Mark Twain, on the trials of Joan of Arc:

“Throughout the Trials, whatever the foredoomed witness said was twisted from its true meaning when possible, and made to tell against her; and whenever an answer of hers was beyond the reach of twisting it was not allowed to go upon the record. It was upon one of these latter occasions that she uttered that pathetic reproach — to Cauchon: “Ah, you set down everything that is against me, but you will not set down what is for me.”

That this untrained young creature’s genius for war was wonderful, and her generalship worthy to rank with the ripe products of a tried and trained military experience, we have the sworn testimony of two of her veteran subordinates — one, the Duc d’Alençon, the other the greatest of the French generals of the time, Dunois, Bastard of Orleans; that her genius was as great — possibly even greater — in the subtle warfare of the forum we have for witness the records of the Rouen Trials, that protracted exhibition of intellectual fence maintained with credit against the master-minds of France; that her moral greatness was peer to her intellect we call the Rouen Trials again to witness, with their testimony to a fortitude which patiently and steadfastly endured during twelve weeks the wasting forces of captivity, chains, loneliness, sickness, darkness, hunger, thirst, cold, shame, insult, abuse, broken sleep, treachery, ingratitude, exhausting sieges of cross-examination, the threat of torture, with the rack before her and the executioner standing ready: yet never surrendering, never asking quarter, the frail wreck of her as unconquerable the last day as was her invincible spirit the first.

Great as she was in so many ways, she was perhaps even greatest of all in the lofty things just named — her patient endurance, her steadfastness, her granite fortitude. We may not hope to easily find her mate and twin in these majestic qualities; where we lift our eyes highest we find only a strange and curious contrast — there in the captive eagle beating his broken wings on the Rock of Saint Helena.

III

The Trials ended with her condemnation. But as she had conceded nothing, confessed nothing, this was victory for her, defeat for Cauchon. But his evil resources were not yet exhausted. She was persuaded to agree to sign a paper of slight import, then by treachery a paper was substituted which contained a recantation and a detailed confession of everything which had been charged against her during the Trials and denied and repudiated by her persistently during the three months; and this false paper she ignorantly signed.

This was a victory for Cauchon. He followed it eagerly and pitilessly up by at once setting a trap for her which she could not escape. When she realized this she gave up the long struggle, denounced the treason which had been practiced against her, repudiated the false confession, reasserted the truth of the testimony which she had given in the Trials, and went to her martyrdom with the peace of God in her tired heart, and on her lips endearing words and loving prayers for the cur she had crowned and the nation of ingrates she had saved.

When the fires rose about her and she begged for a cross for her dying lips to kiss, it was not a friend but an enemy, not a Frenchman but an alien, not a comrade in arms but an English soldier, that answered that pathetic prayer. He broke a stick across his knee, bound the pieces together in the form of the symbol she so loved, and gave it her; and his gentle deed is not forgotten, nor will be.”

Comment

This is Twain’s description of the betrayal of Joan of Arc, from a book on which he labored for years. He considered it his magnum opus. I posted the piece..which I find endlessly inspiring… to suggest that change doesn’t come about by numbers – this is the corporatist-communist approach.

It comes about qualitatively, spiritually.

The mass following will come automatically when the moral force and the vision come into being. For that, you need only one person, really.

And that person can be utterly defeated, yet change will come.

Because  the world is made by thought-force…soul-force…. as Gandhi called it.

So it’s an individual thing. A lonely thing, if you will If speeches and parades could have changed things, they would have. There have been enough of them. They won’t. The current system is guaranteed to do that. It’s set up to neutralize public protest, or to turn it into an occasion for repression.

So Ron Paul can be defeated and even neutralized….but whatever was real in his words…will survive on their own.

Lots of gaseous anger floating around at Rand Paul..and Ron..these days.

Fair enough.

Except don’t say someone “sold you” a bill of goods, without also adding you “bought” it.

I don’t know how anyone could fairly say that they were surprised by Rand Paul’s endorsement.

He’s never pretended to be anything other than a liberty-oriented Republican.  Can’t fault him for your own psychological projections.

So here goes – top ten dumb reasons to hate Ron and Rand Paul.

I

1. Ron Paul makes strange finger signs that look occult. He’s a Freemason and it’s an Illuminati plot.

1. Ron Paul might be a Freemason and the Illuminati are always plotting,  but that is neither here nor there. The question is whether he’s a globalist. He isn’t, at least, not on paper.

The next question is whether he’s fronting for the globalists in some deeper manner, by co-opting the opposition, either intentionally with devious intent (Webster Tarpley), or unintentionally or more or less reluctantly (I’m in this camp).

As for hand signs – practically anything you do with your hands can be twisted into occult symbolism by a clever picture.

Give it a break.

By the way, the word “occult” only means “hidden”. It does not mean “creepy sexually perverted rituals committed under the statue of an owl,” no matter how many times Alex Jones said it does.

Creepy, sexually perverted rituals committed under owls…or even by owls…are just that. They can be committed  by occultists, sure, but they can also be committed by Baptists and atheists.  Some people might think it’s a pretty creepy ritual to eat the flesh and drink the blood of a guy who was put to death two thousands years ago.

Try reading a book, say, by Francis Yates or Mircea Eliade or Ananda Coomaraswamy, or Manly Hall, before getting your ideas about the “occult” from Google.

The occult just refers to the wisdom or esoteric tradition of  the West. Most of it is remarkably similar to Eastern religions like Hinduism. Jesus Christ was, in many ways, an “occultist.”

II

2. Rand Paul sold us out by endorsing Mitt Romney.

2. Rand Paul always showed he was sympathetic to Mitt Romney by every gesture and word. If you didn’t see that, consider LASIK, but don’t upchuck all over the forums.

Credulity isn’t something to be put on your resume.

Rand Paul’s Republican tendencies actually gave me some hope for him as a politician, although personally I don’t think politics is the arena in which real – as opposed to superficial – change takes place at all. So all the angst is redundant. Be sorry for wasting so much time and energy on a political campaign you apparently mistook for the return of Merlin…but that might not be entirely Rand Paul’s fault, eh?

Time to check the mirror.

III

3.  Ron Paul was only feathering his nest and setting up Rand for a political career.

3. Your point? If Ron Paul were as much as a saint as his supporters wanted him to be, he wouldn’t be in politics at all. He’d be in a monastery or a cabin in the woods.

He’s not only a politician, he’s a successful long-lived politician, who has many friends all over the place, made good money, and sold a bunch of books on the strength of his public visibility. This is not a bad thing in my book, but it kind of argues against him being a Trappist monk. He’s more of the “doing good by doing well” school

(see Rajat Gupta and public-private partnership for a more mainstream corporate version).

Look, libertarians believe that self-interest is a great and productive instinct in man. How could you expect their hero to be martyr material? He’s not. And I’m sure he doesn’t want to be. That may be a failing in libertarianism, but don’t blame Paul for not alerting you. It’s practically tattooed on his forehead.

IV

4. Ron Paul is a goldbug shilling for a gold standard that will support the bankers.

4. Ron Paul is a gold bug, Ron Paul is shilling, Ron Paul is for the gold standard, and Ron Paul is supporting the banksters are four separate propositions that have no necessary connection between them and need to be proved independently.

The sooner you figure that out, the sooner you will upgrade from ‘unpleasant internet bot’ to ‘rational thinker who can argue a point without having an epileptic fit.’

V

5.  The Ron Paul movement is dead, and now there’s no hope for liberty in the world.

5. This has to be the most annoying bit of narcissism I’ve come across.  There are more than a hundred other countries in the world, and several billion people, most of whom don’t speak English and have never heard of Ron Paul. Some of them have never heard of America. Amazing, huh? They’re all seeking liberty in their lives in different ways.  More than one of them is likely to do more for liberty than Ron Paul has. That’s not a slap at Ron Paul, who’s done a lot. It’s a slap at a very insular way of thinking.  You don’t Co-Chair The Committee on Global Liberty with the seraphim and cherubim. You really, really don’t.

VI

6.  The globalists can’t be stopped. it’s all the fault of Ron and Rand Paul. If they’d only….

6.  The globalists probably can’t be stopped overnight by anyone. Not even by God (see, Free Will).  For overnight instantaneous transformations of thoughts into matter, you need more than a different political campaign. You need a different planetary vibration (see, Occult).

VII

7. Webster Tarpley said, Alex Jones said, Eric Dondero said, Mark Ames said, Jesse Benton said…..

7. It’s OK to read and discuss what anyone with a big net presence has said about Ron Paul. But none of it is the last word.  We’re  not likely to know all the facts about why some public figure said or did something, so drawing too many conclusions too, well, conclusively, isn’t smart.

All of these people also have their own agendas and viewpoints.  Don’t make a decision about gold or paper money, based on “it will profit the globalists.”

Rest assured the globalists have a million ways to profit from any economic regime…..paper or gold or cowrie-shell.

Make up your mind about whether you want to buy or sell gold or buy currencies or anything else based on your own research into fundamental and technical factors, not playing off the binary

Gold=Good/Paper=Bad…

or

Paper=Good/Gold=Bad

VIII

8. Mitt Romney is EVIL EVIL EVIL. Anyone who supports him is EVIL EVIL EVIL. Barack Obama is EVIL EVIL EVIL. Anyone who supports him is EVIL EVIL EVIL.

8. Projecting absolute evil onto a political figure, a political position, or anything else is a flawed way of thinking.  Human beings pursue what they consider good. That “good” might in reality cause a lot of harm and damage to millions of lives, but that still doesn’t alter the fact that the person doing the damage is usually doing it in the pursuit of what he considers good. Understand that and don’t create demons where none exist. Romney is wrong when he does x,y, and z, and I would prefer that he did a, b, and c,  is much more persuasive than Romney (or Obama) is evil.

IX

9.  Ron Paul has made me lose interest in politics. What a jerk.

9. Actually, this is probably the brightest part of the whole story. The more people lose interest in politics, the better.  Not the wrong kind of  losing interest that makes you gullible and easy to manipulate. But the right kind. When you don’t waste time looking for political (mass) solutions but try to figure out smaller, local problems.  Instead of voting for Ron or Rand, try changing one municipal ordinance you hate.

X

10. Ron Paul wasn’t straight with us. He’s a fraud and a con.

10.  Ron Paul, buddy, has no obligation whatsoever to be straight with you. Did he marry you and swear to stick with you through rich or poor?

Ron Paul is obligated to follow the law, especially the constitution, and the and any appropriate limitations imposed by our intelligence services.  You might not like that. But those are his only legal obligations.

Ron Paul also has a media presence. If he wants to keep it, he CANNOT be straight about anything and everything.

If he were, he’d be gone tomorrow and writing a blog.

Which isn’t a bad thing, from my point of view, but all you guys who love cute Ron Paul T-shirts and mugs, crowds, tents, group “highs,” clever slogans, and plenty of traffic, will simply hate it.

Ron Paul gave all of that to you, just as surely as you gave all your energy and money and time to him.

It was a voluntary capitalist exchange, which is just what he stands for.

He didn’t promise you you’d win a million bucks, make the Superbowl, score a hot chick, or grow back all your hair.

He didn’t even promise to be president or hate Mitt Romney forever.

Yeah, you feel he let you down.

Smoke a cigarette.

Feelings don’t produce obligations.

You had a good ride and he did too.  Take it gracefully.

Whatever else he is, was, or might have been, Ron Paul was a graceful and gracious man.

Leave it at that.

Scam charities, like Bernie Madoff? No problem. The SEC and the FBI will look the other way…just like they did for years, while Madoff ran a ponzi scheme under their noses.

Scam the tax-payers, like Citi, Goldman, AIG, Solyndra? No problem. Here, take some more from them.

Scam the mom-and-pops, like MF Global, Citi, Countrywide?

So what? Someone’s gotta keep the suckers down.

But hey, front run Goldman Sachs and its pals, like Raj Rajaratnam and allegedly Rajat Gupta,  now we’re talking jail time.

Rajat Gupta might be guilty…or innocent…of insider-trading.

But this trial isn’t really about insider-trading. In case you didn’t notice, insider trading is Goldman Sachs’ business model.

Michael Wolff:has a really smart piece in The Guardian about the three show trials this year – each about the scandal du jour – cyberbullying of young people (Dharun Ravi); insider-trading (Rajat Gupta); and covering up adultery with campaign finance money (John Edwards). All three, he argues convincingly, demonstrate how the modern trial is more about the public and the jury’s inflated self-righteousness than it is about the facts in the case.

In fact, in all three, there was no real crime at stake.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t bad behavior. It just means the behavior didn’t warrant the full-blown media strobe lights and prosecutorial theatrics on display:

“Someone has to pay for being rich. (Likewise, of all the people committing adultery, someone has to occasionally pay for that, too.) In this case, the prosecutor has the further advantage that Rajat Gupta is accused of exchanging information with Raj Rajaratnam – and what does that tell you?

As for Dharun Ravi, the jury members seemed particularly gleeful in their jobs. Although nothing that Ravi did would have merited anything more than a ordinary college disciplinary proceedings (if that), were it not for the suicide that the prosecutors could not connect Ravi to, the jury nevertheless agreed that he could go to jail for a decade or more.

It took the New Jersey Middlesex Country judge, Glenn Berman, to restore, solomonically, some perspective. Judge Berman delivered the lecture that Ravi deserved, and then reduced his possible decade or more of incarceration to 30 days – in effect, tossing out the verdict and the point of the trial. Still, the prosecutors, you can figure, will not be chastened so much as galvanized by such judicial proportion.

And then, there is John Edwards. Is it possible to imagine a more preposterous prosecution? The money he used to hide his mistress was a “campaign contribution” because if voters had known he had a mistress, they surely would not have voted for him. There is something here as convoluted as the cause-and-effect chain in insider trading cases: everything that you know and are converges in a circumstance that is suspicious because it is advantageous (note: people who lose money on insider information are never prosecuted). Success is the crime. If he had been a less successful politician (and hence, less hypocritical), if he had been less self-dramatizing, if his wife had been less self-dramatizing, if his aide had been less self-dramatizing, it would have been just ordinary adultery – instead of campaign finance abuse adultery.

Would anyone argue that any of these cases would have been brought without the vast media attention that they have gotten? It is almost impossible to imagine what a jury would think, if it didn’t also understand that it was acting as the conscience of the world. If it just saw itself as an untangler and arbiter of fact, it might more reasonably pull up its nose and ask what it was doing here? I doubt any prosecutor could reasonably explain these cases – or would they even try? – if they were not inflated by social purpose and juiciness.

Trials have often existed in a tabloid world, but that is usually because they have showcased bloody dramas and primal human conflict. As the tabloid world has changed, becoming more about how men rise and fall, about who knows what about whom, and about whatever sanctimony is the flavor of the month, the great trials have, not coincidentally, become about that, too.””

One good thing to take from these three is that two of them, Edwards and Ravi, ended the right way, with the defendants winning. It shows that the legal system, even under the pressure of public opinion, can give the right answer.

Hopefully, the Gupta trial will end the same way.

It is a myth that crime is worse in the third world, compared to the US and other developed countries.

Corruption is rampant in Asia, but violent crime is actually low  in per capita terms (at the bottom of world rates), although it has to be said that reporting might not be as extensive in poor countries as it is in rich ones.  And in cities like Bombay (no Mumbai for me) and Delhi, it’s probably much, much higher, leading to the perception foreigners have of a seething cauldron of crime.

Still, it’s indisputable that the  highest rates for violent crimes, overall, are to be found outside Asia and the Middle East, in Africa and the New World, including the US.

The Middle East and most Muslim countries are  some of the safest places in the world, because street crime is simply not tolerated.

You don’t even get to take random photos of people. They have such a developed sense of privacy and such low tolerance for barbaric behavior on the streets.  So-called honor-killings just don’t occur at rates comparable to street crime in the US or South Africa or the Honduras, so, on the ground, where it matters, Islamic countries actually protect women better than most other countries.

Strikingly,  the highest levels of crime taken altogether are actually in the United States, mostly, it seems, the work of organized gangs.

Stories of slums and dacoits play well in the West, but relative to the enormous numbers of people in India, the actual crime rates aren’t anywhere as high as they are in, say, Colombia or even in the US.

EndOfTheAmericanDream lists some supporting statistics about American crime.

#1) The city of Detroit, Michigan literally looks like a war zone and violent crime is thriving.  So far this year in Detroit, car thefts are up 83%, robberies are up 50%, burglaries are up 20% and property destruction is up 42%.

#2) Lawmakers in Illinois say that violence has become so rampant in Chicago that the National Guard needs to be sent in.  In just one night last week seven people were killed and 18 were wounded – mostly by gunfire.  In fact, there have already been 113 murders in Chicago this year.

#3) The city of Phoenix, Arizona has become the car theft capital of the world as millions of illegal aliens who can’t get work have found that stealing cars can be very profitable indeed.

#4) There are approximately 12 million crimes committed in the United States every single year. That is by far the worst in the world.  No other nation has more than about 6 million reported crimes per year.

#5) In New York City, the number of homicides in the first quarter of the year had shot up by approximately 22 percent compared with 2009.

#6) U.S. prisons are already bursting at the seams.  As you read this, there are over 2.2 million people in prison in the United States.  In fact, America leads the world in the number of prisoners and in the percentage of the population in prison. The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.

#7) U.S. law enforcement authorities claim that there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs inside the country. These 1 million gang members are responsible for up to 80% of the crimes committed in the United States each year.

#8) There are over 100,000 rapes in the United States every single year. That is the highest number for any of the countries in the United Nations.

#9) According to USA Today, 58% of state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States reported that violent criminal gangs were active in their areas in 2008.  That was up from 45% in 2004.

#10) Every year, one out of every five people is a victim of a crime in the United States.  No other nation on earth has a rate that is higher.

In twenty years living a relatively sheltered life in mostly safe neighborhoods in the US, I’ve had, two break-ins, in which my things were stolen; I’ve been physically accosted on the road three times, and assaulted more than once;  I’ve been the victim of a rental scam.  I’ve had jewelry stolen twice, once by visitors. I’ve been cheated several times by merchants. I was the target of a dating scam. I was accosted by a sexual pervert. My computer’s been hacked and my telephone conversations monitored over months, maybe even a year.  I was the victim of serious medical malpractice twice. I suffered intellectual property theft/misattribution several times. My car was stolen the glove box rifled through twice. I’ve been the victim of a hit-and-run driver. I was sued indirectly twice (unsuccessfully). I’ve been threatened/intimidated more than once and been discriminated against illegally dozens of times. I was slandered  and harassed in the workplace once and was extorted twice. I’ve been libeled on the web scores of times. I was even subjected to false charges once….

It might be as bad in India. I don’t know. But when I lived there, life felt a lot more secure. Difficult and restricted in many ways. And I do recall eve-teasing  in the form of occasional pinching and prodding of us girls on buses.  Some minor short-changing in the shops.

But I don’t recall violence. I don’t recall theft.

But then again, I was one of “us” there.  Here, I’m one of “them”.

SOURCES: UNICRI (United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute). 2002. Correspondence on data on crime victims. March. Turin; UN International Crime Victims’ Survey; Transparency International; The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention); Amnesty International; Wikipedia: Gun violence ; The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2002) (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention); World Health Organization: World report on violence and health, 2002; International Centre for Prison Studies – World Prison Brief; Fifth Annual BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy Study; GECD Society at a Glance 2001, Statistical Annex Table D3

North America > United States > Crime

Assault victims                                   1.2% [11th of 20]

Believe in police efficiency                   89% [1st of 17]

Bribe payers index                                6.2 [9th of 19]

Car thefts                                   1,246,096 [1st of 46]

Drug offences                            560.1 per 100,000 people [4th of 46]

Executions 42 executions           [5th of 22]

Gun violence > Homicides > % homicides with firearms        39.5604 [7th of 32]

Gun violence > Homicides > Overall homicide rate > per 100,000 pop. 9.1  [14th of 32]

Jails 1,558    [5th of 80]

Murders committed by youths 8,226    [3rd of 73]

Murders with firearms 9,369   [1st of 36]

Perception of safety > Walking in dark 82%   [2nd of 15]

Prisoners 2,019,234 prisoners   [1st of 168]

Prisoners > Per capita 715 per 100,000 people   [1st of 164]

Rape victims 0.4%    [13th of 20]

Software piracy rate 20%    [107th of 107]

Suicide rates in ages 15-24 13.7 per 100,000 people   [7th of 17]

Suicide rates in ages 25-34 15.3 per 100,000 people   [10th of 17]

Total crime victims 21.1%   [15th of 20]

Total crimes 11,877,218    [1st of 50]

Rand Paul’s recent endorsement of Mitt Romney has put the Paulbots into a tizzy, poor souls.

They should have seen it coming.

Not only was it quite obvious that Rand was a neocon and a corporatist,  it’s also pretty clear that his father, although a more likeable and principled man, has been hitting everyone BUT Romney in his campaign.

Mark Ames of eXiled magazine, whom I’ve criticized for really vicious personal attacks, isn’t wrong  when he writes about Paul’s peculiar softness on Romney. I’ve pointed this out myself on in the comment section of Economic Policy Journal.com. And  I think Ann Coulter has also made similar points.

The end result of Paul’s campaign has been to line up Romney (Mr. Wall Street) against Obama (Mr. Main Street)….which suits the globalists fine.

Romney gets the nomination and the Dems get the target they want in a time of recession and Wall Street insider trading scandals.

My gut has been telling me for some time that the whole Ron Paul/Mises/Agora/extreme anti-government wing of libertarianism is peculiar.

It’s strikingly dominated/ by Zionist  (North, Block/Schiff) intellectuals and businessmen (with plenty of Gentile faces out front, of course, to keep the rube patriot crowd happy). Note: there are many good guys in that group. This is just my perception of the overall direction of its advocacy.

It’s easy to check out on the web. Just google and pay no attention to cries of “anti-semitism” and “conspiracy theory” – follow the facts where they lead.

Then, there’s the campaign and manager Jesse Benton’s stunt of wrapping Ron Paul in Reagan’s mantle. That was a move that nobody really scrupulous would have made.

Paul repudiated Reaganism.  He shouldn’t then try to cash in on his association.

Altogether too slick for my taste.

Then there was that double-billing for air travel that went on for years.

Minor…probably accidental, sure…. but troubling.

And then there’s this, also from Ames.

Ames finds it suspicious that there’s a Paul SuperPac in Utah that seems to have been founded by a business partner of governor Jon Huntsman’s:

“Huntsman endorsed Mitt Romney when he bowed out of the race—in fact, Huntsman has a history of stepping aside for Mitt Romney and playing his second banana, going back at least to the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, which John’s billionaire dad helped to fund on behalf of Mitt Romney.

So to repeat: Ron Paul’s SuperPAC is based in Salt Lake City, and one of the founders is Ladd Christensen, John Huntsman’s business partner in Huntsman-Christensen and Huntsman Chemicals.

Nothing to see here folks, keep moving along…”

Huntsman, in case you didn’t know it, was the choice of Lynn Rothschild.

I’ll leave it at that.  Might be something there. Might not.

Lots of people found firms in Utah.  It’s a popular incorporation state for some things.

Back to the Rand Paul endorsement (?):

Have to say the Paulbots had it coming. They were acting just like the left, swarming on people on the net with absurd denunciations,  excommunications, and inquisitions, rantin’ and ravin’ like some hick Bible-thumper with the heathen.

So,  suck it up, fellas.  Idolatry ain’t libertarian….or Christian.

And it sure ain’t smart.