fund for the Republic, declaring, "Let's leave that to the experts. Mr. Hoover is my expert."(21)

It has been written that Bob Kennedy was "too politically sophisticated to clash openly with the honors-encrusted FBI Director." Serious criticism of Hoover or the FBI is still regarded in the United States as something close to treason, and it is tantamount to political suicide. Hoover's sources of information, and the files at his disposal, are in fact more important than those available to comparable organisms in totalitarian states, where the heads of the intelligence services have the power to dismiss the Chief of Police.(22) The FBI has files on 200 million people, only 20% of whom have ever been arrested. It keeps up-to-date dossiers on all the leading political and business figures. A great many Americans have reason to fear the FBI, which has confidential information about the lives and activities of the most diverse and the most insignificant citizens.

To the icy courtesy of the Attorney General, Mr. Hoover replied in October 1962, before his favorite audience, the American Legion, that "the Communists have infiltrated every sector of our society."(23) Why this obsession with the Communist bugbear? Ever since its creation by Theodore Roosevelt, the FBI has been at war with what it calls "the forces of evil." By this is meant not so much the overall category of doers of evil, and in particular high-class criminals, but liberals. Hoover himself once said, "This term liberalism should not be taken lightly . . ." The obsession with Communism has the effect of maintaining the American people in a state of tension. The FBI knows perfectly well -- at least we assume that its directors are sound of mind -- that it has little to fear from a Communist Party of only 10,000 members, all of whom are known to the FBI and under constant surveillance, and which has been infiltrated by more than 1,000 FBI informers. The FBI is represented on the Central Committee of the American Communist Party, and at one point it even appointed its security chief. It has been estimated that the FBI, through the dues paid by its agents, is the most important single contributor to the Communist Party in the United States.

Hoover's attitude is based more on morality than on politics. When US News and World Report asked him, "Some people say that the Communist Party cannot possibly represent a danger for the United States," he replied, "Emphatically, 'No.' Members of the Communist Party, USA are active participants in the international criminal conspiracy which is totally alien to our way of life and completely dedicated to enslaving the world." He was thus expressing the point of view not of the government he was supposed to represent, but of the anti-Kennedy faction. Hoover's extremism, his puritanism and his technical competence had the effect of placing, in a passive way at least, the efficient machinery of the FBI at its disposal.

Hoover is a perfectionist as far as the efficiency and the quality of his employees are concerned. The FBI recruits highly-qualified men and women whose integrity is above reproach. Carefully screened before they are hired, they are well-paid(24) and thoroughly trained. Each is a specialist, and his responsibilities are narrowly defined and rigorously supervised. The autonomy of an FBI man is strictly limited, even in technical areas. When the principal objective is security or secrecy, each subordinate must control all of the details in his area or activity, and each supervisor must control all of his subordinates. The FBI encourages its employees to inform on one another not only for professional misconduct, but also for deviations from the exemplary moral standards to which every member of the bureau is expected to adhere.(25) FBI employees are bound by a multitude of rules and regulations, some of which even concern their mode of dress. If he wants to stay on the good side of the Director, the well-dressed G-man must wear a dark suit, a shirt with French cuffs, and a handkerchief in his pocket.(26)

The FBI hierarchy is strictly observed. FBI agents are totally subordinated to their superiors, and through them to the Director. Carlos Marcello, one of the leaders of the Confederation of Crime, was arrested in New Orleans on September 22, 1966 and charged with striking a federal agent, Patrick J. Collins, Jr. Marcello declared that he could hardly have known that Collins was an FBI agent, since he was in shirtsleeves.(27) Such a violation of bureau regulations could only have been committed with the knowledge of the hierarchy. Even J. Edgar Hoover is capable of making an exception to the rules if there is sufficient justification. There have been other slip-ups. A crime is a federal offense for the FBI only when the Director deems it such. The FBI only intervenes in the affairs of the local police when they do not share the Director's views about "Communists" and "degenerates."

Does the honorable Mr. Hoover, we wonder, ever adorn his French cuffs with the cuff links that his Attorney General in the Kennedy years, another man with an eye for detail, gave him one year for Christmas -- simple gold cuff links inscribed with the Seal of Justice?

NOTES

1. November 18, 1967.

2. Gambling alone accounts for $20 billion.

3. Report of the Commission of Inquiry of Massachusetts, 1957.

4. Democrat from Arkansas.

5. George Fitzgerald represented James Hoffa. Eddie Cheyfitz was Dave Beck's attorney. Several firms of business consultants furnish information not only on legal questions, but also on labor problems, and can even provide informers if the need arises. Nationally-known companies such as Macy's, General Electric, and Republic Aircraft employ such techniques.

6. It has been estimated that 800,000 Americans have been murdered since the turn of the century .Two million firearms are sold to private citizens in the United States each year.

7. Chairman of the Criminology Section of the American Sociological Association -- Task Force on Crime -- Administration of Justice (Washington, 1967).

8. Among the participants at this conference, held at the home of Joseph Barbara, 19 were in the clothing business, 7 owned trucking firms, 9 slot machines, and 17 restaurants. Eleven were importers of olive oil and cheese, 4 were funeral directors, and the others were involved in car sales, coal companies, and show business. One was an orchestra leader.

In 1967 this Board of Directors of organized crime (founded in 1931 by Al Capone and Lucky Luciano) included 4 New Yorkers, Vito Genevose (in Leavenworth federal prison), Carlo Gambino, Joe Colombo, and Joe Bonnano; Sam Giancana of Chicago; Joe Zerilli of Detroit; Steve Maggadino of Buffalo; and Angelo Bruno of Philadelphia.

9. Kennedy declared in January, 1963, that he had evidence against: Mickey Cohen on the West Coast, Frankie Carbo of New York, Alfred Sica of Los Angeles, Buster Wortman of St. Louis, Kid Cann, who had controlled Minneapolis for 30 years, and Trigger Mike Coppola of Miami.

Mickey Cohen, typical of this type of gangster, had declared an income of $1,200 in 1956 and $1,500 in 1957, but he owned an armored car worth $25,000, silk pajamas that cost $275,300 suits, and 1,500 pairs of socks!

10. As a result of these revelations, the voters recalled the County Sheriff, and the chief detective of the local police force was fired.

11. Section 310.71 of the police regulations states:

"Members and employees shall not accept either directly or indirectly any gift, gratuity, loan, fee, or any other thing of value arising from or offered because of police employment or any activity connected with said employment. Members and employees shall not accept any gift, gratuity, loan, fee, or other thing of value the acceptance of which might tend to influence directly or indirectly the actions of said member or employee or any other member or employee in any matter of police business; or which might tend to cast any adverse reflection on the department or any member or employee thereof. No member or employee of the department shall receive any gift or gratuity from other members or employees junior in rank without the express permission of the Chief of Police."

12. Unless otherwise indicated, all of these statistics date from 1966. In general, the financial situation of the police was even less favorable in 1963.

13. The national average for criminal arrests is 22 % for thefts and 59 % for crimes, but these figures should be regarded with suspicion, and they exclude most of the crimes imputable to the Confederation of Crime.

14. Donald R. Cressey.

15. Director of the FBI since 1924.

16. Hoover speaks slightingly of the "various Attorney Generals under whom I have served."

17. In 1967 Bill Davidson wrote, "So many FBI plants have infiltrated the Mafia organization that you can hardly tell the Mafiosi from the informers.

18. Something that had probably not happened to Mr. Hoover since 1928.

19. He is said to have ordered federal agents to wake up journalists in the middle of the night to ask them questions that could just as wen have waited until morning, a procedure that was severely criticized by the public.

20. In 1968, the word "Communist" has lost a great deal of its impact. The traditional American Communist Party has become a "revisionist bourgeois clique," and the authentic Marxists have switched their allegiance to the Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist), a splinter group of Stalinist-Maoists who divide their energies between Watts and Harlem.

21. He had previously declared that Hoover's assistance was "unmatchable."

22. In the Soviet Union, Beria was eliminated in this fashion. In France, Roger Wybot, the director of the Office of Territorial. Security, who had kept his job through 12 successive governments in the Fourth Republic because he had files on numerous political figures, was dismissed when General de Gaulle came to power. Mr. Wybot had no file on the General.

23. James Meredith, the "black communist" (as the FBI has called him) had been admitted to the University of Mississippi in September, 1962, and the Kennedy administration seemed in no hurry to respond to "the Cuban menace."

24. FBI agents earn from $8,421 to $16,905 a year, exclusive of overtime pay and bonuses. The Director's salary is $30,000 a year.

25. Thomas Henry Carter, an FBI clerk and a bachelor, was fired in August, 1965 after he was denounced by his FBI colleagues for having spent the night with a woman.

26. Hoover's moral principles are as good as law in the FBI.

An FBI agent does not go out at night without his wife. He does not read Playboy. He does not have pimples. He does not drink. He does not wear his hair too short (it is considered a sign of immaturity). He wipes his hands (and not on his pocket handkerchief) before entering the Director's office (the Director does not like sweaty hands). He does not smoke in front of the Director (the Director does not like the smell of tobacco). He is expected to read the Director's book, Masters of Deceit, and Don Whitehead's The FBI Story, and to pass them along to his friends.

27. Marcello is one of the richest men in Louisiana. His fortune has been estimated at $40 million, and he owes it to political graft and police corruption. He controls casinos in Jennings, Lafayette, Bossier City, West Baton Rouge, and Morgan City, Louisiana, the government of Jefferson Parish (county), which he has made his headquarters, the Jefferson Music company, which operates juke boxes and coin machines, and a system of bookmakers. He owns gambling places and houses of prostitution in Bossier City, across from Shreveport, a company called Sightseeing Tours in New Orleans, a night club in Dallas. and other concerns. In 1963 he was in contact with certain politicians and oilmen in Texas and Louisiana.

Original
Comment on this Editorial

AIPAC Builds Ties With New Lawmakers
AIPAC reached nearly every lawmaker elected in Tuesday's mid-term congressional elections as part of its effort to educate political candidates on the value of the U.S.-Israel relationship. During the campaign that ended Tuesday, nearly every viable candidate met with AIPAC professional staff members and submitted a position paper summarizing his or her views on U.S. Middle East policy. A non-partisan organization, AIPAC has for decades worked with Republican and Democratic members of Congress to strengthen the ties between the United States and Israel.

Translation: Nearly every lawmaker, except the few stragglers hiding out in bathroom stalls or the cloakroom, was told he or she best tow the AIPAC-Israel line, or suffer short tenure in Congress. Part of this process is obviously the forced submission of a "position paper summarizing his or her views on U.S. Middle East policy," that is to say the targeted politico must state in writing that he or she will enthusiastically support Israel killing Palestinians, stealing their land, and running those able to run off, in short a nod and a wink in the direction of ethnic cleansing. Finally, AIPAC let us know they are "non-partisan," that is to say they have both Democrats and Republicans in their pocket.

Meet the new Congress, same as the old Congress.

Addendum

In addition, assumed House Majority leader Pelosi will "have to draw on ... inner strength," that is to say bend over backwards and jump somersaults like a trick dog, in order to demonstrate her worth to AIPAC and the state of Israel.

Sam Lauter, a pro-Israel activist in San Francisco, predicted Pelosi "will hear from those in the Jewish community who argue that Democrats no longer support Israel the way they used to," that is to say Zionists perceive Democrats to be not as rabidly pro-Likud as Republicans, that is to say neocons.

"Some Republicans, in fact, questioned Pelosi's support for Israel this summer. The congresswoman ended up removing her name as a co-sponsor from a House resolution supporting the Jewish state during its war with Hezbollah because it did not address the protection of civilians," reports JTA, billed as a "news service that provides up-to-the-minute reports, analysis pieces and features on events and issues of concern to the Jewish people," or rather Jewish people who support Israel.

It would appear Pelosi has at least a shred of humanity, as she was apparently sickened by Israel's genocidal war against the people of southern Lebanon last summer. However, she has the next two years to get it right and adopt the appropriate position-all the people of southern Lebanon are Hezbollah terrorists, as the Israeli leadership stated on numerous occasions as the pariah state went about breaking every rule in the crimes against humanity book.

But then, as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, said at the time, it is surely a "mistake to ascribe a moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts, the very purpose of which are to kill civilians, and the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths as a result of military action taken in self-defense," in other words, as Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz explained, Israeli civilians are more innocent than Lebanese civilians.
Comment on this Editorial

Gold closed at 628.90 dollars an ounce on Friday, down less than a tenth of a percent from $629.10 at the close of the previous Friday. The dollar closed at 0.7785 euros Friday, down 1.0% from 0.7863 euros for the week. The euro closed at 1.2846 dollars compared to 1.2718 at the end of the week before. Gold in euros would be 489.57 euros an ounce, down 1.0% from 494.65 for the week. Oil closed at 59.62 dollars a barrel Friday, up 0.8% from $59.14 at the close of the previous week. Oil in euros would be 46.41 euros a barrel, up 0.2% from 46.50 for the week. The gold/oil ratio closed at 10.55, down 0.9% from 10.64 at the end of the week before. In U.S. stocks the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 12,108.43, up 1.0% from 11,986.04 at the close of the previous Friday. The NASDAQ closed at 2,389.72, up 2.5% from 2,330.79 at the end of the week before. In U.S. interest rates the yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.59%, down twelve basis points from 4.71 for the week.

The U.S. stock market seemed to react well to the victory in the midterm elections by the Democratic party last Tuesday. The rise began late the week before the election as it became more clear that the Republicans were in trouble. The rise probably had to do with the clear signals that the Realist faction around George H.W. Bush is making a move to take power from the Neocons. The firing of Rumsfeld and the appointment of Robert Gates as Defense Secretary is a clear example of that, as is Gates's replacement on James Baker's Iraq Study Group by Lawrence Eagleburger (another Bush I national security/defense/State Department bigwig). Both Baker, the Democrats, and many Republicans are talking about a "diplomatic settlement" of the Iraq War, in other words negotiations with Syria and Iran as the only way to reestablish any kind of stability in the Middle East. The markets naturally respond well to the idea of wise grown-ups reestablishing control over U.S. policy. But is it too late? In addition, we cannot expect Israel to take the ousting of the Neocons lying down. Nor can we expect Cheney to go quietly. This is Caesar versus Pompeii. Who will cross the Rubicon? What is the Rubicon in this instance?

Pundits in the United States keep telling us that "there are no good options in Iraq." This means that the United States has suffered a significant defeat. The dispute among the elite is how to minimize the damage of that defeat. As much as one might wish for a complete dismantling of the American Empire, the world is usually better off when great empires decline gradually rather than swiftly and catastrophically. In the economic sphere the decline of the empire will manifest itself as the decline of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. So far, however, the dollar has remained strong and U.S. stocks are at historic highs. Why?

Defeat In Iraq

by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.
Editor, Safe Money Report & MoneyandMarkets.com
November 7, 2006

I'm in London, in transit for our return flight to Florida, and I have a brief, but painful, message for you this morning:

We're going to lose the war in Iraq.

This is hard to swallow, I know. But it seems blatantly obvious to everyone except those who have the most to lose.

Every single newspaper on this side of the Atlantic is headlining the deepening chaos in Iraq. Even the sentencing of Saddam on Saturday, heralded in the U.S. as a victory, is likely to deepen the sectarian strife and inflame the anti-American insurgency, according to the Wall Street Journal's Europe edition this morning.

In Washington, most politicians now seem vividly aware of the crisis - not to mention the sweeping impact it's likely to have at the polls tomorrow.

But, strangely, the movers and shakers on Wall Street still seem oblivious to the impact the war could have on investors.

The Iraq war is the elephant in the living room. Investors look at it but don't see it. They feel its presence but don't want to touch it.

Nearly Unanimous Warnings of Chaos

I now count over a dozen warnings of chaos, many from the highest-placed sources:

Three weeks ago, a special briefing by the U.S. Central Command declared that Iraq is "on the brink of chaos," slamming home four tough-to-swallow-but-hard-to-dispute conclusions:

Conclusion #1. Iraq's urban areas are suffering wave after wave of ethnic cleansing, the fundamental driver behind civil war.

Conclusion #2. Violence in Iraq has reached an all-time high and is spreading geographically.

Conclusion #3. The massive U.S. effort to hastily recruit and train a large Iraqi army and police force is backfiring. These forces, overtly and covertly loyal to warring militia leaders, are no longer part of the solution. They're the focal point of the problem.

Conclusion #4. The pivotal event that sealed the fate of America's enterprise in Iraq was the bombing of the Golden Dome Shiite mosque in Samara - precisely what I told you in Money and Markets on the day that it happened...

Clearly, Politicians See the Handwriting On the wall. So Why Don't Investors?

Why are most investors so complacent? Why do they see only the rosy side of the news?

A key reason is that investors have so far been shielded from the economic impact of the war because the U.S. government has failed to raise taxes to pay for it. Instead ...

• Virtually the entire cost - a whopping $200 billion or so each year - is being financed by debt, and ...
• Nearly all of that money is being borrowed from overseas - China, Japan and Europe.

But this doesn't reduce the war's economic impact. It only postpones it.

What will happen when the war ends in defeat?

First, worldwide confidence in the U.S. will plunge, prompting foreign investors to sell their U.S. investments. The U.S. dollar and U.S. bonds will plunge.

Second, due to fears of the Iran-Iraq axis, oil prices will go berserk, likely surpassing the $100-per-barrel level.

Third, gold will skyrocket, as investors flee the dollar for safety.

My recommendation: Don't be deceived by the false optimism that has overcome Wall Street. Stay the course.

The defeat in Iraq has led to an intensification of the behind-the-scenes civil war among the ruling elite in the United States between the Realists and the Neocons. The Iraq War is widely seen as a Neocon project. All responsible parties are simultaneously trying to assign blame to others and incorporate as many enemy factions as they can into the tent so as spread the blame around. As mentioned above, those enemy factions include Iran, Syria and even the Democratic Party. Here is the Attytood blogger, Will Bunch, on the dog that didn't bark in last week's elections:

Tin-foil hat time: Were Bush and Rove "The Producers" of an intentional flop?

"Under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than with a hit."
-- Accountant Leo Bloom, from "The Producers."

There are five stages of grief -- anger is the second, right after denial, and that's where the Republicans are at right now. The sudden ouster of the highly unpopular defense secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, just hours after the GOP electoral bloodbath, has led to most angry Republican fingers pointing straight at Karl Rove & Co.:

"The White House said keeping the majority was a priority, but they failed to do the one thing that could have made a difference," one House GOP leadership aide said Thursday. "For them to toss Rumsfeld one day after the election was a slap in the face to everyone who worked hard to protect the majority."

Maybe it's just because the Democrats actually won something, but for the last few days, something has just not felt quite right about either Tuesday's election, or the White House's handling of the voting and the aftermath. We have no doubts that a majority of American voters wanted change on Election Day, and they wanted the Democrats to be the agent of that change.

But we've also followed politics -- and the rise of George W. Bush and Karl Rove -- intensely these past six or seven years, and so beginning on Tuesday night, we were increasingly surprised at all the dogs that did not bark in the 2006 election -- dogs that raised quite a ruckus in the last three national elections.

The exit polls that leaked out in the late afternoon ended up matching the final results almost exactly -- nothing like what happened in those other Bush-era elections. The razor-close races all broke late for the Democrats, unlike Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004...and when that happened, there were no major charges of fraud, no "Brooks Brothers Riot," and no demand for a recount. The last two losers -- Conrad Burns of Montana and George Allen of Virginia -- went quietly into the autumn night, despite relatively close vote tallies. There appear to be no other Rovian stunts, like calling in the GOP's chits with Joe Lieberman to get him to caucus with the Senate Republicans. And there was no October surprise, not in Iran and not back home.

And we thought most of these things before Bush's makes-no-sense-at-all handling of the Rumsfeld matter. We don't think a pre-election firing of Rumsfeld would have changed many voters' mind, but what if had changed just 1 percent. Burns and Allen (heh) would be returning to the Senate, and the GOP would at least control one house. Likewise, a lot of nailbiters like Rep.-elect Patrick Murphy's win in Bucks County would have gone the other way if Rumsfeld had been canned a week sooner.

All this is a long prelude to our thinking the unthinkable.

Is Karl Rove even more of an evil genius than we think? Did he and Bush just produce an election flop...on purpose?

It sounds completely off-the-wall, and before this post is over we'll give some good reasons why they wouldn't do that. But we'll also give you a couple of good reasons why life could be better for the Bush White House and the future presidential ambitions of the GOP with the Dems running Congress.

But any good conspiracy theory -- and even a whacked out one -- needs evidence, so here goes:

1. Here in Pennsylvania, why did the Bush-led Justice Department step up its investigation of vulnerable U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon just weeks before Election Day. Weldon had a tough challenge from Joe Sestak, but few pundits thought he would lose before Oct. 13, that unlucky Friday when word leaked out that the lobbying activities of Weldon's daughter was the subject of a federal probe. His fate was sealed three days later, when FBI agents raided the daughter's home and other locations, in plain view of a stunned news media.

2. How did it come to pass that the predatory sexual habits of Rep. Mark Foley -- which we now know was a closely held secret among GOP insiders for years -- suddenly leaked out to ABC's Brian Ross a month before the election. There is one political operative in this country who is notorious for using rumors or allegations of homosexuality or pedophilia to destroy his election rivals -- and that operative is Karl Rove. According to accounts of how the story broke, it was Republican staffers who leaked the emails to Ross and to other D.C. insiders on the summer of 2006.

3. Given that Bush's approval rating hovered in the 35 to 40 percent range throughout the election season, why did the White House suddenly make the president more visible by having more press conferences -- and thus taking more hostile questions on Iraq and other unpleasant subjects -- than at any other time in his six-year presidency, including two in roughly one week during the October home stretch?

4. Despite voters' increasingly strong dislike of Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary was deliberately put in front of the cameras at a key time in the race, on Oct. 26, just 12 days before the election. His news conference was alternately awkward and combative; he said that "that anyone demanding deadlines for progress in Iraq should 'just back off,' because it is too difficult to predict when Iraqis will resume control of their country."

5. Likewise, given Bush's low popularity and approval ratings, why was he dispatched at the last minute to the closest races, when other Republicans thought that his presence did more harm than good? Bush appeared with Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana just five days before the election, and for Missouri Sen. Jim Talent the day after that; and made frequent visits on behalf of Virginia Sen. George Allen. All three lost by narrow margins. Tennessee's GOP candidate Bob Corker got the more popular Laura Bush instead...and won.

6. Just four days before the election, and with polls showing the Iraq war highly unpopular, you had these comments from Vice President Cheney: The Bush administration is determined to continue "full speed ahead" with its policy in Iraq, regardless of Tuesday's midterm elections, Vice President Cheney said Friday. Cheney said in an interview with ABC News that the administration is convinced that it is pursuing the right path in Iraq. "It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue what we think is right," Cheney said. "That's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."

7. Then you had the whole Cheney-Rumsfeld fiasco. Bush went out of his way to praise the two men just five days prior to the election, knowing full well how unpopular they were: He said he valued Cheney's advice and judgment. "The good thing about Vice President Cheney's advice is, you don't read about it in the newspaper after he gives it," the president said. Bush credited Rumsfeld with overseeing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while overhauling the military. "I'm pleased with the progress we're making," the president said. He replied in the affirmative when asked if he wanted Rumsfeld and Cheney to stay with him until the end.

8. And of course Rove made a number of confoundingly bad decisions, dumping millions of dollars into Senate races that seemed hopeless for the Republicans -- and ultimately were -- in the solidly "blue" states of New Jersey and Maryland, where in hindsight a few dollars spent in the right ways might have salvaged the once-"red" Montana and Virginia.

And that's on top of all the things that that the Rove-Cheney-Bush White House didn't do, as we mentioned in the outset -- recounts, massive voter intimidation, or -- as proven by those accurate exit polls -- even worse.

So why in the name of God would Bush and Rove want to produce a flop in 2006?

Well, on the domestic front, there may actually be some advantages for Bush with a Democratic Congress. For one thing, they'll probably pass a favorite program of the president and his big-business buddies, the guest worker program for immigrants, since it was the conservatives in the House holding that up. The GOP was probably also ready to relent on the minimum wage, which was becoming a political albatross for them.

The other stuff that Bush wouldn't like -- higher taxes on oil companies and the rich -- he can always veto, if his 49 senators (nine more than necessary) don't block a vote before it gets that far. He's already been promised by Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean that he won't be impeached. From what we've seen, Bush didn't like the Republican leaders in Congress (especially the ousted Tom DeLay) all that much anyway.

But it really boils down to one word:

Iraq.

Everything we watched Bush do since Wednesday morning seems to be geared in one direction: Bringing Democrats to the table on Iraq. The problem for the Democrats is this: They came to office without a plan for Iraq. Bush doesn't seem to have one either. Nobody does, although James Baker and his friends are said to be working on one. But now whatever emerges from the coming discussions will not longer be the GOP plan. It will be the Bush/Democrats' plan.

And we're afraid that the war planners are expecting things to get worse over there in 2007. Good politicians are able to ensure that when bad fallout is inevitable, that the blame can be shared. A GOP majority in Capitol Hill would have guaranteed that "the Republican war in Iraq" would dominate the 2008 presidential race, and that equation would hand the keys to the White House to the Democrats for sure. And Bush's patrons -- oilmen and the defense contractors -- need the White House a lot more than Congress, especially after the recent expansion of presidential powers. And now both parties will have a stake in Iraq, and the mostly likely in the coming fiasco there...

Mike Whitney also thinks the election was fixed, fixed by letting people's votes be counted correctly and by the well-timed orchestration of news events leading up to the election. The fix was a power grab by the Realists.

Dead Ender, Gone Hunting ...
Cheney in a Box

Mike Whitney
November 11 / 12, 2006

It was the worst outcome imaginable.

They lost the House and the Senate in one night with one savage blow. Even the Confederate flag at Senator "Macakaw's" house was flying at half-mast. Suddenly the Reich that was "built to last a thousand years" had been reduced to small blocks of dusty-rubble extending from sea to shining sea. At the very epicenter of the twisted-iron and smoldering wreckage; was George W. Bush, President Hologram, the celluloid executive whose smirking puss had appeared daily on every American TV and in every American newspaper spreading the "good news" of domestic repression and nonstop war. Now, here he was, once again, convening a news conference, dazed and ashen, propped up amid the scattered debris of a midterm massacre; his party left in utter ruins.

Ouch!

In a moment worthy of Shakespeare, the Fraudster-in-chief had been scuttled by his own party; knifed in the back by his own friends and family who knew that it was finally time to extract the drunken driver from behind the wheel of a Mack Truck.

The Democrats didn't win anything; that's all hogwash. Bush was buried beneath an avalanche of bad news which was timed to begin with the release of Bob Woodward's book "State of Denial", followed by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Lancet's Iraqi casualty report, the Mark Foley page fiasco, and a barrage of ethics-scandals, corruption investigations, and intensified coverage of the war. It was a carefully-coordinated coup intended to install "adults" (like Robert Gates) in positions of power, change the policy in Iraq, and remove Rumsfeld and Cheney from office.

One down; one to go.

The "vanilla" Democrats had nothing to do with Tuesday's results. It was a "planned demolition" from the get-go.

Robert Dreyfuss said it best in a recent article when he opined that Bush was handled in the same way "a family confronts an alcoholic. You bring everyone in, and you say, Look, my friend, it's time to change.'" (And then you remove the bad influences)

Elite powerbrokers and Republican Party kingpins extended their hoary grip all the way into the Oval Office and took the country back from the teenagers. But the boulder is still only half way up the hill. After all, what are their plans for Cheney?

Cheney wisely decided to go hunting when he discovered that friend Rumsfeld was being led to the gallows. Cheney's no fool. He knew that if he hung around, he'd be blamed as the co-conspirator of the Iraqi debacle and the subsequent destruction of the Republican Party.

So he did what Cheney always does; he skedaddled. He suddenly discovered that he "had more important things to do"; just like Vietnam.

He said he was going hunting, but that's rubbish. He wanted to be as far from the political fallout as humanly possible, so he vamoosed. There's nothing more to it than that. Besides, there've been no reports of "downed lawyers full of birdshot" this week in Wyoming so we know that Cheney's firearms are still safely tucked-away in the family vault.

Right now, Cheney is probably huddled somewhere with his national security team, rubbing his sweaty-hands together, figuring out how he can get back in the game and keep his fetid plan moving forward.

Cheney is smart; real smart. Smart like a cobra. He's not going down without a fight and he doesn't give a damn if he takes the whole country with him.

This is all about Cheney now; Dick Cheney, political survivor and skilled bureaucratic infighter. If anyone thinks that he's going to sit around waiting for the Democrats to start sniffing around the Republican corruption-cesspool; they're crazy.

He knows what's going on. He knows that Bush Senior, and Brzezinski, and Baker, and the rest of the "old order" Republicans have muscled in and are taking over. He knows he won't be able to bomb Iran, kill another 650,000 Iraqis, or declare martial law at home. And, he also knows that Conyers and the rest of them will be nosing-around the Halliburton "no bid" contracts; going through every sordid detail with a fine-tooth comb, and dredging up new scandals on a daily basis.

He grasps all of that. He understands the political climate and he knows that he only has two choices left; offense or defense?

Either he steps down or he collects his wits, gets his team together; Addington, Abrams, Chertoff, Gonzales etc; all the guys who are "one step ahead of the hangman"; and slaps together one "last-ditch" effort to establish absolute-dictatorial power that will put him forever beyond the reach of the law or of any future accountability for his war crimes.

It's a tough task. Bush is teetering and he's probably left the Cheney-Rumsfeld orbit already. Robert Gates' job is to influence Bush, to win him over with reason and, thus, move the country away from the brink of disaster. Cheney has been removed from the policy-making apparatus and he knows it.

So, what'll he do next?

What will Cheney do now that he's been backed into a corner and his power is oozing away like the blood from a sucking chest-wound?

Will he quietly retire and disappear into the political vapor or "lock-n-load" and go down with both guns blazing?

Here's a clue: Cheney is "dead-ender". He won't go peacefully.

What will Cheney and the Neocons do? Easy, let Israel attack Iran, thereby pinning hundreds of thousand of Americans and British inside Iraq with the escape routes cut off. Maybe that's the Rubicon. Then either public anger will be turned on the leaders who lied us into war, and mass protests will allow the clampdown Cheney has been dreaming about, or the anger will be turned against Muslims again and they can once again lead a fascist nation at war. The economic consequences of such murderous folly would be immediate and severe:

Insanity Then And Now

...Currently, we are being told that Iran is threatening our very existence. What would happen to America if either it or Israel launched at strike at Iranian nuclear facilities many of which are located underneath crowded cities? Iran would regard the attack as a declaration of war by the U.S. and Israel even if only the latter made the initial air assault. The Iranians could fire Russian made SS-29 and SS-22 anti-ship missiles plus NATO Exocets simultaneously from 5 different angles totaling 140 degrees at every ship in the Persian Gulf. We would lose over 10,000 sailors in the first few minutes. 40% of the world's oil supply would be taken off the market and the price of oil would soar to $300 a barrel and gasoline to $10 a gallon. The world would correctly perceive that the American Navy was s floating death trap and dump the dollar. Prices would double and triple overnight. And then prices would spiral even higher cutting after tax wages by more than 50% and pensions by more than 90%. And those 40,000 Iranian suicide volunteers armed with the same missiles Hezbollah used in Lebanon would cut off American troops in Iraq from their supply lines. They could take many troops hostage. Of course the American public would demand we strike Iran, Syria and what's left of Iraq and the Mideast with nuclear weapons. But that would not restore the lives of our soldiers and sailors nor would it bring back the American economy and the country we knew as children. It certainly would not restore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Israel would survive and quickly make arrangements with Vladimir Putin's Russia to replace the United States as the world's sole remaining super power.

The problem is that the U.S. dollar-based economy will most likely crash even if peace in the Middle East is declared. The damage has gone too far for anything like the status quo to survive. An imperial nation with as much debt as the United States cannot remain economically or politically dominant. The dollar's status as the world's reserve currency will not long survive the defeat in Iraq. But, it has survived until now in the face of massive multiple deficits that would have destroyed any normal currency by now. Here is Der Spiegel:

PLAYING WITH FIRE
America and the Dollar Illusion

By Gabor Steingart

The dollar is still the world's reserve currency, even though it hasn't deserved this status for a long time. The devaluation of the dollar can't be stopped -- it can only be deferred. The result could be a world economic crisis.

The two things investors crave most are high yields and high security. Since you can never have both at the same time, the moods of investors are like an emotional roller coaster. They shift constantly from fear to greed and back -- although major investors, like corporations and states, clearly prefer security over fancy returns. Their fear is stronger than their greed. They'll freely relinquish the really fat profits as long as the stability of their billions is guaranteed. They're afraid of political unrest, they loathe overly dramatic changes in currency value and the mere thought of creeping inflation sends them into a state of panic.

Few countries are able to provide the greatest possible security in the face of these dangers. They include the United States and Switzerland. Indeed, this security is why the dollar isn't just used in trading and investment, but also functions as the world's reserve currency. Almost every country in the world distrusts its own currency to the extent that it prefers to invest the money from its treasury in the United States.

One can almost completely rule out the possibility of political unrest in the United States. Inflation is combated by the Federal Reserve Bank. Given the size of the currency's spread and the quantity of dollars circulating worldwide, speculators have no cause to get overly anxious about the dollar.

Thus, those who have money prefer to keep it in dollars. The United States disposes of a virtual monopoly on the commodity called security. For many investors, purchasing a US government bond is nothing other than a way of preserving their money. In 2005, only 20 percent of all currency reserves in the world were held in euros, whereas more than 60 percent were held in dollars. The introduction of the euro was a considerable success, and one should not downplay it. Nevertheless, the dollar has remained the world's currency anchor. As long as this anchor rests firmly on the ocean floor, stability is guaranteed for the national economies that invest in the dollar.

But if that anchor should tear itself loose and begin to drift freely in the ocean of global finance, the chaos that ensues would result in trouble for more than just exchange rates.

Buying to avoid selling

But why are the same traders who used to purchase products now so mad about dollar bills? Why do they rely on the good called security -- a commodity whose quantity cannot be increased at all? Doesn't every business student learn that the currency of a country is only as stable -- and hence as valuable -- as what the national economy of that country has to offer and produces? Does no one see that the tension between the dream and the reality is increasing and that this tension will snap, leading to suffering for millions?

Of course they see it! Investors can see what is happening. They wonder about it and shake their heads. It even scares them a little, sending chills down their spine. But they keep buying dollars as though possessed. The greater their doubts, the more greedily they order dollars. Indeed, that's exactly what is so crazy about these investors and their behavior: The client isn't just a client. He creates the security he's purchasing by the very act of purchasing it. If he were to stop buying dollars tomorrow, suspicion about the currency would spread and insecurity would grow. Then the dream would end. The dollar would start to falter and all the wealth held in dollars would lose its value. Of course, that's not something investors want to see happen.

The only way to fight a weak dollar is to strengthen it. Many people no longer care whether the US currency still justifies the faith people seem to have in it. The new game, which amounts to playing with fire, works exactly the other way around: The dollar deserves the faith it gets because otherwise it loses that faith. Dollars are bought so they don't have to be sold. The dollar is strong because that's the only thing that can prevent it from growing weak. Reality is ignored because only by ignoring it can the dream come true. Or, to put it still more clearly: Behaving irrationally has become rational behavior.

Everyone knows the danger

Of course, those playing this game know that, in the long term, currencies can't be stronger than the national economies from which they derive. Consumption without production, imports without exports, growth on credit -- these are all things that can't last in this world. Ken Rogoff, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a man who thinks as clearly as he speaks brashly, recently criticized US economic policy even as he seemed to be praising it: Rogoff said the current boom in the United States is "the best economic recovery money can buy."

But if things have become that obvious, why aren't investors recoiling in fear? Why do foreigners, US presidents of all stripes and even Federal Reserve presidents known for their seriousness allow themselves to get involved in such a risky game, when the risk is that of destroying everything? Why aren't those mechanisms of market regulation functioning that are supposed to represent the advantage of the capitalist system over planned economies?

The answer is terrifyingly simple: Everyone knows how dangerous the game is, but continuing to play it strikes them as less dangerous than quitting. After all, what's to be gained from overreacting? Investors allowed themselves to get caught in the dollar trap years ago, and there's no easy way out. If they start taking their dollar bills and government bonds to the market themselves, they would lose money -- either gradually or all at once. They would like to avoid both scenarios, at least for a time. A president who does no more than recognize the situation as an important issue may lose his position as public discontent looks for a vent. Though the governors of the Federal Reserve Bank are under the strongest obligation to tell the truth, they have let the right moment for effective intervention slip by.

... So why aren't the markets correcting themselves in this instance as they normally do? Who or what is preventing investors from behaving differently towards the dollar than they behaved towards New Economy stocks?

They're going to do it. The only question is when. Financial investors aren't tax collectors or accountants: Their job isn't that of a meticulous overseer. They love excess, and they regularly cause markets to overheat. After all, speculation is the business they're in, and being in that business involves living with the risk of going too far. Their professional attitude resembles that of race car drivers whose goal is victory and not avoiding accidents at all costs. What remains unclear is just how dramatic the crash will be. Experts have often forecast the effects of a dollar meltdown. If the downward trend were to begin, interest on credit would rise step by step in an attempt to curb devaluation. That way, the dollar crisis would spread from the world of currencies to the real world of factories, businesses and household accounts within days.

Major and minor private investments yield lower returns when interest rates climb. People would start to save, the economy would falter and eventually shrink. The first mass layoffs would arrive soon afterwards. US citizens would have to once more drastically reduce their level of consumption, as unemployment and waves of bankruptcy would shake up the country. Millions of households would become unable to pay back their bank loans. Then real estate prices and share values would begin to drop, having been overpriced for years and used as mortgages for consumer credit. When the real estate bubble bursts, consumption inevitably dwindles even further. The hunger for imports would fade, causing problems for exporting countries as well. It would only be a matter of days before newspapers would once more feature a term that seemed to have disappeared decades ago: world economic crisis.

Steroids for the giant

Last century, the United States already suffered from one deep economic crisis that gradually spread to the rest of the world. The Great Depression lasted 10 years and brought mass unemployment and starvation to the United States. The country's economic power sank by one-third. The crisis virus wrought havoc all over the West. Six million people were unemployed in Germany when the economic fever was at its peak.

Today's investors face a difficult choice, one they're not to be envied for. They can see the relative weakness of the US economy and they're registering the tectonic shifts in the world economy. They know that a great statistical effort is being made to prolong the American dream. For some time now, government statistics have announced sensational productivity leaps for the US economy -- productivity leaps that, strange as it may seem, haven't led to any rise in wages for years. This is in fact genuinely bizarre: Either capitalists are reaping the fruits of increased productivity all by themselves -- which would be a political scandal even in capitalism's heartland -- or the productivity leaps exist only on paper. There is much to suggest that the second hypothesis is correct.

Half the world is impressed by the low levels of unemployment in the United States. The other half knows that these statistics aren't official, but the result of a voluntary telephone survey. Many of those who declare themselves employed are assistants and day workers. Working just one hour a week is enough for one to be classified as "employed." Given that it's considered antisocial to declare yourself unemployed, the US statistics may well say more about American society's dominant norms than about its actual condition.

The US economy's high growth rates aren't to be completely trusted either. They are the result of high public and private debt. In no way do they express an increased output of domestically produced goods and services that the United States has achieved by its own strength. They say more about the successful sales ventures of Asians and Europeans. New loans taken by the US government were responsible for fully one-third of US economic growth in 2001. In 2003 they were responsible for a quarter. The United States is an economic giant on steroids -- doped so its decline in performance doesn't become too apparent...

The crash can be deferred, but not stopped

The dependence of foreign central banks on the dollar will defer its crash, but it won't prevent it. Today's snowdrift will become tomorrow's avalanche. The masses of snow are already accumulating at breathtaking speed. The avalanche could happen tomorrow, in a few months or years from now. Much of what people today think is immortal will be buried by the global currency crisis -- perhaps even the leadership role of the United States.

Incidentally, the commission that former US President Bill Clinton created to investigate the negative balance of trade concluded in clear terms that the government has to do whatever it can to put an end to the growing disparity between imports and exports. It demanded that the public give up its optimism and return to realism, that people start saving again and that the state reduce its imports in order to prevent too hard a crash landing.

None of that has been done. In fact, what is being done is the opposite of everything the experts recommended. Debt is growing, imports are increasing and an optimism now lacking every basis in reality has become official state policy. Lester Thurow, a member of Clinton's commission, draws the sober conclusion that no one will believe the US balance of trade could produce a crisis "until it happens."

Nick Beams puts the defeat of the United States in Iraq into a larger historical perspective:

The crisis of US imperialism in historical perspective

By Nick Beams
8 November 2006

The 2006 American elections have a truly global significance. They are taking place in conditions where the Bush administration and the entire US ruling elite is embroiled in a deep-going political crisis, precipitated by the disastrous consequences of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As numerous books, articles and comment pieces - many of them echoing positions articulated within the American military - have made clear, the invasion of Iraq has been a fiasco. The underlying position of the various critics from within ruling circles is that it has weakened both the immediate and the long-term strategic position of the United States.

...Aside from these immediate questions, the Iraq debacle has provoked discussion in American foreign policy circles about the long-term position of the United States.

...Michael Lind of the New America Foundation, a thinktank established in the recent period to promote alternatives to the Bush administration, points to the decline in the long-term strategic position of the US and the collapse of the perspectives developed in the post-Cold War period.

In a recent article entitled "The World After Bush", he writes:

"...Much of America's weakness will be the result of self-inflicted wounds: the unnecessary invasion of Iraq, along with the Bush administration's gratuitous insults to allies, its arrogant unilateralism and its hostility to international law. But as tempting as it may be to put all of the blame on the Bush administration, the truth is that most of the trends that will limit American power and influence in the next decade are long-term phenomena produced by economic, demographic and ideological developments beyond the power of the US or any government to influence. The rise of China, the shift in the centre of the world economy to Asia, the growth of neo-mercantilist petro-politics, the spread of Islamism in both militant and moderate forms - these trends are reshaping the world order in ways that neither the US nor any of its allies can do much to control."

..Turning to the underlying economic issues, he writes:

"[T]he collapse of the neoconservative perspective in the Middle East and the world does not mean success for what he calls the neoliberal perspective of the Democratic Party. "Neoliberals agree with neoconservatives about the goal of US foreign policy - a global free market in a world policed by a benevolent, hegemonic US. Their differences are in the details. Although they are as opposed in practice to a multipolar world order as neoconservatives, neoliberals argue that the US should make its global hegemony more palatable to other countries by endorsing international law and working through international institutions like the UN and NATO."

He notes that while some neoliberals call for a vast program of investment in developing countries, the Middle East in particular - a kind of new Marshall Plan - this will never be tested, because the money is not there in the first place.

While Lind does not go on to develop the argument, this fact does point to the underlying reason for the resort to militarism - the economic decline of the United States. His perspective is for what he calls a "concert of great powers, organised and led by the US" as the best hope for reconciling international peace with liberal order.

But what happens if those powers do not find it in their interest to be led and organised by the US? Such a concert is only possible provided the US is prepared to make concessions to its rivals and potential adversaries. Here, however, lies the fundamental problem. The US is not in a position to do that. As we have previously noted, the invasion of Iraq was directed not so much against Saddam Hussein, as against the European rivals of the US in the Middle East. The aim was to establish a puppet regime in Iraq and in that way reinforce the position of the US against its European and Asian rivals. The same is true of Iran.

The reason the US pursues such a belligerent policy is rooted in its long-term economic decline. In the immediate post-war period, the US financed the Marshall Plan and consciously rebuilt the other major capitalist powers - except Britain whose empire it was seeking to dismantle. Under today's conditions, a "concert of great powers" can at best only be an unstable truce.

The historic context

The present situation has to be placed within its broad historical context - that is to say, examined on the basis of the historical development of the world capitalist system.

...The world economic crisis of the early 1970s, when the profit rate began to fall, signaled the onset of a new downswing in the curve of capitalist development. Over the next two decades, the fall in the rate of profit became the driving force for vast changes in the structure and functioning of capitalist production. These changes, bound up with the application of computer technologies to all aspects of communication and production, have resulted in a quantum leap in the globalisation of production.

Whereas in all previous epochs, surplus value was extracted from the working class within the confines of a given nation-state, this now takes place on a global scale. Capital exists in three forms: as money (the end of the capitalist production process with the sale of commodities and the start of a new round of production), as commodity capital (which emerges from the production process) and as productive capital (the means of production that are employed to extract surplus value from the working class in the course of the production process). Commodity capital and money capital became citizens of the world in an earlier period. Productive capital, however, still retained a certain national identity. But now the disaggregation of the production process beyond the framework of the nation-state means that productive capital has become truly global.

The globalisation of production since the mid-1970s has had vast social and political implications. If the downswing in the latter part of the nineteenth century was the trigger for the establishment of the mass organisations of the working class that held sway for the majority of the twentieth century, then the changes over the past three decades have brought about their disintegration and collapse. This was the significance of the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Capital responded to the downturn in the rate of profit in the 1970s in the same way as it had in the past. It undertook a desperate struggle to revolutionise the process of production. The globalisation of production is the outcome.

...There are distinct parallels with the period before 1914. Then, the upturn in capitalist profit was occasioned, at least in part, by the first phase of globalisation - the exploitation of cheap raw materials and agricultural products. Today, it is being fueled by the increased supplies of cheaper labour. But this mode of accumulation is bound to bring social and political instability because it is dependent on ever-deepening social inequality, which can have far-reaching consequences in both the advanced capitalist countries and the new entrants into the global market.

Like the period before 1914, there is an intensifying conflict among the major powers. The relative economic decline of the US, like that of Britain before it, has extended over several decades. However, it has now become an explosive factor in world politics, as the US attempts to compensate for its loss of economic hegemony by military means. There are criticisms of the Bush doctrine of militarism from within American ruling circles, given the disaster that has unfolded in Iraq. But whenever one reads the alternative proposals - a concert of powers, a return to multilateralism - one is struck by the fact that they all involve some weakening of the position of the US. For three and a half decades, ever since it unilaterally removed the gold backing from the US dollar and ended the Bretton Woods monetary system because it was not able to honour its obligations, the US has been seeking to resolve its economic problems at the expense of its rivals. That process is not going to be reversed. In a sense, the turn to military means represents the intensification of a process that has been unfolding over the entire preceding period.

...Just as in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the previously dominant imperialist power, Great Britain, had to increasingly resort to military means in the face of rising challengers (Germany, rival European powers and the US) so today the US faces direct threats to its position. These are the underlying driving forces of the deepening political instability, growing great power rivalry and war that we are witnessing today.

"Mr. Olmert says Israel intends to stop what he describes as the terror coming from Gaza, but has no intention of reoccupying the territory.

Israeli military authorities expressed regret for the death of a 12-year old girl. She was shot by an Israeli sniper who Israeli authorities say was aiming at a Palestinian militant.

Two Palestinian women were killed by Israeli troops in a chaotic demonstration by Palestinian women acting as human shields for Palestinian militants. The militants escaped from a mosque in Beit Hanoun that was under siege by Israeli forces." (VOA)

Political observers say it's no surprise that the congresswoman from San Francisco considers herself close to the Jews.

The daughter of Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., a former mayor of Baltimore, Pelosi grew up in a Democratic family with Jewish neighbors and friends.

"She likes to say that, growing up in Baltimore, she went to a bar or bat mitzvah every Saturday," Amy Friedkin, a former president of AIPAC and a friend of Pelosi's for 25 years, wrote in an e-mail message to JTA.

Friedkin noted that there's even a soccer field in the Haifa area of Israel named after the lawmaker's family.

While the Republicans had campaigned partly on the premise that support for Israel among Democrats has waned, exit polls from Tuesday's voting show that Democrats won an overwhelming majority of the Jewish vote.

With Pelosi as speaker, Jewish activists and officials are confident that the U.S. Congress will remain strongly pro-Israel.

"I've heard her say numerous times that the single greatest achievement of the 20th century" was the founding of the modern state of Israel, Friedkin wrote.

"She has been a great friend of the U.S.-Israel relationship during her entire time in Congress and is deeply committed to strengthening that relationship."

Sam Lauter, a pro-Israel activist in San Francisco, has known Pelosi for nearly 40 years. He was 5 years old when the Pelosis moved into his San Francisco neighborhood, he recalls. The two families lived on the same street.

"She's one of the classiest," most "straightforward people you could ever meet," Lauter said. "She's incredibly loyal."

Lauter said the Pelosis used to attend the first night of the Passover seder at his parents' house.

"As far as the Jewish community is concerned, she feels our issues in her soul," he said.

To illustrate his point, Lauter told a Pelosi story that has become almost legendary in the Jewish community.

At an AIPAC members luncheon in San Francisco right after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Pelosi was speaking when an alarm sounded.

"Everybody started getting nervous, scrambling toward the door," Lauter recalled.

One person, though, was reading the words of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, above the din.

It was Pelosi.

"It actually calmed the crowd," Lauter said. "You could see people actually smiling, saying 'Wow.' "

This "wasn't something done purposefully to show everyone that Nancy Pelosi supports the Jewish community," he said. It "actually came from inside her."

Rabbi Doug Kahn, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco [is] confident that Pelosi, as speaker, will be effective in persuading people with a broad range of views on the Middle East, the importance of maintaining bipartisan support for Israel.

When it comes to Israel, "she truly gets it," said Matt Dorf, a consultant to the Democratic National Committee. he gets "Israel's value and asset to U.S. security" and its "importance as the only democracy in the Middle East."

Jewish organizational officials also commend Pelosi's record on Jewish communal issues.

William Daroff, vice president for public policy for the United Jewish Communities, the federation system's umbrella group and a Republican himself, said the lawmaker has helped ensure federal funding of Jewish family service agencies and Jewish hospitals and has supported government programs and policies that Jewish organizations value, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

He also noted that Reva Price, Pelosi's liaison to the Jewish community for a year and a half, came from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella group of local community relations councils.

Bringing on board such an insider was "really a masterful stroke,"Daroff said.

Price, he added, has done a wonderful job of playing "traffic cop" with Jewish organizations and in making sure that Pelosi's agenda is in tune with that of the Jewish community.

She's been "a real champion of making sure the Jewish community is well served,"Daroff said of the lawmaker. "I'm sure she'll continue to be a champion."

Some Republicans, in fact, questioned Pelosi's support for Israel this summer.

The congresswoman ended up removing her name as a co-sponsor from a House resolution supporting the Jewish state during its war with Hezbollah because it did not address the protection of civilians.

Anderson Cooper of CNN showed this video (without the rifle info) of snipers killing U.S. troops in Iraq on his October 18, 2006 show. CNN says it obtained the video from a "representative" of an unnamed "insurgent leader." Bear in mind that Anderson Cooper used to work for the CIA.

Richard Wilson's hypothesis: Israeli soldiers and/or Mossad agents are killing our soldiers in Iraq in order to enrage American troops so that the slaughter  continues.

Proof: At the very beginning of this video clip, you see a rifle with a video camera attached to it. This weapon is made by the Rafael company, an Israeli arms manufacturer, that also makes IEDs. If you watch the video all the way through, it explains how this rifle works. CNN stated that the camera used to film these shootings was not a mounted rifle camera. But as you watch the video, you see that with each shot fired, the camera recoils. That would only happen if it were mounted on the rifle. Why is this significant? Because this kind of rifle-camera is extremely sophisticated and not available to your average Iraqi insurgent. I mean, it's not exactly an easily obtainable Saturday night special! Something this sophisticated points to Mossad. 

Mossad is a master at false flag operations, e.g., Oklahoma City, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, the July 7, 2005 London bombings, the 9-11 attacks in New York, the assassination of the Prime Minister in Beirut, the stoking of Muslim riots in France last year, the bombing of the Hassan al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, etc.

Israelis freely move among US and UK troops in Iraq, and have access to top-level US intelligence. Until July 2003, the head of all US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was General Tommy Franks, a Zionist Jew. (He is now on the board of directors for Bank of America.) On November 7, 2006 another Zionist Jew became a principle liaison between Mossad and US forces in Iraq: Major General Richard F. Natonski of the Marine Corps. His title is Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations.

Because of this access, the "insurgents" (i.e., Mossad agents)  know exactly where US vehicles will be and who will be inside them. This allows them to target for maximum false flag effect.

For example, on July 23, 2005, a detachment of 19 female US Marines was sent to Fallujah to check Iraqi women for bombs. An IED blew up their truck. Two of the young American women were killed, five were critically wounded, and four were captured. The bodies of the four captured women turned up later in a garbage dump with their throats cut. Americans were outraged. Islamic clerics insisted that only Israelis could be so cold-blooded. And who was in charge of US forces in Fallujah at the time? None other than Major General Natonski, the Mossad liaison.

Americans are supposed to believe that rag-tag "insurgents" use IEDs powerful enough to kill three US troops per day, on average. An American soldier even set up a blog on how "Intel" is betraying and targeting US troops. But sometimes Mossad bomb-makers accidentally blow themselves up in Iraq.

According to Richard Wilson, Israeli sniping and IEDs are false flag operations. He says that on March 28, 2005, Americans arrested 19 Mossad agents who fired twice on a US Marine checkpoint. The Marines beat up the Mossad agents and tore off their Star-of-David necklaces. (The US media incorrectly said the agents were Americans.) The Mossad agents said they were employees of Zapata Engineering, which helps the CIA conduct interrogations, and also manages US ammo dumps and US motor pools in Iraq.

IEDs in Iraq are powerful enough to flip over a 70-ton tank. Some of the models shoot depleted-uranium projectiles, and are triggered by electronic devices surreptitiously planted on US armored vehicles. Zapata Engineering (which employs Mossad agents) makes this exact kind of trigger, and oversees some of the US motor pools.

Rumsfeld says the IEDs come from Iran, but Richard says they come from Mossad, and are not "improvised" at all. The Israeli company, Rafael (see above), makes IEDS, which are buried in the middle of a road. Beside the road is a device which emits a laser or radio signal. This device is manufactured by firms like Zapata Engineering, which is controlled by Zionist Jews. The IED mine, manufactured by Israel, is inert until a US vehicle (secretly planted with a triggering device) rolls over it.

Whenever Mossad carries out these false-flag operations they produce a videotape or a recording from an "unnamed source" that is "close to al-Qaeda." Sometimes they say "the claim was posted on an Internet website, but its authenticity could not be verified."

But Israelis would never kill anyone in cold blood, would they? After all, the USS Liberty massacre was "an accident!"

It's understandable that congressional leaders, members of Congress, will be very reluctant to take this enormous step to protect our Constitution and our democracy. But the American people still -- we have a democracy. You saw what happened at the polls. Members of Congress will get it, if the American people want it.

They agree that the election went "better than expected," "relatively smoothly," with "isolated problems," "just a few glitches," "minor issues," "no major problems."

So, with multi-hundreds of news reports of election problems across the country -- a fraction of the problems that actually occurred -- you have to wonder what a meltdown would have to look like.

The touch-screen terror then cut a swath of death and destruction across the state, despite attempts by the state police to apprehend it.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush appeared on television later in the day to urge calm, telling residents, "Clearly, Florida's electronic voting machines are still very much a work in progress."

At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow did not directly address the issue of the voting machine's deadly rampage, choosing instead to make general remarks about the electoral process.

"This administration remains steadfast in its support of free and fair elections," he said, adding, "in Iraq."