The Message of Benjamin Franklin
By David Glenn Cox


I was asked: what are you proud of this Fourth? Currently? Very little, but I see the future because the past is the future. These people that we were, are unusual in their patience and uncommon in their valor.

When the rupture with the British Parliament first occurred, the Continental Congress selected Benjamin Franklin to go to London as the voice of reason. Franklin was considered the foremost American in the world. A man of science and of letters, he was respected around the world. Franklin’s mission was one of conciliation; to take the middle path and to quell the hot, angry voices on both sides of the Atlantic.

When Franklin arrived in London, he was made to wait. He carried no office, no orders of the Crown. He was instead treated as an interloper. They whispered about his clothes and made fun of his funny Colonial accent. This man of science was treated instead as a buffoon from the backwoods. Franklin then did something very un-Franklin; he became angry. He wrote to his son, "I arrived here as an Englishman but I return to you as an American." He continued that revolution was a job for young men, but that he was about to be the exception.

Franklin is a perfect example of an American; it had to proven to him in person that his government had no interest in his wishes or in his ideas. But once that had been proven to him, Franklin turned in the opposite direction. He left America as the voice of conciliation, and returned home the voice of revolution.

He was a wise and thoughtful man; he had no doubts about what revolution meant. It meant death and mayhem. It meant a long, bitter struggle where those such as Franklin would or could lose everything they had taken a lifetime to earn. If he had any doubts, his son, the Governor of New Jersey, made it clear. He would lose his job as governor if his father became a leading revolutionary. But Franklin continued and never turned back, and his son never forgave him.

Franklin understood something few others understood, that the British Parliament didn’t think of Americans as political equals. They thought of them as chattel and as children unworthy of the respect due free men and women. This is what turned Franklin; political equals can solve anything through discussion, but when they don’t respect you as equals, then that equality must be demonstrated through conflict.

It was so then as it is so now. Our history is resplendent with rebellion, The Whiskey Rebellion, the Grange, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. Between 1929 and 1932, American cities erupted in food riots and job riots. The American Communist party was the fastest growing political party in the country, and in the cities the Communists were feeding more people than the Red Cross. This should be remembered when we look at Roosevelt’s New Deal. The American power structure feared losing it all to the Communists.

The entrenched right began the Liberty League and used their media outlets to defame anyone on the left. They attempted a coup d'etat that would have forced Roosevelt to accept the cabinet members that they chose. The coup collapsed and Roosevelt’s New Deal averted a revolution that was coming as sure as the dawn. There were millions of hungry and unemployed, exploited by employers and manipulated by bankers. Millions thrown from their homes out into the road, living like pigs and treated worse than cattle. But like Franklin they had received the message. The President and Congress didn’t think of the people as political equals; they thought of them as chattel and children unworthy of the respect due free men and women.

The Bonus Army was made up of veterans demanding that a bonus due in 1945 for their service in World War One be paid instead in 1932 because they were hungry, and in some cases they were starving. They marched from all corners of America. They carried American flags by their corners and as they marched through towns during the depths of the Depression and the townspeople threw them quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. They were marching for all the people; they were marching to confront the government which was ignoring them. On the last day of the Senate calendar, the Senate voted down assisting the Bonus marchers.

In fear and panic the Hoover administration ordered US Army tanks to guard the bridges into Washington and the White House. The Bonus marchers remained orderly but the Army used Hoover’s orders to rout their camp. On election night Hoover received a telegram that said simply, “Vote Roosevelt, make it unanimous.”

Roosevelt understood the seriousness of the situation, comparing it to the seriousness of war. He condemned the bankers and captains of industry and promised assistance for the common man. Food for the hungry, jobs for the unemployed, even the term “New Deal” was designed to show a complete break from the past. The American public had received the message of unfettered capitalism and if Roosevelt had failed they were prepared to deliver their own message to Washington. The same message Benjamin Franklin delivered on his return from Britain.

Today government figures listed another 600,000 forced into the ranks of the unemployed. Americans are being thrown from their homes at the rate of 300,000 every thirty days. General Motors has now dumped toxic sites on the American public under the terms of its bankruptcy while it plans its return to the market with Chinese-built autos.

Cities across the country have cancelled fireworks displays for the Fourth of July. The mayor of Cleveland explained that he just couldn’t justify shooting $38,000 into the air when there are a thousand in line at the local food bank. He is a patriot, he understands. He gets it, but he is in the political minority. The Parliament and the King in the Capitol bow politely in their ruffled shirts and tip their three-cornered hats and dream the dreams of the disconnected aristocracy.

They treat us as chattel and as children who just don’t understand the ways of the world. But I understand this, from this July the Fourth to the next the world will turn over in ways unimagined. We will warm ourselves from the embers of burning bank buildings and feed ourselves from the shelves of looted stores. This is the message of Benjamin Franklin: if you don’t or won’t treat us with respect and as political equals, then we have nothing to talk about.

It might sound absurd but I am proud of that. We are a very docile and patient people, but pushed too far we will punch the shit out of the power elite. Or as one of the Dearborn marchers put it, “If Roosevelt hadn’t been elected there was going to be a revolution in this country, and I would have been god damned proud to have been a part of it!”

The Lies of Truth; the Truth of Lies
By David Glenn Cox

I have lost the ability to trust; I have lost the ability to have faith in the system or in its politicians. I have no faith in the right or in the left, no faith in the new right or the new left. We have on the one hand fascists and on the other hand apologists and enablers, until we find ourselves not only in an economic bankruptcy but in a political one as well.

It is not that they tell us lies, or that the truth is obscured with lies, it is that they tell us a truth that doesn’t exist. It's like a Cracker Jack box that promises a prize but doesn’t deliver one, a lie inside of a lie that is spun from prevarications and woven into a blanket of half-truths, falsehoods and fairy dust.

We the people of the United States just sent General Motors $100 billion and for all of that money we bought thousands of job cuts and unemployment, but in China GM’s auto production is up 38%. A record number of new vehicles were produced, designed in China, sourced in China and built in China. Only the profits of shareholders will ever benefit the US economy. Germany and Japan produce automobiles all over the world as well, but still source key components from the home country, but not America and not at GM.

We are so overwhelmed with lie upon lie from a complicit, stooge, corporate media that it is hard to determine the truth from domestic sources alone. It is only when they step on their own long tongues that we can see the media for what is truly is. Contrast the story from Iran, with its twenty-four hour coverage of an election stolen without proof, to the usurping of democracy in Honduras with barely a media peep other than excuses and neocon pronouncements.

Thousands march in the Honduran capital as the President speaks before the UN, and the whole world roundly condemns the coup. The US administration wrings its hands as it admits that it knew of the coup in advance but was unable to stop it. This same story was told in 2002 when the CIA tried to topple the lawful Venezuelan government. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said, "We haven't laid out any demands that we're insisting on, because we're working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives." If the ultimate goal is the rule of law then the ultimate demand becomes obvious.

But through such statements I have lost the audacity of hope and the hope of audacity and the pope of mendacity. I know that some of you out there still believe, that like Tinkerbell think it won’t get any better unless we all believe together. But I no longer believe; I no longer believe in Capitalism as a system. It is no more than a crooked card game that rewards the rich when times are good and punishes the poor when times are bad.

It is a system that lays off millions and offers nothing in return; too bad, so sad, eat dirt and die because we have banks to rescue. The media and the right decried the President's stimulus plan as too big; I said it was too small. Now the media and some on the right are starting to ask if the stimulus was too small. I sit here, living in a garage in an industrial park, and watch these businesses winking out one-by-one, like porch lights.

There is no help or hope for them; there are no programs, there is nothing. Nothing except a sense of betrayal and the anger you feel when you discover the game has been fixed all along. JP Morgan is raising its minimum payment on its credit cards from 2% to 5%, just ahead of the new law preventing them from doing so. It must be nice to have friends on the inside and to live by the motto “Never give a sucker an even break.” The $25 billion in bailout funds extended to JP Morgan is seen as even more reason to drown the taxpaying rats from their ship.

All across the nation the states are making obscene, draconian cuts in education and in social programs. Yet every day the media tells me again and again that the worst is over. I wonder how they can tell lies such as that, and from what I can gather the answer would be practice.

I was reminded that the stimulus money is paying for a mobile dental lab in Colorado for 1.3 million dollars, while at the same time it took a federal judge to order the water turned back on in one of Atlanta’s main homeless shelters. Behind $30,000 on a water bill and unable to get help from federal or state officials, the shelter juggles and prays as the warning of the judge rings in their ears, to get the bill paid down or he won’t be so forgiving next time. Oh, and there will be a next time, mark my words.

We need mobile dental labs because this country is the only industrialized nation on the planet without a national healthcare plan. Not because the people don’t want a plan but because the insurance and drug companies don’t want you to have one. They spend a million dollars a day to lobby Congress until I fear what sort of hodgepodge and gobbity goop they will pass. That’s all part of the game, to sell you something as new and improved when it's actually less and more expensive.

Just like the end of the Iraq war has become the expansion of the Afghan-Pakistan war. Just like the closing of Quantanamo prison has become the expansion of Bagram prison. Just like the end of torture and waterboarding didn’t include the hundred or so prisoners who died while in our captivity. Just like the new transparency doesn’t include the list of those visiting the White House or the pictures of the tortured.

Nor does it include an explanation for defending Bush/ Cheney policies in court. Or why the President has gone back on every campaign promise in the first hundred days.

I have lost faith in government. I no longer see them as an instrument for good, but as Bernie Madoffs with a title; out to get whatever they can at the behest of the highest bidder. A Wiemar Republic that knows but doesn’t believe that the end is near. A government that, if it does actually do any good for its people, does so quite by accident. After all, a broken clock is still right twice a day.

Thirty Days in the New America
By David Glenn Cox


I write with both anger and frustration at a people so insolated and conditioned like Pavlov’s dog that they have lost the ability to feel, to empathize with their fellow man. We had another murder-suicide here in Atlanta so I went to my browser and typed in Murder-Suicide. Out of the over seven million links, I put together a list for the past 30 days.

Jun 30, 2009 Newport News couple in murder, suicide identified

Jun 30, 2009 A murder-suicide attempt by an Upper Gwynedd, Pa. woman on Friday resulted in the death of her husband and has left her in critical condition, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said Monday.

Jun 29, 2009 Connecticut Man, Wife Found Dead in Murder-Suicide

Jun 29, 2009 Fresno, Ca. Investigators say a double shooting in Madera County Sunday afternoon is a case of murder/suicide.

Jun 29, 2009 Youngest Son Survives Virginia Murder-Suicide By Father

Jun 28, 2009 Police suspect murder-suicide in Ohio deaths

Jun 26, 2009 Possible Murder-Suicide Plot Investigated
Jun 26, 2009 Police Say 2 Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide
Jun 25, 2009 San Pablo Woman Shot In Murder-Suicide Try Dies

Jun 25, 2009 Suspected murder-suicide leaves Oklahoma mother, son dead

Jun 24, 2009 FREDERICK, Md. - The Frederick County Sheriff's office says an autopsy found a father involved in a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of his wife and their three young children had prescription drugs in his system, but not alcohol.

Jun 23,2009 Coroner: Brother Killed Sister in Apparent Murder-Suicide

Jun 22, 2009 Investigators in Hawkins County say it appears the deaths of a man and woman there over the weekend were the result of a murder - suicide.

Jun 20, 2009 Sonora, KY couple found dead; Murder -Suicide suspected

Jun 18, 2009 The coroner has said a Sherwood, AR woman killed her daughter yesterday and then shot herself. She left a note, the contents of which haven't been disclosed

Jun 17, 2009 Murder-Suicide Couple: "We Are At Peace"

Jun 17, 2009 Police investigating possible murder – suicide in Springville

Jun 15, 2009 A 76-year-old Queens barber slashed his wife's throat with a butcher knife Sunday, then turned the knife on himself as their developmentally disabled son watched in horror, cops said.

Jun 15, 2009 HEATHROW, Fla. -- Investigators and community members discussed Tuesday whether finances played a part in the apparent murder-suicide of a Heathrow family.

Jun 15, 2009 Binghamton Murder-Suicide

Jun 12, 2009 Murder-Suicide Investigation In South Augusta

Jun 9,2009 (CNN) Deaths of children, mother may be murder-suicide

Jun 4, 2009 Troubles became tragic on path to murder-suicide of West Knoxville couple

Jun1, 2009 North Slope police investigate apparent murder-suicide

It has become an everyday event, and it is happening everywhere in the United States, from run-down mobile homes to gated communities. And everywhere what is lacking is a sense of understanding. The reasons for their actions vary but finances are at the heart of most of them. Job loss, career loss, loss of self-esteem and loss of health care. This is America where mental illness is not treated the same as physical illness; only the red carpet health care plans will cover mental illness. That’s because the health care industry is afraid you’ll fake it just to get a few days off.

Reading about these cases I see there is a general misunderstanding. People who kill themselves are disturbed, and people who kill loved ones and then themselves are extremely disturbed. It’s not about ego and it's not about pride; it is all about mental illness. But from reading the comments mental illness is considered like Darwinism, a theory favored only by long-hair elitests. Following are typical responses to this tragic event.

“Suicide is a terrible act in God's sight. He is able to help anyone who turns their life over to Him. Murder is reprehensible and condemned by God.

No one truly knows all the details for this and maybe no one ever will, but this is more than tragic. Let's begin to pray now for the kid's friends, classmates and family members who must be in shock now. Those who worked with John and his wife must also be hurting thinking they could have done something to prevent it..

May God help us if more people turn to destruction than to the Lord when difficulties escalate, and the Bible tells us they will in the end times.”

“I am so tired of reading these kind of stories in the news...Every day now you hear about a dad who kills his entire family and then turns the gun on himself..What is happening to this world? There is no reason in the world to do this, especially not because of money! If his life was so horrible then he should have just killed himself..I don't understand how he could murder his own children and wife.”

“Well, lets see. You work at Lowe's (low paying hourly) then you get a job at Dick's Sporting Goods (low paying hourly). Still, despite your small wages you find someone who will finance you a McMansion in Heathrow. You even buy a boat and then immediately file bankruptcy. Sounds like the Woods ran the string out until the end. Big lifestyle, Big House, Big Boat; but small salary. The American way. Charge it, make sure your life looks glamorous to your neighbors and family. Then get stressed and pull the plug on it all. The American way!”

“very sad .. however its another case of people living beyond their means trying to impress others with homes, cars boats. i guess he didn't learn anything from ch 7 bankruptcy. prayers are with his family”

“Sometimes you might just get tired of all the calls and threats from collection agencies, Mortgage companies...but this is not the solution. I don't know their financial situation, so I can't speak for his reasoning. I hope we don't see more of this.

In my opinion the banks that received monies from the government should be helping people facing foreclosure more than they are...if any ? I've talked to alot of people facing this and none have really been helped by their mortgage companies. Maybe the government should have helped the people instead of the banks.”

“This is what happens when people live above their means...trying to keep up with the Joneses. The old adage: "money is the root of all evil" is so true. What a selfish coward to do what he did...there is no turning back.”

“There is nothing more horrible or disgusting than what this man did to his wife and children...there are no generalizations or assumptions being made...HE SLAUGHTERED HIS FAMILY. (period.)”

“In Dickens Christmas Carol, the nice Christian family that is in want gives thanks and endures hardship. That was representative of the culture of its time. We now have a different culture; the Anti Christian Liberties Culture, or ACLU culture for short. This is aculture where the ACLU has "freed" us from the bondage of Christianity ... and left us completely without hope. Now, when economic rugs are pulled out from under us, rather than give thanks and wait on God, we shoot our families and then blow our own head off. Thank you American Civil Liberties Union!”

Know-it-alls with Bibles in their pockets and a noose in their hands. It couldn’t be anyone's fault but the victims'.

President Calls on Congress to Supply $200 Million for Homeless



Unfortunately the 200 million dollars in aide is not for the homeless in this country it is to assist the homeless in Pakistan. The money is included in a new aide package to Pakistan that will triple US assistance to $1.5 billion dollars annually. Meanwhile without waiting for Congress President Barack O’Bush has all ready released 110 million dollars in emergency aide to the struggling homeless Pakistanis and hopes the additional 200 million will be dispatched quickly.


President O’Bush feels that it is important to boost civilian assistance after we bomb their homes in our fight against Al-Qaeda. But all is not well on Capital Hill as a coalition of lawmakers seeks to attach strings to the aide package.

"Our Democratic colleagues decided to load this bill up with ill-conceived provisions to micro-manage US security assistance to Pakistan," said Dan Burton, the top Republican on the House sub-committee handling South Asia.”

These ill-conceived provisions require that Pakistan to keep records as to how the money we give away is spent.

"This is not just a debate between (US lawmakers), this is about war and peace and the survivability of Pakistan as an independent nation. It's about winning or losing the war in Pakistan," Burton said.

A new war? Another war? Or just a new and improved war? Before our ill-conceived war in Iraq, Pakistan seemed quite stable. Selling nuclear secrets and technology. Its security services had helped to place the Taliban in power in Afghanistan. Its former leader came to power in a military coup and when the country’s highest court threatened to open a case about President Musharif’s legitimacy to hold office he promptly fired them and had them placed under house arrest.

Why don’t we trust our allies? The Pakistani military says it has killed nearly 1,400 militants many of them cleverly disguised as women and children, although the figures are impossible to verify. The truth lies somewhere in between, “ U.S. airstrikes aimed at Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan have been "very effective," with few civilian deaths as a result, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Monday in a rare public acknowledgment of the raids.”

Yet the same raids are condemned by Pakistani military officials as “cowardly attacks.” Mosques and villages have been attacked and one side counts 150 mostly civilian dead while the other side counts only 26 mostly Al Qaeda dead. Yet for all their loss and collateral damage the Pakistanis don’t realize how good they’ve got it.

The 310 million dollars requested by the O’Bush administration is set to aid 2.5 million homeless Pakistanis in the Swat valley after the spring military offensive. In this country the banking interests have been on a foreclosing offensive against Americans at the rate of 300,000 a month and President O’Bush says that it is too early to see whether another stimulus plan for homeless Americans is necessary.

Life in Oz
By David Glenn Cox



Earlier this week President Obama told reporters that he didn’t think another stimulus bill would be necessary at this time. Yesterday Warren Buffett said that he thought another round of stimulus would be necessary. I think that they are both wrong.

Obama is wrong; the economy needs stimulus but not like the stimulus bill that was passed earlier this year. Warren Buffett says so many things that sooner or later he is bound to be right. For the past year he has been advocating that everyone return to the stock market because it’s all right now. Buffett, a smiling, jovial, laid-back fellow who is sometimes called the Wizard of Omaha is merely doing his job, trying to keep the Munchkins happy. Buffett makes his money when the market goes up so what kind of wizard would encourage the Munchkins to stay away?

Buffett is the warm, kindly, old man of capitalism. During the Nazi regime in Germany, Hitler was too stoic for many public events. You couldn’t picture Hitler opening Octoberfest or an Easter parade. Goebbels was too shrill, Himmler too severe. And Hess? Hess was just crazy. So those jobs all fell to Hermann Goering; he was the smiling, laughing face of a cruel administration, but to the German public he was known affectionately as Uncle Hermann.

This wizard, Buffett, like his famous predecessor in Oz, has for us neither heart nor brain nor courage, and he doesn’t even know the way back to Kansas. He is just our own kindly, lovable old Uncle Herman. He appears on all the financial channels, and the correspondents all fawn over him and take every word as divine gospel. However, the stimulus that Buffett desires is only to make the stock market rise. Like Obama’s stimulus, he is looking to again feed the wrong end of the horse.

In this country there is an insanity run amok brought on by twenty-five years of laissez faire capitalism. They really believe this wizard has powers and if we pump enough capital into the top it will trickle down to us all. They implore us to see the green shoots in the economy and the media reports them as facts beyond dispute. Yesterday it was reported, “U.S. Economy: Goods Orders Unexpectedly Jumped in May.” Inside the shouts, hosannas and hoopla the largest gains in durable goods orders were from military spending and the purchase of airliners. Airliners that won’t be delivered for up to three years.

It’s all part of the green shoots game; they forecast orders to be down from 3.9% to 1% and then, saints be praised, orders are up 1.8%! You see, it’s working! It’s trickling down! Except that the lowest area of durable goods orders were in retail sales. It’s easy to jockey the numbers around with a few five hundred million-dollar jet aircraft orders, but the reality is that someone has dropped a house on this economy.

There were an estimated 1.8 million foreclosures in the first six months of this year. Imagine every person in San Antonio, Texas foreclosed upon in the first six months and before the end of the year every person in San Jose will follow them. A population greater than size of New York City will be homeless and out in the road. Green shoots? Green shoots, really?

“The durable-goods figures reinforce a trend of improvement that spurred the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to lift its growth forecast for the world’s most developed nations for the first time in two years. The Federal Reserve today signaled the worst of the slump is over.”

New home sales were revised down to 342,000 from 344,000 compared with 770,000 two years ago. Green shoots? Existing home prices fell another 17%, or $9,000 per home, in the last thirty days. Interest rates are again climbing despite the Federal Reserve lending to the banks at .25%. Adding to the difficulties in getting a mortgage is the difficulty in getting an appraisal on a property. With home prices falling like a ball off a table, who can now judge fair value?

Meanwhile, back in Oz DC, the Congress debates healthcare reform, but outside the walls of the Emerald City the state of California is dismantling public healthcare services for the poor and needy. We lambasted George Bush for ignoring the suffering of a single city, yet we have the most populous state in the union in deep, deep financial trouble and the entire federal government refuses to see the witch with smoke pouring from her broom saying, “You’re next! And your little dog, too!” How can we reform healthcare while we let California slide off into the ocean?

The true unemployment numbers are near 20%; the numbers of for-real job offerings are declining. We need a stimulus but we need a WPA stimulus, a stimulus that reaches working peoples and puts money into their hands. I don’t care if it is in the form of kazoo bands or flower gardening or painting fireplugs. This economy is atrophying and the time for resuscitation is now! Because if we allow it to die we must then start again from scratch, which would be a long and painful process.

During World War Two the government raised cash with War Bond sales; let's do it again with reconstruction bonds. Through the TVA the government put thousands to work building dams and bringing electricity to the poorest region in the country; let's have a TVA for alternative energy. Let’s build wind farms where acceptable and solar plants in the South and Southwest. Then let the coal barons compete with subsidized, clean renewable energy.

During the renaissance the city-state of Venice became the wealthiest state in all Europe. Her merchants and artisans turned out cloth and tapestries, metal work and pottery. The lure of the Venetian name brought the best artists from across Europe because they wanted their products to be from Venice. This was where the market was; this was where the best came from, and the artists and merchants grew rich because Venice had no taxes on its people. In all the land they had only one tax that paid all of the society's bills. A simple tax that taxed all imports and exports equally.

When we propose a tax on imports we are called xenophobic, and when we propose a tax on exports we are called anti-American. So how about a tax on both? If we don’t put our people back to work we will die as a nation, just as surely as Dorothy would have died in the witch's castle without intervention. We must put our financial house in order and rectify our trade agreements because we cannot continue to lose. We cannot continue to have billions more go out than come back; you don’t need to be a genius to figure that out.

Already our debt load forces us to snivel and tiptoe around the communist Chinese. They grow stronger while we grow weaker, and none dare call the free traders what they are, Free Traitors.

Our economy is in free-fall; the combined states' budget deficits will reach $181 billion, two-year forecasts are for $225 billion. That is $81 billion dollars more than is allocated to all the states and municipalities in the President's stimulus package.

New Hampshire plans to sell off state parks. Florida and Georgia will cut assistance for the elderly. Illinois plans to cut assistance to foster parents by 50% to a draconian $196 dollars a month. Dozens of states are raising sin taxes on liquor and tobacco and raising licensing taxes on plumbers, electricians, and barbers. Almost every state in the union is laying off policemen, firemen, teachers and public health employees, and are forcing other employees to take pay cuts and unpaid furloughs.

So it is the height of folly to pretend that we can fix health care in this country by stuffing in new straw or buffing our metal shiny again when we are lost in a world of make believe and don’t even know the way home. One thing is certain, we must throw the bucket of water on the witches of Wall Street and make the wizards work for us to rebuild this country with the hearts, brains and courage that we already have.

This government, our government, has but one choice left, just one question to answer: will it wake from its slumber in Oz? Or will it wait until the populace is using the yellow brick paving stones as weapons to tear down the walls of the Emerald City?

Breaking an Anvil
By David Glenn Cox


There are products that are exquisitely difficult to design and manufacture; then there are others that are literally hard to screw up. I had a friend who worked at a plant that made those restaurant to-go boxes. You drop the pellets in one side of the machine and hit Start. The boxes stacked themselves on the other side of the machine. When the counter reached fifty you put the stacked boxes in a plastic bag and sealed it with a twist tie.

To make sheet rock, also called wallboard and drywall, gypsum slurry is poured between two sheets of heavy paper, which is then heated and pressed. The completed product is sealed and stacked. What could be simpler?

Just as, last year, we found out that Chinese wheat gluten used to make pet food exterminated nearly a million family pets, now there is another scandal on the horizon from Chinese-made wallboard. Since 2006 the US has imported 550 million pounds of drywall. It makes you stop and scratch your head and wonder why? Wallboard is cheap to purchase as a building material; it is easy to work with and easy to finish. I could understand importing products that are expensive, but drywall?

Since the beginning there have been complaints of headaches and nosebleeds. Already there are 360 lawsuits consolidated into ten class action lawsuits involving drywall made in China. They were then consolidated into one class action suit before a federal Judge in New Orleans. There are also sixty other cases outside of the class action suits that indicate that this just might be the tip of the iceberg.

Several Chinese companies have been named along with ownership interests from Germany. The Chinese companies named have promised to investigate the charges and the Chinese government has promised to investigate the charges as well.

Specifically the complaints include: structural effects on homes, unexplained nosebleeds, asthma and skin irritation. Even more troubling are reports of metal corrosion in air-conditioning units, copper pipes and electrical wiring.

Dr Patricia Williams is a leading toxicologist and president of Louisiana-based Environmental Toxicology Experts LLC who has studied the issue of Chinese wallboard. "Chinese drywall generates a continuous release of particles. Residents complain of copious amounts of dust that when removed from surfaces reappears in a few hours. Smoke alarms are set off frequently in the same houses due to the dust particles that circulate in the ambient air," said Williams.

"Chinese drywall has a filler that contains concentrated heavy metals from a coal source. Analytical chemists are evaluating the filler and possible coal sources are coal-mining wastes and/or coal fly ash. These heavy metals are toxic and when inhaled can concentrate in the body. Strontium is one of the concentrated heavy metals.

"Strontium is believed to be responsible for the release of the sulfurous gas emissions. The most commonly detected sulfur compounds that are emitted include: carbon disulfide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide. The concentration of strontium is two-10 times greater in Chinese drywall samples that have been tested by our analytical chemist than in US drywall," added Williams. "US drywall is free of sulfur compounds and does not emit these gases."

In a classic case of slamming the barn door after the horses escape, four US Senators have written to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and "directed" the CPSC "to expedite its investigation and testing "of the drywall products in question ... and to carry out the Chinese drywall investigation without delay". Silly me, without any government experience I would have directed that investigation a little earlier. Perhaps 550 million pounds earlier? I don’t blame the CPSC, as they are overwhelmed with toxic toys and baby food and such. This disaster belongs at the feet of all those so-called free traders, Republican and Democrats alike.

Remember, free trade creates jobs! Lawyers, judges, law clerks, doctors, nurses, building contractors, and it gets even better. The estimated cost of repair to remove the toxic Chinese drywall and replace it is around $75,000 per home. That cost doesn’t include replacing corroded pipes, degraded wiring or contaminated air conditioners from literally tens of thousands of homes.

Williams added, “The general public as well as some of the residents in the houses with the drywall do not understand the acute and chronic health effects of the gases and particles released by the drywall as well as the safety risks of the sulfurous erosion of electrical wiring. The health effects range from acute exposure irritation effects to chronic exposure systemic effects such as asthma and neurological damage, Parkinson disease, lung damage, stroke and much more."

A Louisiana state legislator commented that what is unfolding here is tantamount to Chinese companies dumping "toxic waste" between two sheets of paper and exporting it to the US as drywall. All this from a product that is simple to manufacture and inexpensive to purchase. The “whoops, we didn’t know" defense won’t cut any mustard this time because this isn’t the first, second or third time toxic Chinese products have injured American consumers.

We had a saying when I lived in Alabama to describe someone who was a total screw up, “That boy could break an anvil with a rubber hammer.” Our Congress, who is sworn to protect us, has sold us out and they then feign righteous indignation for the courts and cameras long after the campaign contribution checks have cleared. Indeed, they could break an anvil with a rubber hammer.

The lawyers scratch their pointy little heads and ask the $64,000 question: can these large overseas companies actually be made to pay damages to American consumers? Sadly they answer, "probably not."

Spare Parts
By David Glenn Cox


There are few people in this world that I wish hard tidings upon, some, but few just the same. Generally they fall into three categories. The first are the media rich who offer us suggestions as to how to climb to their lofty level without having wealthy birth parents. They are, for the most part, full of it! “Max out your 401K contributions every year and start a medical savings account. Don’t buy that new car every year; keep it for two or even three years, then use the money you save to buy tax free municipal bonds.”

You see these clowns on cable channels and they always have pat answers, but no one asks them the really tough questions that I’d like to hear the answers for. “My husband and I worked at the auto parts plant here in Kentucky. We’ve been laid off for a year now and we are two payments behind on our mortgage. My husband’s car was repossessed and mine broke down and we don’t have the money to fix it. What should we do?” Exactly! You won’t ever hear that question because there are no easy answers, and these people are just pretending that they know it all.

The second group is the "I’ve got mine" crowd, so therefore this society is fair and equitable. I don’t dislike them as much as I would just like to wake them up. I wrote about tent cities springing up across America and I got, “Why didn’t they save their money? I only make 24K a year and I have a home and a car and everything is wonderful.” What can you say to people who are unable to walk a mile in another’s moccasins? Millions will work at McDonalds but only one person gets to be the CEO. Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan.

The third group all work together at CNBC, and as best as I can figure it out CNBC stands for Creepy, Neanderthal, Bigoted Corespondents. I have written about them before. There was Erin "Black Widow" Burnett who couldn’t understand the concern over lead paint on children’s toys, “I don’t get it. I mean, what’s the big deal?”

Then there is Dennis "the human dildo" Kneale who, in the course of twenty-four hours, explained that autoworkers should take what they can get and be thankful that they have jobs, and then with tears in his eyes expressed dismay at limiting executive compensation. “It just seems punitive to limit the compensation on the best and the brightest.” Kneale forgot to mention that the limits were only placed on the companies that had already failed and were taking TARP money. The best and the brightest had dropped the ball and caused this mess in the first place, but we shouldn’t be cruel when it comes to millionaires.

But there is one CNBC star who shines far brighter than the rest. It is her star that should adorn outhouses doors all across America. While discussing European-style health care she opined, “Yeah, but those people all live in small houses and I like my big house and I don’t want to give it up and live in a country where the people smell bad.”

A prudent station manger would have had a long talk with Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. That would have been the classy thing to do, but that’s not CNBC, you can’t even buy class in the gift shop at CNBC. It should have been explained to her that her opinions were, at best, parochial and indicative of one with limited horizons, and even more, limited experience. To slander an entire continent of nations that have controlled heath care costs, established a safety net for the poor and run trade surpluses to boot shows Cabrera for what she is, the epitome of ignorance.

She would rather not live in a world where people smell bad; in her narrow little mind she belongs at Elysee Palace. There, servants shall bend and scrape before her countenance. Serving her only the best champagne and the finest cakes while she laughs and taunts the poor as so deserving of their station for she is certain that she is deserving of hers. This nearly forty-year-old woman still thinks that she is the head high school cheerleader and belle of the ball at the prom next week.

But don’t take it from me. My words fall far short in describing one whose ego is so over-inflated and whose self-worth so over-estimated that only the sound of amplified flatulence could capture its true spirit. I give you Michelle Caruso-Cabrera in all her raging glory.

“When it comes to Apple and Steve Jobs, all the focus today will be on whether the company should have revealed the state of Job’s Health. That is unfortunate. This story should serve as another lesson in the evils of government intervention. What do we know about organs that people need in order to survive? There aren’t enough of them. Want more? Pay for them. Give people a financial incentive to give up their liver when they die. Supply will sky rocket.”

And you thought “let them eat cake” was over the top!

"Are you aghast? I’m going to infuriate you even more with this one: Let living people sell a kidney.

One argument against paying the deceased's family for organs is the fear that those relatives will be more likely to let the donor die at crucial decision-making points. Well, under that logic, you’d have to outlaw all inheritances.”

I don’t wonder what Michelle herself would do under the circumstances.

“Another argument you will hear: If you let people sell a kidney, you are exploiting the poor as they are the only ones who will be desperate enough to do so.

Yes, the poor will be the suppliers, but I think it is paternalistic to tell them what they can or cannot do with their bodies. In addition, they could be making a very rationale choice.”

So we can smoke pot, Michelle, and drop acid and get hooked on heroin? Suddenly, when the issue is organs for the rich, you’ve become so very liberal!

“Will the money they receive make their family's life far better then? It is easy when you are well-off to dictate to the poor the kinds of decisions they should make about their lives. Get off your high horse.”

Why, we thanks you for your kindness, ma’am, knowins that you cares so much about us makes our dreary, endless days picking your cotton and wet nursing your babies all worth while, ma’am, cause you really cares for us.

“And seriously, do you think the current system doesn’t benefit the rich and well-connected? The minute you have rationing and government control like we do right now, the system is ripe for those who have money and friends to get moved up the list and game the system.”

I wonder what rationing she is referring to. The national organ tissue registry? The one operated by the not for profit charity the National Transplant Society. That palace of bureaucrats who decide who gets what on the basis of need rather than the more relevant facts of how much money you have. But Michelle has always despised government control even if there isn’t any and what is at issue is organs for the wealthy and a free market would increase the supply. And backroom surgeons accross the third world would begin cutting and gutting any whom might fall prey to them. That’s all right with Michelle as long as it will save the rich, and the more organs on the market means lower the prices. God Bless America and the free market!

I have known some despicable people in my life, egotistical, self-centered, lacking empathy and compassion for their fellow man. Yet Michelle Caruso-Cabrera tops them all, for she is a public person and a cable network pays her money to be a… well, there is just no other word for it, a bitch! So lacking in humanity she advocates making the poor less than slaves of the rich; she favors making them into the spare parts department. But what’s wrong with that? She ponders, "We're going to pay them!" On top of all of this is the irony that this black-hearted demon from hell has the nerve to worry about the odor of others.



http://www.cnbc.com/id/31489599

The Ghosts of Detroit (Part 2)
By David Glenn Cox



It was Durant who invented the modern car company, different models in different price ranges with different features all made with basically the same parts. The problem was Durant was a victim of his own success, he kept on buying more and more suppliers and car companies that added little to the GM line up. He bought thirteen different car companies and ten parts companies and then the sales began to slump. GM would need $12 million to keep from shutting its doors, and the bankers agreed to the loans one condition, that Billy Durant give up his control of GM.

On November 15, 1910 Durant announced his retirement and for most people that would be the end of the story, but Billy Durant was not most people. The bankers had no better luck managing GM than Durant had. They fought a nightmare of duplicate companies producing duplicate components and like most bankers they moved to cut the large items rather than the million small items. They reasoned that GM made more money selling big cars than they did selling small cars, so they slashed smaller models in favor of bigger ones. The Buick 10 was cancelled; it was a small four-passenger runabout designed to compete with Ford’s Model T.

In 1911, Buick sales were down 50%. Their factories were closing, their workers were laid off by the thousands, when along came Billy Durant. You remember Billy, don’t you? Durant announced to the world that he was founding a new car company and its models would be designed by one of the foremost auto racers in the world, Louis Chevrolet. Durant bought one of the shuttered Buick factories and staffed it with former Buick workers and began building the Chevrolet 490. The 490 was actually the Buick model 10 which had been cancelled by the bankers.

The 490 earned its name from the fact that it cost $490, fifty dollars more than a Ford Model T, but offering an electric starter and electric running lights and a spare tire. By 1915 Chevrolet was selling more than 13,000 cars a year, but Durant was still unhappy. He had begun to acquire large blocks of GM stock, and he encouraged his friends to buy GM stock as well. In September of 1915 Durant showed up unannounced at the annual shareholder's meeting with GM’s Board of Directors.

Like a scene out of a Hollywood movie, Durant was followed into the room by several assistants carrying bushel baskets full of GM stock certificates. Approaching the board he announced, “Gentleman, I now control this company.” He managed to stay until 1920 when he was again forced out because of his penchant for buying up companies. Through pluck and guile, with hard work and genius, Billy Durant had built General Motors. But by 1920 he had again driven GM deep into debt as sales fell, and so again, Durant resigned.

In 1921 Durant filed papers of incorporation for the Durant Motor Company and again he would compete by building small cars against the Ford Model T. The Durant Star went head-to-head with the Model T, while the Durant Six and the Flint Model went head-to-head with Chevrolet and Buick. But the company folded in the depths of the depression in 1933. Durant had been one of the multimillionaires who had thrown their own fortunes into the stock market, trying to stop the crash. Durant listed his personal assets at $250. He ended up owning a restaurant and a grocery store, which he operated out of a former Oldsmobile showroom. Durant being Durant, he later added bowling alleys to his conglomerate holdings.

Meanwhile the shaky partnership between the Dodge Brothers and Henry Ford had become insufferable to Ford. No longer having any cash problems, Ford resented the brother’s share of his company. Ford built his own parts and manufacturing factories to eliminate his need of the Dodges. That was fine with the brothers, for they, too, were rolling in cash, Ford’s cash. Since they no longer made parts for Ford, and having the tooling, the factories and the workers, the Dodge brothers conceived of their own car, created from the suggestions which Ford had rejected.

The new Dodge featured a speedometer, electric lights and a gas gauge. The Ford required you to put a stick in the gas tank to see how much fuel was left in it. Ford did not think it at all funny that his stock dividends were being used to bankroll his competition. When the Dodges offered to sell out to Ford, in a fit of stubbornness he refused. Instead Ford announced in 1916 that the company would no longer pay dividends; the company would plow all its profits back into the company.

It was an absurd concept; the Ford Motor Company couldn’t spend all the money they already had on hand. Like Durant, Ford, by controlling his suppliers and mass producing the same model year after year, saw manufacturing costs fall to ridiculous levels. Even at Ford’s five-dollar-a-day wage, if twenty extra men could turn out ten extra cars, it was more than cost effective.

The Dodges sued and the court ordered Ford to pay $19 million in back dividends, but since Henry Ford was the majority stockholder, most of the money went straight back to him. He then announced that he was retiring and turned the company over to his son, Edsel. The next year a Los Angeles newspaper broke the story that Ford was planning to open a new car company hiring 50,000 workers and selling cars for between $250 and $350.

The Dodges had had enough. If Ford actually went through with the scheme it would bankrupt the Ford Motor Company as well as Dodge. The Dodges sold their stock for $25 million and all the rumors of Ford’s new car company quickly evaporated. In 1920 Horace Dodge fell ill with pneumonia; John Dodge fell ill ten days later, and both men passed away from the world that they were integral in creating. Their widows sold out to the bankers and the bankers sold out to Walter Chrysler in 1929.

Walter Chrysler, like the Dodge Brothers, had worked around steam engines. An executive at GM asked Chrysler if he’d ever given any thought to manufacturing automobiles. Charles Nash, then the president of Buick, made Chrysler his production chief. After the ouster by the banks of Billy Durant, it was Chrysler who was seen as having the closest ties to the bankers. Chrysler revolutionized the way cars were manufactured, by cutting costs and streamlining production, and then succeeded Nash as president of Buick. So when Durant reclaimed ownership of GM, Walter Chrysler began cleaning out his desk and submitted his resignation to Durant.

Where a vindictive man might see this as a chance to settle scores, Durant instead pleaded with Chrysler to stay on. He offered him the unheard of salary $10,000 a month for three years, plus a half million dollar bonus per year, plus $500,000 worth of GM stock. Durant gave Chrysler full control of Buick and Chrysler answered to no one except Durant. After three years Chrysler was one of the richest men in the automotive industry.

Chrysler’s purchase of Dodge in 1929 was seen as tough luck by many, but Chrysler managed to move the company forward and pay down the company’s debt, and he built the Chrysler Building in New York while he was at it. As a young man Walter Chrysler was considered an expert at tuning locomotive engines. He never lost his love of engines; where he gladly turned over day-to-day control of the company in 1936, he still followed the engine development program almost daily.

Henry Leland had left Cadillac after the GM purchase. He was encouraged by friends and investors to found a new car company. Using his prestige, Leland sought to design a new American luxury car, a car that would rival the Rolls Royce; a car he named after his favorite President, Abraham Lincoln. Sadly, for all his innovation on the factory floor and mechanical know-how, the new cars were seen as behind the times in their styling. The company only lasted five years under Leland’s leadership. Henry Ford then purchased Lincoln, some said just to spite Leland. He then gave the company to his son Edsel, like a toy from a cereal box.

They created an industry in Detroit second to none and it reached out and touched all aspects of America. Detroit needed steel from Pittsburgh and Chicago and coal from Kentucky and West Virginia and rubber from South America to make tires in Ohio. Moving all of these goods meant more trains for the railroads. The lure of better-paying industrial jobs lured farm boys from across the country to the busy streets of Detroit. The loss of farm labor was made up for by using more machinery, the tractor, the pump and the generator, which in turn also created more industrial jobs, which attracted even more farm labor.

Roads were paved, highways were built, liberating people who, a generation before, had never gone more than twenty-five miles from their homes. Women especially were freed from lives trapped in farmhouses. The first Olds with an automatic transmission was advertised as a “ladies car.” Just as suddenly, millions who had lived too far from town to further their education’s were now able to do so. A renaissance occurred in American life, from an agrarian to an industrial society, all in the space of a generation because of a small group of tinkerers and machinists and businessmen from Detroit.

From that time forward Detroit became the symbol of the great melting pot and the American dream. African Americans from the South, immigrants from across the world made Detroit home. The UAW was born in Detroit, free-working people fighting for the right to organize. They fought all the powers of heaven and Earth, the government, and the police. They put their lives on the line and in some cases forfeited them for the dream of a middle class life.

During the 1960’s, racial injustice combined with police brutality in the form of the “Tac Squad” and the “Big Four” police units, boiled over into a riot in Detroit the likes of which hadn’t been seen on American streets since the Civil War. Forty-three people dead, almost twelve hundred injured and seven thousand arrests. It was not a noble cause, but it was necessary as the poor and the oppressed rebelled against their perceived oppressors.

We, the people of the United States and the world, owe a debt of gratitude to the ghosts of Detroit. For if America has a heart, Detroit is where we check our pulse. Detroit was a city built on autos that built a nation built on autos. Autos built by blue collar, working-class folks who believed in the American dream as the dream of prosperity through hard work.

I could go on and on with page after page of all that has been done wrong, but I’ll stop here with all that Detroit has done right. For all that she has given to the world, she's a city that deserves better from a country that has forgotten its heroes and its roots, and sees them only as ghosts of the dead. It is policies that have put us where we are. The brains the hands and the spirit which changed the world are still there waiting to be tapped again.

The Ghosts of Detroit
By David Glenn Cox


For the most part they have been forgotten; they are just empty, vacant memories like the empty, dilapidated homes which line her once proud streets. It was a land once ruled over by giants, captains of industry and labor and political thought.

Of course, some remember the obvious ones, Ford or Durant. Yet there were so many more who, by their brains and backs, created out of thin air an economic powerhouse unrivalled anywhere in the world. Young Mr. Ford was a tinkerer working away in his barn, but he dreamed of building race cars. His opportunity came in 1901 when Ford raced a 26-hp car of his own design in a challenge race. He was considered a farm boy out of his league, but when the other car broke down Ford won the race and became a local celebrity.

He had formed his first car company, The Detroit Automobile Company in 1899, and based on his local acclaim, backers now supplied the 26-year-old with capital. The company folded in 1901 because, according to backers who were requesting a car for basic transportation, Ford instead tinkered with race cars and squandered their money. Later the same year, with new backers Ford opened The Henry Ford Company, but this time there were strings attached to the financing. Aware of Ford’s foibles and inability to handle projects, the backers hired Henry M. Leland to oversee the company and to keep an eye on Ford.

Leland had been apprenticed as a gunsmith during the Civil War and had witnessed the birth of firearm mass production, using identical pieces joined to identical pieces. Under Ford’s management, pieces that weren’t an exact fit were either ground down, sanded or pounded with a hammer to fit. Ford's tolerances were to 1/8 of an inch; Leland’s tolerances, with his background as a gunsmith, were to .010. But Ford was a wild bull; he resented suggestions, he resented oversight, and most of all he resented Leland. Ford quit the company that carried his name in 1902, and at the suggestion of Henry Leland the company was renamed in honor of the great explorer and founder of Detroit, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac.

The original Cadillac models were mid-priced cars, but because the fit and finish were far superior to other models, and they ran so smoothly because of the fit, they were quickly repriced upwards. Leland’s tolerances were quickly copied by other manufacturers and he was acclaimed as the finest machinist in all of Detroit, and that title earned him the lifetime enmity of one Henry Ford.

The third Ford Motor Company began life as Ford & Malcomson. Malcomson was a local coal baron with connections to capital. The plan was to self-finance, but Malcomson then learned what previous investors had learned. It always cost more and took longer than whatever Henry Ford said it would. Ford was again working on race cars, building an 80-hp auto that set a new land speed record of 91.3 mph. It captured headlines and convinced race car driver Barney Oldfield to drive the Ford “999.”

Outside of headlines and pictures in the paper, Ford & Malcomson were in financial trouble. Malcomson had gone through his fortune and became so worried about his name being associated with yet another Ford failure that he had his name removed from the business. With his reputation for being difficult to work with and his repeated business failures, Ford found himself at the end of his rope. He was forced to make deals with suppliers to supply him parts or it was the end of what most certainly would have been the last Ford Motor Company.

Across town Ransom E. Olds and David Buick were building cars, and since Henry Leland was now occupied with Cadillac, they turned to what was considered the second-best machine shop in Detroit to supply their parts. The owners, brothers Horace and John, had cut their teeth working on steam engines, and like the Wright Brothers they had built bicycles. They sold their bicycle company and opened the Dodge Brothers Machine Shop. At first they would work on anything and everything, but in 1902 they began to supply exclusively to their best customer, Ransom Olds, who had sold over 2,000 of his curved-dash Olds models, making him the top car producer in the country.

The Dodge Brothers had their own ideas about making cars, so when Henry Ford came to see them, hat in hand, they listened politely. Ford laid out his drawings for a new model called the model “A” Fordmobile. The brothers liked the concept and showed Ford their plans for a new transmission and a fragile partnership developed. The Dodge Brothers would supply Ford with parts, but they demanded cash up front on the first order, and rather than 60 days to pay, Ford was given 15 days. If, after that time, Ford defaulted on the debt, all parts installed or uninstalled reverted back to the Dodge Brothers. Ford had no choice; it was this or nothing.

Malcomson, sensing a reprieve from the financial gallows of Henry Ford, offered the Dodge brothers a 10% stake in the company for $7,000 in parts and $3,000 in cash. Malcomson was overjoyed to recoup some of his cash and a chance to sell his near worthless Ford stock. The Dodge brothers eventually, in the years to come, earned over $34.5 million on their original $10,000 investment.

Less than a month after the brothers had thrown in with Henry Ford; the Ford Motor Company had just $223 left in the bank with payroll coming due. On July 15, 1903 Ford sold his first model A to a dentist for $895.00 cash. And from that point forward the sales numbers exploded. In 1906, 1599 cars; 1907, 8,000 cars. By 1912, 78,000 cars and by 1914 Ford was building 1,000 cars for every workday. And Ford was not alone.

At the same time Ford was attempting to build race cars, an insurance salesman named Billy Durant saw a horse-drawn cart on the road. Durant was so impressed by the design of the cart that he purchased the rights and manufactured the carts along with a former hardware store clerk named Dallas Dort. They founded the Flint Wagon Works and in the space of two years the company had 14 factories and sold over 75,000 carriages a year.

David Buick had made his fortune in plumbing fixtures and held thirteen patents, including the process for affixing porcelain to cast iron bathtubs. Yet David Buick was neither businessman nor automotive inventor. By 1903 Buick had signed over his car company to his largest supplier, the Briscoe brothers. The Briscoes wanted their money and not a car company, so to them it seemed only logical that perhaps Durant-Dort might be interested.

Billy Durant was the antithesis of Henry Ford; Durant had the Midas touch and was considered an industrial genius. In 1904 they pushed David Buick to the back of the boardroom and put Durant in charge. The company was almost broke, but with Durant in charge they were able to raise $1.5 million for a company that had sold fewer than a hundred cars. Under Durant’s leadership in just two years the company was selling 250 new Buicks every week and still couldn’t keep up with their orders.

In 1907 a financial panic devastated the fledgling automotive industry. Durant proposed a scheme where the four largest auto manufacturers would exchange equal amounts of stock in each other’s companies, thereby each would own all and each other. It was a scheme that was destined to failure as well as being monopolistic. Henry Ford killed the deal, since he was the largest manufacturer. He demanded more from each, plus cash to boot. Inside the mind of Billy Durant was the germ of an idea. The more cars you build the less expensive each car becomes, and if you own the suppliers as well, you can control your costs even further.

On September 1, 1908 Durant founded General Motors and purchased the Olds car company, which had fallen on hard times. When Durant visited the Olds factory to see what plans they had made for new models, he was shocked to find out that there weren’t any. He remarked, “We just spent a million dollars for road signs.” Durant was undeterred, he returned to the Olds factory with a new Buick and ordered the workers to cut it into four quarters. He then moved the sides six inches further apart and lengthened the car by a foot. He then instructed them to use an Oldsmobile radiator and hood and told them, “There, that is your new car.”

The new Oldsmobile was priced $250.00 higher than the Buick and sold so well that Oldsmobile was profitable by the end of the year. Later the same year Durant bought the Oakland Car Company, which was also on the ropes. Their models had been disasters, except for one, which was so popular that it kept the company afloat all by itself. The model was called the Pontiac, and Durant cancelled all the other models and changed the name of the company to Pontiac. Durant then repeated what he had done with Oldsmobile before moving on to purchase Cadillac.


End of part 1

Endless War, Empty Goals
By David Glenn Cox


The headlines could be from 2003, 2004, 2006 or 2008, and nothing changes.
“Rescuers Search Iraq Blast Site” “US Base Attacked in Afghanistan” “US to improve Afghan Training.” If this were World War Two, the Yalta conference would have been two years ago and President Truman would be planning to meet in San Francisco soon to establish the UN.

The wheels and the machinations turn and yet nothing changes; the death tolls grow and yet somehow the lines on the map never change. How will we ever know when we’ve achieved victory? How long will it take before we accept defeat, not so much a military defeat but a defeat nonetheless? While we maintain military control over Iraq and Afghanistan, politically we are no better off than the day the tanks rolled in.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is contemptuously referred to as the Mayor of Kabul since after almost eight years and billions of dollars the Afghan army cannot guarantee safety on the country's highways outside the capital. A recent study done by the US military in Afghanistan found the majority of weapons used by the insurgents were originally issued by the US to the Afghan military.

President Karzai recently kicked off his campaign for a second term as President and perhaps his campaign slogan should be, “Four years of doing nothing and I’m not half finished!” A recent poll showed Karzai at 33% of the vote, but the Gucci revolutionary is not worried. “Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom among foreign diplomats in Kabul is that in a country of widespread illiteracy and deep-rooted tribal and ethnic loyalties, the election will not be decided by the popularity of individual candidates. Instead, it is believed, most voters will cast their ballots for whoever they are told to vote for.”

Here, here, democracy in action. In the last Afghan elections, voters chose from the parties listed without listing the names of the candidates. Not to worry, you just vote; we will fill the names in later. Yet we point fingers at Iran and question their voting outcomes. Under the US sponsored election in Iraq, the Unified Iraqi Alliance claimed 41% of the vote. What a surprise, that was the political party most closely allied with the US, and while 88% of Iraqis said they wanted the Americans to leave as soon as possible, a majority voted for them to stay. President Jalal Talabani was elected President and earns one million US dollars per month. The Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and the other 275 council members must scrape along on a mere $100,000 per month.

Maliki disagreed publicly with the administration in 2007 and was threatened with termination, but it wasn’t the Iraqi administration he disagreed with; it was the American administration. His call for termination came from that great champion of democracy, Condoleezza Rice. Prior to the US Presidential election, one of the great issues of the day was whether President Bush’s surge accounted for the fall in violence. The surge coincided with the Iraqi awakening movement.

To fully understand the Iraqi awakening movement, you must first put on your Soprano's hat and imagine that you are Tony. Street gangs are fighting for territory and they are costing you millions of dollars and killing your men. So you call a meeting in the back of the meat market. “Youse guys are messing up our business, all this killing and shootings has got to stop! Big Ahab, youse boys gonna control downtown. Fat Osa, you get the West Side to the airport. Skinny Jalal, you get the Eastside. And I'm gonna pay you all 100 G’s a month for not shooting at me or at my boys.”

“But, Tony, what about the graft and crime and corruption?”

“That’s your problem. Youse guys run your part of town however youse guys see fit! I’m just here promoting democracy!”

So it wasn’t the surge so much as the slush fund that quieted the guns. If indeed we had bought peace it might have been noble, but we have merely rented the peace. The spoils have been promised to one and all of the awakening tribal leaders, when in fact there are not enough jobs to go around. $679,655,334,049 is the cost in dollars; the deaths continue to pile up, and the number of wounded now equal the population of a small city. What have we gained? What have we accomplished? In a war that, according to simple common knowledge, was an unnecessary war, a war of choice and a war of aggrandizement.

Our goals in Afghanistan are even cloudier and murkier. What are our goals in Afghanistan? By their own admission democracy in Afghanistan has been as big a failure as communism was under the Soviet puppet government. And yet we have fallen into the same trap as the Soviets. They are shooting at us because we are there and we won’t leave until they stop shooting at us. The terrain and topography all favor the insurgents, and they don’t have to win to conquer. They just have to stay. They have been there since the beginning of time and until the last Afghan draws his or her last breath, they will always be there.

We, on the other hand, we can’t stay and our dependence on high-tech weaponry bleeds gold.

“He who wishes to fight must first count the cost. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be dampened. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor dampened, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue... In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War


World War One 1914-1918

World War Two 1939- 1945

Korean War 1950- 1953

Vietnam War 1965 –1975

Afghanistan War 2001-?

Iraq War 2003-?

How long is long enough? How much is treasure enough? How much is blood enough? If you fight a war with goals that are illusionary, then you are fighting with yourself and with phantoms that can come and go as your mind wills it. We must first settle our mind before we can settle the war.

The Outer Limits
By David Glenn Cox


It would seem that we have lost momentum; our sails have gone slack and there is no need to man the tiller, for we are not moving in any appreciable way. In the run-up to the presidential elections, mass campaigns were afoot to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, prosecute war criminals and to close Guantanamo.

The Republicans ran the only campaign they could run: tax cuts help everyone; albeit some more than others. The image of that confused old woman asking John McCain, “You mean Obama’s not a terrorist?” crystallized the campaign along with Sarah Palin as comic relief, illustrating how far to the right the Republicans had moved and then found themselves trapped by the images of their own creation.

It was Henry David Thoreau who once said, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” Yet, for the Republicans there is a second possibility, perhaps they hear music that really isn’t there at all. This is illustrated by former Vice President Dick (Chicken Little) Cheney who has been maintaining since he left office that indeed the sky is falling, or in this case the terrorists are coming, and then marches off the field in a solitary direction.

Mark Twain once lamented that the profession of lying had gone downhill because it had become overrun with rank amateurs. The numerous amateurs lacking the skills of great liars had so muddied the waters that the truly great liar could not be heard over the din and commotion of the amateurs. Mr. Cheney, with all his corporate skills and years of political experience culminating in eight years as Vice President of the United States, is such a disappointment to the field of lying. Why, even a child knows if mother’s not buying your story of who broke the clock; so you change it and blame the cat.

Instead Mr. Cheney runs willy-nilly trying to sell the same old discredited lie that failed so miserably when he was in power. He indicts himself and reminds America why it was they didn’t vote Republican in the last election. I would wager poor lying skills are the most common cause of losing elections in America. If it were only Mr. Cheney, the Republicans could possibly recover. But the party was shattered by the presidency of George W. Bush who, like a temperance minister, who wakes up hung over in the gutter having no idea who they are anymore.

And so they just throw things at the wall attempting to see what sticks. The three blind mice of the party, Palin, Bachmann and Newt, are to be admired for using their imaginations to generate issues straight out of their craniums. They might not be intelligent arguments but you must give them credit for at least trying to use their imagination. Especially when their party rivals just heckle Obama with cries of, “Socialist, Communist, soft on terrorism," and even openly calling on Obama to fail.

It should all be so easy for the left, with control of the White House and the Congress, these should be our glory days. But the impetus to end the wars seems to have ended with the election. Still more troops are dying every day and more money that we desperately need at home is going abroad leading Dennis Kucinich to remark, "Another $106 billion dollars and all we get is a lousy war. Pretty soon that is going to be about the only thing made in America – war.” Where did the outrage go? These are no longer Bush's wars; they are Obama’s.

Yet the world is silent; a fifty percent troop reduction in Iraq and a fifty percent troop increase in Afghanistan and the left nods in grudging agreement. The President who promised that closing Guantanamo would be easy now pulls the legal theory of prolonged detention from thin air. The left argues, “Well, he has to do something; he didn’t create this problem.” Obama was a law professor; the principles of habeas corpus should not be foreign to him. You charge and you convict, and if you fail to convict then you release. It ain’t always pretty, but that is the way it works in the old justice racket.

Obama and his top advisors met with the CIA and announced there would be no prosecutions for war crimes. Bad apples like privates and sergeants can languish in jail with their records ruined, but those who gave them the orders are immune from prosecution. This is not really a decision that the left should be overjoyed about. The President who promised us transparency has banned the White House visitor logs from public scrutiny. The Bush administration had tried that same policy and lost three times, defending it in federal court but never turned over the logs. Despite three legal rulings Obama, the law professor, says let’s try it again. So much then for the rule of law.

The LGBT community is outraged by the Justice Department's brief in the Defense of Marriage Act and the President's inability to end don’t ask don’t tell in the military. Instead, in an effort to throw the LGBT community a bone, he offers a memorandum extending some benefits to some federal works for as long as Obama is the President. Had other presidents acted with such spineless temerity there might still be "colored" waiting rooms across the South. But to my LGBT brethren I say, you are with us and we are with you, as we’ve all been disappointed equally.

Obama works facetiously at his desk and legislation is brought to the floor but somehow it never rises to what we were led to believe. The Green Energy Initiative has millions of dollars in it to design better oil drilling heads. Republicans bluster over assisting struggling home mortgagers and while Obama’s plan is lauded as helping ten times as many homeowners as the Bush administration, it should be remembered the Bush plan helped only 1% and Obama’s plan only helps 10%, but we are rescuing 100% of the banks.

When the crisis in the auto industry began, it was the Democrats who insisted the companies should be bailed out and not allowed to go into bankruptcy, claiming it would cost tens of thousands of jobs and damage thousands of retirees' incomes and healthcare benefits. The Republicans countered that bankruptcy was the only logical course, that job losses and labor agreements couldn’t be helped. It is the bankruptcy that allows the automakers to cancel dealerships contracts at will.

The President appointed an auto task force and out of that came the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM. The ensuing loss of thousands of jobs, the voiding of union agreements and the canceling of thousands of dealerships that cost the car companies nothing. It was thought by the industry insiders that there was an over-supply of dealers; so bankruptcy granted the power of life and death over the dealerships to the manufacturers. The decision is to be made by the car companies themselves rather than the market place. The auto task force plan is 9/10ths of the Republican plan with the exception of GM’s Rick Wagoner being fired and the car companies still being in control.

The Employee Free Choice Act is dead because the Democratic caucus could not keep Democrats on board. Candidate Obama had promised to sign the bill if it crossed his desk. Clever man that he is, he never promised to help it reach his desk. America's labor unions are now working to see that no bill is passed as they realize that a compromise that gives them nothing still takes the issue off the table. Or a bad bill is far worse than nothing.

This should be remembered as healthcare reform shuffles along through Congress, that a bad bill that gives to insurance companies ensconces those earnings forever. We will not be able to change it if we don’t like it next year. The political will shall be gone along with any chance of real reform. Now if we examine the issue from the Republican perspective, they need only to hobble the bill and to guarantee access for their friends in the insurance industry. Their profits rise, and if the plan fails as halfway measures almost always do, then Republicans win again.

Finally, the President chose Judge Sotomayor to replace the conservative Judge Souter, yet when we hold their judicial records side-by-side, they are almost identical. Is that the audacity of hope? Republican presidents choose right-wing ideologues for the court while Democratic presidents choose exact replacements for slightly less right-wing ideologues?

Our sails are slack. Are we stunned because what we got looked like what was on the box but isn’t working as advertised? Or perhaps we are like the Republicans, lost and wandering in the universe as our political galaxy spins out of reach. Or maybe Barrack Obama is a smooth, well-spoken version of George W. Bush and a credit to the lying profession. Or perhaps we are in a tale from the Outer Limits. “Do not adjust your set. We control the picture, we control the sound.”

Through the Looking Glass
By David Glenn Cox


The only thing we know for sure in Iran is that we know nothing for sure. The United States, through the CIA, has pursued an ongoing, clandestine war against the people of Iran for the last six years. Opposition groups have been funded; covert military strikes carried out until we cannot tell fact from fiction or the Mad Hatter from Alice.

The good news is ignored, and the bad is used to fan the flames of hatred and extremism. The Iranian government has supported millions of refugees from America’s war in Iraq. They’ve fed them, housed them and offered them medical treatment. Not under the auspices of the UN or the international Red Cross, but under the auspices of the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

These same Iraqis are the sons and daughters of the army and air force, which once invaded Iran with US covert support. Yet the Iranian government and populace is able to put that behind them and offer assistance to their former enemies.

Ever since the days of Gamal Nasser, the quickest route to Pan-Arab acclaim has been for a Middle East leader to wag his finger at Israel. Nasser did it, Saddat did it, Saddam did it and Ahmadinejad does it. It is not much different from America’s own Presidents touting their tough stand on communism; it is meaningless propaganda designed for domestic consumption.

The US has had Iran in its cross hairs since the days of the Iranian revolution and the taking of US hostages. The US had supported Saddam with weapons and intelligence, even chemical weapons, in the long bitter war against Iran, a war which Iraq started with US acquiescence. Meanwhile, while thousands of Iranians marched in the streets chanting, “Death to Americans,” its leaders were being enticed by American agents to set up the Iranian arms-for-hostages exchange. Over 500 TOW missiles and 4,000 other missiles were supplied to Iran through Israel and we wonder why they call us the great Satan? We help to foment a war, then we broker arms to both sides.

In 1987 when two Iraqi Exocet missiles struck the USS Stark killing 37 sailors, the US government immediately condemned Iran. Of course we knew better, but we couldn’t let those sailors die in a friendly fire accident, so we blamed it on our enemies. Just as the US blamed Iran for the IED’s killing US servicemen in Iraq, because it was believed that the devices were coming from Iran due to their workmanship. Yet the hypocrisy of the world’s largest arms merchant and occupying foreign power pointing the finger of guilt at anyone is beyond belief.

The US accuses Iran of having aspirations to obtain nuclear weapons and the Iranians deny it. The Iranians are signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and under the terms of the treaty they are lawfully entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. And what’s more, they are also entitled to international assistance in developing nuclear power, none of which has been asked for nor provided. The US instead makes nuclear deals with India, who are not signatories of the non-proliferation treaty. Under the deal the US would have inspection rights to two thirds of Indian nuclear facilities, and just for bonus points guess who gets to choose the facilities to be inspected. (hint, not us)

Why does Iran need nuclear power? Because its primary source of hard currency is from its oil exports, exports that are expected to fall precipitously in the next twenty years. Why does Iran seek the capacity to enrich uranium? That question answers itself. If the goal is for electrical self-sufficiency, having to procure nuclear fuel on the world market leaves Iran with its cojones on the chopping block. So you see, it is our threats and embargoes and sanctions which exacerbate the problem. But to the CIA these are the things that make them smile; the Iranians are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Who could blame Iran if she did want to become a nuclear power, bordered by a nuclear Pakistan and the US client states of Afghanistan and Iraq, the unstable Republic of Georgia and the NATO-armed Turkey? It would seem Iran lives in a dangerous neighborhood, without even mentioning Russia and China. The hysteria is that somehow a nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel. It is only a threat to Israel’s nuclear hegemony in the region, but the idea that if Iran builds a bomb on Monday it will send it hurting towards Israel on Tuesday is ludicrous.

It is the worst kept military secret in the world that Israel has a stockpile of at least 60 to 80 nuclear weapons, as well as a well-trained air force capable of turning Iran into a glowing cinder. But more than that, living in this violent, bloody and dangerous corner of the world, Iran sits by herself doing for herself. She has attacked no one, she has threatened no one and she has been convicted of nothing. In the court of public opinion, however, and the fantasy world where big is small and small is big, oh, there she is considered a threat to peace.

Mr. Mousavi is portrayed to the American public as some sort of great liberator come to strike down the evil Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, straight out of a Marvel Comic. The Iranian public are seeking social reforms, not any great break in foreign policy. A Link TV special filmed inside of Iran showed the Iranian people as being ready for better relations with the United States; they were overjoyed at the prospect. But to a person they all agreed that the United States needed to knock off its covert campaign against Iran and to treat Iran with the respect and dignity that a sovereign nation deserves.

Did Ahmadinejad steal the election? Who knows? Did Bush steal the election in 2000? Mr. Obama was the guest of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo last week for his lecture on democracy. Mr. Mubarak assumed the office of President in 1981 and has won every election since in a cakewalk. In the last election Mr. Mubarak carried 88% of the popular vote. Are the elections fixed in Egypt? Using the standards applied to Iran it would appear so; Ahmadinejad carried 63% of the vote.

The only thing that we know for sure is that we know nothing for sure. The media have done the opposite of inform. They have propagandized along political, ethnic and religious lines until it is all just a meaningless jumble. A hodgepodge of good guys and bad guys and heroes and villains in an old Western serial shoot 'em up at old Tehran town. The CIA will continue its work unabated, to demonize and undermine the government in Iran leaving only one thing for certain, the most dangerous power in the Middle East is the United States. We should fear where this is going and look closely at the job the CIA has done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Kurdistan, or we may find ourselves through the looking glass, unable to understand what is going on around us.

On Behalf of Moxie, Blackie and Myself
By David Glenn Cox



I would like to thank everyone for their care and concern on behalf of Moxie, Blackie and myself. If this country were governed by the people, this country would be a different place, but that really ain’t no never mind. I didn’t write it for me, I wrote it for the others.

You see, during the last depression my grandparent’s marriage fell apart. The old adage is true: when money goes out the door, love flies out the window. My own mother never forgave her father, but she was too young to understand that when you cannot provide for your family you not only lose your pride, you lose your self-esteem and the respect of your spouse. Unemployment is personal, and even those as close as a spouse cannot understand. It tears asunder the bonds of friendship, companionship, and finally, love.

My wife and I separated without a cross word between us. The pressure of paying bills and trying to keep the house was finally too much and she suggested that I go. The pressure, the pain, and the guilt left me numb. I asked my son if I could sleep in his shop until I could get on my feet. He buys and parts out automobiles that he purchases at auctions and from the general public. I hadn’t been here for more than a few days when he took me to an auction. As we were examining the cars I saw a Dodge pickup, and in the truck bed were all the belongings of someone else just like me.

It hit me like a fist to the gut, and I understood just how widespread my situation was. A few days later I was at McDonalds, and it was early in the morning when I saw a Chevy Lumina with a man sleeping behind the wheel. All his belongings were in the back seat and it was obvious that this was his home. So when I say that I am at the top of the homeless pyramid, I mean it. I am far better off than others that I have seen. I began to see them everywhere, a man at Wal-Mart, unshaven and having obviously slept in his clothes. Returning from the scrap metal yard I saw a man my age hitchhiking on the on ramp of the interstate.

He had a black, plastic trash bag with the neck of a guitar sticking out of the top. I could relate to that. If I were in his shoes I’d take my guitar, too. It’s been my best friend in life, besides my son. But before I could say anything we had passed him and it was too late. I mentioned it to my son and he raised his eyebrows at the idea of picking up hitchhikers. I explained, ax murders usually don’t carry a guitar with them, and robbers don’t carry a beat-up suitcase and a plastic garbage bag.

For most of that night I wondered where that man was, as well as the man in the Dodge and the young man at McDonalds. I’m just a little uncomfortable but they are in the ditch. I wonder where they are still today, because each one of them is no different than me. Each with their own story, the young man had a North Georgia tag on his car; perhaps he had come to Atlanta seeking work and struck a disappointment. Either he couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to wherever his home once was.

I was the youngest child of the youngest children and my parents are deceased, and since they were the youngest I have little family left. I played music in bars and clubs when I was young and never made more than fifty dollars in a night. After a car accident I couldn’t play guitar for almost a year, and I figured that maybe God was trying to tell me something. I got a job working in a parts house, first driving a delivery truck, then working at the counter, and finally became store manager.

I was promoted to manger of the company's most prestigious division, selling industrial engines across a three-state territory. I did well, the company did well, and I was highly thought of and fairly well-compensated. Among my tasks was writing newsletters, business correspondence and claims for warranty compensation.

It was ironic because it was writing that got me through school. I learned that on an essay test if you filled up the space and then ran over you would get a B, regardless of what you wrote. I never considered a career in writing as my handwriting was terrible and my typing skills were worse. You see, when I went to school computers were the sole domain of NASA.

The company I worked for then sold out to another company as the market for American-made industrial engines disintegrated my employers decided to become a John Deere lawn and garden dealer and move the location fifty miles further up the highway. I was already commuting an hour each way, and this location was off the main highway so I would have been commuting two hours each way.

The economy was good then, and I decided to sell industrial engine parts on the internet and in six months I had paid down my bills, doubled my investment and had ten thousand dollars in the bank. I had been blogging for a year or two, and I was always political, always rabidly liberal, actually more socialist than liberal. But with all the time in front of the computer I began to take it more and more seriously. My posts began to rise in popularity and then my parts business just stopped, like someone turned off a faucet. It went from two or three orders a day to two orders a week.

I began checking Craigslist for writing jobs. I wrote “The Home Buyers University” and I wrote for a Ford Mustang website. Then, like my business, those jobs fell away as well. I had been working on my first novel for about a year. To write a novel you write for six months and then you edit forever. I began to circulate the manuscript and received basically positive comments but no interest. Finally an agent explained, “Your novel bites the hand it expects to feed it, it is totally anti-Republican and completely anti-corporate, and well, who do you think these people are that work for mainstream publishing companies?”

I was extremely fortunate to come across a very kind woman who edits my pieces for me. Her name is Dei Scott. She has believed in me and has aided me immensely, for while my ideas may be clever my grammar is not, but I’m getting better with her help. She is a true friend and I do not know what I would do without her help and assistance.

I guess that it is odd to say that I have been a writer all my life but just didn’t know it. I won an honorable mention in Warner Brothers American Song Festival for a song that I wrote. But I have advanced farther and made more money in five years of writing than I ever made in music. So I guess, now, I am a writer. It is lonely work and you never know if you're doing it correctly until kind people like yourselves tell me that I am.

To those of you who have offered to send money I thank you but no.
I am at the top of the homeless pyramid, give locally, take someone to lunch, buy your children ice cream do something to be good to one an other.

I thank you again from the bottom of my heart; it is your kindness and compassion that makes it all worthwhile. I’ll sleep on the floor if it will do some good because somewhere out there a man just like me is strumming his guitar alone as he plays an old Woody Guthrie tune called “I Ain’t Got No Home.”

Cooking in a Coffee Pot
and Other Useful Tips for the Homeless
By David Glenn Cox


I write this for the millions who, like myself, are holed up in basements, garages, empty houses, fields, culverts and what have you. Guilty of being Americans and homeless, trying to make it through just one more day in the land of Fuck You and the home of the slave. I am at the top of the homeless pyramid; I still have internet access and a toilet.

The one thing to remember about the homeless is that they never have a day off. They are homeless every day; it's easy to forget and difficult to understand, but the homeless face the world without a buttress. They are toe-to-toe with the heat and the humidity, the rain, the mud, and the bugs.

They have lost their basic building block of society, a home, a place to lay down their heads. A place to lie in comfort, a simple retreat from the world. I consider myself among the lucky; I have a leaking air mattress and a roof to keep myself dry and a box fan to keep me cool. I don’t sleep in a bed but on a floor, and eat on a table salvaged from a dumpster. But it is not a home, it is a garage. It is a refuge and I am a refugee in modern America.

Brought up in another place, I feel myself an alien in this land. This is not the land of my birth. Where did it all go? How can we get back there? Our goals, motives and principles become polluted and reverse reclamated, blurred and obscured by the lack of a home. We live like cave men and women, targeted and dodging the monsters in squad cars or just avoiding the looks of disgust from those who believe themselves invincible.

But we know better and we look back with “see you soon eyes,” and we dream a dream of beds with clean linen or a hot bath or a shower. A job with decent wages and maybe even a front door and a window with a screen. But if I had one wish it would be to play the movie “The Grapes of Wrath” on every TV channel for twenty-four hours, because I am living every line of it every day. “Don’t take no nerve to do something when you ain’t got no other choice.”

It’s my dirt, it ain’t no good but its mine!”

We are looking for our California, our promised land, a place to start again. Because, just like Tom Joad, we are getting angry. “They’re working away at our spirit, trying to make us crawl” feeding us promises, programs that, like the rain, sound good but never reach us here on the ground.

I laugh myself through the want ads each day at jobs that make promises that are either sucker gambits or flat out frauds. Come work for free! Learn Grant Writing, only $200. “I never should have come on this trip. You remember that coupon in the spicy Western stories magazine? Learn to be a radio expert.” Jobs that aren’t jobs at all, promising good work and good wages but paying a nickel a box when they promised a dime. “An' you fellas will have to take it cause you’ll be hungry.”

I traded my truck for a 1987 Paseo and $1,500, but I don’t drive; it is merely a vestige of who I once was. I don’t drive because I don’t have insurance, but it is like an escape pod. Just knowing that I could go if I had somewhere to go, it is my last redoubt. I’m down to about $250 dollars and still looking for work, foolishly, pointlessly. I applied to a popular website that was seeking in depth journalism on the subject of homelessness but they never replied. Typical American media, they just want anecdotes about homelessness, they want to hear about it but don’t want to know about it.

I watch the body shop next door meandering towards oblivion as their work dries up. Friday, they had six body men working on three cars and you can’t keep the doors open like that. The cabinetry shop on the other side is working four and a half days a week.

I buy groceries according to what I can keep in a mini fridge, more like an icebox really. It keeps food cool, not cold. For soup you measure a cup of water in a plastic cup and place the soup in the coffeepot. Then you let the water pour through and wait for the warmer to warm the concoction. It’s not piping hot, but it’s hot enough and beggars can’t be choosers now, can they? Because of my culinary limitations I buy the same foods each week; two months ago it cost $45.00 and last week it was $65.00.

The money is rapidly loosing its value, which also explains why gas prices are rising even as demand sinks. I know that more of you are coming to join us in the time that the land forgot and you will have questions just as we had questions. But there are no answers for them, you just do and try and make the day. You wait anxiously for the Georgia sun to go down to offer some relief from the heat. As the sky turns red, the box fan again begins to offer some relief, the only relief available.

The kitties, Moxie and Blackie, still visit me each night and it is peculiar because I’ve joined their society more than they mine. When I wrote about them before, some people, well-intentioned I’m sure, suggested that I capture them and turn them over to the humane society. You don’t understand, we are equals in this life. I don’t rat them out and they don’t rat me out. If I turned them over maybe they’d have a better life; maybe they’d get gassed.

But, like the Joads, “We had meat tonight, not much but we had it.” The kitties are free and for the time being happy. I feed them and welcome them but they are free to go as well. They are not mine, merely night visitors who befriended me without qualifications. It would be too hard on my conscience to turn them in without knowing the outcome. Maybe you understand, maybe you don’t. Tom said it like this, “Seems the government has more interest in a dead man than a live one.” Or in this case they have more interest in picking up kitties than in finding them homes. Besides, the government has done nothing to help me; why should I expect more for cats that will never vote?

The cool and the stillness of Sunday night are a comfort to me and I must take my pleasure where I can, because the air mattress still leaks and the hot sun will return again tomorrow. So I will lay my head on the floor and dream.

“Fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live - for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken … fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”

Killing for Fun and Profit
By David Glenn Cox


The Department of Homeland Security has upped its threat level. Agents are scouring the country in search of dangerous right wing extremists. For the second time in two weeks, Americans have been gunned down in the peaceful pursuit of their lives.

Bad men, crazy people, everywhere! Extremists, God help us!

Bloomberg reports a U.S. District Court Judge has allowed law suits to move forward against Eli Lilly, the drug company is accused of selling and encouraging physicians to prescribe the drug Zyprexa for uses never proven or approved by the FDA. It’s called off-labeling; it is used to goose profits by expanding a drug's target population by pushing its effectiveness against symptoms rather than illness.

In 1995, clinical trials of Zyprexa showed that the drug was ineffective in treating dementia in older patients. The only FDA-approved use of Zyprexa is in the treatment of schizophrenia, and that would have relegated Zyprexa to the backwaters of the pharmaceutical rivers. In the seven studies Lilly presented to the FDA, it was shown the Zyprexa had absolutely no benefit whatsoever in the treatment of dementia or Alzheimer’s.

But hey, this is America; it's all just a matter of marketing. We have wars to keep you safe from people who live in mud huts. And campaigns to keep a Muslim country from getting nuclear power when it’s surrounded by countries that do have nuclear power. It’s not what they do; it's what we say they will do.

Last year Zyprexa was Lilly’s most profitable drug, racking up $4.7 billion in sales. God bless America, only in America (patriotic music here) could a drug totally ineffective at what it is being prescribed for become number one in sales!

The judge released 10,000 pages of documents that tell a tale of for-profit medicine as cold and calculating as robbing the fillings from a corpse. Revealed was a 2002 business plan encouraging sales reps to press doctors to prescribe the drug to elderly patients for insomnia and mood swings. Ironically, one of the suggested symptoms to treat was suspicion.

Lilly marketed the drug to primary care physicians and long-term care facilities. Ever seeking to expand the market they added the treatment to post traumatic stress disorder and sleep difficulties. By 2006 Lilly executives were rolling in cash and the company's goal was $6 billion in sales. In 2002, Lilly researcher Peter Feldman sent E-mails to his boss Denice Torres, the company's global marketing director.

He said that they were going to stop studying Zyprexa’s potential health benefits for elderly consumers. That would risk “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs to save on poultry feed costs,” Feldman said in the unsealed messages.

Ha ha, nothing better than a comic researcher, is there? Except maybe an all-business marketing director. “Elderly remains an important aspect of target PT and affiliate focus,” Torres answered in the message.

“For two consecutive years, you have been on top and have turned in above-plan performance,” Grady Grant, Lilly’s national sales director, wrote to his salespeople in the newsletter.

“Once again you have all shown that (LTC) long term care is a driving force for Zyprexa in the US affiliate in 2002,” Mike Murray, another Lilly executive, wrote in the newsletter. “We must continue to accelerate the growth of Zyprexa.”

A nice pat on the head from the boss man and fat sales commissions can do wonders for sales

One sales representative wrote in a March 7, 2003, note that she’d persuaded a doctor to write Zyprexa prescriptions for use in “elderly pts, help sleep and irritability.” Another asked a doctor to try Zyprexa “in elderly who are not thinking clearly and are suspicious and hostile,” according to an Aug. 31, 2001, note.

Only in America could not thinking clearly and being suspicious and hostile be considered a symptom! Using that logic you could drug most of this society. But were this just a case of selling sugar pills to Granny and Boom Pa it could be forgiven. America’s shelves are full of medicines and pseudo medicines and treatments and supplements that at best might help a little, and at worst might deplete your wallet. But Zyprexa kills. Deaths for those taking Zyprexa were “significantly greater than placebo-treated patients (3.5 percent v. 1.5 percent, respectively).”

Now take $4.7 billion in annual sales and do the death math. But hey, they were making money, right? So who goes to jail? Go to jail? Why, nobody's going to jail, now or ever! This isn’t about wild-eyed extremists filled with hate and rage answering God’s call to kill. This is about nice capitalists in nice three-piece suits and ties killing the elderly for fun and profit. Illegally and immorally pushing a drug knowing full well in advance that it was dangerous and without any benefit to the patient.

Jail? No, this is America; we just want our money back. Only bad men, extremists and wild-eyed fanatics go to jail.

Lilly has already paid out $1.2 billion for 32,000 individual claims; the company faces further lawsuits by twelve states seeking damages. The company agreed in January to pay $1.4 billion to thirty states and this total included a $615 million fine levied by the federal government. Damages from pending lawsuits could reach another $6.8 billion, but with sales of $4 billion a year for seven years there is little monetary loss for the company.

““Plaintiffs are releasing one-sided, cherry-picked documents obtained in discovery to selected news media in an effort to try their cases in the media,” said Lilly spokeswoman Marni Lemons, who added that the company will fight the lawsuit.

From a Lily sales memo from 2001: “With most customers, we will continue to address the diabetes concern only when it arises. Get back to selling!”

Go to jail? Don’t be ridiculous, no one is going to jail. Only bad men, extremists and wild-eyed fanatics go to jail. This is just doing business in America.