Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Food For Thought

As we watch thousands of our youth riot, vandalize, burn buildings and beat up strangers with an ideological excuse I can’t help but wonder how many of them took psychoactive drugs as children. Psychiatrists invent syndromes while Big Pharma produces drugs for them. Often it is hard to distinguish between what came first, the drug or the syndrome? But with the social work and education establishment behind them we drugged a generation with damage to their brains only to be documented at some future date. Has that date come?

Most of the crazed mass shooters of the past several years were on psychoactive drugs. However here we are dealing with large numbers of people not unbalanced enough to act that crazy on their own. But with exploitative leadership and a seductive ideology did the drug damage become the key recruitment factor? I don’t know and I can’t prove it one way or the other. But I can’t stop thinking about it either.

Another thought food is Native American sovereignty. Years ago I read that Native Americans wanted to establish an international banking haven (think Grad Cayman Islands, Bermuda, etc) in North Dakota.  It’s always strange when you read about something that seems important and then never hear about it again.  Was the article fake news or was the story suppressed?  I don’t know the details of Native American sovereignty, but if it was legal or not it just wasn’t going to happen. Were casinos the pay off in a deal?

Many of you may be aware of Occidental College due to its former students such as Jack Kemp and Barack Obama. I attended several evening events there when I lived in LA. They always started at 8:05 pm because at one time a noisy train rambled nearby at 8 pm. But after the railroad ceased the decision makers decided to keep the 8:05 start time. They felt that tradition, in and of itself, had value. Current events have caused me to think a lot about their attitude.

Copyright 2020, Mark L. Bennett

Monday, July 20, 2020

Power Increasingly Concentrates

https://nypost.com/2020/07/09/17-nyc-catholic-schools-will-close-due-to-covid-19/

I read the above with alarm. Catholic schools are not only often the best schools available; they are often the only alternative schools available for many lower income, intercity children. Related to this I want to share a story. I grew up in the sputnik/we better have exceptionable schools era. People in Buffalo were familiar with the Bronx High School of Science and other schools in New York City. But Buffalo was a fraction of the size of New York City with the city schools serving about half the population and about a half dozen suburban districts serving the rest. No district had the resources for specialized schools. But the Catholic schools covered the whole area and decided to open a school for geniuses. They gave entry exams and many of those that qualified were Jewish.  Since religious instruction was required they added a rabbi to their faculty.       

But the above is a background story about the growing concentration of power. While a specific school was the project, the greater significance is the existence of a group with resources and some power separate from expansive government and the mega corporations. Warren Buffet represents another somewhat independent source of power. Putting his politics aside, he has traditionally invested domestically and in basic industry. I like that.

The ongoing lockdown has accelerated the concentration of power by so many orders of magnitude that we can’t even currently comprehend it. Both small and large businesses are going under so rapidly that I get confused between the daily news and the science fiction I read as a teen anger.  The Walmarts and Home Depots are thriving. But this process is far more than a news item, it has and will affect us increasingly on a daily level, lockdown or not.

Those of us who post on Facebook know all too well of their censorship and usage suspensions in Facebook jail. Many claim Google search can sway elections. Anyone interested can find   more examples of the media giants and their agenda quite easily. One upon a time, before radio, etc, the average city had about five newspapers. Everyone freely debated their future there.

Along with Facebook, I use Microsoft Word daily. I will type in a word and Microsoft tells me it’s misspelled or that it’s not a word. Upon looking it up, I learn that’s it’s a word and that it’s spelled correctly. The primary system of most written communication today follows a seemingly deliberate plan of dumbing us down. This fits nicely with Gates’ role in Common Core and vaccinations. Read about his deadly experiments with children in India.

I experimented with what could have been a lucrative business on the eBay/PayPal combine. On a cash basis I made some money, but even if being paid $10 an hour I lost money because my time was consumed trying to mitigate their thievery. EBay would mysteriously make charges on my credit card account without my consent.  When I denied and reversed those charges they did the same thing with another credit card of mine. Companies get away with this because you have probably consented with a click. If you question them you get answers like its on page 83, paragraph 5, section 63X. Unless you took a few days off from other activities to study the agreement and perhaps hired a consulting attorney, your click agreed you to be ripped off.

PayPal would refuse to send me my money. During one horrendous phone conversation they produced a list of former addresses and asked me if I had lived there. Like eBay, they had immediate access to all data about me. And the above are just highlights of their thievery.  The fact that I had a 100 % satisfaction rating from my customers was irrelevant to them. For certain items I tried a specialized sales site, but they also required the PayPal monopoly for payment. While undoubtedly others have suffered as I have, PayPal stock is soaring. It’s probably a shrewd bet on the New World Order cashless society. The Globalists are winning.

Despite the many complaints, including Congressional hearing on social media concentration and censorship, one needs to understand the underlying background of scale.  The number of computer chip manufacturers is surprisingly small. The more sophisticated and expensive production is the fewer participants are possible. Not that terribly long ago in the span of human history you would go to a tailor for a pair of pants. You would be measured and fabric cut by hand. The industrial revolution created the sewing machine which was later electrified. Clothes became made in factories/sweat shops with the fabric cut 10 bolts deep with a band saw like machine. But they pulled at the fabric limiting their capacity with bolt or two being cut a bit shorter. Some of you may remember trying on a pair of jeans, then grabbing another pair the same size and having the clerk tell you to try on the second pair.  They understood the production process. Today laser beams cut fabric in vastly higher quantities.

The more efficient the technology is the greater the scale and minimum investment required. Most people would be frightened to learn how few factories actually produce all the semiconductor chips the world now depends on. While monopolies and public utilities can be regulated are social media a business service or a first amendment protected news media? The hearings on Capitol Hill appear inconclusive.

I have no prognostications, only fears.  Given the technologically driven monopolies or semi-monopolies plus the pandemic and mobs burning businesses, the free enterprise system is in danger. And while capital, as in Capitalism, is critically important and should be available it is useless without innovation.  The free enterprise system means the right to freely enterprise.  The less restrictions you put on somebody, the more likely their innovation will become reality and benefit many. I don’t see it as more complex than that. The rest is all intellectuals talking to each other.

Copyright 2020, Mark L. Bennett 

 

 


Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Some Quick Current Observations

Many have said, I included, that we live in ahistoric times.  Certainly this jubilation over work-at-home as a great new innovation exhibits that. Being able to go home from work was one of the greatest liberations in human history.  Envision life a few hundred years ago. The peasants lived on the land, the artisans and merchants lived in their shops and the feudal lord’s castle was also their offices. How many of you know of shopkeepers, just a few generations ago, that were enslaved to long hours and often six day weeks? But perhaps this pandemic-induced change will endure. My fear is making that decision blindly, ignoring our historic experience. Cracks are already beginning: https://miami.cbslocal.com/2020/07/01/fsu-bars-employees-work-from-home-care-kids/

Frequent headlines announce people and businesses fleeing high tax/over regulated places like California for more business-friendly places like Arizona. But what about future water supply? While I share their motives, I personally wouldn’t move to a place with scarce water. Perhaps this story is a harbinger: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/climate/southwest-megadrought-climate-change.html

This new obsession with racism, real or imagined, has been persuasive enough to affect me. Suddenly I find myself reediting my past. Rather than remembering the people I’ve known for who they are, its now whether they were black or not.  Of course, this is the opposite of what is supposedly intended. This new attitude and resulting chaos reflected in many of our communities has produced a justifiable outrage. I share that sentiment, along with the fear of what is unfolding with those proposing and sometimes engaging in counter violence.

Aside from the obvious horror and replay of Germany in the late 1920’s, don’t they see that they are just playing into their hands? This series of events with predicable counter events, only unfolds the desired dialectic for globalist control. Blood in the streets is not a good omen.   As Brandon Smith said: “Becoming a monster to fight the monster is the same as losing.” http://www.alt-market.com/index.php/articles/4268-is-america-heading-for-civil-war-of-course-it-is

They say politics is the art of the possible. It is probably possible to get a bill through Congress requiring all goods to be labeled as to country of origin. Not only the physical goods received, but via the means of purchase. Amazon just says “imported” on their descriptions. I don’t want to support Muslim or Chinese terror. Never forget the importance of the votes we cast when we purchase. I still find this common sense despite the current boycott and buycott mania.

Endnote: I didn’t cite the three articles above because I was promoting them or fully agree with them. But hopefully they contribute to our needed conversation.

Copyright 2020, Mark L. Bennett


Friday, May 15, 2020

Outspoken Scott Williams

For several years I have conducted an attempted conversation with Ione’s Scott Williams. In the context of a discussion the of state capital anti lock down demonstration on the FB page entitled “District 2 Politics, Suggestions, and Information” he  made the following statement: “Kind of like the next incarnation of the Tea Party, which was actually a continuation of the John Birch Society, which may have been an extension of the KKK. Timing is about right, as is philosophy.” Since I like challenging, or in this case perhaps, impossible tasks...I will attempt to educate Scott Williams and counter his ignorant remarks.

 Firstly, there were two KKK’s. The first was a self defense organization of locals during the reconstruction period. Many historians consider it to have been a valid, necessary and responsible organization. The second KKK is the vile anti-black, anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic organization with remnants still around today. They were morally empowered by progressive Woodrow Wilson’s membership that many claim lead to the Tulsa riots of 1921. Many white people drove to the ghetto, risking their lives, to save black people and then hide them in their homes. How much credit are they given in the current left wing renditions of history? The Klan blacklisted them along with threats of murder.

The John Birch Society was an upper class reaction and seemingly WASP group that included leaders of dubious distinction such as the Koch brothers,along with very credible people such as William Buckley, Jr. He was appalled by the prejudice against his Catholicism and also credited by many as opposing anti-Semitism among conservatives. But whatever one thinks of the Birch Society, their calls such as exit the United Nations has proved pubescent.

The Tea Parties were a mass, populist uprising to the Obama tyranny. Muslim appeasement, anti-Christian maneuvers, under the table but devastating changes in government procedures such as changing the question on the citizenship exam from freedom of religion (American style) to freedom of worship (Soviet style), severe over regulation including usurpation of not granted powers best exhibited with the Pebble Bay EIR, politicizing government agencies into Gestapo type organizations including the Justice Dept., increasing the Federal deficit to unconscionable levels,and many more that I can only list if I decide to allow myself to get sick. Larry Elder, a black man, was a Tea Party leader in Los Angeles while Mark Meckler, a Jew, was a founder of Northern California’s Tea Party Patriots. This is quite different than the Birch demographic and a radical opposite of the Klan.

There is vast diversity among those right of center as there is among those left of center. To believe otherwise is not only ignorant, but also dangerous because it precludes understanding, responsible thought and concomitant, sensible proposals.

Just prior to the above in the same discussion I answered that corrosive comment with:  “I’ve said this before about you and I will repeat it. You seem to take an 1890’s muck raking novel and blindly apply it to Amador County as a template. A few years ago you commented that Pine Grove being in three supervisorial districts is likely the result of gerrymandering. A few decades ago, Pine Grove setup a Community Services District to manage the new group septic system. By custom and probably by law,a Community Services District has to be within one supervisorial district. (That’s called commonsense and functional democracy) The group septic system is good for the environment (remember that there is a creek behind the shops on the south side of Hwy 88) and good for small businesses by relieving them of separate septic systems and their maintenance. It was a consensus project with no known opposition.
But you don’t check before you speak. You once made the comment that there are plenty of jobs in Amador County based on a cursory look at the Ledger. If you actually read those ads, you would notice that they are almost all specialized and affect a tiny number of possible applicants. You have opposed the Newman Ridge project based on your statement: “All that pollution for just nine jobs” I read the complete EIR, that pollution is minimal to nonexistent. How about some facts? The average skilled wage job supports two and a half people. Plus the increased retail employment and sales tax revenue. How about the andesite produced for stronger roadbeds? The recycling of older roadbed materials? The cost lowering nearness of hot mix that will help repair our roads at no additional cost? The property tax revenue to the County? The needed traffic on our railroad to sustain it for the future? To oppose Newman Ridge is a dead wish for our County. You make (or post) snap judgments rather than think critically. I may not be as vociferous as some commentators here, but I can be just as upset.

Did you support the candidate that opposed Brian Oneto in the last election? I went to every forum/debate of that election. That candidate had no rapport with the audience and made no eye contact with them. She frightened me as a possible elected official; totally separate from her various positions.”

He never responded with direct statements to any of my posting nor has he justified his unsubstantiated statements .In 2016, I posted here: “Scott Williams, Citizen Extraordinaire."

Over the course of many local Facebook discussions I have become familiar with a denizen of Ione named Scott Williams. He writes well and seems intelligent. But all his statements and responses have a cookie cutter quality. After a while they become banal; it’s as if I could write his dialogue in less time than it takes to read it. Then a possible explanation occurred to me, he has read too many 1890’s muckraking novels and has applied them carte blanche, as a template, upon Amador County. 

He comments resonant to that prior reality with often very little attachment to the present day. He has stated that our county supervisors lack accountability. Has he seen them interact with constituents’ during the open comment period at board meetings? Has he emailed or called any of them?  His insults to two of our supervisors were so unwarranted that a scripted agenda seems the only answer. He asserted that the supervisorial districts were gerrymandered without any factual basis. He questions the validity of ag zoning around Ione related to Newman Ridge while ignoring the obvious that the General Plan is general. Ag zoning around a town is a holding zoning. To rezone for industry or dense residential would unfairly raise the value of one parcel over another. The taxing consequences would be akin to an inverse condemnation.  Overzoning has been a frequent and sometimes accurate criticism of the environmentalists.

He feels that predatory power companies are the reasons behind resistance to solar. While that is true he neglects the rest of the equation which includes big labor opposing rooftop solar in favor of mega projects with Davis-Beacon style wages and sometimes environmental damage. But if you question his answers he will usually attack rather than discuss. Pushing his beliefs far outweigh finding a solution. He claims that Amador County is secretly ruled by an old boy’s network. Probably it appears that way to his perception. When I moved here as a total stranger I was warmly welcomed by the old timers. Probably that was because I liked it the way it was when I moved here and didn’t enter in an attack mode telling others how to live or govern themselves.”

Along with the above history, there is much more to the recent FB discussions with Scott that merit rebuttal, but I’ve made my point.

Note: The movie, Birth of a Nation (about the first Klan), is considered by many as the anthem of the current Klan. But remember that D.W. Griffith was a liberal who founded United Artists with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin to be free from the studio system.  The film historian I studied under, who wrote the now standard text on Hollywood history, said Birth of a Nation was edited into the released version against Griffith’s wishes.  I don’t claim to be the final word on this, but it’s certainly worth further study. Griffith’s next film, Intolerance, was according to some a response to what he felt was unjust criticism of Birth of a Nation.

Copyright 2020, Mark L. Bennett        


Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Dark Skies and Dark Attitudes


I spoke at the 2/11/20 Planning Commission hearing on the proposed dark skies ordinance and made the following remarks:

Since our founding, we’ve had a tradition in America of housing ourselves in what we could afford.  The frontier log cabin was expanded as the economy grew. This “add-on” tradition can be seen today in places like San Mateo, as the basic homes of the post war suburbs become enlarged for the more affluent of Silicon Valley. This tradition also occurred when New York City absorbed massive immigration and tenements were built. They were modest, but safe and sanitary. As the clothing industry prospered the minimum standards were raised into what is called the new law tenement.

But about 40 years ago we discarded our heritage. People whose feet seem to be off the ground and who often substitute intellectualism for reality began promoting an upper middle class home for everyone. Areas were down-zoned, with housing developments cancelled.  Codes, requirements and restrictions multiplied. Housing costs soared. Many younger people today have given up the American dream of home ownership. But for others, it means being camped out somewhere or living on the streets. Many of these homeless die there while breeding contagious diseases that affect others. 

This didn’t happen suddenly. It was a little bit by another little bit and always justified by noble ideals. The Dark Skies proposal is another little bit. I oppose this and anything else that unnecessarily raises the cost of housing. We need less, not more, regulation and government control. But there is nothing wrong with ideas like downward facing lights. Certainly, it is someone’s right to chose this lighting style. The dark skies proponents could institute an education campaign. But raising the cost of housing and the further enlargement of government that Dark Skies includes is what I strongly oppose.

Mark Bennett
Pine Grove

Monday, November 11, 2019

Some Thoughts About Socialism

Someone I knew from communist Hungry worked for many years in the office of a vineyard. Everyone was paid the same,and no one could get fired. As a result of the drudgery and banalness, they held contests. At noon, everyone was surveyed. One would say I looked busy all morning and wrote two paragraphs. Pretty good would say another, but I wrote only one paragraph. Then another chimed in saying I wrote only one sentence this morning. They were declared the winner and everyone else chipped in and bought them lunch.

A goodwill tour of the Moscow shocked an American transit official (he was also a retired Air Force colonel and should have, to my mind, known better). All their buses had short life spans and sloppy maintenance. He expected Communism’s puritan quality to lead to a very different outcome.  But there was no bottom line or Judgment Day. (Stalin did have a puritan streak. He edited out the milk maid scene in Dovzhenko’s Earth as too exotic.) 

People like to achieve. If they didn’t we’d all be living in caves and wearing animal skins. To those of faith this achievement is often more inner than outer. But the desire to achieve, to take pride in one’s work, is often about the inner peace of contributing more than merely wealth or fame. If one were to criticize my perspective, they may point to the great scientists of Soviet Russia. Fortunately, there are always individuals like that. However, that doesn’t relate to the vast majority of everyday people and their sense of satisfaction.

But tragedies like the massive cave-ins of apartment buildings in Soviet built Armenia during an earthquake brutally affect everyone. When there are no checks and balances it becomes the short term solution of all participants to cover up. Socialism, or one party rule in much of America, bases itself on these unitary or cohabiting institutions. Many people on both the Left and on the Right agree that we live in an oligopoly. Apologists for our current arrangement point to our abundant consumer choices. We shop at Walmart instead of Sears. We stream movies rather than wait in theatre lines. But is this just an illusion of control while real power lies elsewhere?

While the FAA may finally correct shoddy Boeing software, why did they approve it in the first place? Our Public Utilities Commission allowed PG&E’s negligent maintenance. The Left is now proposing a government takeover of PG&E.  This may be as efficient as California high speed rail construction.

I wonder if people really understand what they are getting into.  Some time ago it was suggested that the giant public pension funds buy large corporations with annuity like income streams. This came closest to fruition when the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan proposed buying Bell Canada. What if all the telephone line workers got cancer from PCB’s in the equipment? Normally the stockholders lose as the company is liquated to pay the injured their claims. How would a situation of the school teachers vs. telephone line workers play out? Would the teachers have their pensions threatened? Would there be an incentive to cover up? Would the union movement’s slogan of solidarity take on a new meaning? 

Are these predicaments a parable of our present day and especially in California?

Copyright 2019, Mark L. Bennett

Friday, October 18, 2019

Define Historic Preservation?


On the surface this sounds like a silly question. No one is proposing tearing down Independence Hall, the Old North Church, the California Missions or Casa Grande. Where I live in the Mother Lode, everyone would be appalled if historic Jackson or Sutter Creek were threatened. Nationally, there has been recent vandalism of statues of those judged politically incorrect by some. And, of course, the historic preservation movement has its lunatic fringe. But that’s human nature and says nothing substantive about historic preservation.

This article is not about political vandalism or the antics of fringe folks. But it is about soliciting opinion on an issue that has troubled me for years. Several decades ago, I was a consultant to the [then] Santa Monica Mountains Comprehensive Planning Commission. Governor Ronald Reagan approved the sale of the 20th Century Fox property, turning it into Malibu Creek State Park. This was to be the genesis of the much larger Santa Monica National Recreation Area which is now a national park service facility. While my consulting was limited to public transit, I did observe the facility’s evolution and have been troubled ever since.

It was decided to preserve remnants of Native American villages without, to my knowledge, any opposition. But the remains of movie sets, including a Chinese village from Steve McQueen’s The Sand Pebbles were destroyed. Certainly some would argue that these were temporary structures prone to quick decay. That danger is real, but how is this different from many other protected ruins? And perhaps the studio didn’t want us to see how they fake things. But I believe that movie making is part of our heritage just like Native American settlements and that the movie sets should have also been preserved. What do others think?

Endnote: The park’s website states under Historic Archeological Materials that their museum includes “…historic archeological material from historic sites related to ranching, homesteading, agriculture, space technology, filming and recreation.”  To what extent and with what commentary the movie sets are documented I have no idea.

Copyright 2019, Mark L. Bennett