The WAWG Blog

NPR ran a series on Torture this last June. The following are excerpts from this series that went from legalize it to it’s not very useful. Click on the related link to hear and read more.

Alan Dershowitz, author, lawyer and Harvard law professor had the following to say:

I think torture will be used — and has, in fact, been used — whenever it is felt that by torturing an obviously guilty [terrorism suspect], the lives of multiple innocent people could be saved. The problem is that today, torture is being used promiscuously, and we deny we’re using it.

If the president of the United States thinks it’s absolutely essential to defend the lives of thousands of people, he ought to be on the line. He ought to have to sign a torture warrant in which he says, ‘I’m taking responsibility for breaking the law, for violating treaties, for doing an extraordinary act of necessity.’ That’s a responsibility only the president should be able to take, and only in the most extraordinary situation.

Right now, we have the worst of all possible situations: We deny we’re using torture, we’re using it, everybody can deny they have any role in it. We can’t trace it. So we punish a couple of people at Abu Ghraib … There were low-visibility, low-level people and we used methods that no democracy should ever use and everybody says, ‘Well, it wasn’t my fault, it was some low-level dog handler.’

Dr. Steven Miles is a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty member of its Center for Bioethics. When Americans were horrified by the pictures of abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, Mr. Miles had just one question: Where were the doctors? He offered these comments:

Doctors and nurses are front-line human rights monitors. They are present in prisons that the Red Cross never gets to and they are there when other human rights monitors are not. And even if they don’t see the abuses themselves, they see the signs of the abuses.

The physicians’ obligation in prison camps is to the health of the prisoners. Prisons are totally different from battlefields. These people are outside of combat. They are disarmed and captive, and in those circumstances, the medical system’s first obligation is to the health of the captives.

Torture has never been confined to narrow channels. You can’t find an instance of the selective use of torture.

Ron Suskind, author of “The One Percent Doctrine” and “The Price of Loyalty”, added the following:

He [President Bush] was interested in a very specific, granular way all the time. He was constantly asking folks inside of CIA, ‘What’s happening with interrogations? Are these techniques working?’ Can we trust what we get? The president … is involved — some people say too involved — in the granular day-to-day grit of this war on terror.

What the evidence shows is that there are cases in which some information that was valuable came from very, very harsh techniques. On balance, what the evidence shows more clearly is that torture creates many, many more problems than it can ever solve. That in some ways, that information is probably costing too much.

Former Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis talks about the tactics he used on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib (These quotes are out of context, so please listen to the entire interview):

We’d bring the dog into the interrogation both. The prisoner would have a hood over his head or maybe blackout goggles.

At Abu Ghraib, … we had prisoners who wouldn’t see anyone for months.

I didn’t like the abusive aspects of it.

The Chief Warrant Officer in charge there determined to go really hard on these guys [Two brothers for which they had intelligence.]. We ended up not getting any more information than what we already knew ….

… always ramping it [torture options] up.

People were trying to get creative with the interrogation tactics.

Your moral compass starts to shift.

If it’s cold out

The United States consumed almost 284 billion gallons of finished petroleum products in 2005. About half, 49 percent, went to power our autos, pickups, hybrids, and SUVs. Another 22 percent, distillate fuel oil (diesel and fuel oils), went to space heating, on– and off–highway diesel engine fuel (e.g., railroad engine fuel and fuel for agricultural machinery) and electric power generation.

Our gasoline and diesel consumption is supplied from both domestic sources and foreign imports. Imported gasoline covered about 6.6 percent of our consumption or 9.3 billion of the 139.9 billion gallons consumed in 2005. Imported diesel in 2005 covered about 8 percent of our consumption or 5 billion of the 63 billion gallons consumed in 2005.

If we want to reduce our dependency on imports and if we concentrate on the two products we consume the most of, gasoline and diesel, what would we need from ethanol and biodiesel to break this dependency?

According to the U. S. Energy Information Administration, ethanol production in the U. S. was 3.9 billion gallons in 2005. This is a long way from the 139.9 billion gallons of gasoline consumed last year, but represents 43 percent of the imported gasoline for 2005. (Note: We also imported about .16 billion gallons of ethanol in 2004.)

According to Bio G-3000 FAQs, “The United States produces about 20 million gallons of biodiesel per year using soybeans, used cooking grease and other feedstocks.” Twenty million gallons is only 0.4 percent of our consumption of imported diesel.

In conclusion, ethanol has a chance of replacing our gasoline imports, but biodiesel is a long way from having much effect on our consumption.

On June 13, 2006, during a surprise visit to the troops in Iraq, The Decider, President Bush, stated, “We will stay on the offensive against the terrorists, fighting them abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.”

In his 2006 Memorial Day address at Arlington Cemetery, he said, “Our nation is free because of brave Americans like these, who volunteer to confront our adversaries abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.”

On July 4, 2005, he said in Morgantown, West Virginia, “We are pursuing a comprehensive strategy to win the war on terror. We’re taking the fight to the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.”

During his 2005 State of the Union speech, he said, “Our generational commitment to the advance of freedom, especially in the Middle East, is now being tested and honored in Iraq. That country is a vital front in the war on terror, which is why the terrorists have chosen to make a stand there. Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home. ”

During his acceptance speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, he said, “We are transforming our military and reforming and strengthening our intelligence services. We are staying on the offensive, striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.”

August 16, 2004, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, he said, “You cannot negotiate with them. You cannot hope for the best. We must aggressively pursue them and defeat them in foreign lands, so we do not have to face them here at home.”

On … , OK, have you had enough? I have.

Believe it or not, there are another 165 examples of speeches by The Decider that contain the phrase, “so we do not have to face them here at home.” If you are interested in more, go to Presidential Rhetoric.com and get the full list of speeches with that exact phrase.

So, President Bush has spent the last couple of years preaching to the choir saying the the same thing over and over while trying to keep the tide from turning against their war in Iraq. But inspite of his orchestrated efforts and group think requirements, opposition to his plan is a growing. Some desire to set dates and get the Iraqis to take full control of their country ASAP. To counter this, the rest of the Decider team is following SOP and painting a bleak picture of this alternatve approach to the Bush plan. Either way, where the heck might we end up? What could happen to us and advancing Democracy? Here is the future of these two extreme options.

Option A – The over-simplified alternative defined by the Bush team as “cut and run”

Option B – The B(ush Plan with the terrorists still on the loose somewhere.

Where will either option end? How long will it take to finish off what will become The New Holy Wars?

Frankly, neither option is acceptable – neither the one we know nor the imaginary one. There needs to be a third. Maybe something based on what has worked in the past. What led to Democracy in East Germany in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall without our having to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to send in our military? What lead to Democracy in Eastern Europe in 1991 after the fall of The Soviet Union without the U.S. making a preemptive strike? When are our elected officials going to do ‘right’ and stop their political self serving get reelected antics?

Driving your car, air-conditioning your home, eating, traveling by commercial air and recycling all affect the amount of CO₂ released into our atmosphere.

Take The Carbon Quiz to see what your CO₂ contirbution is. Then, if your concerned, visit one of these sites if you’d like to find out how to offset your CO₂ impact on our only home.

• Carbonfund
• Terrapass
• Climate Care

From the Energy Information Administration:

Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Consumption and Flaring of Fossil Fuels

Total world carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption of petroleum, natural gas, and coal, and the flaring of natural gas increased from 21.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 1993 to 25.2 billion metric tons in 2003, or by 17.1 percent. The average annual growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions over the period was 1.6 percent (Note: Carbon dioxide emissions are measured here in metric tons of carbon dioxide. Tons of carbon dioxide can be converted to tons of carbon equivalent by multiplying by 12/44. ) The United States, China, Russia, Japan, and India were the world’s five largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels in 2003, producing 52 percent of the world total. The next five leading producers of carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels were Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Italy, and together they produced an additional 12 percent of the world total. In 2003, total United States carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels were 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, more tha one and one-half times as much as the 3.5 million metric tons produced by China, while Russia produced 1.6 billion metric tons.

In 2003, the consumption of petroleum was the world’s primary source of carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels, accounting for 42 percent of the total. Between 1993 and 2003 emissions from the consumption of petroleum increased by 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or 15.4 percent, rising from 9.1 to 10.5 billion metric tons. The United States was the largest producer of carbon dioxide from the consumption of petroleum in 2003 and accounted for 24 percent of the world total. China was the second largest producer, followed by Japan, Russia, and Germany, and together these four countries accounted for an additional 20 percent.

Coal ranked second as a source of carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels in 2003, accounting for 37 percent of the total. World carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption of coal totaled 9.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2003, up 16.3 percent from the 1993 level of 8.0 billion metric tons. China and the United States were the two largest producers of carbon dioxide from the consumption of coal in 2003 and together they accounted for 52 percent of the world total. India, Russia, and Japan accounted for an additional 16 percent.

Carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of natural gas accounted for the remaining 21 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels in 2003. Emissions from the consumption and flaring of natural gas increased from 4.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 1993 to 5.3 billion metric tons in 2003, or by 22.2 percent. The United States and Russia were the two largest producers of carbon dioxide from the consumption and flaring of natural gas in 2003 and together they accounted for 38 percent of the world total. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany accounted for an additional 10 percent.

The chart below is based on petroleum consumption and and CO₂ emissions data from the Energy Information Administration, Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government

U.S. CO₂ Emissions Growth Slower than Petroleum Consumption Growth.


Click on image for full view.

In this ninth survey of the web, the WAWG index group average was up by 15.6 percent from May 2006. This made up for a little over half May’s drop of 26 percent. Of the fourteen items tracked, 12 were up and 2 were down. The cumulative change for the index is up 42 percent and is down from the 56 percent high last February.

The only remaining continuous downtrend is “media control” which dropped another 4.5 percent.

The largest increase for June was 39 percent for identifying “scape goats as a unifying cause.” Since June was a reversal from last month, it is worth noting that the biggest reversal was 102 percent for “powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.”

Near the beginning of the Iraq war, Tom Delay made this statement, “Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.” In May of 2003, Bob Burnett of Alternet provided some context for the statement (bold added):

Confronted with a congressional compromise that would reduce the scope of the package to $350 billion (by eliminating the provision to do away with the tax on stock dividends), the President pushed back and asked for $550 billion in cuts. Asked why the Bush administration was pushing for tax cuts when the nation is engaged in a war with a still unknown price tag, and is already facing a record deficit of more than $300 billion in this fiscal year, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay famously responded, “Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.”

More recently, Paul Krugman of The New York Times, made the following observations:

… today’s congressional leaders have a very different
view about wartime priorities. “Nothing is more important
in the face of a war than cutting taxes,” declared Tom
DeLay, the former House majority leader, in 2003.

DeLay has since been dethroned, but the DeLay Principle lives on. Consider the priorities on display in Congress this week.

So what has Congress done recently in honor of the DeLay Principle and the related principle of borrow and spend?

• Earlier this year, Congress passed a $70 billion tax cut for the rich.
• Last week, they came close to adding another $240 to $355 billion to that by eliminating the inheritance tax, which was created by the Emergency Revenue Act of 1916 to fund World War I.
• Also last week, a measure costing $648 million to increase scrutiny of shipping containers coming into U.S. ports was dropped from the national security package under negotiation in Congress.

So, port security, in millions of dollars, is too expensive, but cutting billions in taxes, while we are at war, is just fine.

Words from our national government on how important port security is, i.e. stopping the Dubai Ports World deal, contradicts their actions.

Mr. Krugman concluded his article with this, “But the DeLay Principle isn’t really that hard to understand: It’s just like the Roosevelt Principle, but the other way around. These days, the state — or rather, the political coalition that controls the state, and depends on campaign contributions to maintain that control — owes a peculiar obligation to men of great wealth. And nothing is more important than cutting these men’s taxes, even in the face of a war.”

What has happened between WWI and the Irag war and where are we going next?

In a previous article based on a 1996 study by Pew Research, I stated, “In conclusion, the white evangelical Protestants get little return from the party they support. Money may not be what they are looking for, but mixing religion and politics isn’t the answer either.”

Well, Pew Research has released updated data for 2006 and white evangelical Protestants are getting poorer and getting less from the 2006 tax cut.

The table below combines data from the two studies and compares income ranges for white mainline Protestants and white evangelical Protestants. The second and third columns combine the actual population distribution percentages from both Pew Research Studies by income range. The fourth and fifth columns show the changes in population distribution over the past ten years by income range.

These two columns also show how the two population groups have migrated up or down the income ranges. While more mainline Protestants have moved up the income scale, white evangelical Protestants have not kept up.

On average, evangelicals have fallen behind mainline Protestants in income by another 21 percent over the last ten years and, as a result, get less from the 2006 tax cut as indicated by the last column of the table. As the mainline Protestants move up the income scale, they get more of the tax reduction. As the evangelical Protestants slide further behind in income, they get less.

Which party passed the tax cut? Which party do the evangelical Protestants continue to support as they fall farther behind and benefit less? Why?

Family Income	White Mainline Protestant % (1996/ 2006)	White Evangelical Protestant % (1996/ 2006)	1996 to 2006 Change % (Main)	1996 to 2006 Change % (Evan)	Average Tax Reduction from 2006 Tax Cuts
$0 – $20,000	19/12.9	22/19.2	-37.4	-12.7	$2
$20,000 – $29,999	18/8.5	18/12.4	-52.8	-31.1	$10
$30,000 – $49,999	27/22.0	28/25.7	-18.5	-8.2	$32
$50,000 – $74,999	13/18.6	12/14.1	+43.1	+17.5	$112
$75,000 +	12/30.6	8/18.6	+155	+133	$10,950

After pleading guilty to avoid trial and get a lesser sentence, Tom Noe is now facing 24 to 30 months in prison and a hefty fine. He has gone from leading the Bush reelection effort in NW Ohio and becoming a Bush “Pioneer” for raising more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign – to a convicted felon.

According to the Toledoblade.com, Mr. Noe voluntarily decided “to accept responsibility to spare my dear family and friends the further embarrassment of any additional court proceeding. Therefore, I plead guilty.”

Mr. Noe was charged with

• Conspiracy to violate federal campaign laws
• Violating federal campaign laws
• Causing the Bush-Cheney campaign to file a false campaign finance report.

Pleading guilty also leaves the following questions unanswered:

• Why did Noe agree to raise $50,000 for the Bush campaign?
• Did anyone pressure him to raise money?
• Did he hope to curry favor with the Bush White House?

The ToledoBlade concluded with, “At the time of Noe’s indictment, a senior Justice Department official said the Noe case represented the largest campaign money-laundering scheme prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department since new campaign-finance laws were enacted by Congress in 2002.”

On March 17, 2006, “The Decider” (President Bush II) signed a $70,000,000,000 (billion) tax cut passed by “The Follower” (Congress), which is trying to find another $23 billion for us – well some of us anyway.

The table below, which is based on a recent Tax Policy Center (TPC) review of the new tax cuts, shows how this tax cut is distributed by “income class.”

The green shaded area represents the 14 percent of the tax payers who earn over $100,000 a year and get 87 percent of this cut. In real numbers this means 20,197,000 “tax units” will get about $61 billion. This works out to a little over $3,000 per tax unit.

As represented by the blue shaded area, the remaining $9 billion from this tax cut goes to 125,641,000 less rich “tax units.” That works out to about $72 per tax unit, about enough to fill an average car’s gas tank 1.5 times.

Cash Income Class (1,000 of 2005 $s)	Share of Tot Tax Change (%)	Avg Tax Reduction ($)	Tax Units (1,000)	Tax Units (%)
Less than 10	0.0	0	18,886	12.9
10-20	0.1	3	25,413	17.4
20-30	0.3	10	20,374	13.9
30-40	0.4	17	15,429	10.4
40-50	0.9	47	11,953	8.2
50-75	3.6	112	21,121	14.4
75-100	7.6	406	12,455	8.5
100-200	32.0	1,395	15,196	10.4
200-500	27.2	4,527	3,988	2.7
500-1000	5.7	5,656	668	0.5
>1000	22.3	42,766	345	0.2
All	100	453	146,417	100

Now here is a question on the tax cuts. Since, the Christianists are, by definition, a power player in the political process, to what extent were they affected by this tax cut? Since they support the GOP, they should benefit by their support. Right?

The answer can be found in a 1996 study from Pew Research on religion and politics. This study was a follow-up to another survey from 1987, and potentially, the 1996 study will be updated in the near future.

First of all, let me repeat Andrew Sullivan’s description of a Christianist, “I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.”

Now here are some of the general findings of the 1996 survey that relate to this Christianist description:

• Grown their affiliation with the Republican Party from 35 to 42 percent
• Grown their representation among voters from 19 to 24 percent
• Greater opposition to:
  • abortion,
  • gay marriage,
  • gun control,
  • sending troops go Bosnia, [Remember, this was in 1996]
  • disseminating birth control information to teenagers, and
  • women in the work force

The survey also reported these additional facts on mixing religion and politics for Christianists or the broader category of white evangelical Protestants:

• Twenty percent of white evangelical Protestants reported hearing partisan politics from the pulpit as compared to 12 percent for both mainline Protestants and Catholics.
• Eighteen percent of white evangelical Protestants reported campaign information was made available in their churches compared to 5 percent for mainline Protestants or Catholics.
• White evangelical Protestants think it is okay for churches to be involved in politics by a three to one margin.
• Fifty-eight percent reported being displeased with the media (Note: Fox News went live in 1996 when these survey results were published.).
• The Christian Coalition gets a favorable, 64 percent, rating from white evangelical Protestants.
• White evangelical Protestants surpassed their political opposite, Progressive Catholics, in terms of consistency across a broad range of political issues.
• White evangelical Protestants favor the GOP by 56 percent over the Democrats as the party most concerned about protecting religious values.

Now getting back to the tax cut. Here are some of the raw data from the 1996 survey showing Protestant education and income, which we can relate to the tax cut study above:

Education	White Mainline Protestant	White Evangelical Protestant
College Grad	27	16
Some College	22	24
HS Grad	41	47
< HS Grad	10	14

 

Family Income	White Mainline Protestant	White Evangelical Protestant
$0 – $20,000	19	22
$20,000 – $29,999	18	18
$30,000 – $49,999	27	28
$50,000 – $74,999	13	12
$75,000 +	12	8

Note from Pew Research: Some columns do not add to 100% because not all categories are shown.

From these tables, you can see that white evangelical Protestants average below mainline Protestants on the high end of income and education. They also surpass mainline Protestants on the low end of both scales. In other words, white evangelical Protestants are more likely to get less of the tax cut. (And why do they support the GOP?)

This tax benefit is highlighted in the table below where the tax reduction distribution from the TPC is appended to the raw income data from the 1996 Pew Research survey. Since the TPC table has 11 income groups and Pew Research and only 5 groups, the TPC tax reductions had to be averaged to come up with the numbers in the table below. For example, TPC’s 30 to 40 and 40 to 50 numbers (17 and 47) average to 32 in the table below for the 30,000 to 49,999 range.

Family Income	White Mainline Protestant	White Evangelical Protestant	Average Tax Reduction
$0 – $20,000	19	22	$2
$20,000 – $29,999	18	18	$10
$30,000 – $49,999	27	28	$32
$50,000 – $74,999	13	12	$112
$75,000 +	12	8	$10,950

In conclusion, the white evangelical Protestants get little return from the party they support. Money may not be what they are looking for, but mixing religion and politics isn’t the answer either.

One other comment. In my previous article, I made references to the dependent masses, not the majority of citizens in a country, but the group that is necessary to bring about and maintain a single party state. Are the white evangelical Protestants the masses for some future single party state?

In my research for this article, I also came across another interesting chart. It is from a December 2002 survey and shows that 60 percent of the U.S. population feels that religion is very important to them. It also shows that the US is a considerable exception to the rule that says, the poorer the nation – the more important religion is.

Click on image for the original report.

Here is a look back at what contributed to WWII. Could it happen here?

Nations run by a single party (political, army or dictatorship) tend to become intensely nationalistic, racist, militaristic and imperialistic. They are supported by the ‘masses’ but not necessarily the majority of the national population. Support for this system is enhanced by identifying an ‘enemy’ and its ‘supporters’, labelling them with prejudicial adjectives and urging the masses to support violence against them.

Other characteristics that help create a ‘successful’ single party system include:

• Highly advanced technologically – dramatic changes in high-tech economies help bring on social and economic conflicts that are typically resolved with increasing levels of violence;
• A small group of wealthy entrepreneurs is required to initially fund the system;
• Any democratic institutions like courts and legislatures must be marginalized.

The single party state uses propaganda, i.e. the media, to manipulate the masses and solidify its power. Anxieties over social and economic issues are broadcast, exploited and focused on an enemy and its friends. The supporting masses are manipulated to stay in line behind the single party by being made to feel they are on the verge of losing their central place in the single party state. The media and technology are key to this. — To incite terror and control of the masses, the single party must be well organized, technically highly skilled, and in control of the media.

Success also requires a state of war based on high-tech skills and financial resources. Initially, the war is internal but grows as the power of the single party grows. War, of course, and the needed power requires a strong military. The military favors, by its nature, conformity and thus becomes codependent with the single party. Support for a single party and love of conformity helps with enforcement of conformity of the masses through the military. In other words, the military becomes supportive of both the uniform single party and its goal to unify and control the masses. This need for conformity by both the single party and its military requires high-tech skills and financial resources from the wealthy to spread the word – imperialism is on the rise.

The masses tend to hold the military in some esteem. There is genuine popular support. The masses hope the military can keep the single party from straying too far and the military will oblige the masses – to a point. The single party knows this and has to keep an eye on the military to make sure they don’t stray from the single party line. If the military does stray, the single party will add them to the enemy list and purge the trouble makers in a very public way. This also helps keep the masses in line.

Although not a requirement, an economic depression can facilitate the formation of a single party and its codependent military. Any economic downturn magnifies the economic and social conflicts between the masses and their many enemies. The masses join the unemployed and feel useless, unwanted, and outsiders from the respectable ranks of society. To regain their self respect, they join the military, put on a uniform, rejoin the single party, and become respectable again. Conformity is enhanced by an order of magnitude.

Even without a depression, a high-tech, militarized single party must bring many contradictory social groups together. This is done through great common denominators like insecurity, frustration, and resentment. These common denominators and the military are the substance that promotes conformity in and support from the masses. But there are additional psychological requirements needed to keep the support of the masses.

These masses must feel dependent and that dependence should be based on insecurities that are common across the masses. This dependence requires an authority figure they can believe in, accept without question and regardless of facts, provide comfort for their insecurities and give them a role in the military to help them feel they belong. There dependence allows them to take orders and they in turn issue orders to others just as dependent.

However, the masses are also frustrated because they are denied self-expression and self-assertion. The single party knows this frustration exists and that it will lead to repressed hostility and aggression. This hostility and aggression must be redirected to the ‘real’ enemy. The single party must provide an enemy for the masses to vent their resentment on.

Ideally, this enemy is easily identifiable and, if not, the state will make it easy by applying labels verbally and physically. As long as there is an enemy and the repressed hostility, aggression, and resentment of the masses can be vented against that enemy, the frustrations and insecurities of the masses are assuaged and the single state can maintain its imperialist pursuits knowing the masses are provided an ever expanding supply of enemies.

For the masses who can’t master their own dependent lives, the single state provides mastery over others.

This is some of what happened in Germany and Italy before and during WWII. Could it happen here? Maybe, maybe not. Is there a way to judge if it is or isn’t happening? Maybe, maybe not. But that is what this blog is attempting to do – Where are we going (WAWG)?

This blog is tracking a set of 14 characteristics (blog categories) defined by Laurence W. Britt in 2003. Blog articles are written about possible instantiations of these characteristics. If you want to explore these articles, refer to the various navigational aids on the left side of this web page.

In addition to the blog articles, an index is being tracked and evolved to see if a trend of these characteristics exists.