Anthony Marr

August 22, 2009

What the USA must change to become a great nation

by

Anthony Marr

I was born in China during the Japanese invasion which murdered some 20 million Chinese civilians. My mother was almost captured as a "comfort woman", i.e. a sex slave to be eventually killed when used up. Had this happened, I wouldn't be here writing this essay.

So right off the bat, I was born to think that Japan was anything but great. And though after the war I tried to forgive and forget, Japan turned the same blood-lust against the whales and dolphins, which has kept me seething. No, Japan is not a great nation, not by a long harpoon shot.

When I was 5, the Communists overran China, and my family escaped with our lives by moonlight down the Pearl River to the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. Had we not done so, my entire family could have been terminated in the purges and hard labor camps which ensued. All in all the Communist regime wiped out some 60 million Chinese people in its consolidation of power. Most of these 60 million died of starvation when the Maoist government shipped their food to Russia in exchange for technological and military assistance. After the "Great Cultural Revolution", I tried to forgive and forget as well, but the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of 3000 students forever removed China from greatness in my mind.

From ages 5 through 20, I grew up in Hong Kong as a stateless person under the rule of the British Empire. Though it was not a bloody regime, a day did not pass when I was not reminded one way or another, and none too subtly, that I was a third class citizen. By no means all Chinese, but the Cantonese culture of Guang Dong province, to which Hong Kong is attached, is notorious for its callous and broad-spectrum animal use and abuse. Britain, which ruled the Cantonese people flooding into Hong Kong, had the responsibility of enforcing its supposedly humane animal laws, but from what I saw as a child and a teenager, nothing along this line was done. Since I loved animals, the British did not relieve my pain. But then, how could a nation known for its cruel sport of fox-hunting impose its will on the people of another culture regarding humane and respectful animal treatment? Based on the above alone, Great Britain, though the lesser of two evils compared to China by far, left/leaves much greatness to be desired.

At age 21, I flew across the Pacific to Canada on a student visa. Prepped by over-dramatized Hollywood movies about the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia, I set foot on North American soil with trepidation. But almost at once, I found the Canadian people warm, gentle and helpful, and genuinely kind and loving to their companion animals, which made me feel very much at home. Further, I was amazed by how people could openly criticize the government without any fear of retribution, and on the contrary I saw smiling politicians shaking hands with the humble people in Chinatown, which was unheard of where I had come from. There was/is a free Medicare system for all, and a respectful policy towards seniors. So finally, when I swore myself in as a Canadian citizen, I felt rightly proud for belonging finally to what I perceived to be a great nation. But it did not take me too long to get disillusioned. As a university student, I worked summers out in the bush as a geologist's assistant. It was then I began to see the horrific assault by logging companies against the environment. When one year I worked in a cathedral-like old growth forest by which I was awed, the next year, it had been reduced to a waste land, with nothing but huge grey stumps left behind. I saw trophy hunters shooting down anything magnificent that moved. And I saw mines and pulp mills discharging heavy metals, cyanides, organo-chlorines, PCBs, PAHs and dioxins on to the land. And that was before I learned about the horrendous Newfoundland seal massacre, and finally flew over the six hellish Alberta tar sands mines which made of the entire Athabasca watershed one enormous carcinogen.

But at least, so I thought, I still had my freedom of speech, until I became an animal rights activist, and found that although I could indeed shout my lungs out in a demonstration, and could debate 100 hunters at a time without getting lynched, the truth of the matter is that not one word I had spoken or written proved worth a dime in the eyes of those to whom it was addressed. And over my protestations, my tax dollars were used to subsidize the seal hunt.

So bit by bit, then clunk by chunk, and year by year, the monument of Canadian greatness disintegrated in my mind.

In the mid-late 1990s, I went to India to work in three tiger reserves to help save them from habitat destruction, and the Bengal tiger from extinction.

India's great Mahatma Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." From what I have seen in three expeditions by plane, train, jeep and on foot, each lasting 2-3 months, India's animals are not well treated, especially its street dogs and wildlife. I have personally rescued a puppy from being stoned to death by children, while the adults stood by, doing nothing. Where animals are concerned, India first task is to save the Bengal tiger and its complex ecosystems. The country does have a federal program called Project Tiger, but it is fighting a half-hearted and therefore losing battle, and tiger habitat continue to dwindle, and tiger numbers continue to decline. The tiger is a world treasure, but India has the responsibility to preserve it. If we cannot even save the tiger, a species universally loved and admired, what can we save?

Not until India has demonstrated her sincere and whole-hearted commitment to saving the Bengal tiger and its ecosystems would I begin to consider her in the question of greatness.

In 1999, the Makah native tribe in Washington state clamored for a revival of their "traditional" hunting of the Grey whale. We could not stop them from killing one young female - with a high-powered 50-calibre rifle and towed back to shor with a motorcraft - some "traditional" whaling. But we have legally stalled them since, so far. This was my first field engagement with American activists, and I rapidly grew to love working with them on an international basis.

From 2003 through 2008, I conducted 6 Compassionate for Animals Road Expeditions (CARE tours), each covering 25-41 states in 3-7 months.

I have worked with grassroots activists in almost every state on their campaigns, and have developed a certain depth of understanding in most of their issues and their ways of handling them. I have seen their successes and failures, and have learned from them the dos and don'ts. In doing so, I have also been exposed to the opposition, and the way it works, to KNOW THY ENEMY. Most of all, I have become keenly aware of not only local trends, but national trends (of which local activists may not always be aware), and I have forged coalitions to deal with multi-state and nation-wide problems and issues. As well, I have engaged American activists in Canadian issues, not least of all the 300, 000-baby-seals-per-year Newfoundland seal massacre, with my car painted with the slogan "I AM CANADIAN. BOYCOTT MY COUNTRY!"

And I have received much support in return, for which I am deeply thankful.

I love my American friends deeply, so I wish America the best. Unfortunately, the way I've seen it, in many ways it is not even good, much less great. I owe it to my American friends to point a few things out from my visiting Canadian's perspective. To heal, one must first diagnose. Following are some of my observations:

*1st Amendment violations

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the Five Freedoms. It is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion" or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government.

In terms of the freedom of speech, it forbids viewpoint discrimination, however unpopular the viewpoint may be. However, if you say as much as "Good morning" to a hunter in the process of targeting a deer, you can be charged with violating the state-level Hunter Harassment law, which in turn violates the First Amendment. The hunters argue that it is the sound of the speech, not the words, that harasses the hunter, but how can even they separate the words from the sound? If the words of "Good morning" is protected by the First Amendment and can be spoken, how can the sound of "Good morning" when it is being spoken be illegal? Clearly, the HH laws are created and administered by hunters, for hunters, including the judge in Pennsylvania who convicted Jan Haagensen on five counts of hunter harassment - for telling invading hunters to get off her land, and for telling a hunter hunting from the road that what he was doing was illegal even under the hunting laws of PA (listen to the Jan Haagensen interview by Anthony Marr on Animal Voices in www.myspace.com/AnthonyMarr).

What about the mother of the U.S. - Great Britain? Does true freedom of speech exist there? Judging by the life-time ban of Dr. Steven Best from the U.K. for speaking in favor of direct action in animal rights activism, the answer is a resounding NO.

If all these curtailments of freedom, and invasions of privacy, are designed to win the "War of Terror", then the first battle is already lost, because the lost American freedom is the terrorists' spoil of war. The United States and Britain have compromised and defeated themselves.

A nation whose constitution has been compromised cannot be considered great. The way for the U.S. to correct this problem is to scrap all state-level laws that violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

*Pseudo-Democracy

Democracy means majority-rule, but minority-rule by power elite is not uncommon, if not rampant. And it could even be written into the constitution itself. The constitution of New Jersey, for example, stipulates that of the 11 voting member of the Fish & Game, 6 must be hunters. In most such case, all 11 are hunters, because any odd-man-out will be ostracized mercilessly until he/she quits. This is pseudo-majority-rule within the commission, but real minority rule in the entire state of New Jersey. The result is a set of hunting laws by hunters, for hunters, and the non-hunters and anti-hunters of New Jersey, which add up to 99.2% of the population (only 0.8% of New Jerseyan's hunt) have no say in the matter. Some democracy.

A nation which mocks and violates its own founding principle cannot be considered great. To correct this problem, all U.S. states must have wildlife management laws determined by a panel proportionately representing the general population of that state, not its small-minority hunting elite.

Another point of pseudo-democracy is in the form of the so-called "public consultation" sessions in county, city and municipal council. From my observation, by the time the council is in session and the public is allowed to speak, the decisions have often already been signed and sealed behind close doors. So the public strenuously speaking their mind, to which the council only pretends to listen, is expending their energy showing externally what a great democracy they all live in, being able to speak out with passion without fear of persecution.

The crux of the matter here is the composition of the council itself. A pro-funting council will decide in favor of urban deer hunting no matter what activists say. The solution is to make the council anti-hunting, and this has to be done through the political process by fielding anti-hunting candidates and campaigning to put them in office. Already existing is the League of Humane Voters (LOHV) headed by Peter and Anne Muller, and LOHV chapters headed by local activists (e.g. Lane Ferrante, director of the new Ohio LOHV chapter).

All this is easier said than done, considering that almost all American politicians on all levels are puppets of the powerful gun lobby, hunting lobby, and the arms and hunting industries. And pseudo-democracy, pseudo-anything for that matter, has no place in greatness.

*A CORPSE-run nation

I love my American friends, each in a unique way, but there is one thing in common. They all live in a system originally designed by conscience, e.g. the U.S. Constitution, but eventually abused and corrupted by corporations, opportunists, rapists, psychopaths, sociopaths and ecopaths (CORPSE) for their own immediate profit and agrandizement, at the expense of the innocent, the future and the whole. They have created new subsystems for the purpose of defeating the Constitution itself, complete with pseudo-patriotic slogans. And they attack the conscience of society itself - us.

The impact of such a system far exceeds that directed against the animal rights and environmental movements. It can wipe out all the corals in the sea, it can desertify the entire Amazon, it can starve millions with a global millennium drought, it can make Earth uninhabitable for humans, and it can wipe out over 80% of all species on Earth as the End-Permian Extinction did 251 million years ago. If we let these CORPSEs run the show, the entire nation will behave as if it has no conscience. Can a nation without conscience be considered great? Can any psychopath be considered great?

Analyse a CORPSE-run nation, and we will see the evil manifest in a thousand different ways, including the rise of Nazism in WW2 Germany. Following are those that I have personally encountered through my travels in the United States of America - "the land of the free, the home of the brave".

*Political Puppetry

Even the person in the nation's highest political office can be, and to a large extent is, a puppet. Its puppet-masters are corporations. When George W. Bush was governor of Texas, GUI (governing under the influence) of Big Oil, Texas ranked last in environmental protection. The oil companies got richer and ever more powerful, so much so that they put Bush all the way up into the White House, to make of the Unites States a large Texas. As soon as Bush took over as president, one of his first feats was to gut the Environmental Protection Agency by planting unprecedented numbers of industrial CEOs into the EPA's highest ranks, who then proceeded to eliminate as many Clinton-era protection laws as the public would allow. An the authority-fearing and by-and-large apathetic public just let him/them do it. And of course, whether he was genuinely ignorant of global warming or not, he publicly voiced skepticism about global warming, and very publicly refused to ratify the Kyoto Treaty to counteract the global threat of climate change, by virtual order of Big Oil, thereby squandering a great opportunity to lead the world by peaceful means. Worse, 8 years of precious time for saving the planet was wasted, when the total amount of time for doing so is no more than 12 years as of 2000. Even Obama, infinitely better informed than Bush ever was or presumably ever could be, is still a puppet to an extent - of the coal industry - even though he himself, as an independent thinker, if he has any logic at all, would not condone.

If even the top leader of a nation is a puppet, that nation cannot be considered great.

*Neo-Fascist "Democracy"

Wikipedia has a definition for a certain ism, which "comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology". That ism is called Fascism, and the United States "Democracy" is dangerously close to it. A Fascist nation is automatically precluded from greatness, because it subjugates the will of its citizens to that of its corporations. An all-powerful corporatist economic policy has no regard for human rights, much less animal right and environmental integrity. It's only concern is economic hegemony and military supremacy.

To correct this problem there must be a new amendment to severely limit or exclude political influence on government by corporations, and economically powerful special interest groups such as the NRA or, to be fair, the HSUS. The root of all political evils is corporate economic influence of political election outcomes. Putting it bluntly, to fire each and every "best politician money can buy" is a must for national greatness.

*A war started by a fool

The war: The Iraq War. The fool: George W. Bush. The fool is gone, but the war remains. As long as a foolish war continues, the nation waging it cannot be great.

*Bought global warming denial

In case the general population feels smug about corporate villainy and politicians being corporate puppets, each citizen should be reminded that he is himself a mini-puppet, whose very thought may not be his own. Corporate thought control exists in many forms, in many nations, but nowhere as pronounced and blatant and staggering as in the United States, the lair of Big Oil. To ensure a sustained oil and coal market, Big Oil has spend some $100 million in waging a counter-campaign to discredit global warming as a myth. The result is that the United States ranks rock bottom in global warming awareness amongst all western nations in international surveys. This is a deliberate deception and dumbing down of all Americans by the American power-elite which profits hugely from public apathy and compliance, at the expense of the environment and our children's future.

The 8 Bush years may already have driven the planet past the point of no return. Obviously, a nation that sabotages international efforts to save the planet and our children's future for its own short term profit bears the antithesis of greatness. Is Obama signficantly better? Better, yes. Significantly? Not as long as he keeps on puppeting for Big Coal.

*The self-debeautification of America

American the Beautiful? Almost heaven, West Virginia? John Denver would weep, if he saw what I saw that summer day in 2008, when I was in my 6th Compassion for Animals Road Expedition. A local activist took me up one of the mountains to witness for myself a mountain-top-removal operation by the coal industry.

To call it "an eye-sore" is like calling Ted Bundy "naughty". A government that would allow the destruction of the magnificent mountains which took millions of years to build for the short term profit of its puppet master Big Coal is not a great government, and the nation ruled by such a government is not a great nation.

*Be insured, or die

In "socialist" Canada, medical care is a basic human right. In "capitalist" United States, it is not. I don't know why some Americans hate or fear "socialism" so much. It is just another case of McCarthyish paranoia. No nation which says its citizens, "pay up or die." can be considered great.

Only the puppet masters have anything to fear, because - Where does the money come from? -Taxation - of the filthy rich - stupid.

*The enslavement and slaughter of billions

Substitute humans for animals, and concentration camps for factory farms and vivisection labs, and cattle cars for cattle cars, gas chambers for slaughter houses, and the factory farmers and transporters and vivisectors and slaughterers, would be no better than Nazis. Only their victims are different. The humans are essentially the same.

Quantitatively, it's worse. Line up the cows slaughtered every year in America for human consumption in single file, and the cow line will stretch from L.A. to N.Y. back and forth 16 times, and the pig line, 35 times, and the chicken line (10 billion) would stretch between the Earth and the Moon 8 times. All these add up to sentient-being-sufferings on an astronomical scale.

A nation harboring such enormous imposed internal suffering cannot be considered great.

*Lying to The People

A government that lies to the people is criminal, by whatever political system it abides. A nation in which a government lies to the people is lightyears from greatness.

Here is a blatant example. In 2007, while on my 5th Compassion for Animals Road Expedition (CARE-5), I was in Allentown PA when local activists asked for my assistance in opposing a new bow-hunting scheme within the nearby Trexler Nature Preserve. It was the dying wish of General Harry Clay Trexler that no hunting be conducted within the preserve. But in 2007, the local government announced to the public that due to an increase in the white-tail deer population within the preserve, its ecology has been compromised, and that the deer population needed to be reduced, and further, that the bow hunters in the area have volunteered themselves to do the job for the community, free of charge. Except for the resistance put up by these few great local activists, notably Carol Loomis, Virginia Wolfe and Cheryl Baker, the public had no comment, and the hunt did go ahead. On opening day of the hunt, Carol, Cheryl, Chryl's teenage son and I entered the preserve, amidst the hordes of bow hunters, male and female, all armed to the teeth. We received many stares ranging from suspicious to hostile, but it was an eye-opener. Were I blindfolded and driven by deep into the preserve, and taken for a short walk of no more than 100 yards from the parking lot, then have the blindfold removed and asked what I was looking at, I would have answered that I was in a farm. Acres of forest had been ploughed down, and row upon row of deer clover had been planted in its place.

Those who understand the Compensatory Rebound Effect, some hunters included, know that with an overabundance of food, deer would maximize their reproductive rate. Instead of no-fawn and singlet, they would have twins and triplets, resulting indeed in an overabundance of deer, which is what the hunters want. Local residents are usually not aware of this, at least not on a first person basis, and that is that the bow-hunters are very aggressive in forcing their way into potential hunting areas where the discharge of fire-arms is illegal, including urban parks like the Trexler, and even within the urban areas themselves - in people's backyards. It is the general strategy of hunters to first cultivate a high deer population, then claim deer over-population, then offer themselves as saviors of deer-damaged communities. The truth of the matter is that the whole thing is initiated by the bow-hunters in collusion with the hunter-friendly politicians who are often themselves hunters, for which they were put in office by the hunting industry in the first place. I took pictures of the plantation and submitted them to the local newspaper, and spoke at length to its reproter, but the article that came out the following day did not make a single mention of the deer clover plantation, did not use my photos, but instread glorified a female hunter for being among the first to bag a magnificent buck.

How great is a nation in which the government deceives the people to appease its puppet masters?

*A nation run by serial killers

Let's brush aside all the fluff and window-dressing and BS and get down to the bare bones, shall we? The cold hard fact of the matter is that not only are the vast majority of politicians under the thumbs of powerful serial killers, but are themselves serial killers. I am talking about recreational hunters and trophy hunters. The fact that their victims are non-human does not alter the fact that they have no compassion, revel in bloodshed, derive pleasure from another being's suffering, and practice serial killing as a form of entertainment.

When I go speaking to children, I often ask them what to them is the most immoral reason for killing an animal - in self-defense? for food? for clothing? for money? for fun? Without a single exception the children in all schools have voted against KILLING FOR FUN as the most immoral reason for killing anything. And America is ruled by a small minority of very powerful but highly immoral people who kill for fun, i.e. who are recreational hunters.

A nation run by serial fun-killers cannot be great.

*Animal protection laws or lack thereof

Animal protection laws do exist within the United States, and on both the federal and state levels. Federal animal protection statutes take the form of Acts, which number almost 100, including the African Elephant Conservation Act, the Airborne Hunting Act, the Animal Damage Control Act, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, the Animal Health Protection Act, the Animal Welfare Act, the Animal Fighting Act, the Bald and Goldern Eagle Protection Act, the Captive Wildlife Safety Act, the Dog and Cat Protection Act, the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, the Humane Slaughter Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, the Recreational Hunting Safety and Preservation Act, etc. These may seem impressive, but if we look between them, we'd see huge gaps through which entire sectors of the animal kingdom could be abused, tortured, shot, trapped and slaughtered with impunities, notably wild animals not protected by the Endangered Species Act, and farm and lab animals place under the "protection" of the Department of Agriculture, the very governmental body whose purpose is to exploit them. And some of these "animal protection laws", e.g. the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, as its name clearly states, is to protect the animal enterprises, not the animals, and its new incarnation the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, is demonstrably unconstitutional.

I consider the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act unconstitutional because even a non-violent demonstration is an act of "terrorism" if it inflicts economic damage upwards of $10, 000 on any animal enterprise. So, a boycott of a certain company, e.g. KFC, could be considered an act of terrorism if the company could demonstrate that as a result of the boycott, it suffered $10, 001's sertback in chicken wing sales, in which case the jail time is up to 6 months. If the financial damage is in the range of $1 million, the jail time is up to 6 years. In other words, if Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi were animal rights activists today, they would have been considered terrorists. Again, the primary point is that the AETA violates the Constitution of the United States. A conditional freedom of speech is a contradiction in terms. There is no such thing as freedom of speech "on the condition that you don't offend anybody.."

The state level animal protection laws are far simpler than the federal acts. Generally, they protect cat, dogs and horses which "belong to" human individuals and some corporations, but not wild animals that "belong to" no one. The reason for this is that the "owners" of the cats and dog and horses would make a fuzz if "their" animals are harmed by others, e.g. shot by a hunter, but there is no one to speak for the wild and hunted animals. So basically, these are "animal-owner" protection laws, not animal protection laws, which therefore concern themselves with human rights, not animal rights.

No nation that does not recognize that animals have rights can be considered great.

*Government control of media

Local radio talkshow listeners may think that their own area is exceptionally right wing. But having listened to radio talkshows in my car while I driving from state to state, from coast to coast, I can tell you with certainty that it is not. Where the radio talkshow scene is concerned, the entire nation is exceptionall right wing. Over 95% of all well known American talkshow hosts, from Rush Limbaugh pn down are right wing. And worse, every morning, each right wing talkshow host would receive an email from Maryland telling them the talking points of the day, and what stand to take on each talking point. In the newspaper arena, investigative journalism is all but dead. It is brain-washing on a grand scale.

The Allentown PA newspaper article on the Trexler preserve mentioned above, which buried my photos of the Trexler plantation, is not an isolated local case either. In many places, a reporter attacking or just questioning hunting is committing professional suicide, or at least opening himself to severe and concerted hunter attack.

Thought control and the suppression of truth is not the mark of a great nation.

*The 5 lethal maneuvers of the House of Fraud

I have mentioned the Jan Haagensen case (listen to the Haagensen interview by Anthony Marr on the Animal Voices talkshow archived in www.myspace.com/AnthonyMarr). Haagensen was convicted by the PA criminal court on 5 counts of hunter harassment, which involve a jail term. She appealed to an appelate court, and had the convictions all overturned for a total lack of evidence. Now she is taking the offense, and is legally challenging the constitutionality of the PA Hunter Harassment Statute. She is fighting this battle alone and deserves, and needs, our support. But at least she could appeal.

While researching material on Steve Hindi, one of my guests on Animal Voices, I came across the following passage by Rob Sherman in an article which shocked even me. I will copy-paste it here verbatim:

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While there may be two sides to the rodeo debate (although I doubt it), as a professional journalist, let me assure you that you should place no credibility, whatsoever, in anything that the Illinois criminal courts do. The criminal courts, here, are widely recognized as a House of Fraud which fakes the conviction of completely innocent people for the purpose of attempting to smear the reputation of political enemies.

Here are five ways in which they do it:

1) Most judges in Illinois criminal trials are former prosecutors from the same state's attorney's office that is now presenting the prosecution's case. Blatant conflict of interest. The judge has numerous ways of rigging the outcome of cases to ensure conviction, as described below, regardless of whether the Defendant is guilty or innocent. Indeed, it doesn't even matter if the Defendant has not been accused of doing anything that violates the cited statute.

2) Block the introduction of testimony that exonerates the Defendant. The way that this scam works is, every time the Defense asks a prosecution or defense witness a question that, if answered, would clearly exonerate the falsely accused Defendant, the prosecutor objects to the question being answered and the judge, who is a former prosecutor (sort of a prosecution tag team), sustains the objection. The jury never gets to hear the testimony that would exonerate the Defendant.

3) Block any testimony from Defense witnesses who have the knowledge to refute everything that the prosecutor is contending. The way this scam works, the prosecutor objects that the testimony of the witness should not be allowed because the testify is supposedly irrelevant. The former-prosecutor judge, being familiar with this lawyer trick, sustains the prosecutor's objection and the witness is barred from testifying. A jury is required to base its decision on the evidence and testimony presented, so if the jury is only allowed to hear from witnesses that support the prosecution's trumped up charges, the jury has no choice but to render a decision based solely on the prosecutor's presentation.

4) Charge and convict the Defendant for the crime of nothing. This is a beautiful scam that any rodeo type would love. The prosecutor accuses a Defendant of being in violation of a law, but doesn't allege that the Defendant actually did anything that violates that law. After a trial on the allegation of the crime of nothing, the judge says, "I enter a finding of guilty, " but not guilty of doing anything in particular. Then, when the Defendant complains to the judge, "I didn't do anything that violates the law. I wasn't even accused of doing anything that violates the law, and you haven't found me guilty of doing anything which violates the law. So, just what, exactly, is it that you found me guilty of doing that violates the law?" To which the judge responds, "You don't understand, sir. Now that I've entered a finding of guilty, you have lost your presumption of innocence. Therefore, you have to tell the Court what it is that you did that violated the law, rather than the other way around."

5) The hostage-taking scam. This scam is an extension of Scam #4, above. In this scam, the judge takes the falsely convicted Defendant hostage every time he has an appeal brief due, to keep him from appealing the fake conviction. The way that this scam works, every time that the filing date approaches for the Defendant to submit an appeal brief to the Appellate Court, the prosecutor and judge schedule a simultaneous post-trial hearing in which the prosecutor or court demands that the Defendant announce what it was that the Defendant supposedly did that violated the law for which he was falsely convicted. If the Defendant refuses to make up a false accusation against himself and be coerced into confessing to the false accusation, the Defendant is sent to jail, not for committing a crime, but rather for "Failing to cooperate with the Court's efforts to help him." This is done just in time to keep the Defendant from filing his appeal brief. No appeal brief, no reversal of the fake conviction. Quite a clever lawyer trick by the judge and prosecutor. On the other hand, if the trick succeeds in scaring the innocent Defendant into making up a coerced false confession, that moots out any appeal because the Defendant has supposedly admitted guilt to the non-existent crime. Either way, the fake conviction sticks and the Defendant loses.

Again, as a professional journalist, I have personally seen all of these lawyer trick courtroom scams. It's why nobody should ever take seriously ANYTHING that takes place in Illinois criminal court. It is truly a House of Fraud.

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This is downright bloody disgusting if you ask me, and even if you don't. Tell me, how can a nation harboring this kind of miscarriages of justice and judicial corruption be even remotely be considered great?

The solution here is obvious. Nail down these legal felons and bar them for good. Then put them on trial for abuse of power, comtempt of court and corruption of American justice, convict them, throw them in jail and throw away the key.

*America: destroyer of the Amazon

Americans consume so much beef that America imports huge quanitities of extra beef from Brazil. Americans consume so much ethanol in gasoline that America imports huge quantities of extra ethanol, also from Brazil. And Brazil burns down the Amazon rainforest by the thousands of square miles to create extra land for cattle ranches and soy plantations. If Americans, and Canadians for that matter, do not voluntarily curtail their own gluttony for Earth's dwindling resources, not only are they not world-leaders, but world-degraders, and this is far from great.

*Fiscal irresponsibility

Suppose a family has been living beyond its means, and is now teetering on the brink of insolvency. Any responsible banker will advise the family to tighten the belt, not to borrow more money to maintain that same unsustainable standard of living which has driven the family to have lived beyond its means in the first place. And this is what the U.S. is doing on a national scale as we speak. A fiscally irresponsible nation cannot be a great nation.

*The self-impoverishment of the animal rights movement

Americans and Canadians complain about China becoming the largest consumer on a per nation basis, while they remain the largest consumers on a per capita basis.

How much does an American, or a Canadian for that matter, need to live? Less than $20, 000 per year. I can say this with certainty, because this is how much I live on, including the cost of doing my work. So why should we tolerate, much less accept, and far less contribute towards, the CEO of the largest American animal advocacy "non-profit" organization paying himself a cool quarter million dollars per year, or almost $25, 000 per month, and paying his dozen or so VPs $150, 000 each, and his own secretary a handsome $100, 000, all from the donations meant for the animals? Isn't he just a little ashamed of himself for personally profiting by robbing the suffering animals for which the donations were meant? This organization has a financial worth of $230 million - all animals' money - and an annual budget of some $120 million, of which some 50% is overhead, which include the lavish salaries, financial investments and a $6-10 million fund-raising budget. In spite of all these mega-bucks, this insatiable organization still stoops to charging penniless grassroots groups kilo-bucks for simple zero-cost assistance. I have always thought that when a group has crossed a certain size threshold, it will turn from its original cause to its own growth as its primary purpose. But not until I have directly observed this group over time did I realize to what abysmal depth this could sink. One cold hard fact is that this organization, and several other similar ones with big names and offices, the CEO of one of which paying himself, would you believe, $750, 000/annum, with their high overheads and slick fund-raising machines, have sucked the financial resources within the movement dry, leaving nothing for the grassroots groups, most of whose members could not even afford health insurance, while that CEO and his VPs and "executive" secretaries laugh all the way to the bank.

This is open and blatant corruption and betrayal within the animal rights movement, but it is not all. Through my travels, I have stayed at local activists' home by the dozens, and never have I encountered a local activist without one or more animal companions, bless their hearts. If they, being true-hearted animal advocates and activists (unlike that CEO who openly confesses to having no personal affinity for animals), had to choose between buying health insurance for themsleves and paying the vet bills of the animals under their guardianship, they would pay the vet bills and do without health insurance for themselves. I have seen families spending thousands of dollars in vet bills while they can ill afford even food on the table. The problem where the movement is concerned is that most of these animal guardians would choose to pay the vet bills than to donate the same amount to a grassroots animal rights group when they cannot do both. And the vets, like the pseudo-animal-advocacy CEOs, seem just as intent on sucking all financial resources out of the animal rights movement, which has indeed been impoverished.

We are animal rights activists, and we are the conscience of our societies, even the conscience of humanity. If this conscience has been compromised by hypocrisy and greedy, our societies, in fact humanity itself, cannot be great.

*The new world disorder

Any "new world order" designed, organized and led by a nation that is not great will descend into disorder.

Final question: Is there a truly great nation in the world today?

Please let me know if you can think of any.

Anthony Marr, founder and president

Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)

www.HOPE-CARE.org

www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr

www.YouTube.com/AnthonyMarr

www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com

www.ARConference.org

www.AnimalVoices.org

604-222-1169

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