Hot Soot

Chaotically scattered around the world.
Soot from reactors that burned in the night.
Smoking deadly soot that burned and swirled.
Corium nightmares that can never be right.

And now the horror is dispersed and uncontained.
While sick children die, truth is restrained.
And corrupt monsters sit in board-rooms 
and continue their games.

That dust you breathe may have flown thousands of miles
From nuclear tests or Chernobyl, from Siberia or New Mexico,
and that strange disease you get may have been avoidable
but for some secret calculations made,
by liars sitting in offices, wearing dark shades.

Is that electricity really clean?
Is this poison really green?
Is it really natural to boil water with such a deadly sheen?

Reacting to article titled: "Nuclear Fuel Fragment from Fukushima Found In EUROPE Washington's Blog washingtonsblog.com "The Nuclear Core Has Finally Been Found … Scattered All Over the World. Fukushima did not just suffer meltdowns, or even melt-throughs …It suffered melt-OUTS … where the nuclear core of at least one reactor was spread all over Japan." Article posted May 6 9:39 AM poem written that morning.

Murdering Pregnant women in Argentina's Neoliberal "dirty war"

Background

El Equipo de Antropología identificó a tres embarazadas desaparecidas

The Argentine Army called it "El Processo." US people call it a "dirty war." But to my friends who lived it, it was a genocide aimed at a whole generation of young people. Most of whom were no more than idealists or local activists trying to improve the lives of poor people, or stand up for their own rights peacefully. People were taken off the streets with no real crime. When they'd be asked the motto was "you must have been guilty of something. I wrote about this before. The killing teams used Ford Falcons and would come in the middle of the night to get people. But sometimes they'd pick people up right off the street. They once stopped my wife on her way home from school and told her they were watching her and that the only reason they didn't pick her up was that they knew her father. My friend tells me to call this a genocide, because it really was directed at Jews, Intellectuals, "progressives", socialists as well as marxists. And the ideology behind it was the same conservative "neoliberal" ideology that is behind libertarianism and conservatism in the USA. One that conflates the word "democracy" with socialism, and social progress with communism.

We have to fight for change

Chris Hayes had Elizabeth Warren on his show today, and he asked her about whether it is possible to fight back against increasing oligarchy or not. She replied with the following clip. "We've got to have our voices heard."

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/elizabeth-warren-its-up-to-us-to-fight-back-243487811831

It's up to us to fight back.

Cliven Bundy and his insurrectionist, subversive and rebellious followers

I was having fun at the [ https://www.facebook.com/events/688187351242203/] and got to read up on the Bundy ranch and the hijinks there. Got to learn about the Moapa Paiute Indians and their efforts to build a solar power plant to replace the coal fired one they have there. And to find out the real deal on who Cliven Bundy is. I want to share my findings so I don't have to repeat the research.

One: The Bundies have not been on that ranch more than 60 years.

This article reports that:

"Clark County Recorder documents show the 160-acre Bunkerville ranch Bundy calls home was purchased by his parents, David and Bodel Bundy, from Raoul and Ruth Leavitt on Jan. 5, 1948. The purchase included the transfer to the Bundys of certain water rights, including water from the nearby Virgin River. Cliven Bundy was born in 1946."

So his claim that his family has been on that ranch since the 1870's is a lie.

http://www.8newsnow.com/story/25302186/an-abbreviated-look-at-rancher-cliven-bundys-family-history

Two: The land that they are claiming is not their land and never was.

Bundy didn't start grazing cattle on BLS land until 1954.

"1998 opinion from U.S. District Judge Johnnie Rawlinson" found that "it wasn’t until roughly 1954 that “Bundy or his father or both have grazed livestock on public lands owned by the United States and administered by the BLM.”"

So the land wasn't his before 1954 by squatters rights either.

Three: They are scofflaws not victims of Federal Perfidy

The Los Vegas Sun reports on the amount that Bundy owes as follows: Question "How much does Bundy owe the Government:"

"A. Depends who you ask. He’ll tell you that he has refused to pay the BLM grazing fees since 1993, bringing his tab to about $300,000. But the government says he owes $1 million and will have to pay for the some of the round-up costs."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2014/apr/11/q-behind-bundy-blm-battle/

Alan O'Neill claims that Bundy is actually a bully

The Las Vegas Sun also reports an article from Alan O'Neill who had to deal with him in the 90's:

" I served as superintendent of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area for the National Park Service from 1987 to 2000. In 1993, we reduced the number of cows that could be grazed on the Bunkerville allotment to 150 because of the emergency listing of the desert tortoise as an endangered species."

The Republicans make fun of this and don't deny it happened.

Because Bundy refused to remove his cattle to meet the 150 level and ignored repeated requests to do so, his permit was canceled in 1994 and the allotment was closed to grazing.

Bundy didn't accept that decision,

"As the news coverage has reported, Bundy continues to graze his cattle and has refused to pay the BLM a grazing fee. The figure he owes the government exceeds $300,000. The estimate of cattle being grazed illegally since 1994 on the old Bunkerville allotment have ranged from 550 to more than 900."

So he's been violating the law since 1993. And he did contest it in court, but failed:

"It is unfathomable to me that 20 years after the Bunkerville allotment was canceled in 1994, we are still wrestling with getting his cattle off the range. And there were issues of overgrazing that allotment before 1994. It is my opinion that the BLM and the Park Service have done everything possible administratively to try to resolve the issue amicably. In addition, there are two federal court rulings upholding the agencies’ position, and the most recent ruling demanded Bundy not physically interfere with any seizure or impoundment operation."

Not that it made any difference to him.

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2014/apr/06/rancher-land-dispute-bully-not-hero/

Four: The right is trying to instigate insurrection

Bundy is a bully who has used his threat of a range war and to do “whatever it takes” to stop the government from impounding his cattle to scare public officials.

And that includes shooting marshals.

The implications are that he would resort to a gunbattle. And who wants to see another Waco? I was one of those public officials who were told to back off at one point because of concern for violence.

What Bundy is doing is a criminal act, and he should be accountable for his actions rather than be held up as a hero fighting the federal government.

But of course instead of supporting rule of law Hannity, Fox News and the Militia movement came to his support. But Alan continues:

Most of the grazing permit holders on public land are good stewards and law-abiding citizens, and Bundy is doing them a disservice with his actions. He is a perfect example of someone who publicly states that he abhors the federal government but who relies on it for his welfare.

And of course:

He is grazing free on the public’s land to the detriment of the environment and the honest taxpayers who support his welfare lifestyle.

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2014/apr/06/rancher-land-dispute-bully-not-hero/

Five: The right is subverting the constitution

The Constitution states that:

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

But of course the Bundies and militia men dispute the authority of the United States. And were threatening to fight a war against the United States:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Making war against BLM is treason under the constitution, not a second amendment right.

Six: The right is threatening armed rebellion in a lawless fashion.

Sean Hannity all but directly called for armed rebellion against the Federal Government.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/3472854985001/cliven-bundy-harry-reid-has-no-business-in-clark-county/#sp=show-clips

Hannity has had him on the show multiple times and has encouraged his sedition. One example:

"My next guest, Cliven Bundy, is a Nevada rancher waging a battle against the federal government over his cattle grazing on public land which is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management"

And Hannity, endorsing him asked him how far he'd go, and Bundy said:

"My statement to the American people, I'll do whatever it takes to gain our liberty and freedom back."

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2014/04/10/nevada-rancher-threatens-range-war-against-federal-government

In this April 15th clip he practically egged him on while blaming Harry Reid:

http://video.foxnews.com/v/3472854985001/cliven-bundy-harry-reid-has-no-business-in-clark-county/#sp=show-clips

Seven: The Folks trying to build a solar power plant are the Moapa Paiute Indians

The Moapa Paiute, with the help of both father Senator Harry Reid, and son, were able to get what they needed to build a Solar power plant for selling electricity to Los Angelos:

Keith Rogers in the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL [http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/energy/moapa-solar-plant-deal-signed] writes:

The sun is shining more brightly on the Moapa River Indian Reservation today.

So while Cliven [Al from Married with children's prototype?] Bundy and his followers are full of incoherent rage and fear. The Moapa Paiute are feeling good because:

"Council members for the city of Los Angeles approved a $1.6 billion, 25-year pact Tuesday to purchase solar power from a company that will build nearly 1 million photovoltaic panels on tribal land."

Which is win/win for Nevada, the Paiute Indians, and Los Angelos.

"I just can't believe that we're actually going to have something like this on the reservation," Moapa Band of Paiutes Chairman William Anderson said after arriving at McCarran International Airport on a flight from Los Angeles, a few hours after the council made its unanimous decision to purchase power from K Road Moapa Solar.

Which is nowhere near the Bundy ranch.

"We are going to have a solar farm and jobs for our people," Anderson, 39, said about the 320 members of the Moapa band.

Just the maintenance on this will employ caretakers and electricians for years.

They will serve as landlords and provide sand and gravel for the project, the largest solar plant on tribal lands in the United States.

Which means that nobody is stiffing the Paiute (for a change), and everyone will benefit.

Expected to go online in 2016, the 250-megawatt solar farm will generate enough electricity for 118,000 homes more than 280 miles away in Los Angeles.

And though I'd like to see more solar cells on those homes, this ia great start!

Anderson said the farm consisting of some 910,000 solar panels will be built on 2,000 acres on the 71,680-acre reservation. It will be across from the tribe's Moapa Travel Plaza truck stop, west of the Valley of Fire exit off Interstate 15, about 35 miles northeast of Las Vegas. It will be southwest of NV Energy's coal-fired Reid Gardner power station, which the tribe blames for health problems.

Again, nowhere near the Bundy Ranch.

So this is a win/win deal for the Paiute. No Feds stealing their land here!

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/energy/moapa-solar-plant-deal-signed

There is no plot from Senator Reid and his Son to take the Bundy Ranch for a Solar plant

So why are the right maintaining that that is his dark goal?

The logic seems to be: Bundy is grazing on land that once was part of the Moapi Paiute reservation but was stolen in the 1800's. Obama and Reid helped the Moapi Paiute get some of their property back. Bundy's supporters are afraid the Indigenous want their land back out of guilt (since the previous owner probably helped pressure the Feds to steal it in the first place -- bundies only there since 40's) therefore in typical loopy Faux reasoning Reid (and the Indians -- but they won't say that) want the land back so they can build a solar power plant on it. Okay, I get the paranoia now. So now they send a faux reporter to the Reservation to elicit sympathetic comments about Bundy. Well I'm sympathetic with the old arsefart too. I understand how it hurts to give back nearly a million in grazing fees.

SNOPES debunks the allegations against Harry Reid here in an article [http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/nevada.asp]

"The site that ENN Mojave Energy was planning to buy in order to build a solar plant is nowhere near the public land Bundy has been disputing with the government, and ENN gave up the solar project and terminated its agreement to buy land to house it as far back as June 2013:

"A Chinese-backed company is pulling the plug on a multibillion-dollar solar project near Laughlin after it was unable to find customers for the power that would have been generated there, a Clark County spokesman said."

SNOPES notes that even Breitbart backed off this BS:

"Despite the obvious partisan gain to be had if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's son Rory (a failed 2010 Nevada gubernatorial candidate) had somehow been involved in a "land grab" affecting the Bundy family ranch operation — the facts just do not pan out as such. Indeed, Rory Reid did in fact have a hand in plans to reclassify federal lands for renewable energy developments. Just northeast of Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base, plans were drawn by Reid allies to potentially develop 5,717 acres of land for such use. While it would be fair to claim that such activity was in Bundy's relative neighborhood, the federal lands once leased by the family were more than 20 miles away, east of Overton, Nevada." [http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/nevada.asp#yZmJmCDLKCms2Rlp.99]

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/conspiracy/nevada.asp#yZmJmCDLKCms2Rlp.99/"

There is a lot more to write about. But this will do for now.

Untangling the Bait and Switch of Friedman/Rand's ideas about Capitalism

If you listen to Milton Friedman in this article, he makes some points that sound perfectly rational until you deconstruct them a little:

Src: [http://t.co/0v3PqMwU8H]

"Is there some society you know of that doesn't run on greed?"

Greed is undue hunger towards power and wealth, and while there are individuals in every society who "run on greed", my own observation is that the majority of people are rarely motivated by greed, or solely by greed. Many medical personnel are primarily concerned with saving lives. People join the military and give up their lives for their country. If their leaders "run on greed" not so the cannon fodder who they direct into battle. And I've met a few Generals and it wounds them to direct young men to their deaths. A dear friend of mine was the wife of one of the few suicides in WWII because of Post Traumatic Stress from the loss of lives on a beach front in Normandy. The man was incredibly honorable. No greed doesn't dominate everyone and it has the power to corrupt everywhere it does dominate. So claiming that Capitalism is good because "greed is everywhere" is a deflection. We now know that Russia and China both run on Greed, but they've also transformed themselves into Capitalist systems so what he was saying to Phil Donohue might have made sense then but in hindsight the fact that they ran on greed didn't make capitalism look good, just showed the bait and switch nature of communism. Next he notes that:

"The World runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests."

This is true, but successful companies run on individuals working together to pursue their common interests. And men of the enlightenment maintained that tyranny and corruption are related to men pursuing "private, separate interests" [Locke] when they should be upholding some kind of public trust. Indeed Locke pretty much demonstrated that common interest ultimately protects the individual interests of people. So the world running on "individuals pursuing their separate interests" denies the important utility of common interests in an effort to protect the notion that somehow greed is a good thing.

Indeed individual success depends on governments that let people be successful. We need a level playing field, not oppressive taxation and over-sight. And we need moderation, not extremes. A little greed might be good but a lot of greed is very very bad. And nobody ever has objected to free enterprise when it doesn't involve swindles, external costs, or misery. What people object to is freebooting. Privateers who engage in crony capitalism, nepotistic capitalism or use of government control to run monopolies. People don't object to a fair and just system. They object to a rigged one.

Milton Friedman goes on to assert that:

"Einstein didn't construct his theories on orders from a bureaucrat" and "Henry Ford didn't produce his cars that way."

Which again sets up a straw argument, since most large capitalist enterprises become bureaucratic. Henry Ford produced his cars using a corporate bureaucracy that took orders from him. He essentially was a near dictator of Ford Motors company, subject only to the objections of his board of trustees. So if bureaucracy were only a feature of socialist countries his argument might make more sense but otherwise he's making a false contrast. What is true is that individual initiative is what has created most great innovations. Sometimes they've been purely individual efforts as in Einstein's thought experiments, but more often they've been collaborative efforts as with Einstein and his first wife, or Edison with his teams of scientists and technicians. Genius has always been 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. He's claiming individual initiative for the capitalist system when capitalism has mostly provided financial support to inventors, such as Robert Fulton who had to share credit for one of his steam engine designs with a banker because the banker financed it. And modern capitalist enterprises have grown into bureaucratic monsters with armies of lawyers who think nothing of stepping on the entrepreneurs who try to compete with it.

His next comment is a bit of a whopper:

"And the only countries where the masses have escaped grinding poverty have been ones that had capitalism and free trade"

is a bit of deflection as the only reason masses escaped grinding in capitalist countries was that they organized themselves bottom up, fought for a share of the production, and the capitalists were wise enough to recognize it was in their best interest to share the loot. In the USA this was easier because relatively good government and lack of a long established aristocracy meant that many people could emerge from poverty by acquiring an education and inventing things. Up until recently most engineers and many scientists were self taught. There was a time still alive when I was a child when almost everyone in the USA dreamed of inventing something that would make them a millionaire; starting a business in a garage. So local free trade, access to markets and INDIVIDUAL access to finance is necessary for the "masses" to escape grinding poverty, but we can thank the kind of capitalism where everyone has the opportunity to become a capitalist -- and good government -- that makes markets real free markets, for that. Capitalist systems have also been agents for extreme oppression and slavery. The USA south was a place of grinding poverty for the masses because people could not even own themselves much less their inventions. The North was a place of grinding poverty because capitalists exploited their labor instead of paying a man what his labor was worth.

So while he's telling the partial truth when he says that "there is no system that can hold a candle to the wealth and productive capability produced by a free enterprise system" the key to that being reality is individual freedom, and individual enterprise being valued and rewarded. And that requires conditions of democracy, good representation, and ethical government. So a "greedy" capitalist system, in the end, is the same worse as any greedy poorly optimized system.

And when Phil Donohue asked about why the Capitalist system doesn't reward virtue (or always hard work or the innovators who come up with new enterprises) his only answer is to attack communist systems and our own system for not rewarding virtue. I find that dishonest. Fact is we need a system that rewards virtue and to have that we need a system that is fair as well as productive, and that levels the playing field and encourages good government. To do that we need the demos active in government, and active in business government. And that by definition is not pure capitalism. Pure capitalism is as tyrannical as pure marxism or fascism.

Anyway those are just my opinions. All citations are from memory except the quotes and paraphrases from Friedman's interview with Phil Donohue.

Undue influence and Dependency Corruption or why the Supreme Court Decision was so corrupt

In my last few posts I quoted from Justice Roberts Majority decision in the McCutcheon Case [http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf] to illustrate why the decision was not only wrong headed but corrupt. Essentially the problem is that they redefined half of what is obvious corruption as "embody[ing] a central feature of democracy—that constituents support candidates who share their beliefs and interests, and candidates who are elected can be expected to be responsive to those concerns." And they went on to say that "Any regulation must instead target what we have called “quid pro quo” corruption or its appearance." I've already talked about how that is a corrupt decision as most corruption reflects inequality and a balance of power that is in favor of those who have excess power and wealth and who use that power and wealth to protect that power and wealth.

Defining the only kind of permissible corruption that the government can go after is "Quid Pro Quo" is deliberately making it impossible to go after 90% of corruption, including all but the most obvious quid pro quo corruption. The Supreme court in one swoop of deeper and deeper intentional process corruption after another has eviscerated 500 years of lessons on what corruption is and how to fight it, including the forms of corruption that the Founding fathers criticized. What Lessig calls "dependency corruption." A friend at the "Robin Hood Tax Site" rips into this with this graphic from an article at "Talking Points Memo":

Src: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BlxEXjKCQAACh3I.png

I already talked some about "undue influence" but the author Lawrence Lessig explains that what we are talking about is further defined as "dependence corruption" which he explains in this article in Harvard Review [http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/07/a-radical-fix-for-the-republic] as a kind of systematic corruption where representatives lose the independence necessary to perform their function of representing and serving the people and become dependent on some outside force.

“the Framers wanted to avoid…Parliament’s loss of independence from the Crown” resulting from royal gifts of “offices and perks” that pulled members “away from the view of the people they were intended to represent.” The Founders were aware of the fragility of the system they had fledged: when Franklin walked from Independence Hall as the Constitutional Convention ended, Lessig writes, a woman asked what he had wrought. “A republic, madam,” he replied, “if you can keep it.”

Fighting dependency corruption was the reason for separation of powers.

Founders were fighting Systematic Corruption

Lessig, writing for the Daily Beast wrote [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/02/originalists-making-it-up-again-mccutcheon-and-corruption.html]:

"The roots of that argument were handed to the government from an unlikely source: the Framers of our Constitution. Building upon the work of Zephyr Teachout, two researchers and I scoured every document that we could from the framing of our constitution to try to map how the Framers used the word “corruption.” What was absolutely clear from that research was that by “corruption,” the Framers certainly did not mean quid pro quo corruption alone. That exclusive usage is completely modern. And while there were cases where by “corruption” the Framers plainly meant quid pro quo corruption, these cases were the exception. The much more common usage was “corruption” as in improper dependence. Parliament, for example, was “corrupt,” according to the Framers, because it had developed an improper dependence on the King. That impropriety had nothing to do with any quid pro quo. It had everything to do with the wrong incentives being allowed into the system because of that improper dependence."

The right of course, loves "dependency corruption" because it reflects their efforts to create a new "dependency" aristocracy in which their shills would be the new "middle class" and pretty much everyone else can kiss their wealth and influence good bye. This article Seth Barrett Tillman can be found all over the internet, probably well advertized: http://news.yahoo.com/why-professor-lessig-dependence-corruption-not-founding-era-100206490--politics.html So naturally he claims that:

"No such unified concept existed in 1787-1788" as "a stable, unified meaning as to how the Framers (and the public during the Framers’ era) understood corruption in relation to the Constitution of 1787-1788: the Constitution of the Framers and Ratifiers."

Tillman is (of course) parsing. The Founders didn't use the words "improper dependence" alone but also talked about the "undue influence" of the Crown. Undue influence exists because it creates a dependence on the corruptor on the part of the corrupted, or simply involves raw power. So when the founders used the term "undue influence" or "improper dependence" they were using terms that are referring to a balanced system where money, influence and power are balanced. The line between "undue", "improper" dependence and independence are often political, arbitrary and shifting. Corruption is not just about law-breaking, but also about whether a system is functional for all it's stakeholders, optimized for the few, or completely FUBAR for the majority. So yes Mr. Tillman is right in that the founders didn't have an objective, by the numbers, standard by which to judge undue influence or dependency, but that is a straw argument. They had a definition of corruption that the entire constitution sought to remedy. And it was an imperfect remedy by imperfect (and thus corruptible) people, so the result was an imperfect document. Indeed you see just this sort of corruption referenced in the Anti-Federalist warnings about ratifying the constitution, one "Republicus":

(referring to President's powers).... "is it not probable, at least possible, that the president who is to be vested with all this demiomnipotence - who is not chosen by the community; and who consequently, as to them, is irresponsible and independent-that he, I say, by a few artful and dependent emissaries in Congress, may not only perpetuate his own personal administration, but also make it hereditary?"

For both Federalist and Anti-Federalist (who wrote this, corruption and tyranny are tied. Almost all of whom were influenced by John Locke, and when they talked about corruption they were more likely to be referring to the tyranny of monied classes and aristocrats than to someone putting a bag of coins on a desk. The subversion of dependency is process corruption that ultimately results in concentration of power and aristocracy:

By the same means, he may render his suspensive power over the laws as operative and permanent as that of G. the 3d over the acts of the British parliament; and under the modest title of president, may exercise the combined authority of legislation and execution, in a latitude yet unthought of. Upon his being invested with those powers a second or third time, he may acquire such enormous influence-as, added to his uncontrollable power over the army, navy, and militia; together with his private interest in the officers of all these different departments, who are all to be appointed by himself, and so his creatures, in the true political sense of the word; and more especially when added to all this, he has the power of forming treaties and alliances, and calling them to his assistance-that he may, I say, under all these advantages and almost irresistible temptations, on some pretended pique, haughtily and contemptuously, turn our poor lower house (the only shadow of liberty we shall have left) out of doors, and give us law at the bayonet's point.

The anti-Federalists rightly feared the corruptive influence of concentrated power.

Or, may not the senate, who are nearly in the same situation, with respect to the people, from similar motives and by similar means, erect themselves easily into an oligarchy, towards which they have already attempted so large a stride? To one of which channels, or rather to a confluence of both, we seem to be fast gliding away; and the moment we arrive at it-farewell liberty". . . .

So for the founders the fear was the creation of an oligarchy or monarchy where the people would be dispossessed and oppressed.

"To conclude, I can think of but one source of right to government, or any branch of it-and that is THE PEOPLE. They, and only they, have a right to determine whether they will make laws, or execute them, or do both in a collective body, or by a delegated authority. Delegation is a positive actual investiture"....

http://www.thisnation.com/library/antifederalist/72.html

The fact is that when Lessig did a search on terms in the founders writings before he wrote about this he notes:

"The results were striking. A significant majority of the times the Framers use the term “corruption,” corruption is predicated of an entity, not an individual (57%). Every instance of “quid pro quo” corruption is describing individual corruption, not entity corruption. And for the significant number of cases in which the Framers are discussing “improper dependence” as a kind of corruption, they are describing entity corruption (67%) not individual corruption (33%)."

And he concludes:

These numbers make it hard to believe that the Framers of our Constitution would have used the term “corruption” to refer to “quid pro quo” corruption alone. Or put more sharply, these number suggest that only a non-originalist could support the idea that “corruption” refers to “quid pro quo” corruption alone." Src: [http://www.lessig.org/2013/07/the-original-meaning-of-corruption]

Thus indeed the main reason for separation of powers, for the first 10 Amendments, and for institutions like trial by jury was to resist "undue influence" and corrupt dependency. The remedy for undue influence being representation. The remedy for corrupt dependency being independent branches, defined powers and rule of law. And the remedy for corruption being good and functional government. "A well regulated" government is one where corruption is so minimized it's not an issue. So all his examples don't prove Lessing wrong. If they took the word "corruption" out of the impeachment clause it's because it is entirely possible for the corrupt to engage in impeachment by projection of their own designs and motives. As we saw when the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for having sex with a page and lying about it, when later it turned out the principles making the charges were guilty of the same crime. Corruption is often a subjective thing. But it's a "I see it when I see it, and I can smell it when it's present" thing too. An objective standard for "dependency corruption" is as fraught with peril as any other remedy. But certainly there are limits to what we should let our oligarchs get away with -- and we'd be a lot better off without them. Lessig is write and this author is blowing smoke.

I wrote about this somewhat in my blog on the subject. http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/corrupt-court-and-undue-influence-and.html but quoting from the same source I find this argument for Jury trials:

"The excellence of the trial by jury in civil cases appears to depend on circumstances foreign to the preservation of liberty The strongest argument in its favor is that it is a security against corruption As there is always more time and better opportunity to tamper with a standing body of magistrates than with a jury summoned for the occasion there is room to suppose that a corrupt influence would more easily find its way to the former than to the latter."[The Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers by Hamilton, Jay ..., Volume 1 edited by Erastus Howard Scott

Hamilton in this excerpt pretty much assumes that there would be attempts to corrupt Juries too, but that the combination of Judge and Jury and other process guards can "provide a check on corruption".."decreasing it's obstacles to success" and reducing the prospect of Judicial "prostitution" which judges would otherwise be tempted to engage in. Sounds like Hamilton was warning of the Roberts Court. Too bad he doesn't have to convince a Jury of his rulings. They sound like Judicial prostitution to me.

Further Reading:

This is the latest of a series:

A Corrupt Court, Tuesday, June 26, 2012: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/06/corrupt-court.html

A corrupt decision blind to corrupt access and influence October 8, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-corrupt-decision-blind-to-corrupt.html

Corruption, Racketeering and the Supreme Court, Wednesday, October 16, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-racketeering-and-supreme.html

Corrupt judges on the Supreme Court. October 23, 2013: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/corruption-judges-on-supreme-court.html

Corrupt Court and Undue Influence and access according to Founders, Thursday, March 27, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/03/corrupt-court-and-undue-influence-and.html

The Expected Corrupt Decision by a corrupt court, Saturday, April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-expected-corrupt-decision-by.html

Is Quid Pro Quo the only kind of corruption that Government can regulate. April 5, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/is-quid-pro-quo-only-kind-of-corruption.html

Undue influence and Dependency Corruption or why the Supreme Court Decision was so corrupt, April 21st, 2014: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/undue-influence-and-dependency.html

Sources for this post:

http://republic.lessig.org/links.php

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/02/originalists-making-it-up-again-mccutcheon-and-corruption.html

The Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers by Hamilton, Jay ..., Volume 1 edited by Erastus Howard Scott

Ghosts of World War II in Ukraine

Intro

I have acquaintances who are Ukrainian, Russian, Russian Jews, and formerly Polish Jews. Some since childhood, including Shoah survivors. Poland was made "judenrein" when the Poles refused to allow most holocaust survivor Jews to return to their homes and a lot of them wound up living in displacement camps until they were allowed to emigrate to either the USA or Russia. Ukraine wasn't much better. During World War II the Ukrainians were rather infamously recruited as concentration camp guards because of their reputation as enthusiastic about the Shoah. I didn't know much about this as a kid. To me America was a melting pot where words like Irish, Jew, Ukrainian, Italian were kid fashions in skin or hair color not real ethnicities. When I was a kid I thought all Poles were Jews and wondered why Catholic poles could do such mean things to Jewish Poles. I had a teacher who was a Ukrainian and she was incredibly strict (and beautiful). It was a label that's all until I started reading the history. When you meet a Pole, Ukrainian or Russian - or for that matter a Jew or a German - it's often hard to tell them apart unless they tell you who they are. Many Europeans are full of nasty and often spun or exaggerated history. Our USA perspective counts too. None of those prejudices really mean much compared to those necessities of living together (and playing together). I wish more people would grow up with that attitude. But as we've seen with former Yugoslavia, or you learn talking to anyone about their family history -- the record of oppression, dispossession and murder puts wedges between people.

This behavior of Vladimir Putin's rankles me because of my playground perspective. It's the ancient Empire game that's been in play since before Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnessars dream to him. You get all these people trying to turn themselves into Stars and their countries into Empires, and playing God with their own people -- and you get these old revanchist one sided memories. My Grand-pa killed your grand-uncle. Your great-grand uncle killed my Great Grand Uncle... Ad infinitum. The Golden statues have clay feet.

To me Daniel's prophesy gets reinforced and reinterpreted by Christian and other Jewish prophets it is as much part of the Poem Ozzymandias as any of those prophets. The Golden Man has clay feet because ultimately no matter how great and terrible the nations that are said to form the vision, ultimately clay is not only beneath the feet but beneath the gold, silver, bronze and iron that define such civilization. Clay is humanity with all it's failings. And clay is resentment too. Humanity has clay feet and the day we wake up and realize that this is true and that we live in a tiny (from the Eternal's perspective) stone ball, the sooner we can dissolve all the insanity to dust. And this is true with Russia and the Ukraine. Ukrainian languages are similar to Russian Languages. And Ukrainian language is similar to Polish Language. The people are related from long ago. Their fight is more based on delusion than reality.

Russian Invasion

So the Russian speakers putting out a call for all Jews to register in the Ukraine probably reflects propaganda and incitement more than reality. There aren't many Jews in Ukraine anymore to register, but the call to register reflects undead zombie ideology that is suddenly coming to the top after years poorly buried in the ground. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/17/jews-ordered-to-register-in-east-ukraine/7816951/

The reason cited in the leaflets for the leaflets was allegations that Jews sided with Ukrainia at the end of WWII against Russia;

"Jewish community of Ukraine supported Bendery Junta, a reference to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement that fought for Ukrainian independence at the end of World War II, "and oppose the pro-Slavic People's Republic of Donetsk," a name adopted by the militant leadership."

A libel, but in a society where libel and myth frequently supplant any semblance of truth, something I guess one should expect. There aren't many Jews left in Ukrainia so those leaflets rightly upset the remainder. I've seen arguments from Russian loving friends that claimed that they had to fight the government of Ukraine because it was dominated by Nazis. And now we see the Russians claiming they have to expel disloyal Jews because they sided with the Ukraine Government at the end of World War II. Totally insane -- on all sides. The Ukrainians see the Russians as trying to carve up their country. It looks like they are right. But you can't tell pro-Russian westerners that.

If Putin manages to use the age old war between Ukrainians who are more Polish, more Ukrainian, or more Russian, to carve off more of Ukraine, he's fighting that old World Empire battle with the ancient divide and rule tactics. And I'm sure he feels aggrieved. And Nato isn't helping any with this. Everything Nato could do would probably make things worse. "Freedom Fighters?" will just encourage police state repression. Funding the Ukrainians, same. We can't move an army into the area without making a real war flare up. The best we can do right now is put sanctions on Russia and encourage common sense on all sides.

Ozymandias will fall. This ancient war of rival empires and wannabe emperors is built in failure. Tyranny; government for "private, separate advantage" [John Locke], and oligarchy; are disfunctional systems because they are abusively optimized and that creates bottlenecks and points of failure. The only reason the West isn't pushing back harder on Putin is that they get their oil and gas from him. Our only long run way to fight this insanity is with solar, wind, water and earth power. We all have the same problem. Russians thinking Ukraine is a bully to ethnic Russians in their state -- are being manipulated.

The enemy is Ozzymandias. The enemy is the notion that we need to make giant statues of our little men we make our officers. Like Putin. Like GW Bush. Ultimately like any of us when we get arrogant and start to suffer from hubris.

The world is one. When we realize that, we will win.