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Hoover Institution
9.11.2001
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January 28, 2005
History and Growth of
American News Networks
By Howard E. Hobbs PhD, Editor & Publisher
CLOVIS, CA -- During
the period from 1948 in the era of Writer's Studios, and the American
Radio Networks, a total of less than 13 years, network radio sales
set an all-time high of 133,723,098 listeners. The Korean War
had a devastating effect with the changing public tastes for the
TV Media over-rated.
By April 1950 NBC bought full page ads
in the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune and the Wall
Street Journal pointing out that NBC Radio delivered much more
in 1950, per advertising dollar invested, than it did 10 years
earlier.
They wrote "NBC today costs considerably
less per thousand homes than it did ten years ago - and NBC today
reaches more people at lower cost than any other national advertising
medium. And during the thirteen year period from 1938 to 1960
the National Radio Network lost their traditional advertisers."
In essence traditional network radio became an entirely different
mass communication medium during that period of time.
During the thirteen-year period from
1948 to 1960 the National Radio Network lost their traditional
program format and their traditional advertisers. In essence,
traditional network radio became an entirely different mass communication
medium during this brief period of time.
Today in Clovis California, another
form of news media history has again surfaced as the Clovis
Free Press web page joined with its eight sister daily online
newspapers to mark another media miracle when on Friday morning
at 2 A.M. audited online circulation of 70,134,092 readership
was logged in over the past Quarter beginning October 1, 2005.
©
Copyright 1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved
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Friday, June 18, 2004
Saudis Beheaded American
Hostage
By Howard E. Hobbs PhD Editor & Publisher
WASHINGTON
-- Reuters is reporting today that militants in
Saudi Arabia beheaded American hostage Paul Johnson Friday. In
a sudden turn of events however, the Saudi leader was then killed
in a shootout with security forces as he tried to dispose of the
body.
. Abdulaziz al-Muqrin's Islamist group
displayed photographs of the 49-year-old aviation engineer's severed
head on a Web site. Shortly afterwards, as Muqrin and two other
top militants deposited the body in the capital Riyadh, they were
surrounded by Saudi security men and gunned down, a security source
said.
Muqrin, a young
man driven by revenge and hatred for the United States and its
Arab allies, was Saudi Arabia's most wanted al Qaeda leader. His
death will be portrayed as a major blow to Saudi-born Osama bin
Laden by the kingdom's rulers, once chided by their U.S. allies
as being soft on terrorism.Johnson was the third American killed
in Riyadh in the past 10 days, stepping up pressure on thousands
of U.S. citizens and other foreigners vital to the economy of
the world's biggest oil exporter and on the Saudi royal family,
which bin Laden has sworn to overthrow for its close alliance
with Washington.
"`These are
barbaric people. There's no justification whatsoever for his murder.
And yet they killed him in cold blood,'' said President George
W. Bush, who declared war on al Qaeda after its September 11 attacks
three years ago when a group of mostly Saudi young men flew hijacked
planes at New York and Washington. "America will not be intimidated
by these kinds of extremist thugs."The U.S. embassy said
more attacks were likely and the State Department was to issue
a new warning to Americans across the Middle East after urging
many to leave Saudi Arabia this week.
"As we promised, the mujahideen,
we have beheaded the American hostage Paul Marshall after the
deadline that the mujahideen gave to the tyrannical Saudi government
passed," his Falluja Brigade of the Organization of al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula said on its Web site, using Johnson's
first names.
The Web site showed
three pictures of what appeared to be Johnson's severed head --
one showed the bloodied head propped up on the back of a body
in an orange, U.S. prison-style, jumpsuit with a knife leaning
on the mustachioed face.A second picture showed a hand lifting
up the head and a third showed the body and the head from a different
angle.
Two other Americans
and an Irish television cameraman have been shot dead in Riyadh
this month. Beheading prisoners or cutting their throats has been
a shock tactic among al Qaeda militants for some time -- American
Nick Berg was filmed as he was killed in Iraq last month, as was
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002.
The U.S. State Department issued a travel
advisory for Malaysia on Wednesday warning of possible attacks
like the one last year in Bali, Indonesia, on locations where
Westerners congregate. The October 12, 2002 nightclub attacks
killed 202 people, including seven Americans.
A November 28, 2002 suicide bombing at
the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, killed 10
Kenyans and three Israelis. In the Philippines, the threat deals
with a Muslim guerrilla insurgency, said the officials who also
believe Saudi Arabia could again be a potential target. Monday's
attacks killed 25 people, including eight Americans, when suicide
bombers set off three blasts almost simultaneously at compounds
housing Westerners in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Nearly 200
people were injured, 17 of them Americans. Nine suspected bombers
also died in the attacks.
A senior Bush administration official
told reporters Wednesday that deputy national security adviser
Steve Hadley traveled to Saudi Arabia last Saturday and, after
sharing U.S. intelligence, asked Saudi officials to immediately
improve security at at least one of the Riyadh compounds bombed
earlier this week.
The shared intelligence suggested a terrorist
attack was imminent and Hadley requested "a strong visible
security presence" designed to deter any such strikes, the
official said. The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Saudi
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, acknowledged that a request was made
for more security at one of the sites that was bombed. He told
reporters that Saudi security agencies investigated the site and
"found it had adequate security." "The proof of
that is when the attack took place in that compound only, unfortunately,
sadly the two guards ... were killed," Prince Bandar said.
"The physical barriers stopped the attack to hurt the people
inside."
A team of U.S. investigators is to arrive
in Saudi Arabia Thursday after being delayed in Germany. White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer attributed the delay to limits on
flight time for the crew of the plane transporting the team.
[Editor's
Note: We at the Daily Republican Newspaper strive to be compassionate
of heart and conservative of mind. Established in Springfield,
Mass., in 1824, the Daily Republican recently commemorated our
174th Founding Anniversary. We still publish a fearless, National
print page and have upgraded now to the electronic daily newspaper,
on-line via the Internet WWW serving readers across the Nation
and in 140 countries. The Daily Republican sponsors original research
on government policy, the American economy, and American politics.
Daily Republican research aims to preserve and to strengthen republican
foundations of a free society limited government, competitive
private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions,
and vigilant defense—through rigorous inquiry, debate, and clear
writing.' In a recent conference of leading journalists, media
lawyers and online news executives emphasize our guiding principles
for maintaining and protecting the freedom and independence of
Internet news. We affirm, among these, that news media in cyberspace
and via international satellite broadcasts should be afforded
the same freedom of expression rights as traditional news media.]
Comment
©
Copyright 1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
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September 16, 2003
US does not support killing Arafat
By David Holcberg, Ayn Rand
Institute
IRVINE, CA -- Secretary
of State Colin Powell declared this weekend that "The United
States does not support either the elimination or the exile of Mr.
Arafat." His reasoning? "There would be rage throughout
the Arab world the Muslim world, and in many other parts of the
world."
By that reasoning we should not have attacked
Afghanistan, nor Iraq; nor should we try to kill Hussein, bin Laden
and the Al Qaeda leadership.
In fact, if we accept Powell's reasoning,
we should immediately stop our war on terror--we don't want to further
enrage those peaceful Islamic terrorists and their supporters, do
we?
[Editor's Note: Click here to obtain more background
info about the
Ayn Rand Organization. ]
Comment
©
Copyright 1876-2004 by The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
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September 5, 2003
Briefing from Camp Victory, Baghdad
Donald H. Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld: I had a good visit with Jerry Bremer,
and then went over and visited with General Sanchez, and then we
visited the people around the building we've known over the years
who are helping out.
And then we had a dinner with the British ambassador
and the senior team that Jerry Bremer and General Sanchez have.
It ran about an hour and 20 minutes longer than it was supposed
to, but it was excellent. We were able to talk the broad scope of
what's taking place in this country. It's truly amazing the amount
of progress that's been achieved in whatever its been - four or
five months, depending on whether you start before the war or after
the war. If one looks at any other timeline - the timeline in Germany,
the timeline in Japan, the timeline in any number of other countries.
The progress here has been notably better, faster, and at least
to my eyes really impressive. If you think of the political side
-- the work that's been done to get the city councils going all
across the country, the standing up of a government council, the
first reasonably representative thing that's happened in this country
nationwide in decades. The announcement more recently of the appointment
of ministers to deal with the overwhelming majority of the ministries.
There are important steps yet ahead and they're in pretty much in
the hands of the Iraqi people and the Governing Council.
The next step presumably would be that they will
fashion some sort of a date and an approach to a constitutional
convention or populace to produce the drafting of a constitution.
After that, there needs to say, there will have to be a ratification
or approving of that constitution and the constitutional process
by the Iraqi people, and after that, one would think they would
be provided for in the constitution and opportunity for people to
elect officials depending on how the constitution ends up being
crafted. They have accomplished three or four steps and have three
of four to go, but it's been enormously impressive progress. If
you think of our country, it was sometime in 1776 until I think
1789 before we had a system in place that everyone agreed to. The
amount of time in Germany, Jerry Bremer mentioned today that it
took something like three years; I believe he said, to get a currency
arranged in Germany. That was done in the first two or three months
here in Iraq. So there are truly impressive accomplishments. It
is understandable that with so much analysis and so much observation,
and so much scrutiny as to what's going on here that the emphasis
turns to be on the things that are unfortunate, where somebody is
killed or somebody is wounded, or some building is blown up, or
someone is critical of the government council, or critical of the
coalition. And that's what happens in a free country. That's what
happens when people are free to write what they want, say what they
want, and so what they want. On the other hand, it tends to create
an impression, an imbalance in public perception that is unfortunate.
These young men and women that are here are doing
work that is enormously important. It's important to the Iraqi people
who are free for the first time. It's important to the region and
offers the prospect for something that can happen here that can
affect the behavior politically in neighboring economic circumstances
of the people of the entire region.
A peaceful recovering Iraq will make an enormous
difference that can be (Inaudible.) of each of the neighboring countries.
It's also important to the world. We've got an awful lot of people
in this world who are teaching people that the thing to do is strap
bombs on themselves and go kill people -- innocent women and children.
We need more people who are teaching in schools that it's important
to learn math, and to learn languages, and to learn the kinds of
things that will enable them to provide for themselves and their
families.
And if you think of the damage that Stalin and
the Soviet Union did to the people of Russia and the people of the
Soviet republics and the occupied Warsaw Pact countries and what
happened to their infrastructure over those many decades, what happened
to the lost opportunities, the effects on their lives, the education
they didn't get. And then you think about what happens in a system
that's rooted in fear. What happens to people psychologically if
they know that their only opportunity is to acquiesce in that repressive
system, their only way they can provide for their families is to
be a part of a system that is corrupt, that is vicious, that is
picking people up in the night without charges, throwing them in
jail and killing them, and yet, to survive and succeed, they have
to become a part of that apparatus. In Russia, they called it the
nomenclature -- in the Soviet Union.
In other countries, here in this country it was
the Ba'athists that were privileged, and needless to say that with
the wonderful success that the armed forces have here -- the coalition
forces -- those opportunities for the Ba'athists ended and there's
a lot of them still around and they're unhappy about it and they're
trying to destroy the infrastructure of the Iraqis. They're trying
to kill Coalition people and drive them out. You ask yourself what's
the future hold. Seems to be the future's pretty clear. The future
is that these folks are going to be successful here and this country
of ours and the Coalition is going to stay here for as much time
is as necessary and not any longer. We have no desire to have any
role in Iraqi oil, or Iraqi resources -- they belong to the Iraqi
people, and our task is to try and create an environment that is
hospitable for the Iraqi people to fashion a new way of governing
themselves and be on our way. It is tough work. It's dangerous work.
I stopped over in the tent where some of the folks that were wounded
just in the last 48 hours were. It's dangerous needless to say,
but it's getting better every day. I can certainly see a change
since I was here. You can see a change since you were here.
I'm rambling. I'd be happy to respond to questions.
Q: The last time that you didn't spend the night
in Iraq. Is the fact that you are this time dictated by the number
of things you want to do or are you (Inaudible.).
Rumsfeld: No, I'm trying to get to bed. (Laughter.)
It's a long way down to Kuwait and my problem with staying here
last time was that -- I don't believe the war had even ended --
it hadn't. When I’m around, it's a problem. It takes a lot of people
to guard me and to look out for you, and my feeling was that they
had a lot of hard work to do and it was better for me to get out
and not to put them into danger. Today's situation is very different.
You've got folks here doing a wonderful job -- a lot of people helping
the Coalition and Provisional Authority and the circumstance is
such that I'm not putting -- I hope I’m not putting a lot of people
out and certainly not that I would have --
Q: Under the heading of getting better every day, do you think
that is true for the security situation? Or is it in fact getting
worse or not getting better?
Rumsfeld: If you look at the data and look at
the number of attacks and at the number of incidents, it tends to
go up and down in waves and it is you know, it depends on what you
baseline is and when you mark it. But at the moment, the last thing
I saw it went like this and it came down and it went up a little,
and it came down, and it has held fairly steady ion the last period.
So it's down from where it was here, but it's been fairly level
in recent weeks.
Q: The number of casualties, or number of (Inaudible.)
Rumsfeld: Those are attacks.
Q: What about the number of casualties, successful casualties,
for instance, if you look at the number of car bombs in the last
few weeks, it appears to be rising.
Rumsfeld: I'll have to go back and look. There are casualties
every week. We know that.
Q: The larger question is if you're balancing the positive that
you've just noted in the many things that have been stood up with
the negatives in the instability in the security situation, is that
threatening to outweigh the positive?
Rumsfeld: I'm sure there are people who will say
that, but the answer is no, not at all. The number of reconstruction
projects that have been done Jerry talked about is 6,000 -- 6,000
individual activities that the military and civilian effort in this
country by the Coalition has accomplished. They have touched the
lives of millions of Iraqis. They've seen the progress. They've
seen things happen.
Schools are open. Universities are open. You look
at right over here see what's going on in terms of entrepreneurial
activities and people in the street selling things, buying things,
bartering things, doing things -- walking out relatively freely.
A key measure -- Pat Kennedy from the State Department who works
with Jerry Bremer said the thing that he finds impressive, which
General Sanchez agreed with -- is the growing number of Iraqis who
are walking up to the forces -- civilian and military, U.S., Coalition,
and to the Iraqi forces, and telling them where caches are, where
people are who should be arrested, telling them what they ought
to be looking our for -- that there's a bomb there. There's no way
to capture that in a metric. That the people here, if you take them
aside and ask them will tell you that they can feel the Iraqi people
responding and being helpful. How do you compare it?
Q: Is it a (Inaudible.) security problem?
Rumsfeld: No it's not. It's a problem that has
to be dealt with. It's a problem that ultimately the Iraqi people
are going to deal with as well -- with the help of the Coalition
forces. It's all interconnected. Progress on the political side
will contribute to progress on the economic side and progress on
the security side. Progress on the economic side will contribute
to progress on the security side. Progress on the security side
contributes to progress on the economic side. We've got to try to
find a way to continue to put sufficient pressure on those that
don't believe in a representative system for this country -- the
people who want to go back to a dictatorship, the people who are
coming across the borders because they want a Jihad, they want to
engage in a terrorist act of some kind. We've got to put enough
pressure on them that the good people of this country win.
Q: Have you been given any indication on whether it was foreigners
who came across the borders or whether it was Ba'athists who are
behind the truck bombs?
Rumsfeld: No.
Q: You don't know which ones they are?
Rumsfeld: I don't happen to know. I haven't looked, but some have
been caught and some haven't. Some have been killed and some weren't.
It varies. We've got every size and shape and nationality you can
imagine that have been killed or captured. The mixture that I've
characterized -- it isn't one single thing.
Q: Is it time for the Administration to tell Congress and the
American people how much more money is going to be needed to sustain
operations here for the next year? What's your best ballpark estimate?
Rumsfeld: I think very likely the Administration is pulling that
together from the different departments and agencies and from Jerry
Bremer and from DoD and State, and all the people that are involved.
Q: What's your best ballpark estimate?
Rumsfeld: I'm not going to prejudge what the president decides.
He'll end up taking all of that and putting it together and making
a judgment, and make an announcement at some appropriate time.
Q: Do you think American troops are threatened by forces in this
country who may not be al Qaeda, who may not be Ba'athists -- who
just don't --
Rumsfeld: There are certainly threats from the two you described.
There are also threats from criminals who do these things -- that's
what they do. And then there's undoubtedly those who are unemployed
who are doing things they shouldn't be doing or doing something
for money, but are not ideologically motivated. It really runs across
the spectrum, but the circumstance of this country is so much better
today than it was in April.
It's going to be so much better down the road -- another three
or four months and the things you read where people say are "chaos"
and "getting worse" and all of that. It seems to me they
tend to be focused in Baghdad and tend to focus in the central region
where the bulk of activity is going on. In the west or the south
or the north, it's a relatively different circumstance. And it tends
to be repeated and repeated and repeated in a way that people begin
to walk away with the impression that it's deteriorating and that
simply isn't the view that I get from Jerry Bremer or from General
Sanchez and certainly not the impression that Larry or I or others
who have been here before see by way of comparison.
I think people who come here and stay over a sustained period
of many, many months see the improvement. People who come in and
look at it with balanced eyes on an intermittent basis see the improvement.
That is not to say that people aren't going to get killed. That
is not to say it isn't dangerous. It is. And it's not to say that
there won't be difficulties prospectively. Undoubtedly there undoubtedly
will, but it seems to be the trajectory we're on is a good one.
Q: Did Mr. Bremer ask you for additional measures that the military
should take to enhance security measures here? Did he ask you for
specific additional measures?
Rumsfeld: We talk almost every day. So if you
asked in this meeting today if he asked me for additional that he
doesn't have, no, not that I recall. We talked about the importance
of military police. We talked about the importance of trainers --
people. We talked about the growth in the Iraqi capability going
from zero three or four months ago up to somewhere around 55,000
today, if you add up police, former Guard, militia, army, facilities
protection -- now amazing that increment to go from zero to 55,000
Iraqis with weapons providing, assisting and providing security
in this country. Now, it's a country of 23 or 4 million people,
so it isn't where it stops. It's got to continue to go up as I said
on the airplane for those that were there -- the Iraqi side.
Q: Can you give us a little more clarity on -- talking about --
Rumsfeld: I've had so many questions. I'm here
to get educated, to learn and to test and taste what's taking place
here. And I had six, eight, ten people around the table who live
here and who are engaged in it and who care about it and who are
doing everything humanly possible on the military and civilian side
and they gave me the opportunity to ask them questions on a variety
of different subjects.
Q: What about the U.N. role? Was that discussed and if things
are going so well, does it make sense to have a larger U.N. role
or is a larger U.N. role here desirable so that it doesn't appear
to be such an American operation?
Rumsfeld: I don't want you to say that things
are going so well as though I'm Pollyanna. I'm not. I said. This
is a tough business. It's dangerous, and it's difficult, and it's
going to take time. What I said is that there has been measurable
progress. And that is not a Pollyannaish comment. And it is not
(Inaudible.). It's truthful. And it would be wrong to begin your
question that way. And I'm shocked that you did it, Jim! I can't
believe you would do that! (Laughter.)
Q: What about the U.N. role? Is there a need for a larger --
Rumsfeld: We discussed it. And that's being negotiated
now with the president and Colin. They're working with the Security
Council members to try to figure out there's a dozen different models
that have been used over the last decade. There are three or four
that are currently being used that are different. And we're going
to figure it out. Does it make sense to have a larger U.N. role?
We think so, otherwise we wouldn't be in there requesting it and
suggesting it.
Q: One of those models actually in Kosovo has NATO commanders
in charge in sectors that we (Inaudible.) -- Do you think that's
a possibility that the United States -- (Inaudible.)
Rumsfeld: I don't want to prejudge it.
Q: But how do you feel personally?
Rumsfeld: Personally I give my advice in discussions
in National Security Council meetings and privately to the president
and Secretary of State. He will negotiate that and figure out how
to do it and which model makes the most sense and he comes back
and says here's what people think and -- and at some point we'll
have one. My guess is we'll end up with a somewhat larger role,
although the U.N. has been involved from the beginning. The president
went to the U.N. and got a resolution. The U.N. sat down (Inaudible.)
--
Q: But do you envision a larger and maybe joint (Inaudible.) --
Rumsfeld: I envision exactly what I said. The president said from
the beginning that "the U.N. should have a vital role,"
I think was his phrase. Right? And that's been evolving and we'll
see what evolves. Who wants to guess? I don't have to be in the
guessing business.
Q: General Sanchez -- he didn't ask for any more troops, did he?
Rumsfeld: Absolutely not. This is really a fixation
people have. If he wanted more troops, he would have them, believe
me. And I would send them. He has said he has about the right number
of forces. We have all said it is healthy and good to enlarge the
number of international forces, so we have for four months now been
all across the globe been talking to something in excess of eighty
or ninety countries and we now have 29 physically involved. And
we want more. And we think that's a good thing. But mostly what
we want, and what General Sanchez wants and want Jerry Bremer wants
is more Iraqi forces. We want more force protection, more site protection,
more border protection, more police protection in cities by Iraqis.
This is their country. The security of their country, and the political
future of their country, and the economic advancement of their country
is going to be done by Iraqi people. It is not going to be done
by nation builders. It is not going to be done by people coming
in and fashioning a template and saying "here's how we do it,
and therefore you must do it." They're going to figure it out.
Looks like this will be the last question.
Q: Do you think that will happen faster than anything
out of the U.N.? Will we get more forces out of the indigenous population
before you will out of the U.N.?
Rumsfeld: "Before" is the word that
bothers me about your question. If you think about it, in three
months we've gone from zero to 55,000 Iraqis, and in three or four
months -- which one should I be using? [Mr. Di Rita in background:
May 1, four months]. Ok. In four months we've got plus or minus
22,000 international troops, and we hope and our looking to get
an additional increment from the four, five, six or eight countries,
that we're currently in discussions and negotiations with, a few
of which are interested in what the resolution looks like out of
the U.N. and how that works. So, that answers your question. My
guess is you're going to see the 55,000 Iraqis go up to 75.000,
or 100,000 over some period of time. Why? Because it’s their country.
Q: By the end of the year?
Rumsfeld: No, come on. I don't do deadlines.
Q: You have a goal, though?
Rumsfeld: And my goal is to always exceed the goal and to do it
(Inaudible.) better.
Q: (Inaudible).
Rumsfeld: That's a fair question. I think it helps
the Iraqi people. I think it helps the neighboring countries. I
think it helps some non-neighboring countries feel that it is a
truly international effort. I think it tends to belie the argument
that these countries are there to get the Iraqi or these countries
are going to stay forever. People in the United States don't want
to stay here forever. The people in the United States have isolationist
impulses. Our first choice is to not be doing that. And to have
our folks at home. So the (Inaudible.) of international forces is
a helpful thing I believe. Always have. That's why we started before
the war started trying to get other countries involved. In fact
we even started before the war started and the liaison teams down
at CENTCOM were working with the Brits and the Aussies in case a
war started to get them involved . Thanks a lot.
Comment
©
Copyright 1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
August 7, 2003
CAN’T RECALL A MORE EXCITING ELECTION
by Sean Carter
CHINO HILLS, CA -- As a political humorist
(i.e., someone too lazy to pursue gainful employment), I’ve been
longing for political turmoil. It didn't have to be anything earthshaking,
like Camryn Manheim doing high-impact aerobics; just something that
could compete with that ridiculous Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
show on NBC. Well, I believe my prayers have been answered in the
form of the California gubernatorial recall election.
Ever since California courts certified the
recall effort, the news from Sacramento has gotten weirder and weirder
(and it was bizarre to begin with). Within days, hundreds of political
unknowns announced their candidacies for governor of the nation’s
most populous state. For example, three enterprising men named Gray
Davis have filed to have their names placed on the ballot in an
apparent attempt to win the governorship through name confusion.
However, perhaps even more strange are
the celebrities who have thrown their hats into the ring. For instance,
Gallagher has announced his candidacy. This will be a much needed
career boost for the comedian who believes that smashing a watermelon
with a sledgehammer qualifies as humor. In addition, Larry Flynt,
the publisher of Hustler magazine, is running under a “pro porn”
platform.
As for politicians entering the race, we
have former spouses Michael and Arianna Huffington running. Likewise,
Gary “I Didn’t Kill That Woman … Ms. Levy” Condit is considering
running as a Democrat.
On the Republican side of the aisle, the
situation is even more bizarre. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former
Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan are locked in a battle of “You
go first. No, you go first.” Apparently, Riordan is interested in
running only if the Terminator doesn’t also run. On a side note,
Schwarzenegger should be running from the millions of fans who paid
$8.50 to see the latest movie in the Terminator series, T3: Rise
of Your Popcorn.
So where does this leave California voters?
It leaves them with the most interesting election ever. On October
7th, California voters may be faced with a ballot with up to 500
names on it. By comparison, the infamous butterfly ballot used in
Florida in 2000 will seem like child’s play. In fact, the instructions
for NASA’s Lunar Landing Module will be simple in comparison. In
short, chances are excellent that this recall effort will be the
greatest political debacle since Admiral Stockdale’s “What am I
doing here?”
speech at the 1992 Vice Presidential Debate.
This has led many Democrats in California
to oppose the recall. They claim that recall is a Republican attempt
to “steal” the governorship. Furthermore, they claim that the recall
procedure will create chaos. However, I couldn’t disagree more.
In fact, I’m saddened that the party that calls itself “Democratic”
has a problem with democracy in its purest form.
The simple truth of the matter is California’s
recall election closely resembles the Founding Father’s view of
an election. In the first presidential election, the electoral vote
was split between twelve candidates.
In those days, you didn’t need the endorsement
of a major political party to run for President. You simply needed
courage, a good family name and a newly-sanded set of wooden teeth.
Nowadays, things are not that simple. To even consider running for
dog catcher in most counties, you need the endorsement of a major
party (and not many other job prospects).
As a result, our political candidates have become
as bland as the chicken at a Rotary Club luncheon (only not nearly
as tough). This seems particularly true of the Democratic Party,
which has nominated such “wild men” as Al Gore, Michael Dukakis
and Walter Mondale.
However, in the California recall election,
we aren’t going to have pre-packaged candidates with years of grooming
and training in the art of obfuscation. We are going to have “real”
Americans running for office – pornographers, adulterers and basically
anyone who can come up with the $3,500 filing fee.
In fact, if there is any drawback to the
California recall process, it’s the process for getting on the ballot.
To run for governor in this election, a candidate only needs to
collect 65 signatures and pay the filing fee. Perhaps, we should
increase the signature requirement by a factor of 10. After all,
you can get 65 signatures at a single house in some neighborhoods
in Los Angeles.
In any event, it wouldn’t take more than
an hour to get these signatures by just standing in front of a donut
shop. Obviously, it should require more than an hour of preparation
to mount a campaign for the second most important elected position
in America.
Nevertheless, the recall is going to be
great for democracy. We are going to learn that not all candidates
need to be boring (or even sane). Furthermore, we will have real
choose in this election. And perhaps, most importantly, Arnold Schwarzenegger
will be too busy to work on T4: Another $8.50 Down the Drain.
[Editor's
Note: Sean Carter may be reached at www.lawpsided.com].
Comment
©
Copyright 1876-2004 by The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
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August 6, 2003
A California Sport
The Politics of Surprise!
By R.D. Skidmore, Contributor
LANCASTER, CA -- Politics is
an exciting spectator sport! California has amassed their gladiatorial
teams of candidates, lawyers, pundits and media representatives
under political party banners and are moving around the playing
field on all fronts.
First the recall of Gov. Davis was not
supposed to be successful, yet it did
qualify. Fear and speculation arose whether Secretary of State Kevin
Shelley and Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante could manipulate
the process to postpone a recall of Gov. Davis, but they were met
with legal challenges and forced to follow California’s constitution.
Next hope is the courts. Can the California
courts be used as a delaying
tactic while the NAACP and the Mexican American Legal Defense &
Education Fund run an interference pattern.
Regina Chen, writing for the Daily California,
a Berkeley CA. paper, reports that lawsuits have been filed in every
court imaginable – state and federal. One lawsuit by the NAACP claims
that the Recall Gray Davis effort will disenfranchise minority voters
who won’t know where to vote on Election Day or would have further
to travel because of consolidated precincts.
MALDEF is suing because the racial privacy
initiative, proposition 54, will
be placed on the same ballot. Proposition 54 asks voters to prohibit
the state
government from collecting racial data. California statute requires
that when a ballot issue is qualified, it is to appear on the next
statewide ballot, only this time it is with Gov. Davis’ recall.
Maybe MALDEF doesn’t want Californians to be too discriminating?
Both NAACP and MALDEF have filed identical
claims in both state and federal courts and are also claiming that
the amount of time before the recall
election is not sufficient for information about the initiative
to be gathered and disseminated to voters.
Until then, even Gov. Davis jumped in the
fray. The governor has petitioned the same court to rule that he
can run as a candidate to succeed himself if he is recalled. The
governor sees it as enormously unfair that he should not be allowed
to also be a candidate to replace himself if the recall effort receives
a majority of votes on Election Day.
Of course, he is the candidate and he is
on the ballot. His candidacy is under “Shall the Governor be recalled?
Yes or No. If the No’s win, Davis
wins by a no.
However, Rescue California, the recall
committee, says that should Gov.
Davis’ name be allowed to appear on the ballot it would give Davis
the
opportunity to lose twice in the same election.”
It has been reported more than 2,000,000
Californians already signed recall petitions but that doesn’t hinder
the governor! Davis says that if a majority of voters opt to remove
him from office (and the latest polls show the recall is ahead by
15-20%) he should be allowed a “second chance” by being on the ballot
a second time as a candidate to replace himself: Political legal
handicappers say Davis' suit, smacks of Florida-style chaos, and
needs to be taken seriously.
Davis also asks the justices to postpone
the balloting by five months --
until March -- to avoid a slapdash polling process that lawyer Robin
Johansen said would "make Florida look like a cakewalk."
Their suit claims that the scheduled Oct.
7 recall vote means there will be
insufficient voting places and trained poll workers, as well as
breakneck
deadlines to print and process both sample and actual ballots in
up to seven
languages.
The suit predicts the biggest potential
problems in six counties, including
San Francisco and Los Angeles, were Democrat voters are huge majorities,
plan to use decertified punch card voting machines because replacements
won't be ready in October.
Reporting in the Sacramento Bee, said Daniel
Lowenstein, a UCLA elections law specialist, says "There are
circumstances when it doesn't matter what the law says. You just
can't have an election, " questioning, whether the
justices would have time to size up the "fact-intensive"
situation.
Surely before the October election, someone
will file a suit claiming inconsistencies that violate the 14th
Amendment’s anti-discrimination provisions!
Finally, Gov. Davis gained enthusiastic
union endorsement from the AFL-CIO to keep other prominent Democrats
out of the recall election. It does not
matter that California’s left leaning legislators and the Gov. have
lowered
average worker earnings by endorsing illegal aliens being employed
in Calif.
Gov. Davis now wants to approve issuing valid California Drivers
Licenses to illegal aliens.
Still the nation's largest labor organization,
in endorsing Gov. Davis, warns other party members not to put their
names on the ballot. Davis asked the union to pledge $10 million
to his campaign — half of the $20 million he told them he would
need to fight the recall.
[Editor's
Note: R.D. Skidmore is a professor at Pierce College in Woodland
Hills, Ca. His e-mail address:
rskidmor49@excite.com].
Comment
©
Copyright 1876-2004 by The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
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August 3, 2003
Cheap Meds vs. No Meds
By Lillian Gonzalez,
RN, BSN
SAN ANTONIO, TX -- "It's
mine!" says a three-year old. "He'll break it," says
a nine-year old. "If he breaks it, you'll just have to buy
me another one," says a teenager. The older the child, the
more sophisticated the argument for why they don't want to share
a toy. People learn that in order to get what they want, they must
present a case that is not centered around their own needs, but
rather, around someone else's needs.
It's one thing for a congressman to risk
his own life, but it's another for him to risk yours. These words
stuck with me. It was a radio campaign paid by the pharmaceutical
industry to keep foreign prescription drugs out of America. They
argue that foreign-made drugs are unsafe and they urge all Americans
to call their congressional representatives to stop the bill from
passing.
But is the powerful pharmaceutical industry
really looking out for little brother? Or, like a child who doesn't
want to share a toy, are they just protecting their turf?
Arguments and actions of the pharmaceutical
industry are sophisticated, calculated, measures to hold on to their
monopoly. By using millions of dollars to lobby Congress and buy
expensive media space to "educate" consumers, they demonstrate
just how rich and powerful they have become on the backs of the
consumers they claim to want to protect.
Clearly their ability to pay for commercials
and ads and to make political contributions of more than $20 million
to the past election, is symbolic of a powerful industry. And it
is in their best interest to hold on to that power.
But as a nurse, almost daily I witness
the devastation of a healthcare system that is itself diseased on
many levels. For instance, on examining an elder patient, I noticed
his face grimace as he took a few unsteady steps. When I asked him
why he wasn't taking his medicine, the elder said, "Oh honey,
I can't afford to get that arthritis medicine that works so good."
But is allowing foreign prescription drugs
into our country the solution? The U.S. through the FDA has imposed
very high standards of our pharmaceutical industry to produce and
distribute safe products. Having worked a short time in a pharmaceutical
research company, I experienced the overwhelming demands by our
federal government to keep us safe from
harmful drugs.
There is no doubt in my mind that U.S.
drugs are much more safe than anything produced abroad. But is safety
the real issue?I believe the issue is choice. American consumers
should be allowed the freedom to choose
between a costly U.S.-made drug, or a cheap foreign one.
Consumers should clearly understand the
risk they take by electing to use foreign-made drugs. With lax foreign
production oversight of drugs, Americans may be risking their health
and even their lives.
Too often, cost is the only obstacle to
obtaining a medication. This often causes a patient to choose between
purchasing food or purchasing medicine. This choice can leave an
unhealthy individual no choice but to live a life of pain.
Depression caused by chronic illness, physical
impairment, unrelieved pain, and financial stress are among the
top reasons why someone 65 years and older commits suicide every
90 minutes. Perhaps a second-class cheap medication can offer hope
to many in this group. This is a choice that should be given to
consumers - not the federal government.
As these debates are argued in Congress
one must not lose site of the real issue: the health of American
citizens. And as bills move toward our President, I hope he bases
his decisions on what is best for Americans - freedom of choice,
rather than be manipulated by sophisticated arguments to protect
the turf of special interest groups.
Comment
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reserved.
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Late Breaking Bulletin:
(07/27/03) Bob Hope died Sunday night at the age of 100, at his
home in Toluca Lake, California. The announced cause of death was
pneumonia. He was surrounded by members of his family, including
Dolores, his wife of 68 years. At a press conference Monday, his
daughter Linda said, "Dad had an amazing sendoff. All of the
family was together with him, and he died very peacefully."
|
May 28, 2003
Hope Over Darkness
By Aaron Hanscome, Contributor
PACIFIC
PALISADES -- Judging from my regal bowl cut, I must have been about
ten years old when the photograph was taken. I’m seated a couple
of rows behind third base close to where a few years later I’d witness
a lame Kirk Gibson hobble to the plate and put the finishing touches
on an improbable Cinderella Season. Unlike on that magical night,
there are no ecstatic fans around me. Only Kevin, another shaggy
lad, is at my side. Kevin’s well-connected father had allowed him
to choose one lucky friend to join him for this Dodger pre-game
interview. The two of us were going to offer up the valuable insights
we’d attained after a full decade on the planet. I’d have to wait
another decade to realize how profound and prescient I had in fact
been during my first and only brush with fame. ...More!
© Copyright
1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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March 26, 2003
The Pentagon's
New Asymmetrics
By Mark C. Clark, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- According
to Robert Steele, at the Strategic Studies Institute, both the Cold
War threat paradigm and the Cold War intelligence paradigm are dead.
A new integrative paradigm for achieving asymmetric advantage in
the face of nontraditional threats is needed in the face of both
nontraditional threats and nontraditional sources and methods.
This can be done by devising and exploiting
new intelligence sources and methods. The Cold War threat
paradigm emphasized strategic nuclear and conventional force development
and deployment over time. They were employed in accordance with
well-understood rules of engagement and doctrine, were relatively
easy to detect in mobilization, and were supported by generally
recognizable intelligence assets.
The new threat paradigm, in contrast, is
generally nongovernmental (or a failed state), nonconventional,
dynamic or random and nonlinear in its emergence, with no constraints
or rules of engagement.
It has no known doctrine, is almost impossible
to predict in advance, and is supported by an unlimited 5th column
of criminals, terrorists, drug addicts, and corrupt individuals.
It is, in a word, asymmetric.
The old intelligence paradigm relied heavily
on secret and very expensive technical strategy deployed against
one main target, the Soviet Union.
Such information-sharing relationships as
existed within the national and military intelligence communities
have been both secret and on a bilateral basis.
This new craft of intelligence requires
that four quadrants of knowledge be fully developed, in an integrated
fashion. Only one of these quadrants is secret.
The first exploits the lessons of history;
the second develops web-based means of sharing the burden of achieving
global coverage; the third harnesses the full distributed intelligence
capabilities of the entire Nation; and the fourth
utilizes spies and secrecy to great effect.
With the new craft of intelligence well
in hand, with a new strategy that understands the continuum of personnel
skills needed from homeland defense to overseas power projection,
the Army may be ready to consider radical
changes in how it recruits, trains, equips, and organizes the active,
reserve, and National Guard forces.
If we have entered a period of total war,
with no front lines, it may be
that the Army should devise a new total force concept for asymmetric
operations on the homefront and overseas with establishment of a
homeland defense intelligence program, including a homeland defense
analysis center and community intelligence centers in each state;
a digital history and captured document project and processing center;
and four major regional open source activities responsive to both
the theater commanders and general national security needs.
Additional initiatives include a web-based
global information-sharing consortium to reduce the cost and time
associated with global coverage activities of threats of common
concern, and especially nontraditional asymmetric threats; and,
close collaboration with Joint Forces Command to create a generic
analytic workstation and a generic open source intelligence training
program suitable for homeland and overseas partners. The attack
of September 11, 2001, has brought to the fore the importance of
strategic balance or diversification.
We must have balance between our homeland
defense and overseas defense capabilities; between domestic counterintelligence
and foreign intelligence; and between symmetric and asymmetric concepts
and doctrine and forces.
In this monograph, the author reviews the
global nontraditional threat situation, briefly updates the prospects
for intelligence reform, and then lays out the details for the new
craft of intelligence that is comprehensive, reliable, swift, and
relevant to both the immediate and the longer-term threats.
The new craft of intelligence must be held
accountable for explaining the
threat in compelling terms. One means of doing so is by issuing
public intelligence estimates and public intelligence warnings.
None of the traditional threats that our
military understands have diminished indeed, the attacks of September
11 demonstrate that our world is perhaps twice as dangerous as we
might have imagined. America is very much on its own and whatever
new craft of intelligence it may adopt, we must be able to achieve
an asymmetric advantage over every threat to our national security
and our national prosperity.
[Editor's Note: to access the complete report click
on THE
NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: ACHIEVING ASYMMETRIC ADVANTAGE IN THE
FACE OF NONTRADITIONAL THREATS.]
© Copyright
1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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March 25, 2003
Fighting the Last War
By Col. Mike Truner, US Army Retired, Contributor
IRAQ -- There's a saying in military circles
-We always fight the last
war. It means that too much focus on past enemy behavior can easily
lead
to misjudging an enemy capability in the future.
So I asked myself today which war will this be Desert Storm or
Somalia?
In 1991, we had four ironclad prerequisites for war with Iraq (1)
a clear
political end state (2) overwhelming force to achieve a quick and
decisive
victory (3) a viable Arab coalition to avoid empowering Arab extremists,
and (4) absolutely no Israeli involvement to avoid a global holy
war...More!
© Copyright
1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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Friday, February 21, 2003
Hounds of War
Unleashed on Baghdad!
By Marc Clark, For The Daily Republican
WASHINGTON -
The George W. Bush administration has apparently begun moving along
a broad front to pound Iraq with a deadly first strike that may
cast the world into major economic disruption by early next week.
The Bush offensive plans to open a northern
front against Baghdad. But, word reached our bureau by late last
night that Turkey has not signed-on with the Bush offensive. And,
this just in, US troop deployments will run US taxpayers in excess
of $100 billion dollars for...More!
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reserved. |
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February 21, 2002
Pass the Caviar
Don't Cut
the Cheese!
By Paul Rush, Contributor
WILLIAMSBURG, VA -- Remember
that slogan, "It's the economy, stupid"? I couldn't agree
more. Oui, oui, mon ami - the green stuff is center stage once again.
Only this time, the forum is the indebted and oil-rich nation of
Iraq.
Of late, Germany, France, and Russia have
led the anti-war movement on the international stage. Of particular
interest are France and Russia. What, indeed, are their motives
for promoting such an agenda with regard to Iraq? Is it true pacifism,
or is it something else? Could it be a coincidence that the French
company...More!
© Copyright
1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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February 18, 2003
US Advisor Warns
of Armageddon
Julian Borger in Washington and
Richard Norton-Taylor
One
of the Republican party's most respected foreign policy gurus yesterday
appealed for President Bush to halt his plans to invade Iraq, warning
of "an Armageddon in the Middle East".
The
outspoken remarks from Brent Scowcroft, who advised a string of
Republican presidents, including Mr Bush's father, represented an
embarrassment for the administration on a day it was attempting
to rally British public support for an eventual war...More!
© Copyright
1876-20042 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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February 18, 2003
Future of Guam
Still In Doubt
By Tony Artero, Bureau Chief
AGANA,
Guam -- This nation needs Guam and Guam needs economic expansion.
Homeland security policies by the Bush Administration mean increased
strategic activity, and raises the importance of Guam as a military
staging area for operations in the Gulf now, as in World War II,
Korea and Vietnam. These wartime conditions put living quarters,
housing, apartments and real estate in play as economic fuel for
Guam's important role in the new victory at sea.
This is why Guam should be moving
forward. Instead, it appears to this writer that Guam is still treading
water. Remember September 11. Remember Pearl Harbor. Remember Guam.
It's still part of the USA, the last time I checked.
The official line is sustainable economic
growth. The real truth is that Guam's overall economy is artificially
restricted, by special interests who want to retain control of government
and business at all costs.
Denial of the individual's economic freedoms
is inexcusable. The rights to land and its fruits thereof are the
freedom we as Americans foster, and defend proudly. Not Here.
On Guam, publicly owned open space is locked
up and kept off the real estate market by local interests. Normal
give and take in the real estate market is essential for the economic
expansion that Guam needs for its survival. Under all is the land.
© Copyright
1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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Wednesday, February 5, 2003
War
In Times of Peace
By Nathaniel P. Conrey, For The Daily Republican
WASHINGTON -
You are taking no chances when you assert that Americans usually
make good soldiers. They are truly a warlike race. They are not
eager for war, but they are eager and earnest in war.
No decent citizen of the United States doubts
that for the preservation of the honor of our country it became
necessary for us to strike back at Germany because she made hostile
invasion upon rights which we were bound to maintain. Every intelligent
man knows that we are now fighting to save the liberty-loving peoples
of the earth from mastery by a tyrannous and brutal power.
The opportunity to fight as a soldier for
freedom, which now presents itself to every physically fit voting
man in our country, is strongly attractive to all of them who have
the right kind of blood in their veins. ...More!
© Copyright
1876-20042 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Remembering
Taking War To Iraq
By Stephen R. Shalom
WASHINGTON - The war between
Iran and Iraq was one of the great human tragedies of recent Middle
Eastern history. Perhaps as many as a million people died, many
more were wounded, and millions were made refugees. The resources
wasted on the war exceeded what the entire Third World spent on
public health in a decade...More!
© Copyright
1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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January 1, 2003
Bush Sends
Best Wishes for New Year
Daily Republican Newspaper Staff Writers
WASHINGTON -- President
Bush says the focus of the new year will be on security, winning
the war on terrorism, and improving education.
In a New Year's message Tuesday he says
his administration will continue efforts to create new jobs and
ensure the economic security of all Americans.
The president also encouraged Americans
to reaffirm their commitment to helping people around the world
achieve peace and freedom.
Mr. Bush praised 2002 as a year of progress
and renewed hope for the American people, and said Americans will
embrace both the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead
in the year 2003.
© Copyright
1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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December 17, 2002
UN Documents
German Firms Doing
Business with Iraq
Agence France-Presser
BERLIN - Iraq's arms report
to the United Nations shows that more than 80 German companies have
done business with Baghdad since the 1970s and that some have contravened
a UN embargo, according to...More!
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reserved.
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December 13, 2002
Kissinger's
Conflict
Lucrative GlobalNet Inc. Contract
SEC Filings Examined
By Howard Hobbs PhD Editor & Publisher
WASHINGTON -- Henry Kissinger
- Nobel Laureate and the most famous diplomat of his generation
- also an international business and foreign policy consultant to
President George W. Bush, and some undisclosed foreign interests,
has abruptly resigned his 911 Commission chair set up to investigate
intelligence and security failures related to the September 11 terrorist
attacks.
Dr. Kissinger cited "conflicts of interest"
when asked to disclose the names of his clients, which include many...More!
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Copyright 1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved. |
|
Friday December 13, 2002
Lott's Choice
An American Tragedy
By Howard Hobbs PhD Editor & Publisher
WASHINGTON
-- President Bush on Thursday openly denounced Senate Majority Leader
Trent Lott, for intemperate comments that shocked and may have cost
the Republican majority in Congress the goodwill of the nation.
Bush's censure came as calls for the Mississippi
senator to resign his congressional leadership post rang out at
the Capitol.
President Bush angrily told reporters...More!
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reserved.
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Sunday, December 22, 2002
Oration
at Plymouth
Delivered at Plymouth Mass. December 22, 1802
in Commemoration of the Landing of the Pilgrims
By John Quincy Adams
Among
the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart,
and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of
veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity.
They form the connecting links between
the selfish and the social passions. By the fundamental principle
of...More!
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Copyright 1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved |
|
December 10, 2002
Information Transmission Theory:
Daily
Republican Newspaper's Secret
By Thomas
Hobbs, M.S., Howard Hobbs Ph.D.
PALO
ALTO - Publishers of this newspaper were writing the program code
for publishing our newspapers through the medium of GUI technology
on the Internet. It was 1993, and the Internet was an ASCII jungle.
While searching for graduate research papers
at Stanford University in 1993, we came across a 1948 research study
describing a programmer's theory on how applications for the collection,
storage, and, dissemination of information might theoretically be
stored and distributed on demand along network lines.
We found Shannon's theoretical work to
be of practical value in explaining and identitifying...More!
©
Copyright 1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved |
|
Monday, December 9, 2002
War Games 101
Amy Williams, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON
- Many combinations of unanticipated events will come back to haunt
governments in the Middle East region and beyond. The economist
George Perry, spoke of the unintended economic impacts of disruptions
of world oil supplies, for example.
His study mostly focused on the underlying
economic world crises from the oil reduction in supply the supply
of food and heating fuels, world wide.
His worst case scenario is an outcome which
assumes a decline in world oil production of seven million barrels
per day. Some of this deficit might be provided by US strategic
oil reserves of about 2 1/2 million barrels per day.
In the event of an OPEC boycott, oil production
might be reduced to less than 20 percent.
Such impacts would readily drive up oil
prices to around $75 per barrel or more. Perry estimates that gasoline
prices would skyrocket overnight to more than $3 per gallon.
The Bush administration assumes the negative
effects...More!
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reserved |
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December 5, 2002
Puritan Revolution
Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau
By Amy Williams, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- Thomas Hobbes,
John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed theories on human
nature and how men govern themselves. With the passing of time,
political views on the philosophy of government gradually changed.
Despite their differences they became three
of the most influential political theorists in the world. Their
ideas and philosophies spread all over the world influencing the
creation of many new governments.
These philosophers all recognize that people
develop a social contract within their society, but have differing
views on what exactly the social contract is and how it is established.
Each developed differing versions of the
social contract, but all agreed that certain freedoms had been surrendered
for society’s protection and that the government has definite responsibilities
to its citizens.
These philosophers point to prehistory,
before man came to govern themselves, they all existed in a state
of nature. The state of nature is the condition men were in before
political government came into existence, and what society would
be if there was no government.
Hobbes introduced the revolutionary concept
of the state of nature. He did not believe government should be
organized through the Church, therefore abandoning the idea of the
divine right theory, where power of the King came directly from
God. Starting from a clean slate, with no organized church, they
needed a construct on what to build society on.
The foundation of society began with that
original view of the state of nature. Hobbes’ perception of the
original state of nature is what would exist if there were no common
power to execute and enforce the laws to restrain individuals.
In this case, the laws of the jungle would
prevail where only the fittest survive. Man’s desires are insatiable.
Since resources are scarce, humankind is naturally competitive,
inevitably creating jealousy and hatred, which eventually leads
to war.
This constant state of war is what Hobbes’
believed to be man’s original state of nature that put natural limitations
on freedom and inalienable rights.
Hobbes lived in the 17th century, and wrote
during the time of the English Civil War. His political views were
influenced by that war.
John Locke believed the original state
of nature was a form of perfect freedom. Every man had the
liberty to arrange his life in the manner he chose, except that
no man has the right to kill himself.
Unlike Hobbes’ nature of constant war,
Locke’s state of nature is peace seeking, an assumption by Locke
that men do not want to risk their lives by constantly fighting.
Man, according to Locke, is governed by
reason in the state of nature. The war caused Locke to dislike violence
and extremes. Stability was the central assumption of his thinking.
Hobbes’ theory of social institutions began
with the premise that man was naturally at war with everyone else
and with nature for his survival.
The original state of nature, according
to Rousseau, was the perfect state for man, where he is free and
exercises just relationships with others and with nature. In that
original state, man was naturally virtuous.
He maintained that men were truly happy
in the state of nature. Only when man become sociable, they become
wicked. In Rousseau’s Social Contract, man is depicted as
having no reason nor conscience in contact with others.
Possessions begin to be claimed, but the
inequality of skill lead to inequality of fortunes. Just the idea
of claiming possessions excites men’s passions, which provoke conflict,
leading to war.
Rousseau believed men are not perfect in
their original state, but had the ability to live in a more perfect
society with guidance of laws. Rousseau had the perception that
when people believe they are part of the government, they will work,
fight, and build the state in the belief that what helps the good
of all people is going to be beneficial to them.
Rousseau acted on the belief preservation of
mankind is the law of nature described by both Hobbes, Locke. In
order to abide by the law of nature, man enters into an unspoken
agreement, forming the social contract between man, nature and the
state.
That social contract is the basis of the
theory of morality and the obligations of the state to its citizens.
It is an underlying agreement by which men are said to have abandoned
the “state of nature” in order to form the so-called ordered society
in which they now live.
Hobbes argued that man surrenders his independence
and submits himself to the absolute authority of the state for mutual
protection and self-preservation though the delegated absolute power
of the sovereign.
Locke positioned himself on the fringe
of Hobbes thinking by qualifying the power delegated to the sovereign
as on that which is necessary to secure the protection of individual
rights with the government to be a function of representative of
the people.
Rousseau went along with Hobbes and Locke
to the extent that the state should enter into a social contract
where the individual must accommodate his personal freedom to the
general will, he sum of all private interests.
In Rousseau’s social contract, government
serves the common good of the people.
Today we see the social consequences
of Rousseau's social contract model in the coordinated effort
of all forms of government toward redirection of the economy, planned
community, exploited environment, and a ruthless self-perpetuation
by expansion of its local state and international governance.
[Editor's
Note: An increasing body of literature concerns Rousseau's philosophy
applied to information asymmetries and information costs, bargaining,
collective good problems. Some of Rousseau's most puzzling social
proposals (on theater, women, music, etc.) can be explained by his
well-argued conviction that an optimal economy demands a high social
morale, a communicative morale. He proposes an economic philosophy
for the most important properties of richness -- such as experiencing
the unique, and being free although dependent on others (empowerment).
It is for the adult capable of true deliberation, not for the trifle
of the innocent child. He develops a concept of richness that is
close to the Aristotelian capability-concept, later explored by
Amartya Sen. Rousseau's economic philosophy has not been treated
in a monograph before. The book should be rewarding to those interested
in social theory, the history of social and economic thought, problems
at the margins of market exchange, e.g. cultural economics, environmental
economics, students of Rousseau and the thought of the 18th century,
welfare economic theory in the direction of Arrow or Sen, and and
others' theses about the transition from self-sufficiency to market.]
©
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reserved.
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November 27, 2002
John Rawls' Death
Moral Imperative Lives On
By Howard Hobbs PhD, Editor & Publisher
WASHINGTON -- Dr. John Rawls
82, an American original and erstwhile political theorist died on
Sunday at his home in his own bed on Sunday in Lexington, Mass.
The cause was heart failure. Margaret Rawls,
his wife told reporters, he had been ill since suffering a stroke
in 1995.
His book "A
Theory of Justice" published in 1971 stimulated a revival of
attention to moral philosophy.
In it, Rawls set out...More!
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November 26, 2002
West Wing Honors
By Amy Williams, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- Emmy Award winners
Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, John Wells and NBC gave reporters
this behind-the-scenes glimpse into the Oval Office as seen through
the eyes of its eclectic group of...More!
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Omaha
Beach, June 6, 1944
"We will always remember.
We will always be proud.
We will always be prepared,
so we may always be free."
[President
Ronald Reagan's remarks at Omaha Beach, June 6, 1984]
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©
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reserved.
|
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Monday,
November 25, 2002
Lest We Forget
The Normandy Invasion
Supreme Commander--General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Allied Expeditionary Naval Forces--Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay
21st Army Group--General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery
Allied Expeditionary Air Forces--Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-
Mallory
United States Army United Kingdom Land
Forces
First Army Second British Army
V Corps 1st British Corps
VII Corps 30th British Corps
1st Infantry Division 3rd British Infantry Division
4th Infantry Division 6th British Airborne Division
29th Infantry Division 50th British Infantry Division
82nd Airborne Division 3rd Canadian Infantry Division
101st Airborne Division
Air Forces
U.S. Army Air Forces Royal Air Forces
Eighth Air Force 2nd Tactical Air Force
Ninth Air Force
Allied Expeditionary Naval Forces
Western Task Force Eastern Task Force
(United States) (British)
D-Day Operations
The invasion itself gave prominence to land
forces but provided major roles for air and sea components. Allied
air forces carried three airborne divisions into battle, protected
the force as it crossed the English Channel, and attacked targets
throughout the invasion area before and after the landing in support
of the assault forces.
More than 5,000 ships--from battleships
to landing craft--carried, escorted and landed the assault force
along the Normandy coast. Once the force was landed, naval gunfire
provided critical support for the soldiers as they fought their
way across the beaches.
In the invasion's early hour ,amphibious
craft landed on UTAH and OMAHA. As the Allies came ashore, they
took the first steps on the final road to victory in Europe.
Omaha Beach
The landing by regiments of the 1st and
29th Infantry divisions and Army Rangers on OMAHA Beach was even
more difficult than expected. When the first wave landed at 6:30
a.m., the men found that naval gunfire and prelanding air bombardments
had not softened German defenses or resistance.
Along the 7,000 yards of Normandy shore
German defenses were as close to that of an Atlantic Wall as any
of the D-Day beaches. Enemy positions that looked down from bluffs
as high as 170 feet, and water and beach obstacles strewn across
the narrow strip of beach, stopped the assault at the water's edge
for much of the morning of D-Day.
By mid-morning, initial reports painted
such a bleak portrait of beachhead conditions that Lt. Gen. Omar
Bradley, United States First Army commander, considered pulling
off the beach and landing troops elsewhere along the coast.
However, during these dark hours, bravery
and initiative came to the fore. As soldiers struggled, one leader
told his men that two types of people would stay on the beach--the
dead and those going to die--so they'd better get the hell out of
there, and they did.
Slowly, as individuals and then in groups,
soldiers began to cross the fire-swept beach. Supported by Allied
naval gunfire from destroyers steaming dangerously close to shore,
the American infantrymen gained the heights and beach exits and
drove the enemy inland. By day's end V Corps had a tenuous toehold
on the Normandy coast, and the force consolidated to protect its
gains and prepare for the next step on the road to Germany.
Utah Beach
In the predawn darkness of June 6,
the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were air dropped behind UTAH
Beach to secure four causeways across a flooded area directly behind
the beach and to protect the invasion's western flank. Numerous
factors caused the paratroopers to miss their drop zones and become
scattered across the Norman countryside.
However, throughout the night and into
the day the airborne troops gathered and organized themselves and
went on to accomplish their missions. Ironically, the paratroopers'
wide dispersion benefited the invasion. With paratroopers in so
many places, the Germans never developed adequate responses to the
airborne and amphibious assaults.
The 4th Infantry Division was assigned to
take UTAH Beach. In contrast with OMAHA Beach, the 4th Division's
landing went smoothly. The first wave landed 2,000 yards south of
the planned beach--one of the Allies' more fortuitous opportunities
on D-Day.
The original beach was heavily defended
in comparison to the light resistance and few fixed defenses encountered
on the new beach. After a personal reconnaissance, Brigadier General
Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who accompanied the first wave, decided
to exploit the opportunity and altered the original plan.
He ordered that landing craft carrying
the successive assault waves land reinforcements, equipment and
supplies to capitalize on the first wave's success. Within hours,
the beachhead was secured and the 4th Division started inland to
contact the airborne divisions scattered across its front.
As in the OMAHA zone, at day's end the
UTAH Beach forces had not gained all of their planned objectives.
However, a lodgement was secured, and, most important, once again
the American soldier's resourcefulness and initiative had rescued
the operation from floundering along the Normandy coast...
[Editor's
Note: Sources quoted were found in: "D-Day, The 6th of June,
Center of Military History Map Guide" Washington, D.C. 1994.
"Normandy, U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II" pamphlet,
Center of Military History, Washington, D.C. 1994. "50th Anniversary
of World War II " Commemoration Committee HQDA, SACC; Pentagon,
Room 3E524 Washington, D.C. 20310-0101 (703) 604-0822 .] |
Comment
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reserved.
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Sunday November 17, 2002
Prayer for Our Nation
And Those in Harm's Way
by Howard Hobbs PhD, Editor & Publisher
WASHINGTON - - The government
of the United States and its allies move tonight to protect the
homeland and its people, at home and in harm's away, from terrorist
attacks on the eve of worldwide wars.
It is with a heavy heart that this journalist
offers a prayer for the world, for this government and for its
men and women under arms tonight:
" We pray, O Lord God Almighty, to
guide the leaders of this nation and grant to all those in harm's
way, special gifts of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and
strength, to uphold that which is right, and following that which
is true, so that they may always prove faithful in the defense
of liberty, and fashion into one united people the multitudes
of those in the armed forces and the people of this nation and
its allies and make them know the service they are giving is of
the greatest importance to the security and peace of this nation
and all mankind.
Take from us, we pray, all pride and greed
and injustice and keep us from hypocrisy in feeling or action.
Grant us sound government and just law, good education, simplicity
and justice in our relations with one another, and above all,
the spirit of noble service which will abolish pride of place
and inequality of opportunity, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
"
[Editor's
Note: The content of this prayer taken from the original text
by Howard Hobbs, written at the close of the Korean War while
he was on assignment to Third Marine Division Chaplain, Cmdr.
Paul Zeller USNR,Camp Pendelton, Calif. 1957.]
©
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reserved.
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Sunday, November 10, 2002
IRAQ ALERT
U.S. Forces Readied
By Bernard Brown, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- A Pentagon source informed
the Daily Republican that War planning has been placed in
high gear over the weekend. White House officials declined to comment
on leaks from the Pentagon that planners there are moving to place
upwards of a half-million US troops on alert-status.
President Bush said Friday he wants to
keep the military option open and is prepared to "move swiftly
with force" to ensure the regime of Saddam Hussein is stripped
of its weapons of mass destruction and its ability to produce more
in the future.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has begun the process
of moving US forces and preparing to launch strikes deep into into
the Iraq land area. At this writing, US Navy carriers are standing
by and are now within striking range of Iraq .
An Air Force informant told the Daily Republican
Saturday, B-2 stealth bombers have already been placed on alert
near the island base at Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean.
The US currerntly has a large well seasoned
force of Air Force, Navy and Marines in the Gulf region.
©
Copyright 1876-2004 by The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
Comment
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November 6, 2002
GOP Sweeps Nation
Controls House & Senate
By Amy Williams, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- In a historic
first, Republicans swept the slate in the United States Senate last
night. Republicans are now in control of the White House and Congress
for the next two years, and President Bush has leverage for a long
needed legislative agenda.
The election results could mean a
renewed struggle behind the scenes by Democrats. Republican control
both houses of Congress and the White House has been dreamed of
for years by party loyalists. However, Republicans lost the Senate
in June 2001 as Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont switched parties
and beccoming an independent who regularly voted with Democrats.
"We made history tonight,"
said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, chairman of the Republican Congressional
Campaign committee. "It was a great win for the president of
the United States."
The result signaled a major change
in the way Washington does business, removing what Mr. Bush had
repeatedly complained in recent days was Democratic opposition that
had prevented him from winning confirmation of his judicial nominations
and such measures as a permanent tax cut and a homeland security
bill.
It was a huge lift for Mr. Bush, who spent
much of the past two weeks campaigning across the nation on behalf
of Republican candidates for the House, the Senate and for governor.
At the time, Democrats said that Mr. Bush was gambling his prestige
on the outcome of the race. That was one bet that the president
clearly appeared to have won last night.
Gov. Jeb Bush survived the fallout from
his brother's disputed election in 2000 to win a second term in
Florida, drawing an early-evening congratulatory call from the White
House. In Maryland, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a Democrat and a
daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, lost her bid for governor to Representative
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. the first time a Republican was elected governor
of that state since Spiro Agnew was elected in 1966. Voters in Massachusetts,
another of the most Democratic states, elected a Republican as governor,
Mitt Romney.
Democrats were able to claim a handful
of victories, like the one by Frank R. Lautenberg, the retired Democratic
senator who reappeared on the political stage last month after Senator
Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey was forced aside by an ethics
investigation.
In one of the few dark moments for Republicans
yesterday, Mark Pryor, the Democratic attorney general of Arkansas,
toppled Senator Tim Hutchinson from office, while Senator Tom Harkin,
Democrat of Iowa, won re-election.
The Democrats recaptured the governorships
in Illinois for the first time in 26 years, Pennsylvania and Michigan,
important states in that could have significant bearing in the 2004
presidential race.
Still, the evening was more than a little
discouraging for Democrats. In what would amount to biggest upset
in Senate races, Representative Saxby Chambliss unseated Senator
Max Cleland, a celebrated war hero and a Democrat from Georgia.
Elizabeth Dole, a two-time cabinet secretary and Republican candidate
for president in 2000, was elected senator from North Carolina,
and Representative John E. Sununu Jr. won the Senate race in New
Hampshire. Both Republicans withstood spirited challenges from Democrats,
assuring that those two states remained in the Republican column.
The Republicans also sent Representative
Lindsey Graham to fill the South Carolina Senate seat that was being
vacated by Senator Strom Thurmond, while former Gov. Lamar Alexander
of Tennessee, a two-time presidential candidate, kept that state's
Republican Senate seat.
1876-2004
Copyright, The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Comment
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October 31, 2002
Decoding
Thomas Hobbes'
Philosopher's Stone
By Howard Hobbs PhD, Editor &
Publisher
Thomas Hobbes
1588-1679 |
WASHINGTON -- Philosopher,
political theorist,Virginia Company cofounder, Thomas
Hobbes was raised and educated by an uncle where he became proficient
at translating Greek texts by the time he was age 14.
From 1603 to 1608 he studied at Magdalen College, Oxford
where he earned an MA in Aristotle's metaphysics. The
20 year old future philosopher was then retained as a tutor to the
Cavendish family children...More!
Comment
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October 21, 2002
Economics
As a Moral Science
James E. Alvey, Lecturer in Economics
WASHIINGTON...DC
- - Economics grew out of moral philosophy and eventually became
one of the moral sciences. At some point the mainstream
of economics became detached from the moral sciences and then
from morality itself. Howevewr, detachment from moral concerns
is not part of the tradition of economics. What happened?
The genesis of economics as a moral science
and its developments in mainstream economics has become lost to
the point where moral concerns are, for the most part, now irrelevant.
Traditionally, however, there was a strong
connection between economics and moral philosophy in the time
of Adam Smith. He was the first to propose a science of economics.
Two major evbents in history have effectively
detached economic theory from moral concerns. First, the natural
sciences came to be seen as prestigious, and the attempt was made
to emulate that in economics by applying natural science methods,
including mathematics, to economic phenomena.
Second, the self-styled economic science
came to adopt positivism, which ruled out moral issues from science
itself.
It is a widely held view today among
mainstream economists that economics is free from any ideological,
theological, or moral philosophy. One commentator on the role
of ethics in mainstream economics has stated: The "scientification"
of economics has led to a separation of economics from its ethical
roots.
The "mainstream economics"
of the Twentieth Century fully accepted this separation. Economic
theory is seen as a positive science which has to analyse and
to explain the mechanisms of economic processes. Therefore, as
important as ethical valuations ought to be, they should not form
part of the economists report.
Similarly, a recent commentator on the
role of positivism in economics argued this way: Most economists
today would agree that the claim of an economic theory free from
values is essential in establishing the scientific nature of the
discipline. A positive, value-free economics, in the sense of
not relying on any particular set of value judgments or on any
philosophical or psychological framework, is generally seen as
ideal. This approach has crucially influenced important branches
of economics such as microecon theory. Many others have expressed
similar views.
Modern economics stresses rational calculation,
the base material objectives, and scientific neutrality on moral
issues. But these foci can easily slip into something
else. For example, one of the leading microeconomists, David Kreps,
observed that "a sparse set of canonical hypotheses - greed,
rationality, and equilibrium - became the maintained hypotheses
in almost all branches of economics." The slip into the assumption
of "greed" is easy to make.
What is the moral effect of promulgating
this view on the behavior of economics students? Experiments have
been conducted to see whether humans cooperate or attempt to "free
ride"in a range of situations. In one study it was found
that people were generally cooperative or public spirited, except
for a group of first-year graduate economics students:
The latter were less cooperative, contributed
much less to the group, and found the concept of fairness alien;
the economics students were "much more likely to free ride"
than any other group tested.
On this same study, Hausman and McPherson
comment: "Learning economics, it seems, may make people more
selfish."
More recently, Frank, Gilovich, and Regan
found in their experiments that students of economics, unlike
others, tended to act according to the model of rational self-interest
and concluded that "differences in cooperativeness are caused
in part by training in economics."
This conclusion leads them to recommend
that economists "stress a broader view of human motivation
[than rational self-interest] in their teaching."
By producing selfish and uncooperative
individuals one may think that there is evidence for the actual
detachment of economics from ethics.
Economic matters have been discussed
throughout human history but the notion of an independent science
of economics only arose relatively recently, perhaps since the
mid-1700s.
Until that time economics was generally
discussed as a subordinate part of a broader study of political,
moral, and theological matters.
Aristotles treatment of economics
is to be found in the Nichomachean Ethics and the Politics.
In the Aristotelian tradition,
economics is part of a broader inquiry into ethics and politics.
From about 1240 a.d., when Aristotle was rediscovered in Western
Europe, the Scholastics used the Nichomachean Ethics
as one of the leading textbooks and it was through this study
of moral philosophy that Scholastic economics emerged:
Scholastic economics was Aristotelian economics.
The Scholastics saw economics as a subordinate
part of the broader theological/moral concerns.
For example, the disputes over the legitimacy
of usury were based on moral concerns.
Scholasticism remained influential
in European universities for centuries. Even when it was replaced
by more modern, natural law views (of Grotius and Pufendorf),
the place of economics changed little. In the European universities
of the 1700s economics was taught as part of moral philosophy.
The example that I know best is the lectures
at the University of Glasgow of Francis Hutcheson, the teacher
of Adam Smith. If we can judge from his A Short Introduction
to Moral Philosophy, there were two parts to his lectures.
The first part dealt with virtue. The second part, "the law
of nature," had three units: private rights, economics, and
politics.
Economics was seen to operate within
the "law of nature," or jurisprudence, which, in turn,
operated within moral philosophy. So far, one group has been omitted
from this history of the development of economic thought: the
group of pamphleteers, later called mercantilists by Adam Smith,
who operated from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
They were usually active businessmen
who wished to influence government policy. As is well-known, the
goal of the mercantilists was to increase their own wealth and
the wealth of their nation through the extensive use of government
intervention.
The details of their theory need not
concern us;but "Mercantilism involved a marked break with
the ethical attitudes and instructions of Aristotle and of Saint
Thomas Aquinas and the Middle Ages in general." In this quotation,
Galbraith argues implicitly that the emergence of the mercantilists
marked the point where economics broke with the moral sciences.
While they were influential in economic
policy, it is not clear that they dominated thinking on economic
matters within universities.
Economics had been conceived as a moral
science and remained so in universities.
Outside of universities, and to some
extent inside, economics was moving away from that approach: it
was "escaping" from the moral and ethical concerns of
the past. The conventional view is summarized by Boulding in this
way: "economics only became a science by escaping from the
casuistry and moralizing of medieval thought." Next I turn
to Adam Smith in order to investigate the claim that he completed
that "escape."
Smiths Moral Economics. Most
commentators claim that modern economics began with Adam Smith
( major contributions were made between the late 1750s and 1790),
even though the reason for their conclusion varies. Many see his
Wealth of Nations as the foundational document because
it was here that a separate science of economics began that self-consciously
broke from moral philosophy and theology.
More precisely, during the present century
Smith has been interpreted by positivists who seek to find in
his work what they themselves believe, and not surprisingly they
find there a value-free science, which is based on the "fact"
that humans behave in a rationally self-interested manner.
That view, however, has come under criticism
recently. The proper interpretation of Smiths work is important
because of its pivotal role in the history of the discipline of
economics.
Smith was deeply affected by his exposure
to Hutcheson and consequently when he became professor of Moral
Philosophy at Glasgow University followed a similar pattern
to that adopted by his teacher.
As Smiths student John Millar explained,
in Smiths course on moral philosophy there were four parts:
natural theology, ethics (published as The Theory of Moral
Sentiments, first edition 1759), justice (published posthumously
as Lectures on Jurisprudence), and finally, "political regulations
which are founded [upon] expediency, and which are calculated
to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity of the state"
(and largely published as The Wealth of Nations, first
edition 1776).
For Smith, economics (or what he called
political economy) was situated within this grand scheme of moral
philosophy. A brief statement about Smiths first bookThe
Theory of Moral Sentiments will help. This book was published
well before the more famous Wealth of Nations but its doctrine
is not supplanted by the later work, which deals with economic
matters more directly.
The first book sets out a moral system that
provides both a general framework for the economic realm and insights
into specific economic themes.
In his system of morals, Smith discusses
a wide range of virtues. This list includes the lower, commercial
virtues of "prudence, vigilance, circumspection, temperance,
constancy, [and] firmnesss."26
In this context Smith speaks of the lower
of two types of prudence: "the care of the health, fortune,
rank and reputation of the individual."
This sounds like the type of rational
calculation that is the focus of mainstream economics and the
positivistic interpretation of Smith.
But for Smith, prudence is not a "fact"
or datum; it is one of the lower virtues within his broad moral
system. The prudent man, Smith tells us, must sacrifice present
pleasure for future pleasure and this "self-command"
is approved of by Smiths "impartial spectator,"
the judge of moral sentiments.
Even within The Theory of Moral Sentiments,
capital accumulation which is a central feature of Smiths
Wealth of Nations is discussed and placed within
a moral framework.
Another virtue that Smith discusses in
The
Theory of Moral Sentiments
is justice. His view of justice is restricted to commutative
(not distributive) justice. This type of justice is not that demanding,
hindering us "from hurting our neighbour," but it is
essential for the preservation of society.
Breaches of justice require punishment.
The importance of justice for Smiths economics placved it
as the highest virtue for of benevolence. This fact may be of
particular interest to those graduate students of economics, discussed
earlier, who were so influenced by the model of rational self-interest,
or "greed," as Kreps says.
While Smiths view that economic
growth "should be the normal state of society" separates
him "from the debates of the earlier moralists," who
saw the stationary state as ideal, Smith did retain concern for
morality within his economics.
Economic growth was itself intimately
connected with morality; this is seen in both the moral effects
and in the moral prerequisites of growth.
[Editor's Note: The author
is a professor of economics at Massey University, New Zealand]
Comment
©
Copyright 1876-2004 by The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved. |
|
Sunday
September 29 , 2002
ALLEGORIES
&
Other Fairy Stories
By Tony Artero, Guam Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON,
DC -- I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny
he made and continue to make more.
If it makes Congress mad, then Congress should
invent the next operating system that's better and label it Your
Government’s Operating Systems Is Here To Help You.
Congress should ask Al Gore who invented
the Internet to help them achieve it. We are seeing the disastrous
conditions in our island community delivered by a self-righteous
liberal Democrat serving himself throughout his lifetime career
in public office.
Piously, Pride In Our Progress and People
of Guam You’re Still the One resemble Al Gore’s lib service. I know
that I am frowned upon and looked down upon because I will not conform
or compromise my principles just to keep from hurting somebody's
feelings. This country allowed me the right to speak.
I am angry that we are all disenfranchised,
thus taken advantage of, and our fundamental human rights are blatantly
violated no matter how desperately the tyrant, his clones, and the
mainstream media would like the world to believe otherwise.
My belief and hope is that a candidate
for governor will emerge to take a real stand on private property
rights, and stick with it. Property rights are the essence of freedom
for an individual, a country, and the global economy.
The deplorable environmental and economic
conditions here on Guam show that Guam needs to return to the land
ethic upon which our American republic's foundation stands or falls.
We are good Americans. We are patriotic
Americans who served America in harms way. We are ready and willing
to do it again. Remember Pearl Harbor -- that was not just
another fairy tale. Remember Guam!
Comment
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reserved. |
|
Sunday
September 17 , 2002
CENSORSHIP
ON
CAMPUS POST 9/11?
By Dr. Onkar Ghate, Contributor, Ayn Rand Institute
IRVINE, CA--Academic leftists cry that, post-September 11,
they've lost the freedom to voice ideas critical of America. But
the real concern is not to defend free speech on campus, but to
retain control over the universities.
Free speech protects an individual who
voices unpopular ideas, but it does not require that others support
him. If an individual wants others to finance the expression of
his ideas, he must seek their voluntary agreement. Freedom of speech
is not the right of a Ph.D. to force others to give him a university
classroom.
Yet that is precisely what these professors
are demanding. They maintain that no matter how much the trustees
of a university disagree with a professor's views, they should not
be able to fire him. Why? So that professors who consistently teach
the evil of America can do so without the burden of having to seek
the voluntary consent of those forced to finance them.
What makes the academic left think it can
get away with this destruction of free speech? Most universities
today are public institutions. Critics of the academic left have
been calling for the firing of professors who broadcast anti-American
ideas, since such views are odious to most taxpayers.
But subjecting speech to majority rule, the left
correctly argues, obliterates freedom of speech. Thus, it concludes,
we must leave college professors alone. It doesn't follow. The truth
is that public education as such is antithetical to free speech.
Whether leftists are forced to pay taxes
to fund universities from which their academic spokesmen are barred,
or non-leftists are forced to pay taxes to fund professors who condemn
America as a terrorist nation, someone loses the right to choose
which ideas his money supports. "
To protect free speech universities would
have to be privatized. But since privatization would threaten the
left's grip on the universities, it denounces as "tyranny of the
almighty dollar" the sole means of actually preserving free speech
on campus. "
So don't be fooled by the left's cries
about academic freedom. Freedom is precisely what they don't want.
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September 11, 2002
By Karen Tumulty
WASHINGTON -- Within hours
after President George Bush announced that he would ask Congress
to vote on whether to wage war against Iraq, he sent Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld to a secure, windowless room on the top floor of
the Capitol, nearly three-quarters of the Senators awaited him.
They were confronting one of the gravest
decisions lawmakers can face—sending troops into battle—and they
expected to see the intelligence Rumsfeld and other Bush Administration
officials have said would clinch the case that Saddam Hussein must
go, the sooner the better.
Instead, they got the kind of riff Rumsfeld
uses with the Pentagon press corps. "There are three issues
here," the Defense Secretary told them. "There is the
issue of what we know. There is the issue of what we don't know.
And there is the issue of what we don't know we don't know."
So much for a smoking gun.
To read the complete story click
here.
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Tuesday September 3 ,
2002
BLOODY
SEPTEMBER
The Russian Connection?
By Dave Francis,
Foreign Correspondent
WASHINGTON DC -- September 11, 2001, the day America was
savagely and successfully attacked by different groups of terrorists
almost certainly led by Usama bin Ladin.
It is now known who some of the people
in the air were. They were radical Arab terrorists, some with ties
to Usama bin Ladin's al Qaeda, (The Base) organization responsible
for previous acts of violence against the USA.
Some learned to fly in a flight school in Florida, some came to
the USA via
Germany, some by Canada. A lot is now known about who they are,
and from whence they came. However, there are still a lot of questions,
but I want
to focus on a couple of them.
Three weeks ago, Usama bin Ladin confided
to an Arab newspaper that soon the USA would be hit with an unprecedented
strike of terrorism. Something that would dwarf any of his previous
exploits.
On August the 30th, Vladimir Putin gave
a speech where he criticized the
Taliban government in Afghanistan for appointing Usama bin Ladin
as the
Commander in Chief of their armed forces.
It was reported by UPI that on the day
of the attack, three money exchanges in Moscow quit accepting dollars.
This was before the attack. It is fairly well known here that when
someone talks of the Russian mafia, he is frequently referring to
people who are not ethnic Russians, but in fact are of middle eastern
ancestry, and quite often associated with, or members of, radical
Islamic terrorist groups.
The conflict in Chechnya is a mafia sponsored
and supported war. It is an attempt by these same gangsters to have
their own gangster state. Sort of Al Capone's Chicago, but on a
nation level.
It would appear that someone knew there
was going to be an event that would disrupt the financial markets,
with the dollar being hit the hardest. Right
after the attack on New York, the dollar fell to 14 roubles per
dollar for a
few hours before rebounding to its current level of around 29. Somewhere,
someone made a lot of money. It is also being investigated whether
or not
representatives of Usama bin Ladin were trading large shares in
expectation
of a quick drop in the markets.
The USA has been critical of Russia's handling
of the situation in Chechnya. It has urged restraint, for Russia
to negotiate and not use force to solve the problems there. The
USA didn't understand the foe Russia was dealing with. Now they
do.
The USA needs to take strong measures to
punish those responsible, and not just the people who were in on
the meetings. The people who give aid and
comfort need to be punished also. The Afghanistan's, the Iraqis,
the Irans, and any other nation that wants to line up on the side
of terror needs to now be purged of any capability to inflict it
outside its own borders.
An end needs to be put to the existence
of the Fatah, the Hizbollah, and any other similar group. No more
surgical strikes with cruise missiles. What is needed here is carpet-bombing
of cities. Devastation needs to be meted out by the most powerful
war machine that has ever been seen on the earth. They need to be
beaten, broken, and utterly destroyed. As US Senator John McCain
promised, "Make no mistake about it, we are coming. God may
have mercy on your souls, but we wont."
There is a widely growing coalition for
retribution, and that is fine, but I don't think the US should put
too much faith in it. European nations like France and Italy have
been coddling these people for too long. The US should be prepared
to go it alone, and if their European allies aren't willing to get
in line, fine. They should be asked if they want diplomatic relations
with the US or with the Hizbollah, because they can't have both.
So far Russia has been the US's most staunch
ally in this crisis. Truthfully, Russia has been warning us for
years. Russia has been patiently waiting for America to get in the
game, and now that we are here, we should
embrace Russia, combine our resources, and begin to exterminate
these vermin wherever they may hide.
This is a war, and there was another war
where the US and Russia were allies, and that one turned out pretty
good for the rest of the world. Lets get together again, and do
the same.
There is a lot of criticism about the fact
that George W. Bush was whisked away to unknown places when the
attacks began. There has been insinuations from many quarters that
he behaved cowardly. One of the biggest fears, in the aftermath
of the tragedy, is the financial situation.
Confidence is key when it comes to market
stability, and the lack of confidence that can be caused by an event
of this magnitude, and the uncertainty of what may happen next can
be very disruptive. My question is this. Has anyone seen Alan Greenspan?
Greenspan probably has more respect than anyone on the planet when
it comes to the markets. His decisions have helped lead America
into some very good financial times, and he is closely watched by
financial analysts. Markets move on small, innocent statements made
by him. Since the attack, I haven't seen him.
The Fed lowered interest rates today, but
no Greenspan in front of thousands of cameras, which would be normal.
If he is alive and ok, he should be out front, helping confidence
stay solid. If he is not, we need to know. This is no time for the
back room insiders to get a jump on the rest of the country.
The Italians have said they wont help.
What are we to do? How can we go forward without the Italians? I'm
sure we all remember how significant
their participation was in WWII.
Remember this? "A man who has nothing
which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more
than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature
who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the
exertions of better men than himself." [John
Stuart Mill, writing on the U.S. Civil War, 1862.]
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Friday August 30, 2002
ON
WINNING THE WAR
Intellectual and Moral Uncertainty
By Onkar Ghate,
Contributor
WASHINGTON DC -- As we pause on September 11 to remember
the stockbrokers, policemen, firefighters and many other fallen
Americans, it is vital also to reflect on the progress of the war.
For it was precisely to prevent future September 11ths that America
responded with force.
How goes the war? Tragically, not well.
To wage a war in self-defense you must know who your enemy is. But
our enemy remains unidentified and, therefore, untargeted.
Ours is a war against "terrorism"--a form
of violence, not an ideological opponent intent on killing us. Our
enemies, however, are dedicated to a fundamentalist interpretation
of Islam, which extols faith, mindless obedience, sacrifice to state
and God, primitivism, theocracy.
This is why they are at war with the "Great
Satan," America, the foremost embodiment of the opposite values:
reason, individualism, the selfish pursuit of happiness, secularism,
capitalism. Bin Laden understands this: "Hostility toward America,"
he declares, "is a religious duty."
Our politicians, schooled in pragmatism
and range-of-the-moment non-thinking, cannot conceive of an ideologically
motivated conflict. An individual terrorist brandishing a bomb,
like bin Laden, may still be real to them, but the movement for
which he fights, Islamic fundamentalism, is not.
Thus we try to kill a few terrorists--but
leave untouched the main militant Islamic states breeding the terrorists.
We have no long-term plan to achieve victory in the war because
we cannot identify the enemy that must be incapacitated.
Ask yourself: Would America have been victorious
in WWII if our goal had been to destroy "kamikaze-ism," not Japanese
totalitarianism? Worse, to the extent that our policy makers glimpse
the mystical ideology operative in the Middle East, they consider
it a positive force.
As pragmatists, they are intellectually
blind to the historical evidence of centuries of religious wars
and are led, instead, by their own religious feelings. They can
grasp no connection between faith taken seriously as the ruling
principle of every aspect of man's life--and the attempt to physically
force such dogma on nonbelievers.
The terrorists, on this approach, are inexplicable
aberrations, deluded interpreters of true faith, who, mysteriously,
try to spread their mystical doctrines by appeal not to a rational
argument but to a gun. We therefore treat as allies such enemies
of reason as Saudi Arabia, which spawns Islamic fundamentalists
and finances their suicide bombers, and Pakistan, which trained
the Taliban and punishes blasphemy with death.
Our government even courts Iran, the spearhead
of militant Islamic fundamentalism, and works with Iranian officials
to foster "religious values" at U.N. conferences. Predictably, the
administration's actions, guided as they are not by reason but by
emotion (including emotions of outrage), are chaotic and contradictory.
No one knows what--if anything--America
will do next in the war because we ourselves don't know what we'll
do or why. Bush pays lip service to the correct idea that you are
either for America's ideals or against them, but undermines our
strongest ally in the war, Israel. He even promises the Palestinians
a provisional state, thereby teaching every would-be killer that
to the terrorist go the spoils.
In typically empty rhetoric Bush declares
that there is an axis of evil in the world, but allows Syria to
head the U.N. Security Council and pursues dialogue with axis-of-evil-members
North Korea and Iran--all terrorist states according to his own
government.
Without actual principles, where will such
a mentality turn for moral guidance? The answer is: to others and
their moral views. So Bush--programmed by feelings formed from millennia
of assertions that it is evil to uphold one's own interests, that
the strong must sacrifice to the weak, that the meek shall inherit
the earth--undercuts any genuine action taken in America's self-defense.
In Afghanistan, for instance, morally unsure
of his right to safeguard American lives, Bush feared world disapproval
over civilian casualties. He would neither commit the number of
American ground troops required to capture the enemy nor authorize
the kind of massive bombing necessary to kill the enemy before it
fled.
The result: hundreds of Taliban and al
Qaeda escaped to plot further American destruction. In the Middle
East, uncertain of America's right unilaterally to defend its interests,
the administration obsesses with "coalition-building" (which includes
shunning Israel and courting Saudi Arabia) and refuses to proclaim
the superiority of America's ideals over those of medieval barbarism.
Lacking the moral conviction to uphold
its values abroad, America increasingly and self-destructively turns
inward, shifting its focus to such relatively trivial questions
as whether airline pilots should be armed or government bureaucracies
reshuffled.
We have the means and the skilled military
assets to defeat terrorism. Determination is needed to achieve victory,
together with a well reasoned, rational self-interest and decisive
timely action.
[Editor's Note: Onkar Ghasted, Ph.D.
in philosophy, is a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. The
Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged
and The Fountainhead. Send comments to reaction@aynrand.org]
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Thursday, July 11, 2002
For Which It Stands!
By Ronald J. Pestritto, Claremont Institute
CLAREMONT -- Americans
today seem very much in the holiday spirit - the holiday of Flag
Day, commemorated today, June 14th. Since the attacks on our country
last September, it has been wonderful to see the flag flying almost
everywhere.
This is certainly a welcome change from
the condescension with which cultural elites and opinion leaders
have frequently viewed "flag waving" in modern America.
Officially created on June 14, 1777 by an
act of the Second Continental Congress, the American Flag underwent
many modifications until 1912, when President Taft established standard
proportions for it and ordered that the stars be displayed in rows.
The June 14th holiday was established formally
by Proclamation of President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and cemented
into law when President Truman signed an Act of Congress in 1949.
To remind ourselves of the ideas represented
in the Flag, the proximity of Flag Day and the Fourth of July cannot
be mere coincidence. It was the same Continental Congress, after
all, that both signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th
and subsequently created the Flag.
The Declaration clearly laid out the principles
to which the new nation would forever be dedicated: a protection
of the individual rights of citizens to life, liberty, and security
in their private property. It was out of dedication to securing
these rights that the federal government was established, and
out of concern for maintaining these rights that government was
strictly
limited in scope.
George Washington understood these principles
well, and knew what his army was fighting for when he addressed
his Revolutionary War troops with these words in 1776: "Remember
officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen,
fighting for the blessings of Liberty - that slavery will be your
portion,
and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like
men."
Do we 21st century Americans know what
we are fighting for? Have we
acquitted ourselves like the men Washington addressed? The current
national
political scene makes it difficult to answer in the affirmative,
regardless
of which side of the political spectrum one examines.
Liberals have for decades advocated - and
largely consummated - a rejection of the limited government of the
founding in favor of a modern welfare state. Starting about 100
years ago, Progressives like Woodrow Wilson decided that the Declaration
and Constitution were "out of date," and
inaugurated the idea of a constantly evolving, unlimited government.
This makes it all the more ironic that it was Wilson
who formally established Flag Day - since he mocked what he called
the "blind worship" of the founding and complained that
"some citizens of this country have never got beyond the Declaration
of Independence."
Likewise, today's conservatives have cause
to question how they have acquitted themselves - perhaps even more
than liberals, since conservatives are supposedly dedicated to "conserving"
America's principles.
Prominent conservative leaders today have essentially
abandoned the aims of their counterparts in the 1980s and early
1990s to scale back the modern state.
Gone is talk of eliminating those portions
of the federal bureaucracy created to implement the failed policies
of 1960s and 1970s liberalism.
Instead, Republicans today help push through
historic increases in funding for the Department of Education.
Even the current strategies in the war on terrorism, unfortunately,
make one wonder whether the government is more interested in curtailing
the rights of its own citizens or in taking the fight abroad, to
those regimes that hate us and sponsor those attacking us.
Our conservative administration makes plans
for a new federal bureaucracy of "homeland security,"
while it shies away from making real war on terrorist regimes out
of fear of offending our "friends" in the Arab world and
the quasi-socialist governments in Europe.
Throughout our history, brave Americans
in both the military and in politics have fought mightily to prove
themselves worthy of Washington, the men he addressed, and the principles
for which they battled.
Let this Flag Day be a spark for those
of us in the 21st century to continue in that noble tradition.
Ronald J. Pestritto is a professor of political science at the University
of
Dallas and an adjunct fellow of the Claremont
Institute in California. To contact the authoru send e-mail.
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Friday May 10, 2002
Making Sense of the Attack
By Christopher C. Harmon, Contributor
CLAREMONT -- Making Sense
of the Attack It was a confederation of individuals from around
the Middle East and North Africa.
They lived in America. Some had been here
quietly for a long time; others were fresh off the airplane.
They all followed a sheik -- a Moslem religious
leader -- of the most extreme politics and vicious opinions.
He taught them, in effect, that the door
to the sublime beauties of the Koran was entered with the twist
of key sentences.
They were to kill the enemies of Islam
(as selected by violent sheiks). They had a duty to punish allies
of Israel, a foul and foreign state defacing "greater Palestine."
"Jihad" meant...More!
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Sunday, April 21, 2002
"No Moral Equivalence"
By Mark T. Clark
CLAREMONT -- On a recent
60 Minutes, Andy Rooney declared with the certitude of a
tenured academic that the U.S. should cut off all aid from Israel
and the Palestinians "if [Ariel] Sharon and the Palestinian terrorists
persist with their arrogance."
His commentary was intended to show the
difficulty of Secretary of State Colin Powell's recently failed
mission in search of peace. Rooney prefaced his conclusion by asserting
that Sharon loves this war and Arafat cannot stop the terrorists,
as if both sides were equally to blame. In searching for that chimera,
"peace in the Middle East," the United States-like Rooney-is obliterating
any meaningful distinctions between just and unjust wars.
Compelling Israel to cease defending itself
against repeated attacks on its citizens conflates legitimate self-defense
with the wholly unlawful-and immoral-slaughter of civilians by homicide-bombers.
To be clear, the war between Israel and
Palestinian terrorism is not...More!
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Tuesday, April 9, 2002
US Stands Pat,
Conditionally, That is!
By Andrew Ping, Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO -- The option of standing
with our allies Israel is in fairly serious trouble. Its continued
assault against Palestine seems destined to cause retaliation from
various sources.
The question arises of where the United
States should stand on this issue. The President's initial "conditional"
blessing on Israel's actions has given way to an insistence on Israeli
withdrawal.
The citizens of our country must decide
if that is just. Some groups want us to focus on convincing both
parties to decide on peace. This sounds great, until one understands
the histories of the combatants.
The division between Israel and the Arab
nations begins with some of our earliest written records--in Genesis,
Abraham, the father of both groups, expelled Hagar from his presence
at his wife, Sarah's request.
Hagar gave rise to the Arabic nations,
whereas Sarah gave rise to the nation of Israel. Biblical history
may not mean much to most modern activists, but all of us should
be aware that this rift is about as deep as any can be, and, like
any family feud, is very ugly.
One thing is certain: Israel's cause is
justified. As long as we recognize our right to destroy the terrorist
organizations responsible for the horrific assaults on the United
States last September, we also must consider Israel's actions valid.
The very thought that one of the airliners
may have been aimed at the White House enraged Americans, even those
that voted against our President. Israel has had a top government
official shot in the face and killed by a Palestinian terrorist.
Further, during peace talks, Palestinian
terrorists carried out suicide bombing attacks on Israeli targets,
and more recently, on mixed Arabic and Israeli businesses. The loss
of civilian life in Israel, in proportion to total population, has
begun to look a lot like U.S. losses to terrorists.
Further, Israel has been taking these losses
for years, with limited retaliation. Every response from Israel
has been open, honest and controlled, as opposed to Palestine's
terrorist sneak attacks.
It seems odd, then, that the United States
has signed a United Nations resolution demanding Israel's withdrawal
from Palestinian territory, or that pressure has been applied to
force them to find a peaceful solution.
Israel is insisting only on the right Americans
have demanded: to eliminate a constant danger to their people. This
is blatant hypocrisy, and it is wrong. Politically, supporting Israel
is inconvenient.
Arabic countries currently helping in our
war on terror might be significantly more hostile if the U.S. does
back Israel. There's a sense that to succeed, we'll need their help.
Let's be honest on this issue.
Politically convenient or not, supporting
Israel is the right thing to do. Israel has never wavered in standing
behind the U.S. While Palestinians cheered in the streets and fired
weapons in celebration over September 11th, Israel held a sincere
day of mourning on our behalf. Israel is a true, if occasionally
inconvenient ally.
Moreover, our alliance with Israel is a
major cause of Arabic hostility toward the U.S. We've already chosen
sides! Now is the time to act as Israel's ally, just as they have
acted as ours.
Further, Palestine is a hotbed of terrorism,
and therefore a legitimate target in our war. As the saying goes,
it's time to put up or shut up. At the very least, the U.S. has
a duty not to oppose Israeli action. In truth, we should be offering
them troops and close air support.
Our unwavering allies deserve better than
we've given. Take action: write your congressperson express your
opinion.
1878-2002 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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February 6, 2002
Ronald Reagan's
Enduring Influence!
By Mark Burson
SIMI VALLEY -- American
presidents for all of their many and mighty powers, do in fact follow
the same undeniable calculus of politics.
They enjoy a short shelf life as popular
public figures. They are deemed "lame ducks" before they even leave
office. And, once returned to private life, their political legacies
become more an after thought than a marching order to guide and
inform our future. But for one political leader of our age, this
equation does not hold.
Ronald Reagan not only proved how wrong
we could be about our presidents, he overturned the conventional
wisdom about how our political leaders are both considered while
in office and valued as private citizens when out of it.
This was first seen shortly after Ronald
Reagan became our 40th President, when the American presidency was
deemed by many to be well beyond the measure of any man.
Nearing the end of the presidential term
of Jimmy Carter, but before Ronald Reagan assumed office, Lloyd
Cutler, the venerable Democrat lawyer who had worked in the Carter
White House, wrote a newspaper essay trying to explain why his boss
had failed.
Cutler wrote that the presidency had become
too large, too complex, too daunting, for any one individual to
manage. The Oval Office was less an inspiration to great leaders
to do great things than an exquisitely furnished meat grinder that
would eventually overwhelm any who dared try to tame it.
Ronald Reagan proved him wrong - and the
presidency hasn't been the same since.
Even our electoral politics still bears
his signature stamp, as both parties - yes, Republicans as well
as Democrats - strain to keep time with the Reagan rhythm. Republicans
know that the "Great Communicator" earned and established ties with
voters across every demographic and age group and that he maintains
a relationship of the heart with people for whom politics is neither
a hobby nor an interest.
While Democrats surely feel no identical
political connection, they appreciate how President Reagan confounded
them again and again, both as a candidate and as a president. Like
the St. Louis Rams watching game films to understand how the New
England Patriots hampered their offense, Democrats have watched
Ronald Reagan and studied how he won.
Even today, a case can be made that Ronald
Reagan is more powerful, more influential and more meaningful to
public life and social understanding than when he was President.
The national debate about whether to empower
the individual or enable the state has come down squarely on the
side of the people.
The Keynesian model of excessive taxation
- dominant only 25 years ago - is today the economic philosophy
that no one dares to mention.
The decades-long assertion that American
power could not be projected around the world to enhance the cause
of human freedom is currently taking up space in the dustbin of
history - alongside the corrupt Communism that he led the West to
oppose and overwhelm.
In an 1850 speech, Henry Clay famously
said, "Sir, I would rather be right than President." Great statesman
that he was, Clay had to settle for the former. Ronald Reagan achieved
both.
More than a full decade since he left the White House in 1989, America
is still talking about his issues, on his terms, and reaping the
rewards of his enduring legacy.
If what is past is prologue, this will
be even more true in the future than even at this time, on this
day, Ronald Reagan's 91st birthday.
[Editor's Note: Click here to view
the historic Ronald W. Reagan Presidental Medal, on sale
at Web Portal Foundation's Ronald
W. Reagan Museum and Bookstore Web Site.]
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Saturday January 26, 2002
Bin Laden Stirs Struggle
on Meaning of Jihad
By John F. Burns, New York Times
ZHAKHEL
BALA, Pakistan, Jan. 20 — Little in the manner of Ijaz Khan Hussein
betrays the miseries he saw as a volunteer in the war in Afghanistan.
Mr. Khan, a college-trained pharmacist, joined the jihad, or holy
war, like thousands of other Pakistanis who crossed over into Afghanistan.
He worked as a medical orderly near Kabul,
shuttling to the front lines, picking up bodies and parts of bodies.
Of 43 men who traveled with him to Afghanistan by truck in October,
he says, 41 were killed.
Now with the Taliban and Al Qaeda routed,
have Mr. Khan and other militants finished with holy war? Mr. Khan,
at least, said he had not. "We went to the jihad filled with joy,
and I would go again tomorrow," he said.
"If Allah had chosen me to die, I would
have been in paradise, eating honey and watermelons and grapes,
and resting with beautiful virgins, just as it is promised in the
Koran. Instead, my fate was to remain amid the unhappiness here
on earth." Jihad literally means...More!
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Monday, January 21, 2002
Newspaper Archives:
Under Supreme Court Attack!
By Howard Hobbs Ph.D. President
Valley Press Media Network
WASHINGTON
- Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court changed they way U.S. newspapers
conduct the information business, forever. The Court ruled that
newspaper publishers don't own the rights to the most widely read
online columns by freelance writers...More!
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Saturday, December 15, 2001
Pearl Harbor
And Modern
California
By A. G. Block
SACRAMENTO - - There are symbolic
parallels in the attacks of December 7, 1941, and September 11,
2001, both for the nation and for California.
There also are significant differences.
As the nation enters a new age of international uncertainty, a look
at the past may help guide the future. Two fateful days smashed
into the calendar of American history.
Two ferocious assaults against America
committed with such treachery as to make the date a synonym for
outrage. Comparisons between Pearl Harbor and the attack of September
11 began soon after the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed
into lower Manhattan.
CBS News anchor Dan Rather, among others,
referred to the terrorist assault as "another Pearl Harbor." Editorial
cartoonist Michael Ramirez' September 14 offering in the Los Angeles
Times blended the twin towers with the burning wreckage of the USS
Arizona - one of the most famous images to emerge from World War
II.
Although separated by 60 years, the two
events are similar in that both were surprise attacks that outraged
Americans and rekindled their patriotism. In each case, prominent
symbols of American power and prestige were reduced to burning hulks
by an enemy with long-simmering resentment of United States foreign
and economic policies.
Each attack provoked deep anger in the
American people and a thirst for revenge while at the same time
stripping away a long-held sense of security. Finally, both brought
the United States into a war that had raged for years in other parts
of the globe. In each case, California suddenly found itself on
the front lines.
In 1941, the United States' principal military
stronghold in the Pacific had been crippled, and many expected the
Japanese to invade the West Coast within days. Today, the front
is not a matter of geography but a state of mind. Terrorists do
not fight for territory but to destabilize society, so even though
initial attacks took place on the East Coast, the "front" is everywhere.
Finally, now as then, California is home
to a large number of residents who share ethnicity with those responsible
for the attacks. In 1941, more than 94,000 people of Japanese ancestry
were living here; in 2001, one million Muslims reside in California,
250,000 of whom trace their roots to the Middle East.
But while December 7 and September 11 produced
similar emotions, there are deep differences in the impact of these
two attacks on our country. As the nation prepares for a showdown
with another remote and little-understood enemy, it is worth glancing
backward to compare the situations then and now.
The impact of World War II In her book
"The Second Gold Rush," Marilynn S. Johnson describes Richmond,
California, as "a small, pastoral community ... [with] abundant
open space" where livestock grazed in open fields along the northern
shore of San Francisco Bay.
In 1940, it was a blue-collar town, home
to 23,642 residents, homogeneous white/Hispanic with no measurable
numbers of Chinese or Japanese and only 270 blacks. Although visible
across the Bay, San Francisco and Oakland - cities with heft and
bustle - were remote both in mood and texture. World War II changed
Richmond forever.
By 1944, more than 93,000 people were squashed
into its overcrowded neighborhoods, an increase of 297 percent.
The open fields had been seeded with wartime housing projects, and
the black population had soared 2000 percent, to nearly 6,000 -
a figure that would more than double by decade's end.
Industrialist Henry Kaiser had built two
huge shipyards astride the Bay, while a once-innocuous Ford assembly
plant had grown into a monstrous complex that produced 60,000 tanks
by war's end.
This transformation made Richmond a reflecting
pool for the cultural and economic changes that swept California
in the years following Pearl Harbor. A mostly white, semi-industrialized
state struggling to emerge from the Great Depression, California
became an ethnically diverse industrial dynamo dominated by sprawling
metropolitan areas.
According to the 1950 "California Blue
Book," the state's population expanded from 6.9 million to 10.5
million (53 percent) between 1940 and 1950. Nearly three million
migrants came from other parts of the country to work in factories
and shipyards, joining legions of servicemen and women who passed
through en route to the Pacific Theater and later returned again,
motivated by memories of a temperate climate and relaxed lifestyle.
The state's urban areas absorbed virtually
all the growth. In 1940, two in seven Californians were classified
as living in rural areas; by 1950, the ratio had shrunk to two in
10.
During the corresponding decade, the state's
urban population mushroomed from 4.9 million to 8.5 million, or
74 percent. Los Angeles alone grew by a million people between 1940
and 1948 - an increase of 35 percent.
Jobs drew people to the cities, high-paying
urban jobs that boosted statewide per-capita income more than threefold
in the first half of the decade. The new prosperity was underscored
by dramatic advances in two vital defense industries: aircraft production
and shipbuilding. In 1940, 50,000 Californians earned nearly $80
million working in those plants and yards.
By 1943, half a million people were employed
there, pulling in more than $1.3 billion. The ethnic character of
California's population also changed. Before the war, the Golden
State was 95 percent white (including Hispanics, who were classified
as white).
There were only isolated pockets of Asians
and virtually no blacks. Black migration in particular accelerated
during the war. Although there had been some influx during the Depression,
Census figures reveal that 124,000 blacks lived in California in
1940.
A decade later, that number had swelled
to 462,000. The war also reversed the trend of Mexican repatriation
begun during the Depression when thousands of immigrants, some of
them U.S. citizens, were forcibly repatriated to Mexico on the grounds
that there was no work for them in the United States.
One of the war's more lasting legacies
was the jump-start it gave to a new wave of Mexican immigration
that continues to this day. California also became younger as migrants
and returning servicemen married and started families.
The number of children 14 years and younger,
static between 1930 and 1940, more than doubled over the next 10
years. The population aged 25 to 44 grew by more than a million
during the '40s.
This newer and younger population changed the politics of California.
In the years before World War II, California's political leadership
focused mainly on the state's native sons, for the most part ignoring
the steady influx of Depression-era migrants.
But after the war, California was home
to so many newcomers that officials at every level were representing
constituencies that had not existed when they were first elected.
Suddenly, there were no outsiders because an ever-growing chunk
of the electorate was itself from the outside.
This opened the political system to a new
breed of younger politician, and among those who profited from the
change were Jesse Unruh and Phil Burton.
Economically, California not only prospered
during World War II but also used $35 billion in defense spending
to lay the foundation for an industrial and technology-based economy
that remained recession-proof for nearly half a century.
Aircraft manufacturers, for instance, had
been associated with California since the 1910s when the Loughead
brothers established a small factory in Burbank, later changing
their company's name to "Lockheed."
Over the next decade, they were joined
by the likes of Donald Douglas, John Northrup and Claude Ryan, who
built Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis in a San Diego hangar.
Clustered in Los Angeles, Santa Monica
and San Diego, their companies operated on shoestrings until World
War II when, buoyed by $21 billion in federal contracts, they created
the vanguard of what would become one of the great engines of California's
postwar boom: the aerospace industry.
Other industries experienced similar growth.
California assembled fivefold more cars in 1948 than in 1941. The
oil industry mushroomed to feed the state's growing fleet of private
automobiles.
A new steel industry prospered. Construction
boomed for housing, factories, highways, universities, water projects,
schools, office buildings, theaters, ad infinitum.
The military moved in - and stayed. Cities
expanded, sprawled out, merged. An embryonic industry based on technology
began to stir in the triangular petrie dish formed by Stanford University,
the University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore
Laboratories.
The war also produced the "G.I. Bill,"
which historian Ed Cray credits with "creating the great middle
class." "There were two aspects of it that were huge," Cray explains,
"two benefit programs that never would have passed except as a thank-you
to the G.I.s.
First, an education clause which paid veterans
to go to college and tech school, and a home-loan program which
built the suburbs and fueled the construction industry."
Modern California was born in the flames
and rubble of Pearl Harbor, brought to life by this "second gold
rush." World War II finally wrenched the nation from the throes
of economic depression, and California was ideally suited to take
advantage of America's sudden prosperity.
There was plenty of room for growth, and
a collective appetite for it. A different place Twenty-first century
California is a vastly different place. In addition to being the
nation's most populous state - 33.9 million according to the 2000
Census - it is the nation's most ethnically diverse state.
Nearly 100 languages are spoken in Los
Angeles schools. There are more Vietnamese living in California
now than there were blacks in 1950.
Today 15.8 million whites, 10.9 million
Hispanics, 2.2 million blacks and 3.7 million Asians call California
home. Among Asians, six different groups have populations that exceed
250,000: Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.
There are more Samoans in California today
than there were blacks in 1920. As a result, there is precious little
room for the kind of growth experienced during World War II.
Inner cities are crowded and suburbs sprawl
into deserts and once-productive farmland. Schools burst with students,
water systems are overtaxed, urban highways jammed day and night.
Instead of coming out of depression, the
economy - after a decade of unprecedented growth - is in decline,
the word "recession" seeping into political dialogue even before
September 11 crippled industries vital to California's health, such
as travel and tourism.
Unemployment had been rising steadily during
2001 as the technology industry - another vital cog in the state's
economy - finally contracted after years of expansion, causing a
ripple throughout the state's economy.
Unlike the 1940s, this new war does not
bring with it the promise of economic salvation - quite the contrary.
The state will not reap benefits from the kind of unbridled defense
spending associated with World War II.
There will be no round-the-clock shipyards
launching armadas of Liberty ships, no aircraft factories spewing
forth B-25 bombers and P-51 Mustang fighters, no assembly plants
grinding out M-4 Sherman tanks and the ubiquitous Jeep.
The military doesn't need all that material.
No, this war isn't about hardware. This war is about people and
their attitudes. Where were you?
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, U.S. Army
Private Ed Guthman was stationed at Fort Ord, California. As he
finished lunch in the mess hall, his sergeant entered, a .45-caliber
pistol strapped to his waist. "There ain't gonna be any Christmas
furloughs," Guthman recollects the sergeant saying. "The Japs just
bombed Pearl Harbor."
That evening, Guthman's platoon was taken
to the beach "where we defended Monterey Bay." Guthman eventually
became an infantry officer and spent the war slogging through Italy.
A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, he served
as press secretary to Attorney General Robert Kennedy from 1961
to 1965, then returned to journalism as editor of the Philadelphia
Inquirer.
Today, he teaches investigative journalism
at the University of Southern California. In 1941, Frank McCullough
had recently left his job as a $15-a-week reporter for United Press
in San Francisco, opting for more lucrative work in a gold mine
near Winnemucca, Nevada. "I tried to enlist that day [December 7],"
he recalls, "but it was Sunday and all the recruiting offices were
closed."
McCullough eventually joined the Marine
Corps and spent the war island-hopping around the Pacific as a combat
correspondent. After the war, he resumed his career as a reporter,
becoming managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, Saigon bureau
chief for Time magazine during the Vietnam War, Time-Life bureau
chief in New York City and executive editor of McClatchy Newspapers.
He is retired and living in Northern California.
Nao Takasugi was a junior at UCLA and heard the news while driving
to his parents' home in Oxnard. "There was no question where my
allegiance lay at the time," Takasugi says. "All my upbringing,
my education was American."
Nonetheless, Takasugi never returned to
UCLA, choosing to remain with his Issei (first generation Japanese
born) parents, who were resident aliens. In 1942, the Takasugi family
was interned in Arizona.
A year later, Nao was one of some 4,000
Nisei (U.S. born Japanese) "rescued" from the camps by Quakers who
helped arrange slots for them at eastern universities. Takasugi
went to Temple University in Pennsylvania, graduating in 1945.
A businessman active in local politics,
he served as mayor of Oxnard from 1982 to 1992, when he was elected
to the first of three terms in the Assembly. Despite the discrimination
he suffered, Takasugi's lot was put in perspective when he visited
a sister in Arkansas in 1943.
From Little Rock, he took a "podunk little
train" where he encountered "colored only" seating for the first
time. "I was ... pondering what to do," he says, "when the conductor
approached. I asked where I should sit, and he told me to sit with
the whites."
It was still better to be Japanese than black
- at least in Arkansas.
Warren Christopher was a 16-year-old senior
at Hollywood High School in 1941 and a 10-cents-a-word stringer
for the Hollywood Citizen News. Christopher remembers hearing of
the Pearl Harbor attack upon returning from a hike in the Hollywood
hills and afterwards being sent out on the street to report public
reaction for his newspaper.
One of his most stunning memories is that
of a darkened Los Angeles and of spontaneous public reaction to
a violation of the blackout edict. "On Vine Street," he recalls,
"a sign company had neglected to turn out the lights on a large
billboard. People were standing in the streets, throwing rocks at
the bulbs."
A year later, when he turned 17, Christopher
enlisted in the Navy. After the war, he studied law. He is best
remembered for his roles as deputy secretary of state in the Carter
administration, where he negotiated an end to the Iranian hostage
crisis, and for his service as head of a commission that investigated
the Los Angeles Police Department after the Rodney King beating
in 1991.
He also served as secretary of state under
President Bill Clinton and remains active in legal and government
affairs. Not your grandfather's war Guthman, McCullough, Takasugi
and Christopher represent what has been often called "the greatest
generation," and like most of their contemporaries, World War II
consumed them for nearly half a decade.
For many people, it proved the defining
moment of their lives. And as with the September 11 attacks, a single
event both propelled the country into war and unified it. "Both
were attacks on the American homeland," says Christopher. "Hawaii
was very far away, but we knew it was ours. This was an attack on
us, and we responded that way. We are doing so now. The number of
flags I see when I run every morning is quite striking."
It is even, Christopher and others point
out, once again fashionable for liberals to display patriotism.
After September 11, Americans donated blood and money, displayed
flags and lent emotional support to those immediately affected by
the assault.
But this is not our grandfather's war,
and keeping the nation together and sustaining its resolve will
be more challenging than in 1941. Unlike 1941, there is no recognizable
enemy nation today.
Afghanistan was a sanctuary for those alleged
to have committed the September 11 attacks, but Afghanistan itself
did not perpetrate the outrage and does not serve as a focal point
for American resolve as did Japan and Germany.
Indeed, President George W. Bush made it
a point to announce that the United States would provide humanitarian
aid to Afghanistan at the very moment the United States and Britain
launched retaliatory strikes against its Taliban government on October
7.
The enemy today is ephemeral, a collection
of global outlaws. They have no field army to confront, no imperial
navy to seek out and destroy, no ports to mine, no government to
hold responsible. In addition, although the nation has experienced
a wave of patriotic fervor, there is no consensus among the American
people over a proper response to a terrorist attack.
That wasn't the case after Pearl Harbor.
The course of action was both traditional and plain to see: eliminate
Japan's ability to wage war. "There was no doubt about a proper
response," says McCullough of 1941. "Another nation had attacked
us, and we envisioned 700 battleships sailing west ... to blow those
bastards out of the Pacific."
Who is it we attack today, and how? "Responding
in 1941 was easy," explains veteran political consultant Stu Spencer,
a San Gabriel teenager at the time of Pearl Harbor. "There was a
nation [Japan] where everyone talked and looked alike and came from
one place. There is a difference today, and we first need to define
the enemy. This is an aggressor who comes from many countries."
Spencer says the nation and its leadership
must ask deeper questions of itself before deciding who, what and
how to respond. Recent retaliatory attacks notwithstanding, bombing
isn't the whole answer.
[Editor's Note: A.G. Block's
complete column is available
online. He is executive editor of California Journal.]
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2001
Bill Clinton Belittles Bush
Attack on Terrorism
Former President Tells Audience
He Could Do Better
By William Fielder, Contributor
WASHINGTON - - Bill Clinton
confided to friends within three days after the 9-11 terrorist attack
on the Twin Towers in New York. He told a stunned audience
this week that he envies G.W. Bush's good fortune in having the
terrotist attacks occur during his presidency."
Mr. Clinton said he could "...do a
better job of managing this'defining moment."
The Georgetown University comments come
at a time when actions by the former president raise questions about
his own indirect role which may have played into the hands of terrorists
through questionable pardons for convicted and suspect terrorists,
and the elease from federal detention in the early 1990s of persons
from El Salvador and Honduras who were suspected of committing terrorists
acts against those governments.
Mr. Clinton's administration also played
a key role in the commutation of sentences for 11 convicted Puerto
Rican gang members in 1999, and the last minute 2001 pardon for
Susan Rosenberg, former Weather Underground member who had
a role in the 1981 armed robbery in Nyack, NJ, of a Brink¹s truck
in which 2 policemen were killed.
In that case, Ms. Rosenberg had been captured
while in the act of assisting in the unloading of 780 pounds of
dynamite and 14 weapons.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombers
entered the US on student visas without security checks. Of the
19 terrorists responsible for the September 11th attacks, 15 were
in the US with expired visas.
After NATO intervention in Kosovo, about
20,000 Kosovars, many with suspected drug and terrorist connections,
were allowed to immigrate without background investigations.
Former President Clinton's political influence
on terrorist activities cannot be ignored. Irreconcilable laws and
edicts made it simultaneously permissible to overlook illegal and
terrorist activities by those requesting visas while forbidding
government security organizations, the FBI and CIA, to utilize such
individuals as informants.
A clear case, is that of the FBI. It was
instructed not to recruit informants in communities of protected
minorities even though some members were believed to have connections
to drugs and terrorism. At least one radical group member allied
with bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Oklahoma City Federal
Courthouse bombing, yet these leads were dropped.
Clinton preferred that Timothy McVeigh
and Terry Nichols be de[icted in the government's action as representatives
of a vast right-wing conspiracy. And, when Sudan offered
up bin Laden in 1995, then President Clinton reneged rather than
confront the racially sensitive problem of prosecuting him.
Unresponsiveness to previous terrorist
attacks by the Clinton administration did not go un-noticed by the
9-11 terrorists.
After the 1993 attack on the WTC that killed
6 Americans and injured many others nothing was done in retaliation.
And as for the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers military
residence in Saudi Arabia where 16 servicemen were killed, still
Mr. Clinton held back.
Finally, Clinton staged an ineffective missile
attack when the 263 lives were lost in an attack on US embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Mr. Clinton, on his way out of the White
House, did nothing when the USS Cole was bombed in 2000.
In response to Mr. Clinton's repoted comments
this week, concerned citizens are calling on Attorney General John
Ashcroft at the Department
of Justice for an investigation into foreign
terrorist activity.
[Editor's
Note: For a detailed analysis of public opinion on the 9-11 attacks
go the the People
& The Press -- Pew Center Report. William Fielder lives
in Peachtree City, GA.]
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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Friday December 7, 2001
I Have A Dream
That I Am An American
What's
Wrong With This Picture?
By Tony Artero, Bureau Chief
AGANA (Guam) - - “In God
We Trust” is the founders' motto of the United States. And on
Guam, we still trust the US Congress to correct the mistakes of
the past. Yet, the American Dream of economic freedom, prosperity,
and good health remains beyond reach for American citizens on Guam.
Remember Pearl Harbor!
Despite all the hard work and personal
sacrifices made, economic freedom is denied citizens on Guam. Conditions
here have become intolerable. For decades, Americans on Guam have
endured the denial of economic freedom and are subjected to intolerable
and inefficient government services, often worse than those in third
world countries.
More than 50 years after the close of WWII
Guam still lacks modern land use standards. Development has always
been helter skelter with some land converted from military deployment
and finding its way into the control of elected officials and their
political cronies by way of vote deals to the chosen few at the
time of elections.
Worse still, substandard concrete electrical
power poles create dangerous traffic and safety problems for our
citizens. Frequent water and power outages are health and safety
hazards, as well, caused by nonexistent preventive maintenance.
On Guam, rats flourish on sidewalks and
in alley ways as they feast on garbage, which is sometimes left
out for days before trash is picked up by municipalities.
Guam's school system still follows the
archaic Organic Act. Under it, responsibility for school
administration is in the hands of one official. In consequence,
the school system and its transportation of students is beset with
loggerheads, inefficiencies, and funding shortages caused by political
interference and misuse of public funds.
Under the present administration of public
schools here, we have been shocked to witness badly needed new public
school textbooks used instead for landfill dumping.
In the face of inadequate and incompetent
leadership in the public school sector, we have now been forced
to be witnesses to the US military community establishing a separate
military school system on the local bases.
In the face of these failures of government,
is it any wonder that many citizens of Guam have left the island?
In the wake of the recent departures of Guam's families, open corruption
has become the backbone of the underground economy, openly
referred to as the “pare” system and the “chinchule.”
The underlying weakness of the social structure
and the economy coupled with Guam’s blurred legal and political
status make it dependent upon and completely subject to the whims
of the Congress of the United States.
U.S. policies have been deceptive, one
sided in more ways than one, and counterproductive at best. A good
example of detrimental impact on the lives of Guamanian families
and the economy of the island were the forced and excessive land
takings after WWII.
The land was confiscated without due
process and no fair and just compensation was ever paid
to its owners. That private property has not been restored nor returned
to its former owners.
By that action, Guam was instantly transformed
from self-sufficiency to dependency. Following the close of WWII,
under the catchall banner of “national security interest”
the necessity of the actions taken by Congress and the US military
during the "national emergency" became the new"status
quo" for Guam.
The Monroe Doctrine (1823) was cited
by Congress in 1944, and Guam’s strategic location in the Pacific
made Guam a perfect pawn in the Pacific Strategy for transforming
America "the sleeping giant" into an icon of super
military power. It still is discussed in military circles in that
tone.
Even the military's strategic readiness
on Guam would play a roll in the Attack on Terrorism following the
September 11, World Trade Center and Pentagon destruction.
These attacks on the Continental United
States brings to mind a statement of General Douglas MacArthur when
he warned, “There is no security, only opportunity.”
Someone here on Guam also had something
to say about security, “Standing up against bad government is the
greatest form of patriotism.” Let’s face it. The Organic
Act of Guam is obviously a failure . Here on Guam, we believe
in human rights, just laws, and equality. We as American Citizens,
are still asking, with hope in our hearts, "Give Guam a
chance!"
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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Sunday October 11, 2001
Bill Clinton Chattering
Ass
"The people who died represent, in my view, not only the
best of America, but the best of the world that I worked
hard for eight years to build."
From The Weekly
Standard
WASHINGTON - - Last Wednesday,
former President William J. Clinton returned to the guest speaker's
podium at Georgetown University and proceeded to oppress an audience
with his thoughtless comments on what he called "international
terrorism concerns".
Mr. Clinton apparently has learned that:
Osama bin Laden's mass murders at the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon are a direct and deliberate assault on the
Clinton legacy, specifically. After all, the former president
points out -- "The people who died represent, in my view,
not only the best of America, but the best of the world that I worked
hard for eight years to build."
Makes you even madder than you were before,
doesn't it? And Mr. Clinton adds another accusation -- "Indeed,
in the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem,
they ... proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim
on the Temple Mount."
Later, he said, "... in the United
States, some similar stuff happened: slavery and dispossession of
the Indians and Jim Crow and whatnot. Why, "even today ... we still
have the occasional hate crime rooted in race, religion, or sexual
orientation."
So, according to Mr. Clinton, don't start
feeling all superior or anything, because "terror has a long
history." There will be a happy ending, because a certain former
president was tireless in preparing us for just such a crisis as
we now confront.
The voice of experience siad, "In the
years that I served, career law enforcement officials working with
our intelligence services and others and people around the world
prevented many, many more terrorist attacks than were successful."
And he said, he "...worked hard to strengthen the biological
weapons convention and to pass the chemical weapons convention,"
and " to begin to build our stock of vaccines and antibiotics
and to support an organized civilian preparedness," and "tripled
our investment in counter-terrorism."
Comment
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- Deep Background Report
-
Thursday November 1, 2001
Osama's Money
He was 17th child of 52 born to
a one eyed, illiterate immigrant to Saudi Arabia who formed a construction
venture and was
awarded contracts by the Royal Family to restore
religious sites at Mecca and Medina.
By Dave Francis, Foreign Correspondent
St. PETERSBURG (Russia) - -
Osama bin Ladin is on everyone's a-list these days. He is the closest
thing we have seen to a James Bond villain in my lifetime. He is
an ultra-rich, secretive head of a worldwide organization of terror
with unseen tentacles seemingly everywhere and nowhere.
His appearance, a 6'4 inch 160 lb. Bearded
boogeyman is as exotically absurd as anything we Americans could
have dreamed up. If Hollywood had invented bin Ladin, it might have
made a very good movie. What about him though? While secretive,
there is information out there, if you want to look hard enough.
Born Osama bin Mohammed bin Ladin in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia in 1957, reportedly the 17th child of 52 born to Mohammed
bin Ladin, a one eyed, illiterate, Yemeni who came to Saudi Arabia
as a laborer and through perseverance and discipline, willed himself
to great wealth. Mohammed bin Ladin came to Saudi Arabia in the
1930s, and toiled for literally pennies a day. He worked and saved,
eventually founding a construction company.
His company gained contracts at first by
viciously undercutting prices, and eventually won favor with the
royal family.
The bin Ladin company became the country's
unofficial builder, and was awarded the contracts to restore the
religious sites at Mecca and Medina. At one time, during economic
difficulties for the Saudi royal family, Mohammed bin Ladin reportedly
loaned money to King Faisal to help them through hard times.
Reports are that the elder bin Ladin paid
the salaries of Saudi civil servants for six months. The Yemeni
laborer, who had struggled to get to Saudi Arabia, who died in an
airplane crash in 1968, still signing his name by making an X, had
truly arrived. Osama's mother was the 10th wife of Mohammed.
Unlike Mohammed's other wives, she was
22 years old, educated, and refused to wear the traditional veil
typical to Islamic women. She was Syrian, or Palestinian, depending
on whom you ask, but she is universally described as the least favored
among the wives, and Osama was their only child.
She was referred to as 'The Slave Wife'
by the rest of the household. Osama was a quiet, well behaved, boy.
He was described by his private tutor as kind and considerate. He
was a good student, and was not at all adverse to western culture
as a teen.
He went by the nickname of Sammy,
and on frequent trips to Geneva, was seen sporting silk shirts and
bell-bottoms. Bin Ladin finished high school in Jetta in 1974 and
began college at King Abdul Aziz University.
He married his first wife, a Syrian, related
to his mother, at the age of 17. During these formative years of
schooling, one of the influences that appear to have left a deep
impression on bin Ladin are his many contacts with pilgrims to the
holy lands.
The bin Ladin family hosted literally thousands
of these pilgrims, and it can be safely assumed that their devotion
impressed the young Osama. After the death of Osama's father, the
family was run by the elder brother, Salim bin Ladin, who like his
father, died in a plane crash. Just outside San Antonio Texas in
1988, Salim's light aircraft hit a power line, and the second bin
Ladin head-of-household was killed.
It has been reported that Salim was flying
a BAC 1-11 purchased by Prince Mohammed bin Fahd, and that the plane
had been used in secret meetings in Paris with Iranians, regarding
relations with the USA. No firm evidence has been uncovered to substantiate
these rumors, which are very widespread in the intelligence community.
It was during this time that Osama became
fascinated with Islamic fundamentalism, and the extremism it sometimes
fosters. Bin Ladin began to fall under the spell of a Palestinian
born, Jordanian academic named Abdallah Azzam. Azzam, the founder
of the terrorist organization Hamas gave speeches, was on the radio,
and distributed cassettes throughout the Arab world, and bin Ladin
became a devotee.
It was the culmination of a dream for bin
Ladin later when, in Pakistan, he would work hand in hand with Azzam
to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He also made useful
contacts in other areas, striking up a crucial friendship with Prince
Turki ibn Faisal, a young royal and the future chief of Saudi intelligence
services.
These contacts may have been serving bin
Ladin well until the present day. In 1979, Osama graduated college
with a degree in civil engineering, and he began postgraduate work
as a terrorist.
It was in 1979 that the Soviets invaded
Afghanistan, and the following spring, Osama, aged 22 went to Pakistan
to help the resistance. Basing himself in Peshawar, often called
the Dodge City of Central Asia, he met his political mentor Azzam.
They set up a support group there called
the "House of the Faithful", and used it as a base for training,
equipping and deploying fighters in nearby Afghanistan. While Osama
was on the road to Saudi Arabia a lot, raising funds for the mujahadin,
(CIA estimates are in the range of 50 million per year was raised
by donations to bin Ladin.) he was 'one of the boys' when in Peshawar.
Osama stayed in the Spartan quarters provided
at House of the Faithful, sleeping 12 to a room on mats on the floor.
Later, bin Ladin traveled to Afghanistan and joined in battles.
In brutal fighting in Jalamabad, showing no regard for his personal
safety, many Afghan veterans remember him fighting shoulder to shoulder
against Soviet soldiers.
Bin Ladin served in Afghanistan in a combat
capacity from 1986 until 1989. He earned the respect of his men
with personal bravery, and their loyalty with generosity. The stories
of bin Ladin sending money to Afghan fighters families after their
deaths are rampant.
If only a fraction are true, bin Ladin
demonstrated with his generosity a concern for his men that would
do any commander proud. Reports of bin Ladin receiving CIA support
while in Afghanistan are taken as conventional wisdom. It isn't
as simple as that however.
It appears that, oddly enough, there was
very little if any contact with bin Ladin in a direct role. Bin
Ladin concentrated his efforts on recruiting assistance from the
Arab world, and even though his family had, and still has close
ties to the US, including it's political and military establishment,
no hard evidence can be found tying bin Ladin directly to American
sources.
This doesn't mean they weren't there, but
you would expect some real evidence to have become apparent, and
it hasn't. One thing he did do was build contacts in Pakistan that
have served him well, and continue to serve him today. Pakistan's
intelligence service, the ISI, is brutal, radical, and unstable.
There are factions inside who have allegiances
all over the globe, and not just a few are allies of bin Ladins.
(Recent reports in US newspapers say that bin Ladin received nuclear
materials from Pakistan, and two Pakistani's have fallen under suspicion
for possibly helping al Qaida construct a nuclear device. One of
these men is the father of Pakistan's nuclear program.) Osama returned
to Saudi Arabia a hero.
He was widely hailed and roundly cheered
as he hit the circuit in Riyadh. Things didn't sit right with Osama
in the kingdom though, and he made his criticisms of the royal family
known.
A lot of his anger may stem from the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait, and the house of Saud's rebuff of his offer
to help. In 1990, Osama went to the royal family in Saudi Arabia
with an offer to outfit and lead 30,000 men in a battle to oust
Saddam from Kuwait and secure Saudi Arabian oilfields from the threat
Saddam's armies represented.
Weighing all it's options, Crown Prince
Abdullah turned bin Ladin down flat. The prospect of having a battle
hardened army of radicals, loyal to Osama bin Ladin brought together
for the purpose of defending the regime seemed like a risky venture,
and so Abdullah turned to Washington for assistance instead.
Not long after this offer, Osama bin Ladin
was placed under house arrest, and remained a prisoner until he
was invited to come to Sudan by Hassan al-Turabi, the de facto leader
of Sudan at the time.
Osama went, and took his engineering degree
with him. Along with him went his four wives, his children, and
several hundred Afghan veteran bodyguards led by Saifu al-Hasnain,
a 35 year-old Egyptian. Sudan needed help, and the industrious bin
Ladin helped.
He built roads, buildings, and at the same
time reached out globally to terrorist groups in Chechnya, Jordan,
and other affected areas. In Baku, Azerbaijan he began an aid agency,
similar to the one he had run in Peshawar, but more international
in scope.
In London he started the Advice and Reform
Committee, a radical organization, advocating overthrow of the house
of Saud. His company, Ladin International built, among other things,
a 700-mile highway, and was given the concession for export of sesame
seeds. (Sudan is the third largest producer of sesame seeds worldwide.)
During this time, bin Ladin had an office,
went to work, had board meetings, etc. His radical views were getting
more and more in the way though. In 1994, the Saudis, increasingly
disturbed by bin Ladin's radicalism, revoked his citizenship, and
his presence was interfering with Sudan's desire to join the civilized
world.
Bin Ladin was becoming more and more a
hindrance, and the Sudanese tried to hand him over to the US, in
an effort to curry favor in the west. By 1996, Osama was expelled
from Sudan, and he made his way to Afghanistan.
In October of that year, we find bin Ladin
in Kabul, making contact with the mayor, Mohammed Rabbani.
It was through Rabbani that bin Ladin would
begin forging his ties with Mullah Omar and the rest of the Taliban
leadership.
It was also in 1996 that a bombing occurred
in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 U.S. servicemen. In another
odd twist to the story, it was the Saudi binLadin Group, a construction
firm, headed by Osama's older brother that won the contract for
reconstruction. By early 1997, bin Ladin was well on his way to
earning his place with the Taliban when they, the Taliban, discovered
what they said was a Saudi plot to assassinate bin Ladin.
The civil war in Afghanistan was going
well for the Taliban, and they controlled about two thirds of the
country. They invited bin Ladin to move to Kandahar for his own
security. Bin Ladin moved into an old Soviet base close to Kandahar
airport.
He improved his standing with the Taliban
funding huge military purchases, building mosques and buying cars
for the leadership. He built a new residence for Mullah Omar and
his family on the outskirts of the city, among other things. He
imported a fleet of over 3000 used Toyota's and gave them to Taliban
soldiers, so their families could earn a living. This is the kind
of thing that earned him great loyalty.
On August the 7th, 1998 there was an explosion
in Nairobi. The driver of the truck in Nairobi, a Saudi named Azzam
had gone to meet Allah. A light brown Toyota pickup truck was vaporized
when the huge bomb it had been carrying had exploded. 213 people
were killed and 4600 wounded as the US embassy, a secretarial college,
and an office block were destroyed in the blast.
A few minutes later, a second bomb, at
the US embassy in Tanzania, exploded, killing 11. In Nairobi, one
of the suicide bombers had second thoughts. Mohamed Rashid Daoud
al-Owhali, a 22-year-old Saudi had jumped from the truck and run,
later telling the FBI he had been handpicked for the mission by
bin Ladin while training in Afghanistan.
Thirteen days later, the US sent volleys
of cruise missiles into Afghanistan, mainly destroying the empty
tents George Bush has since derided. According to a published report,
"Three months after the missile strikes two luxury jets landed at
Kandahar air base. One brought Prince Turki al Faisal, bin Ladin's
student friend and the head of Saudi Arabia's security services.
The second was empty. It was there to take
bin Ladin back to Riyadh. Prince Turki, who had been crucial in
getting millions of dollars of official aid for the Taliban, went
straight to Mullah Omar's residence where a magnificent lunch had
been laid out. The prince began to lecture the Taliban leader about
his ingratitude to his former benefactors.
In the middle of his tirade Omar took a
water jug from an attendant and emptied it over his head. 'I nearly
lost my temper,' he told the astonished prince. 'Now I am calm.
I will ask you a question and then you can leave. How long has the
royalty of Saudi Arabia been the hired help of the Americans?' Lunch
went uneaten and the second plane returned to Riyadh empty."
It was shortly after this demonstration
of loyalty from Omar that bin Ladin pledged his loyalty to the Taliban
leader, and publicly recognized him as the 'Leader of the Faithful."
Mullah Omar, the one eyed cleric, and leader of the Taliban, would
now play the spiritual father to Osama bin Ladin. (Omar reportedly
lost his other eye in a firefight with the Soviets.
It is widely told that when hit and wounded
by a shell fragment in the eye, Omar cut out the 'offending eye'
and continued to fight.) Published reports in Europe say that a
senior al Qaeda official detained here has begun to talk.
He tells the story of the aftermath of
the missile attack on the camps. Reports say that China paid several
million dollars to bin Ladin for access to the unexploded missiles.
According to the Pakistani newspaper Ausaf, in a report filed 4
months after the August assault, it was claimed that al Qaeda found
40 of the 75 missiles the US had fired unexploded at the sites.
Lasid Ben Heni, a 32-year-old Libyan arrested
in Munich is accused by Italian officials of being a liaison for
al Qaeda members based in Germany and Italy. At a meeting in March
in an apartment in Milan, Ben Heni met with Sami Ben Khemais Essid
(alias "Saber") and recounted his experiences in Afghanistan, visiting
bin Ladins camps.
Italian police, long used to battling the
mafia on its soil had the apartment wired. "Perhaps the Americans
are convinced by the bombardment of the sheikh's [Bin Ladin's] training
centres," Ben Heni says. "For them, it was a victory. But, in fact,
it was a defeat because the majority of the missiles didn't even
explode."
The transcript continues, "With these weapons,
he [Bin Ladin] has boosted his financial resources. From every part
of the world businessmen who hate Americans have come to study American
missile strategy.
In particular, businessmen have come from
China. He works a great deal with China. He's got good relations
with them. You see them and you ask 'But what are they doing here?'
In the end, you understand that they work for the sheikh and that
they came to study these missiles. Thanks to the money that comes
from these studies from outside, he created the army of mohajedin
headed by Omar Zayan (or Zaghan) in Chechnya".
Later in the tape, Ben Heni says: "When
[Bin Ladin] saw that the Afghan people, who were dying of hunger,
passed missiles to sheikh Messaoud, he bargained with the Chinese
and sold them to them for an enormous sum - I think $10m dollars
- but only after the sheikh had studied them". Bin Ladin has also
given the Chechens 2 tons of pure heroin, with a street value estimated
as several hundred million dollars.
Now, inextricably linked to the Taliban
in Afghanistan, with Islamic revolution worldwide on his mind, bin
Ladin settled down to the life of your average urban terrorist.
When not studying the Koran, or supervising the training and recruitment
of recruits, security has been his main concern.
Now wary of electronic communications,
bin Ladin has adopted the ages old system of runners, trusted aides
who receive his messages then carry them through the mountain passes
to emissaries with the outside world.
The image of him sitting somewhere in a
mountain cave, computers humming in Batman-esque splendor are just
wrong. For a long time, bin Ladin has been increasingly isolated
from the outside world.
According to Russian intelligence sources,
there are more than 50 al Qaeda strongholds identifiable in Afghanistan,
and bin Ladin has shuttled between them for a long time. It is known
he used a base southwest of Kandahar, close to where the US Rangers
attacked recently, as a headquarters.
Up to the minute reports are making it
seem more probable that al Qaeda has some sort of nuclear capability.
Al Qaeda member Jamal al-Fadl said in federal court last winter
that he had helped Osama bin Ladin's operatives arrange meetings
aimed at acquiring black market fissile materials, probably from
former Soviet states.
According to further testimony by al-Fadl,
the plans fell through, but it is increasingly believed that even
Russian mafia members may have compromised Pakistan's nuclear program.
Washington is now openly stating that bin Ladin may have achieved
a 'nuclear suitcase' bomb. There are secret plans, in use today,
to protect the President and senior administration officials in
case of a nuclear blast.
The US has developed nuclear warheads as
light as 60 pounds, and it is believed the Soviets had successfully
produced smaller devices, designed to be used by Spetznatz forces
against NATO troops in the event of a conflict.
These smaller devices, known as 'backpack
bombs' first came to US attention in the 90's. Revelations by a
former Soviet officer in 1998 are frightening.
In a CIA 'blue border' report, (That classification
means it contains material from a foreign source of the greatest
sensitivity.) the details were presented to then President Clinton
and his National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. Government officials
are quoted as saying, "The report was so secret, the two men were
only allowed to initial the document before it was returned to the
CIA's custody."
Berger's office has refused comment on the matter stating that no
comment could be made because it was an intelligence issue. Various
accounts, not the least of which come from Soviet defector General
Aleksander Lebed, the former head of Russian State Security, say
that 48 of the devices are unaccounted for.
In testimony before Congress in 1997, Lebed
said there were bombs, made to look like suitcases, and one person
in a 30 minute time span could explode them. The AP reported that
the Czech government has acknowledged that Mohammed Atta met with
an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague.
``We can confirm now that during his ...
trip to the Czech Republic he did have a contact with an officer
of the Iraqi intelligence, Mr. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani,''
Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said. William F. Buckley, the
former CIA agent, conservative icon, and founder of National review
has suggested that the USA ask our allies in the Islamic world to
sign and distribute the following statement. "We, political leaders
of the community of Islamic nations, reject such terrorism as was
practiced on September 11, 2001.
The men who took this action in the name
of Allah were impostors who profaned the word of the prophet." Not
more would need to be said, but that Declaration of Islamic Doctrine
and Modern Terrorism, with names and titles of world leaders, should
appear everywhere, in parliaments and mosques, subway stations.
And airports.
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Wednesday October 31, 2001
All Bets Are Off
Another unexplained death
after flu symptoms
experienced and Kathy checked into the hospital!
By Staff Researchers
WASHINGTON - - Add one more
unexplained death to a growing mystery. Now its Kathy T. Nguyen
, age 61. Ms. Nguyen died early today, three days after checking
herself into the hospital and being diagnosed as the city’s first
case of the inhaled form of the disease, Lennox Hill Hospital spokeswoman
Ann Silverman said.
An autopsy was being conducted to verify
the cause of death. Nguyen had been too sick to help investigators
who are trying to find the source of her infection by reconstructing
her social contacts, her commute and her on-the-job routines at
the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital on the East Side.
The possibility that mail was responsible
for Nguyen’s infection has not been discounted. She worked as a
stock room clerk in a basement that until recently also housed a
mail-sorting operation for the hospital.
Spokesperson Dr. Anthony Fauci, at the
National Institute of Health told reporters today that preliminary
environmental tests at the hospital had found no sign of anthrax
spores."... public health officials were confronting the possibility
that she was infected outside the workplace," he said.
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Tuesday October 23, 2001
Communism's Comeback?
These people have had power,
wielded power, and lost it a decade ago.
They could be a dangerous lot !
By Dave Francis, Foreign Correspondent.
St. PETERSBURG (Russia) -- Communism's
is trying to make a comeback here in Russia, with Zyuganov, the
leftist hard-liner in the Duma (Their version of the Senate.) pushing
hard to keep Russia from involving itself too much in the war effort
with it's former foe, the USA. Communists have been sent to the
streets carrying the old red flag, armbands, pictures of everyone
from Karl Marx, Stalin, and of course, the ever present Lenin. The
average Russian considers these people an anachronism, and more
of a comedy than any serious threat to the countries stability,
but they did get over 20% of the vote in the last election.
This is NOT the same as the communist party
in the USA. These people have had power, wielded power, and had
it wrenched from their little red palms about a decade ago. They
could be a dangerous lot.
All the more reason to respect the brave
job Vladimir Putin is doing in supporting the US in the war effort.
Putin understands this enemy. He is former KGB, and besides knowing
where the bodies are buried, he may have buried a few.
Incidentally, he strongly advised President
Bush against allowing any moderates from the Taliban to have a hand
in the new government in Afghanistan.
"There are no moderates in the Taliban."
Putin explained simply.
It is very important that the US not get stuck in a long, drawn
out affair in Afghanistan. If the war on terrorism is going to last
a long time, it needs to be a war with ever-changing fronts, filled
with fresh victories to make people feel secure in our resolve.
It is because of the danger that governments
like Vladimir Putin's face that we need to make this war one where
there is an obvious victor.
Anything less could lead to some horrible
consequences. Lest we forget, a lot of large conflicts have started
over small, insignificant areas. Does anyone remember World War
I ?
With instability all over, and hostility
breaking out even worse in Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines, and
maybe even China, decisive action is needed on the part of the US
to let people know they can find safety in our camp.
On the Russian Mafia front; I was laughed
at the other day in a closed door meeting with 4 members of different
Russian Mafia groups. The four, all ethnic Russians explained to
me I was wrong about Iraq.
"Iraq couldn't make anthrax that good.
They could barely produce liquid form." Said one tall Russian
who I will call Ivan as he waved his cigarette across the table
as he spoke. "The Iraqis are idiots. They would all die from
exposure if they tried to produce high quality anthrax. This anthrax
is Russian!"
Now, I have lived in Russia, and I have
lived in Texas, and there is a certain similarity. Russians have
that same, 'Everything is bigger
.' Attitude that Texans often
.
No, ALWAYS exhibit. Knowing this, I was skeptical. I assumed he
was bragging. (What a world, huh? Bragging about good anthrax
.)
"Maybe the Iraqis produced it with the help of the Russian
scientists that went to work there after 911" I asked.
"No. This anthrax is from a supply
bought by bin Ladin several years ago in Kazakhstan." He explained,
leaning forward. "The anthrax is the same they were making
in Sverdlovsk."
In 1979, there was an accident at a chemical
weapons plant in Sverdlovsk and 66 people died of anthrax exposure.
Vodka was poured, Ivan sat back, eyed,
then downed his glass with a couple of hard swallows. I followed
suit. Munching a cucumber, Ivan explained, "It goes all the
way up to the top. Do you know who was the top man in Sverdlovsk?"
"No," I replied, "who?"
Pouring another round of vodka for the five of us, Ivan looked conspiratorially
at the others, then at me and said, "Boris Yeltsin. He was
the main contact. Everything went through him. Your Mafia had your
mayors and governors, we had our president."
"How did it work?" I asked. "Easy.
After the accident at Sverdlovsk, they closed down the plant. They
said they took all the anthrax to Vozrozhdeniye Island, but they
didn't. The plant moved to Kazakhstan, and so did the anthrax. In
sealed containers. Bin Ladin bought it there, through an intermediary
in Kazakhstan."
'That's that?" I asked? "Business"
responded Igor, shrugging his shoulders in a way I have learned
to recognize. "Don't forget, Tarzan was selling a submarine,
why couldn't Mogilovich sell some germs?"
Tarzan,(Ludwig Fainberg) is the nickname of a Russian
mobster in jail in Miami who was caught while attempting to sell
a submarine to a Colombian crime cartel. A real, honest to goodness
submarine. He had 'acquired' it through channels with the Russian
military.
In my conversations, these guys bragged
that it was the mafia running Russia, since Putin is former KGB,
and most of the muscle-men in the current Russian mafia are also
ex-KGB. "The truth is," I was told, "there is no
such thing as retirement from our business. If you are KGB, or Mafia,
you don't retire. You are always KGB or Mafia."
If you ever wonder how good a friends the
Saudis really are, there is a report out of South Africa that bin
Ladin and the former head of Saudi security. Turki al-Faycal was
ousted last month as head of Saudi security, and sources say that
one of the reasons are his contacts with bin Ladin. King Fahd of
Saudi Arabia has recently become convinced that instead of actively
looking for bin Ladin, Turki was actually feeding him information
from the Saudi intelligence services to help him maintain himself,
and his al Qaida network.
These same Saudi's won't allow us to use
the command and control center we built there to help defend their
country. Well, the good news is, Russia is now selling 500,000 barrels
of oil a day more than they were before all this happened. Anyone
look at your gas prices lately?
They have fallen since this war started.
The Saudis may find that we don't need them as much as we used to.
That would make them the REAL loser in all this.
Contacts with Mossad tell me that the Israeli's
are expecting a biological attack, probably in western Europe, and
it should come soon. The same day I got that news, I was informed
by the State Dept. that there is an alert put out in Russia for
a possible biological attack. Part of the long-term information
apparently came from telephone taps in Milan on a Tunisian national,
Essid Sami Ben Khemais.
Khemis has lived in Milan since March 1998
after completing two years of training at camps run by bin Ladin.
Iran has pulled it's troops out of Lebanon,
ending 15 years of military support to the area. Some in the intelligence
community take this action to mean that Iran may be expecting US
marines to move into the area in order to destroy some of the terrorist
training camps there.
This quiet withdrawal on the part of the
normally boisterous Iran has the intelligence community thinking
that Iran may be convinced that Uncle Sam is serious this time.
If so, it is widely believed that the Iranians want to do all they
can to avoid armed conflict with armed US soldiers.
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Sunday October 20, 2001
Bare Bones Truth
About Anthrax & Smallpox Risks!
By Howard Hobbs, Ph.D. President
Valley Press Media Network.
WASHINGTON --
Why is Anthrax a threat? Anthrax spores are
the top choice in biological weapons for "germ warfare."
Anthrax is effective as a biological weapon because: Anthrax
is almost always fatal if not treated early.
Spores can be produced in large quantities
using only the basic knowledge of biology. Spores can be stored
for decades without losing potency. Spores can be easily spread
in the air by missiles, rockets, artillery, aerial bombs & sprayers.
Everyone now knows there are potential
adversaries developing it as a weapon. At least seven of our potential
adversaries have worked to develop an offensive biological warfare
capability using Anthrax. Iraq has admitted to producing
and weaponizing anthrax. The Former Soviet Union produced
hundreds of tons of weapons-grade anthrax spores.
There is no indication of exposure. There
is no cloud or color. There is no smell. There is no taste.
In fact, there is no indication of an attack
when dispersed by aerosol spray. Worst still, there is no effective
treatment for unvaccinated victims of inhalational anthrax.
Antibiotics will suppress infection only
if administered early after exposure -- usually within the first
24 - 48 hours.
By the time symptoms develop, it is highly
likely death will occur despite the best efforts of modern medical
science. 99% lethal to unprotected individuals.
Even worse is the threat of a Smallpox weapn.
Researchers at St. Louis University are now studying how to protect
the population from a disease that had been wiped off the medical
charts. Smallpox was declared eradicated from the world in
1980.
The last known cases were isolated in 1977.
Routine vaccinations ceased, and production of the vaccine was discontinued.
But two decades later, researchers are interested in studying the
deadly virus once again.
Spurred by concerns of bioterrorism and
biowarfare, scientists are researching how to multiply the remaining
vaccine in case of an attack. "Russia and the United States have
the virus," says Sharon Frey, MD, associate professor of internal
medicine at the university.
"The concern is that it might be in other
countries that support bioterrorism." Anthrax and Smallpox are
the leading potential agents of bioterrorism, says Frey, who specializes
in infectious diseases.
Only military personnel and those who work
with the variola virus, which causes smallpox, are immune to the
disease. Frey, who is leading the study, says that by diluting the
vaccine, called Dryvax, she hopes to stretch the current
supply by 10- to 100-fold. An estimated 15 million doses of the
vaccine exist in the U.S., according to the CDC.
"The population is 270 million," Frey tells
WebMD. "Hardly would there be enough to immunize an entire nation."
Last week, the CDC released a strategic plan to protect the country
from attacks with biological agents such as smallpox.
The plan calls for preparedness, planning,
detection, and emergency response. Biological weapon programs have
been discovered in Iraq and the former Soviet Union, the CDC reports.
This threat calls for collaboration among
health professionals, the creation of a diagnostic network, and
the stockpiling of vaccines for agents like Smallpox that can be
easily disseminated and cause high mortality rates, according to
the agency.
The government is working on a permanent
solution, but in the interim Frey is preparing a temporary defense.
"This is a stop-gap measure as we work on a new vaccine and get
it manufactured," says Barbara Reynolds, CDC spokeswoman. "If a
bioterrorist attack does occur, then we can mitigate the number
of deaths or illnesses."
As a once-common virus, smallpox killed
about 20% of its victims. Survivors were permanently scarred, and
some were blinded. Smallpox symptoms, including a high fever
and pus-filled scabs, do not become apparent until about two weeks
after the disease is contracted.
Unlike Anthrax, Smallpox is
contagious, allowing it to be passed easily through a simple sneeze,
experts say.
"It would continue to spread once in the
environment.There is a potential for a large epidemic, even a pandemic,"
Frey told, reporters.
[Editor's
Note: Go to these links for more on Anthrax
or on
Smallpox risks.]
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Thursday
October 18, 2001
Germ Warfare
Back With
Vengeance!
By Amy Williams, Staff Writer
WASHINGTON --
In America's Secret War Against Biological
Weapons, Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad
of The New York Times uncover the truth about biological
weapons and show why bio-warfare -- and bio-terrorism
are fast becoming our worst national nightmare.
Among the startling revelations is that
the CIA secretly built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed germ
bomb, alarming some officials who felt the work pushed to the
limits of what is permitted by the global treaty banning germ arms.
It is revealed that the Pentagon embarked on a secret effort to
make Anthrax a weapons-grade option.
The Soviet Union has a massive hidden program
to produce biological weapons, including new charges that germs
were tested on humans. Moscow's scientists made an untraceable germ
that instructs the body to destroy itself.
The Pentagon's chaotic efforts to improvise
defenses against Iraq's biological weapons during the 1991 Persian
Gulf War.
In a religious cult in Oregon in the 1980s
an experiment went wrong and hundreds of Americans were made sick
in a bio-terrorism attack that the government played down to avoid
panic and copycat strikes. Plans by the U.S. military in the 1960s
to attack Cuba with germ weapons.
A small group of scientists and senior officials
persuaded President Bill Clinton to launch a controversial multibillion-dollar
program to detect a germ attack on U.S. soil and to aid its victims
-- a program that, so far, has not provided any protection.
Based on hundreds of interviews with scientists
and senior officials, including President Clinton, as well as on
recently declassified documents and on-site reporting from the former
Soviet Union's sinister bio-weapons labs, the Book on Germs
shows us bio-warriors past and present at work at their trade.
There is the American scientist who devoted
his professional life to perfecting biological weapons, and the
Nobel laureate who helped pioneer the new biology of genetically
modified germs and is now trying to stop its misuse.
Most of today's Anthrax spores are
the product of a former Soviet scientist who made enough plague,
smallpox, and anthrax to kill everyone on Earth and whose expertise
is now in great demand by terrorists, rogue states, and legitimate
research labs alike.
Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Soviet
Union, and the United Kingdom have worked on Anthrax as an
offensicve weapon for killing the enemy with the anthrax bacteria
converted to dormant spores that resist heat, disinfectants, sunlight,
and other environmental factors. These Anthrax spores, when processed
further, can be converted into deadly toxins that can be sprayed
directly on enemies. The botulinum toxin paralyzes muscles,
collapses the lungs. Death is instantaneous.
[Editor's
Note: Read about the New Germ Warfare in the stunning new book:
Germs
America's Secret War Against Biological Weapons By Judith
Miller, Stephen Engelberg, William J. Broad.]
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Tuesday, October 16, 2001
To Silence Dissent
Exert complete despotic control
shut down newspapers
disarm the citizen
then cancel elections?
By Andrew Ping, Staff Writer
SACRAMENTO -- One of the first
things the Taliban did when it took control of Afghanistan was disarm
its people. The attempt wasn't entirely successful, of course, but
leaders knew that the only way to exert complete despotic control
was to disarm their citizens.
You wouldn't think Governor Davis has much
in common with the Taliban, but shockingly, he's working hard to
disarm Californians.
In a painfully short-sighted and misguided
decision, Governor Davis signed a bill that will make it much harder
for citizens of California to legally buy handguns.
Melting any guns not on California's "safe
list" this January wasn't enough. Now to own a gun, a written test
will be required, a thumbprint taken, a "safety certificate" (at
a cost of some $45) will be mandatory, and a potential gun owner
will have to demonstrate to a "safety instructor" that they know
how to operate a handgun.
Will these legal hoops actually make it
harder for criminals to obtain guns or keep us safer? These measures
absolutely will not do anything but keep guns out of the hands of
those who would use them responsibly.
Let's face it, those who buy guns legally
aren't the ones who use them criminally. One must already register
a new gun at purchase, and pass a background check.
People in their right minds don't then
go out and use a weapon obtained in such a manner illegally. The
hidden purpose of such legislation is to disarm citizens, to take
from them arms and ordinance and then to subject them to the terrors
of outlaws and whims of the state.
Keeping guns out of the hands of citizens
might be effective in a nation that imposed strict gun controls
early, such as England or Canada. Even in these countries, however,
criminals regularly obtain automatic weapons and use them.
All of California's gun control hasn't
stopped gangs from killing, criminals from terrorizing the innocent
or our children from killing each other. The only thing that will
stop that is the instruction of the public by responsible gun owners
in gun safety.
Children who know rules of safe handling
of guns and have been taught proper respect for firearms don't kill
other children in school. Adults who buy weapons legally and practice
with them responsibly aren't the ones who misuse their guns.
Those who use guns improperly are the ones
who gain most of their experience with firearms from watching people
use them irresponsibly on movie screens or get their instruction
from other criminals.
Perhaps, Governor Davis thinks he can do
anything he likes if he disarms Californians. Has the Governor forgotten
that the people still have the power to boot him out of the Governor's
Mansion one way or the other?
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Friday, October12, 2001
In these extraordinary times,
extraordinary measures are needed!
By Dave Francis, Foreign Correspondent
St. PETERSBURG (Russia)
-- There has been a lot of talk about how Americans should not take
out their anger on Muslims living in America, that the average Muslim
condemns the violence, and shouldn't be targeted by anyone as a
scapegoat for what happened on Septermber 11th.
That is all true, and it is a wonderful
example of the American way of thought and life. It is one of the
many examples of how American society is morally superior to the
Taliban and their ilk.
There is a problem though. Consider the
report, coming out of New York. In Brooklyn, a high school freshman
who recently immigrated from Pakistan was investigated by federal
agents after his teacher reported that he had predicted the Trade
Center's collapse a week before the towers were attacked.
The student pointed out a third-story window
of New Utrecht High School toward the Trade Center and said,
"Do you see those two buildings? They won't be standing there next
week," according to three police sources and a city official familiar
with the investigation.
They said the comment came in the midst
of a heated political discussion the student was having with his
teacher in an English class for Arab-American students.
New York City Board of Education
spokeswoman Catie Marshall confirmed that school officials reported
the matter to police within minutes of the Sept. 11 attack.
A veteran city police detective familiar
with the case said investigators have been learning that many people
in New York's Arab-American community had heard rumors about
the Sept. 11 attacks before they occurred.
The officer said the story "had been out
on the street," and the number of leads turning up was so "overwhelming"
that it was difficult to tell who had heard about the attacks from
second-hand sources and who had heard it from someone who may have
been a participant.
For example, since Sept. 11, various leads
have been investigated regarding Middle Eastern employees who may
not have shown up for work at the World Trade Center that morning.
One detective conducting such investigations
in Brooklyn said they had become "a serious and major priority."
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington,
D.C., said Brooklyn has the largest population of Arab-Americans
in New York City.
According to a federal indictment against
bin Laden, FBI agents have linked the former Alkifah Refugee
Center on Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue to the Saudi fugitive-exile's
terrorist network, al-Qaida. " This is the kind of thing
that is very disturbing.
The Arab community in America needs to
understand that the USA has a duty to protect its citizens, including
those of Arab descent, and it may be necessary in a time like this
to suffer some indignities brought on by racial profiling. We are
living in extraordinary times, and extraordinary measures are needed.
The Arab communities in the US need to
help hunt down these terrorists and their support staff. It is time
to say loud and clear to the Arab-Americans, "You share a
large responsibility here. You are enjoying the fruits of America,
it is time to fight for America. If not in Afghanistan, in Brooklyn,
in Detroit, wherever you happen to live."
[Editor's Note: The author of this column is
an American journalist, living in St. Petersburg ,l Russia. His
e-mail is Dave@Francisnet.com]
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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Sunday, October 7, 2001
Rise like lions
after slumber
in invanquishable number!
By Dave & Lena Francis, Foreign Correspondents
St. PETERSBURG (Russia)
-- "Assignments where diarrhea is a way of life aren't high
on the list for people. Most duty officers live in Virginia." Was
the way one CIA official explained the lack of agents on the ground,
in the region in and around Afghanistan.
The fact that the intelligence community
failed us all is obvious. What may not be obvious is why. The reasons,
like the spy business is complicated.
After Watergate, the US dismantled large
parts of its spy networks, and made it more difficult to replace
the ones leaving. American rules concerning who we would and wouldn't
deal with had more to do with morals and principles and less to
do with being effective.
We made a determination to not deal with
people who had a history of violence and of violating other peoples
rights. In general, we wanted to go to war with Boy Scouts.
Now don't get me wrong, I love the Boy
Scouts, but there are times where something a little more earthy
is needed.
If you are going to go after terrorists
and murderers, you are going to need to do business with some unsavory
types of people. That is a decision we need to make.
In the 70's, we made the decision to keep
the high moral ground, and it has led to us being without an effective
network to infiltrate and stop these kinds of terrorist threats.
It is time to realize that it is a dangerous world out there, and
we are a target to a hell of a lot of people.
Some of the things we need to do
may be morally repugnant, but ultimately, the most important job
of a government, any government, is to provide for the security
of it's citizens.
According to published reports in Britain, in
the spring of 1996, Sudan offered to serve us Osama bin Ladin's
head on a platter. They were going to expel him, and offered to
hand him over to Saudi Arabia, then we could take him from there.
In a meeting in a closed hotel room in
Arlington Virginia in March, the Clinton administration tried to
find some legal way to grab bin Ladin and bring him back to the
USA.
At the time, the US had no case in the
US on which to indict bin Ladin, and since we were unwilling to
do anything shady, like liquidating him, he left Sudan 10 weeks
after the Arlington meeting, on May 18th. He went to Afghanistan.
He has wreaked extensive damage on America
since that lost opportunity. The Sudanese offer all started on Feb
6, 1996 at the Khartoum residence of the Sudanese foreign minister,
Ali Othman Taha.
It was to be the last day of business for
the American embassy there, and Ambassador Carney had come to say
goodbye.
American interests had suffered an upsurge
in violent behavior at the hands of the Sudanese in recent past,
including the CIA station chief, Paul Quaglia being attacked
once with a knife, and once with a claw hammer.
During the going away dinner, Mr Taha asked
what Sudan could do to convince the US that it was serious about
wanting to help fight terrorism, and get back on a good track with
America, regarding the two countries quickly deteriorating relationship.
Ambassador Carney remembers that Mr. Taha listened to a long list
of complaints, without interrupting.
Osama bin Ladin's expulsion was near the
top of the list. The defense minister for Sudan, Major General Erwa
came to Arlington and met Mr. Carney in a room at the Hyatt Arlington.
The meeting was run by covert operations
staff for the CIA's Africa division. Carney presented General Erwa
with a document titled, "Measures Sudan Can Take To Improve Relations
With The United States." On the document was a list where the
US asked the government of Sudan to do 6 things. Second on the list
was Osama bin Ladin. "Provide us with names, dates of arrival, departure,
and destination and passport data on mujahidin that Osama bin Ladin
has brought into Sudan." The document demanded. General Erwa offered
to do us one better.
He offered that Sudan would certainly keep
close track of bin Ladin, but if that weren't enough, he offered
to place him under arrest and hand him over. Different ideas were
batted around, and eventually it was decided to try to convince
the Saudis to take bin Ladin.
It was remembered that after the bombing
in Riyadh, the Saudis had quickly beheaded the four conspirators,
and such a fate for bin Ladin would make everyone sleep a little
better. Bin Ladin had issued a fatwa, or declaration of war against
the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, so it was hoped that the Saudis
would be willing to do in bin Ladin, in pursuit of their own interests.
The Saudis in 1994 stripped bin Ladin of
his citizenship, and had expelled him in 1991, but they demurred
at the idea of jailing or executing him. The state department, it
is reported, as usual didn't push the Saudis very hard. When the
Saudi option was exhausted, the US just sent word to General Erwa
to have him leave the country, but 'Just don't let him go to Somalia."
Erwa said that Sudan offered to let bin
Ladin go to Afghanistan, and the US agreed. Mr. Taha sent a fax
to Ambassador Carney in Nairobi, informing him that Sudan was expelling
bin Ladin, and Carney faxed back asking is bin Ladin would retain
his assets he had in Sudan.
No reply was forthcoming, and three days
later, bin Ladin chartered a plane and left for Afghanistan. Intelligence
sources indicate that bin Ladin has accessed his resources in Sudan.
In 1999, it is now known that the Clinton administration trained
a group of about 60 Pakistanis to go into Afghanistan, find and
kill bin Ladin.
The plan went astray when the government
of Pakistan was toppled, and the current President of Pakistan,
General Musharraf refused to go along.
In other news: Crimean-Congo Hemorrhage
Fever has broken out on the Pakistani-Afghan border. Pakistani
health officials in Quetta have identified at least 75 cases of
CCHF, and more are almost certainly out there. It is coming
with the refugees from Afghanistan, and it is a mystery where they
got this Ebola-type disease.
Rumors abound about a bio-terror experiment
in Afghanistan gone bad, and while that can't be confirmed, it is
easy to verify that death from this disease is horrific.
The victims 'melt before your eyes' as
their blood vessels and veins deteriorate. It is highly contagious,
and workers in the hospitals in the affected areas are required
to wear full body bio-suits while in the ward with the patients.
Garik Anovisian, an Armenian pilot close
by saw it explode. A Russian airliner, with 77 passengers aboard,
51 of them Israeli citizens, was cruising 114 miles from the coastal
city of Adler, near the Georgian/Russian border when the Tupolev
154 went up in flames before crashing into the sea.
The flight, initiated in Israel, was bound
for the Siberian city of Novosobirsk. Officials are tight lipped
about the incident, but sources on the inside tell me that it was
very likely that this plane was shot down with a missile, from the
ground.
They are not dismissing the idea that it
was an accident, and the missile was a training missile, perhaps
fired from Ukraine. Officials there have said the missile
could not have come from them.
The flight number was, ironically 1812,
a year famous in Russian history for the bitter battles with Napoleon,
later memorialized in Tolstoy's epic, War and Peace. Israel
has responded by banning all international carriers for the time
being, as they investigate the tragedy.
This is yet another in a strange wave of
violence. We have had, in the last few days, an attempted hijacking
in India, that later was described by Indian officials as an exercise.
There was a terrible bombing in Kashmir,
by Islamic radicals, the strange case of the Greyhound bus
being attacked in Tennessee, by a man carrying a Croatian passport,
and a few others.
Has the second wave started, smaller, but
more spread out? In addition to the above, we have seen others.
In Israel, an Islamic radical, disguised as an Israeli soldier opened
fire at a bus station in Afula Thursday, wounding 10 people and
killing
He was shot dead by Israeli police at the
scene. Earlier, in Tolouse France, there was an explosion at a chemical
plant, used to make fertilizer. It now appears that it was no accident.
Among the 29 dead at the site was 35 year
old Hassan Jandoubi, and his body was discovered wrapped in several
layers of clothing, 'in the manner of a kamikaze fundamentalist'
according to French sources. Jandoubi had been hired to work at
the plant 5 days before the fatal explosion.
Paris police say it took five days to get
permission to search Jandoubi's apartment, and when they arrived,
it had been thoroughly cleaned out. The world is waiting, but bin
Ladin may not be.
It was widely reported that when the Clinton
administration fired cruise missiles at one of his camps in response
to his acts of terror, the futility of the US attempt gave heart
to the terrorists.
Bin Ladin is telling anyone who will listen
that America is afraid. Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban assured
his countries army that "America will not come to Afghanistan.
They are afraid to come here."
[Editor's Note: The quotation
was suggested by the authors: "Rise like lions after slumber
in invanquishable number -- Shake your chains to earth like dew
which in sleep had fallen on you -- ye are many -- they are few."
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). Dave is an American journalist,
living in St. Petersburg with his wife, Lena. The author's e-mail
is Dave@Francisnet.com]
Comment
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Newspaper. All rights reserved
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Friday, September 21, 2001
Integrating Ethics into
Wharton's Undergraduate Curriculum
By Howard Hobbs Ph.D. President
Valley Press Media Network
WASHINGTON
- When the Wharton School implemented a new curriculum in the 1991-1992
academic year, the Ethics Program focused on incorporating ethics
into a variety of courses central under the new requirements.
A business ethics component was added to
twelve courses in various disciplines including accounting, finance
and marketing. The following excerpt is a summary from The Ethics
Project Report produced by Wanda D. Foglia for the Wharton Ethics
Program. "Students, educators, business leaders and the public agree
that business education should cover business ethics.
The Project on Integrating Ethics into
the Wharton Undergraduate Curriculum contributes significantly to
students' awareness, understanding, and ability to deal responsibly
with ethical issues in business.
In each of the participating courses, ethical
issues are presented to students in one or two classes, or emphasized
periodically throughout the semester along with regularly covered
subject matter.
The Ethics Project attempts to provide
students with a comprehensive and varied experience with issues
of fairness and social responsibility. With the options available
under this curriculum there will not be uniform exposure to ethics,
but the number of courses integrating ethics makes it likely that
students will consider ethical issues in at least several courses
while at Wharton.
The variation in students' exposure is
not problematic because the goal is to teach a general approach
for handling ethical issues rather than a specific answer to particular
ethical dilemmas. The Ethics Project does not guarantee that all
Wharton graduates will behave ethically.
Rather the goal is to teach an approach
for handling ethical questions and to dispel a common attitude among
business students that the bottom line is the only relevant consideration.
The intellectual understanding of ethical
obligations may not be sufficient to insure ethical behavior,but
can be an important contributor to that goal. With the potential
for exposure to ethics in nearly all their Business Fundamentals
courses, many of their upper level courses, and in the courses they
must take to fulfill the Social Environment bracket, Wharton students
receive repeated and varied experience grappling with ethical questions
in realistic contexts."
Comment
© Copyright 1876-2004 HTML Graphics By The Daily
Republican Newspaper. All rights reserved.
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- Reprise -
October 4, 1921
Lest We Forget
The Declaration Of Independence
Translated into American Slang!
By H.L. Menken , Contributor
WASHINGTON -- The following is
my own translation, but I have had the aid of suggestions from various
other scholars. On more than one occasion the American Legion
has objected to The Declaration Of Independence being read
before them.
In
one case they even tarred and feathered a gentleman who appeared
there and read it out loud. What ailed them was that they could
not understand its eighteenth century English.
I make the suggestion that The Declaration
of Independence be circulated among such patriotic men as the
American Legion, translated into the language they use every
day to prevent, or, at all events to diminish that sort of terrorism.
Here's my translation of The Declaration
of Independence into American slang:
1. When things get so balled up that the people
of a country have to cut loose from some other country, and go it
on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting
maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they
done it, so that everybody can see they are on the level, and not
trying to put nothing over on nobody.
2. All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, you and
me is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second,
nobody ain’t got no right to take away none of our rights; third,
every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases,
and to have a good time however he likes, so long as he don’t interfere
with nobody else. That any government that don’t give a man these
rights ain’t worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind
of goverment they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have
no say in the matter. That whenever any goverment don’t do this,
then the people have got a right to can it and put in one that will
take care of their interests. Of course, that don’t mean having
a revolution every day like them South American coons and yellow-bellies
and Bolsheviki, or every time some job-holder does something he
ain’t got no business to do. It is better to stand a little graft,
etc., than to have revolutions all the time, like them coons and
Bolsheviki, and any man that wasn’t a anarchist or one of them I.
W. W.’s would say the same. But when things get so bad that a man
ain’t hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost
call him a slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw
the grafters out, and put in new ones who won’t carry on so high
and steal so much, and then watch them. This is the proposition
the people of these Colonies is up against, and they have got tired
of it, and won’t stand it no more. The administration of the present
King, George III, has been rotten from the start, and when anybody
kicked about it he always tried to get away with it by strong-arm
work. Here is some of the rough stuff he has pulled.
3. He vetoed bills in the Legislature that
everybody was in favor of, and hardly nobody was against.
4. He wouldn’t allow no law to be passed
without it was first put up to him, and then he stuck it in his
pocket and let on he forgot about it, and didn’t pay no attention
to no kicks.
5. When people went to work and gone to
him and asked him to put through a law about this or that, he give
them their choice: either they had to shut down the Legislature
and let him pass it all by him-self, or they couldn’t have it at
all.
6. He made the Legislature meet at one-horse
thank-towns out in the alfalfa belt, so that hardly nobody could
get there and most of the leaders would stay home and let him go
to work and do things as he pleased.
7. He give the Legislature the air, and
sent the members home every time they stood up to him and give him
a call-down.
8. When a Legislature was busted up he
wouldn’t allow no new one to be elected, so that there wasn’t nobody
left to run things, but anybody could walk in and do whatever they
pleased.
9. He tried to scare people outen moving
into these States, and made it so hard for a wop or one of them
poor kikes to get his papers that he would rather stay home and
not try it, and then, when he come in, he wouldn’t let him have
no land, and so he either went home again or never come.
10. He monkeyed with the courts, and didn’t
hire enough judges to do the work, and so a person had to wait so
long for his case to come up that he got sick of waiting, and went
home, and so never got what was coming to him.
11. He got the judges under his thumb by
turning them out when they done anything he didn’t like, or holding
up their salaries, so that they had to cough up or not get no money.
12. He made a lot of new jobs, and give
them to loafers that nobody knowed nothing about, and the poor people
had to pay the bill, whether they wanted to or not.
13. Without no war going on, he kept
an army loafing around the country, no matter how much people kicked
about it.
14. He let the army run things to suit
theirself and never paid no attention whatsoever to nobody which
didn’t wear no uniform.
15. He let grafters run loose, from God
knows where, and give them the say in everything, and let them put
over such things as the following: 1
16. Making poor people board and lodge
a lot of soldiers they ain’t got no use for, and don’t want to see
loafing around.
17. When the soldiers kill a man, framing
it up so that they would get off.
18. Interfering with business.
19. Making us pay taxes without asking
us whether we thought the things we had to pay taxes for was something
that was worth paying taxes for or not.
20. When a man was arrested and asked for
a jury trial, not letting him have no jury trial.
21. Chasing men out of the country, without
being guilty of nothing, and trying them somewheres else for what
they done here.
22. In countries that border on us, he
put in bum goverments, and then tried to spread them out, so that
by and by they would take in this country too, or make our own goverment
as bum as they was. He never paid no attention whatever to the Constitution,
but he went to work and repealed laws that everybody was satisfied
with and hardly nobody was against, and tried to fix the goverment
so that he could do whatever he pleased.
23. He busted up the Legislatures and let on
he could do all the work better by himself.
24. Now he washes his hands of us and even declares
war on us, so we don’t owe him nothing, and whatever authority he
ever had he ain’t got no more.
25. He has burned down towns, shot down people
like dogs, and raised hell against us out on the ocean.
26. He hired whole regiments of Dutch, etc.,
to fight us, and told them they could have anything they wanted
if they could take it away from us, and sicked these Dutch, etc.,
on us without paying no attention whatever to international law.
27. He grabbed our own people when he found them
in ships on the ocean, and shoved guns into their hands, and made
them fight against us, no matter how much they didn’t want to.
28. He stirred up the Indians, and give them
arms ammunition, and told them to go to it, and they have killed
men, women and children, and don’t care which.
29. Every time he has went to work and pulled
any of these things, we have went to work and put in a kick, but
every time we have went to work and put in a kick he has went to
work and did it again. When a man keeps on handing out such
rough stuff all the time, all you can say is that he ain’t got no
class and ain’t fitten to have no authority over people who have
got any rights, and he ought to be kicked out.
30. When we complained to the English we didn’t
get no more satisfaction. Almost every day we warned them that the
politicians over there was doing things to us that they didn’t have
no right to do. We kept on reminding them who we were, and what
we was doing here, and how we come to come here. We asked them to
get us a square deal, and told them that if this thing kept on we’d
have to do something about it and maybe they wouldn’t like it. But
the more we talked, the more they didn’t pay no attention to us.
Therefore, if they ain’t for us they must be agin us, and we are
ready to give them the fight of their lives, or to shake hands when
it is over.
31. Therefore be it resolved, That we, the representatives
of the people of the United States of America, in Congress assembled,
hereby declare as follows:
That the United States, which was the United
Colonies in former times, is now free and independent, and ought
to be; that we have throwed out the English
Kings and don’t want to have nothing to do with him no more, and
are not in England no more; that, being as we are now free
and independent, we can do anything that free and independent parties
can do, especially declare war, make peace, sign treaties, go into
business, and we swear on the Bible on this proposition,
one and all, and agree to stick to it no matter what happens, whether
we win or we lose, and whether we get away with it or get the worst
of it, no matter whether we lose all our property by it or even
get hung for it!
[Editor's Note: To read the full digital
on-line text of H.L. Menken's book, go to The
American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in
the United States . This classic was written to clarify
and to define what we call American English. This ground breaking
study was undoubtedly the most scientific linguistic work on the
American language ever written and continues to serve as a definitive
resource in the field.]
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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Updated September
27, 2001
AN EXAMINATION OF
ENGLISH GENEALOGY
BY ANTHONY RICHARD WAGNER
The Richmond Herald
OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON
PRESS 1960
[Abstract taken from: English Genealogy. Contributors:
Richmond Herald - author, Anthony Richard Wagner - author. Publisher:
Clarendon Press. Place of Publication: Oxford. ]
History of English Pedigree in Antiquity
It is my belief that an interest in family origins is widespread
and tending to increase among the peoples of English descent throughout
the world, especially perhaps outside the mother country. Some will
think this claim a paradox, others a truism, according to their
experience. It cannot, probably, be either proved or disproved.
But I think that my opinion will in the main be shared by those
who are in one way or another targets of enquiry in these matters;
the professional genealogists and record searchers; the staff of
genealogical institutions and societies; the custodians of records
connected with the subject; and the editors of genealogical publications.
Most of these, I fancy, would agree that the volume of enquiry and
the variety and geographical dispersion of those from whom it comes
grow year by year.
To the genealogist this is not surprising.
Curiosity about one's ancestors, a wish to know who and what
and where they were, seems to him an obvious and elementary form
of curiosity, which no one with a reasonably active all round interest
in himself and the world about him is likely to lack, unless his
circumstances or upbringing have smothered it. He would
support this view by reference to history. In less sophisticated
times and places it has often been thought a normal part of every
child's education to teach him to recite his ancestors for several
generations, while the genealogies of rulers, passed down by word
of mouth, with or without biographical detail, are the backbone
of the oldest historical traditions.
In a tribal organization society is held together
by duties, rights and prohibitions attaching to blood relationship
within the family, the kindred and the tribe or nation. In the periods
of such organization, therefore, the general consciousness of kinship
and descent is strong. The details of descent and relationship are
in the forefront of consciousness and are passed down for generations.
This way of life belongs to men whose wealth is in flocks and herds
or to the wanderers by land or sea who live by preying on more settled
peoples. When the tribes turn to agriculture and the life of cities,
legal and economic ties tend slowly to replace the bond of kinship
as the main cement of society.
Evidence of Anglo-Saxon concern with genealogy
through the royal lines and some few others can be pieced together
from scattered mentions in chronicles and charters.
In England after the Norman Conquest the legal
aspect of pedigree had the preeminence for some centuries. This
meant that the interest was in individual pedigrees for individual
purposes. I know of no postConquest English collection of genealogies
older than the fifteenth century. The historical use of pedigrees
survived, however, in certain rolls in which the royal genealogy
is made the basis of a short history of England. 2
A number of vellum rolls of this kind survive,
of dates between Edward I's and Henry VII's reigns. Some are in
French, as if for the use of knights and gentlemen, others in Latin
as if for clerks. The pedigree form in which they are cast has itself
an ancestry traceable to classical antiquity through the forms given
to the Genealogy of Christ or Tree of Jesse and to the Table of
Kindred and Affinity called the Arbor Juris. 3
From the start of the plea rolls in 1193 the many
and lengthy statements of descent in lawsuits show the importance
of genealogy in this context. Most such statements, naturally, cover
three or four generations only. Some, however, cover five, six,
seven or more, and are found occasionally throughout this period.
4
____________________
1 W. G. Searle, Anglo-Saxon Bishops Kings and Nobles, 1899, pp.
251-5; K. Sisam, op. cit., p. 14, n. 1 supra.
2 Thomas Wright, Feudal Manuals of English History, 1872; Illustrated
Catalogue of the Heralds of Commemorative Exhibition, 1484-1934,
1936, Nos. 65, 68, 113.
3 Arthur Watson, The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse, 1934,
chap. iii.
4 See, for examples, Major-General the Hon. G. Wrottesley, Pedigrees
from the Plea Rolls (reprinted from The Genealogist, N.S. v-xxi),
pp. 6, 23, 48, 60-61, 86, 88, 475.
--------------------------------
PAGE 2
This, in the earlier part of the period, means that the compilers
were probably clerks and perhaps most often monks. The genealogies
of the families of founders of monasteries, often found in cartularies,
illustrate the nature of the monks' interest, as do such rare family
chronicles as that of Wigmore kept by the monks of the Mortimers'
foundation, Wigmore Abbey. 1
The original charters of benefactors, the copies
entered in cartularies, chronicle entries, monumental inscriptions
and oral tradition may all have helped the monks upon occasion to
work out pedigrees retrospectively. For proof that they used documents
to compile pedigrees in the fourteenth century we may quote the
evidence given by two canons of Bridlington in the Scrope v. Grosvenor
case in 1378. Asked if they had heard tell of the ancestors of Sir
Richard Scrope, they said that their priory had possessions given
them by his ancestors and produced charters sealed with great seals
depicting knights on horseback with swords in their hands, such
as 'those of the Conquest' used. The Scrope pedigree which they
based on these, though open to criticism, is not wholly erroneous.
2
"Monkish genealogists, however, must not be trusted too far."
Horace Round thought that the weakest point of Dugdale's Baronage
was his acceptance of monastic statements as to the founder's family,
which are, he believed, 'too often, the origin of persistent error
and show the danger of departure from primary evidence as a source'.
3
A critical study of the nature, origin and worth
of the pedigrees set up in lawsuits has still to be made. It would
be of interest if we could show how and by whom these early pedigrees
were put together. Many may rest on orally transmitted knowledge
only, but it seems likely that some of the longer ones were even
at this early date compiled from written evidence. The fifteenth
century saw a marked development of antiquarian and topographical
studies in England. Two men active in this movement who left manuscript
works behind them were William Worcester alias Botoner ( 1415-82)
of Bristol and Norfolk, gentleman, and John Rous of Warwick (c.
1425-91), chaplain of the Guy's Cliff chantry. Both were graduates
of Oxford. Both wrote historical and topographical works. Both formed
libraries. Worcester was Sir John Fastolf's secretary and man of
business at Castle Combe in Wiltshire and Caister in Norfolk. Rous's
patrons were the Beauchamp and Neville Earls of Warwick. 1
____________________
1 Chicago University MS. CS 439 fM 82 W6, described by M. E. Griffin,
"'A Wigmore Manuscript at the University of Chicago'",
Nat. Lib. of Wales Journ., 1952.
2 The Scrope and Grosvenor Controversy, ed. Sir Harris Nicolas,
i. 18, pp. 101-2; Complete Peerage, xi. 531.
3 Family Origins and other Studies by the late J. H. Round, ed.
William Page, 1930, p. 7.
--------------------------------
Page 3
Both made collections of genealogies. Worcester compiled a book
on the ancient families of Norfolk. It has been lost, but extracts
made from it by Sir Henry Spelman (d. 1641) show that it was substantial
and important. 2
In it Worcester often noted his source of information,
sometimes an individual informant, sometimes a chronicle, roll or
record. His friend Nicholas Bocking, esquire, an estate official
with access to financial records, and perhaps himself an antiquary,
put his knowledge at Worcester's disposal, 3 and Worcester himself
was sent by his master Fastolf on journeys to make genealogical
researches in connection with property rights. 'Thus in May 1449
he rode out from London to various places in Somerset"ad inquirendum
pro vera genealogia dominorum de Lovell & improbandum genealogiam
uxoris Edwardi Hull militis".... Another journey into Kent
was undertaken to test the pedigree of the Cliffords of Bobbing
and their title to a rent charge in Hickling', and in 1458 we find
him working on the De la Pole pedigree. 4
A recent study by Mr. P. S. Lewis shows that others besides Worcester
worked for Fastolf on the pedigree of Lovell of Clevedon, Somerset,
to support his right to the manor of Titchwell, Norfolk, against
the claim of Sir Edward Hull. Among them were several clerks in
the Chancery and Exchequer records, who received fees for searching
these, John Crop of Bristol, a friend of William Worcester, and
Henry Filongley, a kinsman of Fastolf and keeper of the writs of
the Court of Common Pleas. Local records were sought for, but when
these failed recourse was had, on what appear sound lines, to old
men's memories. The conflict of evidence in this case throws an
interesting light on the nature of early lawsuit pedigrees in general.
5
John Rous's collection of more than fifty genealogies is inscribed
in a minute hand here and there on the face and in a series on the
dorse of the Latin version of his great pictorial roll of the Earls
of Warwick,
____________________
1 See K. B. McFarlane, "'William Worcester, A Preliminary Survey'",
in Studies presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, ed. J. Conway Davies,
1957, pp. 196-221, and T. D. Kendrick, British Antiquity, 1950,
chap. ii.
2 McFarlane, op. cit., pp. 216-17; Spelman's extracts are in Norwich
Public Library MS. 7197, ff. 297-9 b and 304-21. The original appears
to have belonged in 1674 to Edward Paston; see Norfolk Archaeology,
iv. 4.
3 Op. cit., p. 199, and letter from Mr. McFarlane.
4 Op. cit., pp. 204-5.
5 P. S. Lewis, "'Sir John Fastolf's Lawsuit over Titchwell
1448-55'", The Historical Journal, i, 1958, pp. 1-20.
--------------------------------
Page 4
compiled about 1480 and now in the College of Arms.
1 Those on the face give the ancestry on male and female lines of
the Kings and the Earls of Warwick, whose lives he narrates and
whose arms and portraits he draws. Those on the dorse are more extensive
pedigrees of the Kings of Britain, France, England and Scotland
and of the English earls. The last is of his own family.
He notes that he saw and wrote down two genealogies of the British
kings at Glastonbury. Chronicles and monastic genealogies were no
doubt among his sources. He was not uncritical, expressing suspicion
of a genealogy of the Lords of Arundel and compiling dated lists
of the popes and the Bishops of Worcester for use in the scrutiny
of evidence. His genealogies have yet to be studied in detail, but
it may be said that while they embody some mythology and some error
they are, considering their date and extent, remarkably sound.
--------------------------------
Page 5
We do not know when the heralds first interested themselves in genealogy.
They were, however, concerned with coat armour from the twelfth
century and made records of it from the fourteenth if not the thirteenth.
Since a right to arms had often to be proved by pedigree (witness
the testimony in Scrope v. Grosvenor), a concern with the one was
bound to lead in time to the other. I have, however, found no evidence
that this actually happened before the fifteenth century. In 1415
the new office of Garter King of Arms was created and William Bruges
(d. 1450), who was appointed to it, seems to have set to work to
honour the Order and Knights of the Garter by setting up a new series
of enamelled stall plates of their arms at Windsor to replace those
which had been lost. He also put in hand a painted record of the
arms of all the knights from the foundation of the order in the
1340's down to his own day. 2 This must have involved him in research
to identify former knights.
In 1448 Sir Richard Wydville, who had risen from comparative obscurity
in the king's service after marrying the widowed Duchess of Bedford,
was created Lord Rivers. The editors of the Complete Peerage could
not explain this choice of title, but the heraldic evidence of Lord
Rivers' Garter stall plate leaves little doubt that it refers to
a claim to descent from the family of Reviers or Rivers, Earls of
Devon in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 1 The pedigree must
in that case have been examined, if not produced, by Garter King
of Arms. Pollard's theory of a link between the development of heraldry
and of a hereditary House of Lords is relevant here. 2
____________________
1 A. R. Wagner, A Catalogue of English Mediaeval Rolls of Arms,
1950, pp. 116-18.
2 St. W. H. John Hope, The Stall Plates of the Knights of the Garter,
1348-1485, 1901; A. R. Wagner, A Catalogue of English Mediaeval
Rolls of Arms, 1950, pp. 83-86.
--------------------------------
Page 6
The oldest books of pedigree which are known to
be the work of heralds date from about 1480. William Ballard, March
King of Arms c. 1475-c. 1490, made a Visitation of Cheshire and
recorded brief genealogies as well as arms. 3 Much more interesting
and important is a collection of pedigrees of northern families
compiled between about 1480 and 1500, and for the most part before
1490. This was edited in 1930 by Mr. C. H. Hunter Blair from a sixteenth
and a seventeenth century copy. 4
In 1935 I found an earlier sixteenth century copy
in the College of Arms and I have since acquired a copy in what
appears to be a late fifteenth century hand, which may either be
the original or an early copy. The hand closely resembles one associated
elsewhere with Sir Thomas Wriothesley, while later in this and in
a companion volume are pedigrees in a hand which is either his or
that of an amanuensis much employed by him. I have suggested elsewhere
that the collection might be the work of Christopher Carlisle, Norroy
King of Arms 1494-1510, but I am now inclined to place its compilation
earlier than his term of office, while associations of my 'original'
with Sir Thomas Wriothesley discount the argument from the association
of the college copy with Carlisle's nephew Barker. I now therefore
incline to attribute the compilation either to John Writhe (d. 1504),
who may have begun it when he was Norroy ( 1477-8) and continued
it as Garter, 5 or to his son and successor Sir Thomas Wriothesley
(d. 1534). Mr. Hunter Blair has pointed out the similarity of this
collection to another attributed to Wriothesley. 6
Some of the pedigrees in this collection are short and probably
based on family knowledge, since children of sisters and personal
details are given. Others, however, such as those of Percy, Neville
and Fitzwilliam, go back to remote dates and must rest on either
research or invention. Research is suggested by occasional marginal
notes (e.g. to Neville) apparently from chronicles or charters,
but the beginning of the Fitzwilliam pedigree is myth.
____________________
1 Complete Peerage, xi. 20 n. (d); Notes & Queries, 15th ser.
xxviii. 511-12; Hope, op. cit., pl. lx.
2 p. 95.
3 Coll. Arm. MS. M. 3; see A. R. Wagner, Catalogue of English Mediaeval
Rolls of Arms, pp. 111-16, and Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle
Ages, pp. 107-9.
4 Surtees Soc. cxliv.
5 A. R. Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages, pp. 106-7.
6 Op. cit., p. xii; the Wriothesley collection is Add. MS. 5530.
--------------------------------
Page 7
The making of false pedigrees is an immemorial vice, practised in
antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times alike, but the age
of Elizabeth I has a specially bad name for such activities. The
rise of so many new families to wealth and station in a society
where the prestige of ancient blood was great combined with a growing
but as yet ill educated zeal for the study of English antiquities
to produce a market for deplorable concoctions as well as for genuine
research. The same pedigree craze which produced the fictions helped,
however, to stimulate the great movement of scholarship which culminated
in the work of Dugdale (d. 1686). 1
J. Horace Round ( 1854-1928), 2 the great genealogical critic, divided
the bulk of spurious pedigrees into four classes, 'those that rested
on garbled versions of perfectly genuine documents, such as Philpot
the herald was an adept at constructing, those which rested on alleged
transcripts of wholly imaginary documents, those which rested on
actual forgeries expressly concocted for the purpose, and lastly
those which rested on nothing but sheer fantastic fiction'. 3
Besides these four classes there are pedigrees whose errors rest
on a strained or erroneous but not dishonest interpretation of genuine
evidence. Parallel with this variety of method we have a variety
of motive. Not all makers of false pedigrees are merely venal. Some,
indeed, are not venal at all but simply have too much imagination
and too little critical sense. They think they know what the truth
must be; they use such evidence as they can; and then they let fancy
take wing. Before we smile too broadly we ought to recall the credit
still accorded to imaginative exercises in some other fields of
scholarship. We may ask ourselves, for example, whether pre-history
is or is not history.
The line between self deception and conscious fraud in genealogy
is hard to draw. What is one to make of learned and critical genealogists
who concoct false pedigrees for themselves simply or mainly for
their private satisfaction? Sir Edward Dering (d. 1644), who made
himself a Saxon pedigree, inserted the name and arms of a fictitious
ancestor into ancient rolls of arms which he possessed and set up
pseudo-ancestral brasses in Pluckley church, was a scholar and associate
of scholars. 1
____________________
1 pp. 320-2.
2 pp. 342-4.
3 Family Origins and other Studies by the late J. Horace Round,
ed. William Page, 1930, pp. 170-1. Round's condemnation of Philpot
has been questioned.
--------------------------------
Page 8
The learned Sir Egerton Brydges (d. 1837), to support whose baseless
claim to the barony of Chandos parish registers were tampered with,
2 presumably by him or at his instance, so resented its rejection
that for thirty years he did not cease from bitter and public complaint.
Furthermore he undertook the immense labour of editing a valuable
and scholarly nine volume peerage 3 'in order that a few of its
pages might transmit a record of his family wrongs to posterity'.
A victim of the same disease in still stranger form was George Harrison
( 1817-90), who latterly called himself Marshal-General George Henry
de Strabolgie Neville Plantagenet-Harrison. In his early years he
served with distinction as a soldier in several South American armies,
in Denmark, and in Germany, his rank of marshal-general being in
the army of 'God and Liberty' of Corrientes in the Argentine Republic.
He then settled in England and devoted himself
to research, but from 1850 was forbidden access to the British Museum,
according to his own account, 'because he claimed to be Duke of
Lancaster'. In 1858 he unsuccessfully petitioned for a summons to
the House of Lords as Duke of Lancaster, 'as heir of the whole blood
of King Henry VI'. In 1861 he was declared bankrupt and confined
in the Queen's Bench prison.
Soon after this he started upon a course of research
in the Public Record Office which he continued for the rest of his
life, devoting himself 'with incredible industry to the task of
extracting from the voluminous and hitherto totally unindexed Rolls
of the Queen's Bench and Common Pleas all entries relating to the
transfer of land or containing any materials for family history
from the reign of Richard I to that of James I'. The best witness
to the value of this work is the fact that the thirty folio volumes
which it filled were bought after his death for the Public Record
Office and are kept there on the open shelves for the use of students.
In 1879 General Plantagenet-Harrison published the only volume to
appear of a great projected History of Yorkshire. This is a large
folio of nearly 600 pages dealing with the Wapentake of Gilling
West. It contains a great number of pedigrees and much genealogical
matter very useful if used with sufficient caution. According to
Paley Baildon, whose opinion may be accepted, 'the persons composing
the pedigrees as a rule may be accepted as having actually existed,
but in his affiliations he is very untrustworthy, not scrupling
to make John the son of Thomas without a tittle of evidence to support
the alleged descent'.
____________________
1 J. Horace Round, Peerage and Pedigree, 1910, ii. 111-17; A. R.
Wagner, Catalogue of English Mediaeval Rolls of Arms, p. 141.
2 G. F. Beltz, A Review of the Chandos Peerage Case, 1834.
3 Collins's Peerage of England; genealogical, biographical, and
historical, greatly augmented and continued to the present time,
by Sir Egerton K.J Brydges., 1812; his account of the barony of
Chandos and his claim to it is in vi. 704-40.
--------------------------------
Page 9
To the work is prefixed a marvellous pedigree
of the author, deriving him in the male line from Odin (with a note
that 'all his ancestors in the direct male line stood upwards of
seventy-five inches in stature') and making him by an unproved female
descent the heir of one of the coheirs of Charles Neville, Earl
of Westmorland (d. 1601), who was the representative in blood of
Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter, sister of King Henry IV. 1 Baildon
asked him how he reconciled his own claim to the dukedom of Lancaster
with the fact that, according to his own pedigrees, he had, when
he published them, an elder brother living. 'Oh', said the general
contemptuously, and with delightful irrelevance, 'he was a d----d
fool!' The one genuine great distinction of his pedigree the general
leaves unstressed, namely that his greatgrandfather was first cousin
to Dr. Johnson. 2
Still more modern examples of this sort of aberration
are known to genealogists and it is evidently not uncommon. My own
experience leads me to believe that there are genealogists who would
never fake a pedigree for money, but cannot resist this curious
form of selfdeception and glorification. The point is of some importance
in relation to the notable early Tudor figure mentioned earlier,
Sir Thomas Wriothesley (d. 1534), Garter King of Arms.
Wriothesley was the son and successor of John Writhe (d. 1504),
Garter, and probably the grandson of William Writhe, burgess for
Cricklade in the Parliament of 1450-1. John Writhe began and his
son continued on a much larger scale a remarkable and extensive
work of heraldic codification and both seem to have been active
genealogists, differing in this from most of the heralds of their
day. Thomas Writhe, as he then was, soon after his father's death
and his own appointment as Garter, disliking his monosyllabic surname
began experimenting with improvements and after trying Wrye, Wryst,
Wreseley, Writhesley and Wrotesley, at length settled on Wriothesley,
a form which he then applied retrospectively to his father and in
pedigrees to his ancestors. 3 Apart from this small absurdity I
have found nothing
____________________
1 The issue of the coheir in question is generally supposed to be
extinct; see Burke Vicissitudes of Families, i. 24.
2 Aleyn Lyell Reade, The Reades of Blackwood Hill, 1906, pp. 177-85;
The History of Yorkshire by Marshal-General Plantagenet-Harrison,
H.K.G. i, 1879, after p. xiii. See Table III <7677245>.
3 Anstis, Register of the Garter, ii. 155, 369-70.
--------------------------------
Page 10
impossible in such Wriothesley pedigrees as I
have seen and nothing to suggest that Wriothesley made any claim
to descent from the ancient Staffordshire family of Wrottesley.
However, the historian of this family, Major-General the Hon. George
Wrottesley (d. 1909), a genealogist who did much admirable work,
incensed at the theft or near-theft of his surname, without quoting
any other evidence, goes so far as to say that Wriothesley 'for
the forgery and the falsification of documents...stands pre-eminent
even amongst the Tudor Heralds'. 1
Evidence for this accusation may exist, though
I have not found it. The point I wish, however, to make here is
that forgery or concoction of his own pedigree would not in itself
prove Wriothesley venal or even uncritical in relation to those
of others. The only fictitious pedigree at present known to me which
appears in Wriothesley's collections 2 and seems to me likely to
have originated with him is that of Cavendish. Round, who discussed
it, 3 did not know that it went back so far and thus missed the
pleasure of blaming a herald for it. The position of the heralds
in relation to the fictitious pedigrees of this epoch is a vexed
question which we must try to put in perspective.
Round speaks of 'subservient heralds' of Tudor
days 'who "found" pedigrees with equal readiness for their
sovereign, their clients and themselves'. 4 This judgment lumps
together the learned and the ignorant, the honest and the unscrupulous,
and suggests, if it does not state, that in a general scramble to
fudge pedigrees the heralds set the pace. The truth, I
think, was otherwise. Though I have indicated that as far back as
the middle fifteenth century some heralds were occasionally concerned
with genealogy, I do not believe that it much concerned most of
them till well into the reign of Elizabeth I.
Their principal occupations before that time were
journeys on official business at home and abroad, the marshalling
of tournaments, court ceremonies and the funerals of the nobility
and gentry, and in the last connection and generally the superintendence,
record and production of armorial bearings. The Visitations made
under the Royal Commission of 1530 started the change of emphasis,
but most of the pedigrees then entered,
____________________
1 Maj.-Gen. the Hon. Geo. Wrottesley, 'A History of the family of
Wrottesley of Wrottesley, Co. Stafford', 1903, Wm. Salt Soc., N.S.
vi, pt. ii, pp. 276-7.
2 Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 1417, fo. 88b.
3 Family Origins, pp. 22-32.
4 The Ancestor, iii 1902, p. 14.
--------------------------------
Page 11
other than those of well known ancient families, were short, simple
and doubtless based on family information. The Elizabethan phase
begins in the 1560's when William Hervy (d. 1566), Clarenceux, and
William Flower (d. 1588), Norroy, began a fresh cycle of Visitation
on an altogether ampler scale. 1
Among the pedigrees submitted to the heralds and
in some instances accepted by them in these and following years
were a certain number of fabrications of all the types distinguished
by Round. 2 The heralds of the first part of Elizabeth's reign were
doubtless chosen for quite other qualities than skill in genealogy.
But in any case a critical science of genealogy did not yet exist
and only now began to develop.
By 1581 the need for a new type of herald was beginning
to be felt for in that year Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (d.
1588), wrote to the Earl Marshal, whose deputy he was, recommending
one Humphrey Hales for the vacant post of Bluemantle Pursuivant,
as 'an honest gentleman ...altogether given to matters of pedigrees,
and very well seen in them already. He doth draw and paint excellently
well, as may appear by a thing done for your Lordship by him. He
is properly studied in the law, but his chief and whole study is
this service.' He adds 'that there is nothing more honourable for
you, nor more profitable to the nobility, than to see fit men placed
in these offices, especially the pursuivants'. 3 I suspect that
skill in pedigrees was apt at this date to mean skill in setting
them out.
Robert Cooke (d. 1592), Clarenceux, was a skilful genealogist in
this sense. He was a neat penman and herald painter, a man of great
energy and an enthusiastic collector of pedigrees. Sir Thomas Kendrick
praises his church notes, made as early as 1569, including drawings
of mediaeval monuments. 4 But his education was not academic and
he had, it seems, little or no critical sense. He thus accepted
at his Visitations and signed at other times a number of fictitious
pedigrees. He is said to have begun as servant to Sir Edmund Brudenell
(d. 1585), a Northamptonshire country gentleman who had inherited
a love of pedigrees, heraldry and antiquities from his father Sir
Thomas (d. 1549). This latter had entertained John Leland (d. 1552),
the famous antiquary, more than once at his house at Deene and had
shown him a roll of Henry VII's descent from the Welsh princes and
other pedigrees and
____________________
1 See p. 293 and Wagner, Records and Collections of the College
of Arms, pp. 15-18 and 55-84.
2 p. 310.
3 Anstis, MS. Officers of Arms, ii. 409-11, quoting his MS. G. 5,
fo. 90.
4 T. D. Kendrick, British Antiquity, 1950, p. 156.
--------------------------------
Page 12
had quoted to him 'an old record of the King's'. 1 We have seen
2 that there had been antiquarian country gentlemen since the fifteenth
century at least. An able young man growing up in such a household
and imbibing at the same time manners and a taste for antiquities
might seem well qualified for a herald's post.
The construction of fictitious documents for genealogical or other
purposes was nothing new in the sixteenth century. Professor Galbraith
tells us, indeed, 'that the twelfth century was the golden age of
forgery', 3 though the purpose then was to secure titles to land.
The descent of the Pastons from a fictitious Wulstan Paston who
'came out of France...three years after the Conquest' may have been
concocted as early as the fifteenth century and charters from the
reign of Henry II forged to support it. 4 It is said to have been
included in William Worcester's book of Norfolk families. 5 Since,
however, that book was later in Paston ownership the pedigree might
have been interpolated then. What is certain is that it was compiled
before Hervy's Norfolk Visitation in 1563 at which it was entered.
I know of no early case where the authorship of such forgeries has
been established. A notable sequence of forged charters carrying
back the ancestry of the Lamberts of Skipton, Yorkshire, to Lambert,
Count of Louvain (d. 1004), imposed on more than one worthy king
of arms in the reign of James I. 6 What looks like such another
sequence, carrying back the Mildmays, who were yeomen under Henry
VIII, to twelfth century knights, was accepted by Clarenceux Cooke
in 1583. 7 But in such instances the heralds' fault would seem to
have been simply a lack of knowledge which few, if any, at that
time possessed.
Far more serious are such accusations as Round made against Cooke's
successor, Richard Lee (d. 1597), Clarenceux, in relation to the
fictitious pedigree deriving the Spencers from the mediaeval Despencers.
'He took from the records', says Round, ' Spencers and Despencers
wherever he could lay hands on them, fitted them together
____________________
1 Joan Wake, The Brudenells of Deene, 1953, pp. 46, 67, quoting
J. Leland, Itinerary, ed. L. Toulmin Smith, 1907.
2 p. 306.
3 V. H. Galbraith, Studies in the Public Records, 1948, p. 49.
4 'Account of a MS. Genealogy of the Paston Family', by Francis
Worship, Norfolk Archaeology, iv, 1855, pp. 1-55; Walter Rye, Norfolk
Families, 1913, pp. 647-54. Mr. K. B. McFarlane, whose researches
should in due course settle the point is disposed to think the fifteenth
century disparagements of the Paston ancestry ( The Paston Letters,
A.D. 1422-1509, ed. James Gairdner, 1904, i. 28-29; iv. 181, 246-9)
greatly exaggerated, if not pure malice.
5 p. 307.
6 The Ancestor, iii. 24-32.
7 J. H. Round, Family Origins, pp. 60-72.
--------------------------------
Page 13
in one pedigree at his own sweet will, rammed into
his composition several distinct families, and then boldly certified
the whole as gospel truth.' 1 Lee's own colleagues accused him of
venality but also of ignorance, so perhaps he may only have put
his name here to some other man's ingenious concoction. In 1595
Sir William Dethick (d. 1612), Garter, a better antiquary than Lee,
did not hesitate to defend himself against an accusation of propounding
a false pedigree by saying that it was only according to the proofs
shown him by the claimant, whose responsibility it was to defend
these. 2
It was at this period that Robert Glover, who entered the College
of Arms as Portcullis Pursuivant in 1567, began to lay the foundations
of critical genealogy. He became Somerset Herald in 1570 and in
the same year was deputed by his father in law William Flower (d.
1588), Norroy, to make Visitation in the north of England on his
behalf. 3
His death at the age of forty four in 1588 cut short a career which
had already set a mark upon historical scholarship. Glover's work
has yet to be fully studied and assessed, but the volumes of his
manuscript collections and especially the books of his Visitations
of Cheshire 1580, Staffordshire 1583, and Yorkshire 1584-5, attest
his grasp of the great principle that pedigrees should, if possible,
be founded upon record evidence. Copies of family charters and extracts
from the public records were entered by him for their evidential
value.
Mr. Godfrey Davis notes that heralds such as Glover and Ralph Brooke
(d. 1625) were the first to make antiquarian extracts from the monastic
cartularies. 4 Round justly regards it as a testimony to the care
and faithfulness of Glover's work that he was the only herald whose
manuscript collections Dugdale used and used largely. 5
The great antiquary William Camden (d. 1623), who was brought into
the College of Arms as Clarenceux in 1597 as part of a general reform,
was less a genealogist than a local historian and archaeologist.
His literary controversy with Ralph Brooke (d. 1625), York Herald,
which Sir Thomas Kendrick commends as an early application of the
scientific spirit to archaeology, 6 was little concerned with pedigree.
It led on, however, to an epoch making genealogical controversy,
for when in 1619 Brooke in his Catalogue of Nobility made a fresh
attack
____________________
1 J. Horace Round, Studies in Peerage and Family History, 1901,
pp. 307-8.
2 Arthur Collins, Proceedings, Precedents and Arguments on Claims
and Controversies concerning Baronies by Writ, and other Honours,
1734, pp. 141-7.
3 Wagner, Records and Collections of the College of Arms, p. 80.
4 G. R. C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain, 1958, p.
xv.
5 Family Origins, p. 6.
6 British Antiquity, pp. 152-5.
--------------------------------
Page 14
on Camden, the latter found a champion in his pupil and admirer
Augustine Vincent (d. 1626), Rouge Croix Pursuivant, who attacked
Brooke with criticisms of his genealogies. Vincent, who had been
appointed Rouge Rose Pursuivant Extraordinary in 1616 and had come
into the College of Arms as Rouge Croix in 1621, brought to it a
new kind of learning cardinal to the development of critical genealogy,
namely a close working knowledge of the mediaeval public records.
This knowledge he had acquired as a clerk in the Tower Record Office
1 under Sir John Borough (d. 1643) who himself came into the college
as Norroy in 1623 and was later Garter. Historical genealogy in
the Tower Record Office goes back to William Bowyer, Keeper there,
who made Lord Treasurer Winchester a pedigree of his family from
the records before 1567.
Winchester wrote to Cecil that he had desired Leicester to show
this to him and to the queen 'that his service may be known, whereof
will grow great reformation amongst the heralds, that maketh their
books at a venture and not by the records'. 2 Vincent's manuscript
collections now in the College of Arms include more than thirty
volumes of extracts from the Public Records both in the Tower and
elsewhere, for the most part from the Patent Rolls, Close Rolls,
Inquisitions, Pleas and Fines. Upon these he bases many pedigrees
in his other manuscript volumes and he often refers to the records
in his controversy with Brooke.
In reply to Brooke's claim that his own library was better furnished
than the College of Arms he asks if it be 'better furnished with
ancient and authentic records than the office at the Tower' and
remarks that 'experience cannot make you skilful in records unless
you came where they were (which is not commonly in Painters' shops)
3 and come fitly prepared and qualified by your breeding to understand
the language they speak'. 4 It would have been difficult for Brooke
to gain access to those records, if he had wished -- and had been
capable of understanding them. 5 Vincent, in Dugdale's words, 'had
no small advantage by his free access to the Publick Records in
the Tower of London, being then a Clerk in that Office'. 6 Glover
had understood
____________________
1 See p. 295; Anstis MS. Officers of Arms, ii. 639; Nicholas Harris
Nicolas, Memoir of Augustine Vincent, Windsor Herald, 1827.
2 Professor R. B. Wernham, 'The Public Records in the 16th and 17th
centuries', in English Scholarship in the 16th and 17th Centuries,
ed. L. Fox, 1956, pp. 17-18, quoting State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth,
No. xlii, fo. 101.
3 Brooke had started as a herald painter.
4 Augustine Vincent, A Discoverie of Errours in the first Edition
of the Catalogue of Nobility Published by Raphe Brooke, York Herald,
&c., 1622.
5 Cf. p. 295.
6 Baronage, i, Preface.
--------------------------------
Page 15
the value of record evidence, but his use of it seems to have been
mainly confined to charters in private hands. Vincent's use of the
public records was thus a landmark in the history of genealogy.
The demand for pedigrees under Elizabeth I had come, at least in
the main, from men who would not, even if they had wished, have
known how to apply critical canons to the concocted pedigrees too
often furnished them. Between Glover's day and Vincent's, however,
antiquarian studies had moved forward with rapid strides and pedigrees
were now studied and scrutinized by an appreciable group of capable
and disinterested scholars.
--------------------------------
Page 16
A focus for the serious study of English antiquities
was provided by the formation about 1586 of the Elizabethan Society
of Antiquaries. 1 Its debates and papers were concerned with such
general questions as the antiquity of titles of nobility, castles,
cities, parishes, shires, coinage, armorial bearings and the like.
But its members included heralds such as Camden, Dethick and Thynne,
amateurs of heraldry such as Joseph Holland and James Strangman,
official keepers of records such as Arthur Agarde, Michael Heneage,
and a Mr. Bowyer, who may have been William Bowyer, Keeper of the
Tower Records, c. 1564-7, or Robert Bowyer, Keeper of the Chancery
Records in 1604, 2 local historians like Richard Carew, Sampson
Erdeswicke, William Lambarde and John Stow, and scholars like Sir
Robert Cotton and Sir Henry Spelman whose wide ranging interests
and manuscript collections comprised genealogy besides much else.
3
The county histories begin with William Lambarde
(d. 1601) Perambulation of Kent printed in 1576. Not all their authors
were interested in genealogy. 4 The works of some, like Richard
Carew Survey of Cornwall ( 1602), were more descriptive than historical.
But wherever manorial history was made the basis, as more and more
it was, genealogy and documentation came into the picture. Sampson
____________________
1 Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries, 1956, p.
10.
2 English Historical Scholarship in the 16th and 17th Centuries,
ed. L. Fox, 1956, pp. 17-18.
3 Hearne's Curious Discourses, 1765 ed. ii. 421-49.
4 For general accounts of the Elizabethan and early Stuart antiquarian
movement see Robin Flower, 'Lawrence Nowell and the Discovery of
England in Tudor Times', Proc. Brit. Academy, xxi. 5-73; T. D. Kendrick,
British Antiquity, 1950, pp. 156-67; A. L. Rowse, The England of
Elizabeth, 1951, chap. ii; Philip Styles, Sir Simon Archer 1581-1662,
Dugdale Soc. Occasional Papers, No. 6, 1946; C. E. Wright, 'Sir
Edward Dering...', in C. Fox and B. Dickins, H. M. Chadwick Memorial
Studies, 1950, pp. 371-93. C. E. Wright, 'The Elizabethan Society
of Antiquaries and the Formation of the Cottonian Library', in The
English Library before 1700, ed. F. Wormald, 1958.
--------------------------------
Page 17
Erdeswicke (d. 1603), whose Survey of Staffordshire,
begun about 1593, was circulated in manuscript but not printed till
1817, and William Burton (d. 1645), whose Description of Leicestershire
appeared in 1622, were keen if not very critical genealogists, Sir
William Pole (d. 1635), whose Description of Devonshire was not
printed till 1791, made immense manuscript collections including
copies of the charters in the muniment rooms of the Devon gentry.
Thomas Jekyll (d. 1653) made collections for a never accomplished
history of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, which later writers built
upon. Sir Simon Archer (d. 1662) made collections for a Warwickshire
history, Roger Dodsworth (d. 1654) for a Yorkshire history, a baronage,
and a corpus of monastic charters, Augustine Vincent (d. 1626) for
a history of Northamptonshire, and Thomas Habington (d. 1647) for
a history of Worcestershire. John Smyth (d. 1640) of Nibley, Gloucestershire,
steward of the Berkeley family, wrote their history and genealogy
'in an Historical way', which Dugdale heartily wished might be 'a
Pattern for some others to follow: it being faithfully extracted,
partly out of Publick Records, and partly from the great mass of
ancient Charters, and other Memorials still remaining in Berkeley
Castle'. 1
The surviving manuscripts of such old antiquaries as these, now
scattered through many libraries, but especially the British Museum
Manuscript Department, the Bodleian at Oxford and the College of
Arms, can give much help to the genealogist today if he has opportunity
and patience to seek them out, for in them are transcripts of many
documents which have perished and references to many still existing
which otherwise he might never find. Their inferences from the documents
are naturally not always acceptable. Some of them went on the principle
of using the documentary evidence so far as it would take them and
then -- like some modern writers -- filling the gaps with their
imaginations.
By the early 1600's there was thus a network of antiquaries spread
through the country, with a scholarly approach to documents helped
by legal training and an ardour for genealogies in relation at once
to local history, family history and the safeguarding of rights
of property. The career of Roger Dodsworth (d. 1654), one of the
most distinguished of these scholars, illustrates their activities
and the links which bound them together. His father was chancellor
to successive
____________________
1 Baronage, i, Preface; The Lives of the Berkeleys by John Smyth
of Nibley, ed. Sir John Maclean , 3 vols. 1893; E. A. L. Moir, 'The
Historians of Gloucestershire', in Gloucestershire Studies, ed.
H. P. R. Finberg, 1957, pp. 268-71.
--------------------------------
Page 18
Archbishops of York, so that he was probably familiar with records
from childhood. 1 He was working at pedigrees and making notes in
Yorkshire churches before he was twenty. By 1618 he was in London
working in the great collection of manuscripts formed by Sir Robert
Cotton, noting especially monastic charters and material of all
kinds bearing on Yorkshire. Later he worked in many private libraries
and muniment rooms and on the public records in the Tower and at
Westminster. His manuscripts now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford,
fill 161 volumes and the accuracy of his transcription of old records
is considered outstanding. He projected three great works, a collection
of monastic charters or Monasticon, a baronage of England, and a
history of Yorkshire. He completed none of them, however, and his
materials were used by other men.
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Page 19
Far the most effective of these was Sir William
Dugdale ( 1605-86), a Warwickshire gentleman, whom his elder neighbour
Sir Simon Archer (d. 1662) had encouraged in a taste for antiquities
and introduced to many who shared it, both locally and on a visit
to London in 1635. Among the scholars whom Dugdale met in London
was the venerable Sir Henry Spelman, through whose good offices
he was in time appointed an officer of the College of Arms. 2
Spelman also urged him to collaborate with Dodsworth to produce
a Monasticon Anglicanum. This appeared after Dodsworth's death and
it has been said that Dugdale's share in the work was less than
he appeared to claim. 3 We are not here concerned with this, for
though the Monasticon is a great storehouse of raw material for
the genealogist, it is not a work of genealogy. On the other hand,
Dugdale other great works, The Antiquities of Warwickshire ( 1656)
and The Baronage of England ( 1675-6), are contributions of the
first importance to genealogical literature. For the former his
sole credit is undoubted nor have I seen serious question in regard
to the latter, despite the fact that Dodsworth too, like others
before him, 4 had planned a baronage.
To say this is not to forget the many whose help with material Dugdale
acknowledged. 5 Though his personal researches in the Public
____________________
1 Joseph Hunter, Three Catalogues, 1838, p. 66.
2 Blanch Lyon 1638, Rouge Croix 1639, Chester 1644, Norroy 1660,
Garter 1677.
3 N. Denholm-Young and H. H. E. Craster, 'Roger Dodsworth (1585-1654)
and His Circle', Yorkshire Arch. Journ. xxxii, 1936, pp. 5-32; D.
C. Douglas, English Scholars, 1939, pp. 34-42.
4 Dugdale in the Preface of his Baronage mentions Glover, Brooke,
and Vincent.
5 Styles, op. cit., pp. 41-47.
--------------------------------
Page 20
Records in 1637-8 were in a sense the foundation
of all his work, 1 his great superiority to others was less in the
collection of evidence than in the skill with which he marshalled
it and the judgement with which he drew conclusions from it. His
pedigrees in the Warwickshire and the Baronage are, I believe, the
first in English history to exemplify the great principle that for
every statement made contemporary record evidence must if possible,
be cited.
On the rare occasions, therefore, when he was deceived by spurious
documents, one knows exactly what these were, as with those on which
rested the claim of the Feildings, Earls of Denbigh, to descend
from thirteenth century Hapsburgs (known to the present Feilding
family as Perhapsburgs). 2 'It is', says Round, 'perhaps his supreme
merit that for every statement he gives his reference so that we
can test it for ourselves.' 3 'No single work', says Professor Douglas,
'has ever done so much for the history of the English aristocracy
as the Baronage of William Dugdale.' 4
Dugdale was in France for three months in 1648 staying most of that
time with the son of André Duchesne (d. 1640) the great French
historian and antiquary and making extracts from the latter's valuable
collections. In view of his avowal of indebtedness to Duchesne and
other French authors it is interesting to have Round's opinion that
even at his weakest point 'he is far superior to the French genealogist,
La Roque, whose great Histoire de la Maison d'Harcourt, published
some years earlier' than his Baronage, 'was constructed on the same
principles, but whose Preuves are a lamentable jumble of evidence
and of mere assertion'. 5
France, like England, produced in the seventeenth century a great
school of genealogists. Their names -- Sainct Marthe, Du Chesne,
Du Bouchet, Guichenon, La Roque, d'Hozier and le Père Anselme
-- are famous in their field and more of their work was printed
than of their English opposites. A full study of their achievement
and of French and English mutual influence in this field and period
has, however, yet to be made.
The pedigrees in both the Warwickshire and the Baronage are pedigrees
with a limited object, in the one to illustrate the descents of
manors, in the other those of baronies and peerage dignities. Cadet
lines and even marriages were therefore largely irrelevant and were
____________________
1 Styles, op. cit., pp. 37-41.
2 J. H. Round, 'Our English Hapsburgs: a Great Delusion', Peerage
and Family History, 1901, chap. v.
3 Family Origins, p. 7.
4 D. C. Douglas, English Scholars, pp. 52-53.
5 Family Origins, p. 7.
--------------------------------
Page 21
not sought out for their own sake though wives were always and cadets
sometimes included if the information was to hand. The genealogies
in the Complete Peerage and the Victoria County History naturally
enough retain the same limitation to this day. Some pressure upon
Dugdale to include more may, however, be inferred here and there.
Mr. Styles notes among those whose help Dugdale acknowledges in
the Warwickshire, those obscure people, descended from younger sons
or belonging to families of mere yeoman origin, whose small estates
had been acquired within the last three generations. They number,
on a rough estimate, rather more than a quarter of the whole....
Several belonged to Coventry or the immediate neighbourhood and
had made their wealth in trade.
But about most of them we know very little. The majority were not
armigerous and perhaps they may have hoped, in showing their deeds
to Archer or Dugdale, that a record in print would establish their
claim to gentility.... That such men were beginning to take an interest
in history and genealogy was a notable sign of the times. 1
At the opposite pole from the feudal or manorial
approach to genealogy was that of the Welsh genealogists, whose
concern, reflecting the old Welsh social system and indeed an older
phase of human society, was solely with the blood regardless of
possessions or economic status. Shopkeepers and fiddlers, paupers
and pedlars are shown in the Welsh pedigrees alongside the rich
and eminent without the least discrimination or sense of incongruity,
provided always that their ancestry was noble. 2
Welsh genealogy has its own long and separate history, which cannot
be dealt with here. It is, however, worth noting that from the reign
of Elizabeth I ( 1558-1603) to that of Queen Anne ( 1702-14) the
Welsh genealogists, who successively collected and codified the
traditional pedigrees, were in close touch with the English heralds,
to whom some of them were official deputies, and each group certainly
influenced the other. 3
Midway between these two poles lie the Heralds' Visitations. The
formal purpose of each entry in a Visitation book was, it is true,
to establish the gentility and right to arms of an individual, but
few visiting heralds were as narrow minded as Sir Edward Bysshe
(d. 1679),
____________________
1 Styles, op. cit., p. 47.
2 Major Francis Jones, 'An Approach to Welsh Genealogy', Tr. Cymmrodorion
Soc. 1948, pp. 394-5
3 Ibid., pp. 375-7, 418-29.
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Page 22
who in general confined himself to linear entries,
giving parents, grandparents and children of the head of the family,
but neither brothers, sisters, nor collateral branches. At the other
extreme Vincent in his Shropshire and Surrey Visitations of 1623,
Henry St. George and Samson Lennard in their Devon and Cornwall
Visitations of 1620 and their Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset Visitations
of 1623, and Gregory King and other deputies of Sir Henry St. George,
Clarenceux, in their Visitations of the 1680's, went out of their
way to include collateral branches in their pedigrees. So long as
the branches in question were within the limitations of the arms
this was proper and admirable, though not necessary, since according
to the pure theory of the thing they could be entered separately
under the several counties and hundreds in which their members lived.
Some time in the 1560's a radical change was made in the method
of Visitation. Before that date Visitations had been domiciliary.
The heralds had visited the gentry in their homes and were still
doing so as late as 1563. This, however, proved too slow for the
ambitious cycle of Visitation then in hand. Accordingly by 1566
a new method had been introduced by which the sheriffs of the counties
sent out to the bailiffs of hundreds lists of 'gentlemen and others',
whom they were to warn to appear before the visiting king of arms
or heralds. In the next century the gentry were usually summoned
to the inn where the heralds lodged in 'the chiefest towns in the
Hundred'. Dugdale, who visited as Norroy in the 1660's, said that
the place of summons should be not more than six or seven miles
from the home of any person summoned to it and it was his custom
to entertain at dinner all those who entered their arms and descents.
The Elizabethan Visitations, being far more extensive and ambitious
than those of Henry VIII's reign, called for better organization
and greater effort, while the growing interest in pedigrees was
reflected in fuller entries. The Visitations made by Glover in the
northern counties between 1570 and 1585 show the first application
of higher critical standards and an interesting innovation in the
form of entry seems also to be due to Glover. This was the introduction
of the rectilinear tabular form of pedigree, still in general use.
The first example I can date is of the year 1564. Though the first
to use it in Visitation entries, Glover was not the first inventor
of the rectilinear pedigree, for Sir Thomas Wriothesley had occasionally
employed it forty or fifty years earlier. 1 It gained rapidly in
favour and by 1618 had wholly
____________________
1 Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 1417, ff. 56, 61; see p. 309.
--------------------------------
Page 23
superseded both the narrative form, normal since the 1530's, and
the mediaeval true pedigree (pied de gru = crane's foot) form with
radiating lines.
Another innovation of this date reflected both scholarly and popular
trends in contemporary genealogy. This was the appointment by individual
kings of arms (and in at least one case by the whole college) of
local deputies, commonly known as deputy heralds. Their responsibilities
and terms of appointment differed, but most were concerned not with
Visitation but with painting arms and conducting heraldic funerals.
Even this called for a knowledge of local pedigrees and the help
of such deputies might therefore be enlisted when Visitations of
their counties took place. Some few of them, however, were genealogists
or scholars rather than painters, and were appointed primarily or
solely to assist at Visitations.
The subject has as yet been little studied and our present knowledge
is far from full. The first relevant reference I have yet met with
is the statement that Griffith Hiraethog (d. 1566), a bard and poet
who was also an antiquary and scholar, was deputy herald for all
Wales under Garter, Clarenceux and Norroy. 1 The linguistic difficulty
perhaps caused the heralds to feel the need to lean on a local expert
in Wales sooner than elsewhere. In 1586 Clarenceux and Norroy jointly
appointed Lewis Dwnn to make a Visitation of Wales, which he accomplished
between that date and 1614. 2
In 1598 Thomas Chaloner was appointed deputy herald in Chester and
in 1606 his widow's second husband Randle Holme (d. 1655) received
the same appointment. This Randle Holme was the first of four generations
so called, all herald painters in Chester down to 1707. But Randle
Holme II, III and IV seem not to have been appointed official deputies,
while Randle III was actually prosecuted by Dugdale for invasion
of his office of Norroy in 1668. As genealogists the Holmes were
indefatigable but inexact and unscholarly, so that the manuscript
volumes of their collections, about two hundred and seventy in number,
and now in the British Museum, must be used with caution. 3
In December 1624 and until 1626 Dodsworth was deputy herald for
Yorkshire. 4 This appointment was presumably due to the then Norroy,
Sir John Borough. Yorkshire was not in fact visited during
____________________
1 Francis Jones, op. cit., pp. 366-9; Heraldic Visitations of Wales
by Lewis Dwnn, ed. Sir S. R. Meyrick, 1846, ii. 97 and i, p. xxii.
2 Ibid., p. xxiii and passim.
3 J. P. Earwaker, The Four Randle Holmes of Chester, 1892.
4 Coll. Arm. MS. I.C.B. Chaos I. 167.
--------------------------------
Page 24
Dodsworth's tenure of office, but the appointment illustrates the
wish of at least some of the heralds to lean on the best available
local scholarship. Dugdale's Visitation deputies included such notable
antiquaries as Richard Kuerden (d. c. 1690) for Lancashire and Nathaniel
Johnston (d. 1705) 1 for Yorkshire.
We know that herald painters and local antiquaries alike sought
and sometimes obtained copies of the Visitation books for their
counties, despite the heralds' reluctance to let such copies out
of their custody. Johnston secured extensive extracts, if not actually
full copies, of most of the earlier Yorkshire Visitations. In the
same way other extracts and copies were made by deputy heralds and
herald painters, who often conflated successive Visitation books
and then made additions of their own.
Many such copies or purported copies exist in public and private
collections. Some were used by eighteenth and nineteenth century
county and family historians and it is from such copies that the
editions of Visitations printed by the Harleian Society and others
are for the most part taken. The trouble with them is that, until
they have been analysed and compared with the originals, their character
and authenticity are quite uncertain. Some of the additional matter
found in them is valuable, some of it worthless. Some render the
originals exactly, others distort them. It may be added that the
same weaknesses are found in the numerous armorials and heraldic
collections made by herald painters of this period, which at one
or two removes form the basis of such compilations as Sir Bernard
Burke General Armory ( 1842 and 1884).
------------
The great fact to be grasped here is that Englishmen and those of
English descent are fortunate in the immense bulk of the records
kept and still preserved in England as compared with most other
lands. This is a consequence of long continued settled government
in island security under a constitution much addicted to the forms
of law duly carried out and duly recorded.
Many people well established in the world are reluctant to begin
enquiries which may show their origins to be even humbler than they
think. Many others have no such feeling, but in the true spirit
of the genealogist wish to know the facts whatever they may be.
It is hardly for the genealogist to try to convert others to his
way of thinking, but it may be worth pointing out that social movement,
both up and down, from one class to another is much greater and
more widespread than is often thought. The younger branches of gentle
families are often found among the tradesmen and yeomen and it is
likely, though less easily proved, that the further step down into
the ranks of the labourers has frequently been taken. The exploration
of these phenomena has been too limited for generalization, but
most genealogists can point to instances.
Conversely, the ranks of the nobility and gentry have in every age
been recruited from below and the rise to them has sometimes been
rapid. Since the total number of the ancestors of each of us doubles
in each generation we go back (save as modified by the marriage
of cousins), most ancestries, if they could be carried back on all
lines for eight or ten generations, would probably traverse a surprisingly
wide social range. The exceptions to this would be the endogamous
groups; the royal families; that minority of the high nobility and
ancient gentry who have always been careful whom they married; the
dwellers in the lonely valleys and the far off settlements; and
the members of the straiter sects; and even these closed communities
are far from being genetically watertight.
Besides those whose genealogical interest is mainly in their own
ancestry I have had another class of possible readers in mind, namely
those students of English history who feel the need for a clearer
picture than their training has given them of the genealogical background.
This need may now be growing. In the recent past a kind of historical
writing was favoured which aimed less at establishing what happened
than at explaining why it happened; which dealt in tendencies, causes
and effects, statistics and ideas, rather than particular events
and persons. This kind of history has naturally less use for genealogy
than the plain narratives known to our ancestors.
Pedigrees might, indeed, themselves afford material for statistical
analysis, if they were fully known, but much hard work would be
required of the genealogists first. There is now, however, a truly
modern school of historians, especially linked in England with Sir
Lewis Namier, which builds up the picture of a former age round
the descriptions of individuals and of their political and social
relationships. To this school of historians genealogy is an essential
tool and it may be that its rise will in due course lead to a higher
estimation of scientific genealogy and so to a wider knowledge and
better practice of its special skill and learning.
Is it presumption in a genealogist to believe that his special approach
to history is a necessary and fundamental one?
Human beings [says Mr. C. S. Lewis ] look separate because you see
them walking about separately. But then we are so made that we can
see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course
it would look different. For there was a time when every man was
part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well:
and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity
spread out in time, as God sees it, it would not look like a lot
of separate things dotted about. It would look like one single growing
thing -- rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would
appear connected with every other. 1
| It is this vision of history that the genealogist feebly seeks
to realize. I ought, I think, to indicate the nature and limits
of my own experience of these matters. Genealogy was my passion
from childhood and my interest was encouraged by that of my cousin
Henry F. S.A. Wagner ( 1840-1926), a well known student of Huguenot
genealogy. For the last twenty eight years it has been my duty as
a herald to trace, prove and study pedigrees for clients and enquirers
of all sorts. There must, however, be a division of labour in large
scale genealogical practice and in mine the greater part of the
field work has been done by others, while it has been my part to
coordinate and analyse material collected by them from records everywhere,
but myself to carry out primary research only in a certain range
of records, mainly central.
For what I have written of material known to me only at secondhand
I have therefore drawn freely on the information and advice of others.
I was first introduced to the world of records in my Oxford days
by Mr. (now Professor) V. H. Galbraith, to whose guidance in historical
fields I am greatly indebted. My conception of genealogy as an art
owes more than I can say to two masters of that art who have been
my friends and fellow workers; the late Alfred Butler, Windsor Herald
(see p. 353), and my assistant during many years Mr. Thomas Woodard.
For guidance in the special fields of Welsh and Scottish genealogy
I am indebted to Major Francis Jones and Sir Iain Moncreiffe, Bt.,
while the former has placed me further in his debt by reading and
criticizing the manuscript of this book.
In American matters I have been helped and guided by the Rev. Dr.
Arthur Adams and Mr. G. Andrews Moriarty. To Mr. Marc Fitch I owe
most of the material on which the section dealing with his family
is based. Other obligations are acknowledged in the text and on
pages x-xi. Not my least debt is to my wife but for whom this book
would scarcely have been carried through and without whose constructive
criticism it would be even more imperfect than it is.
---------------------------------
Page 25
Addenda
p. 37 . See also The Mountbatten Lineage, prepared
for private circulation, by Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Mountbatten
of Burma, K.G., 1958.
p. 99 . The relation of the great houses of c. 1710-60 to the social
standing and aims of their builders is discussed by Sir John Summerson
in his Cantor Lectures, "'The Classical Country House in 18th
Century England'", Journ. Roy. Soc. of Arts, vol. cvii, where
a similar socio-architectural study of the ensuing epoch is desiderated.
p. 101 . In his Cantor Lectures, "'The Classical Country House
in 18th Century England'", Journ. Roy. Soc. of Arts, vol. cvii,
Sir John Summerson traces the reflection in architectural trends
of the change from the overweening greatness of the Whig Oligarchs
of c. 1710-60 to the more widely diffused luxury of the ensuing
years.
pp. 115 and 116 . Mr. Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution,
1958, pp. 153-96, "'The Agrarian Legislation of the Revolution'",
and pp. 199-214, 'Lord Clarendon and the Puritan Revolution', throws
light on the part played by the sale of delinquents' lands and kindred
policies during the interregnum in pulling down the old gentry and
building up a new race of improving gentry who set the tone of the
ensuing age.
pp. 120 and 129 . A picture of a yeoman on the borderline of gentility
in the 1870's is given by Anthony Trollope, The American Senator,
1877, ch. i, pp. 9-11. Laurence Twentyman belonged to the class
of 'yeoman, as they ought to be called, -- gentlemen-farmers as
they now like to style themselves, -- men who owned some acres of
land, and farmed these acres themselves.... He possessed over three
hundred acres of land, on which his father had built an excellent
house.... He had been at school for three years at Cheltenham College.'
p. 161 . See also "'The Social Origins and Provenance of the
English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II'", by Miss K.
Edwards, Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., 5th ser., ix, pp. 51-79.
p. 172 . See also Sir John Summerson Cantor Lectures, "'The
Classical Country House in 18th Century England'", Journ. Roy.
Soc. of Arts, vol. cvii.
p. 173 . The common ancestry with the Hoares of Hoares' Bank (pp.
141-2) attributed to this family in Edward Hoare Families of Hore
and Hoare, 1883, was disproved by a pedigree recorded at the College
of Arms in 1923 which takes its ancestry back to 1526 at Green's
Norton, Northamptonshire.
p. 261 . See A. R. Wagner, "'The Children in the Mayflower'",
in The Times, 30 June 1959. The documents are printed in full in
the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, July 1960.
____________________
1 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, ed. 1952, Collins, p. 152.
--------------
Page 26
Acknowledgements are due to the authors, or their
representatives, and the publishers of the following works for permission
to make quotations from them:
Mr. N. G. Brett-James, The Growth of Stuart London,
published by Messrs. George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. Professor A.
Goodwin, The European Nobility in the 18th Century, published by
Messrs. A. & C. Black, Ltd. Professor C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity,
published by Messrs. Geoffrey Bles, Ltd. Mrs. The late H. M. &
N. K. Chadwick, The Growth of Literature, vol. 3, and Early Scotland,
published by The University Press, Cambridge., Mr. G. A. Holmes,
The Estates of the Higher Nobility in 14th Century England published
by The University Press, Cambridge. Professor J. H. Plumb, Studies
in Social History, published by The University Press, Cambridge.
Dr. W. G. Hoskins, Devonshire Studies, published by Messrs. Jonathan
Cape, Ltd. Dr. A. L. Rowse, A Cornish Childhood, published by Messrs.
Jonathan Cape, Ltd. Professor D. C. Douglas, English Scholars, published
by Messrs. Jonathan Cape, Ltd. Sir Frank Stenton, History of National
Biography 1922/1930 -- Biography of J. H. Round, published by The
Clarendon Press. Archbishop David Mathew, The Social Structure in
Caroline England, published by The Clarendon Press. Mr. G. D. Q.
C. Squibb, The High Court of Chivalry, published by The Clarendon
Press. Dr. The late J. H. Round, Family Origins, Peerage and Family
History, and Peerage and Pedigree, published by Messrs. Constable
& Co., Ltd. Professor J. H. Plumb, Sir Robert Walpole, The Making
of a Statesman, published by The Cresset Press. Professor The late
T. F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, published by
The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Mr. E. D. Bebb, Non-Conformity
and Economic Life, published by The Epworth Press. Mr. R. W. Ketton-Cremer,
Norfolk Assembly, published by Messrs. Faber & Faber, Ltd. Mr.
G. C. Homans, English Villagers of the 13th Century, published by
The Harvard University Press. Mr. Richard Church, Over the Bridge,
published by Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd. Dr. W. G. Hoskins,
English Provincial Towns of the 16th Century, published by the Royal
Historical Society. Mr. J. T. Adams, The Founding of New England,
published by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. Dr. W. G. Hoskins,
Essays in Leicestershire History, published by The Liverpool University
Press.
End of Text
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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- Reprise -
Sunday, June 4, 2000
Lest We Forget
The Towering Boondoggle
When politicians
make business decisions on a heroic scale, heroically
scaled calamities often result!
By John Steele Gordon, American Heritage
NEW YORK --
In 1899, Asa Candler, the owner of Coca-Cola, thought the
soft drink’s future lay with the soda fountain and gave away the
bottling rights.
In the American folk memory the Ford Motor
Company’s Edsel has become for corporate disasters what the
Titanic is for shipwrecks. The reason for these lapses is
simple enough.
Humans are quirky, and predicting their
future behavior, in the marketplace or anywhere else, is hard to
do. But capitalism forces business people to try, and because their
own future well being depends on it, they try very hard.
Politicians, however, don’t have to worry
about market share or profits; they have to worry about getting
reelected. That is why politicians have a far worse record in economic
decision making than do businesspeople.
Again the reason is simple: Politicians
don’t really make economic decisions; they make political ones.
When politicians do make the sorts of decisions that capitalists
should make instead, the results often make the Edsel seem
like a good idea in comparison.
Consider New York’s World Trade Center.
It has been in the news lately because the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey, a joint venture of the two state governments
that own the WTC, has been paralyzed.
The governors of the two states are locked
in a dispute over how much of the Port Authority’s vast pool
of development money should be spent in each state.
One of the decisions hanging fire is whether
or not to sell the World Trade Center.
In truth, it should never have been built.
The Port Authority was established in 1921 so that New York
and New Jersey could develop to the fullest the potential of New
York Harbor, which the two states share.
Over the years the Port Authority
built bridges, tunnels, airports, and communication and harbor facilities.
But it suddenly found itself in the Manhattan real estate business
because the chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank wanted to protect
his bank’s investment in its vast new downtown headquarters, completed
in the early 1960s, and his family’s real estate holdings.
The chairman of Chase Manhattan at the time
was David Rockefeller, and he wanted to see downtown New York remade.
Fortunately for him, his brother Nelson
happened to be governor of New York, and Nelson Rockefeller never
saw a megadevelopment project he didn’t want to build.
After a great deal of political horse-trading
between the two states, the Port Authority was authorized to build
in New York two skyscrapers, each taller and far more spacious than
the Empire State Building. In exchange New Jersey’s chronically
money-losing Hudson Tubes, a subway system connecting New
Jersey with Manhattan, would be taken over by the Port Authority.
In theory the profits from the World
Trade Center would cover the losses of the Hudson Tubes.
The result was, from an engineering standpoint, a marvel. From an
aesthetic one, however, it was at best a dubious achievement.
The view of Manhattan as seen from the
harbor had for decades been one of the world’s great vistas. But
the huge bulk of the World Trade Center on the western edge
made it look as if the entire island were about to capsize into
the Hudson.
And from an economic standpoint the
World Trade Center was an utter disaster. The complex was
completed just as the deep recession of the mid-1970s forced New
York to the edge of bankruptcy.
The vast supply of new office space in
the World Trade Center overwhelmed demand in the downtown
area. Had the state not been able to force many of its innumerable
agencies to take space there, the Twin Towers would have
been largely empty. Not until 1993, ironically the year it was bombed,
did the World Trade Center begin to show a profit.
The World Trade Center, of course,
is hardly New York State’s only big business mistake. The state
has a rich tradition in this regard.
Read more about the Erie Railway in 1830s
and how Gov.
DeWitt Clinton's involvement promised them an avenue of their
own, once the canal was finished, built by or with the substantial
aid of the state.
Only politicians could have designed what
would be, upon completion, the longest railroad in the world, running,
almost literally, between nowhere and nowhere.
The surveyor thought it would cost $4,726,260.
In the end the Erie Railway, with only 60 of its 450 miles
double-tracked, took $23,500,000 and seventeen years to construct.
In the context of the time, that was staggering.
The sum was about what the federal government spent annually in
the 1840s, more than three times what the Erie Canal had cost.
As a result, the Erie from its inception
was burdened with a capital structure that made it easy to manipulate
on Wall Street, where plenty of people were more than willing to
do so.
Since then, the railroad has passed through
bankruptcy and was reorganized no fewer than six times before losing
its corporate identity altogether in the early 1970s.
The Erie at least became a model
of how not to build a trunk-line railroad, just as the World Trade
Center 120 years later became a model of how not to carry out
a major urban development project.
Still, the WTC construction project disaster
had one wonderful consequence. The dirt from the enormous hole dug
for the foundation had to go somewhere.
That place was the Hudson River, creating
an expanse of landfill that remained empty for twenty years. (One
year a conceptual artist planted two acres of wheat on it, the first
agricultural crop to be harvested in Manhattan in decades.)
Finally, when the real estate market was
right, Battery Park City began to rise on the land. A mix
of residential, commercial, and public areas designed by many different
architects and built by many different real estate concerns under
an overall design, it was clearly a masterpiece of urban development
long before it neared completion.
Further, because it lies to the west of
the World Trade Center, those colossal structures no longer
stand at the water’s edge, and the vista of Manhattan from the harbor
is once again as aesthetically satisfying as it is awesome.
[Editor's
Note: The complete column archive as it appeared in the May-June
2000 Issue pp. 14,16, 2000 may be accessed at American
Heritage.]
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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[Updated at 10:00am EST]
September 11, 2001
911 For USA!
Day Of Infamy
Sneak Attack on World Trade
Center,
Pentagon, State Department
Massive Deaths
By Howard Hobbs, Ph.D.
Valley Press Media Network
Washington
D.C. -- Early this morning at 9:00 AM eastern time deadly attacks
by terrorists in command of three commercial jets crashed into major
commercial buildings in lower Manhattan.
In the first attack, a plane smashed into
the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan shortly
before 9 a.m., followed by another plane into the second tower about
20 minutes later.
Both towers later collapsed. One of the
planes was an American Airlines Boeing 767 hijacked after takeoff
from Boston.
About an hour later, a plane crashed into
the Pentagon in Washington. The Pentagon, the White House, the State
Department, the Justice Department, the Capitol and other government
buildings were evacuated.
All flights across the US are suspended
until further notice. Following a series of plane attacks in the
United States, aviation experts assess how the disaster happened.
The FAA shut down all airports in the country,
and all international flights heading into D.C. and New York airports
were diverted to Canada.
President Bush canceled an appearance in
Florida to return to Washington, calling the "apparent terrorist
attacks" a "national tragedy."
In Chicago, the Sears Tower was evacuated.
The New York Port Authority said it had closed all bridges and tunnels
into the city.
New York's Bellevue Hospital was designated
command central for handling the catastrophe. The dead may well
exceed the tens of thousands.
Several hospitals have already reported
receiving victims with burns and head injuries.
News coverage of terrorism has been used
as a tool of terrorist in the recent past to gain public support
and recognition.
Based on an analysis of more than 200 evening
newscasts aired during the first six years of the Reagan administration,
the news media appears to have escalated public panic about terrorism
and encouraged support for specific U.S. Policy objectives, rather
than building sympathy for terrorists.
Bethami Dobkin studied similarities between
news media and government portrayals of terrorism, combining textual
criticism with an interpretation of official U.S. Policy statements,
and says that government depiction and news presentations of terrorism
reproduce an ideology that supports military strength and intervention.
Middle East terrorist groups have come under
suspicion for the attack with Osama Bin Laden a prime suspect.
California Gov. Gray Davis has closed all
State buildings and sent workers home. Fresno State University has
been closed. State schools are to remain in session, however.
Smoke and flames rose over the Pentagon
at about 10 a.m. today following a suspected terrorist crash of
a commercial airliner into the side of the building. Part of the
building hit collapsed; firefighters continue to battle the flames.
The building was evacuated, as were other federal buildings in the
Capitol, including the White House. The number of casualties is
unknown. The Pentagon's workday population is about 24,000. Updates
will follow as they come available.
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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December 18, 2002
President Bush Announced
David Hobbs His Legislative Assistant
by Howard E. Hobbs, Ph.D., Editor & Publisher
WASHINGTON -- President
George W. Bush today announced that he has named David Hobbs Assistant
to the President for Legislative Affairs. Mr. Hobbs will fill the
position held by Nicholas Calio who announced this week that he
is leaving the White House staff to return to the private sector.
" David Hobbs is a trusted member of
my team who has played an important role in helping us achieve major
legislative victories, from landmark education reforms to historic
tax relief for the American people. His hard work and dedication
have been invaluable, and I appreciate his continued service to
my Administration," said President Bush.
David Hobbs currently serves as Deputy
Assistant to the President -- House of Representatives. He came
to the White House from his position as Chief of Staff to House
Majority Leader Dick Armey. He grew up in Houston, Texas, and received
both his bachelor's and masters degrees from the University of Texas.
Comment
©
Copyright 1876-2004 By The Daily Republican Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
Feature Story
June 27, 2001
Growing up in Southern Missouri
On the Eve of World Destruction
By Howard E. Hobbs, Ph.D. President
Valley Press Media Network!
CLOVIS, Calif. -- In this multicultural
age my thoughts often turn to early childhood memories of a humid
Missouri river town and the American ethic with which I came to
terms growing up in the the South they called the "Midwest".
A great many important aspects of American
life have been ignored or treated very briefly, sometimes because
they were or because I thought myself incompetent to handle them.
I have been writing on the American ethic
for more than fifty years. Inevitably I have sometimes repeated
myself. As readers will soon discover, this is a personal memoir.
I have made assertions because I thought
them to be true and relevant, not because they had a weight of independent
authority behind them. There may result from this, something that
the reader will find interesting about the best country in the world
and the way we were in the interesting and intelligible times of
my childhood along the Mississippi River more than fifty years ago..
Above all, I have tried to make plain that
there is no parallel in history to the experiment of free government
on the American scale. The sheer size of this undertaking accounts
for a great deal, including the apparent justification at some periods
and in some views of American life for pessimism about the present
or the future of the nation.
In the past, the pessimists have always
been wrong. I think they are still wrong, although it is a good
practice to keep one's eye on the ball, just in case it doesn't
work out that way.
When I went to the movies in Kansas City in 1938
I witnessed a magnificent sight that I still remember. A huge serene,
and ominous Zeppelin, was moving past on the movie screen.
It had been in New York and the narrator said
it would be in Frankfort Germany by the very next day. A gigantic
black and red swastika was plainly visible on its side as it moved
on.
A shadow was crossing Western Missouri,
too. How remote it all seemed to be from me, and how much irrelevant
to the people of Midwest America, with fifteen hundred miles each
way between them and the oceans in 1938.
The Kansas City Star Newspaper
reminded local citizens of larger European cities and the newspapers
there. I went with my family to see relatives who lived in a small
town in Kansas. We went together to the corner drugstore to get
ice cream after supper.
It was a typical scene in Main Street
America on a Saturday night in late Indian Summer. The boys
and girls were there in their white summer clothes; there were endless
cars; it was possible that here, as in other American towns like
this, there was present and indefinable American air of happiness
and ease, at least for the young.
There was also that general friendliness
and candor of Missouri folk. Here, as much as in the rest of old
urban Kansas in those days, people called each other by their "last
names".
It was a world in which the older boys and girls spent their evenings
milling around outside the drugstores. Most adults we knew showed
signs of fatigue and worry.
They had reason. This was a farm based
economy and the farmers were having a rough time. Across the wide
Missouri River it was a drought year. In Emporia, Kansas, it
was still doubtful, I later learned, whether they could reopen the
local Normal College in the Fall. There might not be enough
water, even for the town.
That entire region had been badly hit by
crop failures, by bank failures. But there was still an impression
of hope, of recovery. There was an air of confident adaptation to
their way of life in the dress, the speech, the manners of the young.
In the drugstore there was the usual stock of gadgets, of remedies
for all ills.
There were soft drinks, and a large book
and magazine rack. There were books, too. Books that had been made
into films, like James Fennimore Cooper's book Last of The Mohicans.
If you wanted to know about love, about astrology, about business
success, about child training, about how to be happy on a small
piece of land, the Old Farmer's Almanac and Life Magazine
were there. And the radio blasted the soft summer night and the
heat did not empty the movie house.
There might be a Kansas City Star Newspaper
with comics and cartoons like Gasoline Alley bringing home the bitter
truth about the world of work. No doubt some residents in the town
were traveled and knew about the outside world.
Perhaps the librarian or the English teacher
told the women's club of a tour to the Chicago World's Fair.
Some veterans had memories of the Civil War. Others had memories
of France in the World War, the Great War, the War to end all Wars.
The local newspaper was doing a first-class
job, a better job than was being done by most other small town papers,
to awaken the people to the truth of the new iron age that we were
all living in, to the significance of Manchukuo, to the menace
of international war in Spain. Perhaps, the Parent-Teachers' Association
had asked for more instruction in civics and in current affairs.
Certainly, appeals for charity, for Chinese, or for Spaniards had
been or would be answered as soon as made.
But in the warmth and ease of that Southern
summer night, things were to change forever. On one inevitable night
the character of American natural isolationism was to be abruptly
shattered for all time as I quietly gathered fire-flies in a quart
Mason Jar in our front yard.
It was 1938, it was calm. But the deplorable,
maddening impact of the outside world on whole Mississippi Valley
could be on local `radio stations. Something about about "peace
in our time" and a war in Europe that was for the first time, to
concern to us more than the local news.
However, in a few short months German Nazi
submarines were sinking American ships in the mouth of the Mississippi
and all cities of the Mississippi Valley were getting set against
air raids, against desperate, forlorn hopes in which the Nazis
planned to strike, whatever the cost, at the most typical, representative,
important cities of the Midwest.
As the shadow over Europe grew longer and
darker, the American people mobilized for the onslaught of yet another
wave of European immigrants storming ashore at New York's Ellis
Island.
All over the United States the great railway
station centers trains rolled both night and day. There was the
Illinois Central, the New York Central, the Union
Pacific, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and of course,
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. Not everyone rode the rails.
Riders on the trains would see an occasional Rolls-Royce
among the Lincolns, Packards, Buicks, Chevrolets, and Fords.
The airspace above the trains and cars
was filled with the new passenger planes, and the airports more
numerous and more resplendent than money can buy.
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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June
12, 1989
American
Icons
Hobbs & Mendenhall Families
by Howard
E. Hobbs, PhD Editor & Publisher,
Daily Republican Newspaper
CHAPEL
HILL, NC -- This remarkable Hobbs family history has been researched
from extant family records, and personal letters, chiefly from 1870,
concerning the political and religious activities, travels, and
careers of members of the Mendenhall and Hobbs families of Guilford
County, N.C. Central figures include Lewis Lyndon Hobbs (1849-1932),
educator and writer, active Quaker, and president of Guilford College;
his wife, Mary Mendenhall Hobbs (1852-1930), active in promoting
women's education, pacifism, and Quaker and Mary's father, Nereus
Mendenhall (1819-1893), devout Quaker, physician, teacher at
New Garden School (Greensboro, N.C.), and legislator active
in the construction of the state asylum at Morganton in the 1870s
and other reforms.
Their history reflects the Quaker view
of life and relates to several reform movements. Richard Hobbs,
son of Lewis and Mary, served in France with a Quaker relief organization.
Lewis Lyndon Hobbs while at Haverford College, in the 1870's
was both as a student and later the College president.
Nereus Mendenhall (1819-1893), graduated
from Haverford College in 1839; received his degree from
Jefferson College, Pa., in 1845. He taught in the New
Garden Boarding School at Greensboro, N.C., and later became
a civil engineer and surveyed many railroads in North Carolina.
In 1860, he returned to the New Garden School as principal
and kept it open during the Civil War, which he opposed along with
secession and Reconstruction.
He served two terms as a Democrat in the
state legislature and, in 1876, was appointed to faculty of the
Penn Charter School in Philadelphia. He helped with the construction
of the insane asylum at Morganton and the State Penitentiary. He
was a member of the Society of Friends and married Oriana Wilson
in 1851. Mary Mendenhall Hobbs (1852-1930), daughter of Nereus and
Oriana Mendenhall, was also a member of the Society of Friends.
She married Lewis Lyndon Hobbs and with him dedicated her life to
education in North Carolina, especially that of women. She was the
third woman to receive a degree from the University of North
Carolina.
She wrote on many subjects and was prominent
paifest who's efforts for peace were widely recognized. She and
Lyndon Hobbs had five children: Lewis Lyndon, Richard Julius Mendenhall,
Allen Wilson, Walter, and Gertrude. Richard served with a Quaker
relief organization in France during the First World War. Lewis
Lyndon Hobbs (1849-1932), son of Lewis and Phoebe Cook Hobbs, was
a member of the Society of Friends and graduated from Haverford
College in 1876.
He accepted an appointment to teach at
the New Garden College from 1876 to 1884 and was elected
president of Guilford College from 1888 to 1915. He helped
to establish the first rural grade school in North Carolina.
Comment
1876-2004 Copyright, The Daily Republican
Newspaper. All rights reserved
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[Updated]
February 3, 1998
Review of Literature
Design of Internet Based
News Delivery Systems
By WebPortal Design Corp. 501(C)(3)
This report presents
an overview of emerging interactive multimedia technologies and
how Web Portal Design Corp introduced the Daily
Republican Newspaper, the first Internet-based news service,
implemented that new technology to deliver news to its customers
on the Internet...More!
Comment
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Newspaper. All rights reserved
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WAR
ROOM'S
LATEST
DISPATCH:
FOCUS ON IRAQ
|
November 28, 2002
Joint US - Russia
Statement on Iraq
U.S. Department of State
We
have expressed our serious concern about the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction. In this context, we pledge our full
support for the implementation of UN Security Council resolution
1441.
We call on Iraq to comply fully and immediately
with this and all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, which
were adopted as a necessary step to secure international peace
and security.
We firmly support the efforts of the
United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
Chairman and the International Atomic Energy Agency Director General
to fulfill their responsibilities under UN Security Council resolutions.
We call on Iraq, in strict compliance
with UNSC resolution 1441, to cooperate fully and unconditionally
in its disarmament obligations or face serious consequences.
November 8, 2002
Statement by Senator Biden on Passage of U.N. Resolution
on Iraq
Today's vote by
the United Nations Security Council marks an important victory
for American diplomacy.
I commend President Bush and Secretary
Powell for their skill and perseverance in forging an international
consensus on Saddam's obligation to disarm.
By going through the United Nations,
we have gained critical international support if it becomes necessary
to use force to disarm Saddam.
This demonstrates the wisdom of working
with the international community, as many of us in Congress had
urged the administration to do.
The resolution is tough and leaves no room for Saddam to resort
to the cheat and retreat tactics of the past.
The ball is in Saddam's court - he must now
decide whether to give up his weapons of mass destruction or give
up power.
CHRONO FILE:
28 Nov 02 | Middle East Iraq 'bugging' inspectors' offices
27 Nov 02 | Middle East Conference to discuss post-Saddam Iraq
27 Nov 02 | Middle East In pictures: Iraq arms inspections resume
27 Nov 02 | Middle East Analysis: Pitfalls of Iraqi arms declaration
27 Nov 02 | Middle East Iraqi press attacks Israel and Washington
26 Nov 02 | Middle East UN compromises on Iraqi aid plan
25 Nov 02 | Media reports Iraqi letter rebuts UN
Resolution
End
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Republican
Presents
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WAR LINKS
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forgotten. Check these links to great Cold War sites on the
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