More Homeless Americans Living in Cars and Campers

Tim Barker never thought he'd have to live in his truck. Four months ago, the plumber was in a one-bedroom apartment in California's San Fernando Valley, with a pool and a Jacuzzi. Then, on his birthday in October, he and 199 other plumbers were laid off by their union, Local 761 in Burbank. Now Barker's son sleeps on the sofa of his cousin's one-bedroom Hollywood apartment, and Barker sleeps on the roof of the apartment building - or in his 2003 Ford Ranger pickup. "I'm 47, and I've never lived in my car," says Barker, a husky 220-lb. single father with sandy hair and a rapid-fire voice. In January, as torrential rains pelted the streets of Southern California, father and son were sleeping in the truck in San Pedro, next to the Los Angeles Harbor. "We were able to spend four nights in the Vagabond Motel, but for two nights we slept in the car," says Barker. "It was raining, cold, and the cat was jumping on us. We both got sick."

For people who cannot afford rent, a car is the last rung of dignity and sanity above the despair of the streets. A home on wheels is a classic American affair, from the wagon train to the RV. Now, for some formerly upwardly mobile Americans, the economic storm has turned the backseat or the rear of the van into the bedroom. "We found six people sleeping in their cars on an overnight police ride-along in December," says John Edmund, chief of staff to Long Beach councilman Dee Andrews. "One was a widow living in a four-door sedan. She and her husband had been Air Force veterans. She did not know about the agencies that could help her. I had tears in my eyes afterwards." (See TIME's photo-essay "The American Economy: Down and Out.")

"Cars are the new homeless shelters," says Joel John Roberts, CEO of PATH (People Assisting the Homeless) Partners, the largest provider of services for the homeless in Los Angeles County, which had nearly 50,000 people homeless in 2009. Of these, experts estimate that up to 10% live in vehicles - even though doing so is illegal in most of the county. A similar situation is true for many other regions across the nation, especially in the Sun Belt. A woman lives in her BMW in Marina Del Rey, a swank L.A. address on the coast. PATH outreach workers Jorge Guzman and Tomasz Babiszkiewicz say she was an executive recruiter until the Great Recession. "She was self-employed for 36 years," says Guzman. "Now she sits in the car with a blanket and reads. She has not told her daughter." (See the 50 worst cars of all time.)

Barker, the out-of-work plumber, has checked out shelters, motels and homeless-assistance programs throughout the Los Angeles area as he scrambles to find a roof for his son and him to sleep under. "We went down to a shelter in downtown, but it was bad - heroin, crack, smells. Randy looked at me and said, 'Dad, get me out of here. It's spooky.' Now I am trying to get assistance to get into an apartment in San Pedro so Randy can get back in school." PATH outreach workers are talking to Barker about his possible eligibility for federal assistance with rent and utilities under the new federal homelessness-prevention program. (See how the new federal homelessness-prevention program works.)

One problem Barker has discovered with living in a pickup truck is keeping track of things. "My cousin is our ace in the hole," Barker says as he stands in a crowded one-bedroom apartment that has seen better days. On his cousin's cluttered coffee table sits a worn yellow briefcase covered with union stickers; it's stuffed with unemployment forms, birth certificates, old utility bills and school application papers for Randy, a skinny 12-year-old who loves basketball. (Is 1 in 50 American kids homeless?)

People who fall into homelessness say it feels like a spiral. A layoff, a medical emergency or a domestic quarrel sets off a chain reaction of bad luck. And the risk of falling into the economic abyss has increased, even in better times. Writing before the housing bubble burst and Wall Street collapsed, Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker showed that the big difference between 30 years ago and today is the dramatic growth in income volatility. American family incomes now rise and fall much more sharply from year to year, and this is happening at the same time that public and private safety nets have eroded.

See pictures of the recession of 1958.

See pictures of Americans in their homes.

Some of the floating economic refugees, especially those from the middle and working classes, "do not think of themselves as homeless," says Susan Price, director of homeless services in Long Beach. "They think, 'I'm not that. I am just living in my car.' " In fact, living in your car counts as being homeless, according to the Federal Government. Peggy, 58, who lives in a small RV on a quiet Hollywood side street, says, "If I had known how hard it is to be homeless and how hard it is to escape, I would have called all my friends to ask for help. But I was embarrassed." She was laid off from her telemarketing job in January 2009. "It was the same day that 76,000 people were laid off. I did not feel alone. I liked my job. It was within walking distance of my apartment." Her mother gave her the nearly 20-year-old RV that houses Peggy and her dog Fluffy. Wearing tennis shoes and a leather jacket, Peggy says she misses her apartment but enjoys still being in the neighborhood. "I sweep the sidewalk and pick up the trash," she says. "There is a real sense of community here." (See more about the homeless.)

"I know I am homeless," says Agnes Cooper, 58, who parks her silver 2006 Chevy HHR hatchback at a local gym in Phoenix. "If [the managers of the gym] know, they haven't said, and I have not asked permission. When I first slept in my car, I was parking at a Burger King, but the young kids made fun of me, and I am not accustomed to children being disrespectful." Cooper says her passenger seat folds down flat and she sleeps well. She works out and showers every morning and says the gym is "the best thing that ever happened to my body." A series of physical ailments to her back, legs and wrists caused her to stop working as a registered nurse; that, coupled with the death of her husband, forced her from her apartment.

Cooper says she faces a choice. She receives $909 a month in Social Security. After her bills, she has $289 left, plus the $100 she now pays for storage. She could spend that money to move into subsidized housing, but if she did, then she would be nearly broke: little money for food, no money to give at Sunday services, no money to buy her grandchildren gifts and no money to give to others in need - things she does on a regular basis. Now that her health has improved and her back is stronger, she hopes she can go back to work, at least part time. (See how the new federal homelessness-prevention program works.)

Cooper's situation will be stable until she loses her car. Price says, "When people can no longer can afford to register their car and the police tow it, then people are on the street. That is the last rung. The towing and impounding charges are steep, and frequently people lose everything." Rudy Salinas, who directs the PATH outreach team in Los Angeles, says, "Allowing people to park on the street is a short-term solution. It is great for tonight, but not for next year."

"It's no fun living in your car," says Mike, a lighting specialist in the Los Angeles entertainment industry who has been out of work for a year. One of his last jobs was the Academy Awards show. "I don't have a job right now, in part because of my situation. Did you know that 50% of people who are homeless and living in their cars have jobs?" He keeps his vehicle registration current and parks his van on side streets on L.A.'s west side and in the San Fernando Valley. "You want to park where it is safe and inconspicuous. Not a busy street where someone might plow into you, and not a place where the bums will bother you," Mike says. "If the police hassle you, they'll impound your car and you'll lose everything. I don't want to find out."

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Carbon Currency: A New Beginning for Technocracy?

Introduction

Critics who think that the U.S. dollar will be replaced by some new global currency are perhaps thinking too small.

On the world horizon looms a new global currency that could replace all paper currencies and the economic system upon which they are based.

The new currency, simply called Carbon Currency, is designed to support a revolutionary new economic system based on energy (production, and consumption), instead of price. Our current price-based economic system and its related currencies that have supported capitalism, socialism, fascism and communism, is being herded to the slaughterhouse in order to make way for a new carbon-based world.

It is plainly evident that the world is laboring under a dying system of price-based economics as evidenced by the rapid decline of paper currencies. The era of fiat (irredeemable paper currency) was introduced in 1971 when President Richard Nixon decoupled the U.S. dollar from gold. Because the dollar-turned-fiat was the world’s primary reserve asset, all other currencies eventually followed suit, leaving us today with a global sea of paper that is increasingly undesired, unstable, unusable.

The deathly economic state of today’s world is a direct reflection of the sum of its sick and dying currencies, but this could soon change.

Forces are already at work to position a new Carbon Currency as the ultimate solution to global calls for poverty reduction, population control, environmental control, global warming, energy allocation and blanket distribution of economic wealth.

Unfortunately for individual people living in this new system, it will also require authoritarian and centralized control over all aspects of life, from cradle to grave.

What is Carbon Currency and how does it work? In a nutshell, Carbon Currency will be based on the regular allocation of available energy to the people of the world. If not used within a period of time, the Currency will expire (like monthly minutes on your cell phone plan) so that the same people can receive a new allocation based on new energy production quotas for the next period.

Because the energy supply chain is already dominated by the global elite, setting energy production quotas will limit the amount of Carbon Currency in circulation at any one time. It will also naturally limit manufacturing, food production and people movement.

Local currencies could remain in play for a time, but they would eventually wither and be fully replaced by the Carbon Currency, much the same way that the Euro displaced individual European currencies over a period of time.

Sounds very modern in concept, doesn’t it? In fact, these ideas date back to the 1930’s when hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens were embracing a new political ideology called Technocracy and the promise it held for a better life. Even now-classic literature was heavily influenced by Technocracy: George Orwell’s 1984, H.G. Well’s The Shape of Things to Come and Huxley’s “scientific dictatorship” in Brave New World.

This paper investigates the rebirth of Technocracy and its potential to recast the New World Order into something truly “new” and also totally unexpected by the vast majority of modern critics.

Background

Philosophically, Technocracy found it roots in the scientific autocracy of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and in the positivism of Auguste Comte (1798- 1857), the father of the social sciences. Positivism elevated science and the scientific method above metaphysical revelation. Technocrats embraced positivism because they believed that social progress was possible only through science and technology. [Schunk, Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective, 5th, 315]

The social movement of Technocracy, with its energy-based accounting system, can be traced back to the 1930’s when an obscure group of engineers and scientists offered it as a solution to the Great Depression.

The principal scientist behind Technocracy was M. King Hubbert, a young geoscientist who would later (in 1948-1956) invent the now-famous Peak Oil Theory, also known as the Hubbert Peak Theory. Hubbert stated that the discovery of new energy reserves and their production would be outstripped by usage, thereby eventually causing economic and social havoc. Many modern followers of Peak Oil Theory believe that the 2007-2009 global recession was exacerbated in part by record oil prices that reflected validity of the theory.

Hubbert received all of his higher education at the University of Chicago, graduating with a PhD in 1937, and later taught geophysics at Columbia University. He was highly acclaimed throughout his career, receiving many honors such as the Rockefeller Public Service Award in 1977.

In 1933, Hubbert and Howard Scott formed an organization called Technocracy, Inc. Technocracy is derived from the Greek words “techne” meaning skill and “kratos”, meaning rule. Thus, it is government by skilled engineers, scientists and technicians as opposed to elected officials. It was opposed to all other forms of government, including communism, socialism and fascism, all of which function with a price-based economy.

As founders of the organization and political movement called Technocracy, Inc., Hubbert and Scott also co-authored Technocracy Study Course in 1934. This book serves as the “bible” of Technocracy and is the root document to which most all modern technocratic thinking can be traced.

Technocracy postulated that only scientists and engineers were capable of running a complex, technology-based society. Because technology, they reasoned, changed the social nature of societies, previous methods of government and economy were made obsolete. They disdained politicians and bureaucrats, who they viewed as incompetent. By utilizing the scientific method and scientific management techniques, Technocrats hoped to squeeze the massive inefficiencies out of running a society, thereby providing more benefits for all members of society while consuming less resources.

The other integral part of Technocracy was to implement an economic system based on energy allocation rather than price. They proposed to replace traditional money with Energy Credits.

Their keen focus on the efficient use of energy is likely the first hint of a sustained ecological/environmental movement in the United States. Technocracy Study Course stated, for instance,

Although it (the earth) is not an isolated system the changes in the configuration of matter on the earth, such as the erosion of soil, the making of mountains, the burning of coal and oil, and the mining of metals are all typical and characteristic examples of irreversible processes, involving in each case an increase of entropy. (Technocracy Study Course, Hubbert & Scott, p. 49)

Modern emphasis on curtailing carbon fuel consumption that causes global warming and CO2 emissions is essentially a product of early Technocratic thinking.

As scientists, Hubbert and Scott tried to explain (or justify) their arguments in terms of physics and the law of thermodynamics, which is the study of energy conversion between heat and mechanical work.

Entropy is a concept within thermodynamics that represents the amount of energy in a system that is no longer available for doing mechanical work. Entropy thus increases as matter and energy in the system degrade toward the ultimate state of inert uniformity.

In layman’s terms, entropy means once you use it, you lose it for good. Furthermore, the end state of entropy is “inert uniformity” where nothing takes place. Thus, if man uses up all the available energy and/or destroys the ecology, it cannot be repeated or restored ever again.

The Technocrat’s avoidance of social entropy is to increase the efficiency of society by the careful allocation of available energy and measuring subsequent output in order to find a state of “equilibrium,” or balance. Hubbert’s focus on entropy is evidenced by Technocracy, Inc.’s logo, the well-known Yin Yang symbol that depicts balance.

To facilitate this equilibrium between man and nature, Technocracy proposed that citizens would receive Energy Certificates in order to operate the economy:

“Energy Certificates are issued individually to every adult of the entire population… The record of one’s income and its rate of expenditure is kept by the Distribution Sequence, so that it is a simple matter at any time for the Distribution Sequence to ascertain the state of a given customer’s balance… When making purchases of either goods or services an individual surrenders the Energy Certificates properly identified and signed.

“The significance of this, from the point of view of knowledge of what is going on in the social system, and of social control, can best be appreciated when one surveys the whole system in perspective. First, one single organization is manning and operating the whole social mechanism. The same organization not only produces but also distributes all goods and services.

“With this information clearing continuously to a central headquarters we have a case exactly analogous to the control panel of a power plant, or the bridge of an ocean liner…” [Technocracy Study Course, Hubbert & Scott,p. 238-239]

Two key differences between price-based money and Energy Certificates are that a) money is generic to the holder while Certificates are individually registered to each citizen and b) money persists while Certificates expire. The latter facet would greatly hinder, if not altogether prevent, the accumulation of wealth and property.

Transition

At the start of WWII, Technocracy’s popularity dwindled as economic prosperity returned, however both the organization and its philosophy survived.

Today, there are two principal websites representing Technocracy in North America: Technocracy, Inc., located in Ferndale, Washington, is represented at www.technocracy.org. A sister organization in Vancouver, British Columbia is Technocracy Vancouver, can be found at www.technocracyvan.ca.

While Technocracy’s original focus was exclusively on the North American continent, it is now growing rapidly in Europe and other industrialized nations.

For instance, the Network of European Technocrats was formed in 2005 as “an autonomous research and social movement that aims to explore and develop both the theory and design of technocracy.” The NET website claims to have members around the world.

Of course, a few minor league organizations and their websites cannot hope to create or implement a global energy policy, but it’s not because the ideas aren’t still alive and well.

A more likely influence on modern thinking is due to Hubbert’s Peak Oil Theory introduced in 1954. It has figured prominently in the ecological/environmental movement. In fact, the entire global warming movement indirectly sits on top of the Hubbert Peak Theory.

As the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome recently stated, “The issue of peak oil impinges directly on the climate change question.” (see John H. Walsh, “The Impending Twin Crisis – One Set of Solutions?, p.5.)

The Modern Proposal

Because of the connection between the environmental movement, global warming and the Technocratic concept of Energy Certificates, one would expect that a Carbon Currency would be suggested from that particular community, and in fact, this is the case.

In 1995, Judith Hanna wrote in New Scientist, “Toward a single carbon currency”, “My proposal is to set a global quota for fossil fuel combustion every year, and to share it equally between all the adults in the world.”

In 2004, the prestigious Harvard International Review published “A New Currency” and stated,

“For those keen to slow global warming, the most effective actions are in the creation of strong national carbon currencies… For scholars and policymakers, the key task is to mine history for guides that are more useful. Global warming is considered an environmental issue, but its best solutions are not to be found in the canon of environmental law. Carbon’s ubiquity in the world economy demands that cost be a consideration in any regime to limit emissions. Indeed, emissions trading has been anointed king because it is the most responsive to cost. And since trading emissions for carbon is more akin to trading currency than eliminating a pollutant, policymakers should be looking at trade and finance with an eye to how carbon markets should be governed. We must anticipate the policy challenges that will arise as this bottom-up system emerges, including the governance of seams between each of the nascent trading systems, liability rules for bogus permits, and judicial cooperation. [Emphasis added]

HIR concludes that “after seven years of spinning wheels and wrong analogies, the international regime to control carbon is headed, albeit tentatively, down a productive path.”

In 2006, UK Environment Secretary David Miliband spoke to the Audit Commission Annual Lecture and flatly stated,

"Imagine a country where carbon becomes a new currency. We carry bankcards that store both pounds and carbon points. When we buy electricity, gas and fuel, we use our carbon points, as well as pounds. To help reduce carbon emissions, the Government would set limits on the amount of carbon that could be used." [Emphasis added]

In 2007, New York Times published “When Carbon Is Currency” by Hannah Fairfield. She pointedly stated “To build a carbon market, its originators must create a currency of carbon credits that participants can trade.”

PointCarbon, a leading global consultancy, is partnered with Bank of New York Mellon to assess rapidly growing carbon markets. In 2008 they published “Towards a Common Carbon Currency: Exploring the prospects for integrated global carbon markets.” This report discusses both environmental and economic efficiency in a similar context as originally seen with Hubbert in 1933.

Finally, on November 9 2009, the Telegraph (UK) presented an article “Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance.’”

“… implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity. Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using. If their "carbon account" hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits”. [Emphasis added]

As you can see, these references are hardly minor league in terms of either authorship or content. The undercurrent of early Technocratic thought has finally reached the shore where the waves are lapping at the beach.

Technocracy’s Energy Card Prototype

In July 1937 an article by Howard Scott in Technocracy Magazine described an Energy Distribution Card in great detail. It declared that using such an instrument as a “means of accounting is a part of Technocracy’s proposed change in the course of how our socioeconomic system can be organized.”

Scott further wrote,

“The certificate will be issued directly to the individual. It is nontransferable and nonnegotiable; therefore, it cannot be stolen, lost, loaned, borrowed, or given away. It is noncumulative; therefore, it cannot be saved, and it does not accrue or bear interest. It need not be spent but loses its validity after a designated time period.”

This may have seemed like science fiction in 1937, but today it is wholly achievable. In 2010 Technocracy, Inc. offers an updated idea of what such an Energy Distribution Card might look like. Their website states,

“It is now possible to use a plastic card similar to today’s credit card embedded with a microchip. This chip could contain all the information needed to create an energy distribution card as described in this booklet. Since the same information would be provided in whatever forms best suits the latest technology, however, the concept of an ‘Energy Distribution Card’ is what is explained here.”

If you study the card above, you will also note that is serves as a universal identity card and contains a microchip. This reflects Technocracy’s philosophy that each person in society must be meticulously monitored and accounted for in order to track what they consume in terms of energy, and also what they contribute to the manufacturing process.

Carbon Market Players

The modern system of carbon credits was an invention of the Kyoto Protocol and started to gain momentum in 2002 with the establishment of the first domestic economy-wide trading scheme in the U.K. After becoming international law in 2005, the trading market is now predicted to reach $3 trillion by 2020 or earlier.

Graciela Chichilnisky, director of the Columbia Consortium for Risk Management and a designer of the carbon credit text of the Kyoto Protocol, states that the carbon market “is therefore all about cash and trading – but it is also a way to a profitable and greener future.” (See Who Needs a Carbon Market?)

Who are the “traders” that provide the open door to all this profit? Currently leading the pack are JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Bloomberg noted in Carbon Capitalists on December 4, 2009 that

“The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to outside investors.”

At JP Morgan, the woman who originally invented Credit Default Swaps, Blythe Masters, is now head of the department that will trade carbon credits for the bank.

Considering the sheer force of global banking giants behind carbon trading, it’s no wonder analysts are already predicting that the carbon market will soon dwarf all other commodities trading.

Conclusion

Where there is smoke, there is fire. Where there is talk, there is action.

If M. King Hubbert and other early architects of Technocracy were alive today, they would be very pleased to see the seeds of their ideas on energy allocation grow to bear fruit on such a large scale. In 1933, the technology didn’t exist to implement a system of Energy Certificates. However, with today’s ever-advancing computer technology, the entire world could easily be managed on a single computer.

This article intended to show that

• Carbon Currency is not a new idea, but has deep roots in Technocracy
• Carbon Currency has grown from a continental proposal to a global proposal
• It has been consistently discussed over a long period of time
• The participants include many prominent global leaders, banks and think-tanks
• The context of these discussions have been very consistent
• Today’s goals for implementing Carbon Currency are virtually identical to Technocracy’s original Energy Certificates goals.

Of course, a currency is merely a means to an end. Whoever controls the currency also controls the economy and the political structure that goes with it. Inquiry into what such a system might look like will be a future topic.

Technocracy and energy-based accounting are not idle or theoretical issues. If the global elite intends for Carbon Currency to supplant national currencies, then the world economic and political systems will also be fundamentally changed forever.

What Technocracy could not achieve during the Great Depression appears to have finally found traction in the Great Recession.

Bibliography & Resources

Scott & Hubbert, Technocracy Study Course, Technocracy, Inc., 1934

Hanna, Toward a single carbon currency, New Scientist, 1995

Victor & House, A New Currency, Harvard International Review, Summer 2004

Hannah Fairfield, When Carbon Is Currency, New York Times, May 6, 2007

M. King Hubbert & The Technocracy Technate Design – Historical blog

Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance’, Telegraph (UK)

Network of European Technocrats – website for Europe

Technocracy, Inc. – website for U.S.

Technocracy Vancouver – website for Canada

Association for the study of Peak Oil & Gas – website for Peak Oil

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The battle of 9/11’s ailing first responders

As Susan Edelman reported in the NY Post’s billable billions, the legal battle of ailing 9/11 first responders for compensation at Ground Zero will bring literally billions in billable hours to defense lawyers. These fees could amount to half of the money payable to some 10,000 first responders and recovery workers from toxic injuries, whose suits could total some $4 billion.

Of course, the workers were not racking up triple- to four-digit hourly fees plus expenses. They did get to inhale for some period of time Ground Zero’s toxic brew straight from Pandora’s open box. That would be . . .

• Over 400 tons of asbestos, which inhaled in any quantity, cannot be expelled by the lungs.
  
  
• 90,000 liters of jet fuel containing benzene, a carcinogen that suppresses the immune system and causes leukemia.
  
  
• Mercury from over 500,000 fluorescent lights that is toxic to the nervous system, and damaging especially to the kidneys.
  
  
• 200,000 pounds of lead and cadmium from personal computers toxic to the respiratory tract, especially damaging to kidneys.
  
  
• Polycystic aromatic hydrocarbons that cause lung, laryngeal and throat cancers.
  
  
• 130,000 gallons of transformer oil, which contains PCBs ad causes serious skin rashes and liver damage.
  
  
• Crystalline Silica from 420,000 tons of concrete, sheetrock and glass (tiny particulates that lodge in the heart, causing ischemic heart disease).

The above facts come from filmmaker Heidi Dehncke’s amazing documentary, Dust to Dust: the health effects of 9/11. I reviewed this film in my article 9/11’s Second Round of Slaughter. In fact, some 2,500 contaminants erupted from the explosions of the World Trade Center that felled Towers One, Two and Seven, plus the two, fuel-laden jetliners, turning into a toxic gray dust that hung in the air as well as settled in people’s lungs, including first responders, and on area streets, vehicles, buildings, residences, both outside and inside the city for months.

You can add to the list of deadly pollutants the red dust of nanothermite, an explosive discovered in the pile by physicist Steven Jones and his team of scientists. The red dust, aerosolized from the military explosive thermite by nanotechnology, was likely sprayed on walls and girders within the Towers. Ironically, Tower 7, the third tower to go down, was not hit by an airliner to ignite the heat-sensitive thermite. Actually, T-7 came down at 5:20 PM at the request of the building owner, WTC lessee, Larry Silverstein. He claimed at 3 PM on 9/11 that there was so much pain and suffering that “we decided to pull it,” the term for a planned internal demolition by explosives. Yet, two hours and 20 minutes was not enough time to set up an internal demolition for that building. It had to be done well in advance. Not so surprisingly, the red nanothermite dust was found in the Tower 7 ruins as well.

The original pieces of red dust nanothermite were picked up and stored by dedicated 9/11 Truthers, one of whom, Jeanette MacKinlay, underwent brain surgery for a cancerous tumor on Wednesday in a Los Angeles hospital. May whatever force of truth and justice that we are blessed with be by her side and help her to recover. For, after all is said and done, these are the people who give their lives for truth and justice. Try to put a price tag on that.

You can find a highly detailed analysis of Tower 7’s demise in David Ray Griffin’s book, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7, which I reviewed in Just Say No to NIST.

Returning to the lawyers for the plaintiffs, they also made a pile of money from the Victims Compensation Fund, which dispersed some $7 billion to victim families, with a similar payment schedule, a 30 to 40 percent cut of the settlements and judgments plus expenses. The VCP offered the option of a trial to sue or to take the money and hush up. Just about all of the families took the money. The 90 or so families that didn’t were “convinced” over some eight years to take the money.

So far, one family is struggling still for a trial, as is the ever-heroic Ellen Mariani, whom I have mentioned often. The hitch is Mrs. Mariani, whose husband Neil Mariani died on Flight 175, received neither a trial nor any money. This is probably because she brought both a “suit for wrongful death” and a subsequent RICO suit against George Bush and his administration. Both were rejected for “national security reasons.” Hardly a reason (besides vindictiveness) to then deny her the financial benefits non-challengers received.

The presiding judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein already “hopes he will settle as many cases as possible” without going to court. Funny, here is a judge to whom trials are anathema. What could it be that he and the court system fear so much about trials? Would the discoveries of trials send a lot of people to jail? Could it possibly have been an inside job, and the government is now totally occupied in a major CYA ops? Or is just one of those “conspiracy theories.” It would seem to this writer that the administration’s explanation of what happened on 9/11 was the real conspiracy theory.

Lest I digress, it’s a matter of “cui bono,” who profits, asking you to follow the money. And the big money, the billable billions, is with the big firms of defense attorneys, as it was with the airlines and their attorneys. Some $15 billion was doled out by the US government to the airlines, half in cash and half in tax credits and subsidies. Remember, too, hundreds of millions were made in the stock market on 9/11 in puts and calls, the puts for airline stocks to fall, the calls for defense stocks to rise. Somehow, many knew this would happen, because an inordinate number of individuals made big bucks on either puts or calls on 9/11.

We should also remember that it was FEMA and the EPA, both federal government agencies, that claimed it was safe for workers to toil in Ground Zero so quickly after 9/11, as it were all right for employees to return to their Wall Street jobs, and neighborhood residents to return to their dust-laden homes. This is why I titled my article, “9/11’s second round of slaughter,” one not so obvious but that surfaced later as a horrendous blowback the home-grown perpetrators neither banked on nor cared about.

Returning to the workers’ defense lawyers, the amount that they have already received to fight some 10,000 claims is close to $200 million, plus $75 million for “administrative expenses.” I’d love some accounting transparency on both figures. Yet, as Ms. Edelman points out, “How much money is up for grabs” from the remaining funds is the question. There is a $1 billion taxpayer fund that could be worth $3 billion with liability-insurance coverage. There is the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a nonprofit governed by Mayor Bloomberg, a managed $1 billion fund, including the $600 million and policies held by WTC contractors.

At the same time the fund spent $275 million from 2004 to Dec 31, 2009, “it doled out only $320,000 to five workers with minor injuries.” It’s no wonder “workers are livid.” Though the WTC insurance fund was down at $923 million at the end of December, and dwindling through its investments since 2004, “expenses” took another $28 million in the last three months of 2009 the records show. Yet “the fund recently won a $200 million settlement with city insurance companies to help cover legal expenses, which takes the total available to near $1.1 billion, though costs keep accruing.”

Edelman’s most interesting point is, if that amount were distributed today, it could mean an average of $100,000 per worker, “many of whom have suffered debilitating illnesses or died.” Having seen and met these damaged workers at WeAreChange benefits, I can safely say it is a heart-rending picture.

Yet the lawyers are out for “untold billions in liability insurance” to be squeezed out of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, the former owner of the Twin Towers, and from construction companies and a barge operator which transported all the evidence, i.e., rubble to Fresh Kills, from whence much of the steel was shipped to China to be smelted into oblivion, even returning in the keel of a Navy vessel to flaunt in our faces. That was the evidence of the largest crime scene in American history that was sent to the dump before any real investigation took place.

Given the levels of corruption, we now get some accusations via AP IMPACT that the first of the first responder cases include some with credibility problems. David Caruso writes, “As the first cases in a massive battle over illnesses linked to 9/11 near trial, an Associated Press investigation has found that several of the initial 30 suits contain inconsistent or exaggerated claims about how the workers got sick or how much time they spent at ground zero.

“One demolition worker who said he developed health problems after toiling for six months in the toxic ruins of the World Trade Center has actually been severely ill since the 1990s. In a previous medical malpractice case, he said he was so sick between 2000 and 2003 that he couldn’t work regularly. He never mentioned 9/11 during his testimony in that lawsuit.”

It turns out that in over 9,000 legal claims filed against New York City about 60 have gotten close scrutiny by the court. Thirty are now in consideration as candidates for trials in May. Judge Hellerstein will be cutting the number for the first trials to 12. He’s counting on them to form “a road map to settlements” for additional claims from rescue and recovery workers who claim they became ill after the city “failed to protect them from poisonous trade center ash.” One billion-plus dollars in damages are in the offing.

The truth is, as also documented in Dust to Dust, workers were not encouraged to even wear paper face masks, let alone respirators. Safety was the first casualty at the Ground Zero clean-up as Mayor Giuliani, who had 30 months (two and a half years) to complete the clean-up, pushed workers to work day and night to finish the project in a mere eight months. In sharp contrast, the first responders in Washington, D.C., had to wear respirators to work at the Pentagon disaster site, no excuses accepted. This was not mentioned in the AP article. This is not to say that there may not be some workers padding hours at Ground Zero, exaggerating illnesses or seeking more than they may deserve.

But I will bet my bottom dollar that the vast majority of these men and women gave unstintingly, and under a criminal push for speed. I honor them as heroes despite any “bad apples” that may turn up among the 10,000 workers. I would also advise those “apples” to straighten up and not dishonor their colleagues in opportunistic endeavors. Yet lord knows, seeing what they saw, hearing the explosions on that day, realizing those Towers were really going down in pre-planned internal demolitions, they had to suffer some loss of innocence in the line of duty, another tragic symptom.

Remember, in addition to the subsequent illnesses of the workers, some leading to death, you had the deaths of 343 firefighters and paramedics, and 78 police officers on that awful day, plus the nearly 3,000 civilians who perished. It had to be traumatic to any and all present on that day and after, not to mention to the world at large. If AP or any other bona fide organization wishes to further scrutinize workers’ applications for compensation, let them come forth and do so. No one should be sheltered from scrutiny as no one should be denied justice, including the dispensers of justice themselves and the Bush administration.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net. His new book, “State Of Shock: Poems from 9/11 on” is available at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

What the New 9-11 Photos Show

Eight and a half years after 9-11, we are finally able to view the photos taken by a photographer in a New York City Police Department helicopter hovering over the scene of the crime. Why has it taken so long for these photos of the crime of the century to be released? What do these newly released photos tell us?

There is certainly a great deal of evidence contained in these hundreds of photographs, which will take some time to analyze, but one thing is very clear. The Twin Towers were turned into dust. The concrete and steel frame towers were reduced to immense clouds of dust and this was not caused by the potential energy of the buildings being released as they fell. The towers were pulverized through the use of many tons of super-thermite, which was discovered in the dust by Professor Steven E. Jones. Looking at these photos, one can see that the towers were exploded and turned into dust in the same instant. The photos validate the thesis, now proven, that the Twin Towers - and the lives within them - were destroyed by demolition charges and tons of super-thermite which had been applied to the concrete floors, probably on the undersides of the floor pans.

Go to http://www.bollyn.com/what-the-newly-released-9-11-photos-show
to see some of these photos

Links to my articles on the evidence of super-thermite in the dust of the World Trade Center are found at the bottom of this post.


Sources and Recommended Reading:

Facing the Evidence of Super-Thermite - Letters to the NY Times, CNN (Time Warner) and a Member of Congress, April 21, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/an-open-letter-to-the-new-york-times


Super-Thermite Demolished Twin Towers on 9-11: Game Over for Criminals and Cover Up, April 14, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/super-thermite-demolished-twin-towers-on-9-11-game-over-for-criminals-and-cover-up


Super-Thermite Found in World Trade Center Dust, April 5, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/super-thermite-found-in-world-trade-center-dust


Who Put Super-Thermite in the Twin Towers?, July 20, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/who-put-super-thermite-in-the-twin-towers


Game Over: Evidence of Super-Thermite in the Rubble (Chapter XIV, Solving 9-11), April 20, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/game-over-evidence-of-super-thermite-in-the-rubble


Israel's Super-Thermite Lab, August 26, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/the-top-secret-lab-where-the-super-thermite-of-9-11-was-made


Recipe for Making Super Thermite, August 5, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/recipe-for-making-super-thermite


Obama on the Run: U.S. VP Biden Flees Question on Super-Thermite, May 20, 2009
http://www.bollyn.com/vp-joe-biden-asked-about-9-11-super-thermite-question-in-la

The Indymac Slap in our Face

Click this link ...... http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/player/tbws/23088/1004815

Sun & Climate Change

Click this link ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRWGyNnwZ8g