Author: R J Adams

There comes a time one has to consider whether the human race truly deserves to survive, if only for the sheer gullibility of the species. This week has seen some prime examples. Only today the email quoted below landed in the Sparrow Chat ‘inbox’.

It’s no fun when there’s an evangelical Christian in the distant family, and the Adams’ household does have that unfortunate cross to bear, if you’ll excuse the pun. Thankfully, the person in question is distant, both geographically and familially, but that doesn’t stop him assailing us from time to time with whatever right-wing, pseudo-religious, crap happens to appear on the internet.

Today it was this:

Class Always Shows.

A doctor had his TV on in his office when the news of the military base shootings at Ft. Hood, TX came on. The husband of one of his employees was stationed there.

He called her into his office and as he told her what had happened, she got a text message from her husband saying, “I am okay.” Her cell phone rang right after she read the message. It was an ER nurse,” I’m the one who just sent you a text, not your husband. I thought it would be comforting but I was mistaken in doing so. I am sorry to tell you this, but your husband has been shot 4 times and he is in surgery.”

The soldier’s wife left Southern Clinic in Dothan, AL and drove all night to Ft. Hood. When she arrived, she found out her husband was out of surgery and would be OK. She rushed to his room and found that he already had two visitors there to comfort him.

He was just waking up and found his wife and the visitors by his side. The nurse took this picture:

What? No news crews and cameras? This is how people with class respond and pay respect to those in uniform.

I sent my cousin in Fayetteville , N.C. (Retired from Special Forces) that picture of Geo. W. visiting the wounded at Ft. Hood . I got this reply:

What is even better is the fact George W. Bush heard about Fort Hood, got in his car without any escort, apparently they did not have time to react, and drove to Fort Hood. He was stopped at the gate and the guard could not believe who he had just stopped. Bush only asks for directions to the hospital then drove on. The gate guard called that “The President is on Fort Hood and driving to the hospital.”

The base went bananas looking for Obama. When they found it was Bush, they immediately offered escort. Bush simply told them it was o.k. and to let him visit the wounded and the dependents of the dead.

He stayed at Fort Hood for over six hours, and was finally asked to leave by a message from the White House.

Obama flew in days later and held a “photo opportunity” session in a gym, and did not even go to the hospital.

All this I picked up from two soldiers here who happened to be at Fort Hood when it happened.

This Bush/Obama/Ft.Hood story is something that should be sent to every voter in the US . Those who wanted “change”. You certainly got it.

Someone, PLEASE, show me anything that will tell us that Obama has ANY respect for the country he leads! I’m looking for just a little sign of respect.

Like an annoying chain letter this bull has been spreading virulently and can be located easily with a quick Google search. It doesn’t take anyone over five years of age more than a few seconds to realize it’s at least 90% bullshit (provided they’re equipped with more than one brain cell, and they’re NOT an evangelical Christian).

1. A nurse impersonates the woman’s husband, using his cellphone and texting her he was okay. Almost immediately she uses the same phone to say he’s not okay, he’s been shot four times. That would be one nurse looking for a new job, if it were true.

2. George Bush drives over to Fort Hood unannounced, (“Hi, Guys, my name’s George W Bush, can I come in?”) – just one day after a mass shooting at the base – and the gate security just lets him through – hardly!

3.Bush stayed at Fort Hood until ‘told to leave’ by the White House. (“George? This ere’s Obama. What’ya playin’ at, motherfucker? Get the hell outer there right now, yer hear me?”)

3. The writer of this email got the information from a cousin in North Carolina who ‘happened’ to hear it from two soldiers who ‘happened’ to be at Fort Hood (1,250 miles from Fayetteville, NC) when it ‘happened’.

Obviously, the writer has little idea of how politics works in this country, but he doesn’t have to. The internet will spread it around and every nut who wants to believe it, will do so.

Here are the facts, as checked by Factcheck.org, and confirmed by David Sherzer, Bush’s spokesman:

President George W. Bush did visit the wounded at Ft. Hood only a day after the tragic Nov. 5 shooting spree on the base, as was reported publicly at the time by a number of news outlets.

Sherzer described the visit as being “as spontaneous as a visit from a former president can be” — it was planned that same day. But Sherzer told us that Bush’s visit was coordinated with base officials, that he did not refuse escort, and that he did not overstay his welcome. As for the part about President Obama telling him to leave, Sherzer said that’s simply not true.

Bush’s home in Crawford is a one-hour drive from Ft. Hood, and he did go to the base after being contacted by Ft. Hood’s commanding general, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone. “It is accurate to say he did drop everything to go,” Sherzer said, but he added that “we went about it in the appropriate way, which was to coordinate with the base personnel and Secret Service.” And Bush stayed for about two hours, not the six the e-mail claims…He was not stopped at the gate, as described in the e-mail, because he was expected and because he had a Secret Service escort.

As for the claim that Obama did not visit the hospital, the White House sent us press reports showing that Obama visited both ambulatory and non-ambulatory victims, and the families of the dead on Nov. 10, though much of the visit was not public.^[1]“

This is the state of America today. Educationally, many of the poorer population are well below standards considered acceptable in European nations. Their knowledge (or, lack of it) comes from the misinformation spread – like this email – on the internet, or via the biased, propagandized, news channels – ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN.

It’s worth noting this email relates not to the recent shootings at Fort Hood, but to the incident in 2009 when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist, shot and killed thirteen, and wounded thirty of his fellow soldiers.

On the subject of gullibility, here’s one headline that never made it to any of the major US news channels:

NRA offers children free membership amid ‘Youth Day’ gun activities”

It comes from the British newspaper, “The Guardian”. Most US newspapers didn’t carry the story (though the NY Daily News was one that did), which is hardly surprising as no journalists were allowed inside the National Rifle Association’s “Youth Day” event at their National Convention in Inianapolis last Sunday. Mounted police stood guard outside to prevent any media intrusion.

The National Rifle Association on Sunday offered young children free membership and the opportunity to win a high-powered rifle or shotgun.

A “Youth Day” at the influential gun lobby group’s annual convention in Indianapolis was scheduled to culminate with a prize draw in which participants could take home a WBY-X rifle or shotgun supplied by Weatherby, a major firearms manufacturer and a sponsor of the event. All were also given a free six-month youth membership of the NRA.

Media were banned from covering Youth Day. When the Guardian approached the ballroom in which the event was to take place, one of two police officers guarding the room ordered a reporter to leave and said no journalists were even allowed to be in the adjacent 350-yard corridor.

“That is just what the organisers have told me,” the police officer said repeatedly, when asked why media were supposed to be barred from the area, where other convention attendees were walking around freely…

…Official corporate backers of Youth Day included major gun manufacturers such as Remington, Smith & Wesson and Marlin, as well as Brownell’s, which claims to be the world’s biggest supplier of firearms accessories and gunsmithing tools…

…Andy Myers, 38, of Ohio, said his three young children were keenly awaiting the Youth Day activities.

“Oh yeah, these guys are all revved up for it,” Myers said of Cody, 12, Sarah, eight and Wyatt, six, who all wore their own convention lanyards.

“I’ve always been a shooter, and I wanted them to learn safe gun use,” said Myers. Dismissing suggestions his children might be too young for firearms, he said: “For me, it is all about safety. Just as with any other phobia, the younger a person is introduced to something, the better.”

“I’d rather my children were introduced to guns by responsible people in a place like this,” Myers went on. “I wouldn’t want them just getting bad ideas off the TV, which can be a bad influence.”…

…In a statement made when the firm was unveiled as a sponsor of Youth Day, Mike Schwiebert, Weatherby’s vice-president of marketing, said: “Weatherby is proud to help support NRA Youth Day and make it a special experience for all the participants.”

“We very much appreciate the opportunity to partner with the NRA in providing opportunities for our youth to learn more about our industry and all the fun the outdoors has to offer, whether it’s hunting, shooting or rodeoing.””^[2]

Apparently, there’s nothing else to do in the outdoors except “hunting, shooting or rodeoing”.

The gullibility of this farce lies not with the children, nor even the organizers who are there solely to make money. No, it lies fair and square on the parents who think it’s a great idea their kids should play with lethal weapons from an early age. They can’t drink alcohol in America until they’re twenty-one, but you can give that crying three-year-old an MK-47 to play with and no-one will stop you. Of course, if he shoots you with it, it’s your responsibility, and the kid will be none the worse for growing up knowing he slaughtered his daddy.

One other exhibition of mass gullibility was on display this week – in Rome…

…in front of an audience numbering 800,000 of the gullible. The canonization ceremony of John Paul II and John XXIII at the Vatican drew more from Voodoo ceremony than any spiritual content. Phials of blood, probably well-congealed, and pieces of skin from the deceased popes adorned the papal altar as this medieval ritual proceeded to its climax.

“Four popes in one ceremony is a fantastic thing to see and to be at, because it is history being written in our sight,” said Polish pilgrim Dawid Halfar.^[3]

Ah yes, Dawid, but they all look decidedly less saintly when sat on the lavatory with their cassocks hitched up and their underwear around their ankles.

How gullible does one have to be to ignore the slaughter, torture, corruption, mass murder (and virtually every other heinous crime invented) committed by the Roman Catholic church since the days of Peter? And, let’s not forget the hideous crime of child sexual abuse, rampant throughout the Roman Catholic church for decades and not only ignored, but condoned, by (Saint) John Paul II.^[4]

Perhaps the last week in April each year should be officially designated “Gullibility Week”, if only to remind us how utterly crass and idiotic we truly are.

Sadly, to anyone viewing the human species objectively, such traits are glaring obvious every single week of the year.

^{[1] “Bush at Ft. Hood” Factcheck.org, February 11th 2010 (Note the date on this link. That chain email’s probably been doing the rounds for four years).}

^{[2] “NRA offers children free membership amid ‘Youth Day’ gun activities” The Guardian, April 27th 2014}

^{[3] “Vatican declares Popes John Paul II and John XXIII saints” BBC, April 27th 2014}

^{[4] “An unseemly, unwise haste to canonise John Paul II” The Guardian, January 7th 2011}

Have you heard of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal? If you have, it won’t have been from any channel of the US news media. The whole deal is taking place behind closed doors; doors firmly barred to the media, public, and even many politicians.

^{To sign petition see link at bottom of page}

Most of the negotiators involved in the TPP deal are corporate bosses, or their hirelings. Former Citibank executive, and now Obama’s U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, is ‘acting’ for the US government. Make no mistake, if this deal is allowed to go through it WILL impact you. In fact, the very name ‘Trans Pacific Partnership’ is misleading. It involves the governments of twelve of the most powerful nations on the planet – nearly 60% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

We’ve become used to corporate takeovers on a fairly large scale; this is the biggest one yet. It’s a corporate takeover of every government that signs up for it, and it seems likely most will. US President Barack Obama is presently in Asia. The prime purpose of his visit is discussion of the TPP. He won’t be acting in your interests. He’s backing corporate America.

And, he won’t stop there. He’s on record as stating the next goal is a Trans Atlantic Partnership with European corpocracy.

The previous article on Sparrow Chat covered the rise of oligarchy in the United States. If the TPP and TAP are allowed to reach fruition, every nation on the planet with a viable economy will become oligarchic. Democracy, already in a state of near-terminal ill-health, will be dead.

The above video, produced by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting)^[1] lays bare the news blackout on this subject. It reveals what many have already realized: corporate owned media covering up what their bosses don’t want you, the People, to know.

^{[1] “TPP TV Blackout” fair.org, April 24th 2014}

^{For further reading on the TTP:
“A List of the Republican ‘Democrats’ Who Fight For Obama’s Secret Trade Deals, And For Wall Street” CommonDreams, April 26th 2014}

^{Or, spend twenty minutes with Democracy Now: “TPP Exposed: WikiLeaks Publishes Secret Trade Text to Rewrite Copyright Laws, Limit Internet Freedom” Democracy Now, November 14th 2013}

It’s been fairly obvious for sometime that the ability of the average US citizen to effect policy change within his/her own government has become increasingly difficult. Despite such developments as the internet site, stuff ‘Change.org’, search and the apparent ease with which Joe Public can contact their Congressional representatives since the development of the World Wide Web, we’re surely still vaguely conscious of ‘banging our heads against a brick wall’, given the invariable political ‘form-letter’ responses, (or, more likely these days, ‘form-email’). Empty reassurances that our concerns are their’s also, give cause for little confidence in our political representatives, or indeed, their desire to truly represent us at all.

The steady upward flow of wealth from middle to ‘elite’ classes over the last decade, obvious not just in the United States but, to a lesser degree, throughout much of the western world, has been accompanied by a similar decrease in ‘people power’ and a huge ballooning of corporate control over the policies of government.

Some nations blatantly accept this situation and make no effort to disguise the oligarchic nature of their societies. Saudi Arabia is one prime example. Others mimic democracy, holding sham elections that guarantee the ruling party’s return to power, given no allowable opposition. Russia is presently one such nation, ruled by a powerful president brooking no dissent.

Perhaps the most sinister and concerning of political situations today is that of a nation professing complete democratic rights for its citizens, flaunting full and fair elections with viable opposition parties, yet ensuring all (or most) elected representatives remain strictly under the control of elite, powerful, organizations whose vested interests they will represent to the full, while outwardly expressing concern for those citizens who elected them into office.

The true term for any nation whose power no longer rests with the electorate, but is instead channeled into the hands of a relatively few elite, powerful, individuals or corporations, is an “oligarchy”. The term “plutocracy” is sometimes coined to define a similar situation.

There have been numerous writers over the years warning of an impending US oligarchy. Indeed, there have been times in the past when this nation has been decidedly oligarchic. In particular, the era post Civil War to the Great Depression, when a quarter of Americans were ineligible to vote, political campaigns were funded by the wealthy, and ballot rigging was commonplace.

The German sociologist Robert Michels (1876-1936) believed every democratic state must eventually evolve into oligarchy. He called it his “Iron Law of Oligarchy”.

“Bureaucracy happens. If bureaucracy happens, power rises. Power corrupts.”

The US throughout its history has staggered between democracy and oligarchy, often dependent on the president in power and his authority over the Congress of the time.

In today’s America the situation is somewhat different from that which passed before. During the boom years of the 1950s, while Europe lay in ruins and struggled to rebuild its shattered economies, the US economy bloomed. Factories hummed and workers found their living standards rising so fast it took their breath away. A new class was born, the ‘middle class,’ and parents expected their offspring to do even better than they had. It seemed the American Dream had finally come true – at least for many.

The birth of the 21st century saw the economic tide begin to turn. For many Americans that dream metamorphosed into something more akin to a nightmare. Suddenly, jobs were being lost; housing markets teetered on collapse; kids with college degrees struggled to find employment. What had gone wrong?

The answer was really remarkably simple. While economists argued about fiscal policy, and media analysts quoted stock market figures, the nation’s elite had quietly pulled the plug.

A group of the most powerful and influential in the country sought for world economic domination. To achieve this concept they drew up a document outlining their grand idea, their “Project For A New American Century”. Part of that scheme was the taming of the Middle East to secure the oil and other energy sources in the region. That part of their plan went disastrously wrong when Iraq refused to be subjugated.

Cheap labor in China, India, and other Asian countries caused these corporate elites to shift most of the US manufacturing base overseas. Cheap labor meant more profit, a booming US stock market, but a huge and sudden drop in living standards for the many US citizens thrown out of work. It also meant that corporations had cash to spare to buy out smaller competitors, making their now multinational corporations virtual monopolies in the marketplace.

Thus began the transition from democracy to oligarchy.

Was this another of those political swings America had suffered over the course of its relatively short history? No, it was the beginning of a movement that, if allowed to reach fruition, would result in the virtual enslavement of millions, and a radical change in western society capable of producing a scenario similar to that so graphically depicted by George Orwell in his novel, “1984”

Perhaps nowhere is this ‘economic internationalization’ more apparent than in the United Kingdom. In the centuries following the loss of the American colonies Britain developed a deep psychological need to maintain some sense of oneness with that developing nation. Gradually, UK politicians began to coin the phrase ‘special relationship’.

Despite closer geographical ties with the rest of Europe, successive British governments discovered it more advantageous to ally with the US, than the rapidly improving German or French economies.

Tony Blair’s demolition of the socialist Labour Party in the 1990s, a move that caused a massive right-wing swing away from the people and their unions and into the grip of corporate control, allowed US corporations to have a field day, infiltrating British companies and financial institutions. By his actions, Blair placed the Labour Party squarely on political par with the right-wing Tories, reducing the three party political system in Britain to one as effectively as the two party system in the US had been annihilated (in all but name) by Ronald Reagan a decade before.

With all political opposition to ‘big business’ gone, Britain was ripe for the picking. The British government – whether under a Labour or Tory banner – was only too willing to assist the wolf packs straining to move in and take over British companies and services.

One prime example has been the gradual, methodical, dismantling of the National Health Service. Under David Cameron’s political leadership, US medical companies have already taken over health services once run by local authorities, and more takeovers are in the offing. One can only wonder how much cash is changing hands to smooth the path?

The so-called economic and political ‘elite’ live in a world so far removed from that of the ordinary Joe they could as well be on another planet. They consider themselves far above the mass of the population, and no more care for their welfare than is necessary to maintain their own power-base. At best, we could be considered their pets; at worst, dispensable.

Some readers may find this hard to swallow. After all, haven’t political systems had their ups-and-downs throughout history? True, but this is not about one nation’s internal political struggles. Today, it’s about economic control of the whole world.

A recent study by Professor Martin Gilens of Princetown University and Professor Ben Page of Northwestern University emphatically concludes:

What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

A possible objection to populistic democracy is that average citizens are inattentive to politics and ignorant about public policy; why should we worry if their poorly informed preferences do not influence policy making? Perhaps economic elites and interest group leaders enjoy greater policy expertise than the average citizen does. Perhaps they know better which policies will benefit everyone, and perhaps they seek the common good, rather than selfish ends, when deciding which policies to support.

But we tend to doubt it. We believe instead that – collectively – ordinary citizens generally know their own values and interests pretty well, and that their expressed policy preferences are worthy of respect. Moreover, we are not so sure about the informational advantages of elites. Yes, detailed policy knowledge tends to rise with income and status. Surely wealthy Americans and corporate executives tend to know a lot about tax and regulatory policies that directly affect them. But how much do they know about the human impact of Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, or unemployment insurance, none of which is likely to be crucial to their own well-being?

Most important, we see no reason to think that informational expertise is always accompanied by an inclination to transcend one’s own interests or a determination to work for the common good. All in all, we believe that the public is likely to be a more certain guardian of its own interests than any feasible alternative.”[bold added]^[1]

While Gilens and Page baulk at pronouncing their nation an oligarchy, or plutocracy, their findings leave little doubt that the United States of America is no longer the democracy it claims. As a consequence, any ongoing attempts – whether militaristic or economic – to convert other nations to the US way, will result in nothing less than a proliferation of US oligarchy throughout the globe.

^{[1] “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”Gilen & Page, April 2014}

^{For those readers not disposed to tackle this 42-page document a brief summary can be obtained at the BBC website:}

^{“Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy” BBC, April 17th 2014}