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Fools, Fixed Games and the Future of Our Nation

7/12/2014

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PictureReggie Jackson fools the umpires into thinking he unintentionally interfered with a play in the 1978 World Series.
Years ago, I played Little League baseball.  Those were good times.  I was a pretty good player and I played on some winning teams.  I learned about teamwork and sportsmanship.

I also learned a little about the dark side of some people.  Not the players.  They were kids like me, getting exposure to the kind of competition we would be accustomed to years later.

It was the parents, and specifically, some of the coaches.  I will never forget what happened one season.

In Little League we had split seasons.  There were two halves.  Teams competed to win at least one of the half seasons to assure a spot in the championship. If a team won both halves, there was no championship – that team was declared the winner.

My team lost the first half narrowly to our rivals.  In the second half, we were poised to win and face our rivals in the championship.

Then something happened.

Our rivals were set to play a game against another team.  My brother, who was on my team, and I went to see the game.  We hoped our rivals would beat the other team, which was challenging us for the second half.

We saw our rivals take the field.  Some guy who had never pitched the entire season took the mound.  He threw pitches in the dirt to a catcher who had barely gotten the equipment on!  We tried to find our rivals’ best player, who had clobbered several home runs that season.  He was not on the field: he was on the bench.

The other team came to bat.  The first hitter grounded a ball toward the second baseman, who started to step toward it.  Then he stopped and watched the ball roll by.  The next batter popped the ball into the outfield.  Two outfielders looked at each other and laughed as the ball dropped.

The game went on like this.  My brother and I watched for a while, stunned that no one was stopping it.  We went home and told my dad, who called the league commissioner’s office and relayed our account.  The commissioner said he would get back to him.  He never did.

Who would throw a Little League game?

People who put their self-interest before respect for the rules.

As I grew older, I realized this tactic was quite common.  Friends shoplifted.  Classmates cheated on tests. Co-workers embezzled money.

And this was small fish, compared to the prizes at stake in our society.

Those who deceive and flaunt rules will always have the advantage.  With no concern for ethics, they can achieve their goals using every option available.

So why do we, who are aware of these deceptions, bother to bring them to the attention of others?

Because life is a lot like baseball.

We may hit the ball or we may strike out.

But we won't let someone make a fool of us.
SEND THIS TO SOMEONE FRUSTRATED WITH OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM!

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You Say You Want a Revolution?

7/24/2013

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In a recent essay, I named a number of "trees" in the forest of lies given to us by our leaders and our mainstream media:

JFK, RFK, October Surprise, Bush v. Gore, Nine Eleven, etc.

How do you suppose we get out of this forest?

Elections?  But leaders in both parties have lied to us and covered up crimes.

Alternative Media?  I like alternative forms of media but how long must we wait until a critical mass disregards the mainstream media's conclusions on the "trees"?  And who is to say that alternatives won't be part of the controlled opposition?

Rounding up the criminals behind these events?  Good luck with that.  Since when has anyone gone to jail for anything I have mentioned.

The only real way to clear out the corruption is the unthinkable.  We will simply have to think of a way around that.

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Fools and Children Speak the Truth

3/29/2013

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A French proverb tells us that only fools and children speak the truth.

Many children grow up believing in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.   It obviously isn’t because they researched the issue on what happens to their teeth after they put them under their pillows or how a sleigh run by reindeers can fly all over the world in one night.

Someone told them to believe it.

I believed in these things as a kid because it felt good.  I liked to believe that someone was thinking about me and giving me rewards.

It was all plausible to me because I did not give the details of any of these myths much of a thought.

For most of us where I grew up, these were among the first things that someone (i.e. adults) told us to believe.  The beliefs of the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were our first official theories.

We laughed off any suggestion that they were not real.  After all, everyone we knew believed in them, so we did, too.  Anyone who said anything to the contrary was not with us.  They were just foolish.

The best theory in alternative to the official one was, of course, the theory that adults were lying to us about where the money we would find underneath our pillows or gifts under the Christmas tree would come from.  Our parents – lie to us?

It was a lie to help us enjoy our childhood, long before we became adults ourselves and faced big responsibilities.  The lie made us feel safe.  Never mind it was barely plausible.

But the white lies didn’t stop there.  And it wasn’t just being lied to, either.

We learned to lie and accept lies out of comfort.  I could not stand eating certain vegetables as a child.  I also learned my mom feared looking old.  So, at around the age of eight, I lied to my mom by telling her she looked 30 (she was 31 when I was born) to get her approval to skip the vegetables.

In high school, I had a date with a girl who offered no opinions, thoughts or ideas on anything during our dinner.  I should have told her that I did not want to see her again.  Instead, to avoid the discomfort of dirty looks from her friends who were in my classes, I waited for her to tell me that I was not a high priority.

I don’t know who told the lie that I just needed to get a bachelor’s degree to get a good job.  But I felt conditioned to believe it.  Then I discovered the cold truth when I took a job shortly after college graduation that did not even pay minimum wage and for which I slaved to try to please a boss who could not be pleased.

We are simply conditioned to avoid truths that would wake us from our slumber of comfort.  We are conditioned to respond negatively to unpleasant truths.

I had trouble believing any of my English ancestors held slaves.  My family wouldn’t do that!  But I couldn’t help but notice a black man named Edgerton Hartwell while watching National Football League games.  There were so few blacks in England during the time my ancestors were there, the proof that people I am related to owned slaves stares back at me.

The issue here is not really the truth.  It is comfort.  Few will risk stepping out of their comfort to speak up for the truth.  It is so much easier to stay asleep and tell ourselves that at least we aren’t foolish.



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Have No Fear - Doomsday Predictions Won't Happen!

2/21/2013

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Here is some good news.  Some fears that have been voiced publicly will NOT come true!

The government will not take your guns away. 

With three hundred million guns in the United States, what is the government going to do – send in the tanks to force gun owners to give them up?  And even if you have all of your weapons, would you have a chance against the full force of our government, anyhow?  Relax.  Besides, have you noticed gun sales going up recently after the shooting tragedies in Sandy Hook and elsewhere?

The world is not going to end.

Remember Fleetwood Mac’s song.  “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”  It is where we will spend the rest of our lives.  Whenever people stop thinking about the future and how our consequences affect it, they tend to act without restraint.  Some people have been duped by talk of a Second Coming or the end of the world and they sell their possessions and plan for the hereafter, only to be disappointed.  On a larger scale, leaders who believe the end is near often show disregard for protecting our environment and may even see the wars we wage as part of the run-up to the end.  Keep acting today and keep living for tomorrow and we will keep the world turning!

Dissenters will not wind up in concentration camps

Our leaders are lying or repeating lies about a number of matters, but don’t worry, they can handle the few who stand up to challenge them without resorting to extremes.  Talk about FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) camps being built for dissenters ignores the fact that dissenters have not convinced the public to change its collective attitude about much of anything.  The jailing of the political dissenters is the last stand of a dictatorship.  As the United States prides itself as the bastion of democracy, the government has no interest in this strategy.


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When You Cease Expecting

2/10/2013

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There will always be a gap between what we expect and what we get.

We expect the truth but those who know it may not have any reason to tell us and good reason not to.

We expect a peaceful environment around us but it only takes one person to shake it.

We expect that others will respect our rights but for some, ignoring rights is the way they achieve what they want.

About the only things that cannot be taken from us are our own thoughts and feelings.  To expect anything beyond that is to feed our disappointments.

In the words of Buddha, when you cease expecting, you have all things.



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What a Mitty Campaign

10/20/2012

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Governor Romney,

You are doing the impossible.  Your campaign is making my old nemesis, Ronald Reagan, look good.

The old school of Republicans did not politicize tragedy like you have.  They did not hold press conferences to denounce their opponents’ Administrations like you have done recently in regards to the tragedy in Libya.

Ronald Reagan did not use the Iran Hostage Crisis to attack President Carter the way that you have gone after President Obama.

Reagan told lies but not as shamelessly as you have.  And when called upon their lies, they did not blame the imaginary “liberal media” for reporting them.

What is with your complaint about Candy Crowley?  She upheld President Obama’s assertion that he called the Libyan tragedy an “act of terrorism” the day after it happened.  You made a specific allegation about Obama and it was wrong.  Fess up and quit whining!

Republicans like you do not apologize.  It is not that you are without fault, but that you believe you have impunity.

How does one obtain impunity?

When one knows that a significant group of people has their back.  Complaints about media bias would go nowhere unless someone amplified it.

How does a message get amplified?

Through a medium of communication.  Also known collectively as the media.

Turn on the talk radio stations.  You will hear the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and many others who spin the conservative/New Republican line about media “bias.”

Go to the Internet.  There are plenty of web sites with this same take on the media.

Look at the newspapers.  Most editorial boards endorse the GOP candidate for president.

Most people are not getting information from people like Candy Crowley.  You just didn’t like getting called out in front of millions of people who watched the debate.

You just don’t like it when someone disagrees with you.  So take your own media, free of critical thought, and enjoy it.  Let the rest of us think for ourselves.



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Why I am Not a Republican

8/30/2012

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As if I did not know why I have never voted for a Republican candidate, the Vice Presidential nomination speech of Paul Ryan last night reminded me.

Instead of telling us what he and Mitt Romney would do differently than President Obama, he told a pack of lies about him.

Ryan blamed Obama for promising to keep open a plant that actually closed BEFORE Obama took office!

Ryan said that Obama ignored the recommendations of a special committee that Ryan actually sat on and whose recommendations RYAN voted against sending to the President!

Ryan complained that the Obama Administration “began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America” when in fact Standard and Poors downgraded the credit rating because Republicans like Ryan threatened not to increase the United States’ borrowing authority!

There were other lies and misleading statements as well.  And it isn’t the lying so much that bothers me.  It’s that Republicans, who scored President Bill Clinton not long ago for lying about a consensual affair, have for the most part ignored these obvious falsehoods in Ryan’s speech.

And what does Paul Ryan care about the fibs?  Millions of people watched the speech but few of them bothered to read any of the fact checks available in the media.

We’ll see whether this gamble pays off in November.


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Why We Believe Lies

10/12/2011

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"Why We Believe Lies"

Would you ever believe what you knew was a lie?
Overwhelmingly, most people would say they would never do such a thing.

But what if…

Your job depended on your belief in a lie?  Let’s say your employer makes a product that could cause consumers to become seriously ill.  Your employer tells you that part of your job involves telling the public the product is safe.  But you know it isn’t safe.

Do you quit?  Not in this economy you wouldn’t.
Do you challenge your employer’s message to the public?  It would be a good way to get demoted or fired.

Or what if…

The truth is just too hard to take.  Let’s say you have an interest in genealogy.  You research your family history and discover that some ancestors held slaves.  Family and friends start asking you what you have found out.

Do you lie or leave out this part of the family tree?  Then you are acting in agreement with a lie and you are encouraging others to believe it.
Do you admit what you have found out?  Maybe you would, but from my experience, this admission is not especially common.

Or how about if…

Something else was more important than believing the truth?  Let’s say you are looking for an edge to get into college.  You didn’t really serve as the president of your schools’ honor society or work on the newspaper, but mentioning these lies would help your chances with little chance of getting caught.

Do you put the lies in, figuring “everybody does it”?  This would be a type of justification and, in this case, hardly likely to be true.
Do you ever admit the truth to anyone?  If not, you perpetuate a lie.

These situations involve individuals and companies and failure to reveal the truth could cause harm to others.  We know or hear of these types of lies and most people would be quick to condemn them.  Why?  Because there would be little backlash for calling out the liars.  Not even the company that makes dangerous products is a match before the proper court or government agency.

So let’s raise the stakes.

What if the truth implicated the very pillars of our society?  Actors such as the media, the government or the armed forces communicate to masses of people who rely upon the information they provide.

Despite complaints by members of the public about these institutions, polls show that most people believe the news they get from them.  Is it because we believe we are receiving the truth or because of the possibility of backlash if we do not?

History tells us that our government has frequently deceived the public to go to war.  The Spanish-American War, the Viet Nam War and the War in Iraq are three examples in which our leaders repeated lies over what started the war and why we were going to fight it.  The mainstream media and the military joined the chorus and sold those lies as well.

Facts were brought to the attention of our leaders and the public (like the lack of weapons of mass destruction, for example) but support for the wars continued, anyway.

I go back to my original question:  Would you ever believe what you knew was a lie?

If you supported wars such as the recent one in Iraq and you knew the reasons for going were false, then you have done just that.

Why did you do it?  Was your job at stake?  Were you afraid of your standing among your peers for coming out against something popular?  Are you connected to those pillars that lie to us?

You know the answer.  If you believe something is more important than the truth, maybe now is the time to explain to yourself what that is.


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Explaining the United States with Fire Extinguishers

9/11/2011

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In the City of the Sheep, a company named The Corporation manufactured fire extinguishers.

The extinguishers came in all different sizes.

Whenever a fire broke out in the City, the fire department brought out The Corporation’s extinguishers to put out the fires.

The City paid the Corporation handsomely every time the fire alarms went off.

The leaders of the corporation became rich.

But it wasn’t enough.

The CEO of The Corporation wanted more for his shareholders and officers.

He talked to a friend on the fire department.

He told the friend that if he started a few fires “here and there” he would pay him well.

The friend knew this was wrong but…

He had a mortgage to pay and kids to send to college.

So he accepted the deal.

The friend learned to start fires in such a way as to leave no trace as to who started it.

He also learned to start fires so as to blame other people.

But he was having trouble doing his job and doing this “side” job for the Corporation.

So he enlisted some of his friends to help.

And these friends had a brilliant idea.

“Why not go to other cities and start fires?”

“Yeah, great idea - we will make the fires so bad that the other cities will contract with the only company with the right equipment - The Corporation!”

“Oh yeah, then we will get more money from our friend!”

So the fires started spreading around the City of the Sheep in neighboring cities.

Predictably, the cities turned to The Corporation for help.

The Corporation got so wealthy that it bought the City’s only newspaper.

The newspaper spread messages like “Support the Firefighters” and “We Must Fight Fire over There before It Gets Here!”

The Corporation paid for every politician’s campaign.

Contracts continued to flow to The Corporation.

Eventually, some of the City of Sheep’s residents investigated some of the “fires.”

These investigators completed reports that proved that many fires were not accidental.

They tried to get the only newspaper to publish their reports of arson by firefighters and The Corporation agents.

But the newspaper laughed and called them “paranoid.”

So the investigators formed their own newspaper and published the reports.

The Corporation called the Mayor and asked him to take care of the investigators.

The Mayor said, “I would.  But the City of Sheep only wakes up to hear the fire alarms.  Then they call me and demand the firefighters get a raise!”
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Let's Get History Right

6/5/2011

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Let's Get History Right



With which set of statements do you agree?

1.      Oswald shot President Kennedy.
2.      North Vietnamese communists started the Viet Nam War.
3.      President Reagan forced the Iranians to return our hostages.
4.      Osama bin Laden was behind the crimes of 9/11.

OR

1.      Plotters framed Oswald for the murder of President Kennedy.
2.      The United States started the war with North Viet Nam.
3.      Candidate Reagan’s campaign team made a deal with Iran to delay the release of the hostages.
4.      Plotters framed Osama bin Laden for the crimes of 9/11.

If you side substantially with the first set of statements, I invite you to test your beliefs by reading my upcoming book Facts Talk but the Guilty Walk: the 9/11 No Hijacker Theory and Its Indictment of Our Leaders.

If you side substantially with the second set, I invite you to consider why your beliefs are so at odds with what our leaders tell us.  And why that matters.  You are, in effect, saying that people inside and outside of our government commit and condone heinous crimes against the world and our own people.

If we want a better future for the United States, we had better get our history right, no matter how disturbing it sounds.  Facts Talk is one of many books that provides a foundation of truth as to who really leads us and why they act with impunity in the crimes they commit.

The real question for you is: when do you stop following those who mislead us?


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