Meanings of human ‘intelligence,’ new discoveries are important in 21st century
An Article by:
Steve Hammons

Originally Published on:
December 20, 2007
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=46675

It seems helpful for us to continue expanding the meaning of “intelligence” in the 21st century and recognize that the word intelligence has many meanings, including new meanings.

For example, in my two novels, MISSION INTO LIGHT and the sequel LIGHT’S HAND, the San Diego-based joint-service “Joint Reconnaissance Study Group” intelligence team and their friends conduct research on mysterious topics that have captured the interest of millions of people worldwide.

Readers join the research team of ten women and men in the exploration of strange and unknown phenomena, and of themselves.

I have said it before and I will say it again: Right now, the human race needs all the intelligence we can get our hands on — intelligence in the broadest meaning of that word.

The dedicated members of the “JRSG” intel team conduct investigations into current and future human evolution, deep-memory DNA theories, anomalous cognition (ESP) and remote viewing, near-death experiences, Navy dolphin projects, past and future Earth geological disasters, UFOs, crop circles, and Native American culture and legends.

They travel from San Diego to the Arizona Sonoran Desert, Sedona, Arizona, the “Four Corners” area, Durango, Colorado, in the southern Rockies, New Mexico and Oahu, Hawaii.

The researchers try to put together pieces of a strange cosmic puzzle. They conduct urgent operations to understand emerging intelligence affecting the United States, the human race and planet Earth.

Sudden, seemingly miraculous events surprise even the most open-minded and hopeful members of the group.

Or maybe these events and processes are just natural. Maybe Nature, Earth and the Great Spirit are revealing phenomena the human race is finally ready to understand.

TEAM MISSION

The Joint Reconnaissance Study Group is given a mission that is described as follows:

Mission Identification:

The Joint Reconnaissance Study Group (JRSG) is a research entity designed to utilize the resources of the Department of Defense and national intelligence services in the missions to be defined by the Congress of the United States, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the President of the United States.

JRSG personnel will endeavor to investigate intelligence-related matters deemed relevant to the national security of the United States of America.

Areas to be explored by JRSG will be regarded as TOP SECRET / SCI, using the compartmented code word BOONE. Need-to-know protocol will be in force. Study groups within JRSG will be compartmented to the degree necessary.

Cross-fertilization of data and intelligence will be at the discretion of study group team members and the commanding officer of JRSG. Research and investigative findings will be compiled and interpreted by the senior officers on each team and submitted to the JRSG CO for communication to higher command authorities.

Group Structure and Personnel:

JRSG teams will be structured as follows to enhance cross-service, and cross-agency cooperation and communication. Initial organization of study teams include three, three-person groups. The JRSG CO, Colonel Thomas O’Brien, U.S. Air Force, will have direct command and full discretionary command and control.

- Team One: Commander Daniel Wells, U.S. Navy; Lieutenant Commander James Etienne, U.S. Navy; Captain Amy Mella, U.S. Air Force

- Team Two: Colonel Edward Thompson, U.S. Army; Captain William MacNeil, U.S. Army; Michael Green

- Team Three: Colonel Gene Voss, U.S. Marine Corps; Major Karen Valdez, U.S. Air Force; Jennifer Thorsen

Areas of Research:

JRSG teams will conduct broad-based, yet narrowly focused research and investigations into areas as identified and directed by the JRSG CO. These areas will include, but will not be limited to, the following general categories:

1) Unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Alleged abductions of humans by same. Reported technology and method of operations.

2) Extra-sensory perception (ESP). Alleged perception of information available to human beings through means other than the five senses.

3) Near-death experience (NDE). Alleged contacts with Heavenly persons and afterlife-type phenomena reported by persons experiencing clinical death.

4) Research in sub-atomic and quantum physics and how these fields may affect or illuminate the above areas.

5) DNA and other genetics studies and how these fields may affect or illuminate the above areas.

6) Native American culture and history and how it may affect or illuminate the above areas.

7) Cross-theoretical/cross-cultural religious and philosophical studies and how they may affect or illuminate the above areas.
Methods and Goals:

JRSG personnel will conduct field interviews and other information and intelligence gathering tasks as directed by the JRSG CO. JRSG teams will pursue intelligence and reconnaissance based on their investigative discretion and initiative.

Senior officers Commander Daniel Wells, Colonel Edward Thompson, and Colonel Gene Voss will report directly to the JRSG CO. JRSG CO Colonel Thomas O’Brien will report directly to the National Security Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the President of the United States.
JRSG teams will endeavor to conduct reconnaissance on the seven general areas of study and maintain security of the intelligence collected. The JRSG will be granted the full cooperation of all military commands and civilian governmental agencies. Reports will be channeled from JRSG field teams to the JRSG CO on an as needed basis at the discretion of senior team officers.

UNCONVENTIONAL GROUP

In MISSION INTO LIGHT, what starts out as a phone call and job offer to forty-something Arizonan Mike Green quickly evolves into a mystifying adventure into the unknown.

Mike is recruited into a quasi-scientific Defense Department research team based in San Diego. He starts his job with the Joint Reconnaissance Study Group on San Diego’s Point Loma peninsula. Ten women and men comprise the JRSG. Several loyal allies, and deadly opponents, soon emerge.

The JRSG and its friends search for information on unusual national security-related issues and mysteries. They look into crop circles, dolphin intelligence, deep DNA memory theories, UFOs, ESP, modern physics, near-death experiences, so-called “Earth changes” and “pole shift” concepts, and Native American culture and legends.

Connections between these areas are discovered as well as links to the past and the future of Earth and the human race. The women and men of the research group explore ancient questions and modern discoveries crucial to the evolution and survival of humanity.

They face experiences that are scientific, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The group uncovers dangerous threats to their investigation, to the United States, Earth, and human civilization.

Mike feels he’s getting in over his head at times. Even with the support and fellowship of the research group and friends, he faces extreme circumstances alone.

In the midst of dangers and challenges, there is romantic heat between him and Amy Mella, one of the group’s dolphin researchers.

This is also a story of relationships between women and men, military and civilian, the intelligence community and the average American. It is an exploration of phenomena and mysteries that now rightly hold the interest and attention of millions of people worldwide.

The story climaxes in a hidden canyon on the Navajo Nation in far northeastern Arizona. In a kiva, one of the large sunken stone circles of the ancient Anasazi people, many VIPs attend a special field conference. Sudden discoveries, dangers, and the experience of the strange unknown shock those present.

The characters in MISSION INTO LIGHT follow paths of discovery and knowledge to find new understanding of their nation, the human species, and the hoped-for breakthrough that will change the world.

FRIENDS AND DISCOVERIES

In MISSION INTO LIGHT, members of the JRSG, their friends and associates work together and carefully share information about research areas related to their missions.

For example, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, JRSG members Mike Green and Army Special Forces Captain Bill MacNeil interview Dr. Brenda Carruthers, associate professor of anthropology, New Mexico State University, about unconventional research topics.

Another interesting development is when former U.S. Marine and World War II Navajo Code Talker Joe Bear has a vision during a sweat lodge with fellow former Code Talkers near his home on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona.

On an operation in the Sedona area, in the Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness Area, Mike has a near-death experience and enters into an apparent DNA deep-memory phenomena. He learns about connections between UFOs, extraterrestrials and Native Americans in the era before European conquest of the ancient Cherokee homeland in the Smokey Mountain region. He also learns about pending unconventional developments.

Later, JRSG member Air Force Captain Amy Mella has a vivid dream about a huge catastrophe on Earth, possibly geological in nature. She and Mike meet with fellow JRSG member Navy Commander Dan Wells to discuss Wells’ knowledge about theories of Earth geological changes, including crustal displacement and crustal pole shift theories.

Also in the novel, based on the real-life 1997 “Phoenix Lights” event that made national headlines, multiple witnesses in Arizona and the metro Phoenix area see a large triangle or boomerang-shaped craft drift silently over the city, going from northwest to southeast, one evening.

And in the final chapter, at a special seminar of sorts in an ancient kiva, at the bottom of a hidden canyon near the Monument Valley area, dozens of guests and VIPs witness, and experience, a strange anti-gravity phenomenon. As this unfolds other unusual and urgent developments at the top of the canyon include the appearance of a triangular-shaped craft that plays a key role in the final climax.

THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES

In this sequel, LIGHT’S HAND, readers continue on a thought-provoking metaphysical adventure with the top secret Joint Reconnaissance Study Group.

This small Defense Department research team continues their intelligence investigation of unusual phenomena.

Other strange phenomena emerge and challenge the researchers, who travel from their San Diego base to the Four Corners area, Durango, Colorado, and Flagstaff, Arizona, as well as the Arizona Sonoran Desert.

The main characters, Mike and Amy, are deployed to the Navajo Nation in northeast Arizona after the National Security Agency reports a strange signal coming from deep space. The message is in Morse code, and in the World War Two Navajo Code Talker code.

In the midst of urgent developments in and around the Four Corners area, Mike and Amy explore the depths of their love relationship and learn more about each other. About their passion, and compassion.

The dedicated researchers put together pieces of a cosmic puzzle just in the nick of time. Because strange and mysterious developments are underway. A sudden increase in crop circles, requests for safe houses on higher ground, and an ancient Cherokee legend are parts of this puzzle.

A breakthrough occurs when a strange event and process kicks the researchers into high gear, and the group acts as a rapid response team to the site of a possible miracle.

MORE INTEL AND RECON

As the second novel begins, two National Security Agency officials visit WWII Marine Code Talker veteran Joe Bear at his home on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. They ask him to interpret signals the NSA has picked up coming from deep space. The signals are in Morse Code and World War II Marine Corps Navajo Code Talker code.

From New Mexico, Mike, Amy and CIA analyst Jennifer Thorsen interview Dr. Ben Westman, former Army intelligence major and anthropology professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, about unconventional research topics.

Meanwhile, back in San Diego, Air Force Colonel Tom O’Brien, commanding officer of the Joint Reconnaissance Study Group, returns from top secret briefings and meetings back east. He contemplates the implications of what he has learned and how these things fit into the mission of his group.

Up in the Four Corners, Mike, Amy and Jennifer leave Durango for Flagstaff, Arizona where they visit a book-signing at a local bookstore by a Cherokee author and story-teller.

He tells a story strikingly similar to the vision Mike was given by his grandparents during a near-death experience in MISSION INTO LIGHT. In that experience, Mike seemed to go back in time, and into his own ancient DNA of his Cherokee ancestry to a strange incident.

Mike, Amy and Jennifer conduct a field interview with the author to obtain more information.

Then, many developments begin to converge including increased global appearance of crop circles, detection of undersea fault activity by Navy dolphins and other matters.

Members of the Joint Reconnaissance Study Group continue their operations and prepare for a possible significant event to occur as part of, yet distinct from, a steady process they have become aware of.

Suddenly, in the early morning hours on the north side of Phoenix, Arizona, a strange light slowly and gently emerges. Public safety personnel and the JRSG members respond to the scene … and find that something very significant is occurring, something that changes the world.

Tags: education, government, history, military, war
Categories: Commentary, government, Education, War, History, military
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 Introduction to American Radicalized Sociopolitical Movements in Informationalism and the Network Society

a working paper by

Russell Cole

After becoming versed in this typically neglected aspect to the American story [Populism and the People’s Party], I became fixated on the truly unique poignancy it deserved in any narration of American sociopolitical history; one characterized, in most every other instance, as a historical rendering that has obfuscated class; economic inequality; as well as stratifications extant within sociopolitical institutions; all of which can be conceptualized – although they rarely happen to be – along patrician and plebeian dimensions. This stratification has persisted for so long and it has had such a profound influence upon the cultural codes circulating through American social formations that it has gone unmarked in the preponderance of American discourse.

It should not be understated the impact that implicit sociocultural traditions have upon the surface reality, the veneer of American politics. As Tocqueville pointed to, Americans rarely voiced radicalized sentiments toward their sociopolitical institutions and their operations. In fact, as he considered, American democracy – in the form it assumed – might not be possible without such willing obedience among the population of America.

The deferential posture that Americans have been conditioned to assume in relation to civil and political institutions reinforces this lack of discursive treatment of a society divided along elitist and commoner lines. American history, by and large, has been accounted for under the pre-determinacy of Whiggishness, discounting enduring quasi-caste distinctions as if they are temporal aberrations, epiphenomena to an underlying narrative that ultimately tells of America’s advancement toward an increasingly democratic condition. There are, of course, notable exceptions to American Whig renditions of history, such as The People’s History of the United States. However, another treatment of these issues is by no means a contribution to an already saturated field of political sociological inquiry.

Coming to Terms with Populism

As both a result of my new interest in an organization that called itself the Populist Party of America as well as a family history - although fairly distant at this point in time - that included political participation in populism - I began researching the history of this movement, which presented itself in its fullest embodiment in the form of the People’s Party. After becoming versed in populism, I was awe struck at what appeared to be an under treated anomaly when in taken in the purview of the overall course of American sociopolitical history: a narrative that persistently omits accounts of sociopolitical and economic inequality; a lack of criticality that contributes to a facade of civic egalitarianism originally manifested in what has become the persisting mythology of Jeffersonian republicanism. This false ideology configures a conceptualization of American political relations, which neglects to recognize the influences had upon political opportunity by the material conditions belonging to the economy.

The Jefferson’s early articulation of Libertarianism exclaimed the virtues of the citizen agriculturalist; a body collectively composed of citizens who stood side by side one another in lateral sociopolitical uniformity. Thus economic class was left unconceived in the Jeffersonian account of American sociopolitical relations, and, needless to say, such an account failed to address the impact that economic inequalities, or class, had upon the feasibility of each citizen coequally affecting the public policies of the American state[4].

Populism – as it was incepted in economic affairs of the Midwestern and Southern farmer in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century – was an emergent pattern of economically directed intellectualism, which – through processes of its development – came to identify itself as a political movement with a more prodigious agenda than mere economic reform. Furthermore, it was a consequence of organic intellectual social processes. By that, populism culminated largely out of social mechanisms that existed independently from the institutional guard belonging to the Academe and other vested interests. Of course, populism was affected by Marxism, and, on occasion, in some of its expressions, it appeared proto-Marxist. However, the populist critiques of the economy and, in particular, the finance and monetary systems proved to be not only original and penetrating, but, additionally, they ultimately served as the precipitants of economic reforms that had lasting legacies.

For instance, the contemporary conceptualization of the free-market is heavily indebted to the populist movement in America. It was through populism that legislative fixtures intended to promote free-market competition, such as anti-trust and anti-monopolistic statutes, came to regulate the practices of capitalist interests. Indeed, we can go so far as to say that it was through populism that the modern conception of the free-market came about. Even more, it was due to its emphasis upon a competitive market[5] that the Democratic Party was amenable to the infusion of the populist ideology into its platform, which would come to mark its public disposition throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century. I realize that many students of American political history would delineate among the Populist era: the period when Bryan was the leading figure; and the Progressive era – associated with Wilson, as well as, the New Deal, which, of course, was the domestic policy of FDR. No matter, as John Gerring has demonstrated through a careful content analysis of American Party rhetoric, the consistencies among the three proposed eras out-weighed the significance of the differences demonstrable in the three proposed historical periods of Democratic Party ideology.

Many discount the ethical accomplishments of the People’s Party, which was the first to embrace multiple racial identities; the first to include women in its organizations, prior even to Women’s suffrage; and the first to demand in a recognizable voice the democratization of various political institutions that had been, till then, the decision-making province of political elites. Recourse to the denial of populism as an event that demonstrated advanced ethical and moral sensibilities on the part of its conceivers, promoters, and adherents is typically sought through citing aspects of the multi-faceted social critique leveled by populism, with the intended result of identifying internal inconsistencies in the populist ideology.

For instance, one of the more prevalent criticisms of populism is that it reflected a racial tolerance while, concurrently, possessing a nativist agenda. However, this criticism speaks more of the lack of analytical faculties by those who make such a claim as it points to the lack of sophistication in the populist social critique formed in reflection of the American gilded age. I am always dumbfounded each and every time I find myself explaining to detractors of populism that there is no a priori analytical relationship between nativism and racism. Although there might be empirical relationships between the two conditions, where nativists tend also to be racists, this has nothing to do with the People’s Party, per se. America was already a multi-racial society prior to populism’s emergence, and the nativist policies taken up in the advocacies of the People’s Party were not latent with racial discrimination. Objecting to undesirable immigration is not necessarily predicated upon race. Instead, as in the case of the People’s Party, it was based upon the impact that particular elements of any society might bring about if permitted to migrate to the United States.

Additionally, and this should be apparent to anyone who has expended any efforts, at all, when attempting to come to terms with American immigration – despite the conventional wisdom, belonging to American economics – which we are persistently instructed to embrace and believe – immigration does not proportionally benefit all sectors of the economy. One such group that certainly does not experience positive outcomes resulting from immigration consists of those who dwell in the middle and lower tiers of the labor market. Immigration both diminishes the value of labor in every sector of the economy to which its skills happen to apply, as well as, posing obstructions to the successful formation of cooperative institutions, either constituting organized labor, or qualifying as the financial cooperatives, such as credit unions, that leverage the monetary resources of those who are excluded from the many implicit trusts that dominate the financial industries controlled by organized-capitalism.

Indeed, the recent revelations concerning the use of Visas for the import of labor to be employed in the technology sectors of the economy reinforces the conclusion that immigration is not advantageous for labor. Despite the conventional wisdom, as it turns out, the overwhelming preponderance of Information Technology workers who are allowed entry into the United States are in the lower strata of the technocratic hierarchy comprised of Information Technology laborers. Therefore, America is not taking in the best and the brightest; rather, corporate America is merely increasing productivity by importing cheap labor that is only qualified to work in the most entry level of positions in an organization’s IT infrastructure. This – topped with the fact that wage stagnation, in recent history, has been an enduring feature of the employment market for the middle and working classes – indicates that immigration is only beneficial for those who dwell in the higher socio-economic tiers of American social relations; the ownership classes belonging to corporate America.

Another ill conceived critique of populism consists of instances where commentators remark upon the internal inconsistency of populism’s anti-statism along with many of its ‘socialist’ sentiments. It is true that populism called for the nationalization of the railroading industry as well as the banking industry. However, unlike what nearly amounts to ideological absolutism on the part of contemporary Libertarians, the populists were not constrained when devising possible solutions for social problems by a conviction that all instances of government should be curtailed, even in scenarios where the absence of government intervention appears to create a more undesirable social condition. Additionally, populism and its instances of economic cooperatives is more an expression of anarchistic sensibilities than anything approaching socialism. Certainly, no one can credibly contend that organic cooperatives intended to extricate the American farmer from his social positioning that amounted to serfdom was motivated out of an affinity of statist institutions. Indeed, it was only until such endeavors proved to be ineffective against the trusts that had been established by organized-capitalism that the populist movement became politicized.

This is not to say that populism – especially when taken up by the Democratic Party – did not come to reflect a pro-statist position on the majority of matters qualifying as issues of public concern. Nevertheless, this ideological posture on the part of Democratic populists was perceived as a necessity in order to guard against the publicly harmful excesses of what came to be called “predator elites” in the economy. To paraphrase The Great Commoner; also known as William Jennings Bryan:

Men are the creation of God. Corporations are the creation of man, and what man creates man can destroy.

In respect to this – which can be identified with less ambiguity as the regulatory measures needed to quell the popularly harmful greed of the corporation – that the adoption of a pro-statist approach toward public policy reveals its real character: Government was a device of necessity, and the pro-statism of the Democratic populists should not be conflated – in its interpretation - with the authoritarianism embodied by the Whig-Republicans and their mercantilist conception of political and economic social relationships.

Finally, what more that can be said about populism arises from an inference that is generated from mechanisms that are alien to the processes of scholarly research, but deserves mentioning, nonetheless. The populist movement seemed to stimulate the activation of ethical dispositions belonging to the social characters of those who would come to be participate in this movement. Individuals, whose ideologies had been immured in white supremacist backdrops, eventually identified with African-Americans, as social agents with whom they suffered the exploitations engendered by common same social conditions. In fact, there are accounts of former slave owners coming to advance the causes of African-Americans by serving as chairs to African-American farmer alliances.

Therefore, rather than specifically addressing fabricated shortcomings of the People’s Party, it is more worthwhile for a student of political sociology to treat the aspects belonging to this movement that set it apart from nearly all other facets of the American experience. Specifically, what strikes the attention of the epistemic agent – who is not predisposed to dismiss the accomplishments of the various farmer alliances and the People’s Party, which they came to establish – is the fact that these dissolute, degraded, and politically inexperienced agrarians could come to mount the most redoubtable third-party insurgence to the duopoly embedded in partisan politics in the whole of American history.

Families in the Midwest and South – who dwelled in a social condition where observances of women and children afoot in bare feet was commonplace – arose from a state of sociopolitical ignorance to one of penetrating insight and criticism upon American social relations. Even more, the political ideology developed by populists was emergent, composed from intellectual processes that were organic. Additionally, the populists were faced – when developing this intellectual formation – with constructing their own social institutions through which their knowledge could be manufactured as well as disseminated. Journals needed to be published and circulated. Travelling lecturers had to be trained and financially supported. Financial schemes had to be creatively fostered a deployed in an attempt to coerce other economic agencies into bargaining directly with the farmer alliances, so that the trust under which the crop-lean system[6] was actualized and enacted could be overcome. Finally, populism transcended sectionalisms – which were the by-products of superficial material conflicts in American society, such as white supremacy and its opposition to African-American interests – in order for African-Americans as well as Southern Whites to attend the same gatherings and applaud enthusiastically as the political orator explained racism as an instrument used by Southern elites to deflect the attention of the farmers from their real adversaries, whom Blacks and Whites commonly faced.

The Contemporary Significance of Populism

Recently, I had listened to a service given by a Unitarian Church in New York, which commemorated the outing of the Pentagon Papers. At this service, I became audience to descriptions of the subversive inner-workings of activists responsible for the publication of these documents, which were entered into the Congressional Record by Gravel, and, finally, published in book form by a Unitarian publishing syndicate. I was struck by words that were spoken in reference to Gravel that remarked upon an aspect to American culture where Americans are taught – from the time they assume comfort upon a parent’s lap – to, “avoid looking silly,” or foolish; to avoid orating that which strays beyond the comfortable parameters of orthodoxy. According to the wisdom embedded in this shared stock of social knowledge, not adhering to such standards would render the speaker as suspect to aspersions labeling him or her as a crackpot or a voice from the margins of society to be dismissed, because he or she conveys sentiments that are outside of the recognizable: the familiar domestic environment qualifying as the mainstream.[i]

In contrast to the insightful words spoken of Gravel and his current candidacy for the Democratic Nomination, in recent weeks, I have also heard a speech given by Bill Clinton during the memorial for Arthur Schlesinger. Clinton’s - in remarks that can only be interpreted as self-congratulatory - lauded Lincoln, who had also given oratory at the theater where the service was being held, for attempting to reach out to the, “Great American center,” prior to the collapse of the Nation into civil war. According to Clinton, Lincoln’s initial attempt to avoid confrontation, by remaining amenable to slavery as long as it did not extend into new territories and states, demonstrated an understanding of the great American center and how it allows for progress to be made during intervals belonging to a larger cyclical pattern; where the mushy middle of American politics would slightly tip its balance toward the Left or toward the Right. During instances where the Left was favored, small, incremental steps of progress could be made. However, it required a savvy leader who could continue to appeal to the middle, in order to coax the Country in the right direction without inciting a backlash by introducing proposals that were too radical, which would entail too abrupt a departure from the trails that had already been worn into easily transverse paths.

What are we to make out of these two contrasting stylizations of political existentiality? It is in respect to this question - more than anything else - that has led me to firmly believe that populism has a role to play in the development of the sociology of democracy. My understandings of populism are primarily derived from the historian, Goodwyn, who possessed the uncommon tenacity for summarizing the necessary antecedents for an authentically democratic insurgency to unfold: First, a group must obtain the institutional autonomy needed to formulate a conceptualization of sociopolitical mechanisms operative in a political structure, which foments in contradistinction, and in to varying extent, opposition to the preemptive orders of knowledge and the sociopolitical institutions that are arranged under the cloak of legitimacy derived from these hegemonic discourses. However, as Goodwyn wisely points out, such a development - an alternative episteme - is not, in and of itself, sufficient for democratic insurgency. In America in particular, there is a long untreated - yet, all too pervasive - posture of deference habitually assumed by commoners in relations to the established institutional guards of sociopolitical power. Without a shaking off of the deference toward institutions of the old guard encumbering the shoulders of those - who have long been conditioned to internalize the identity of plebiscite - the provision of an alternative interpretation of the Human Condition - currently embodied in the way things stand - would fail to incite the mobilizing of masses.

According to this parsimonious and elegant rendering of the necessary conditions for a democratic insurgency to take root, Goodwyn goes on in his minor masterpiece, A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt, to catalog the events that culminated in the establishment of the People’s Party. The process that resulted in the type of psychic characteristics necessary for democratic insurgency was a slow incremental process, involving quite a few setbacks and failures on the part of the various farming alliances as they initially endeavored to extricate their members from the crop lien system, which basically amounted to a trust comprised of financial interests along with manufacturing - both of which maintained credit as well as distributional relationships with local town agents, who dealt directly with the farmers. These relationships that were established and protected by the these interests precluded the farmers from entering into the necessary financing arrangements for them to bypass the insufferable arrangements imposed upon them by the local town agents, who extorted as much as possible from the farmers each time the farmer was forced to obtain credit for the oncoming year.

It is in these considerations that Web 2.0 assumes significance. The democratization of representational spaces in civil society fosters both the intellectual autonomy necessary to form alternative sociopolitical interpretations as well as the political self-respect necessary to abandon to the deferential posture assumed in relation to the institutions of the old guard.

[1] The Green Party has associations with other Green Parties that exist in other states around the globe. However, these relationships are loosely defined and often more symbolic than anything else.

[2] The Populist Party of America is a micro-party that was incepted 2002, and is based in Las Angeles. At this point in time – with some exceptions – it is a virtual community that is radicalized. The exceptions consist of activism – involving activities such as the distribution of literature – that has taken place in the Las Angeles area.

[3] Grounded Theory is the approach that is typically assumed by sociologists who perform ethnography

[4] As Charles Goodwyn has pointed out, the Jeffersonian ideology was a major obstacle to the political radicalization of the populist movement.

[5] Free-trade was a staple of the Democratic ideology during the period when it opposed the mercantilist protectionism of the Whig-Republicans.

[6] The crop-lean system was enacted by the trust of economic relationships assumed by financial firms, manufacturers, and local town agents, who extorted farmers for as great as a share of the yearly productions of agricultural commodities by withholding credit that was necessary for the farmer to procure the manufactured supplies that were a requisite for planting and harvesting in the oncoming season.

[i] The Pentagon Papers Then and Now: Unitarian Universalists Confronting Government Secrecy

http://www.uua.org/events/generalassembly/2007/presentations/30971.shtml; UUA

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Despite the best efforts of the Luddite, Jim Crow bigots residing in the backwater town of Jena, Louisiana, the cap is about to burst on these white supremacists, who are in the process of committing what amounts to a lynching of several, young African-American males. This clinical lynching is being conducted under the veneer of a juridical canard. The African-American high school students presently face decades in prison for charges related to an assault that was committed upon a white student in the Jena, LA school district. The African-American students, who have been charged with attempted murder, allegedly assaulted a white student. However, if one is to learn about the circumstances under which these charges have been leveled against the African-American male high school students, a picture emerges that screams of injustice, resulting from a racism that is so severe that I was shocked when I became fully familiar with these insidious events.

Apparently, this whole incident began after African-American students, during their launch break, sat under a tree that had been the providence of white students. In reaction to this apparent affront by the African-Americans, the next day white students had tied lynching ropes from the trees under which the African-Americans had sat. Despite the fact that this symbolic gesture on the part of the young aspiring Klan members constituted nothing less that a direct threat of murder directed against the African-American high school students - where a bystander would be left only to assume that the lives of the black students were in immediate peril - the white students responsible for this unforgivable threat were given a three day suspension. On the days that followed, the assault, for which the Black teenage boys are accused, took place. The African-American adolescent males were arrested and charged, not with simple battery, but attempted murder and the reduced crime of aggravated assault. These hyperbolic charges are only applicable in instances where a deadly weapon is used, according to Louisiana statutes. The first of the Black males to stand trial was convicted for the lesser charge of aggravated assault. According to the jury, the African-American boy’s tennis shoes qualified as a deadly weapon.

To make this whole affair even more sickening, the jury was all white. Additionally, during the case, the judge preceding over the trial had issued a gag order on all witnesses. Consequentially, the parents of the African-Americans, who were to take the stand in defense of their children, were prevented under threat of contempt from making public issue out of this miscarriage of justice; consequentially, the parents were precluded from pursuing recourse through an appeal to the innumerable law professors who would have accepted this case pro bono!

To read more of this revolting affair, you can begin by visiting an article that someone has put up on Wikipedia. It has been marked as potentially biased, but from what I have gathered from other sources, including interviews that were taken by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, the account on Wikipedia appears to be, for the most part, spot on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_High_School

With the events that have taken place in Jena, LA, I am going to return to the issue of the Tenth Amendment and its properly conceived relation to the Fourteenth Amendment.

I had written three controversial essays focusing on the candidacy of Ron Paul. I had criticized Paul for opposing legislation and certain reforms, which could be implemented by Presidential Decree, that would effectively contribute to the alleviation of the discrimination faced by gays, lesbians, and cross-gender. Paul, of course, explained away his refusal to adopt platform positions in support of the establishment of measures contributing to the equal rights and opportunities by all members of society, via appeal to a Libertarian ideological tenet that embraces the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution over and beyond other Amendments that might lead to divergent conclusions with respect to the appropriate role of the Federal Government and its interventions into social affairs that might alternatively be left to the states in order to regulate. Using the Tenth Amendment and its implications as premises, Paul essentially concluded that the inclusion of gays in the military as well as the extension of Federal Hate Crime Statutes to include crimes motivated out of hate for gays, lesbians, and cross-gender were decisions better left to, in the case of the former, the Military - and its own independent deliberations regarding its Uniform Code of Conduct - and, in the latter, the States and municipalities, who, in the absence of Federal intervention, would assume full responsible for the prosecution of crimes against these sexual minorities.

In opposition to Paul’s stance, I had countered by contending that Federal intervention has been historically demonstrated as a necessary device to extend civil liberties and citizenship rights to marginalized minorities who suffer from persecution and exclusionary practices within the provincial affairs of certain states. In short, my conclusions came down to unavoidable inferences drawn from the brute raw fact that without Federal interdiction these vulnerable minorities might not have their rights protected. I further argued that the Fourteenth Amendment was at stake - which in my opinion is far more significant than any appeal made to the nebulously defined Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment - if one analyzes it with care - does not make specific references to the instances in which it should be prioritized over and beyond other possibly germane and applicable Amendments. In other words, rather than an Amendment intended to delineate specific rights, such as a clear and certain range of defined circumstances, where states should be deferred the sole authority when it comes to issues of civil liberties - the Tenth Amendment, according to my readings, appears to be intended only to limit Federal intrusions when the National Government is in the process of curtailing rights. However, in instances, such as hate crimes, the Federal Government is not inhibiting individuals from practicing types of social actions that fall under the extension of their own negative rights. Contrarily, the Federal Government is merely extending civil liberties by protecting the rights of vulnerable segments of society, who all too often are the deliberate and persistent targets of crimes, which impede the minorities from enjoying their own personal liberties, motivated out hate for the social minorities and the characteristics, which they embody, that make them socially different and identifiable as social outsiders.

This is not to say that the Tenth Amendment should not take on any significance and it should not be appealed to in instances where the Federal Government is in the process of extending its authority in a modality that is an affront to civil liberties. However, conversely, the Tenth Amendment should not be used as a juridical-politico artifice for what amounts to curtailing civil liberties by deferring the responsibility for protecting individual rights to the judgments of states and their provincial practices, in which the manifestation of racism and hate related crimes might be afoot, leading to the legalization of practices that only serve to curtail the rights of minorities. I think that most would agree that the Golden Rule - although not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution - nevertheless, serves as a guiding post for the formation of our best conclusions regarding what social conduct is permissible versus actions on the part of individuals and groups that should be interdicted. Those who act upon others in a manner that prevents the enjoyment of liberties by those upon whom the actions are committed should expect no better by other agencies who might act upon them. I cannot put it any more succinctly.
Returning to the case in Jena, I cannot think of a more compelling example of why the Federal Government must sometimes be permitted to intervene in order to prevent the most egregious instances of the persecuting of disliked minorities. To reiterate, Ron Paul needs to go back to the drawing board, and thoroughly recalculate his position on Federal hate crimes as well as the rights of sexual minorities.
Russell Cole

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I have always made it an unwavering point to oppose those people who are in positions of authority or power whom I find to exhibit hypocrisy and ethical depravity. Often, I have done such vocal protests at my own expense, suffering - on one occasion - an employment loss; however, I remain resolute in my conviction that the powerful who are ethically impoverished; who are more interested in advancing their own personal or professional interests than in making the necessary institutional reforms needed to create a fair environment for all employees; no matter how meager they might be, and despite the scarcity of respect they command from others in the institution who assume elevated statuses - must be confronted and called out on their lack of ethical fortitude, and their failure to do what qualifies as decent.

When working at Saint Xavier University, last year, I found myself excluded from any interactions with other faculty members. In fact, my only source of information about my duties whom I could personally interact with was the Department secretary. On my first day, I was given no greeting, no introduction to the institution, and certainly no extension of any indication that I would be a member of a community of scholars. I was clearly ostracized from any of the sanctums in which the tenor faculty had access; where they interacted; and where they engaged in activities designed to improve their teaching skills.

Indeed, on an occasion, I requested consultation on my instruction skills and was informed that such resources were not extended to adjunct faculty, who, I should report, constituted a substantial percentage of the instructors teaching the classes. What is the point of even having such resources intended to provide faculty with the ability to foster their teaching skills if they are not even provided to a proportion of the faculty that is substantial; beyond the boundaries of any respectable private university?

I had accepted my circumstances for a time, until an event incited me to such indignity that I could no longer contain my outrage for such an ostensibly disgusting institution, charging students the tuition of a private school for an education that amounted, in my opinion, to a four year community college. At the single - ground breaking meeting - after hours, of course - where adjuncts were actually invited - and, of course, virtually none of the tenor faculty made a point of attending - the Chair of the Department made a statement where she introduced an adjunct who had held such a position for approximately 15 years, and she went on to say something to the effect, “See, sometimes they keep you as adjunct for that period of time.”