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The Bush administration is launching a new government agency that will rely heavily on private security contractors to conduct surveillance in the U.S.

Freedom Reigns

Drudge Report:

GOP Blog Bans Ron Paul Supporters

The right-wing community blog RedState has banned contributions from supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, calling them "liberals pretending to be Republicans." In an announcement, the publishers stated, "Effective immediately, new users may not shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion."

On the giving scene, $4.2 million is raised for Paul from 37,000 donors in one day on the internet.

The Feast of Fools: Jesus Circumcised

The Catholic Encyclopedia on The Feast of Fools:

The central idea seems always to have been that of the old Saturnalia, i.e. a brief social revolution, in which power, dignity or impunity is conferred for a few hours upon those ordinarily in a subordinate position. Whether it took the form of the  boy bishop or the subdeacon conducting the cathedral office, the parody must always have trembled on the brink of burlesque, if not of the profane. We can trace the same idea at St. Gall in the tenth century, where a student, on the thirteenth of December each year, enacted the part of the abbot. It will be sufficient here to notice that the continuance of the celebration of the Feast of Fools was finally forbidden under the very severest penalties by the Council of Basle in 1435, and that this condemnation was supported by a strongly-worded document issued by the theological faculty of the University of Paris in 1444, as well as by numerous decrees of various provincial councils. In this way it seems that the abuse had practically disappeared before the time of the Council of Trent.

The Feast of Fools took place, it seems, on the date of Jesus's circumcision, providing, I am sure, much material for pantomime, tomfoolery, and obscene mirth. Apparently, the Lord of Misrule entered the Church  to invert the social order, letting the worst possible taste reign. Erotic frenzy and overt violence, replaced for one day the disguised violence and covert pleasures of solemn hierarchy. What have we gained and what have we lost,  in making our religion so humorless, so life denying and so responsive, or even subordinate, to the worldly powers that be? 

Satire, I think,  the most moral and obscene of the literary arts, is rooted in the saturnalian or Dionysian spirit, one that makes its own moral points about humanity, equality, justice, dirt, and fecundity.   "Come let us drink!" as Rabelais said, raising high the chalice in blasphemous parody of all that is holy.  "Come, let us celebrate the Circumcision of our Lord," says he making slicing off a wafer from the long loaf of  sacred bread. "Come let us eat!," says, he as the whore kneels before him dressed as Nun. Jonathan Swift is perhaps in the same company. On Saturday he throws excrement in a madhouse among the politicians chained to the walls. On Sunday he preaches a plain sensible sermon. How better to help us appreciate that we are all, the mighty and the commoner,  just so much clay or dust? When you hold yourself out as a morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families, the highest art would be as a Lord of Misrule. If only I  could rise to that, rather than paltering about as a pennyante moralist in the dour spirit of Bill Bennett.

Where does philanthropy fit? Surely, some generous soul will fund a Feast of Fools? We could stage it at Hudson Institute with Lord Black as the Lord of Misrule, with a Lapsed Priest, a Trusted Advisor, an Attorney, a Trained Monkey, a Fundraiser, a Philanthropic Consultant, and a troupe of Think Tank Thinkers, dancing about on Lord Black's leash while Old Nick (or a retainer costumed as him) plays the bagpipes. We might as well learn to laugh, else who knows where it would end, short of jail or a Dungeon for one and all. I am no better. When the rich man calls me Whore,  I answer, "How may I serve you, Sir?"   As long as your money is good, your morals are fine with me.

We are just playing here, appearances to the contrary. Serio ludere. Mingling delight with instruction, secreting  medicine in candy, as Horace said we poets must if are are to inculcate morals in the higher ups, as the nursemaid does with a child. "So kiss my boots," as my Mistress Candidia said to the Pope, banqueting  in his private quarters, on peacocks' tongue. "Kiss my ring," laughed he, raising his jocund glass, as the mitre tipped from his head into the suet pudding.  We all know that money rules and religion follows with philanthropy and politics on all fours. "Let us drink to the Market!" And we all raise our glass, the golden chains dangling from our wrists.  Who will stand against it? (Jesus, you died in vain.)

Social Capital Markets Closed by Order of the Northern Command: Wirearchy and Hierarchy

Stuart Henshall on Jon Husband's presentation at KMWorld.  Jon, along with others like Tracy Gary and Catherine Austin Fitts, works at a deeper level, not from what will advance his career, or garner praise, or make a buck, but from the demands of his own disciplinary logic and the demands of the future.  All three of these intransigent figures meet resistance from the entrenched present. Jon's expertise is in human resources for large organizations. He worked with Hay. Now he is intuiting a world that runs on networks, swarms, coalitions, on love and love of the work as much as on money, whether inside or outside the corporate firewall. His  vision, no less than Tracy's inspired, grassroots progressivism, or Catherine's Solaris are a fundamental critique of today's corrupted and malignant Wall Street (not Main Street) capitalism. He like they are limning radical (from "radix," or root) alternatives to the world we know today. The three envision a decentralized, less hierarchical future, flattened but not as Thomas Friedman thinks of it.

Today we have a world controlled from the top down and the center out, by corporate power in cahoots with what remains of government, and enmeshed in philanthropy to support rather than challenge vested interests.  Tomorrow we will have progressive social change with social justice paramount (Tracy). We will have our money flowing from and to local Main Street businesses, including ranches, farms, and ordinary Rotary Club firms, that support the quality of life in towns, villages, and cities (Fitts).  And, we will have citizen/employees creating ever changing networks (online and off)  of purpose for commerce, politics, civic friendship, and profit.  Against that stands what? Well, most of you see in the newspapers, most of the figures you see on tv, and most of the mind-corrupting material supplied to us via think tanks, pundits, marketing, and the mainstream media by those currently in power.

Change starts on the margins, in the Dumpsters, not inside Wealth Bondage, nor outside, but where it abuts the public square, where as with garbage, ownership is not what it was, and pariahs congregate to promote the public good. Meanwhile,  let us  respect those set above us.  I am grateful to have a job at all, and to be allowed to blog, subject to editorial style guidelines, and approval by the higher ups.  I speak subject to correction.  Unlike The Happy Tutor, I am not looking for any trouble.  Until the new day dawns, I need to make a living.  My morals tutoring business may be a sham, but I will live in comfort until everything falls apart.  I will leave it to Jon, Tracy, and Catherine to buck the system.  I suggest you do the same.   

Fighting to the Death over Fuel

Financial Times:

The murder of a man who jumped a petrol queue in China’s central Henan province on Wednesday is the stuff of nightmares for the authoritarian Chinese government.

Faced with worsening fuel shortages across the country Beijing raised petrol, diesel and jet fuel prices at the pump by almost 10 per cent on Wednesday, in an effort to boost domestic supplies and exorcise the spectre of social unrest.

So, the politicians around the world spin their dials and finger their weapons seeking answers, as the resources run out, and as the average person turns hatred upon those nearest at hand. A wise politician will harness that hatred to power: rally squads, law and order beatings, walls along borders, mercenaries at home and abroad operating outside the law. We who stand against it might work on love, rather than likening giving to a capital market. We might get back to considering what else circulates besides money. Keep your eye on violence, from the bottom up and top down. How giving can provide an antidote to our rampant and regnant moral disease, that is my question. Many will spread that contagion, some because they can't help it, others because they can exploit it, and others because they work for a think tank and are paid to do it. Against that stands love, and the muse.

Border Wall and The Fight Against The Concentration of Federal Power

Rio Grande Guardian:

On Thursday, attorneys for Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club filed an amended complaint in federal court challenging the 2005 REAL ID Act. This legislation granted Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff the power to waive any law - federal, state or local - that would otherwise apply to border wall and road construction. 

Blue/Red matters less than whether we have power over our own lives. Libertarians and progressives at the grassroots will organize to stymie concentrated power in DC, and maybe on Wall Street too. Creative minds are looking for pressure points and alternatives. These include social organizing, social ventures, mission aligned investing in local projects, and philanthropy invested in social change. I am finding among thoughtful business people a growing murmur, even here in Dallas, that we need to take back what is left of America from those who stole it, and sold it back to us with Madison Avenue style deception and misdirection. The turning of emotion against immigrants, the exacerbation of terror fears, the lust for dictatorial power, and the blaspmemous abuse of the Christian tradition do not pass unnoticed among thoughtful people from all walks of life. Think Tank propaganda wears thin. The holy spirit will not be contained. Christians will not bow to Caesar.

Lock of Che's Hair Sold At Dallas Auction

Sold by a CIA agent who had hunted Che down.  Sold to a Houston book store owner. Price: $119,000.  I wonder if the CIA agent who lifted the lock doesn't owe the money back to the tax payers who funded the operation.  At the very least he could give the money to a public charity like American Enterprise Institute.

Richard Mellon Scaife: Please Call Me for a Free No Obligation Morals Consultation

Washington Post:

Why a billionaire would shack up at Doug's Motel, of all places, is a mystery.

For Scaife's role in funding the family values right see Right Web and SourceWatch. Tiny Revolution cites a rude Mr. Scaife putting down a reporter.  I guess my issue is not the human frailty evident in the story but the way some billioniares use think thank to push an agenda. Joel Orosz has taught us that working in a foundation the staff's daily goal is (sadly enough) not to embarass funders or boards.  Can you imagine being a real thinker, someone with intellectual integrity, who worked at, say, Heritage, or Cato, or AEI, Hoover, or Hudson  and had to worry about an essay or article possibly embarassing this character?  What a shame that the intellectual life of a nation, and its public policy, runs across the desk of funders so frail.  I am sure therapists and doctors and attorneys and personal trainers and tennis coaches  and interior decorators and plastic surgeons and publicists, let alone private detectives,  abound in the world of Richard Mellon Scaife, but whoever serves as his Morals Tutor has let the side down. 

The Shock Doctrine Website

The Shock Doctrine Website  is more than a promotional tool for Naomi Klein's new book, it is a resource for librarians, journalists, bloggers and other readers who want to delve down into the supporting documentation on "Disaster Capitalism."

Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy

Charlie Savage connects the dots from Nixon to Cheney and the sweeping changes in our constitutional form of government, changes that seem to pass largely unnoticed by the media or the average citizen.  We know how we got our constitutional form of government. We know how we lost it, or a lot of it.  How do we get it back? Is that where philanthropy comes in - or not?  I agree with Charlie that this is not a Red/Blue issue, it is a Red, White, and Blue issue that should concern every sentient American.

More here on how the press failed us.