Nancy Pelosi is a nappy-headed ho: anatomy of a mindset

A fundamental principle of rhetoric is that matters of taste and personal preference cannot be argued with any profit or point. Still, a huge amount of verbal energy is expended on proclaiming quirky notions as God's truth and making cases against people who do not believe or think as the expenders do. A trait of expressions of taste and personal attitude is that they always devolve into ad hominem attacks because there are no objective reference points on which to base argument. Consequently, much of what the media, new and old, is devoted to is personal attack and examinations of personhood for the purpose of searching for things that can be contrived into defamations. Differences in cultural orientations and perspectives are tremendously difficult to analyze and resolve, but contentions and beliefs that arise from deep-psychological sets of mind that reach back into the primal motives of domination and violence in humankind are fairly easy to identify for what they are.

The instances of Nancy Pelosi's middle eastern trip which included a visit to Syria and Don Imus' racial denigration of the Rutgers' womens basketball team are easy case histories to examine. Well, maybe not easy, but examinable. They both involve expressions that have swept through the media in one guise or another and describe mindsets of their expressors, not matters of fact or reputable opinion.

It is all a matter of the new fascism, which is a misnomer. The fascism that we are experiencing in America is a very old fascism, but, make no mistake about it, it is fascism. It might better be called proto-fascism.

• it touts a belligerent nationalism over reasoned dialogue with other nations; it practices racism and oppression in its lower timbres;
• it practices, or tries to, suppression of its opposition through attempts at censorship and propagandic and legalistic terrorism;
• it delves into the personal business of its subjects for the purposes of laying a foundation for defamations and legal actions against its own citizenry;
• it assumes dictatorial powers; and it exercises socio-economic control through government agencies and corporate allies. The evisceration of the American middle class is the creation of an economic serfdom.

Fascism in its 21st century form is simply a return to feudalism, including the ignorance, the superstitious belief systems, and animal-herd social organization of the Dark Ages. The neo-clamor against evolution, global warming, individual rights regarding reproduction, humanistic and scientific exploration and dialogue about human existence, the belief in peace and the alternatives to violence, the acceptance of a militaristic state, the branding of free-thinking as heresy and traitorous are propaganda tactics that fall in line with every fascist and totalitarian state in history. To that mindset, Difference = Enemy. And so, the hate propaganda mounts.

The definition of fascism gained currency in 1995 when Umberto Eco, the Italian novelist and semiologist, wrote his definitions of contemporary Ur-Fascism in a New York Review of Books essay "Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt." This essay launched an international discussion of how fascism has its origins in the social organization of animal packs--dog packs, chicken flocks, cow herds, etc.--in which individuals try to gain dominance and power over each other through establishing a hierarchical order through treachery and violence. Democracy is a rejection of this kind of social order and the assertion, as demonstrated by Christ, of good will and good purpose as what must be the controlling motives of mankind. In this context, the words of Imus and the false accusations against Nancy Pelosi take on the aspect of true regression into mindless hostility.

Some reports say that Imus is being pilloried for making one horrendous comment. That is not true. He sits before the microphone protesting "I am a good and decent person," but the "nappy-headed ho" appelation is not an isolated instance of when he has made a vicious denigration. A number of press and media-related organizations have recorded an accumulation of racial-based defamations by him. Much beyond his denigrations, however, he makes almost daily diminishing and degrading comments upon those on whom he presumes to pass negative judgment. He derogates people for being fat, Jewish, bald, unattractive, and on and on. His idea of humor is not parody and satire of presumption and fatuity in others but is malignant name-calling and abusive aspersions.

Imus' offenses go far deeper than racism and sexism. We have always been troubled that people find his crude maligning of people humorous and entertaining. Still, he and his slavering producer, Bernard, would often launch into doltish rituals of name-calling and abuse, accompanied with a near-cretinous snickering and guffawing as if it was witty or cogent. The maligning of other people on the basis of a personal negative attitude toward them, rather than verified words and actions, is not witty or humorous or the acts of good and decent people.

We watched Imus occasionally to hear what prominent journalists and politicians on his show had to say. Only infrequently did his guests protest his malignant assaults on people about whom they talked. He did feature people on his show who did parodies of some celebrities with point and wit. But his shows were always laced with strands of cruel ridicule and defamations that were personal, not directed at particular behavior.

Objection to Imus is not a matter of taste. It is a matter of recognizing the difference between intelligent satire and genuine wit and crude, name-calling disparagement without foundation. Name-calling is the first mark of malignant propaganda. The syndrome Imus exhibits has become a standard of American media. Contriving defects of character in others and accusing them of perfidious acts has become an industry--some like to call it interactive media. It is the basis for the popularity of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and their ilk. It is the commercialization of proto-fascism.

That leads to the assault against Nancy Pelosi. Underlying the assault is that Ms. Pelosi is a woman who dares to assume the top leadership role in the U.S. House. This is upsetting to proto-fascists who cling to the belief that organization is a matter of bullying one's way to the head of the pack and that position is reserved for Alpha males. The Alpha-male wannabes are really pissed off at Nancy Pelosi's acension to high leadership. Their pissing gets ignitable when Ms. Pelosi disregards what she should have learned in obedience school and disobeys the commands of the master not to go to Syria. We won't dwell on the many congressmen from both parties who have traveled the Middle East and how it is their right and responsibility to

• provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States
• regulate commerce with foreign nations
• define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the Laws of Nations
• declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water
• make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces
• provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States
• decide, in the case of the Senate, by two-thirds vote on the making of treaties and affairs with foreign countries

Congresspersons go on fact-finding missions to obtain information so that they may carry out these charges with intelligence. Nancy Pelosi did not present Syria or any other country with an alternative foreign policy. As the people who accompanied her testify, she represented America's concerns in total consistency with national policy and objectives. The contentions that she didn't are fabrications that have no basis in fact.

With Congress given so much responsibility to counter the destructive antics of George W. and his Great American Stooge Show, the criticisms of Nancy Pelosi and her attempt to nudge the stalled peace talks between Israel and its recalcitrant neighbors along can hardly be seen as anything but peevish resentment. When people cite George W. as the commander-in-chief whose every word and notion must be obeyed, they ignore the layers of restraint and obligation imposed by the Constitution and its implementing legislation on that role. Nancy Pelosi's offense is that she is a Democrat who is Speaker of the House, she is a woman, and she will not take the place assigned by those who flirt with proto-fascism as a political ideology.

The accusations made against her visit are contrived. Some commentators even went so far as to say she committed a felony with her visit. Those contrivances are the moral and intellectual equivalent of what Imus and Bernard said about the Rutgers women's basketball team. They are statements intended to harm and damage. And the fact that Nancy Pelosi is a public figure while the Rutgers women are earnest and diligent young students does not mitigate the malignancy in the statements made about her. Nancy Pelosi and the Rutgers women provoke animus because they are women and they have achievements that are equal to, and sometimes surpass, that of their male counterparts.

Racism and sexism are the surface issues in all this. The fundamental issue is the malice behind the hate speech. Proto-fascism is based upon the presumption of a hierarchy in which there is no universal equality but in which some assert some kind of a right to oppress, damage, and subjugate other people. The charges of racism in the Imus matter put on display a sword that cuts both ways. The denigration of blacks and derogation of women in some rap and hip-hop music and culture are symptoms of a more primal attitude operating in the culture. Imus' devastating insult is the sign of a vicious malice that cannot be covered up by a chortling and guffawing delivery. The fabrications against Nancy Pelosi are the sign of a hatred that goes far deeper than a difference of political opinion.

Don Imus had a sizeable audience for his radio show and its simulcast that brought the networks about $50 million a year in advertising revenues. He has used some of his personal wealth for humane and charitable causes. The troubling aspect is how many people listened to Imus and found malicious insult and abuse of other people amusing and entertaining. Just as troubling is the audience of people who listen to rap and hip-hop and get enjoyment from the denigration and derogation that has become a characteristic of the culture. It is the fad and fashion, and corporations have been making huge amounts of money from it. It is part of the proto-fascist attitude that whatever profits one and gains power over people is fair game, no matter how destructive and demoralizing it is to some.

The firing of Don Imus does not reach the people who have profited and are responsible for spreading the malignant fashions and attitudes that are undercutting our nation and denying social freedom, equality, and justice to those designated for insult and abuse. It will be a matter of cable news and blogs being saturated for a time with the matter, and then it too will pass, and life will go on. As long as people send hate mail to the women of the Rutgers basketball team, the cancer will only gain more of a foothold. Eventually, it might kill us all. It might accomplish what Al Qaeda wants.

We do note that the more assiduous practitioners of malicious derogation fall into the camp of the political regressives. However, the so-called progressives indulge themselves, also. Ignorance, cruelty, and malice are characteristics that persist throughout the spectrum of political attitudes. When I commented on some foolish excesses publicly demonstrated by young people on election day, I earned the stereotype of being a crabby old man with a porkpie in a jumpsuit yelling at young people to get out of my yard. This was not from the regressive camp. But I doubt that its author understood that applying such a diminishing stereotype to someone on the basis of age is the intellectual and moral equivalent of calling a black man nigger. It is an example of the quality of the Imus-like insulting banter that is the stuff of the new media. That it is delivered under humorous guise does not mitigate the presence of malice.

This is the world we live in. In that world we have founded a new nation presided over by those who have made it the United States of Ignonimy. Nancy Pelosi attempted to restore some of the integrity of our status as an agent of peace and reason, but she is vilified. The vilification comes not out of the rhetoric of disagreement through informed opinions, but those who can disagree only by maligning others and portraying them with odious and false characterizations.

We are proud of America's leadership in the world for freedom, equality, and justice for all. We are proud of how it works out the injustices in its own society. But when criticizing the failures of our country are labeled as anti-American, we see the signs of past triumphs and accomplishments being undermined by those who long to dominate, derogate, and control.

The firing of Don Imus will not end the deep-seated malignancy that infects the contemporary human spirit. Proto-fascism threatens to overturn the 230 years of cultural progress that is America's history.

Is "Nancy Pelosi" the N-word?

Stephen Colbert suggested it. And all the furor about Nancy Pelosi's stop in Syria while she is touring the Middle East reflects nothing more than the inane, petty, and malevolent depths in which our political system has become mired.

We like to cite the Orwellian state into which America has been thrown--but we have to admit that a super majority of Americans now recognize that fact, according to the opinion polls. Another book of note, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny seems more relevant at this juncture.

The movie version, featuring Humphrey Bogart and Fred McMurray, still plays on cable television with some frequency. The situation is that a would-be novelist on board The Caine foments a mutiny against a captain who shows signs of incompetence brought about by a mental disorder. When his ship is ordered to tow some targets for some naval artillery practice, the captain becomes so distracted by some petty business brought to him on the bridge, a crewman's shirttail hanging out, that he doesn't notice that his ship is sailing on a course that severs the tow line. This is an act of negligence and incompetence that brings into question the captain's fitness to command. Later, the ship's captain shows signs of cowardice when he is to cover a marine beach landing and later shows incompetence and fear when caught in a tropical storm.

The ship's officers use a military procedure to declare the captain unfit to command, confine him to his quarters, and have him cited before a military court. The ships' officers are brought up on charges of mutiny. A very shrewd lawyer gets them off by provoking Captain Queeg into putting on a demonstration of his mental disorder on the stand. But the lawyer raises the question of whether the officers should have deposed Queeg from command or whether they were provoked into such drastic measure by the would-be novelist. The officers are confronted with the question of whether they could have prevailed upon the captain to make the appropriate decisions in the matters in which he was at fault.

The 15 British seamen and marines held hostage by Iran for a time renew the questions of command. Some of we old soldiers have questioned whether the British military has a code of conduct which insists that captured soldiers need give only their name, rank, and serial number when captured. We also questioned where the support was from their mother ship and why they were putting on televised confessions. Those questions were answered today. They were not operating as combatants in boarding the ship they inspected. This was the 66th such inspection of ships traveling in Iraqi waters for the purpose of preventing military contraband from being sent to Iraq. Iran is not designated as an enemy, so the rules of engagement that require armed resistance to aggressive acts do not necessarily apply. The young naval lieutenant and his marine captain counterpart in the incident found themselves surrounded while they were trying to simply explain to the Iranian force that they were on a routine inspection. The young commanders decided that armed resistance would end only in disaster and wasted lives of the persons under their command. Put in the simplest of terms, the situation did not merit the risking of lives in their estimation, and the information they gave over television was "none operational." That means it did not divulge any substantive facts. Rather, they chose to affect a cooperative demeanor in the hopes that civil protocols could get them out of their predicament. And that is what happened.

The question is if Nancy Pelosi is doing something that is insubordinate to her commander-in-chief and if her independent action is somehow a mutiny. That is preposterous. George W. Bush would like to cast himself in the role of a commander-in-chief so that any disagreements and countermovements to his policies can be cited as insubordinate and mutinous. He won the election of 2004 by sending a majority into the fear that they would be cowardly and traitorous if they did not support his ridiculous, life-wasting war. A majority no longer believes that.

Nancy Pelosi and the other members of Congress have an obligation and a responsibility to insure that the person who assumes command of the nation is operating with full moral and mental faculties intact. They have the function and responsibility to see that the people's interest is being competently and honestly represented in world affairs. As shown in the post below, a huge majority of the people do not believe that the Bush administration is competent or honest in representing them to the rest of the world. The Public Agenda poll makes these further points regarding the war on Iraq:

• 73 percent now give low grades (C, D or F) to the U.S. for succeeding in Iraq (32 percent give an F); up from 57 percent in June 2005 (F's up from 16 percent in June 2005)
  
• 61 percent say America's safety from terrorism does not depend on our success in Iraq and 70 percent say we should leave within the next 12 months (19 percent say immediately)
  
• 59 percent say they do not trust the government to tell the truth on foreign affairs, up ten points since September 2006

The question of removing George W. Bush from command has been posed. The failures of his adminstration are hard for even the most devout regressives to deny. Furthermore, the evidence compiled in numerous books by those with inside perspectives on the adminstration show that obsessive compulsion with power and control is the motive behind the war. The fact is that 3,200 American lives have been sacrificed to the vanities and compulsions of a faction that perceives American democracy as a fascist design. Power and control are its primary concerns. The Swift-boating of John Kerry, Valerie Plame, the many intelligence and anti-terrorism officers who have told of the Bush deceptions, and of the U.S. attorneys who did not display enough aggression in carrying out Bush policies are examples of the technique of "vaporizing," demolishing the reputations of those who disagree and show resistance. The Bush and regressive answer to any questioning of policy and action is to launch personnel attacks in attempts to discredit those who do not accept the dictates of a regime that is emerging as the new face of fascism. This practice is very, very Orwellian.

Nancy Pelosi will be vilified. But she has done nothing but exercise her rights and responsibilities. Those who long for the regressive oppressions and denials of basic rights will continue to line up behind George W. Bush and malign and vilify those who see what he is doing as intellectually and morally wrong. As a member of Congress, she has the duty to oversee the armed forces, "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States." She is not undercutting the commander-in-chief, as some regressives who confuse the presidency with monarchy and dictatorship contend. She is doing the duties required of her by the Constitution.

The last thing this nation needs is an impeachment--particularly one on the grounds that acts of incompetence demonstrate "an inability to discharge the powers and duties" of the presidency.

If the world has a future, it does not lie in the hands of George W. Bush. His predilection for belligerence, violence, deception, and wasting the lives of innocents for vain purposes are recognized by a huge majority of Americans as jeopardizing the world. Nancy Pelosi is performing her function as the grantor of authority for declaring war and to make the rules of government and regulation for the military forces and to oversee their funding. These powers reside in Congress, not in the commander-in-chief.

Let Nancy Pelosi show the alternatives to the George W. Bush and his merriless band of regressive-feudals throughout the world. Maybe she can head off our plunge into the neo-Dark Ages.

While the world burns, the regressives fiddle and diddle

If you read the regressive commentators and bloggers, you'd get the impression that a huge majority of people do not think that George W. Bush is the most incompetent, bumbling nincompoop that ever occupied the White House. The latest plaint is that Nancy Pelosi has committed some grievous offense by going to Syria--despite the fact that some Republican congressmen preceded her by a few days.

Bush's complaint is that of an incompetent who is being displaced in his primary duties by someone who has the brains and know-how to carry those duties out.

When it comes to foreign policy, the people have no illusions that George Bush's policies and actions have done anything other than damage the nation. Nancy Pelosi and other people in Congress are our last best hope for re-establishing the integrity of the nation.

A poll by Public Agenda shows that the U.S. citizens view our foreign relationships this way:

• 84 percent are worried about the way things are going for the United States in world affairs (32 percent worry "a lot")
  
• 82 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for the United States and its people (48 percent say "much more dangerous")
  
• 73 percent say the United States is not doing a good job as a leader in creating a more peaceful and prosperous world (34 percent say a "poor" job)
  
• 68 percent believe the rest of the world sees the United States negatively (34 percent say "very negatively")
  
• 67 percent say U.S. relations with the rest of the world are on the wrong track Iraq

The whole report can be read at Public Agenda.

The regressives have been so completely brainwashed by Bush's Orwellian conditioning program that they have forgotten the decent things America once stood for.

And so they comment and blog on and on and on.

The same priorities, but less time

The Northern Valley Beacon was started as a vehicle for fact-checking and amplifying information released to the public by the media and internet sites, including web logs. The problem with web logs is that postings get responses from other bloggers, both positive and negative, and sometimes we get tempted to answer them. When you do answer them, you find yourself either standing in the stream-play of a pissing match or in a finger-up-your-buddy's-hole crowing contest about how utterly precious we bloggers are. We find the latter more revolting than the former.

Bl0ggers of both ends of the political spectrum--except for a few like Doug on Dakota Today--persist in a logical fallacy and a cheap rhetorical trick. They drift off into the ad hominem representation of other people rather than respond to what the other people are actually saying. In its crudest form this practice devolves into name calling. In its more fanciful form, it involves casting individuals in stereotypical and belittling images. The mildest condemnation we can make of this practice is that it is a form of intellectual incompetence and often is result of a warped ego. And it is a form of intellectual incompetence that enjoys great bipartisan support.

In our efforts to avoid getting mired in blogging-games and trying to maintain a focus on information, we do not offer links to other blogs unless we cite them for some reason. We seldom respond to other blogs. Insofar as blogs do sometimes become facets of events and developments, we do review them. Actually, some of our silent supporters review them and call our attention to them on occasion.

For some time, we have been puzzling over how to use the efficiency and popularity of the Internet to contribute to a thoughtful and credible examination of public discourse. We keep running into something that Marshall McLuhan noted 40 years ago and coined in his epithet that "the medium is the message." Messages in blogs tend to get subsumed by the medium. Like the juvenile acronyms used in instant messaging and discussion boards, customs and terms in blogging establish a context that morphs away the orginal content and intent of postings by forcing them through what has evolved into a cultural filter.

Some time ago S. I. Hayakawa (a professor of linguistics, president of San Francisco State U., and a U.S. Senator) talked of the age of communication as thrusting we humans into a blizzard of words. Rather than serving as the intellectual lifeblood of humankind, words by their superabundance, became a stormy environment against which we have to battle for our bearings and our personal survival. The Internet has increased the blizzard exponentially. Most people are no longer educated in rhetoric so that they may discern words which give accurate reports of the real world and words which are mere symptoms of the mentalities of those who utter them. Reading critically and accurately has become a strenuous act. Most people do not have the time to sort through the drifts of words that encounter them each step of their life. We have been joining with other students of rhetoric and literature to explore how the Internet could be used as a clarifying force in human discussion rather than an impediment and barrier to understanding.

When we examine the false reports and logical failures in the traditional news media of our time, we are daunted. But when we examine the falsehoods, inaccuracies, and failures of logic in blogs, all compounded by slovenly and incompetent writing, especially in blogs with regional settings, we realize we are puny swimmers trying to surmount a tsunami of verbiage.

So, we are concentrating on other matters and not spending much time on blogging. Consequently, we have a backlog of subjects on which we should make postings but have to expend out time and energy on other matters. We hope to get around to them. They are:

• Response to a letter we received on our blogs about the resistance to the Northern Beef Packers plant in Aberdeen and the racial attitudes in which that resistance has been mounted.
• John Thune's visit to Aberdeen in regard to flagging use of the regional airport and his previous stances and actions regarding transportation in the Aberdeen area.
• More on the control of energy production and distribution in this part of the state by foreign corporations.
• The increasing barriers in government to public knowledge of what is going on and who is in control.
• The serious problems that affect higher education in South Dakota and the serious threat to Northern State University's survival as a comprehensive institution.

Meanwhile, we are shoveling the April snow in our driveway and the perpetual detritus from the blizzard of words.

Sen. Tim Johnson: keeping the asps in their baskets

Sen. Tim Johnson's family and staff decided to keep his rehabilitation facility confidential so that his therapy and his resumption of his duties could proceed without the impediments of gawkers and their stupid speculations cluttering the environment. His injury was serious, but not fatal or incapacitating. If the busy-bodies who whined about not getting immediate and intimate information about his progress had bothered to check with ethical medical personnel, they would have been informed that a climate of disparagement and doom is the last thing anybody recovering from a serious episode needs. For the Senator's health and the political health within the state, family and staff took the responsible route and concentrated on getting the job done, not catering to idle gossipers.

A number of people, including a California physician who should be disciplined for it, some in letters-to-the-editor, one in a paid advertisement, and commenters on the Malevolent Blog Network, said the Senator should resign so that he could be replaced with someone who could represent the state. Although all the suggestions were accompanied with phony wishes for the Senator's well-being, few people are so mentally decrepit as not to recognize the petty and degraded political malevolence behind their suggestions.

As last week drew to a close, a number of reports on the Senator's condition were made by his staff:

• The Senator has regained most of his verbal skills and is doing work with his staff and colleagues to stay current and informed on legislative and procedural matters in the Senate.
• He is undergoing therapy four to five hours a day, six days a week to recondition himself physically.
• The respect he has earned from his colleagues in the Senate have produced a concerted effort by his Democratic fellows to insure that the concerns and programs involving South Dakota are represented in the committess and on the Senate floor.
• Although the Senator may not vote on matters brought to the floor unless personally present, he may vote by proxy on matters dealt with by sub-committees and he is doing so through his staff and colleagues.
• His Senate colleagues are engaged in fund-raising activities for the Senator's 2008 campaign for re-election.

The Senator has made remarkable progress, and all the ill-wishing asps in the viper dens ain't going to stop it.

Venting in the wind and other hopeless acts

North Dakota blows and Nebraska sucks. That's why South Dakota ranks fourth in the nation for wind energy. The U.S. Dept. of Energy map, above, shows the windiest places and the grid lines in the state that can transmit electricity produced through wind turbine generators. You might try clicking on the map to enlarge it, but sometimes there is a sticker in the clicker or a louse in the mouse, and it doesn't work. In that case click this.

Doug Wiken comments on the previous post that getting hung up on tying wind generators to grid lines limits the ways we can develop energy independence and obtain an economical, dependable, and clean energy supply. He cites using wind energy (and possibly solar energy) to produce hydrogen through electrolysis. The energy from wind power is converted to hydrogen which can be stored and used on demand to fuel automobiles, farm machinery, and electrical generators. The only by-product from burning hydrogen is water. No green house gases or pollutants.

Some work needs to be done on the technology for handling hydrogen because it can make a big boomy if it gets ignited in the wrong situation. Story. My high school chemistry lab partner, Dan, and I were the most cautious experimenters in the class. When we got to the experiment where we had to make hydrogen and burn it, we worked carefully. We formed our glass pipette where the hydrogen flame would burn with precision (Dan's dad was a jeweler and watch maker) and we waited longer than anyone else to insure that all the oxygen was out of the flask and it was producing pure hydrogen before trying to light it. The chemistry lab was on the top floor of the high school and had sky lights. We blew the whole damned experiment through the sky light. Luckily, it went straight up. So did the chemistry teacher. And the principal. But some other guys kept asking, "How did you do that?" We had no idea.

The point is that hydrogen can drive things. Wind energy can be used to make hydrogen. And as Doug points out, letting huge corporations come in and take over our energy supplies not only takes the resources and control out of South Dakota and moves them to foreign countries, but it contributes to the corporate consolidation of agriculture. It makes people serfs on their own land. They end up giving away their resources and working for foreign corporations. As farmers used to say about the huge collective farms in the old Soviet Union, which did not work well at all, it doesn't make any difference to the serf on the land whether his boss is the Kremlin or a big corporation. The worker has no prospects for himself and his family but drudging at someone else's behest.

The huge wind turbines being built on wind farms by the energy corporations cost about $1 million each. They are built to be hooked up to grid lines and the electricity is redistributed. At this time, no energy companies are looking into using wind energy to make hydrogen. However, BP, among others, is working on producing hydrogen from existing carbon fuels, coal and oil. This process is expensive because it still requires a method of disposal for carbon by-products, such as greenhouse gases. The reason the big corporations are going this route for hydrogen is because they have control over the coal and petroleum deposits and would be left holding the mines and the wells if we rapidly converted to generating hydrogen by electrolysis.

Many smaller wind turbines are available that can supply the electricity for a large farm or a small town.

This generator sells for about $25,000.

This one is in the $50,000 range and can be used to tie into a grid or stand alone with the energy it produces stored in batteries.

Other units costing in the $100,000 range can be hooked together to power large regions.

The big problem in converting to renewable, clean energy is the way farmers are tied into to the corporate structure. They fear losing their markets if they declare energy independence. But farmers hold the land on which wind turbines can be placed.

The Indian reservations are other places where wind turbine systems can be established, but the corporations who are behind the wind farms do not want to deal with tribal autonomy anymore than they want to contract with individual farmers.

So far, no one but a few people in the Department of Energy are talking about using wind power to make hydrogen. The last thing global corporations want is energy independence. Cooperatives should be leading the way in developing clean, inexpensive, and reliable sources of energy, but they, too, are involved with the huge corporations and live in fear of creating corporate displeasure.

Like it or not, we are forming a new global feudalism and corporate headquartes are the 21st century manor houses. Whether it's the war on Iraq, global warming, or American agriculture, the wealth and the power go to the corporations. People are regarded as serfs again. A majority seems to like it that way.

South Dakota landscape being sold off to foreign energy firms

Brown and Babcock, the Australian firm that has purchased Northwestern Energy has announced plans to build a 3,000-acre 34-turbine wind farm near Wessington Springs. The announcement was made by former PUC Commisioner Jim Burg, mayor of Wessington Springs, and Mike McDowell, CEO of Heartland Consumers Power District, which has contracted to purchase the power output. Heartland is headquartered in Madison, S.D., and serves parts of South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. (See the blue areas on the map to the left.)

Babcock and Brown, which has 27 offices throughout the world, lists its business activities as:
*Real Estate
*Infrastructure and Project Finance
*Operating Leasing
*Structured Finance
*Corporate Finance

Babcock and Brown operates windfarms in Australia and its subsidiaries are whole owners and part owners of wind farms throughout the U.S. with such partners as GE and BP.

At week's end, the North Dakota Public Service Commission approved the construction of a 10-mile transmission line which will connect 120 wind turbines in McPherson County, South Dakota, and Dickey County, North Dakota, to the North Dakota electrical grid. The project is being done by Tatanka Wind Power LLC. Tatanka is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Acciona Wind Energy USA which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Acciona SA, which is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.

Are you beginning to get the picture who is taking over the ownership and will reap the profits fr0m the sale of energy in our region?

Two years ago, Deere & Co. announced the creation of a financing program for individual farmers to construct one or two wind turbines on their land and "harvest" the wind along with other crops. This would have helped stabilize farm profits and softened the effects of the up-and-down price cycles of livestock and grain. The Tacoma Park Association, which owns a belt of prime wind land on the eastern bluffs of the James River, looked into the possibility of erecting some wind turbines and joining with other landowners to create a windfarm. However, inquiries and plans got bogged down by the questions of who to sell the power to and the the construction of transmission lines to get the power to the buyers.

Wind farms in northern South Dakota and southern North Dakota have had a fitful history. Large corporations do not want to deal with individual producers united into a production cooperative, and have backed out of deals for leasing land from individual land owners. So, the corporations buy or lease the land and assume total ownership and control over the energy production and distribution.

The takeover of American utilities and energy companies (BP, for example, is a British-based company and Shell is Dutch) is happening at a very rapid rate.

Globalists say this is the new age we live in. A few people worry about what happens as Americans lose control of their own infrastructure and are squeezed out of participation in it by huge foreign corporations.

Those who control the infrastructure control the country. And so it goes. Australian and Spanish wind turbines in the South Dakota sunset.