Do you believe? I mean do you have faith, that when a court decides someone is guilty, that person actually is guilty? What about the opposite: if innocent in a court of law that person is innocent?
I’ve been mildly but genuinely criticized in my blog for taking on the whole legal profession as it is practiced here in America, instead of concentrating on the smaller reality that law schools are dishonest and greedy. Concerning the history of law, we all know that sometimes the good guy gets executed: just read the Gospels of the Bible or about poor Socrates drinking the hemlock.
I’ve always been interested in the traditional differences between Catholics and Protestants, and one of these has been the Catholic belief that during the ritual of Communion, they actually believe that the wine and bread are transubstantiated into the blood and body of Christ. Catholics don’t talk about this or try to explain how this could be, they use their faith to believe it: not to satiate their scientific curiosity, but to make them more righteous in the eyes of the Lord.
Without trying to get into the nitty gritty of how religion functions or dysfunctions, I see a comparison to the function/dysfunction of law school. When we 1Ls were being introduced to moot court, about 20 upper classmates walked into our lecture hall, single file, all dressed the same in their natty legal outfits, sat down in a perfectly sequential choreography, never cracked a smile, never waved at acquaintances in the audience, or changed the thin-lipped expressions on their faces. The packed room of students all went silent, as if the air had just been sucked out of the room. “My God,” I whispered to the person next to me, “is this a law school or a cult?”
It’s a good question and pertains to what these youngsters apparently want to do for the rest of their lives, even if they appeared to me to be painfully naïve. Keep in mind, all you fresh young lawyers looking for jobs at law firms or business! Sometimes these places want your obedient, suited selves not because they are nurturing a work environment where people above all are not allowed to giggle or fart, but because they need young gullible minds to do their dirty work. In fact, some of these young gullible minds might even be coaxed into doing something that will get them disbarred or even imprisoned.
But at the end of the day, what do they really believe? What is their faith? Do they borrow from Catholicism and believe that they are actually the cream of a meritocracy crop that is smarter than anyone else in society? Are lawyers officers of the courts or special privileged members of society? Are they an esoteric cult whose brain functions rise way, way above the norm, so they can protect an otherwise hoi polloi society from themselves? What do the lawyers themselves believe?
I have been reading Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History, and have even started up a new blog about it. Bugliosi is a Los Angeles prosecutor famous for trying and convicting Charles Manson in the late 1960s. It’s one thing when the lawyer theater that goes on inside a court is so cocksure of itself that it sends a man to the lethal injection, but Bugliosi is of a breed that believes this theater is the only reality to the point where he thinks others who don’t think like him are in a fantasy world. Can lawyers, by dint of their skills and bag of tricks inside a courtroom, actually bring these methods outside of the court and actually transubstantiate lawyer theater into reality? Bugliosi believes so, as he now declares himself an historian, advanced logician, and scientist.
What about you: do you believe? Sometimes I have to thank God for apostasy.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Baby Bar
Chances are, if you went to an ABA accredited law school and graduated in good standing, you have never heard of the “Baby Bar” in California. My blog has been dedicated to complaining about law schools today, and because I have spent a lot of time preparing for California’s Baby Bar these past months, I have been taking some time off. My apologies to the cause!
The Baby Bar is a nickname for the First-Year Law Students Examination. You only have to take it if you did not go to an ABA accredited law school or were academically disqualified after the first year at an ABA accredited law school. It covers only torts, contracts, and criminal law/procedure.
I spent months preparing for it and finally took it at the end of last June.
It costs over $600 and, like any other law exam, you can see that much of the money you have expended is spent for rather outmoded security precautions. They’re always trying to catch people taking the exam for someone else, but you get the impression they also just use the stodgy security precautions as a sort of intimidating ritual. How many people do they actually catch each year trying to take the exam for someone else?
My most shocking revelation with the California Baby Bar is that so many non-Californians were taking it. I first met a guy from Utah who was a student of a correspondence school based in California. Then I met a guy from Missouri, who was retired and had no intention of ever practicing law in California. The woman I sat next to during the test was from Wisconsin.
I am told only 20% of the testers will actually pass the Baby Bar, but that isn’t because it is so difficult. The low passage rate is attributed to the fact that these are mostly self-taught legal minds—the people who are just itching to practice law, but whose grades and LSAT scores aren’t good enough to get into an ABA accredited law school.
The most vicious rumor I heard about it is that California considered long ago discontinuing this exam, but they keep it going because it generates a lot of revenue. That’s a cynical assessment, although I can only imagine that it’s true.
I have used this blog to hash out the theory that the only reason I ended up in the bottom 10% of my law school is that I failed to learn how to write the essays. I think I might have even missed an important Saturday lecture when this was explained to the other students.
For the Baby Bar, I picked up a Fleming’s legal writing workbook that clearer than any other source shows how legal essays should be written, using IRAC, but using the legal term for the “I” (or “Issue”) all in capital letters and underlined. The “R” (or “Rule”) should have specific elements to it, if possible. Otherwise, the multiple-choice section of the Baby Bar was much easier than the Multi-State multiple choice questions that I used to prepare with.
I’m almost willing to say that this is my last hurrah with law, and if I don’t pass this Baby Bar, there really is something beyond my reach to law and I should take back all my complaints and let the world be run by the youngsters that are outdoing me. Then again, I do have three chances to pass this thing.
Meanwhile, I find myself believing that I really do respect the law more than most of the colleagues that I have talked with. I really can’t bring myself to say “I want to be a lawyer,” but find it easier than others to say that justice is important and corruption is bad. When there is no justice in the legal system and corruption is rampant, we have every right to complain about law schools and all the other legal institutions beyond law school. That’s a different breed than many successful lawyers.
In the meantime, for my own purposes and desires, I am probably preparing for my legal career where I’m going to be at my best—among all the other Baby Bar slackers. Calling the legal education system dysfunctional and even corrupt is not the task of a law school brat whose feet never touch the ground.
Working for justice and against corruption takes some real work and sacrifice. To that end, I am proud to be the bad boy of law.
The Baby Bar is a nickname for the First-Year Law Students Examination. You only have to take it if you did not go to an ABA accredited law school or were academically disqualified after the first year at an ABA accredited law school. It covers only torts, contracts, and criminal law/procedure.
I spent months preparing for it and finally took it at the end of last June.
It costs over $600 and, like any other law exam, you can see that much of the money you have expended is spent for rather outmoded security precautions. They’re always trying to catch people taking the exam for someone else, but you get the impression they also just use the stodgy security precautions as a sort of intimidating ritual. How many people do they actually catch each year trying to take the exam for someone else?
My most shocking revelation with the California Baby Bar is that so many non-Californians were taking it. I first met a guy from Utah who was a student of a correspondence school based in California. Then I met a guy from Missouri, who was retired and had no intention of ever practicing law in California. The woman I sat next to during the test was from Wisconsin.
I am told only 20% of the testers will actually pass the Baby Bar, but that isn’t because it is so difficult. The low passage rate is attributed to the fact that these are mostly self-taught legal minds—the people who are just itching to practice law, but whose grades and LSAT scores aren’t good enough to get into an ABA accredited law school.
The most vicious rumor I heard about it is that California considered long ago discontinuing this exam, but they keep it going because it generates a lot of revenue. That’s a cynical assessment, although I can only imagine that it’s true.
I have used this blog to hash out the theory that the only reason I ended up in the bottom 10% of my law school is that I failed to learn how to write the essays. I think I might have even missed an important Saturday lecture when this was explained to the other students.
For the Baby Bar, I picked up a Fleming’s legal writing workbook that clearer than any other source shows how legal essays should be written, using IRAC, but using the legal term for the “I” (or “Issue”) all in capital letters and underlined. The “R” (or “Rule”) should have specific elements to it, if possible. Otherwise, the multiple-choice section of the Baby Bar was much easier than the Multi-State multiple choice questions that I used to prepare with.
I’m almost willing to say that this is my last hurrah with law, and if I don’t pass this Baby Bar, there really is something beyond my reach to law and I should take back all my complaints and let the world be run by the youngsters that are outdoing me. Then again, I do have three chances to pass this thing.
Meanwhile, I find myself believing that I really do respect the law more than most of the colleagues that I have talked with. I really can’t bring myself to say “I want to be a lawyer,” but find it easier than others to say that justice is important and corruption is bad. When there is no justice in the legal system and corruption is rampant, we have every right to complain about law schools and all the other legal institutions beyond law school. That’s a different breed than many successful lawyers.
In the meantime, for my own purposes and desires, I am probably preparing for my legal career where I’m going to be at my best—among all the other Baby Bar slackers. Calling the legal education system dysfunctional and even corrupt is not the task of a law school brat whose feet never touch the ground.
Working for justice and against corruption takes some real work and sacrifice. To that end, I am proud to be the bad boy of law.
Friday, June 25, 2010
The Great American Number Crunch
A few months ago, I went to the orientation for prospective students at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. My interest was piqued right off the bat, when Assistant Dean Adam Barrett claimed during his welcome that McGeorge had a “95.1% placement rate.” I wrote that number down in the folder they handed out to us. I still have that folder.
Not more than 20 minutes later, when a student was giving about 15 of us a campus tour, I heard her say that McGeorge had an 85% placement rate (she thought, at least). I opened my folder and wrote that number down too. A few hours after that, I was at yet another lecture about careers in law, and the lecturer said that McGeorge had a placement rate of 92.8% in 2007, 90% in 2008, and "they" (whoever that may be) didn’t yet have the numbers for 2009.
Well, as you can possibly imagine, I kept singing that Stephen Stills song that goes “… nobody’s right, if everbody’s wrong…”
But still I have to say it: isn’t it more than just ironic that the professors in these law schools are going to be teaching us all about the torts of misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation, all the while undoubtedly aware that the little tykes they are teaching are being misrepresented right and left by their own law schools?
A young New York Times reporter named Catherine Rampell (who, based on her photos, is also very attractive, young and charismatic) reported in an article a few days ago that some law schools are implementing policies of deliberate grade inflation, to make their JDs more attractive on the job market. Rampell also runs a blog for the New York Times called “Economix.”
It’s refreshing to see a new face tackling these issues, although Rampell probably doesn’t yet realize the nature and how big this tiger she has by the tail is. Our American business culture has gotten so used to lying and false public statements that sometimes I wonder what journalists are even for anymore.
We don’t need to be uncivil about this, but a façade of civility certainly keeps us from confronting the lies coming out of law schools, not to mention the forces that gave us our present financial disaster. Then again, isn’t there some sort of place where we can make hard legal analysis of this? What are the essential elements of a lie? Let’s IRAC this and determine if Barrett is lying about his numbers, or is number crunching an acceptable form of advertisement puffing?
I wish there was a forum where we could challenge people like Dean Barrett and catch him red-handed playing the number crunch game. I can only imagine a follow up by Ms. Rampell involving some serious telephone grilling of Dean Barrett to cough up the sources of his numbers.
Meanwhile, maybe chiming in on Rampell’s blog might start a miniscule ball rolling. Let’s give her story some legs and get it walking on its own inside the pages of the New York Times where it belongs.
Not more than 20 minutes later, when a student was giving about 15 of us a campus tour, I heard her say that McGeorge had an 85% placement rate (she thought, at least). I opened my folder and wrote that number down too. A few hours after that, I was at yet another lecture about careers in law, and the lecturer said that McGeorge had a placement rate of 92.8% in 2007, 90% in 2008, and "they" (whoever that may be) didn’t yet have the numbers for 2009.
Well, as you can possibly imagine, I kept singing that Stephen Stills song that goes “… nobody’s right, if everbody’s wrong…”
But still I have to say it: isn’t it more than just ironic that the professors in these law schools are going to be teaching us all about the torts of misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation, all the while undoubtedly aware that the little tykes they are teaching are being misrepresented right and left by their own law schools?
A young New York Times reporter named Catherine Rampell (who, based on her photos, is also very attractive, young and charismatic) reported in an article a few days ago that some law schools are implementing policies of deliberate grade inflation, to make their JDs more attractive on the job market. Rampell also runs a blog for the New York Times called “Economix.”
It’s refreshing to see a new face tackling these issues, although Rampell probably doesn’t yet realize the nature and how big this tiger she has by the tail is. Our American business culture has gotten so used to lying and false public statements that sometimes I wonder what journalists are even for anymore.
We don’t need to be uncivil about this, but a façade of civility certainly keeps us from confronting the lies coming out of law schools, not to mention the forces that gave us our present financial disaster. Then again, isn’t there some sort of place where we can make hard legal analysis of this? What are the essential elements of a lie? Let’s IRAC this and determine if Barrett is lying about his numbers, or is number crunching an acceptable form of advertisement puffing?
I wish there was a forum where we could challenge people like Dean Barrett and catch him red-handed playing the number crunch game. I can only imagine a follow up by Ms. Rampell involving some serious telephone grilling of Dean Barrett to cough up the sources of his numbers.
Meanwhile, maybe chiming in on Rampell’s blog might start a miniscule ball rolling. Let’s give her story some legs and get it walking on its own inside the pages of the New York Times where it belongs.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Learning the Secret Handshake of Legal Writing
As I get deeper into my studies and wonder why I’m not excelling as quickly as the other 1Ls, I’m constantly getting advice from those 1Ls that have moved on. I probably just need to learn how to write the exams, they say. Not learn to write them better, mind you, but learn to write them, period.
Oddly enough, I am beginning to see the logic to this criticism. There is definitely a trick, or perhaps more a knack than a trick, to writing law exams.
If your writing style tries to go off on its own narcissistic footing as something worthy of attention on its literary merits, expect your law professor to be intimidated and insulted. After all, you can read and enjoy everything from Hemmingway to Pynchon, but please don’t try to impress anyone with your writing style if you are about to send someone to the lethal injection.
But we’ve all read enough cases by now to know that judges go off on their own narcissistic binges of bloated and self-indulging writing styles. So just what is it about writing in an individual style that genuinely pisses off law professors?
Anyone who has taken the time, and perhaps even the pains, to read anything on my blog, probably sees that I like to write and with lots of density, wringing out thoughts with as much grueling effort as wringing out a giant, sopping wet beach towel. I normally avoid brevity and clarity, since it’s artificial compared to one’s actual thought process. Then again, if it is effectively forceful—like a Karate chop—those short quips can be useful.
With my questionable but individual style, I have spent several decades trying to keep a freelance writing career going. I’m familiar with every Perry White wannabe editor who keeps carping about consistency, diction, and writing so the readers can understand. I’m a writer who late in his career also understands that sometimes those rejections can be the best of compliments. It’s not sour grapes at all to know that you are not part of an elite group of writers whose stuff you don’t like to read anyway. Any writer who doesn’t write the way he or she wants to write isn’t writing at all. Even if you will lose sympathy with the majority of readers reading your stuff, someone out there is going to pick up what you’re trying to say by the way you are trying to say it.
When I began studying law, one of the first lessons I undertook was a humorous seven-CD set on torts by a crusty New York lawyer who absolutely doted on the writing style of Benjamin Cardozo. I took that to heart at the time, but years later and reading more Cardozo opinions than I care to think about, I have even come to despise his writing style. It is a pretentious effort at elegance and flows off the tongue like syrup that is both too sweet and too thick.
Another approach to legal writing that I have heard another lawyer espouse is that it should not be stylish at all. He compared proper legal writing to the radio transcripts of Sully Sullenberger’s transmissions with air traffic controllers during his crash landing into the Hudson River. Lawyers should only say things like “can’t land there” or “must try a different spot.” “Avoid needless words,” said Strunk and White several generations ago, although probably scoring more points for being cleverly self-referential, I think, than for stating a maxim that should be worshiped like the Holy Grail.
Up to this point, these are all nitpicking observations about writing and style. What do law professors actually look for these days when they are grading an exam? A possible answer does raise valid reasons for concern. For example, one thing I’m told they look for is spaces between each element of your analysis (IRAC) and bigger spaces between each analysis itself. Is this really a reason to fail a 1L? Of course, you’ll never actually hear a law professor tell you to your face that the content of your legal analysis was OK, but he actually didn’t read it because it was a bit harsh on the eyes. In other words, he won’t actually take the trouble of distinguishing this rule from that analysis or that conclusion, if it means squinting, or taking the time to read it over if he didn’t get it the first time. Alas, there are no manuals of style that state rules for making your exams easy on the eyes of the law professor.
In fact, what law professors want to see on exams but won’t admit is a dumbed-down style. There is a shorthand to legal writing that they insist upon, but can’t actually describe. If they actually have to read something in the form of a well-structured sentence or a complete thought, they will be irritated. Even if you had the ability to memorize codes and rules verbatim, that won’t help you. Law students must write fragments of sentences that bluntly mention the words and phrases the professor wants to read to score points. Any complete thoughts will obfuscate this process and waste the professor’s precious time.
Even worse. If you write with any style whatsoever or with the idea of fleshing out an idea so that it actually makes sense to you, your professor will think you are faking it. Even worse. Your professor will think you are not trying to be a lawyer at all. Your professor will think you’re making fun of him and the entire legal profession. Lawyers have to make decisions quickly, and don’t want anyone to dwell on the fact that if you actually spend some time thinking about what they have written, it sometimes doesn’t make any sense.
I recently saw a video of famous lawyer Lawrence Lessig giving a lecture with the assistance of a Power Point presentation. Like Tom Hanks at the beginning of the Da Vinci Code, Lessig talks while basic words he uses appear on the screen. It creates a stylish sort of reverie, almost hypnotic in its power to force you to look past the meaning of what’s being said into a form of pure persuasion. It is lawyer theater.
It is also rock ‘n’ roll, with a rock star on stage. We should be learning to understand their theater much more. This is hermeneutics at its most tricky form: pure prestidigitation as a method of persuasion.
I can almost get the knack of today’s approach to legal writing if I think of it as a secret handshake. The professor won’t show you what it is, but until you learn it and then respect the secret with your life, you won’t pass your 1L exams, let alone a State Bar Exam.
My hat’s off to my colleagues who picked up on this handshake right away without thinking about it. I just hope they do think about it at some point.
Oddly enough, I am beginning to see the logic to this criticism. There is definitely a trick, or perhaps more a knack than a trick, to writing law exams.
If your writing style tries to go off on its own narcissistic footing as something worthy of attention on its literary merits, expect your law professor to be intimidated and insulted. After all, you can read and enjoy everything from Hemmingway to Pynchon, but please don’t try to impress anyone with your writing style if you are about to send someone to the lethal injection.
But we’ve all read enough cases by now to know that judges go off on their own narcissistic binges of bloated and self-indulging writing styles. So just what is it about writing in an individual style that genuinely pisses off law professors?
Anyone who has taken the time, and perhaps even the pains, to read anything on my blog, probably sees that I like to write and with lots of density, wringing out thoughts with as much grueling effort as wringing out a giant, sopping wet beach towel. I normally avoid brevity and clarity, since it’s artificial compared to one’s actual thought process. Then again, if it is effectively forceful—like a Karate chop—those short quips can be useful.
With my questionable but individual style, I have spent several decades trying to keep a freelance writing career going. I’m familiar with every Perry White wannabe editor who keeps carping about consistency, diction, and writing so the readers can understand. I’m a writer who late in his career also understands that sometimes those rejections can be the best of compliments. It’s not sour grapes at all to know that you are not part of an elite group of writers whose stuff you don’t like to read anyway. Any writer who doesn’t write the way he or she wants to write isn’t writing at all. Even if you will lose sympathy with the majority of readers reading your stuff, someone out there is going to pick up what you’re trying to say by the way you are trying to say it.
When I began studying law, one of the first lessons I undertook was a humorous seven-CD set on torts by a crusty New York lawyer who absolutely doted on the writing style of Benjamin Cardozo. I took that to heart at the time, but years later and reading more Cardozo opinions than I care to think about, I have even come to despise his writing style. It is a pretentious effort at elegance and flows off the tongue like syrup that is both too sweet and too thick.
Another approach to legal writing that I have heard another lawyer espouse is that it should not be stylish at all. He compared proper legal writing to the radio transcripts of Sully Sullenberger’s transmissions with air traffic controllers during his crash landing into the Hudson River. Lawyers should only say things like “can’t land there” or “must try a different spot.” “Avoid needless words,” said Strunk and White several generations ago, although probably scoring more points for being cleverly self-referential, I think, than for stating a maxim that should be worshiped like the Holy Grail.
Up to this point, these are all nitpicking observations about writing and style. What do law professors actually look for these days when they are grading an exam? A possible answer does raise valid reasons for concern. For example, one thing I’m told they look for is spaces between each element of your analysis (IRAC) and bigger spaces between each analysis itself. Is this really a reason to fail a 1L? Of course, you’ll never actually hear a law professor tell you to your face that the content of your legal analysis was OK, but he actually didn’t read it because it was a bit harsh on the eyes. In other words, he won’t actually take the trouble of distinguishing this rule from that analysis or that conclusion, if it means squinting, or taking the time to read it over if he didn’t get it the first time. Alas, there are no manuals of style that state rules for making your exams easy on the eyes of the law professor.
In fact, what law professors want to see on exams but won’t admit is a dumbed-down style. There is a shorthand to legal writing that they insist upon, but can’t actually describe. If they actually have to read something in the form of a well-structured sentence or a complete thought, they will be irritated. Even if you had the ability to memorize codes and rules verbatim, that won’t help you. Law students must write fragments of sentences that bluntly mention the words and phrases the professor wants to read to score points. Any complete thoughts will obfuscate this process and waste the professor’s precious time.
Even worse. If you write with any style whatsoever or with the idea of fleshing out an idea so that it actually makes sense to you, your professor will think you are faking it. Even worse. Your professor will think you are not trying to be a lawyer at all. Your professor will think you’re making fun of him and the entire legal profession. Lawyers have to make decisions quickly, and don’t want anyone to dwell on the fact that if you actually spend some time thinking about what they have written, it sometimes doesn’t make any sense.
I recently saw a video of famous lawyer Lawrence Lessig giving a lecture with the assistance of a Power Point presentation. Like Tom Hanks at the beginning of the Da Vinci Code, Lessig talks while basic words he uses appear on the screen. It creates a stylish sort of reverie, almost hypnotic in its power to force you to look past the meaning of what’s being said into a form of pure persuasion. It is lawyer theater.
It is also rock ‘n’ roll, with a rock star on stage. We should be learning to understand their theater much more. This is hermeneutics at its most tricky form: pure prestidigitation as a method of persuasion.
I can almost get the knack of today’s approach to legal writing if I think of it as a secret handshake. The professor won’t show you what it is, but until you learn it and then respect the secret with your life, you won’t pass your 1L exams, let alone a State Bar Exam.
My hat’s off to my colleagues who picked up on this handshake right away without thinking about it. I just hope they do think about it at some point.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Spook Law for the Invisibile Government
Here’s a tidbit with plenty of room for cynical spin to share with all those out there with a skeptical eye towards law school. I just found out that McGeorge Law School in Sacramento is run by a powerful woman with one leg firmly planted into the world of spooks.
McGeorge’s Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker used to be “the General Counsel” of the NSA under the Reagan Administration, and “the General Counsel" of the CIA under the George Herbert Walker Bush Administration. These are powerful positions that are nominated directly by the President and must get approval from the Senate. Finding this out sure made me wonder how these conservative Presidents would have had enough knowledge and wherewithal to nominate such a lawyer. During the Reagan/Bush Sr. Era, the U.S. Intelligence community was challenging the status quo of legality for paramilitary operations around the world, from bombing Libya to occupying Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega.
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker probably first entered the U.S. intelligence community in the first half of the 1980s, working for the powerful Washington law firm Surrey & Morse (this law firm was absorbed into Jones Day). One of its co-founders, Walter Sterling Surrey (1915-1989), has been described by at least one U.S. intelligence community researcher, John Cummings, as “a charter member of the old boy network of U.S. intelligence.” (see Pete Brewton, The Mafia, CIA and Bush (1992)). In 1971, Surrey was one of the original founders of the infamous World Finance Corporation (WFC), which under the dubious leadership of its founder, Cuban Guillermo Hernández-Cartaya (b. 1932?), ran amuck into illegal activities, including money laundering for Colombian cocaine and international arms dealers. There were even connections to the banking scandals of Italy’s Propaganda Due (“P2”) and the Vatican Bank, as depicted in the movie Godfather Part III. Surrey resigned shortly before the collapse of the WFC, denying any knowledge of wrongdoing or criminality.
Although perhaps an obscure fact, it was by no means a State secret that Surrey apparently used his law firm to vet lawyers for future positions in the U.S. Intelligence community. Apparently he did this for at least Rindskopf Parker for the NSA General Counsel, as well as her successor (apparently his own son, Richard Sterling Surrey, although I can’t verify exactly who this and many others on these lists are). Here’s as complete a list of past NSA General Counsels as I can muster for this blog:
Sidney Smith 1953-1959
Roy R. Banner 1959-1978
Daniel B. Silver 1978-1979
Daniel C. Schwartz 1979-1981 Bryan Cave LLP
Jon T. Anderson 1981-1984
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker 1984-1989 Dean, McGeorge Law School
Richard Sterling Surrey 1990-1992
Stewart A. Baker 1992-1994
Ronald D. Lee 1994-1998 Arnold & Porter LLP
Robert L. Deitz 1998-2006 currently George Mason University
Vito T. Potenza (acting general counsel)
These general counsels were supposed to know about and completely analyze every NSA operation to determine the legality of it. Rindskopf Parker took over at the NSA less than a month after the La Penca bombing in May 1984, and the Iran-Contra Affair was in full gear. Much of Lt. Col. Oliver North’s operations (including the infamous diversion of funds to the “Contras” in Nicaragua) ought to have come across her desk, but she never emerged as a prominent figure in this scandal or any other scandals for that matter.
She then was nominated to be the General Counsel of the CIA (head of the Office of General Counsel or OGC) and took over that post in 1990. The following is an incomplete list of people holding this position (please help me complete it):
Lawrence R. Houston 1947-1973 (died 1995)
John Warner 1975?
Anthony A. Lapham 1976-1979 (died 2006)
Daniel B. Silver 1981-1982 (see above)
Stanley Sporkin ????-1986 Gavel Consulting Group
David P. Doherty 1988 retired, NYSE Euronext, Inc.
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker 1990-1992 (see above)
Jeffrey H. Smith 1995-1996 Arnold & Porter LLP
Robert M. McNamara, Jr. 1997-2000 OmniTrust Security Systems(?)
Scott W. Muller 2002-2004 Davis, Polk & Wardwell LLP
John A. Rizzo (acting) 2002-2005 currently in the news about destroying tapes
Stephen Preston 2009-
This would have been an interesting transitional period for the CIA, since the major reason for the Agency’s existence, the Soviet Union, had just collapsed. Still, her extracurricular activities in the U.S. Intelligence community include being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and being a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. When she makes public appearances as a pundit, her views strangely lean towards the liberal side.
I think Rindskopf Parker and other lawyers on these lists demonstrate that there is a deep connection to be drawn between the American Bar Association and the U.S. Intelligence Community. It’s no secret that the legal world has become one of the most important forces in the world of politics, but this means that setting public policy is not always a matter for the Courts or any other official procedure within the confines of our visible Government.
Talk of the “Shadow Government” reveals its implements in the U.S. Intelligence community. I lived through the 1980s watching Reagan and Papa Bush break one law after the other, using spin and control over the media to make it all seem like they were doing nothing wrong. In the 1990s, we then watched the exact opposite: every scandal possible stuck to the Clintons, including one of the most farcical sex scandals in political history, leading to only the second impeachment of a President in U.S. history. Then came Baby Bush, and pure lawlessness returned.
Make it through law school and into your cushy job and you’ll get to be one of the brats. For the rest of us, we need to stand up to the spooks, the ABA, and whatever other shadow entity tells us that we have been “eliminated,” for little other reason than “the tribe has spoken.”
Learn the law. Keep Government visible.
McGeorge’s Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker used to be “the General Counsel” of the NSA under the Reagan Administration, and “the General Counsel" of the CIA under the George Herbert Walker Bush Administration. These are powerful positions that are nominated directly by the President and must get approval from the Senate. Finding this out sure made me wonder how these conservative Presidents would have had enough knowledge and wherewithal to nominate such a lawyer. During the Reagan/Bush Sr. Era, the U.S. Intelligence community was challenging the status quo of legality for paramilitary operations around the world, from bombing Libya to occupying Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega.
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker probably first entered the U.S. intelligence community in the first half of the 1980s, working for the powerful Washington law firm Surrey & Morse (this law firm was absorbed into Jones Day). One of its co-founders, Walter Sterling Surrey (1915-1989), has been described by at least one U.S. intelligence community researcher, John Cummings, as “a charter member of the old boy network of U.S. intelligence.” (see Pete Brewton, The Mafia, CIA and Bush (1992)). In 1971, Surrey was one of the original founders of the infamous World Finance Corporation (WFC), which under the dubious leadership of its founder, Cuban Guillermo Hernández-Cartaya (b. 1932?), ran amuck into illegal activities, including money laundering for Colombian cocaine and international arms dealers. There were even connections to the banking scandals of Italy’s Propaganda Due (“P2”) and the Vatican Bank, as depicted in the movie Godfather Part III. Surrey resigned shortly before the collapse of the WFC, denying any knowledge of wrongdoing or criminality.
Although perhaps an obscure fact, it was by no means a State secret that Surrey apparently used his law firm to vet lawyers for future positions in the U.S. Intelligence community. Apparently he did this for at least Rindskopf Parker for the NSA General Counsel, as well as her successor (apparently his own son, Richard Sterling Surrey, although I can’t verify exactly who this and many others on these lists are). Here’s as complete a list of past NSA General Counsels as I can muster for this blog:
Sidney Smith 1953-1959
Roy R. Banner 1959-1978
Daniel B. Silver 1978-1979
Daniel C. Schwartz 1979-1981 Bryan Cave LLP
Jon T. Anderson 1981-1984
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker 1984-1989 Dean, McGeorge Law School
Richard Sterling Surrey 1990-1992
Stewart A. Baker 1992-1994
Ronald D. Lee 1994-1998 Arnold & Porter LLP
Robert L. Deitz 1998-2006 currently George Mason University
Vito T. Potenza (acting general counsel)
These general counsels were supposed to know about and completely analyze every NSA operation to determine the legality of it. Rindskopf Parker took over at the NSA less than a month after the La Penca bombing in May 1984, and the Iran-Contra Affair was in full gear. Much of Lt. Col. Oliver North’s operations (including the infamous diversion of funds to the “Contras” in Nicaragua) ought to have come across her desk, but she never emerged as a prominent figure in this scandal or any other scandals for that matter.
She then was nominated to be the General Counsel of the CIA (head of the Office of General Counsel or OGC) and took over that post in 1990. The following is an incomplete list of people holding this position (please help me complete it):
Lawrence R. Houston 1947-1973 (died 1995)
John Warner 1975?
Anthony A. Lapham 1976-1979 (died 2006)
Daniel B. Silver 1981-1982 (see above)
Stanley Sporkin ????-1986 Gavel Consulting Group
David P. Doherty 1988 retired, NYSE Euronext, Inc.
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker 1990-1992 (see above)
Jeffrey H. Smith 1995-1996 Arnold & Porter LLP
Robert M. McNamara, Jr. 1997-2000 OmniTrust Security Systems(?)
Scott W. Muller 2002-2004 Davis, Polk & Wardwell LLP
John A. Rizzo (acting) 2002-2005 currently in the news about destroying tapes
Stephen Preston 2009-
This would have been an interesting transitional period for the CIA, since the major reason for the Agency’s existence, the Soviet Union, had just collapsed. Still, her extracurricular activities in the U.S. Intelligence community include being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and being a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. When she makes public appearances as a pundit, her views strangely lean towards the liberal side.
I think Rindskopf Parker and other lawyers on these lists demonstrate that there is a deep connection to be drawn between the American Bar Association and the U.S. Intelligence Community. It’s no secret that the legal world has become one of the most important forces in the world of politics, but this means that setting public policy is not always a matter for the Courts or any other official procedure within the confines of our visible Government.
Talk of the “Shadow Government” reveals its implements in the U.S. Intelligence community. I lived through the 1980s watching Reagan and Papa Bush break one law after the other, using spin and control over the media to make it all seem like they were doing nothing wrong. In the 1990s, we then watched the exact opposite: every scandal possible stuck to the Clintons, including one of the most farcical sex scandals in political history, leading to only the second impeachment of a President in U.S. history. Then came Baby Bush, and pure lawlessness returned.
Make it through law school and into your cushy job and you’ll get to be one of the brats. For the rest of us, we need to stand up to the spooks, the ABA, and whatever other shadow entity tells us that we have been “eliminated,” for little other reason than “the tribe has spoken.”
Learn the law. Keep Government visible.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Default On Your Student Loan? A Big Decision, But Make It!
First, do the math. Can you possibly afford to make the payment? I hate this process, I hate the Department of Education, I hate the banks, I hate Sallie Mae, and I especially hate all those collection agencies, but still, if you can make the payments without too much hardship, make them. I do not advocate complete anarchy here.
If you have one of these law school debts of over $100K, you’ll probably be making monthly payments up to $1K per month. So, again, do the math. Can you afford this, plus your rent ($1,500-$2,000), plus any car payment ($300 per month) plus living expenses (which includes credit card debt: another $1000 per month)? Let’s round up to $5,000 per month, which is $60K per annum. If you make $60K per annum, read no further and pay off your student loans.
If not, listen to these words: you cannot afford this. Change your mindset and prepare yourself for a life you probably didn’t expect, but it isn’t the end of the world.
It’s funny how some people go through college and don’t understand that if you default on your student loan (that is, if you miss enough payments—usually around six) the FBI does not show up at your door and arrest you. You don’t have to move out of the country if you stiff the Department of Education!
Here’s some things you should learn about the employment world as it stands today in America. The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and it appears that it will stay that way for a while. That means an 8-hour day will earn you $58; a 40-hour week (8 hours x 5 days) will earn you $290; a full time job at minimum wage will earn you ($290 x 4 weeks) $1,160 per month, which is $13,920 per year. The official poverty level for a family of two is $14,000 per year, so this minimum wage job puts you just under it.
Now look at what you have to make to afford your student loans, or $60K per annum. That’s $5,000 per month, $1,250 per week, $250 per day, or $31.25 an hour. There might be some adjusting to do with vacations, February, which has only 28 days, and other facts of our Western calendar. Round up to $32 per hour. If you are not making $32 per hour, you should not be attempting to pay back your student loans.
So what happens if you simply don’t pay? Again, I’m not a complete anarchist, so if you can pay something, anything, say $100 per month, do it. You’ll default and be making those payments to a collection agency, but so what. In fact, the collection agency will tell you not to send them a payment if it isn’t for the full amount. Send it anyway. They’ll take it. If you stiff them cold, they will remember that. Don't stiff them cold if you can avoid it.
Oh yes, and their hardship plans are usually bogus. They'll try to sell you those. Listen to them. But usually don't sign up for them. If the collection company treats you like a rogue because you won't sign up for their hardship plan, tell them tough titties. If they start to come down on you hard, hang up the phone.
Even if you are unemployed and have no money whatsoever coming in, a $100 payment to them now and then (say once or twice a year) will keep you out of the worst of their categories. It all goes under the general category of how to handle bill collectors.
This advice goes for stiffing credit cards as well. Do it only if you don’t have the money coming in, but don’t be afraid to do it. When the collection companies start calling, it is important NOT TO TELL THEM ANYTHING. They will say they have the force of the law on their side, but that is a bluff. Collection companies will use every trick in the book to make sure you don’t have enough money for food that month. They are despicable. Treat them like criminals, because that’s what they are.
If collection agencies start harassing you (and they most certainly will), you must demand that they stop all collection calls. You have to do this in writing. Write your demand to stop all collection calls to them in crayon. They must. Oddly, this is one of the laws they honor.
Make your priorities: stiff student loans and credit cards first; don’t stiff auto insurance if you don’t want to be fined (depending on the state you live in); don’t stiff the auto payment if you don’t want your car repossessed; and don’t ever, ever, ever stiff the IRS. With all the conservative propaganda horror stories out there about the IRS, as long as you don’t owe them mega-bucks, they are the puppy dogs of collection outfits. If you owe back taxes, set up a monthly payment with them. If you can’t afford what you owe at the end of the year, make sure you at least file on time. Send them what you can. Their collection letters are intimidating, but they are nothing like the lawless collection agencies that the Department of Education or credit card companies will sic on you.
There are a few other laws to know about. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which goes back to the New Deal during the Great Depression, is what you need to invoke if your employer works you overtime without paying you “time and a half.” If you receive an hourly wage and your employer works you more than eight hours, you can sue and usually collect twice the amount of your damages. The problem is, of course, you are going to piss off your employer if you sue them, so you have to decide if this is really worth it. Still, it is more than interesting when you work for a company and lo and behold they simply show what they are made of by completely dishonoring this law. This is one of the laws that I’m sure young JDs will be encountering when they get these temporary positions with law firms. Other employers will try to grant you “exempt” status, by making you a vice-president or something. McDonalds once thought it could successfully skirt around FLSA by making all of its burger-flippers vice-presidents, so they could work overtime. Once you thoroughly know this law, you’ll see just what your employers are made of and why you should be very suspicious of them at all times.
ERISA, which dates from 1974, is another important law, which deals with pension plans. Employers are aggressively trying to make a buck by getting you to sign up for their pension plans, and sometimes you don’t even know you have signed up for one. If you stop working for a company, make sure that they haven’t signed you up for a pension plan and if they have, make sure that they return the money they took out of your paychecks, if you are not yet vested. I don’t care how fancy the office building is where you work, these companies are ruthless. Make Xerox copies of all of your paychecks, because they will often skimp on the information provided to you on your pay stubs.
Also watch for the part-time/full-time shuffle. I worked for a company once that had me employed 7.75 hours a day, and considered that part-time employment. No, it was also not some fly-by-night organization either.
If you are a young lawyer, you have no doubt entered into the legal field at a time when downsizing is going to cream you if you let it. Don’t let Judge Judy intimidate you when she says you are a bum if you don’t have a job. Many of these places are simply not worth working for. Sometimes it is better to simply stop paying your bills than to put up with the nonsense that an employer is going to try and pull on you. It will waste your time and it is not worth the money.
Above all, make sure you get enough to eat and have a roof over your head. You are not a bum if you don’t pay back your student loans, no matter what that television tells you.
And if you get in a jam, go see a lawyer! Their first consulation is usually free.
If you have one of these law school debts of over $100K, you’ll probably be making monthly payments up to $1K per month. So, again, do the math. Can you afford this, plus your rent ($1,500-$2,000), plus any car payment ($300 per month) plus living expenses (which includes credit card debt: another $1000 per month)? Let’s round up to $5,000 per month, which is $60K per annum. If you make $60K per annum, read no further and pay off your student loans.
If not, listen to these words: you cannot afford this. Change your mindset and prepare yourself for a life you probably didn’t expect, but it isn’t the end of the world.
It’s funny how some people go through college and don’t understand that if you default on your student loan (that is, if you miss enough payments—usually around six) the FBI does not show up at your door and arrest you. You don’t have to move out of the country if you stiff the Department of Education!
Here’s some things you should learn about the employment world as it stands today in America. The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and it appears that it will stay that way for a while. That means an 8-hour day will earn you $58; a 40-hour week (8 hours x 5 days) will earn you $290; a full time job at minimum wage will earn you ($290 x 4 weeks) $1,160 per month, which is $13,920 per year. The official poverty level for a family of two is $14,000 per year, so this minimum wage job puts you just under it.
Now look at what you have to make to afford your student loans, or $60K per annum. That’s $5,000 per month, $1,250 per week, $250 per day, or $31.25 an hour. There might be some adjusting to do with vacations, February, which has only 28 days, and other facts of our Western calendar. Round up to $32 per hour. If you are not making $32 per hour, you should not be attempting to pay back your student loans.
So what happens if you simply don’t pay? Again, I’m not a complete anarchist, so if you can pay something, anything, say $100 per month, do it. You’ll default and be making those payments to a collection agency, but so what. In fact, the collection agency will tell you not to send them a payment if it isn’t for the full amount. Send it anyway. They’ll take it. If you stiff them cold, they will remember that. Don't stiff them cold if you can avoid it.
Oh yes, and their hardship plans are usually bogus. They'll try to sell you those. Listen to them. But usually don't sign up for them. If the collection company treats you like a rogue because you won't sign up for their hardship plan, tell them tough titties. If they start to come down on you hard, hang up the phone.
Even if you are unemployed and have no money whatsoever coming in, a $100 payment to them now and then (say once or twice a year) will keep you out of the worst of their categories. It all goes under the general category of how to handle bill collectors.
This advice goes for stiffing credit cards as well. Do it only if you don’t have the money coming in, but don’t be afraid to do it. When the collection companies start calling, it is important NOT TO TELL THEM ANYTHING. They will say they have the force of the law on their side, but that is a bluff. Collection companies will use every trick in the book to make sure you don’t have enough money for food that month. They are despicable. Treat them like criminals, because that’s what they are.
If collection agencies start harassing you (and they most certainly will), you must demand that they stop all collection calls. You have to do this in writing. Write your demand to stop all collection calls to them in crayon. They must. Oddly, this is one of the laws they honor.
Make your priorities: stiff student loans and credit cards first; don’t stiff auto insurance if you don’t want to be fined (depending on the state you live in); don’t stiff the auto payment if you don’t want your car repossessed; and don’t ever, ever, ever stiff the IRS. With all the conservative propaganda horror stories out there about the IRS, as long as you don’t owe them mega-bucks, they are the puppy dogs of collection outfits. If you owe back taxes, set up a monthly payment with them. If you can’t afford what you owe at the end of the year, make sure you at least file on time. Send them what you can. Their collection letters are intimidating, but they are nothing like the lawless collection agencies that the Department of Education or credit card companies will sic on you.
There are a few other laws to know about. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which goes back to the New Deal during the Great Depression, is what you need to invoke if your employer works you overtime without paying you “time and a half.” If you receive an hourly wage and your employer works you more than eight hours, you can sue and usually collect twice the amount of your damages. The problem is, of course, you are going to piss off your employer if you sue them, so you have to decide if this is really worth it. Still, it is more than interesting when you work for a company and lo and behold they simply show what they are made of by completely dishonoring this law. This is one of the laws that I’m sure young JDs will be encountering when they get these temporary positions with law firms. Other employers will try to grant you “exempt” status, by making you a vice-president or something. McDonalds once thought it could successfully skirt around FLSA by making all of its burger-flippers vice-presidents, so they could work overtime. Once you thoroughly know this law, you’ll see just what your employers are made of and why you should be very suspicious of them at all times.
ERISA, which dates from 1974, is another important law, which deals with pension plans. Employers are aggressively trying to make a buck by getting you to sign up for their pension plans, and sometimes you don’t even know you have signed up for one. If you stop working for a company, make sure that they haven’t signed you up for a pension plan and if they have, make sure that they return the money they took out of your paychecks, if you are not yet vested. I don’t care how fancy the office building is where you work, these companies are ruthless. Make Xerox copies of all of your paychecks, because they will often skimp on the information provided to you on your pay stubs.
Also watch for the part-time/full-time shuffle. I worked for a company once that had me employed 7.75 hours a day, and considered that part-time employment. No, it was also not some fly-by-night organization either.
If you are a young lawyer, you have no doubt entered into the legal field at a time when downsizing is going to cream you if you let it. Don’t let Judge Judy intimidate you when she says you are a bum if you don’t have a job. Many of these places are simply not worth working for. Sometimes it is better to simply stop paying your bills than to put up with the nonsense that an employer is going to try and pull on you. It will waste your time and it is not worth the money.
Above all, make sure you get enough to eat and have a roof over your head. You are not a bum if you don’t pay back your student loans, no matter what that television tells you.
And if you get in a jam, go see a lawyer! Their first consulation is usually free.
Monday, March 8, 2010
En garde! Taking on the Trolls
Even if you are of strong character and sound mind, trolls have the ability to knock the wind out of you. We bloggers know there are trolls out there, they get into our blogs and stubbornly fire away at everything we might stand for.
Why should we be so surprised? In a way, we pick the fight with them by taking a stand against the status quo. If we know what the law school crisis is, we try to fix it by informing others and making sure that the snake-oil salesmen out there don’t fool you with their claims.
I recently read an extraordinary feature by a writer for the Sacramento News & Review, R.V. Scheide. It’s about the current public education crisis in California:
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1380297
Scheide got the progression of what you have to go against if you are going to fight against the status quo these days: 1) Ronald Reagan; 2) Howard Jarvis; 3) Ayn Rand; and 4) Milton Friedman. The trolls have their way of thinking, and they will never give in. They are fiercely loyal and will essentially fight to the death.
They will tell you “never give a sucker an even break.” And if you are a recent JD graduate who can’t get a job, to them you are a sucker. There will be no civil effort to fix the problem as far as they are concerned. It doesn’t matter how much you argue or how much you isolate a substantial, destructive problem and identify it. Their creed is to make sure you stay at the bottom.
I mention Ronald Reagan because he was the one who originally led a political campaign against education, not when he was President, but when he was Governor of California (1967-1975). He believed that universities were harboring Marxism and should therefore be starved out of money, and maybe even eradicated altogether. His biggest enemy was UC Berkeley, where protesting against the Vietnam War had heated up to boiling point. If you want to know why tuition in law school (or any school) has continuously gone up over the years, Reagan’s attempt to crack down on universities and public funding for them was a powerful cause for the conservatives who have shaped this country for the past 30 years, since Reagan became President.
Howard Jarvis appeared on the California scene shortly after Reagan served out his term as Governor, but his tax revolt (which was the essence of his famous Proposition 13, which the voters affirmed) cut property taxes in California which were funding the public education system. The spirit of this tax revolt appears the same today as it did then: it presents itself as a grassroots movement, but in essence, it gulls the grassroots into supporting the interests of the wealthy.
And please don’t buy into the stuff you read about Ayn Rand, for example, that her Atlas Shrugged is the most important book since the Bible. Rand is a warped, pernicious thinker, angry at the world, believing through a twisted logic that religious, spiritual people are leading the planet towards death. She is the heart and soul of the conservative movement, even though she is a staunch atheist. She practically condones criminal behavior if you are among the elite of the world. She espouses a circular, tautological philosophy attracting young people by the droves because of its angry tone.
And Milton Friedman, who stood by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s side at the beginning of his first term, is one of the chief voices of the Libertarian Party and the Chicago School of Economics. He would just as soon auction off the departments of the Federal Government to the highest bidder: I often wonder what would happen if the Mafia bought the Department of Justice. He tells you there is no such thing as fat cats, and that the free market is the only way to structure a society. He has successfully taken the 19th-century version of anarchy and wrapped it in sheep’s clothing. The wolf that jumps out to eat you will be those wealthy “fat cats” that will make sure you remain jobless, unless you get down on all fours and service their needs (to put it mildly).
I realize this is California stuff, but it is apropos of the issue at hand. If we are trying to preserve the American experiment in Democracy, every voice shall be heard, even if the trolls are going to yell at the same time. Trying to solve problems with logic will make you vulnerable to their guile, but stand firm and right with the truth. Expect a fight, but it needs to be fought.
Why should we be so surprised? In a way, we pick the fight with them by taking a stand against the status quo. If we know what the law school crisis is, we try to fix it by informing others and making sure that the snake-oil salesmen out there don’t fool you with their claims.
I recently read an extraordinary feature by a writer for the Sacramento News & Review, R.V. Scheide. It’s about the current public education crisis in California:
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1380297
Scheide got the progression of what you have to go against if you are going to fight against the status quo these days: 1) Ronald Reagan; 2) Howard Jarvis; 3) Ayn Rand; and 4) Milton Friedman. The trolls have their way of thinking, and they will never give in. They are fiercely loyal and will essentially fight to the death.
They will tell you “never give a sucker an even break.” And if you are a recent JD graduate who can’t get a job, to them you are a sucker. There will be no civil effort to fix the problem as far as they are concerned. It doesn’t matter how much you argue or how much you isolate a substantial, destructive problem and identify it. Their creed is to make sure you stay at the bottom.
I mention Ronald Reagan because he was the one who originally led a political campaign against education, not when he was President, but when he was Governor of California (1967-1975). He believed that universities were harboring Marxism and should therefore be starved out of money, and maybe even eradicated altogether. His biggest enemy was UC Berkeley, where protesting against the Vietnam War had heated up to boiling point. If you want to know why tuition in law school (or any school) has continuously gone up over the years, Reagan’s attempt to crack down on universities and public funding for them was a powerful cause for the conservatives who have shaped this country for the past 30 years, since Reagan became President.
Howard Jarvis appeared on the California scene shortly after Reagan served out his term as Governor, but his tax revolt (which was the essence of his famous Proposition 13, which the voters affirmed) cut property taxes in California which were funding the public education system. The spirit of this tax revolt appears the same today as it did then: it presents itself as a grassroots movement, but in essence, it gulls the grassroots into supporting the interests of the wealthy.
And please don’t buy into the stuff you read about Ayn Rand, for example, that her Atlas Shrugged is the most important book since the Bible. Rand is a warped, pernicious thinker, angry at the world, believing through a twisted logic that religious, spiritual people are leading the planet towards death. She is the heart and soul of the conservative movement, even though she is a staunch atheist. She practically condones criminal behavior if you are among the elite of the world. She espouses a circular, tautological philosophy attracting young people by the droves because of its angry tone.
And Milton Friedman, who stood by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s side at the beginning of his first term, is one of the chief voices of the Libertarian Party and the Chicago School of Economics. He would just as soon auction off the departments of the Federal Government to the highest bidder: I often wonder what would happen if the Mafia bought the Department of Justice. He tells you there is no such thing as fat cats, and that the free market is the only way to structure a society. He has successfully taken the 19th-century version of anarchy and wrapped it in sheep’s clothing. The wolf that jumps out to eat you will be those wealthy “fat cats” that will make sure you remain jobless, unless you get down on all fours and service their needs (to put it mildly).
I realize this is California stuff, but it is apropos of the issue at hand. If we are trying to preserve the American experiment in Democracy, every voice shall be heard, even if the trolls are going to yell at the same time. Trying to solve problems with logic will make you vulnerable to their guile, but stand firm and right with the truth. Expect a fight, but it needs to be fought.
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