6-22-05
Well written! Norm,

Hit the bulls-eye.

Much of humanity have lost their way and now do worship man-made creations, particularly the nation-state and money, which not only distorts but puts completely off track humans connection to the Infinite. When that connection to the Ground of Being is severed, there's Hell to pay on Earth with social institutions that men build. Fortunately, individuals do not have to rely on other humans to stay connected to this Link; this power has been bestowed upon us all, and it probably ultimately defines what being human is. We can also stay linked or link back up as a social group through servant leadership dedicated to this Ultimate Reality as you have pointed out before.

Keep aiming those arrows at the heart of the matter. Thanks for helping describe a feeling--what is nearly impossible to communicate in our word-symbols language~~Nemo
___________________
On Jun 22, 2005, at 7:11 PM, Norman G. Kurland wrote:

Dear Moin,

You point out a fatal flaw that is inherent in the modern nation-state system, a system where the nation-state has acquired a higher level of sovereignty that that of the Creator or that of any of the human beings governed by the nation-state. Another way of saying the same thing, is that humanity now worships man-made creations, like the nation-state and money, thus subverting the natural hierarchy of the Source of all Creation and the Creator's relationship to each human person and as the ultimate source of universal principles of justice and fundamental human rights.

The evolving nation-state system, having subordinated the Creator and human beings to the unnatural sovereignty of the "collective", left humanity in a constant struggle with one another, as reflected by wars, revolutions, terrorism, rising crime rates and other manifestations of some trying to dominate others. Thus, when most people talk about new models of nation-building, even when they use the cover of "Abraham" as the "father of all nations," their "federation" models remain within the zero-sum framework of the traditional nation-state system, setting group against group, each trying to dominate others in the federation.

None of these federation models put God or Allah on top, the individual human person next, and the nation-state and all other human artifacts (including laws, institutions and money systems) subordinate to the Creator and the inherent sovereignty of each human person. With the chaos so prevalent in today's world, we now have an opportunity to restore the natural hierarchy sovereignty that can bring peace through justice to the world.

The Abraham Federation I have proposed for Iraq and other troubled global territories is described at

http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/regional-global/abrahamfederation-iraq.html

The system would be structured on a form of sovereignty envisioned by America's founders, but never fully realized and eventually perverted by scholars ignorant of their original intent and commitment to natural law principles.

This original intent can be found through a careful reading of the American Constitution and Bill of Rights, especially the long-ignored Ninth Amendment that reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights [accruing to the States and the three branches of the Federal Government], shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This provision recognized natural law rights (i.e., rights created by God or Allah) that preceded the invention of any form of governance by human beings. Such God-given rights were in the words of John Locke "Life, Liberty and Property." The Declaration of Independence clearly stated that "unalienable rights" were endowed to humans by "their Creator", not rights that man gave to man or any government gave to humans, each of whom were "created equal."

George Mason, the father of the American Bill of Rights, wrote (before Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence) in the Virginia Declaration of Rights that "all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity, namely the enjoyment of life, liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

If these are expressions of natural law, then it should be clear that the sovereignty of every human person should rest at a higher level than the sovereignty of any form of government, that only the Creator of all human beings has a higher sovereignty than any individual, and that government must exist only with the consent of the governed and should serve only as a human artifact or social prop to enable each person to enjoy his or her God-given rights and to have a direct personal relationship to the Creator independent of any human or institutional intermediary or other social props.

The paper above rejects the artificial two-state solutions and offers an architecture that can unite highly diverse people and groups because it is based on a post-scarcity growth vision in which every man, woman and child (especially women) are afforded equal rights to acquire and possess modern wealth-producing assets to meet their materials needs and to liberate them from the cancer of the global wage slave system.

There's nothing utopic about the Abraham Federation model. It can be applied anywhere, even in the United States, or for that matter globally. All it takes are leaders who are committed to justice for the least of the least and have the courage to do what's right.

In Peace through Justice,
Norm

Moinansari@aol.com wrote:
TWO STATE SOLUTION, BI-NATIONAL STATE vs. TWO 2 NATION THEORY (snipped)

This is the status of government "corporations" in our current monopolistic capitalistic system--

Yesterday, I went to my local U.S. post office (USPS) and tried to mail a package that I had accidentally put in an old USPS Priority Mail box (reusing--one of the best ways to recycle).

"That'll have to go priority mail," she snapped.

"But I don't want it to go priority mail," I said. "All I need is ground delivery."

"Well, that's impossible with the box you've used." She glanced at the address. "Oh, I see it's going to Canada. We don't do priority mail to Canada, so I can't accept your package."

I appealed with a compelling look, but she just waved me away from her counter.

So here I am, a customer, willing to pay real money for a service, and I was being turned away.

I drove down the street to a locally-owned postal annex (Copy Express in Orchards, WA) and presented my package. "Could I get this shipped via ground to Canada?" I asked.

"No problem," the cute girl said. I explained my earlier experience with the USPS. "I'll just wrap your package in brown paper--it won't be a problem," she said smiling.

So not ten minutes later Copy Express had my $10 and my package was headed off to our neighbors to the North.

Obviously--a foil to government "corporations" like the USPS are public corporations. With a private incentive motivated by profit, they're going to be much more efficient--and not rely on us taxpayers to fund inefficient operations.

But corporations got their own scam going. Through state securities laws that were written eons ago, corporate power is slanted heavily to the original people who created the company, which somehow gets extended to non-owner "professional management" who take over when the company is sold.

So all the efficiencies of corporate entities are heavily degraded because management steers most of the wealth workers and customers create into their own pockets through various legal stock maneuverings, i.e. stock grants, options, pension stock tie-ins, etc.

One way to reform how corporate power is organized and wielded is for new state legislation to be enacted allowing for corporations to be formed as CICs--Community Investment Corporations. Another concept to address unchecked corporate power is Capital Homesteading.

Want to get some education on CICs and Capital Homesteading?--visit the Center for Economic and Social Justice

I attended an Alaska Airlines employee meeting which was held just prior to the AAG, Inc. stockholders meeting in May.

It was a pretty intense meeting, as almost 500 ramp jobs had just been eliminated, and the Alaska pilots had just taken an almost 30% pay cut ordered by an arbitration procedure. In other words, the sad economic reality of the U.S. airline business had finally whacked Alaska workers upside the face--the first time since the industry really tanked after 9-11.

I managed to get in my shtick for the Ownership Union, how we had run candidates in the last three year director elections at the AAG (including two AAG line workers), and how, if people were serious, annual attempts to get worker representation at the highest level of power could help better orchestrate painful changes that had to be made to make Alaska Airlines more competitive in the post-terrorism age market.

I think I connected with a lot of the people there in helping them see that our corporate structures are entrenched in an US vs. THEM way of operation and governance, and how if we didn't change that we were pretty much doomed. Why? Because there are an ample number of companies whose stakeholders see these problems, have begun to address them, and will bury those companies who keep wearing their Alice in Wonderland bonnets.

I thought it was interesting listening to one Alaska pilot who speaking to the group said whenever referring to the company airliner he was flying, "MY airplane."

I found out later that he was not a stockholder and held no ownership of his employer whatsoever. Yet subconsciously his being instinctively identified with what we all know and can feel if we open up to it--life is full of "that's mine." When I'm intimately connected to something it feels a part of me.

But Boeing 737s cost well over $50 million. None of us, even a fairly large group--say, 5,000 people--can afford to buy one to start a new company or grow an existing one. The only way it can be done is through the genius of the corporation and the way various securities instruments can be applied. Men and women who lived in the past created these methods because they faced the same problems all humans do in regards to creating and maintaining a just monetary system that is essential to a vibrant economy--and they gave us something to work with! bless their hearts.

But you can't access this system from the outside like so much of Organized Labor insists on doing. Merely observing doesn't cut it (in life, if you only watch and don't participate or engage Life, I believe you meet the technical definition of really being dead...you might want to check for a pulse.) We have to get into it--which means becoming an owner. Only then can our social institutions catch up with human instinct and justice.

In order to have an energetic, dynamic company that can deal with any and all matter of complexity that comes flying at us from every atom of the atmosphere, we have to share in how it's owned--which means we share not just in the rewards, but the RISKS. And we all share in the important responsibility of FIXING what's not working in our corporate structures, which also means FIXING governmental institutions, because the two are attached at the hip. And if you have a better idea on how to FIX ailing economic and social institutions, you have a DUTY to communicate how your plan is better.

To do otherwise plays us out to be fools... And if you don't believe that, just look at the attitude and performance of the people you work with. Are they happy? are they loving? are they compassionate? are they really alive? in the workplace?

We gotta lot of work left to do. How 'bout we roll up our blouse and shirt sleeves and get to it?

The world is a double pyramid paradox of two reverse mirror image pyramids one on top and inside of the other, the tips touching the base of its opposite. The bottom pyramid is the "Humanity Pyramid." It is made up of people, at the base are hundreds of millions of human beings clawing and scratching to survive. Upwards there are fewer and fewer people at each level with more room between each of them.

The upside down pyramid that occupies the same space and time is the "Reward Pyramid." Only its tip reaches the masses at the base of the human pyramid, and it is this minuscule portion that these people must compete for to survive on. At each level as you go upward, fewer and fewer people are sharing in the greater and greater reward. The progression is geometric.

What is the difference between the individuals at the various levels? The only difference is what they believe about themselves.

This paradox, this container that holds more on the inside than on the outside, that simultaneously occupies the same time and space as its reverse mirror vessel is truly odd in that the competition between the individuals at each higher level is less intense, requires less effort, requires less talent, and less ability than the level below them. What does God say? "Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will be opened! You only have to ask and believe." You will act or be acted upon.

As always, your response is requested.

Richard

Robert Samuelson tried to address this question in his article "The Curse of Cheap Credit?" (6/2/05).  Unfortunately, he fell into the trap of conventional economic thinking on credit and interest policies of the Fed, issues that Alan Greenspan has now admitted is a "conundrum"?  Is cheap credit a curse threatening the U.S. economy with the kind of speculative bubble that collapsed overheated real estate and security prices in the Japanese economy a few years ago.

What the gurus of monetary policy don't yet see is that there is a fundamental difference between credit and money supplied for self-liquidating productive purposes (i.e. supply-side credit for feasible capital projects) and credit and money supplied for non-productive, speculative or even destructive purposes (i.e., consumer credit, credit for gambling and speculating in existing securities and assets and most government budget deficits).  The first increases the production of marketable and services.  The second increases consumption incomes (demand) without a corresponding increase in productive output (supply). 

Failing to respect this distinction, those in charge of the money supply and credit allocations fail to offer interest rate policies that would encourage credit for acquiring supply-side or procreative capital (ideally with widespread citizen access) and discourage the usurious forms of non-productive credit. They are blind to the difference between investment and speculation.  The systemic solution missed by these monetary gurus was first described by Harold Moulton, the former president of Brookings Institution, in his book The Formation of Capital (1935) and refined by Louis O. Kelso and the growing circle of Kelsonian binary economists around the world.  For a paper published by the scholarly journal The Journal of Socio-Economics, "A New Look at Prices and Money: The Kelsonian Binary Solution for Achieving Growth Without Inflation", click on http://www.cesj.org/binaryeconomics/price-money.html.  Then read Alan Greenspan's response to this solution at http://www.cesj.org/reference/exchanges/greenspan-fed95.html.

Norman Kurland, J.D., President
Center for Economic and Social Justice

What are the systemic moral flaws that might help us win the war against (or at least radically reduce) global terrorism?  Bob Crane, a prolific writer and director of global strategy of the newly-organized Institute for Peace through Justice, in the following passages from his new article has put his finger on the point missed by most policy analysts on the subject.  I thought you you might find interesting his radically centrist views on the issue of terrorism--Norm Kurland, Center for Economic and Social Justice | www.cesj.org

June 2, 2005

Taproot to Terrorism
by Dr. Robert Dickson Crane

I. Scorpions in a Bottle

Two days after 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked to explain what caused it. His simple answer was that the world is full of people who are trapped in dire poverty and political oppression. 

This was a natural explanation by a man who joined the Nixon Administration in 1969 by choosing to head the anti-poverty agency, the Office of Economic Opportunity. As one of his two deputies, my job was to Nixonize the OEO by replacing the paradigm of welfare and wage-slavery by a new paradigm of entrepreneurial ownership. The task was not to combat poverty, which is impossible, but to produce prosperity as the only way to overcome it.

The larger task for traditional conservatives at both the national and global levels was best exemplified by Ronald Reagan’s call for a “Second American Revolution.”   In 1985, he responded to a Congressional resolution to form the Presidential Task Force on Economic Justice, in which I was chairman of the Financial Markets Committee, in order to transform the institutions of society, including the entire system of money and credit, so that they would reduce the wealth gap rather than increase it, and so that economic democracy would make possible the political democracy that the peoples of the world wanted and deserved.  In his first major foreign policy address, onFebruary 22, 1983, to celebrate the birthday of his predecessor, George Washington, President Reagan urged American policy-makers, both Republican and Democrat, to recognize, as he put it, “the central focus of politics – the minds, hearts, sympathies, fears, hopes, and aspirations not of governments, but of people – the global electorate.”

The real causes of terrorism are not poverty and oppression per se, but rather the bankruptcy of materialist ideologies, like Neo-Conservatism, which promise much but deliver little. The central doctrine of Neo-Conservatism is “democratic capitalism.” This is the ultimate oxymoron, because in practice the political pluralism that should underlie democracy cannot exist in a climate of economic plutocracy. Political monopoly and economic monopoly are two sides of the same coin, two heads of the same monster. 

Despite all the claims to the contrary, the essential ideology of Neo-Conservatism is to preserve the status quo, with all of its injustices. Its public relations experts call for “freedom and democracy” without a framework of higher values. They fail to comprehend the need for a paradigm of justice and therefore are blind to what concerns most of the people in the world. This failure is the taproot of terrorism.

Terrorism has arisen as the new threat to civilization because the “terrorists” know that all the dominant paradigms of the twentieth century are bankrupt. In their hopeless rage they will not consider even the possibility of anything else, other than their own blind rampage of destruction. What they do not know is that they are creatures of this bankruptcy. They are part of the problem, not of the solution. Terrorists are products of Western cultural disintegration, even though they will die for the illusion that they are not. 

The roots of terrorism predate the so-called “Islamic” phenomenon.  This is brilliantly explained in Abdul Hakim Murad’s article, “Bombing without Moonlight: The Origins of Suicidal Terrorism.” In a companion article, entitled “The Mechanics of Terror,” in the Spring 2005 issue of Islamica, published in Jordan, Jibril Hambel writes: “The actual root cause is the real or imagined failure of a code of beliefs or set of social conditions, [which has produced] a moral/ethical/philosophical vacuum that self-styled reformers and modern-day prophets feel compelled to redress.”  

This phenomenon can be observed during the last hundred years in a succession of failed ideologies, ranging from Communism, to Nazism, to apocalyptic Zionism and Wahhabi polytheism, to American Neo-Conservatism. The failure of movements for freedom and democracy without a higher framework of transcendent justice exposes their followers to the hollowness of their own values and to the contradictions in their own hopes. They resort to nihilistic violence in order to show commitment to the values they lack. Further failure only escalates the vicious cycle.

Ignorance of the true solution taught by all the Prophets is why terrorists resort to terror and why their targets resort to terrorist counter-terrorism. They have no alternative but to destroy each other and themselves in the process, like scorpions in a bottle.

II. From Tolerance to Pluralism?

Fortunately, a great number of recent books by major American scholars address the real causes of terrorism, though few of these consciously do so. (remainder snipped...)

There is too much evidence of the inter-connectivity of the Universe. For the Native American people they have understood this for a long time. For modern man, the evidence comes from a smaller misunderstood tribe also known as physicists. The proof comes from quantum mechanics.

Let us say we take two light photons emit them from a laser beam traveling in opposite directions at the speed of light. Now we decide to change one of them slightly at any place along its path, by precisely measuring it at one location. What the physicist found is that the other photon changed in the same way as though the first had communicated with the second. They have done the test over and over again and it looks as though the two photons are sending messages back and forth to each other (perhaps being connected in some way). This phenomenon can be easily demonstrated over a distance that can span a few meters or a distance of a billion light years (it doesn’t matter). Once more, it all happens simultaneously as though the message was sent faster than the speed of light. “How is that????” This of course is completely impossible (under Newtonian physics).

To go faster than the speed of light would mean those particles would have to have infinite mass.  So what the devil’s going on? The physicists are stumped.  Many of them doubt they will ever find a solution! Perhaps this is nature’s poetic revenge. Scientist can only understand reality by breaking the connections, isolating them and analyzing and breaking them down to the smallest parts.  Quantum physics finally found out that the smallest components of our Universe which are: photons, protons, and electrons, acted like particles in one experiment and waves in the next. These sub atomic particles would ripple, bend, and just interfere with themselves completely, thereby posing contradictions.

Furthermore, at the quantum level its the act of the observation (or perception of the observer), i.e. the measurement, which makes matter (or particles) decide how to behave. It seems to need our participation in some form or fashion in order to make the transition from one manifestation to the other. Why is it that we only see things solid and disconnected with each other when doing scientific analysis? This is just an illusion, or just one instance of a manifestation of a much larger order.

Think of the implications!!!! You can use a whole new mindset when looking at problems; perhaps we are just merely composed of energy and information at the Quantum level!--John Romano

Technology marches onward, like a disciplined army, computers relentlessly revolutionizing communication, transportation, business. One would think that technology would zipper-lock any doubts about the makeup of our physical world. Quantum theory suggests "Pardon me?" Technology has opened up portals into the subatomic underground, the world of atoms, electrons, protons and neutrons, a world alien to our trusty five senses. And it has stood on our bald spots everything we thought we ever knew.

With the increased capability to observe the sub-atomic, some startling revelations have forced us to withdraw from the depressing logic of space/time/motion predicting our futures--so why care? The old, Newtonian "we're-all slaves to a world of predictable forces" doesn't hold true in the microscopic realm. If anything, the ancient, Eastern mantra is as valid a description of any: God, Tao, the Life Force cannot be defined. The only thing that can be pointed at about reality is its endless streaming experiences of pure, undifferentiated "suchness" or "that-which-is." Don't despair. Can't define life or reality?--it can't be.

I suppose it's a bit ironic that Descartes/Newtonian physics, which has made science king for over three centuries, is primarily responsible for the Industrial Revolution that accelerated the new technologies that eventually undermined classical physics as the all-encompassing theory of it all.

Yet another example of the super-intelligence of life, I guess. What's important now is the emergence of quantum mechanics more accurately portraying humans as participants in a spontaneously-patterned dance, rather than isolated observers in a predestined fatalism, neatly-bow-tied by classic Newtonism.

Quantum mechanics has led us back to where we started as children--awe. Life is mysterious no matter how hard we try to trace it carefully on a piece of paper or package neatly in a box. Diagramming does not = living. Why not get on getting on? How much living can you really do in your mind, anyway?

Case in point: Experiments have proved that light is both particle-like and wave-like. It depends on how you measure it, how you interact with light.. The measurer makes a difference in the results. And no matter how much you want to measure everything--you can't. And in a way, why try? Everything you measure will be relative to how you measure. You're circling, which covers old ground.

You remember that first high school sweetheart that blushed your face purple? Whenever she looked at you (and you knew!) your behavior spontaneously and mysteriously changed. You couldn't do something as simple as sitting your butt gracefully in a chair.

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not--life is interaction and participation--and it functions regardless of you. Merely observing is a cop-out. You join the legions of the walking dead. By what we do reality will be constantly altered. Refuse to get involved because you think life is all dark and depressing? That decision is participating and will have intended and unintended results.

You can transcend yourself to reach the Infinite. A helluva journey. True happiness waits.
Posted on: June 5, 2005 7:57 AM

From: Steve Nieman <stevenieman@mac.com>
Date: Sun Jun 5, 2005 12:04:36 PM US/Pacific
To: splefka@Equiserve.com, alexa_j_hook@vanguard.com
Cc: Hagberg Carl T. <cthagberg@aol.com>, Foley Richard D. <rerailer@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Vanguard Notice of Challenger Proxy (Minor Revision)

Steve,

Appreciate you responding to my May 22, 2005 letter.

From your reply we concerned AAG 401(k)ers have learned a few things about how are plans are being administered, which I believe is our fundamental right.

We again are requesting further details (we did last year and came up empty) about the AAG 40(k) vote, such as how many shares were not voted? and what 401(k) shares were voted for the various ten director candidates?

Please tell me how to proceed with obtaining details of the 401(k) vote at the AAG this year. Thank you~~Steve

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Thursday, June 2, 2005, at 09:44 AM, splefka@Equiserve.com wrote:

Dear Mr. Nieman:

I am responding to your e-mail of May 22, 2005 concerning receipt of Vanguard's Notice to Participants of the Alaska Air Group,Inc. Plans (the "notice") to participants of the Alaska Air Group, Inc. Alaskasaver Plan, Alaska Airlines, Inc. COPS, MRP and Dispatch 401(k) Plan and Horizon Air Industries, Inc. Savings Investment Plan (the "plan participants").  We have researched this matter and have confirmed the following information:  

We confirmed with Vanguard that their printer delivered a total of 7,200 notices for the above plan participants.  The mailing manifest delivered to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) indicated that we mailed 6,894 plan participant proxy packages.  Based on these two figures, an excess quantity of 306 notices should have been in our possession after the mailing.  A count of the leftover notices revealed that we had slightly more than 306 notices after the mailing.  As a result of this and your notification that you and other plan participants did not receive the notice, it is apparent that there were some instances in which the notice was not enclosed with the proxy package to plan participants.  

While we cannot determine exactly how many plan participants failed to receive the notice, we estimate based on the above information that only approximately 1% of the entire plan participant population was effected.  We further verified against the mailing manifest delivered to the USPS that the weight of the proxy packages mailed to the plan participants was greater than the weight of the proxy package mailed to the registered shareholders.  The difference in the weight of the package is the result of the notice enclosed in the plan participant mailing.  While the number of plan participants effected is not insignificant, as indicated above, we are confident that this problem was limited to a small percentage of the plan participant population.  Despite our best efforts to process mailings flawlessly, things do not always go perfectly and undetected errors sometimes occur.  We are confident had this enclosing problem been more widespread, it would have been recognized and rectified.

With respect to plan participants receiving materials electronically, you are correct that originally these plan participants were not provided with a link to access the notice within the email that was sent to them containing the links to view Alaska Air Group's (AAG's) proxy materials.  On May 6, 2005, after discussions with both AAG and Vanguard, EquiServe sent an electronic copy of the notice as an attachment to an email directly to each of the 116 plan participants who had consented to receive their voting materials electronically.  

In closing I want to assure you that EquiServe takes its role as agent for Alaska Air Group and its responsibilities with respect to proxy mailings and the disclosure of all plan participant information very seriously.  While we were under no fiduciary obligation to forward the Vanguard notice to plan participants, we agreed to do so in an effort to facilitate the dissemination of this information on behalf of Vanguard and Alaska Air Group.  We agree that it is an important matter.  We have noted both of these incidents and will make every effort to ensure a flawless process in the future.  
 
If you have any additional questions on this matter, please contact me.

Sincerely,
Stephen M. Plefka

Stephen M. Plefka
Senior Account Manager
EquiServe Trust Company, N.A.
250 Royall Street
Canton, MA  02021
Tel:  (781) 575-2388
Fax: (781) 575-2152
Email: splefka@equiserve.com