Still Up and At 'Em

I'm still here, this blog hasn't died--merely taken a break. I'm still working hard and keeping up and caring about this world around me. I will be working on a few projects for awhile, but never distracted from the work of liberty, grace, and a world free of pharmaceutical nicotine replacement and quit smoking drugs, which harm countless individuals and families daily, as well as destroy economic health and send money overseas to dishonest corporations as well as via way of increased blackmarket purchases which increases crimes against women and children and funds terror. I will always fight for the right to use tobacco as a way to protect non-smokers and their families. By protecting tobacco rights I protect jobs, health, and peace.

A society that treats people as less human for choosing tobacco is retro 1930s and will suffer dearly. Tax money will decrease as businesses are shut down as a result of bans. Money spent on coal-tar derived pharmaceutical nicotine goes overseas where it is kept in a foreign bank account.

Many will die as a result of increased poverty due to the tobacco bans.

Many will die as a result of using nicotine replacement candies, gums, patches and inhalers. These products increase risk of oral and stomach cancers, cause skin problems and hair loss. The patch increases the likelihood of heart attack dramatically. The quit smoking drugs lead to diabetes, insanity, and broken lives as a result of the cascading health problems brought on by these drugs, as well as due to the increased violence against ones self and others caused by these drugs. The cost to society as a result of these drugs is too high.

I will fight against tobacco bans to protect my community and country from blackmarket crime and the cost of added law enforcement. A woman, a child can escape from 2nd hand smoke, but not from crime.

I will fight against tobacco bans because I care about minorities and the poor. It is these groups who will suffer most due to lost employment, recruitment into crime syndicates, and in our prisons when they are arrested while the big guy at the top goes free.

I will fight against tobacco bans because I am an American citizen and I love my people and am not afraid to love people who are not perfect or are deemed genetically impure by the modern religion of science.

I do not believe it is love to over tax certain distinct groups of people based upon sex, skin color, religion, or lifestyle choice. I do not believe one group's freedom hinges upon another group being deemed less human, a burden, or immoral.

I am an American citizen and as such have the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights written upon my heart. It does not matter if these documents fade, burn, or are stolen, because I AM THE Constitution of the United States of America. It does not matter who else ignores or corrupts these documents, they will not rewrite what is written in my heart, blood, and life. It does not matter if my neighbor does not live by the Bill of Rights, or is afraid to. What matters is what I do. I am an American and would rather die rightly, than live wrongly.

I am an American and understand that the 1st Amendment to the Constitution permits those who do not agree with me and my lifestyle choices to freely do so. Because not everyone lives as I does not mean they are infringing upon my freedom (unless I allow them), nor does it mean they should be taxed more than I, or that I should ban them.

I am an American and have the right not to testify against myself. This means that my blood, my DNA, my papers, my property, my breath shall not be taken from me and used to testify against me. My body, my blood, shall not be taken from me without my consent--even if a law ignoring the Constitution says otherwise. Why do I say this? Because, increasingly genetics is back in style as a way to identify the "impure," those carrying the sinful tobacco gene. Go to hell! These genes are my inheritance and not cause to ban me or drug me or kill me. And I'll be damn proud to spread my ancient alleles around to the the next generation.

I am an American, I am the Constitution.

Tobacco Prohibition Increases Crime, Violence Against Women, and Even Ecological Disaster

"There's no doubt that there's a direct relationship between the increase in a state's tax and the increase in illegal trafficking"(John D'Angelo of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms qtd. in "Cigarette Smuggling," by Bruce Bartlett, National Center For Policy Analysis No.423, 30 Oct. 2002)

"Another problem is that cigarette distribution moves out of normal outlets and into criminal channels, controls on cigarette purchases by minors erode" (Bruce Bartlett).

Something that people rarely ever consider when prohibiting or overtaxing items such as tobacco, alcohol, firearms -- or tea is the increased leverage and power this hands to black market entrepreneurs. Usually, those willing to risk working in the black market are involved in violent crime and subjugation of those born into lives of poverty.

When my state tobacco prohibition went into effect nearly a year ago, the violent California gangs moved right on up and began recruiting on the Indian reservations. The reason for this is that Indian reservations, especially in border states, become very important areas for the transport and storage of the black market product due to the fact that they're somewhat independent of the rest of the state. Actually, a reservation is not so much free and independent, but neglected and not allowed to enforce justice as well as they might if the states actually allowed them independence.

Part of the beauty of an Indian reservation to crime syndicates is this condition of limbo many reservations are trapped in. On many reservations, the citizens are unable to get the criminals off the streets and out of their neighborhoods because they don't have the same type of court system we have. Criminal cases are supposed to be in the hands of the state, rather than in the local city and county courts. The state often ignores the pleas of the locals and won't prosecute a criminal or get around to trying the case. Many neighborhoods are held hostage by the local pedophile or violent gang member because the people cannot put them away and the state won't do anything. This causes a feeling of helplessness and despair amongst the people. I'm sure this is not the case on all reservations, but on many it is. It's the perfect environment for crime syndicates.

Earlier this year Obama signed the PACT Act ("Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking" Act), which prohibits the shipping of all tobacco products via the U.S. Postal Service. Oops, one, tobacco product was exempt from this law. Can you guess which one? It's the one that Bill Clinton couldn't figure out how to smoke, thinking it was a sex toy; it's the one they smoke at my state capital inspite of the ban on smoking, because politicians and their big fat cigars are above the law.

This act will dramatically increase the power of criminal elements in the U.S. Already, it is costing the USPS in lost shipping charges. Is it possible that the PACT Act is the reason the Post Office can no longer afford to operate and will have to stop shipping on Saturdays?

The PACT Act is a direct assault upon tobacco business and the U.S. Postal Service. This means more honest people out of work, higher shipping rates for everyone, less service, and increased crime.

The PACT Act dramatically effects international trade too. I'm seeing that products such as Swedish snus and certain types of pipe tobacco are nearly impossible to obtain in the U.S. Interestingly, this Act harms the most innocent and respectful groups amongst those who use tobacco: the poor, handicapped, and those with a heightened respect of tobacco--the pipe smoker.

Does anyone remember what happened during the Tobacco and Alcohol Prohibitions of the 1920s?

Before alcohol was prohibited a woman was rarely ever seen in a tavern drinking alongside the men.

We don't talk about it much, but preceding the Volstead Act, Tobacco Prohibition was rampant across the United States. Some states had bans against buying or selling it, while others had bans implemented by cities and counties. But by the 1920s something like 20 states had prohibited tobacco, especially cigarettes.

Why did women not belly up to the bar before Prohibition? And why was it only rebellious feminists openly smoked cigarettes before the 1920s? Well, for one, many laws were sexist and prohibited women from smoking, but beyond that there must have been another reason.

Hmm. Do drug dealers card their patrons to make sure they're of legal age? Do they look at the pretty young woman and say, "Sorry, hon, but you're too young and pretty. I just can't sell to you. I'm a good upstanding citizen with a reputation to keep and don't want to be responsible for your demise"?

Do drug dealers have shops with big windows and wide open doors where people can walk by and see inside?

Before Prohibition of Alcohol and Tobacco these consumer items were in the hands and control of honest citizens running honest and respectable businesses. It wasn't that men hated women, but that they respected them, that they didn't want them in the bar with them. Often, men were gathering in the bar after work and looked a bit rough and felt it too. They didn't want a woman having to look upon them in such a disgraceful state, before they'd cleaned up a bit. It was out of love for the woman that they wanted to protect them from a rough and dirty environment. It wasn't that women were too weak to handle the nitty gritty, every married man knows this, it was that they wanted to spare them added nitty gritty.

But along comes Prohibition, a favorite agenda of the feminists, and suddenly women were equal to men--equally low and drunk. When a crime lord runs the local speakeasy he doesn't give a damn who walks in the door as long as they've got money. In fact, having women there makes it easier for the men to spend more and get wasted. If the woman is right next to you getting tipsy, then the worry about drinking too much and having to face the wife is erased--or is it? Geez, who is this woman sitting on my lap? It sure isn't Ethel. She's younger and prettier than Ethel.

And so, a woman's life is ruined by Prohibition because now there are women in the bars with her husband. The Carry A. Nations got their way. They cast out one demon and replaced it with seven more.

Prohibition forces respectful and responsible citizens to quit consuming a product, thus eliminating them from society. When responsible and mature people are removed from the culture they no longer influence it or keep an eye on things, thus leaving only the disrespectful and irresponsible elements unmonitored and unchecked. This is what the local tobacco Prohibition has done in my local bars.

For some reason, the more mature and responsible people also smoked. Their calming and all-seeing presence kept the environment safe and enjoyable. Without them there is no one to show those new to drinking and tobacco that these are social aids meant to enable comfort and conversation and joy; not meant to be consumed as quickly and cheaply as possible and to such an excess that one doesn't remember socializing at all.

Without the responsible element there are no manners and the crowds have become more violent. It used to be that if a young man shoved a girl or was rude to her, another man would see this and step in and reprimand him and tell him he was too drunk. Now, there is no one to reprimand the drunk young men and no one to defend the girls. Usually, at live music shows the area near the stage is a wall of males who bar the females from seeing around them and won't let them near the front. This never used to be. It was an unspoken rule that the girls, especially if they were shorter than average got the area nearest the stage and the men gave way and stood back a couple rows. Since the Tobacco Prohibition this has all changed.

Violence increases dramatically with Prohibition. One reason for this is that if one is at a speakeasy, or involved in black market tobacco they cannot very easily report a crime because they will be fined or imprisoned if it is revealed that the violence occurred as a result of involvement with a prohibited item or establishment. If tobacco and alcohol are legal one is not afraid to report a violent crime because they will not be penalized or treated as less human. Crime syndicates have power over individuals when an item is illegal because they know law enforcement will not protect victims or their family. You suddenly become a citizen with fewer rights if you use a prohibited product.

Supposedly, Tobacco Prohibition protects the children from the effects of tobacco smoke. It is often claimed that increased tobacco taxes make it more difficult for minors to buy tobacco. It is also claimed that increased tobacco taxes offset health costs caused by tobacco use. In my state the state run children's health program is run on the backs of smokers. Every cigarette pays for another child's ADHD meds.

But does Tobacco Prohibition and increased taxes really protect the children from tobacco? No.

Tobacco Prohibitions actually make tobacco more harmful to young people. In Ireland and other European countries with strong tobacco prohibitions it is very common for minors, especially females to be the ones recruited to transport black market cigarettes into the country. These young women, mostly teens from poor neighborhoods are lured by spending money and plane tickets. They fill their suitcases with cigarettes and arrive in smaller airports. There are stories now, of entire planes full of these "Ants" each carrying small amounts of cigarettes, which alone don't mean much, but together equal millions and millions of dollars.

These young women may not be inhaling second hand smoke, but they're still exposed to tobacco. Now, instead of inhaling smoke, these women are exposed to the violence and abuse of their handlers. They are at risk of being beaten, raped, abandoned in foreign countries, and given jail sentences if caught. These young women put their relatives, friends, and neighborhoods at risk of violence and retribution should they offend their handlers. Is it really worth it to protect children from tobacco smoke when it increases violence against them?

With passage of the PACT Act we can see another problem with Prohibition. The PACT Act was supported by the anti smoking lobby and by the large tobacco companies. The reason the big tobacco companies support a prohibition upon U.S. Postal Service shipments of tobacco products is that many of these products are made by small companies and shops. People are dissatisfied with tobacco products manufactured by the well-known large tobacco companies. They don't like the price and they really don't like the quality.

In the past few years with the ease of online shopping people have been searching out better quality tobacco at discount prices, or even more expensive tobacco made by small businesses. People want tobacco, not chemicals and toxic and stinky additives. I myself can no longer stand the taste of big name cigarettes and haven't smoked them in years. It's not merely a habit, it really is like a good beer or coffee. Addicts don't care about taste or experience and want a fix, which is what the large tobacco companies and the Pharma Phascist NRT products supply.

All of this competition cuts into the monopoly of the large tobacco companies. They don't like those Indian brands, they don't like loose tobacco used for hand rolled cigarettes and pipes. They don't like foreign shops sending over specialty tobaccos.

Tobacco is like many other consumable items, or even like musical instruments, or like Colonel Sander's secret fried chicken recipe. A family or a geographic region may possess "secret" knowledge and produce a tobacco product that cannot be gotten from anyone else. These types of special tobaccos, many traditional, can only be bought and shipped through the U.S. Postal Service because they are unobtainable through any tobacco outlet in the country. The large tobacco companies don't like these products and would like to put them out of business.

Believe it or not Tobacco Prohibition increases the monopoly power of the few large tobacco companies and eradicates the small businesses and causes the loss of very old and proudly produced varieties of tobacco.

This happened during Alcohol Prohibition. Many of America's vineyards and special wine grapes were destroyed. A few of these rare grapes survived and are only now being rediscovered by the public who are again tasting wines that have not been experienced in nearly a hundred years. And who knows how many wonderful beers were lost to Prohibition?

The large tobacco companies thrive during periods of excessive taxation and prohibition because they are able to use black market channels to get their product into the region. I will not name names, but two of the large tobacco companies have been dealing with groups such as Hezbollah, TRIAD of Asia, the Irish Republican Army, U.S. Mafia, and Italian Mafia for years. These terrorist organizations traffic the black market tobacco, pass all tax barriers, and use the money to fund their political causes. And they shut down the small and better quality tobacco producers.

I have wondered if the Volstead Act was not in fact a monopoly takeover of the lucrative alcohol industry by the large producers. Before the Volstead, beer was a local product, produced by families.

Quite a few entrepreneurs knew that the Volstead Act was a government sanctioned monopoly takeover of the alcohol industry and bought up the bankrupt breweries and distilleries for pennies, holding them until the act was repealed, then got rich.

It's possible too, that Prohibition caused the Dust Bowl. It's only a speculation of mine and I'm no farmer, but I've listened to locals and others when they talk about farming and irrigation, and I've come to wonder if those giant dust clouds that blackened the sky during the 1930s were the result of Prohibition.

From what I've learned from listening, irrigation ditches are very important to the level of the water table. The irrigation ditch takes water from a large stream or river, which lowers it's volume, but at the same time this diverted water raises the underground water levels in the areas that it flows through. Irrigation ditches keep the surrounding land moist and make it easier to dig wells. The water is not wasted, only moved around from the river to the land. It doesn't deplete anything. In fact, it improves the ecosystem and protects it.

When irrigation stops because the land is no longer farmed the water table drops and things dry up rather quickly. When things are excessively dry they repel moisture, rather than retaining it. Grass and foliage begins to die. Summer heat worsens conditions and winter snows blow across the land, rather than settling down because there is nothing to hold it. The land and climate become desert. We can currently observe this desertification process taking place in formerly fertile valleys in California where irrigation has been banned to "protect" the environment. The orchards and farmland are parched and it's destroying the environment as well as essential foods depended upon by American children for good health.

When the Volstead Act went into effect it dramatically cut down on how much grain needed to be produced, for alcohol is a grain product. Many farmers held on, but it became more and more difficult since their crops were no longer in demand for alcohol production. Many farmers could not afford to plant their fields and left them to go fallow. No longer did they need as much irrigation.

The prairies began to dry up after the Volstead Act and the rains stopped coming after years of plentiful moisture. It's entirely possible that the irrigated land had actually attracted that rain and that after the Volstead, with less irrigation, the ecosystem was altered and no longer attracted the rains. The unworked fields along with less irrigation caused a drought. No longer was the soil held down by crops or moist soil, and by the 1930s large clouds of dust were rolling from the Western prairies all the way to the cities of the East Coast, blocking the sun, turning day to night.

But, of course, we read that the Dust Bowl was the fault of greedy and uneducated farmers that practiced negligent farming practices and depleted the soils. I doubt this. We always blame the individual and the victim in this country. I surmise that the poverty-stricken farmers could not afford to properly maintain the land as a result of the Volstead Act. But unless one has been very poor they will never understand this, and how impossible it is to maintain things and do things the right way without money to do it with.

And because of the Volstead Act and its destruction of the land and of farms, this lead to the government takeover during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, of many farms. Roosevelt doled out paltry sums of money to destitute farmers if they would give their lives and independence to farm as he instructed. Roosevelt implemented massive hog and cattle-killing programs in which farmers turned in their livestock in return for money to feed the kids. Then, the government killed these animals, wasting them like a giant sacrifice upon the land.

If we look back at a time in history that occurred not so long ago we can see that there is not one good or healthy aspect of Prohibition. It causes crime, monopoly, poverty, despair, immorality, and even ecological disaster. Prohibition harms most those it is said it will protect: Women and children.

image: Dust Storm, Stratford, TX, 18 April 1935, NOAA George E. Marsh Album

Nicotine Replacement Therapy Targets Youth and Females in Your Local Store

It's time to start complaining to our local merchants, retailers, and newspapers about the shelf placement and advertising of Nicotine Replacement "Therapy" (NRT) products. Like tobacco products, they should be out of reach of underage users and require an I.D., and advertising should not appeal to youth.

The other night, in the local Wal-Mart I noticed that the NRT aisle was provocatively placed on an edge which everyone has to pass as they go to the toothpaste, deodorant, condoms, vitamins, and tampons. The shelf was under five feet tall -- very low, beneath the eye contact of the average adult, but perfect for a younger person. The location of the patches, gums, and candies was ideal for those making a quick run into the store for those items.

And doesn't nearly everyone brush their teeth, and hair, and buy shampoo and other body cleansing and grooming products? Young women, especially, have to pass by the NRT aisle, because it is they that spend the most money and time grooming and beautifying themselves. Evidently, the shelf placement of NRT is directly aimed at those of the underage female persuasion. The aisle was also conspicuously close to the condoms. Again, this indicates marketing and placement aimed at the youthful and sexually active. Imagine getting it on and pouching a piece of "gum" at the same time! The beauty of it!

This moral and health issue must be remedied. The anti-tobacco groups have lately launched a complaint campaign, asking their niacin deficient pellagrins to complain about in store tobacco advertising and placement. The same must be done with NRT products to protect the children from the health and economic burdens inflicted upon society by addictive and dangerous Nicotine Replacement "Therapy" products.

We cannot allow this social ill to continue. Children are daily exposed to Nicotine Replacement Therapy advertising via school programs, T.V. advertising that directs them to look up sites such as Shardsofglass.com, and are being led to beleive these products are safe and responsible. Even the President of the United States is pushing NRT, offering it to others, saying it's good, with children viewing this unhealthy behavior.

And soon, we will hear more and more of the deaths caused to children that used NRT because it was so easy to buy and because they ignorantly believed it was safe. They will put the trans dermal patch on and die of heart failure, mix the patch with other drugs; or mix the gums and candies with other drugs causing a dangerous reaction. Children are natural little chemists and experimenters. And Nicotine Replacement "Therapy" doesn't work the same way as tobacco on the brain. Much of it is actually a type of ionization process, replacing one thing with another. We must protect our children and our young females and demand that NRT be placed behind the counter and that I.D. be required in order to make a purchase.

Also, taxes need to be raised to make this too expensive for youth to afford and to pay for the health costs caused to society. Most NRT products are imported and don't have to pay tariffs. We need to remedy this issue, and make these Big Ionized Nicotine companies pay up, rather than reaping the money, and addicting an entire generation of youth for life to this habit.

Arizona's New Law: A Strike Against Slavery and Corporatism?

Several years ago my boss returned from a business trip in sunny California, most of which he spent golfing with a business owner there. The California businessman had a thriving business and didn't have to work much. My boss was impressed by his wealth and by the fact that the man could hire two employees for the wages he had to pay one employee in my state.

I remember standing there with my fellow employee who had run the business while the boss was away, listening as the boss was saying how easy it is in California to hire Asians and Mexicans to work for next to nothing. All of this was to insinuate that we were damn lucky to be getting such good wages. I was irked, but at the same time I understood the boss, a generally great guy.

The boss was barely making it sometimes. He wasn't rich. His house was small and plain, set in one of those new subdivisions where every house is cheaply made and doesn't have a yard. His cars were old, really old. Finally, his wife's little econo car from the 1980s died and he went out to get her a new one, ending up getting himself one too.

And so, it must have hurt a bit and made my boss jealous to see how easily one can hire employees in California, make them work so hard and pay them nothing, and make enough money to golf in the sun all day.

I wonder if this is how those in the 1850s felt when they saw plantation owners living the life while their slaves worked diligently, making the money? Even if one didn't believe in enslaving a fellow man, it must have made them jealous when they saw how small and simple their own life was, how small, and how expensive labor and time was.

We are living in interesting times, a combination of so many other times. The states and politicians are arguing and boycotting in regard to the Mexican worker issue. This doesn't seem entirely dissimilar to the arguments between slave states and free states that began broiling in the 1850s, eventually ending in the Civil War, fought to bring the Confederacy back into the Union.

There is a bit of a difference from the 1850s and 1860s in that the Mexican workers don't seem as afraid or sedate as the slaves of the Confederacy. They don't quite seem to comprehend that they are being used as the frontal assault to fight a battle for their "masters," who send them out to protest and ask for rights, rile them up and send them in to take the blows. The Mexican Marxist movement has no idea that they are slaves. They really believe they are free. If they are so free why don't they stop the drug cartels that make them look so bad, why don't they go home to Mexico?

If the Mexicans are free enough to gather in protest why are they not free enough to gather in protest against the inhumane and dangerous working conditions their fellows often work under? Who exactly are these protesters? Are they who they say they are or do they get paid to protest? I ask this, because, historically in the United States of America slave revolts are rare and are failures. This causes me to question whether these groups of angry Mexicans are Mexican or enslaved at all, or only paid provocateurs.

In the United States of America minority groups don't simply rise up and change culture with anger. It takes time, and is done in a very intelligent, educated, and legal manner. It takes time because the minority group has to break ground, rise above the odds and show that it is part of the culture, not separate, not less entitled, not more entitled. Most importantly, even though each of us is individual and unique, we each are part of this country called America and assimilated to it. All civil rights movements have tried to prove this: that we are all part of the same culture, that we are not separate, not different.

Racism is founded upon the belief that another group of people is different, separate, not assimilated. And here, in our time, we have lost sight of this and of the older civil rights movements. Now, the many groups crying for equal rights in America claim that it is equal rights to not assimilate, not be part of the greater culture, and continue being separate--yet equal. Now, people wear religious costume as badge of pride that tells everyone they are not part of the community, nor do they want to be. And Mexican protesters spout words such as "Latina" and speak in another language to show how separate they are.

Modern civil rights movements actually want "Separate But Equal" laws reinstated. This is an insult to those that worked so hard, who lost their lives to achieve equality and acceptance everywhere based upon individual character and merit, rather than on appearance and religion.

And so I question the honesty of the modern Mexican worker movement. There really are enslaved immigrants in this country. There really are abuses, but I doubt these people have any voice and that they have much to do with any of the current anger in the streets. I doubt the street marchers care too much about the down trodden who have no energy or freedom to march anywhere.

It's as if someone is trying to wind the American watch backwards, back to the beginning before Martin Luther King, Jr, before the Civil War, before the American Revolution. It's as if the fabric, the great patterned and stared and striped fabric of America is being unraveled.

People actually want to be defined as separate, as foreign, as slaves. We are banning certain groups, separating them out as less humans; and then demanding that other groups be given the right to be citizens, yet kept separate. Before the American Revolution British colonists brought slaves into America to work the land because they were easier to deal with than indentured servants who had to be housed and fed, then released, not to mention hard to keep from running away. A black slave was marked as different by skin color, making it hard for them to run away and assimilate into the general population.

In the years leading up to the Civil War when new territory was being settled, the slave question began tearing up the nation because one settler would move in with his family and work the land on his own, while another would come in with his slaves and set up a giant operation and get rich without putting as much into the local economy. The slave owner could make a profit hiring his slave out for wages to another too. But the land owner who owned no slaves had to pay someone to work his land. The settler that owned no slaves and needed extra money or work couldn't find work when it was taken by a slave. It wasn't fair to the settler who owned no slaves. It felt as if he was being stolen from and paying more for everything.

If one has grown up in an area where there is no cheap labor, where there are no slaves, it is very difficult to change that sick and dishonest feeling in one's stomach and buy a slave or to hire someone to work for less-than honest wages. It's not a good feeling knowing that your employee is starving because you don't pay them enough to get by. And so, the northerners moving into the new territories of America couldn't accept slavery because it was not honest and didn't make one proud of themselves as a provider.

Finally, the Civil War broke out because the spineless politicians in Washington had compromised over and over again, not wanting to say one way or the other that slavery was right or wrong. Too afraid to step on Southern toes they had drawn a geographic line, making slavery legal below, and illegal above. They had compromised with the Southern landowners, criminalizing anyone in a free state from aiding runaway slaves as they traveled to Canada. A family caught harboring a slave could lose everything they owned. This is why it was called The Underground Railroad, because it had to go underground to protect the property of the Operators. This law, criminalizing what had formerly been a fairly common and open act, caused an uproar amongst the Free States and lead to the writing and popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. When a person's property and livelihood are threatened it activates people.

There were many factors that lead the Southern states to secede from the Union. One was slavery, but there were other issues too. In a way, it was a war for monetary power. The North was where the money, population, banks, and manufacturing were located. The South was agricultural and old fashioned. The South felt that the Northern money was monopolizing things a bit and wanted out.

Abraham Lincoln eventually declared emancipation for the slaves, although it was more an act of weakening the power base of the Southern plantation owner than anything. The slaves were "free," but had no rights. And instead of being valuable property to an owner, they were now no one's property, and free to be abused by any and all with no loss to anyone other than to loved ones. The competition with Northern powers was broken, and a group of people found themselves indebted sharecroppers, manual labor, factory workers, and strikebreakers. The newly freed slaves were perhaps, more enslaved than before. It took another hundred years for them to be accepted as part of American culture, not separate.

Now, there is a lot of talk about "freeing" the Mexican immigrants and about amnesty, whatever that is. This is talk. President Obama will neither control the border, nor will he give full citizenship to the Mexicans. The reason for this is that his administration is funded and friended by large corporations and others who cannot afford to lose their cheap labor, either to citizenship or deportation. These illegal immigrants must be left in limbo, in a place where they have no rights, but don't leave the country. It's also important to keep the Mexicans in limbo because they make a great bone of contention in this country and keep us riled up against each other.

There are cities such as Los Angeles, California that have boycotted Arizona. And the Catholic priests are riled up, saying this is racism and not different than Nazi Germany. I think, it is actually more similar, at least right now, to the time between the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. There is money, not love of mankind, behind much of this rhetoric. What exactly has Arizona done? They have threatened a monetary power base. Arizona's stricter immigration policy may not be perfect, and may lead to abuses, but it may have been a kick in the pants to quite a few greedy and dishonest power interests.

People don't get angry and stirred up until their money and property are threatened. The Catholic church has a large Mexican attendance. If Mexicans leave the state, or the country, so too does the money in the offering plate. Now, why is California threatened by tough immigration laws? And why are they willing to risk money to boycott Arizona? Why is Utah telling Mexicans to stay within it borders where they're "safe" as non citizens? Because these states are "slave" states and Arizona has essentially announced that it's not.

If a Northern state had announced more stringent enforcement against illegal workers this would not be as big an issue. But Arizona is a border state, a corridor for illegal non-citizen workers, as well as an entry for illegal monopoly drug mafias who are the modern slave drivers that push the bodies. The pre-Civil War slave drivers were the lowest of the low, cruel and heartless criminals, and black themselves, which made them more despicable to whites and blacks. The modern slave drivers are generally Hispanic, but the cruelest of the cruel, loving only to destroy the lives of their own people. The slave owners hated their slave drivers, but depended upon them and the fear they instilled in the slaves.

If one has ever traveled in Utah and California they will see that these states rely heavily upon non-citizen workers. These people allow business, state, and corporations to reap huge amounts of money and to keep things looking pretty as a southern plantation. While the giant corporate and government monopolies get rich by using these bodies, the citizens pay taxes into this false economy and get poorer.

California is like one of those American territories where one person earns and sweats for everything they have, while the guy next door has a perfect and easy life because he has 50 slaves out doing the work for nothing. Contrary, to what people say, California government makes a "profit" off of non-citizens. Each non-citizen equals a new Social service worker, new teacher, new bureaucracy that needs more money. The government keeps itself busy with all these bodies, never really doing anything to help them, and pockets the taxes taken from the citizens. It's a transfer of wealth, from the citizens to the State.

California needs non-citizens to work the fields, service industry, and whatever else. The State needs them for employment. If every Mexican was made a citizen and properly educated in English, the language that the laws and Constitution are written in, California and its corporations would soon be in trouble. They already are. The other solution is to send the non-citizens home and close the border. Mexicans are big business in California and Utah.

Why do you think California and other states don't teach Mexican students in English? It's not because they care about the students. It is actually to prevent them from becoming assimilated to American culture and from being able to learn their rights as American citizens. It's extremely important to read and write in the language of one's country. Before the Civil War there were laws on the books preventing slaves from reading, and especially from learning to write. This kept the slaves separate and unable to realize their power as humans. In America of the early 1900s there were a great deal of children born to foreign immigrants that never spoke English until their first year of school, and somehow, they caught on quickly with barely a problem.

It is wrong to prevent people from speaking their native language, but it is also wrong to keep them ignorant of the common language of the land, which is the language of laws and business and rights and literature. All people need to know how to get along with and understand the culture they live in or be outcasts and despised. It would be disrespectful to move to Japan or Russia and never learn the language or the social rules of the culture. Language is power.

Arizona has provoked a kind of war, a first shot. And the opposition is sending out the troops--the very people they enslave, because those with the power are too good to dirty or bloody themselves. And so, they make movies like "Machete" to invoke the slave troops into violence against the "enemy." And they pay a few loud voices to rally the troops, telling them to pick up their hoes, shovels, toilet brushes, and hamburger flippers and revolt.

There are only two solutions, neither perfect. Give the Mexican workers full citizenship, or prohibit them from working in the country. Arizona could not give them citizenship, and so made it a law that they cannot work without proper proof of permission. I'm not sure this is a solution either. Those in the slave states and in the federal government may make it easier to get papers. And how will this be enforced? Perhaps, it is the message that matters more than the actual enforcement.

What Arizona has done is similar to what Abraham Lincoln did when he freed the slaves. He pulled the rug out from underneath the power structure of the Southern land owners. Arizona has threatened the power structure of the neighboring states and business. Soon, we will see more states choosing sides in the same manner as Southern secession. Instead of seceding to be a slave state, the states will "secede" to be Free States. And like the slaves during and after the Civil War, the average Mexican will be caught in the middle. Do they go back to their slave master in Mexico, which has essentially hired them out to the U.S.?

I myself, am inclined to make most Mexican workers full citizens and encourage assimilation into the culture. If their country would rather hire them out, and gain corporate payoffs, then I'd rather cut Mexico off from its source of income. If I could prohibit money from going back into Mexico I would. And if I could cut off Mexican trucking, drivers, dirty diesel, and untrained drivers I'd do that too. But there is no easy solution, and it will take more than Arizona's law to solve this. I hope we don't have to go through another Civil War.

At any rate, this is contentious, and I hope that Americans can see past the mobs and that this is like North versus South, American money versus giant Corporate and State money. Perhaps, America could have avoided the Civil War by allowing escaped slaves to be full citizens in Free States, until the South was completely cleaned out of cheap/free labor. Compromising, being neither hot nor cold, leads to war and death of innocent people.

Albert Jay Nock: The State of Conquest

"Here is the Golden Rule of sound citizenship, the first and greatest lesson in the study of politics: you get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you. A citizenry which has learned that one short lesson has but little left to learn" (Albert Jay Nock, "The Criminality of the State," The American Mercury, March, 1939)

I have discovered that American prophet, that typical hermit in the desert, Albert Jay Nock. Reading him makes one understand why the prophets of old were hunted down and hated by the rulers and the masses. What he says is not what we want to hear because it's what we know is true, but would rather not put into words. We would rather continue blaming everything outside of ourselves, and think betterment comes from without too. We would rather finger-point, and find innocent scapegoats to lay upon the alter. Even quoting Nock feels dangerous, which makes me wonder if free speech really exists.

The following quotes are all from Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, the State, first published in 1935, which can be read online at Mises.org:

"What we and our more nearly immediate descendants shall see is a steady progress in collectivism running off into military despotism of a severe type. Closer centralization; a steadily growing bureaucracy; State power and faith in State power increasing, social power and faith in social power diminishing; the State absorbing a continually larger proportion of the national income; production languishing, the State in consequence taking over one 'essential industry' after another, managing them with ever-increasing corruption, inefficiency and prodigality, and finally resorting to a system of forced labour. Then at some point in this progress, a collision of State interests, at least as general and as violent as that which occurred in 1914, will result in an industrial and financial dislocation too severe for the asthenic social structure to bear; and from this the State will be left to the 'rusty death of machinery,' and the casual anonymous forces of dissolution will be supreme" (206).

"[T]here is actually no such thing as a 'labour problem,' for no encroachment on the rights of either labour or capital can possibly take place until all natural resources within reach have been preempted. What we call the 'problem of the unemployed' is in no sense a problem, but a direct consequence of State-created monopoly" (107)

"expropriation must precede exploitation" (Nock).

"After the conquest and confiscation have been effected, and the State set up, its first concern is with the land. The State assumes the right of eminent domain over its territorial basis, whereby every landholder becomes in theory a tenant of the State" (104).

"This regime was established by a coup d'Etat of a new and unusual kind, practicable only in a rich country. It was effected, not by violence, like Louis-Napoleon's, or by terrorism, like Mussolini's, but by purchase. It therefore presents what might be called an American variant of the coup d'Etat. Our national legislature was not suppressed by force of arms, like the French Assembly in 1851, but was bought out of its functions with public money; and as appeared most conspicuously in the elections of November, 1934, the consolidation of the coup d'Etat was effected by the same means; corresponding functions in the smaller units were reduced under the personal control of the Executive" (11-12).

The following is interesting, because things have changed a bit:

"Whenever economic exploitation has been for any reason either impracticable or unprofitable, the State has never come into existence; the government has existed, but the State, never. The American hunting tribes, for example, whose organization so puzzled our observers, never formed a State, for there is no way to reduce a hunter to economic dependence and make him hunt for you. Conquest and confiscation were no doubt practicable, but no economic gain would be got by it, for confiscation would give the aggressors but little beyond what they already had; the most that could come of it would be the satisfaction of some sort of feud" (57-58).

In the case of the native peoples of America, the State did an interesting thing. It placed the people on confined pieces of land, nearly forcing them to become little states which they became attached to. Then, in this weakened and prone condition, resting after being chased and massacred across the countryside, the state came in with its religious and scientific arms to take the only thing the native wanderers had left: family.

The children, for their own good (!), were taken from their parents and boarded in institutions which could provide for the children's upbringing "better" than their old fashioned and ignorant parents. In these State and religious institutions they were removed from their history and health. In Canada, they are still excavating the bone yards of the children accidentally killed by the wonderfully caring and effective authorities, then secretly buried around the grounds until fairly recently.

What Nock neglects is that the State can confiscate more than material property. It can confiscate souls, hold them prisoner, making it very difficult for the owner to free it and realize that they are a person.

And here we are, not seeing that what happened to those beautiful little children born of weary parents is happening right here every day to those off of the reservation too. And every day, the parents willingly, unquestioningly, submissively drop their children off at the institution. Nock has some words about American education too, which I haven't read, although it should be interesting as he was not formally educated, which explains a bit about his unformal beliefs.

Anyway, Nock has me thinking and musing on a few things these days.

James Otis, Jr's Labor of Love

I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning (James Otis, Jr.).

James Otis, Jr., a man that "rambles and wanders like a ship without a helm" (John Adams), a broken man, deemed a lunatic by Governor Thomas Hutchinson and a sanity commission of Massachusetts Colony in 1771.

James Otis, Jr., called a "water of fire" by his contemporary John Adams, once known for a "promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities" (John Adams), and had argued that "a man's house is his castle" had become as a man whose own castle; his mind had been breached and broken down by forces nearly impossible to defend against.

Once, Otis, had given a speech, a labor of five hours in which a child was born. John Adams said that it was this insane and broken man who brought Independence into the world at the Superior Court in Boston in 1761:

"Then and there was the first scene of the first act of the opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born."

And now, James Otis, Jr. was wandering the streets, breaking windows, firing his rifle, burning papers, erratic and speaking hurtful and violent words to those around him.

James Otis had been a brilliant scholar, graduating from Harvard, and quickly rising in prominence within the Boston community. He was at the top of his profession and married to a woman of good family, Ruth Cunningham. Otis had always had a difficult and edgy personality, was fully conscious of social status, sometimes finding it a bit uncomfortable to commiserate with those of a less pretentious and less refined class, those impatient with him.

We all have our reasons for taking one side over another, but this Bard suspects that Otis was not merely defending a nation's liberty when he birthed Independence in 1761, but his own secret liberty which in his own mind was under continual attack by forces other than the British Empire. But it was Britain and its Writs of Assistance that symbolized these threats to his personal freedom in his home and within the community. Otis fought for liberty on a completely different level than those who fought on the physical level. This was a man that lived in his mind and it was a dark place with demons lurking in the corners, wanting to break in and take what was his.

James Otis, Jr. was a highly respected lawyer and had a reputation as an intelligent man amongst the Boston merchants. He was greatly admired for his talents and abilities within the community outside the doors of his home. And then, there was his wife, Ruth, to whom he was unhappily married. If this Bard were to make conjectures, and he does, he would guess that Otis felt his wife a bit like a British official bursting in with a warrant to search his private thoughts, to confiscate his property, and imprison him for contraband opinions and passions. Otis believed very strongly that what was his, what he had worked so hard for was his by right, "inherent and inalienable" (John Adams).

And so in 1761 when James Otis, Jr. was made Advocate-General and the Writs of Assistance were challenged by his fellow citizens as illegal searches and seizures of private property, he could not justify prosecuting his neighbors for inability to prove every stick, paper, and grain of sugar bore the mark of the....King. He could not prosecute the very people who esteemed him and depended upon him.

Now, perhaps, if Otis had grown up in Britain and had connections there he would not have felt so personally threatened. But if he were to carry out his heinous duties upon the only place he belonged and was known, he would have lost all dignity and position in the world. He would have lost the home he loved by fining and imprisoning the very people who offered their homes to him. After he had betrayed his friends and broken Boston down, he would have had to flee to Britain where he had nothing and no friends. The Writs of Assistance were a threat against his own house, for enforcing them would have confiscated all he "owned" and held dear--the esteem of the community. Otis' own physical house was no home, it was the place where Ruth lived, and she stood against all he loved. She did not admire him or hold him in esteem. Good old Loyalist Ruth, the kick in the pants that got Independence kindled.

"I was solicited to argue this cause as Advocate-General; and, because I would not, I have been charged with desertion from my office. To this charge I can give a very sufficient answer. I renounced that office and I argue this cause from the same principle; and I argue it with the greater pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty...." (James Otis, Jr. 1761).

James Otis, Jr. may have been missing a few screws, but not as many as some elected officials. Otis knew where his allegiance belonged and where history would give him a proper home, and it wasn't by betraying the trust of Boston's citizens. And to prove himself he offered his services free of charge to defend the merchants of Boston before the Superior Court where they stood accused of smuggling and buying off the black market, rather than from Britain's East India Company monopoly.

And so, on that momentous day, 24 February 1761 at the Boston State House, James Otis, Jr. rose to defend the rights of those he loved and who had given him a home in their hearts. He spoke for five hours, a feat that most of us cannot imagine accomplishing. What he said was so powerful and so true that it stunned and roused all who heard it. The exact words cannot be known as there is no transcript, but those few who were in the State House were never to forget it, as if they had been anointed and invigorated with whatever it was that Otis had sprinkled on them. And perhaps, this led to his mental decline in the following years. Perhaps, he filled so many other glasses with his wine that there was none left for him at the end of the feast, and non to fill his vessel.

It must be wondered what it was like to have fought so hard, to have expended so much energy, to be so worn and to have returned to a home where one's family is against them. Otis's wife was a Loyalist, and one of his daughters too. Surely, Otis' battle was a lonely one.

John Adams was a young man when he saw Otis speak in defense of the merchants, but he seems to list it as one of the most important moments in history. Of it he writes:

"[James Otis] asserted that every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law but the law written in his heart and revealed to him by his Maker, in the constitution of his nature and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestable. The club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defense, was his own. His bow and arrow were his own; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beast, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel or a smelt or a sculpin, it was his property....

"....He asserted that these rights were inherent and inalienable. That they never could be surrendered or alienated but by idiots or madmen and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were void and not obligatory, by all the laws of God and man. Nor were the poor Negroes forgotten. Not a Quaker in Philadelphia or Mr. Jefferson in Virginia ever asserted the rights of the Negroes in stronger terms. Young as I was and ignorant as I was, I shuddered at the doctrine he taught; and have all my life shuddered, and still shudder, at the consequences that may be drawn from such premises. Shall we say that the rights of masters and servants clash and can be decided only by force? I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! From individual independence he proceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say that men were gregarious animals, like wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were all social animals by nature, that there were natural sympathies, and above all, the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and defense. And this must have happened before any formal covenant, by express words or sign, was concluded....

"....He asserted that the security of these rights to life, liberty, and property had been the object of all those struggles against arbitrary power, temporal and spiritual, civil and political, military and ecclesiastical, in every age" (John Adams on Otis' defense against Writs of Assistance Act).

James Otis lost the case against the Writs of Assistance, the right to be secure in one's home, but won in the courts of the hearts and memories of those gathered there. It was a grand battle, nobly fought, and a tool of defense in the following years.

In the following years Otis continued to speak, to practice law, and to write pamphlets for the colonists. In 1764 he wrote The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, which displays his colorful language:

"I say supreme absolute power is originally and ultimately in the people; and they never did in fact freely, nor can they rightfully make an absolute, unlimited renunciation of this divine right....

"....It was from the trick of gulling the vulgar into a belief that their tyrants were omniscient, that it was therefore right, that they should be considered as omnipotent. Hence the Dii majorum et minorum gentium; the great, the monarchical, the little Provincial subordinate and subaltern gods, demigods, and semidemi-gods, ancient and modern. Thus deities of all kinds were multiplied and increased in abundance; for every devil incarnate, who could enslave a people, acquired a title to divinity; and thus the 'rabble of the skies' was made up of locusts and caterpillars; lions, tygers and harpies; and other devourers translated from plaguing the earth!"

But as the 1760s wore on, James Otis became increasingly muddied in his mind, and began to get into trouble as he wandered about the streets. In September of 1769, while at the British Coffee House, he was attacked by John Robinson, head tax collector who may have been angry about some of Otis' writings. Robinson beat Otis over the head, severely injuring him, and as Adams wrote "reason was shaken from its throne." This was the last blow upon Otis and by 1771 he was found by his enemy, the British Colonial Governor Hutchinson, to be a lunatic and given into the guardianship of his brother.

James Otis, Jr. sneaked off to battle one last time when he heard the Minute Men calling men to arms. Otis grabbed his gun and made for Bunker Hill where he joined in the battle, then returned home.

One evening in May of 1783, while standing outside of the door way of his daughter's home in Andover, Massachusetts, a bolt of lightning struck from heaven and met with James Otis, Jr, transporting him to a home where no Writ of Assistance could gain entry.

What remains here on earth of James Otis, Jr. is the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution, one of the 10 Amendments we call The Bill of Rights:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It is also from Otis that we have the phrase "taxation without representation is tyranny," which we have turned to "no taxation without representation," a very fit phrase for these times.

"In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed 'to all and singular justices, sheriffs, constables, and all other officers and subjects'; so that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the King's dominions. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant' if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm. In the next place, it is perpetual; there is not return. A man is accountable to no person for his doings. Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the Archangel shall excite different emotions in his soul. In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, etc., at will, and command all to assist him. Fourthly, by this writ not only deputies, etc., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us: to be servants, the most despicable of God's creation?" (James Otis, Jr.).

And so, we must ask ourselves are we gradually being subjected to the tyranny of those who are our servants? Is it really serving and protecting when our cities install traffic cameras to profit from people's small errors, or set up "DUI" checkpoints on money-making roads during high traffic hours? Is it serving and protecting when one gives up their 4th Amendment right each time they get in their car or goes into an airport or federal building and is subjected to a full body scan?

If James Otis, Jr was willing to renounce his job, speak for five hours straight, return home to a wife who resented him, lose his sanity, get beat on the head, go to Bunker Hill, and risk arrest by the British officials, why then will we not defend ourselves and neighbors? We too have voices and one voice may set an example for others who may be inspired and strengthened. Yes, using the voice, the word may rain down derision, but there are those like John Adams who may lay foundations with those words.

"I have been young and now I am old, and I solemnly say I have never known a man whose love of country was more ardent or sincere, never one who suffered so much, never one whose service for any 10 years of life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those of Mr. Otis from 1760 to 1770" (John Adams).

image: Winslow Homer

Where We Are Now: Pearl Harbor II

"How did a nation such as Germany, with a history rich in the cultural achievements of the individual man, succumb to the Nazi wave of despotism and murderous superstition? We cannot here search for first causes, but surely it will be written that liberty and decency in Germany were the victims of a collapse of leadership. Jurists, doctors, professors, civil officials, business magnates--in Germany most honored of all--generals, alike proved insensitive to or flinched before the warning signals of approaching tyranny and crime, and sold themselves, their callings, and their country into slavery" (Chief Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, Telford Taylor, Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich).

Is our leadership selling us to the highest bidder? The problem is that after we are sold we won't see a penny, and will be the ones paying to be slaves.

Do our elected representatives represent the voters or rather, those with the biggest wallets? And if these representatives are so spineless and easily tempted by money and manipulation, then what good are they?

Do our local hospitals and health representatives represent what is best for us, or instead sell themselves to the highest bidder?

In the Bard's little corner of the world, the hospital has become a towering temple on a hill overlooking the cemetery. It grows exponentially every year and wants to create a commune neighborhood in which everyone lives like sterile little slaves.

The Bard has been perusing Dr. Matthias Rath's Health Foundation site the past couple days and is currently reading one of the historical books listed there, Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America by E. Richard Brown. It, along with several of the other books and documents posted on Rath's site are fantastic and highly enlightening.

So far, this Bard finds there is more to like than not at Dr. Rath Health Foundation.

The Bard does feel bad for Rath because he really did believe that a coup was going to ocurr during the last presidential election that would prevent our current president from gaining the White House and implementing the hope and change that Rath so dearly wished for. Who knows, maybe, Rath's theory of a coup was correct, but not in the way he thought. So much for hope and change, and here's to a bigger dose of more of the same.

I've noticed lately, that those who saw and warned of the dangers of the Bush administration are now silent on the present administration. I suppose, many of them were somehow deceived and really did want so dearly to put their faith in one person as savior, that they cannot believe that what they thought was good is not. I would surmise that they are silent because they are still hoping, waiting for a sign to confirm their waning faith, hoping that it's not more of the same. It must be a bit embarrassing and sad.

In a way, the electing of the latest president was one of the smartest moves ever pulled off. It essentially silenced and paralyzed certain groups of people who once fought so hard against the previous administration and were aware of its unsavory moves and motives. These people are now in a state of stasis, of silent watchfulness, no longer fighting--exactly at the moment when they should be the most active. This Bard has often pondered upon this observation.

The Bard is only over a hundred pages into Rockefeller Medicine Men, but he has learned quite a wonderful amount of history in this easy-reading book. He has learned that medicine and education as we know them were developed by the great industrialists as a way to create a workforce compliant and cheaply kept under giant industry control. These giant corporations and their philanthropies think of us as cattle.

When the people stand up for themselves and demand a little more, the corporations get frightened and agree to concede to more humane treatment. These giant corporations are deathly afraid of losing their power and of a class structure that is not highly stratified.

But it must be wondered, when the people unify into unions and other groups and demand such things as more pay, fewer hours, better treatment are they really moving up in the world? Sure, one can demand more pay and other benefits, but they're still working for the company and dependent upon them--still feeding the monopoly which lobbies elected officials who pass laws against the people.

Wouldn't it be better if instead of unions who rally for false rights (as if the company or government is God and can give us anything!), who want humane treatment, if people demanded human treatment and freedom to work when and where they wanted?

The Bard's perfect little utopia is one that looks a bit rough and unpainted, but has lots of old men and women sitting around watching, smoking pipes, reading, and talking; and where children run around in the dust at their feet playing in the sun with holes in the knees of their pants, rather than in a daycare with a bunch of other little snotty-nosed and unloved little inmates.

The Bard's perfect world isn't a commune or higher pay. His world is one that accepts that the Joneses aren't worth wasting time to keep up with, and where people compete fairly with each other. The Bard's world is one of farmers, small businesses, shops, free time, compassion for the sick, and lots of healthy arguing and disagreeing; and again, children out and about rather than hidden away "off-the-streets" in those industrial mills we call public schools. The Bard's utopia looks a bit like the United State before and after the Revolutionary War, but with washing machines, and telephones.

I think, we forget that our rights, our lives are not granted by a government or a corporation. We are born with them, and as we grow, these entities take our inborn rights away and train us in a false idea of freedom and rights in order to keep us quiet and paralyzed. It has been so long since we have known what freedom feels like that we cannot even imagine surviving in a world in which benefits and rights are not supplied by our workplace or the state. How would one support them self without a job?

In our current time it is nearly impossible to imagine not working for another. We are compelled to it because we are slaves. If a slave doesn't produce, doesn't work, he is beaten and punished. A slave will lose their home, wife, children, and owe back taxes and be locked away if they don't benefit the master. If a slave tries to work for themself, they will find that there are rules against it, such as neighborhood covenants, county and city zoning, permits, hearings, regulations and other prohibitions.

During Prohibition it was not illegal to drink alcohol. It was illegal to buy it or possess it. Our modern system of self-sufficiency is nearly this way. It's not illegal to work for one's self, but it's prohibitive to obtain land and the right to commence upon such an endeavor. We have been purposely forced to work for others, for large companies who use the money made off of us to get laws passed to make it harder for us. It is nearly a crime to not have a job in the United States of America.

It shouldn't be a crime not to have a job that creates a constant flow of cash. The Bard has figured out that he could actually live fairly comfortably on a minimal amount of money if he were not compelled to pay such high property taxes. The Bard would actually have time to find out what he could do on his own if he wasn't worried about the taxes.

More and more the Bard sees what amazingly advanced people those crazy American colonists were. They saw what we won't see. They petitioned their government for years and went unheeded and unrepresented, much as we do now. They saw that the root of their problems was monopoly interests who held more sway with Parliament than they because of a mixing of state and corporate power interests. And so, they attacked the root of the problem, the corporation.

The American colonists boycotted East India tea even though it was actually cheaper, patronizing instead the Dutch black market. They tossed the tea overboard. The colonists boycotted other British business interests even though it cost them more money. They knew that the large corporations only care about money and power. The colonists cared more about liberty and were willing to sacrifice their money to prove a point. Of course, this boycott of business couldn't be permitted and Britain sent in the troops to shut Boston down until they begged for mercy and material goods. And because those outside of Boston stood by their brothers, pledging to supply them with food and aid in their time of suffering, we now have this wonderful country--the only threat to evil that exists.

This Bard was recently reading Bernard Bernstein's report to the Kilgore Committee in 1945, which is highly interesting in light of what we see occurring in this country at the moment. In Bernstein's report he details how the giant group of chemical and pharmaceutical companies under IG Farben were the actual root behind the Nazi's power. It is interesting to note that IG Farben's plan for world domination back in the 1930s and 1940s mirrors identically what we see carrying out in forced health care and other strange laws. IG Farben/Rockefeller still exist and are hard at work against us at our universities, state capitals, and the White House.

"It is significant to note that in all those preparations for war I.G. Farben did more than merely comply with orders and requests of the Wehrmacht and Nazi Government agencies. It functioned, in fact, as though it were a research organization of the German Government...." (Bernard Bernstein, Kilgore Committee, p.31)

"The immediate objective of the document[IG Farben's Neuordnung ("New Order")]was to insure the full cooperation of the chemical companies of the conquered countries in producing for the Wehrmacht. The second objective invisaged the complete incorporation of the chemical industries of Europe, including the British Empire [can you say EU?!], within the framework of Hitler's 'New Order.' The third objective was to eliminate U.S. competition in the world market [move industry, production off shore, ban America's backbone--tobacco, auto, independence]. Finally, Farben was preparing to utilize again its vaunted economic warfare weapons, cartels, capital investments and know-how, in anticipation of a possible conflict between Germany and the U.S.A" (Bernstein, 35).

"Farben's economic blitzkrieg of the United States was specially planned" (Bernstein,36).

"The proposition must be recognized that giant industry, throwing all its weight behind despotic government, actually holds the balance of power in the conduct of successful warfare" (Bernstein, 44)

"'I.G. [Farben] is largely responsible for Hitler's policy'" (Dr. von Schnitzler qtd. in Bernstein, 44)

"These schedules thus assured that all imports would be from Germany [now China] and virtually prohibited importation from the United States" (Bernstein, 44).

It looks as if World War II never ended and IG Farben continued with the Neuordnung and got further this time than last. Last time, we woke up when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, hurtling its pilots down in suicide flames. Hitler was making moves on Britain, but we moved like the sleepy giant we are and staunched the wound.

This time, Britain's been taken. This time Hawaii and Pearl Harbor are in the Capitol. This time Toyota of Japan is committing a gentle and submissive self sacrifice rather than a Kamikaze pilot's Hawaiian crash. This time we are the Kamikaze pilots behind the wheel, crashing the last competition. This time the Neuordnung is literally touching the White House and has its hands around Lady Liberty's white neck and is about to lean over as it seduces her before sucking her blood.

We've been drugged. We're addicts laying in a stupor. Oh, my dear, precious lover, my lady, America. Wake up, wake up and weep for yourself!

Keeping the Temple

The Bard has been feeling a bit rebellious and wondering if....

If the body is a temple, whose temple is it? Does it belong to the owner or to a chain of temples, like a fast food chain in which each temple is designed in nearly the same design as the place down the road and serves up the exact same frozen meat briquettes, "toasted" buns, rehydrated onion and shake mix?

If I, the inheritor of this temple own it and don't want to join a franchise, then I should be able to run things as I please, organizing the feast days, the alms giving, and requirements for entry into the Holy of Holies.

Who exactly has decided what the rules for my temple are? Who has said it should look a certain way and what rules it should follow and who has decided what foods, music, and people are permitted within its sacred walls?

Of course,very often the answer is that we're each to be part of the Judeo-Christian group and that God has set the rules and design and has told us how to design the building and how to operate it. The Bard doesn't dispute that God set the patterns out, but the Bard disputes that his temple must conform to a uniform human ideal, for the Bard has not been designed to conform to the uniform ideal, and when he has tried he finds himself a sad and dark temple full of false idols cluttering up his space. He finds himself spending too much time and money buying costumes and other acceptable regalia for the grand boredom of being preached at. And after that he has to prove his pockets are empty by pulling them out and placing the last bit of lint in the offering plate.

Once, when the Bard attended a great temple gathering and all the lint had been placed in the plate a great grey-blue lint cow appeared and we all bowed down to worship it. Moses asked the pastor in charge of the flock what had happened and the pastor said he had no idea. It didn't taste too well when we were forced to eat it. Lint doesn't melt in the mouth the same way that cotton candy does, and on the other end it reminds one of what an owl expectorates.

Of late there has been much talk about other people's temples. Females in leadership roles are even accusing their own beautiful daughters of being fat, somehow hoping that this motherly love will inspire the rest of us to look at all thin children and do the same. If the particular Great Mother I have in mind believes her children are fat, then each of us must be fat too. Perhaps, we've all been blind, imagining that what we see is thin when in reality it is fat. Or perhaps, we are being asked to conform to someone else's "reality."

Anyway, this zealous interest in other people's temples is getting carried away. Who cares? And whose business is it to care? Not mine, not yours. Well, it's somebody's and they must be planning on making a mint on accusing people of the sin of eating. Everyone eats. We're all dependent, addicted, and habituated to food. We're all guilty of the sin, and we all have gathered in little circles to pass the cake and cookies and get the giggles and mumble terms that addicts use, such as "Mmm. This is so good! Mmm. MMMM." And we've all displayed that strange sensation of rubbing our belly after Thanksgiving, or perhaps unbuttoned the top snap to let the pressure loose (a sign of a hardcore addict).

The ineffable state of New York wants a sin tax on carbonated beverages. According to these high priests of health, morals, and science this type of beverage is as dangerous as smoking, and alcohol. Somehow, when something is labelled a "sin" it makes it okay to tax it and ban it from privately owned temple use.

The Bard doesn't believe any state should make money from something if it's considered a sin. Why would those who don't agree with smoking, alcohol, and now pop want to benefit from the bad habits of others? The Bard doesn't believe in taking dirty money for his benefit. Of course, the bard doesn't believe that tobacco, alcohol, or pop are impure; but he doesn't believe the government should benefit from supposedly bad habits.

The Bard thinks that the problem of sin and habits would be eradicated if people were banned, rather than the things they ingest and do. Hitler called this the Final Solution. Of course, then the governments of our states would not have any funding for their programs, but then, they wouldn't need the money because the problems would all be solved, finally they would be effective.

Ideally, the Bard would like it if people not respectful of his temple would stop standing outside demanding their right to entry. He doesn't stand at their gates yelling and screaming about his rights to enter into their temples, or how their temple practices harm his temple practices.

If....if the body is a temple, then it is mine and it is holy. Stop desecrating it with heathen practices and idols, stop eating up my stores, or I may have to send for my temple-home's rightful master. Can I weave and unweave much longer? Beware of the beggar that returns for his Penelope, his Bride.

image: John William Waterhouse, Penelope and the Suitors (1912)

Boom Town Detroit, America

There are hours and hours of footage on display at YouTube detailing the decay of Detroit. One of the more interesting aspects of them is the music, which is used to say what cannot be conveyed in words or commentary. The commentary of countless individuals tells us what is wrong--on the surface, but does not get to the heart of the problem the way the music does. The music gets deeper and shows us that the decay of Detroit is one of the soul.

The musical choices placed along with the movies take us to a dark and sad place of mourning, a place so despairing that it seems impossible to recover from, as if a heavy blanket of chains pulls the spirit downward into a chasm of nothingness where the sun and warmth cannot reach. Detroit is a haunted place, a dark lady wandering along passages of broken glass and death that does not come. She has been desecrated, used up, and left to lay alone in the remains of a glamorous party, kissed and loved by all, then left alone in her drunkenness, her clothes torn, her dignity spread around by the partiers, the broken glass thrown upon her and a pile of cash showered upon her as everyone walks past, turning the lights out, not caring to lift her out and drive her home.

She had no home. Her home was in the bed of countless men who adorned themselves with her as an ornament, then used her for the night, after dancing with her, feeding her, drugging her, and giving her money for fine clothes.

How do we lift this lost lady from the rubble?

Daily, Detroit burns, the carcass and empty windows stare out as we gaze upon her magnificent ruins which, even though ruins are fantastic in their own right. Nothing Detroit does is small. Even her death is dramatic, drawing the attention of a nation, transfixing us in her grip as we watch her gasping her last breathes.

Detroit could rise, although a humbled and quieter woman, if the doctors would stop leaching her even as she dies, if they would loose her from their vampirism. She does not want money, she wants a Samaritan to stop and help her. No longer does she want the wealthy and popular man, but the gentle and poor outcast with a heart and strength to lift her to the inn.

And this disease that Detroit has is slowly spreading across the body of America, but because no other city is as grand, the death is less noticeable. This disease began hundreds of years ago in the mountains and streams when gold, silver, and copper were discovered.

It's called Gold Fever. Creek beds are dredged for it, hillsides razed, and entire neighborhoods removed leaving giant toxic lakes in their wake.

In the early days of the boom town, the recovery was natural, the scars less obvious. The reason for this was that the majority of those who arrived in boom towns were not there for gold, but to serve the mining industry with real commodities until the operation ran out. The boom town was known from the beginning as a temporary residence which would be replaced by permanent and quieter settlements founded upon real human industry and value, especially agriculture.

The modern boom towns founded upon copper and steel grew larger and more vibrant than the old boom towns of the wild west. But these modern boom towns desecrated the very people who lived in them. Butte, MT forced the majority of its residents out in order to tear apart the hill that once lit up the night with life and architecture. Rather than wealth and life, the hill was turned into a poison pit, the largest toxic lake on the continent. Where is the value? Is it people and homes or is it in metals?

Go to a steel mill town, such as Duluth along Lake Superior and it resembles Detroit with the empty buildings, the open fields, the company town with empty churches, the streets pitted, the tracks turning wild. There is the tourist area along Park Point, but it serves epicures and souvenir collectors, rather than any lasting or useful commodity.

Detroit was a modern boom town founded upon quick money, fast living, metals and petroleum. The citizens fell for the illusion, rather than following the example of slower and independent industry. The new boom towns do not settle the land or call people out to farm and set up shop around them. When the operators have cleaned out the soil and souls, they leave for another place to use up. Now, they're in China and poor countries building a new set of boom towns. They don't care how many people they displace, poison, or leave wretched and rotting. People have not value to these boom town operators.

The modern world seems unable to see the cycle of the boom town. The residents linger and wonder what happened. Rather than creating real industry, smaller, and less glamorous, they wait for the gold to rain down from the sky in the form of government subsidies. And the money rains down, while at the same time the taxes rise. And again the boom town is kept alive long enough to strip mine the people of everything they have, and more than they have. This time it's the corrupt elected officials and the gangs doing the mining.

In the old days, the corrupt officials and gangs were hunted down by citizen vigilante groups who valued human life more than gold. But now, it is a crime for a law loving person to defend himself, and he is told to submit himself, to allow the corruption to ravage him. And where the corruption flourishes, a wonderful new mining operation, called prison, springs up. America has one of the largest, if not the largest prison industry in the world. If memory serves correctly, America imprisons more people per capita than Russia or China.

And now, the feeding frenzy upon a paralyzed country is in full force. America, lays like a patient upon the operating table. She has been used, her education has been a false one that wastes young adult's lives creating a lie called teenage rebellion, an unnatural right of passage that only began displaying itself when young adults were told they had to remain children until they turned 18.

America still bases her wealth upon metals because so much of her technology is dependent upon the rare metals that only China is willing to extract for the rest of the world's appetites. A hybrid auto actually destroys the planet because of the slave labor it required to loot the land. And a solar cell uses these rare China metals which will one day run out when the boom is over.

There are only a few constant and replenishable commodities. The most important is human industriousness and creativity which is unleashed when a person is free from government, religious tithes, and corporate monopoly. When a people are free to travel unchecked, choose their educational strategy, and work for them self without strip mine taxes they flourish and benefit all around them. The land, if owned by private citizens, is the pride and wealth of nations. Combined with man, the land is a perfect marriage. It is mankind that gives anything its value, not the things that give mankind value.

The reason Detroit crumbles in wretchedness is that its soul, the humans who live within it are wretched. They were not taught that they are valuable and that they have the power of the golden touch, that it was not the auto industry that made them rich, but they who made the auto industry golden, they who were the mine stripped bare by the Boom town operators. Detroit has been with held the knowledge of its dignity and that mankind is the only mine that can and does replenish itself.

Detroit, and all of America should remember that throwing money upon a dead body cannot resurrect it, and that it is immoral to burden a robbed person with higher and higher taxes. It is immoral to take from one to give to another. This is a great lie that fills the pockets of corruption.

When will America see that it is being strip mined and that now the operation is being escalated at a quickened and desperate pace which if not halted will leave it nothing but burned out buildings and toxic lakes? We don't need plastic surgery, or false fronts erected to create happy illusions for us to gaze upon in self-satisfied arrogance. We need to learn that even in a rougher and less perfect state we have more value than any bag of gold, that it is mercy and not sacrifice that makes the world better and eases the pain and hardship. Those suffering in the world don't need us to sacrifice our life and money for them, they need us to be strong and whole enough to extend mercy.

Is your government working for you or are you working for it?

"....a moderate Tax upon any People, both by keeping them constantly employed [enslaved], by rendering them therefore more attached to those who procure them Employment [forced to work for another in order to pay taxes, since personal employment although more satisfying and productive is also irregular at times due to the trial and error of it], and by inducing a more vigorous Spirit of Industry [enslavement], really profited a Country at large, tended to make them a quiet & happy [enslaved, worn out, despairing], and effected that Subordination & Distinction of Ranks in Society[taxes create class distinctions, disparity, poverty], which is so wanted here" (Ambrose Serle, secretary to General William Howe, Philadelphia, 9 Mar. 1778).

Another Version of Martin Niemoller

Martin Niemoller, a Christian pastor, and early supporter of the Nazi party is famously quoted for his "When they came for the Jews" speech.

Not long after the Nazis came to power, Niemoller realized the horrible truth of what he had once supported and began to speak out, but it was too late, and there was no one to defend him when he was sent to the concentration camps.

There are many variations of Niemoller's famous words. Here is mine:

When they came for the weak,
I remained silent;
I wasn't weak.

When they came for the tobacco user,
I remained silent;
I didn't use tobacco.

When they came for the gun owner,
I remained silent;
I didn't own a gun.

When they came for the fat people,
I remained silent;
I wasn't fat.

When they came for the Toyota company,
I remained silent;
What right did Toyota have to compete with Government Motors?

When they watched children undressing via school-issue computers,
I remained silent;
It wasn't my child.

When they taxed my jobless neighbors out of their homes,
I remained silent;
I didn't like them anyway.

When they came for the sinners,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a sinner.

When they came for me,
There remained no voice to speak.

image: Slave Woman

America's Rebellion Against The Corporation: Independence From Dependence.

"....America has grown rich at the Expence, & not to the Advantage of G. Britain; that the northern Americans in particular are rather Rivals in our Trade than Merchants in it, and if a considerable Reduction take Place in the Strength & opulence of America, it will render her the longer dependent upon G. Britain. The Americans have quarelled with the old System, while they grew rich & powerful under it as to bid us Defiance; for which Reason we may justly quarel with it too, and insist upon another, which will bring them, & keep them when brought, into a closer Union & Dependence with the Parent State" (Ambrose Serle, secretary to British General William Howe, New York, 2 Sep. 1776).

Never in the Bard's education was he taught that the American Revolution, or more correctly The War for Independence, was in fact a battle against monopoly interests. Nor was he taught that it was a civil war.

The Bard was taught that the American Revolution was about Independence from British rule. He never learned that the Colonists loved Britain and considered themselves loyal British subjects. He never learned that the American colonists often tried to abolish slavery, but that the mother country, Britain, would rather defend the monetary interests of the traders and merchants than the value of human life.

A great many of the colonist slave owners lamented that they had not chosen to own slaves, but had inherited them from preceding generations, and because of British law they could not free them. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place; fighting against enslavement to monopoly interests while owning slaves. Several colonist slave owners hoped that the American War for Independence would change this situation and allow for them to free their slaves into a land safe for them to prosper without fear of being kidnapped and sent off to British plantations in the West Indies.

If the American Colonists had been allowed freedom from monopoly interests there would have been no slavery, or very little of it, at the time of the Revolutionary War for Independence, and probably none after the Constitutional Convention. There may not have been an American Civil War in the 1860s. When people are left alone, they more often do what is right, rather than what is wrong. Freedom is not an escape from danger, but allowance to face it as a single individual.

And the Bard wonders to himself, is there any war that is not about monopoly interests? Are many of the wars fought actually several monopolies vying for control of monetary interests? Is there ever a just war?

The only just war the Bard knows of at this time with his limited knowledge is the American War for Independence. This was a war of many individuals against the large monopoly, more than against Britain. This was a war for the rights of people to compete in every way possible. The Revolutionaries believed in competition of ideas, religion, speech, trade, time, and that it was the right of each person to defend these rights.

"They will not fight at any Rate, unless they are sure of Retreat. Their army is the strangest that ever was collected: Old men of 60, Boys of 14, and Blacks of all ages, and ragged for the most part, compose the motley Crew, who are to give the Law to G. Britain and tyrannize over His Majesty's Subjects in America" (Ambrose Serle, New York, 2 Sep. 1776).

How is an army of ragged old men and young boys a tyranny? Because they dare stand against enslavement and submission to unnatural laws? Isn't it interesting that old men and young boys evoked such a threat to supposedly superior powers? These "tyrants" were individual citizens, not an army in the general sense, not a corporation.

"Her [Great Britain] Fondness for Conquest as a Warlike Nation, her Lust of Dominion as an Ambitious one, and her Thirst for a gainful Monopoly as a Commercial one, (none of them legitimate Causes of War) will all join to hide from her Eyes every view of her true Interests; and continually goad her in these ruinous distant Expeditions, so destructive both of Lives and Treasure, that must prove as pernicious to her in the End as the Croisades formerly were to most of the Nations of Europe....

"....your Lordship makes it painful to me to see you engag'd in conducting a War, the great Ground of which as expressed in your Letter, is, 'the necessity of preventing the American Trade from passing into foreign Channels.' To me it seems that neither the obtaining or retaining of any Trade, how valuable soever, is an Object for which Men may justly Spill each others Blood; and that the true and sure means of extending and securing Commerce is the goodness and cheapness of Commodities; and that the profits of no Trade can ever be equal to the Expence of compelling it, and of holding it, by Fleets and Armies" (Benjamin Franklin to Lord Howe, 20 July 1776, emphasis added).

And so, we must stand back and ask ourselves have we been deceived by our modern expeditions and wars? Is it possible, that we are not at war in distant countries for righteous reasons, but for reasons of corporate interest?

Have we been made dependant upon the corporate monopolies and upon the Government which acts upon their behest? Is it possible that most laws are not there to protect us but to protect a giant corporation's interests? Are we still independent citizens?

It cannot be denied that there are radical Islamic factions that have endangered lives across the world, but are they really Islamic, or are they something else hiding under the robes and headdress of religion? If we lift the head dress and look a little closer we see something else, the religion of greed.

Look, at what we're fighting. Are we fighting against ragged old men and young boys? I hope not.

Look at the Taliban. Are they really any different than our own governments? They require large taxes and protection fees from the villages. They control traffic, monitor all aspects of life. They prevent competition. And they profit from the West's war, rather than being harmed by it. Every contract for construction also includes a hefty fee and agreements with the Taliban. The Western world knows this, but won't speak of it.

The Taliban not only makes giant sums of money from the Western world in all kinds of hidden fees, but makes agreements to allow the projects, such as bridges to be finished so that the engineering firms will be paid by western governments who know that the project will be destroyed by the Taliban not long after completion. The Taliban doesn't care about the welfare of the citizens, which should lead us to question if the Taliban are citizens themselves or a front group (much like TobaccoFree and Co.)for an unknown corporate monopoly.

What gives the Western world the right to fight against the Taliban on moral or just grounds, or to call them terrorists when the Western world practices the same atrocities upon its own populations?

Rather than fighting the corporate Taliban, we should send in the Samuel Adams and the George Washingtons to go in and bolster the morale and courage of the individual citizen. We should empower the citizens in every way possible so that they know who they are and of their self-worth, not as radicals or members of mobs, but as intelligent and industrious people endowed with the right to life, liberty, and property. Then, let those old men and their grandsons go out and get the job done of cleaning out those radical front groups for foreign corporations.

Set up the Committees of Correspondence between the villages, meet under the Liberty Trees, and find that 25% of the population willing to defend life for everyone else. Don't offer to pay the corporate Taliban off, force them out. And the same needs to be done around the world. It can be done. It has been done, although very rarely.

"[I] always took them for a people, whose very horrid figure had a greater effect on their enemy than any courage they possessed, as their cruel turn often assured me they could not be brave, Humanity & pity for misfortunes of the wretched, being invariably the constant companions of true courage; theirs is savage and will never steadily look on danger" (William Digby, British, observations of the Native Indians who fought alongside the British troops, 1777).

Digby's comments on the Native Indians during the American Revolution could now be used to apply to a great number of modern savages, who wear intimidating costumes, and perform cruel acts upon innocent people.

Digby was on the wrong side of the War for Independence against State enforced Monopoly, but his comment is one that ought to encourage each of us as it reminds us of what true courage and bravery look like. It looks like me and it looks like you. It looks like old men and young boys, the light of life flaming in their eyes.

image:Gustave Dore, Death of Samson