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Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Nov 4, 2014

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ALL RUMOR SO FAR, but that candlelight vigil at Willits City Park Sunday evening mourned the rape and murder of Kayla Chesser, 25, a popular resident of the North County town. The man believed to have been responsible for Kayla's death subsequently drove off the Covelo Road at an estimated 100 miles per hour as he fled east. The terrible event apparently began at a Halloween party at Brooktrails Lodge.

Crashedcar2
This is a picture of the car after it went off the Covelo Road. (Photo by John Barney.)

THIS is the link to the victim's earlier performance with a Willits dance troupe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_dReqknHLQ

AND THIS IS THE STORY the Press Democrat put up on their website on Monday:

Suspicious death of Willits woman under investigation

By Randi Rossmann & Glenda Anderson

Mendocino County sheriff’s detectives are investigating the suspicious death of a 25-year-old Willits dance instructor, found dead early Saturday in a bedroom of a Brooktrails home.

The woman was identified as Kayla Grace Chesser, sheriff’s Capt. Greg Van Patten said.

He said detectives were treating the death as a homicide, but he stopped short of calling her death a homicide, saying that designation would most likely be determined by today’s autopsy and subsequent toxicology tests.

Detectives have spoken to a man they believe was with the woman at the time of her death. The man currently is hospitalized after he may have intentionally crashed his vehicle while driving toward Covelo several hours after the woman died, Van Patten said.

Deputies were alerted to the suspicious death at 6 a.m. Saturday, according to Van Patten. They were called by friends of the woman who’d apparently arrived home and found her.

An ambulance had already taken the woman to a hospital so she was gone from the home when deputies arrived. Van Patten declined to give details on the state of the death, other than to say it wasn’t obvious, such as a gunshot wound.

The woman and friends had been to a Halloween party in Willits that night and returned to the home, Van Patten said.

The man, who wasn’t identified by Van Patten, apparently had been with her during the night.

“We have identified someone that was with her at the time of her death,” Van Patten said. “He was witnessed at the home just prior to her discovery.”

That man then drove away from the Brooktrails home and the woman’s friends called 911.

Deputies had a vehicle description and the man’s name and were searching for him when they learned he’d been in a car crash on a rural highway near Covelo.

Initial reports to the Sheriff’s Office from the CHP was that the noontime crash likely was intentional, Van Patten said.

The man was flown to an out-of-county hospital with injuries he was expected to survive. He was cooperating somewhat with detectives, Van Patten said.

Roger Patereau of Willits, who said Chesser was a second cousin, said the young woman had been teaching dance at a Willits studio. According to the website for Cloud 9 Studio, Chesser most recently taught belly dancing.

Chesser was a lifelong Willits resident who had attended Willits High where she played basketball and was a cheerleader, he said.

He described her as “happy go lucky” and well liked. “She had lots of friends. Everybody loved her.”

He said his son saw Chesser earlier on Halloween, dressed up as a cat for the holiday. She’d been going to a party at the Brooktrails Lodge, he said.

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FINAL PRE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN STATEMENTS show that Willits Mayor Holly Madrigal has raised a total of $33,692 and Tom Woodhouse $28,520 in their respective races for Third District Supervisor. The California Real Estate Political Action Committee contributed $5,000 to Woodhouse, a long time realtor. Woodhouse also got contributions from Margie Handley of Willits, Ukiah industrialist Ross Liberty and Fort Bragg logger Mike Anderson.

HOLLY'S MOM, APRIL TWEDDELL, kicked in $4,649 and other family members contributed an additional $2,500. The Mendo Woman's Political Caucus, a brand new political action group whose principals remain anonymous, and the Mendo Dems each contributed $1,000. Writer, and occasional AVA contributor, Jane Futcher kicked in $650. Mendo Lib was well represented with contributions from environmental activist and bypass opponent Ellen Drell, former Ukiah mayor Jim Mastin, Val Muchowski, Rachel Binah, and Lee Edmundson. Only Mrs. Drell is a resident of the Third District.

MADRIGAL PAID STEVE ANTLER $2,560 for his services as a "campaign consultant" and paid Brian Varkevisser $800 to act as her "campaign manager." Holly also paid Estelle Clifton $2,000 for "campaign manager services" earlier in the year. Antler, a middle of the road extremist active in the conservative branch of the local Democratic Party, is a mostly nonpracticing attorney. Ms. Clifton is a forester who ran for Second District Supervisor when John McCowen was elected. Varkevisser is "ranch manager" for John Schaeffer's personal spread outside of Hopland. Holly has been elected to the Willits City Council three times and run for Supervisor twice, and one has to wonder what kind of advice she got for her money from Antler and Company. (Viewed by lots of people as a giant political albatross outside the wacky 5th District where they steadily supported lunatics and crooks for supervisor.)

ONE ALSO WONDERS where Holly's hard-hitting political advisors were when she, campaigning on a pledge to support the local economy, spent $854 with SignsontheCheap.com in Austin, Texas and $548 with AffordableButtons.com in Rochester, Minnesota. Holly has long been involved with the Willits Economic Localization effort, and this stuff is available inside Mendocino County. In what may be a first for Mendo County politics, Holly also spent $260 with Professional Event Services in Ukiah to provide security for her campaign kick off party! Like you need muscle for a gathering of the liberal effete?

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A READER WRITES: "Your current item: yes, in fact, the City of Willits requires that paid security be hired for any event held at their Willits Center for the Arts, where Holly’s kickoff party was held this spring (that expense was filed in March, if you didn’t notice) if wine, beer or spirits are being served, no matter the political leanings of the attendees! Funny but a cheap shot, for sure."

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IN ORDER TO DANCE The Bamba

In order to dance the Bamba

You need a little bit of grace

A little bit of grace

For me, for you, ah up, ah up (or higher and higher)

Ah, up, up (literally "faster, faster")

By you I will be, by you I will be, by you I will be

(Por can also mean by and not just for)

I am not a sailor,

I am not a sailor, I am a captain

I am a captain, I am a captain

Bamba, bamba

Bamba, bamba

Bamba, bamba, bamba

In order To dance The Bamba

In order To dance The Bamba

You need a little bit of grace

A little bit of grace

For me, for you, ah up, ah up (higher and higher)

In order to dance The Bamba

In order to dance The Bamba

You need a little bit of grace

A little bit of grace

For me, for you, ah up, ah up

Ah, up, up.

For you I will be, for you I will be, for you I will be

Bamba, bamba

Bamba, bamba

FADES-

Bamba, bamba.

— Richie Valens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcR_q2a3dH0

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FAMILIAR?

Twinkie

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CATCH OF THE DAY, November 3, 2014

Drake, King, Nunez, O'Malley
Drake, King, Nunez, O'Malley

THALIA DALKE, Eureka/Ukiah. Refusal to produce ID.

MARK KING, Fort Bragg. DUI, possession of smoking/injection device.

ALBERT NUNEZ, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

WILLIAM O’MALLEY, Cave Junction, OR/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

Sanders, Southers, Valley, Williamson
Sanders, Southers, Valley, Williamson

THOMAS SANDERS, Willits. Drunk in public, resisting arrest.

VINCE SOUTHERS, Fort Bragg. Disturbing the Peace.

CORRINA VALLEY, Ukiah. Refusing to leave commercial accommodations.

STEPHEN WILLIAMSON, Potter Valley. Purchase of stolen vehicle.

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ON THE OTHER HAND, a reader writes responding to yesterday’s items about the courthouse scam-boondoggle: “Start with the reality that this is a State-controlled process with the AOC in charge. And the AOC listens only to the local judges; they do not need the approval of the City or the County. The current location does not meet numerous AOC criteria, most critically, seismic safety and required street setbacks. There is zero chance the AOC will upgrade the existing courthouse. The AOC commissioned and approved an EIR before anyone was really asking any questions. The depot location and the ‘library’ location were the only ones considered in the EIR. The library site was ruled out for several reasons, including multiple landowners, non-cooperative landowners, contamination issues and the impossible prospect of library relocation. The odds of stopping the process are on a par with stopping the Willits Bypass.

“THE UKIAH CITY COUNCIL supports the proposed location because it is as close to downtown as the new courthouse is going to get. The County, after spending $250,000 at the direction of the alleged ‘fiscal conservative,’ Supervisor Michael Delbar, decided they wanted to purchase 20 acres in the Brush Street Triangle and build a Taj Majustice, including the new courthouse (funded by the state) and a new jail, juvenile hall, Sheriff's admin, and a ‘justice’ building for the DA, probation, public defender. The grand vision never materialized because the County was broke. Which makes you wonder why they spent a quarter of a mil on a study when they knew, or should have known, that the project was beyond their financial reach. [All this was pointed out in the AVA at that time.] But that was when you had CEO Tom Mitchell running the show guided by people like Kendall Smith, David Colfax, Mike Delbar, and Jim Wattenburger, none of whom had much real world work or business experience. The dream of the Taj Majustice died with the departure of Delbar, Wattenburger and Mitchell. [And, we might add here at the AVA, that Tom Mitchell was hired because of his alleged, but non-existent, experience pushing through a “justice center” in Calaveras County.] Meaning the County has no position on the courthouse project.

“THE COUNTY recently considered purchasing an acre or two in the vicinity of the new courthouse to be in a position to build a future justice center, but the Supes decided not to pursue the idea. Meaning the Deputy DAs and Public Defenders will be getting paid a lawyer's salary to drive back and forth between the old and new courthouses looking for parking spaces.

“THE PUBLIC (that's you and me, bub), has never been consulted on any aspect of the project, including the need, cost, siting or economic or traffic impacts. Seemingly, only the nine judges are in charge of the design process for what is certain to be the ugliest evocation of Stalinesque utilitarian architecture in Mendocino County.”

WHICH IS JUST ABOUT the hell-est of a helluva note from a person who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about we've ever heard. Nine outback judicial megalomaniacs can shove this thing down everybody's throat just so they can get their names on a three-story eyesore? We still think if the Ukiah City Council and the Board of Supervisors publicly declared against it the state wouldn't do it. (PS. The Deputy Sheriff’s Association has publicly opposed the new courthouse and you’d think there would be some political potential based on that, but…)

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EBOLA DAVE

Editor,

For those of you who might have been offended by my Halloween costume of sunken dark eyes, ashen complexion and a sign that read “I have Ebola!” I apologize. I do know that there are those of us whose hearts are locked very close to the suffering going on in Africa. Over there it is horrible, a very sad and frightening situation.

I was forewarned early in the day when my son-in-law scoffed at my costume idea with, “That's not funny.” In The US, though, I feel there is a different situation. And there is some evidence that Doctors Without Borders agrees with me in that a fundraising ad they ran in the New York Times showed a man decked out in full Personal Protective Equipment including gloves, hood, mask and a suit labeled “Ebola,” holding a Halloween Trick-or-Treat pumpkin.

That ebola is scary is a component of my point and makes it Halloweeny. What makes it funny, and funny is indeed part of the scary of Halloween, is the way we American people and our government have been dealing with the situation. For weeks ebola in America has been front-page news and our governmental leaders both national and local at times look like stumblebums. It is scary how our government handles crisis. Remember Katrina? My costume was a social and political comment.

Four people have been diagnosed with ebola in the United States — one of them, having contracted the disease overseas, has died. The CDC estimates that on average 23,607 people die annually in the United States from the flu. Is not there some absurdity in our obsession? And are not absurdity and satire valid humor genres?

I do though apologize again, if I in any way dampened your holiday bliss.

David Severn, Philo

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HARVEY READING WRITES: Well, business as usual at NPR national. When their newsreader talked this morning (in between what they call jazz) about the kaputalist space plane that crashed a few days ago, they stated that one of the pilots died and the other was badly “wounded”; not injured, wounded. They slip in militaristic phrases a lot in stories not war-related, like the “battle” against ebola and those in the “front lines” in that “battle”. Just what’s needed to keep people dumb, gullible and supportive of brutal military operations, and for those “fighting for our freedom” (Ha!), for control of resources, pipeline routes, and world power in general. Better enjoy what’s left of it now, because this society is doomed … and it’s not too far off. Fascist domestic policies, even stronger than what we’ve seen implemented of the last few decades, won’t save it. At least NPR nooze only lasts about 4 minutes per hour.

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Kuczinsky17

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THE TRAGIC SHOOTING on Friday, October 24, 2014 at Marysville-Pilchuck High School outside of Seattle reignited public conversations about the factors that prompt young people to commit mass murders on school grounds. As usual, these conversations largely focused on access to guns and school security. Because the 15-year-old perpetrator, Jaylen Fryberg, was not a stereotypical loner, victim of bullying, or suffering from any previously diagnosed mental illness — the typical explanations for school shootings – people have struggled to identify the specific cause of his attack. Scholars like Jackson Katz have pointed out school shooters are almost all male and most seem to be desperately concerned with defending or proving their masculinity. Although it is not entirely clear if this was the case with Fryberg (as details are still emerging), I’d like to draw attention to an issue that has been a factor in many other school shootings: the inability many young men have to respond appropriately when a dating relationship fails to develop or when it ends abruptly.

Author Jessie Klein has shown that, in 12 US school shootings occurring between 1997 and 2002, assailants specifically targeted girls who had either rejected them or broken up with them. In these cases, the boys had previously made overt threats against the girls, in person and often online, yet school officials failed to take the threats seriously. Evan Ramsey, 16, killed one student, the principal, and injured two students in his February 19, 1997 assault at Bethel High School in Bethel, Alaska. Ramsey’s girlfriend had just broken up with him. Eight months later, 16-year-old Luke Woodham killed his mother then his former girlfriend, Christina Menefee, and her friend at his school in Pearl, Mississippi. Woodham’s assault injured seven others. Just two months later, 14-year-old Michael Carneal killed three girls at his Paducah, Kentucky school, including one who had rejected him and another who would not go out with him.

— Laura Finley

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FINDING THE LOST

by Debra Keipp

In Newton, Iowa, from the 1940's through 1970's, there was a diminutive man who hung out at the barber shop around the corner from the Maid-Rite hamburger joint. His name was “Buttons,” which was obvious from the many election buttons pinned onto his hat and vest. “Buttons” humbly possessed the gift of insight into peoples' lives, past and present. He was especially good at finding lost or stolen items. If a local wanted to know about some unseen mystery, they would go sit in the barber shop and wait for Buttons to clear things up.

My cousin twice removed, who was about fifty years my senior, was engaged to a soldier who had been shipped off to fight in WWII. She, and the young man she dated in her betrothed's absence, went with another couple to see if Buttons would speak to their nagging questions. Before entering the barber shop, the two couples switched partners, just to see if Buttons would know they weren't with their true partners. The couples sat waiting silently for the men to have their haircuts, and Buttons began first by offering clarification, “You aren't with your correct partners.”

Busted, the pairs exchanged partners and re-seated themselves across from Buttons, who then addressed my cousin by saying, “You still aren't with your right partner.”

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About a decade ago I went on a long plane ride. Waiting for my flight, I found “For Laci”, written by the mother of Laci Petersen, Sharon Rocha, detailing Laci's diappearance and murder by her no-good husband. I always wondered how they came up with all the specific details of the murder when that no-good husband, Scott Peterson, had never confessed to any wrong-doing in the case and continues to profess his innocence, like the psychopath he is, to this very day from San Quentin prison.

The book briefly touched on a psychic from Albion, California, who helped locate Laci's body outside the Berkeley Marina. Ten years later, a web site derived from the book's revelations is much better developed and reveals a far deeper story of dueling families using two separate psychics across the country from each other, to find out the same information about their pregnant daughter's Christmas Eve disappearance and murder. I had Googled “Psychics in Laci Peterson Case” which revealed both psychics' discoveries.

It started with Scott Peterson's mom, Jackie Peterson, trying to get to the truth by hiring a “psychic detective” to help with information leading to Laci's disappearance. This psychic has been known to work accurately with police investigations in finding the lost and the abducted in some 600 cases. On her website, the clairvoyant displays a badge with the words “psychic detective” printed thereon. She has a known track record for revealing the details of truths unknown or yet untold by working between the third and fourth dimensions of reality. Shamanically speaking, some call it, “walking between worlds” (of the living and the dead).

When Jackie Peterson, Scott's mother, contacted the East Coast psychic and asked her to “help locate Laci,” the psychic asked that the family send along an article of Laci's clothing so that she could better work the case through a tangible connection.

Like old Buttons, tricks become transparent when revealed. Apparently, Scott Peterson, then sent the East Coast psychic a blue sweatshirt unworn by Laci. Without any DNA on Laci's article of unworn clothing, little tangible connection was made. The psychic then called Jackie Peterson to explain that she needed an article of clothing which contained Laci's DNA, or essence. While the call was originally received by the message machine, Scott then answered the phone at his mother's home and took the added instructions from the psychic. On the psychic's instructions, he sent the psychic one of Laci's shoes, also unworn and never used. Again, he was setting up barriers to obscure the truth. However, in his attempt to delay discovery of his grizzly double murder (also of their unborn child), he made another in a series of errors. In his own hand-writing, he addressed the package with the enclosed unworn shoe, to the psychic. When the psychic detective received the package addressed to her by Scott Peterson, that was all she needed to first identify his hand-writing as that of Laci's murderer before she ever discovered the obfuscation of the never-worn shoe inside.

When she tried to contact Scott's mother once again with the information she knew Jackie Peterson would not want to hear, Scott's mother tried to sweep the discovery under the rug like it had never happened. The psychic was adamant that she was only trying to find the location of Laci's body, but Jackie Peterson felt as though her son would then be implicated in the murder and stopped all communication with the psychic she had hired for $450.

Scott, himself, never sent the $450 check for services rendered to the East Coast psychic, instead leaving the envelope unmailed in his pick-up truck. Authorities confiscated several items from inside Scott's truck, among them the check for $450 to the psychic his mother had selected to help them in finding Laci's location. By finding that check still unmailed to her in Scott's truck the police were able to contact the psychic and strengthen the case against Scott.

When investigators then began piecing together the case, based on the information provided by the East Coast psychic, Mrs Rocha, Laci's mother, hired another psychic altogether to assist in finding her missing daughter. This time she chose a psychic from Albion, California. (There's always a local angle!) Sharon Rocha saw the Albion psychic's website online and believed her to be accurate and honest. Mrs. Rocha then brought the Rense.com articles to the attention of Craig Grogan, an inspector on the Laci Peterson murder case.

In both cases, the two psychics, located a continent apart, pinpointed so much factual information about the case, including locations, that investigators were able to piece together a mosaic of Christmas tragedy caused by a cold-hearted psychopathic husband thinking with nothing but his small head.

Sharon Rocha says in her book that she went to the Berkeley Marina and knew instinctively that the grave of her beloved daughter was there as indicated by the Albion psychic's website. The Albion psychic was originally from Berkeley and was able to go there to confirm exactly where Scott dumped the body, “anchored at the fifth marker buoy outside the Berkeley Marina, North of the Albany Bulb”. (The “Albany Bulb” describes the shape of the Albany landfill property between the Berkeley Marina and Point Isabel where Laci's remains were ultimately found washed up on the shore.) Divers found some of the concrete blocks which Scott made to weigh down Laci's body exactly where the psychics directed them to search – off the fifth marker buoy.

Unfortunately, a storm blew in the day the concrete blocks were discovered, clouding the water; and a few of the blocks were all they were able to retrieve. At that point, divers had taken the blocks as evidence, disturbing the precariously predated tethers attached to Lacy's body which drifted unseen nearby, thus releasing her body to be blown ashore south of Point Isabel two storm days later.

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Dave Stornetta
Dave Stornetta

When Davey Stornetta of Manchester recently went missing in the Yolla Bollys with his dog, I called Davey and Kelly's home and left a message to check out the Laci Peterson website to find the psychics' websites and contact information to see if one of them could help bring Davey home. I told them these women were accurate at finding the lost and/or stolen, and that either should be able to find Davey.

Over the last week, with Davey and his dog found alive and well after a week-long excursion in the roughest of wilderness, I heard that Kelly did indeed contact a psychic. And the psychic informed them to search north-northwest for Davey because he was alive with his dog, and headed in that direction.

And that's where they found him when the National Guard rescuers had discontinued their search and the Stornetta family hired their own private helicopters to continue the search for their hunting buddy, friend and father.

Among all the hoopla of finding Davey Stornetta alive and well enough to tell quite a fine story of survival, even after the authorities had given up their search, I got an e-mail from the psychic Kelly used. She said, “Great news...the family did a good job.”

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CORPORATE DESTRUCTION OF FREE MARKETS RULES US

Wake Up Call, Anyone?

by Ralph Nader

The ruling dogma of our political economy is corporatism. Corporatism claims to draw legitimacy from the free market theory that all vendors who do not meet market demands will go under. Corporatism uses this illusion to exert power over all aspects of our political economy.

Free markets, corporatists believe, are the best mechanism to allocate resources for the exchange of goods and services. They believe markets free of regulation, taxation or competition from government enterprises produce the best results. Their favorite metaphor is Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people by the exertions of many willing sellers and many willing buyers (Adam Smith, they neglected to add, favored public works, public education and social safety nets like decent wages and public welfare as needed.)

Many things intrude on free market theories including military expenditures, wars, taxation, public infrastructure, health and safety regulation and governments’ emergency duties. What financier George Soros has called “market fundamentalism,” is opposed to any interference with free markets. Yet, corporatism makes massive exceptions that rig markets and tilt the seller-buyer balance heavily in favor of the former who become bigger and bigger global corporations.

Market critics call this hypocrisy. Corporations push for larger military budgets, which have concentrated power in ever fewer military contractors. What are less recognized and more part of the culture of acceptance are the other interferences with free markets, which corporate power has entrenched so deeply that they are rarely part of any political or election-time debate.

Let this point be made in the form of questions rarely asked and therefore rarely answered.

Can there be a free market without freedom of contract? Corporatism has stripped consumers of freedom of contract with fine-print standard-form contracts that become more dictatorial every decade. They now often take away consumers rights to go to court for their grievances via compulsory arbitration clauses. They stipulate that the vendors can change the contract anyway they want – called unilateral modification – which takes away the last vestiges of consumer bargaining power. An example is the unilateral changes in what you have to pay in penalties, late fees or any hundreds of fees hidden in the fine print. And you can’t shop around because companies don’t compete over the fine print. (See faircontracts.org.)

Can there be a free market if workers cannot join together to bargain with large employers whose investors have expanding freedom to form companies, holding companies, subsidiaries, joint ventures and partnerships to advance their bargaining power? Moreover, in comparison with the freedom of investors, workers are besieged with union-busting intimidations, lockouts and a system of corporate-driven labor laws that present far more obstacles to go through than is the case with the labor laws of other Western nations.

Can there be a free market without strong and comprehensive anti-monopoly, anti-cartel and other laws against the myriad of anti-competitive practices that Adam Smith alluded to back in 1776 when he warned of the motives when businessmen gather together?

Today, the antitrust laws are weak, dated and little enforced with puny budgets.

For example, thousands of joint ventures between direct competitors are being formed without concern of the moribund antitrust police. There is globalization of businesses without globalization of law enforcement. Big companies can leverage the differences between nations in a race to the bottom to unfairly gain market power against buyers, workers and small businesses.

Can there be a free market without a free market of retaining lawyers to pursue wrongful injuries and fraud by both direct negotiation with the perpetrators or resorting to open, public courts? In our country, such private disputes are not socialized by government. They are given over to a market system of legal and other supplementary services. Yet corporatism strives strongly to block or limit, through captive legislators, access to the courts or tie the hands of judges and juries, the only people who see, hear and evaluate the evidence in each case.

Can there be a free market when corporatists produce crony capitalism or torrents of corporate welfare tax escapes, subsidies, handouts and bailouts that rig markets against other smaller businesses that are playing by the rules of the market?

Can there be a free market when corporate-managed trade agreements, such as NAFTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO), subordinate civic efforts to secure better labor, environmental and consumer treatments to the supremacy of commercial trade? (See http://www.citizen.org/trade/.)

Finally, can there be a free market when the banks fund and control the powerful, secretive Federal Reserve that tightly regulates interest rates and can buy trillions of dollars in bonds (aka quantitative easing – QE) to juice the stock markets and the banks, while tens of millions of savers receive less than half of one percent in interest on their savings? Libertarians, to their credit, have noted this abuse by this corporate government more clearly than have many liberals.

There are other corporate controls against the free market, such as politically extending already lengthy patent monopolies to ward off competition by, for instance, generic drug producers.

Suffice it to say that the American people have enough evidence to abandon the ideological hypocrisy that corporatism uses to control them.

Corporatism, in reality, is the corporate state – a tyranny, greased by big money in elections – never envisioned by the framers of our Constitution when they started its preamble with “We the People.”

Wake up call, anyone? (See citizen.org for more information.)

Ralph Nader’s latest book is: Unstoppable: the Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.

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HEY! It's November! I'm on the road in Arizona so the newletter will be out later this week. Meanwhile, Mary Pat Palmer will be your on Holistic Health Perspectives this Tuesday on KZYX with the wonderful Naturopathic doctor; Nancy Peregrine - please tune in at 1pm! Also, if you haven't yet voted in Mendocino Co, consider voting YES on S (a vote for health!), more info at: CRNMC.org/faq — Karin Uphoff

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THIS JUST IN: I am at Green Tortoise Hostel in San Francisco...

Good Morning, I just checked into the Green Tortoise Hostel (494 Broadway in San Francisco, telephone (415) 834-1000), one block from the Beat Museum and two blocks from City Lights bookstore--literary meeting place, with Vesuvio's located next door across Jack Kerouac Alley. I have paid for five nights, $30 per night off season rates for a room share; I may stay up to two weeks, and beyond that with a manager's permission...AM POISED TO GO ANYWHERE THAT GREAT SPIRIT WILLS! Stay in touch, amigo. ;-) Craig Louis Stehr Email: CraigStehr@inbox.com Snail mail: P.O. Box 11406, c/o NOSCW, Berkeley, CA 94712-2406 Blog: http://craiglstehr.blogspot.com

11 Comments

  1. Lazarus November 4, 2014

    Come on man…! there you go having it both ways, thought you were in political bed with Jolly Holly? Now you go and throw her and her “consultants” in front of proverbial wrecking-ball…then again if JH were to win the AVA would have fodder for at least the next 4 years…as if it won’t anyway…
    but really, after endorsing the chick, at this late date, on election day? Come on man…!

  2. Rick Weddle November 4, 2014

    “…can there be a free market…”
    Not on this planet. It’s pretty clear that even the smallest market has troubles with some weasel with his/her thumb on the scales. This in turn clearly necessitates regulation to keep things equitable. And the bigger the receipts, and the more mits close to the till, the greater the need for such regulation (and everybody wants to cuddle up to the till, right?). This expression, ‘free market’ is a lie told to keep inviolable someone’s freedom to keep their own thumb on the scale.
    I really admire Mr. Nader’s work…few in history have done more to inform and help Humans, and this go ’round naming corporatism as The Thief is hitting the nail squarely on the head. If we survive this bout with those Commercial Interests masquerading as people, it will be because numbers of us heeded this and other ‘wake up calls’ and then got up on our hind feet and went with it…in sober, determined, and concerted efforts, large and small. The model most available to us, and most familiar historically, if not presently, is that of the American revolution and its founding documents. Certainly, this model was furnished by white, male, landed slave-owners, but what they wrote into our Supreme Law of the Land has long inspired us and others toward ‘…a more perfect union…,’ and toward ‘…Liberty and Justice for all…’ The present sorry state of the Union, and our current distance from anything like Liberty or Justice is a description of our peril, and a measure of the distance we’ve been herded from our American revolutionary principles.

    I’ll be checking out Mr. Nader’s citizensite, and further going on and going off about this whenever I can catch a breath.

    I still like Corvairs, even if the motor’s on the wrong end…but thanks, Ralph; thanks a LOT.

    • Harvey Reading November 4, 2014

      Corvairs were interesting and the later ones actually didn’t look bad. The thing I didn’t like about them was that often the engine compartment (and the ground beneath it) was coated with engine oil, apparently due to a problem with crankcase sealing, which was very common. Saw one for sale by its owner about 4 years ago and decided to take a closer look. Sure enough, the oil slick was glistening beneath the rear end …

      • Rick Weddle November 4, 2014

        Yes, the corvairs had their problems. What auto does not? The corvairs’ leaks can be solved with really close attention to crankcase gasket surfaces fit and sealant, and mostly by replacing stock valve seals with neoprene, aircraft style seals, along with tougher fanbelts. I did hear a claim by a m’chanic in Pennsylvania (then with the toughest air quality restrictions on cars), that he’d purposely timed and tuned a corvair and had it tested for emissions there. The corvair in that test passed with marks cleaner than any ‘smog equipped’ auto then on the block. (Admittedly, that car, being air-cooled, had to have the excess fuel needed to cool that engine pinched down, so she was running LEAN…a setting not advised for long life of those motors…still…).
        A friend with a ’65 monza ‘vair spyder, with multiple carburetors and turbo, called a ‘poor man’s porsche,’ demonstrated it was in fact an extremely high-performance little hotrod. And in the hands of one who could actually pilot it (not me), it was as ‘safe’ as any other bubble of sheetmetal hurtling along.

        • Harvey Reading November 4, 2014

          What auto does not?

          Well, my old 1989 Ford Probe GT (Mazda 626 turbo with a different body) that I bought in 1988 is still running strong, not leaking oil, not burning it, and getting over 30 m.p.g. after 26 years.

          I’ve also heard a lot of myths from mechanics regarding emissions of older cars, especially cars from U.S. manufacturers. Such BS used to be really popular in the late 70s and early 80s, as U.S. auto manufacturers were desperately trying to catch up with the Japanese, who, rather than fighting the emissions laws (by building junk in hopes that buyers would demand repeal of the laws), were building cars and trucks that complied with them, and ran good, too.

          • Rick Weddle November 4, 2014

            Congratulations, Mr. Reading! I’m truly happy for you. Your Mazda-powered Ford proves it IS possible to make a mass produced auto with all the smog plumbing, etc., which endures well, and is thrifty to run…that’s nice. But you may notice that other components of the required smog gear are not so long-lived (converters go ~80k mi. before beginning loading up…then start smelling a little like cordite and emitting ?)
            My own feeling is that internal combustion motors…all of ’em…need to be converted, equipped, and timed to run on biofuels. Those new fuels don’t run angelically clean, but they do emit co2 that’s then recaptured in the fuel-crop cycle.
            These kinds of conversion would not be simple or quick to accomplish over the whole Market, but would help a lot; especially those air-cooled engines which must cycle thru extra fuel for cooling purposes…this would of course definitely not sit well with a lot of folks (chainsaws; weedeaters; snowmobiles; jetskis; leafblowers; motorcycles; aircraft…all of it)

          • Harvey Reading November 4, 2014

            By ’89, the “plumbing” had pretty much gone away, replaced by fuel injection (an electronic, throttle-body version of which the VW Squareback had in the mid 1960s) and computer control of engine functions, as well as better engine design. Let’s see now, I last had a smog check just before leaving CA for good, in 2002, with around 160,000 miles on the car, and the original catalytic converter. It passed easily, and that converter is still working fine.

            Encouragement of birth control with a goal of halving the population of this country within two generations would probably do more good than all the so-called “renewable” (energy is NOT renewable as I recall from basic physics; even the sun will burn out) and “green” alternatives out there, combined.

  3. Whyte Owen November 4, 2014

    The rest of the joke:

    A corporate CEO, a public union member, and a teabagger sit around a table. In the center of the table is a plate holding 12 cookies. The CEO takes 11 cookies starts eating them. The teabagger appears puzzled. The CEO leans over and wispers in his ear, “look out for that union guy, he wants part of your cookie…”

    The teabagger pulls out his gun and shoots the union member. “Damned socialist,” he states proudly. “The CEO worked hard for those cookies.”

  4. Rick Weddle November 4, 2014

    re: Jilted Gunboys

    Yes, there seems to be a sex component in this horrific phenomenon, and I don’t see much to wonder about, there. Over the past, say, 60 years, how many ‘entertainments’ have come outa Hollywood or your tv or now these charming videogames, where the whole idea circles around the ‘good’ guys shooting the ‘bad’ guys, then riding off into some sweet future with the Girl? My rough estimate is millions. We were raised on Tom Mix (yep), Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Dirty Harry, and all that mess, and that was tame compared to today’s ‘heroes.’ And of course there was the ‘Good War,’ which was won by who? Why, the Good Guys…just ask us.

    And there’s more to it, yet. This ‘culture’ of ours is so fixed on Power, access to it and the exercise of it, it’s driving us mad in the clinical sense. Remember the old Westerns, where the benighted savages called their guns ‘firesticks,’ showing how uncivilized, naive, and inferior they were? We white folks, busy bringing civilization to the First Nations ‘primitives’ called guns by a more modern name: Firearms. Nobody seems to notice or care that this terminology internalizes the appliance, making it an appendage, a part of our personal anatomy, somehow. ‘Firestick’ says it’s still just an implement.

    And, according to all the accounts I’ve seen, most perpetrators of mass shootings have been, with damned rare exceptions, white male young folks. The prevalence of an automatic feeling of entitlement, exceptionalism among a lot of white people, combined with a spreading miasma of hopeless powerlessness (a new experience for the U.S. middle class in general), and the mass popularity of over-excitement and instant gratification could not likely work out well, especially with a little sexual frustration tossed in the mix.

    My point is: Given the current circumstances, and with Power corpirations more and more defining the markets, even defining what Power is and what it looks and functions like…what were we expecting? Chimes?

  5. Rick Weddle November 4, 2014

    Hey, Mr. Reading, I agree with you about cutting back on the birth rate. That in combination with biofuels for energy needs we actually DO need (due for some adjustment), and other emergency measures, might (MIGHT) leave something of a liveable planet. I may live to see whether or not we’ve gone too far and can’t – or won’t – help our ownselfs.

    Cheers!

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