In order to understand the situation in the Balkans, you have to realize that a) our government and all the other involved governments are lying to us; and b) our media is oversimplyfying the lies (without challenging them).  This then makes for a very difficult problem, because as citizens it means we have no real idea of what is going on.

The whole situation is made all the worse because the real agendas are missing.  Not only are we lied to about basic facts, but the real reasons Western governments are moved to act in such a way are intentionally hidden.  If the real reasons were stated, they would not be approved by the general populace of these countries, because the real reasons have to do with future geo-political boundaries, and the resultant power and economic dominance issues.  That is to say, the real reasons have nothing to do with the life and death tragedies of the people involved.

We are not there to prevent bloodshed, although that is a good excuse in the public relations campaign (Just like all else in politics, we are being "sold" the war, like so much soap, as something we have to have.)  We are there to practice a new form of war, as an act of dominance, and further to aclimate the American people to thinking such terrible acts are reasonable responses to given situations.

We bomb and bomb and bomb.  We claim that the bombing is intended to bring about certain results, but the bombing itself is worse then the danger being avoided.  We have aided those in power, more then we  have hindered them, and at a terrible cost to a helpless people.

American foreign policy is State terrorism incarnate.  What are we teaching our young?
 
[And, yes, if you want to see behind the curtain, then study up on the Trilateral Commission, The Council of Foreign Relations and Occult Brotherhoods in England (especially read about Cecil Rhodes and the Rhodes Scholarships, by which future Western leaders are uncovered while they are young and then guided into positions of power)].

As promised, in this issue we will discuss: The Renewal of American Public Life.

Perhaps everyone in Washington D.C., politician, bureaucrat, lobbyist, etc., should have tattooed on their foreheads these words of Lincoln: "...a government of the People, by the People and for the People..." Then, maybe, they will get it.

Alas, so far they have not. We lament this greatly, constantly looking for someone to run for office, or some political group to find a way to leverage into action that sorry excuse for public life straddling the Potomac river. At the same time fewer and fewer of us vote. Every year for many decades now, the percentage of eligible voters voting in elections has declined.

For some, this decline is a failure of civic responsibility. For the more honest, it is a clear sign of the decadence in our political parties, who can no longer inspire the electorate. We may hope that this decline is at its low point, for if it is not, then the Republic is lost and the profit worshipping tyranny of concentrated wealth has won.

Do we love America anymore? Do we believe in our hearts in that there is a sacred purpose to our Nation? Do we communicate to our young people the vital necessity of rendering service to this Country?

Recently Kevin Costner made a movie called: The Postman. It did not sit well with the critics, and did not do well at the box office. The reason is quite simple. The movie required of the viewer a willingness to feel deep and subtle sentiments about America. It asked for patriotic feeling. It's whole center was a clear metaphor for just that which is lacking today in our public life - the true love of America. Nothing more clearly revealed the cynicism now living in our Nation, than this refusal to honor and respect these delicate patriotic feelings which this film sought to evoke.

This summer another film has been made and released - Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. Here again is a film trying to evoke our forgotten love of America, not by focusing on the empty phrases, mom and apply pie, but by focusing on the courage of our People (not just those who went to war, but those who stayed home as well).

Dear Friends, our artists are trying to tell us something!

America needs our love. America has no reality without our gifts of deeds of responsibility. There will not be any more rights to enjoy if we do not begin to render unto Caesar - if we do not begin to render to our public life, the responsibilities it requires.

Our Nation was founded out of the necessity of resisting the over-reaching tyranny of the English aristocracy. Blood was shed in its creation, and blood has been shed in its preservation - too much blood. If we do not begin to act now, and to act wisely, then blood will again flow, and no one can know in advance the outcome.

A new tyranny threatens our way of life. More insidious than the old one, this profit loving tyranny of concentrated wealth rules in secret; and has, so far, been very successful in reducing the American People to an army of wage slaves, of essentially landless (but materially wealthy) peasants, happy with their televisions, and videos, and CD's, and the multitudes of lotteries that warp our dreams and distort our true civic passions.

Does this mean that we must give up our materially comfortable way of life? Do we have to stop dreaming of waking up some morning and being a millionaire, or a famous actor, or a wealthy and good-looking model?

Well, it depends. It is not so much an "ought", but rather a question of being awake to the real underlying issues. Do you like being seduced? Do you really like the billions of dollars spent daily, on advertising and pseudo media, to warp the minds and hearts of our young so that all they value is the unessential surface of life - sterile unproductive pastimes (movies, TV, computer games, wandering in the Mall, drunken binges by the river). In such spiritually empty circumstances, how can we act amazed when our young men show up at school with automatic weapons and kill their teachers, parents and classmates.

The material culture thrust on us by the tyranny of concentrated wealth, through its total control of the medium of advertising, is completely empty of human meaning and significance. All its ideals are lies. Wealth does not equate to happiness. Intoxication does not make you socially acceptable - it is a depressant of self control and a savage destroyer of the finer aspects of human feeling. Cars do not make one sexy (nor does being sexy mean one is loved) or likable, nor does perfume or clothes or the thousand of other products linked to blatant sexual imagery. Nothing so destroys family and community life as these ever present corruptions of human soul existence - the picture of the ideal of a fulfilled human being as one who is wealthy, sexy, good-looking, intoxicated and young. Only the destroyer of worlds seduces with such distortions of the truth.

Where is the picture of human nobility and friendship and sacrifice? These are the true ideals which make us human in our aspirations. And, these are the true ideals which make a nation a Nation and a people a People.

The real Government of America is "We the People". The blood of our ancestors has won at least that much, - that principal is now incarnate in our laws. But if we do not seize the day, take active hold of this moment in time, then that too we shall be thrown in the toxic waste-bin of our decaying and dying civilization.

All right then you say, but just how do we take hold of this power? What do we do in practice? Where is the handle by which we grasp this ideal - that true Government is based upon the Consent of the Governed? What does this mean in the most practical sense?

Wake up. Look around. Care. Talk to each other. Do more than complain. Think. Intensify all acts of civic responsibility. Read. Understand. Speak out. Participate. Meet. Turn off the TV and have friends over to talk about what to do. Learn to fear ideologies. Seek the truth. Hope. Believe. Trust your children to know what is right to do. Have faith. Discuss what it means to love America. Be tolerant of others ways of patriotism.

Every new act of responsible citizenship pushes back that same amount of the seductive darkness when entombs our real public life. Voting is just the last act in a long public dialogue. If that dialogue becomes vital and healthy, if that dialogue insists and believes that America is capable of being renewed, if that dialogue just exists, then anything is possible. But no one can do it for us, for the processes have been corrupted and must be won back through effort and sacrifice and the adamant refusal to be passive any longer. Editorial in Next Issue: The Truth about the World of Finance.
 

C.J. looked at the major, who was clearly waiting for something to be said.

"Okay", C.J. said, finally, "You ever hear of the Greenville Millennium Gazette?"

The major nodded. Most folks had. It stirred up a lot of trouble in the year 2000 elections. Not by itself of course, but a lot of people got the point quickly and started imitating it, started making their own local newsheets. Didn't get any of the political parties out of office, but they did change the dialogue, that's for sure. People were talking about things now they never talked about before, even in the military.

C.J. continued.

"About a year ago, at a Ranger reunion. Some of the brothers got to talking about things, about coming changes. Everyone can see things still getting worse at home. Everyone's got some family in trouble, in jail, on drugs, whatever. So it came up, and its been talked about before. What if it gets bad and the politicians want the Army to go in and fix it? No one wants to be shooting up our old neighborhoods. No one wants to be thinking these folks is an enemy. We're trained to kill enemies, not our families and neighbors. There was a lot of anger and some real fear.

"Then this one guy says: 'solve the problem'. So we start talking. Well one thing leads to another and soon we are going back to our units, but there's something different. We're talking, we've got our own kind of renewal meeting going. Doesn't take long before we see that we've got to make our own newspaper, just like everyone else.

"Somewhere the chicanos hear about it, and for awhile it seems like they might have their own paper, but it gets worked out, one voice for all of us, and so the Soldier's Heart gets born.

"You know how it is. NCO's run everything. Officers decide, but we get things done. It was easy. We found some good writers, some real thinkers, and it was written. Then the question was timing, when, and how. But we run everything, so it wasn't hard. You know I can call all over the world on my phones, any Amry base anywhere. Talk to certain people, use obscure language - double meanings and stuff. It was easy.

"Then the units start getting orders for urban warfare training and we can see what's coming next. Doesn't take a brain surgeon. So we decide, and the papers get made, usually off base at copy shops and stuff. Everyone knows everyone. We all have been transferred many times and many places over the years. We're used to getting stuff done outside the chain of command anyway. You know about the midnight requisition economy. I tell you, it was easy, natural, and necessary."

The major listened. It was expectable. No real surprises. But for him a serious problem. His command obligations were clear. Already there were orders out to find those who made the paper and distributed it. To find them, arrest them, and lock them up forever.

All the same it didn't make much sense. Closing the barn door afterwards kind of thing. Plus, if we started putting these guys in the stockade, many of them no doubt very senior NCOs, then unit effectiveness would go in the toilet, as well as morale. After a couple of minutes thinking, Major Augustus made his decision.

Jason sat back and looked over the e-mail. He was about to take a very big step and he knew he wanted to think about it carefully. This didn't seem like a time to forget he was only sixteen.

There had been a lot of activity on the hacker bulletin board he usually frequented. Everyone was concerned about the collapse. Some people were bragging about all kinds of destructive things they were doing or planning to do, all kinds of cracking. But Jason wanted only to be a true hacker. His ideal was free information, not playing games with other peoples computer systems.

But with this e-mail he was going to commit himself, to join a group, a renewal group with very specific agendas about electronic freeom. They called themselves the information bill of rights renewal group. They had principles, and you committed yourself to these principles if you joined. Plus, if you joined, they would know who you are. Among themselves they shared information, no hiding behind handles and anonymous e-mailers.

He was fascinated with the bill of information rights, especially. Something about this touched a place inside him that felt deeply. He could almost see it, that on the other side of the collapse, this addition to the bill of rights was crucial to the future. It stated:

"It is the right of every citizen to sufficient information to be able to make informed decisions.

"It is the right of every citizen to a sphere of informational privacy, inviolate from the intrusions of the state or commercial and employment interests. This sphere is to be defined by the individual citizen themselves. Citizens who widely construct their sphere of information rights must expect the normal consequences that flow from such an act (such as limitations on possible forms of employment).

"No government or private institution may withhold information needed by a free citizenry for the exercise of its duties. The Congress shall pass laws mandating appropriate and severe punishment for the violation of this right. Likewise, the Congress shall make laws mandating appropriate and severe punishiment for violations of the right of privacy.

"When any citizen believes his or her information rights have been violated, the Courts must make inquiry, without cost to the citizen. In order to not overburden the Courts, the Office of Informational Ombudsman will be created by the Congress, which will mediate all preliminary inquires into requests, and violations, that arise from the exercise of these rights.

"Where a conflict arises between the right of privacy and the right to information, the Courts will seek the balancing principle in the Platonic ideal of the Good. For the purposes of this bill of information rights no non-living entity, such as a corporation, or other institution or organization, shall be deemed a person or a citizen."

Emma stood and then helped Ace to his feet. They each shook off the dust and debris of the night. The cart was nearby, and they put their hold inside with the other stuff. They both needed to walk around a little, to get the stiffness out. She looked up between the buildings at the sky. It was about 6:30 in the morning. She could tell between the amount of light and the street sounds, the traffic. She liked this.

It was one of the neat things the shadow warrior meetings did. Made you feel like an indian kind of - in a good way. You used your senses, you noticed things, you thought about the movement of people and cars and trucks, what buildings had warm spots, what had little alcoves to hide from the wind in. The shadow warriors talked about a new kind of urban man, a new human being, whose jungle was concrete and steel, and who could either submit to this warped form of world, or master it. Most important was to work together, to be tribal.

Some homeless (opps, she still couldn't stop thinking that way), some shadow warriors had taken to wearing colors, like the gangs, only smaller, less conspicious. Vietnam vets had a little thing on their boots, made out of aluminum cans. They didn't use the shiny side, but the side with the printing on it, so that it didn't reflect too much light. It was a small cut out of a sword, maybe tied to a lace.

There were other groups forming. She'd been in nurses training when her kids died in the accident, and she started drinking and began her own slide toward oblivion. She, and others, who could do some medical things, had taken to making an aluminum cross out of coke cans, so as to have a red color - a red cross. They wore it up by the neck, with part of the cut out bent around the clothes to hold it on.

Then there were the newest ones, the travelers. They had a little cut out of a fire, or a flame, somewhere on their clothes. They were always moving from city to city, passing on ideas and stuff about what was going on elsewhere. Some of them told stories, not just for entertainment, but the stories made you think about things, understand things. When the stories were done folks went off talking about what it meant.

Finally, General Archer, Chief of Staff of the Army, ventured to speak to answer the President's questions.

"We're close to knowing who did this. Several arrests have been made. Sergeant Morrison here (nodding toward the NCO trying to disappear into the wall) knows some of how this was done. Our more difficult problem is evaluating what's going to happen next. Our psych people tell us this is possibly a real disaster. Continental U.S. units are clearly confused over the moral issue, and unit morale is already falling. Worse, overseas units, who won't be directly effected are suffering the same problems. We've looked at whether a foreign government did this as some kind of psychological warfare, but there is no evidence of this. (He looked at the CIA and NSA chiefs while saying this and they nodded).

"The officer core seems mostly unaffected, but there are indications that this is a problem for them as well. Not so much following the chain of command, and going into the cities, but with regard to handling their troops. The feedback they are getting is that following orders will be a problem. Some whole units may be sent in and then desert, taking their material and weapons with them. My best people don't think this is organized in an effort to take over anything. Rather it is just what it appears to be. The army doesn't want to fight against its own people, plain and simple.
 

Margret finished washing the dishes and then moved a load of clothes from the washer into the dryer. She sipped at her cup of coffee and moved quietly around her kitchen. The radio played in the background, one of those rabid talk shows. She didn't pay a lot of attention unless it somehow reached out and grabbed her. She feed the dog and cats, changed their water and litter boxes, all the usual morning chores.

But it wasn't really a usual morning. Joyce was coming over, with Gail and a couple of others. They'd been meeting as a renewal group for a couple of years now. Nothing serious, just girl talk with some politics and self education thrown in. Yet lately it was different. You couldn't drive into downtown anymore to shop. Across the street, the Wilsons had taken in her brother and his family of six children, because of an eviction. On her side, there was already one boarded up and empty house. When she drove to the Mall it was the same. Boarded up houses and stores. She'd seen some homeless people hanging out, and some blacks. These people didn't belong here, and she was frightened and not sleeping well.

George, her husband, was drinking more. There had been more layoffs at the bank, and she could see the stress he was under. The doctor had increased his blood pressure medication again. She was stressed too. She'd caught herself again this morning looking at the Porzac bottle in the bathroom cabinet. She'd stopped taking it, but now it keep calling to her.

The baby cried in the next room, so she went in to look at her granddaughter and see to her needs. Her daughter Alice, divorced now three years was living with them, and waiting tables at the Coffee shop in the Mall. Alice wouldn't say who the father was, just that, even though she had gotten pregnant, she wasn't going to get married again.

Margret was glad to keep busy. It helped her not think about things.
 

Estes but his pipe away. He was being more careful now about smoking. He'd developed a small cough and the doctor suggested he should cut back. He remained standing at the french doors in his library, looking out across the expanse of lawn, down toward the river. It always gave him a great deal of satisfaction, this view. His greatgrandfather had built this place, calling it the Retreat, as if this forty-five room mansion was some kind of cabin in the woods. In a way it was. The house downtown was much larger, even though the family had later sold it for the Commonwealth Club to use. It had had twenty-five live-in servants.

But Estes was not a man to let nostalgia rule his moods. There was a meeting today, a serious meeting. Friends from Europe were coming, and some from Asia as well. There was a war going on, a war which directly threatened all that his family had earned over many generations. So it was time for serious thought.

Estes knew he had to make some choices and put in place some plans. Matters were evolving too fast and if not checked might soon get out of control. He'd had to double security here, and one of his bank's branches had been ruined in a riot. His calls to Washington were not being as quickly answered as before. Pressure was going to have to be applied, real pressure.

He moved to his desk and picked up the phone, touching the autodial for Charlie Corlis's number. Charlie would have to come to the meeting. He and his agents would have work to do, if the day went as Estes planned it to go. Washington belong to him and his kind, and if those fools were starting to forget it, then it was time to drop the hammer and remind them who was really in charge.
 

Rachael moved the eighteen wheeler over into the fast lane and accelerated down hill. She wanted to get some momentum up, so the next rise wouldn't make her drop the box down too many gears. She was only two hours out from Nick's Truck Stop, and after eleven hours it was time to take a big break Get a shower, nap, eat a couple of good meals. Mostly she wanted to sit in a booth and talk with other drivers.

Using the CB didn't work anymore. Word was the spooks could pick it up with their satellites. Truckers were a tribe, most anyway. More and more folks knew that decisions would have to be made. Not just self preserving, like not taking certain inner city routes anymore, because of the highjacks, but tougher decisions. Banks were forclosing on rigs, drivers were not working and trucks were idle. Stuff wasn't getting moved to where it needed to be. Truckers were the blood stream of the real economy. Most everything moved down the concrete and asphalt corridors they drove, perhaps ruled, if they were willing to be tough enough.

She'd never carried a gun before, but now she did. Two in fact. A nice nine milimeter automatic in a pocket by her seat, and up in the back of the cab, where she slept, a shotgun. She practiced with them too. Before her husband's heart attact and bypass surgury she'd only run the rig a few times, but now he had to stay home and she was gone most the week. She didn't want any surprises.

They were still up on their bills - the house and the rig, the major ones. Being owner-drivers was an advantage in some ways, and a disadvantage in others. Plus, they had good contracts. Lousiville to Denver, with booze, and then electronics on the return. Not having to run near Chicago and Detroit, near the northern majors was a help. But, still the stuff was valuable and highjacks were on the increase.

But this wasn't the core of her immediate fears. Rumor was the Army was going to take over intrastate shipping. Everyone's rigs would be "drafted" as would the drivers. Some kind of control out of Washington was going to be exerted, because "food and necessaries weren't arriving on time". Most drivers didn't believe it, unless it was because of the rigs idled due to the foreclosures. Even so, the mood was to resist, if someone really tried to take things over.

They'd talked about a strike, shut down the whole country like in Fance. But that would hurt the ordinary folks the most. So, as an idea, it didn't go far. Diesel prices were rising, and that was a real threat. That one seemed out of everyone's control, but others, those that drove the tankers, thought that there might be a way.

The fantasies, if that is what they were, went like this. Trucks would run in groups. No fewer than a dozen, and sometimes three times that. There would be outriders, like in that silly movie. Good fast personal cars, runing ahead and behind, using encryted cell phones instead of CBs for contact. For certain products, like food and medical necessaries, deliveries would be directed to where they were needed, and buyers and sellers told it was a "tax". Truckers would themselves determine that food got to those in need first. Truth was folks wanted to act, to be in charge somehow, and not just take orders. Solve the problem, don't Consent.

But it was hard getting the normally independent minded truckers to act together. They were talking, but acting was something different. The main problem was information, knowing where things were, and where they needed to go, and then having a way to decide what was right to do. One thing was clear though. No one trusted the government or the corporations anymore. No one. (continued in GMG # 4)

The loss of traditional ways, occassioned by the refusal of concentrated wealth to have a social conscience, seems to be playing a role in something deeper and more profound - something working right in the depths of human psychology.

One traditional academic debate, about how a human being becomes a human being, is between nature and nurture. The nature side says human beings are a product of evolution and everything (including behavioral tendencies) comes out of genes and brain chemistry. This is an oversimplification, but a fair one. The nurture side says that the social environment makes us who we are - the families that raise us, the schools that educate us, and so forth.

This is a crucial question if we want to understand what makes a moral or virtuous human being. Is it nature or nurture, or some combination?

In the idea of the family values crisis, its proponents assume a nurture point of view, otherwise their attempts to reanimate strongly moral families and communities are pointless. There are several matters to notice here.

One is that the debate in public forums, regarding the so-called family values crisis, is at odds with a lot of scientific thinking, thinking which believes nature is dominant over nurture. So we have one kind of debate in public, and another different assumption within significant communities within the halls of the academy.

The assumption in the public debate is that we have choices about whether we are virtuous or not. This leads to a second matter to notice, which is that ordinary people think that they are free to chose their behaviors. We live our lives with this assumption. We hold others accountable for their actions, and most of our remaining social structures (those not devolved by the excesses of concentrated wealth) are centered around the same point of view.

As individuals we experience pangs of conscience (unless we are sociopathic), when we do wrong to others. We also try to fit into the groups we belong to, and move our behaviors in ways that conform to group norms. We try to change things we have learned are bad for ourselves and for others (there is a 12-Step group for just about everything these days). We care about how we raise our children and we are deeply concerned about the qualities of our schools and our communities.

All of this assumes that nurture is crucial to how a human being becomes who they become. So what is true, and how do we know it?

It used to be common language a few decades back, for people to say: "do the right thing". People knew what the right thing to do was. Each community had some kind of idea of what was right, and one did it, one tended to conformed to this community idea, this community value. The individual looked outside himself for a moral compass.

Then in the strange transitional period called the Sixties, another phrase appeared: "do your own thing". This idea was contrary to do the right thing, do the community approved thing. This phrase meant decide for yourself, do what you thought was right, regardless of the community value.

In the abortion debate this social transition as to what is right to do, came into full, and confrontational, flower. Pro-life was a community ideal, and pro-choice was an individual determination ideal. (This is an oversimplification, but for the purposes it is used here, it will work.)

To understand this better, we need to step back from it, to step outside of it - to look at it as a phenomena of social existence, as a kind of symptom of change that can be a clue toward leading us to something deeper. What this (and much else that is too detailed for this newsheet) can reveal is that human nature is changing.

Think about it. The nature over nurture folks have some valid points. But suppose that nature changes, that consciousness - inner life evolves. Why should it be static anyway?

The fact is that we live in a time when not only the outer social structure (traditional ways) are in retreat, but when inner human nature is unfolding something new, something never seen before, which is profound in its structure and powerful in its social implications.

When understood, this shows that modern social life is not only disolving because of the anti-social values of concentrated wealth, but it is disolving from within as well. The individual is unfolding something new, some stronger form of individual moral sensibility, and this as well undoes the traditional form and structure of family and community life.

These two are happening simultaneously and in concert. The excesses of the tyranny of concentrated wealth have undone traditional community, while at the same time the new psychology of individual moral decision making is pushing apart the family from within. The son and the daughter are no longer willing to follow the values of the father and mother, because to do so would deny an emergent personal necessity. The individual ego, the "I am", must self determine moral behavior.

A subtle war is thus everywhere present, and communities and families are powerless before it, as long as they are asleep to it. This last is the key. As long as these processes lie outside our ability to know them in thought, and to communicate them among ourselves, we are powerless before them. However, once we can see them and speak about them, then it is possible to begin to effect the cure for the problem underlying the symptom we call the "family values crisis". (continued in GMG #4)