TBR News January 19, 2017

The Voice of the White House 

 

Washington, D.C. January 19, 2017:  “Turkey has had a formidable military force and has been considered as a backbone for Nato. But the recent manic purges that include the military, has greatly weakened Turkey as an effective military force in the region. Turkish president cum dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has now made overtures to a traditional enemy, Russia, and is moving away from American influence. As he does so, the United States has been attempting to halt the eastward movement by CIA-type internal pressures. When Russia, in support of Syrian leader Assad, attacked rebel units with a series of very effective air strikes, the shipment of stolen Syrian oil via tanker trucks to Turkey was halted and many of the CIA and US Special Forces personnel who were training the Syrian rebels, and IS groups, were killed. All of this has soured the US on Turkey as an ally yet they do not want Turkey to ally itself with Putin’s Russia. The only, and usual, solution to this problem would be to have Erdoğan assassinated and replaced, as usual, with someone more easily controlled. History is usually predictable after all.”

Table of Contents

• Purges Have Weakened Once Mighty Turkish Military
• Stoltenberg warns of spike in cyberattacks on NATO
• Trump inauguration: Taiwan delegation could ‘disturb Sino-US relations’
• China urges U.S. to bar Taiwan delegation from Trump inauguration
• Obama’s Pardon of Gen. James Cartwright Is a New Twist in the War on Leaks
• Student loan servicer Navient hit with three government lawsuits in one day
• The Robert Kennedy Assassinatio
• Web of investigations entangles Israel’s ‘King Bibi’‘
• ‘Mein Kampf’: Murphy translation: Part 12

Purges Have Weakened Once Mighty Turkish Military

Mass firings after last summer’s failed coup attempt have created widespread anxiety inside the Turkish military. A weakened army and the loss of high-ranking officers is becoming a problem for NATO.

January 18, 2017

by Peter Müller and Maximilian Popp

Spiegel

Eyüp Özcan is one of the most talented soldiers of his generation. He graduated from the military academy in Istanbul with excellent grades and also studied at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. He served in Bosnia and commanded a battalion in Ankara before transferring to NATO in Belgium in 2015. His path to the helm of the Turkish armed forces appeared to have been clearly mapped out.

Now Özcan is sitting in an office building in Brussels and says he feels like a prisoner. He wears a creased suit instead of his uniform and the diplomatic passport in his briefcase is no longer valid. The Turkish government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suspended Özcan from service, suspecting him of having participated in the July 15 military insurgency. Özcan has now applied for political asylum in Belgium. He fears he will be arrested if he returns to Turkey, as has happened to many of his comrades.

In the wake of the coup attempt, Erdogan has been tough in cracking down on suspected conspirators. He has fired close to 100,000 public servants while the governors of 47 districts and the deans of all Turkish universities have been forced to resign. Nearly 200 media organizations have also been forced to shut down. But no institution has been as hard hit by the purge as the military. One-third of all generals and admirals have been suspended from service and the air force has lost 265 of its around 400 fighter pilots. The repression has also been directed at Turks abroad. Erdogan has recalled at least 270 officers and military attachés at NATO bases, including those in Mons, Naples and Ramstein in Germany. NATO Supreme Commander Curtis Scaparrotti warns the dismissals have “degraded” the alliance’s military capabilities.

A Danger to the Alliance

Some of the fired NATO officers have now spoken to SPIEGEL, the first time they have gone public with their stories. For the interview, Özcan and three colleagues have all changed their names to protect their identities; they have family in Turkey are are concerned about the government taking revenge. The men provide a devastating assessment of the Turkish armed forces. They say the failed coup has damaged the troops’ morale and image while adding that diverse groups are wrestling for power with some of them openly opposing army Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar. “The military is going through the most difficult time in its history,” says former Chief of the General Staff Ilker Basbug.

President Erdogan doesn’t seem to care. He has sent his soldiers into Syria and Iraq, both of which are complicated operations. In the midst of crisis, Turkey appears to be veering away from the West and toward the East, particularly toward Russia. Since the July 15 revolt, Turkey — once a pillar of NATO with the coalition’s second biggest army — has become a danger to the alliance.

Eyüp Özcan was sitting together with friends at a Turkish restaurant in Brussels on July 15 when the television began showing images of tanks on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. “I was shocked. I thought this can’t be real,” he says.

That night, a group inside the Turkish military temporarily seized control of parts of the country. The insurgents occupied the Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul as well as state broadcaster TRT. Fighter jets bombed the parliament building in Ankara. But the government managed to regain control by the next morning.

Özcan had hoped that orderly life would return to the military, but a short time later he was ordered to leave his post at NATO headquarters. The government accuses him of supporting Islamist preacher Fethullah Gülen, the man Ankara suspects of having orchestrated the coup.

In Turkey, few still doubt that supporters of the Islamist Gülen movement participated in the insurgency. But observers like Özgür Ünlühisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund’s Ankara office, are critical of the fact that the government is using the crime as a pretext to crack down on the opposition.

Özcan denies having any ties with Gülen. He says his uncle has an account with a bank that is part of the Gülen network, and that it is possible this is how he fell under the authorities’ radar. “Erdogan is conducting a witch hunt,” he says.

The purge has shaken the military. “Everyone is afraid of being denounced,” says a private from Ankara. Support among his men has diminished for army chief Akar as a result of images of imprisoned soldiers who appear to have been abused. The week before last, a court convicted the first high-ranking soldiers who participated in the coup attempt and sentenced them to long prison terms.

A ‘Suicide Mission’

The general staff is now having trouble refilling the massive number of posts left empty by the arrests. The government is currently using newspaper ads in an attempt to attract 25,000 new recruits. Many of the officers who are now sitting in jail controlled key parts of the military and it will take generations for the armed forces to recover from this loss of experience and knowledge, argues Gareth Jenkins, a Turkey expert at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. The shortage of air force personnel has become so acute that nine pilots are currently flying sorties in Syria who were placed in temporary detention over the summer as alleged members of the putsch. They aren’t actually allowed to leave the country and they are required to report to the police before and after each mission.

The turmoil within the army poses threats to the troops’ safety. Turkey marched into Syria in August in order to drive Islamic State (IS) and Kurdish militias out of the border regions and Turkish soldiers have now been fighting for six months in the neighboring country, with no sign of an end to the operation. Former Turkish ambassador to the United States Faruk Lagoglu has described it as a “suicide mission.” At the end of December, 16 soldiers died during an attack against IS in the city of al-Bab, northeast of Aleppo. The losses on the ground are “higher than they need to be” because the air force is no longer capable of providing sufficient support, says one fighter pilot dismissed from his position by the government.

Turkey’s self-image has taken a hit as a result of the military’s weakness. The armed forces had long been the source of great pride in the country with generals, known as pashas, having determined the country’s political direction for decades. They view themselves as the guardians of the secular-nationalist legacy of Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern-day Turkey. But Erdogan has broken the military’s power since taking office as prime minister in 2003. Together with members of the Gülen movement in the state apparatus, with whom he was still allied at the time, he had hundreds of Kemalist officers sentenced in show trials. Gülen supporters took advantage of the clear-cutting to rise within the military. But in the ensuing years, Gülen and Erdogan had a falling out. Erdogan claimed last summer that the preacher had orchestrated the coup attempt in order to topple him and he has since taken a hardline approach toward alleged Gülen supporters.

The second major purge in the Turkish military within just a few years has created a vacuum — one that splinter groups are now trying to fill. The country’s ultra-nationalist Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi) and the radical Islamist Sadat group are expanding their influence within the military. Patriotic Party head Dogu Perincek is advocating for Turkey to turn away from Europe and he is working together with Russian political consultant Alexander Dugin. Sadat, meanwhile, arose from a private security firm whose founder, Adnan Tanriverdi, a former general who was forced into early retirement during the 1990s because of his Islamist activities, has now, following the attempted coup, become an adviser to Erdogan.

Looking East

Both groups could play a role in shaping the direction of the Turkish armed forces. Turkish security analyst Metin Gurcan believes the military will increasingly pursue a religious, Eurasian agenda. Former Turkish NATO officers warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin could exploit the power struggle inside the Turkish military in order to increase Russia’s influence over NATO partner Turkey.

In November 2015, Moscow and Ankara stood on the cusp of a military conflict after the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian-Turkish border. But after Erdogan issued an apology, the two sides have displayed increasing unity. Army chief Akar traveled in November to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart and in mid-December, Russia and Turkey also negotiated a deal on the evacuation of eastern Aleppo.

The murder of Andrey Karlov, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, by a Turkish police officer on Dec. 19 in Ankara actually seems to have brought the two countries even closer together. Just one day after the attack, the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey met for talks on Syria in Moscow. One Russian senator suggested that NATO ordered Karlov’s assassination in order to torpedo Russian-Turkish relations. Government-aligned Turkish media quickly picked up the conspiracy theory. Karlov’s murder, one television commentator said, had once again placed a question mark over the military partnership with the West.

Stoltenberg warns of spike in cyberattacks on NATO

The number of cyberattacks on NATO has increased markedly over the past year, according to the head of the military alliance. He has warned that attacks on vital infrastructure can be particularly crippling.

January 19, 2017

DW

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said there were 500 dangerous cyberattacks on NATO facilities every month in 2016. The figure represents a 60-percent increase on the previous year.

In an interview published in Germany’s “Die Welt” newspaper on Thursday, Stoltenberg added that most of those assaults on the alliance’s data network were “sponsored by state institutions in other countries,” rather than by private individuals.

“I am extremely concerned about this development,” he said. “Cyber defense will play an important role at the next NATO summit, and we’ll need to step up our efforts in this area.”

‘Compromising democracy’

Stoltenberg warned that cyberattacks can be particularly dangerous if they compromise energy networks, health care facilities and other critical infrastructure.

“They can also harm NATO’s defense capability and the work of our armed forces,” he added. “All military activities are now based on the transmission of data. So if that fails, it can cause serious damage.”

The former Norwegian prime minister also voiced alarm at the possibility of hackers manipulating data during election campaigns. He said various member states already feared “hackers would try to interfere in national election campaigns, undermining democracy.”

NATO has made crisis teams available to its member states to help them safeguard their networks from such attacks, he said.

Trump inauguration: Taiwan delegation could ‘disturb Sino-US relations’

Taiwanese delegation will attend new president’s swearing-in, prompting Beijing to warn it could ‘disturb or undermine Sino-US relations’

January 19, 2017

by Benjamin Haas

The Guardian

Hong Kong-The war of words between China and Donald Trump flared again as China urged the US not to let a Taiwanese delegation attend his inauguration.

Trump previously broke decades of diplomatic protocol by speaking directly with Taiwan’s president after winning the US presidential election in November.

China said it opposed the Taiwan delegation’s attendance, which could “disturb or undermine Sino-US relations”.

“We once again urge relevant parties in the US to allow no delegation sent by the Taiwan authority to attend the inauguration ceremony of the president, and not to have any official contact with Taiwan,” said Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman. “This message has been delivered to the sitting US administration and the Trump transition team.”

China will send its ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, to the inauguration.

China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province and has often used military threats to discourage a formal declaration of independence. Trump has infuriated China by suggesting the “one China” policy – a diplomatic status quo under which Beijing’s claims are not contested – could become a bargaining chip in future trade talks.

A group of Taiwanese security officials and lawmakers will be lead by Yu Shyi-kun, a former premier and party chairman, in attending Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said the delegation would “show the importance our government and people attached to the close and friendly relationship between our two countries”. A US delegation attended the inauguration of the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, in 2016.

Taiwan typically sends a delegation to US presidential inaugurations but Trump’s forays into foreign policy have strained relations with China before he even enters the White House.

Tsai declared her country’s determination to “walk on the international stage” after two stopovers in the US that angered Beijing. China also called on the US to block those visits.

China has repeatedly warned Trump against breaking the status quo over Taiwan, saying: “The ‘one China’ principle, which is the political foundation of the China-US relations, is non-negotiable.”

Trump has packed his White House team with China critics and has been frequently slammed over Taiwan and trade in Chinese state media since his election victory.

Just days before his inauguration one government-run Chinese newspaper warned that if provocation over Taiwan continued, China would be forced to “take off the gloves”.

In a show of force last week, China sailed its only aircraft carrier, accompanied by a fleet of warships, through the waters separating China and Taiwan.

China urges U.S. to bar Taiwan delegation from Trump inauguration

January 18, 2017

by Ben Blanchard and J.R. Wu

Reuters

BEIJING/TAIPEI-The United States should not allow a delegation from Taiwan to attend U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, raising a new bone of contention in Beijing’s relations with the incoming government.

Trump broke with decades of precedent last month by taking a congratulatory telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, and he has also said the “One China” policy was up for negotiation, a position Beijing strongly rejected.

A Taiwan delegation, led by former premier and ex-ruling party leader Yu Shyi-kun, and including a Taiwan national security adviser and some lawmakers, will attend Friday’s inauguration, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said this week.

It is typical for Taiwan to send a delegation to U.S. presidential inaugurations.

A spokesman for Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s office said no meetings were scheduled with the new Trump administration while the delegation was there for the event.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province, with no right to have any kind of diplomatic relations with other countries.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China was opposed to Taiwan using any excuse to send people to the United States to “engage in activities to interfere in or damage China-U.S. ties”.

“We again urge the relevant side in the United States not to allow the Taiwan authority to send a so-called delegation to the United States to attend the presidential inauguration and not have any form of official contact with Taiwan,” Hua told a regular news briefing.

“China’s position has already accurately and unmistakably been given to the U.S. administration and Trump’s team.”

China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, will attend the inauguration on its behalf, she added.

Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists.

China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, and proudly democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in wanting to be run by Beijing.

China is deeply suspicious of Taiwan’s Tsai, whom it suspects of wanting to push for the island’s formal independence, a red line for China.

Tsai, who visited the U.S. this month while traveling to and from Central America, says she wants to maintain peace with China.

The administration of President Barack Obama has repeatedly reinforced the U.S. commitment to the “one China” policy, under which Washington acknowledges China’s position of sovereignty over Taiwan, since Trump’s call with the Taiwanese leader.

Trump is to be sworn into office on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Randy Fabi and Clarence Fernandez)

Obama’s Pardon of Gen. James Cartwright Is a New Twist in the War on Leaks

January 18, 2017

by Peter Maass

The Intercept

The celebrations over President Barack Obama’s commutation of Chelsea Manning’s 35-year prison sentence have overshadowed what might be a more consequential development in the government’s long-running war against leakers and whistleblowers: Obama’s pardon of Marine General James Cartwright.

Late last year, Cartwright pled guilty to lying to the FBI about disclosing classified information on the Stuxnet computer virus to reporters from The New York Times and Newsweek. The former general, a vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was known as Obama’s “favorite general,” was due to be sentenced this month on felony charges. Prosecutors were seeking a two-year prison term.

Obama pardoned him yesterday, which means Cartwright will not go to prison.

“It seems to me that the far bigger news from the perspective of policy and precedent-setting is the pardon of General James Cartwright,” wrote Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor who specializes on national security law. Vladeck described the Cartwright pardon as “an interesting denouement” to the controversy over the Obama administration’s war on leakers. While Vladeck stated that he doubted it was the beginning of a trend, he asked, “Is it possible, then, that the Cartwright pardon is a tacit admission on the government’s part that it has been a bit too hard on leakers and those, like General Cartwright, who have interfered with leak investigations?”

The Cartwright pardon constitutes a new precedent in which a well-connected leaker of classified information who lied to the FBI has been spared jail time. In 2015, former general David Petraeus admitted to sharing top secret information with his biographer and girlfriend, Paula Broadwell, and lying to the FBI about it. Petraeus, who resigned from his job as CIA director when the scandal broke, negotiated a deal to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor count, accepted 18 months of probation, and avoided a prison sentence. [In another era, during the George W. Bush presidency, Scooter Libby, who was chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, received a presidential commutation for a 30-month sentence for leaking the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.]

The Manning case is different from Cartwright’s in significant ways, including the amount of material leaked. Manning leaked a large cache of secret military and diplomatic documents, while Cartwright talked about a single top-secret program to undermine Iran’s nuclear industry (and his conversations with reporters from the New York Times and Newsweek were in the context of making the Obama administration look good, whereas Manning’s leak to Wikileaks exposed government wrongdoing). While Cartwright received a full pardon, Manning only had her sentence commuted, to seven years from the staggering 35 years she received at trial.

At the time of the Petraeus plea deal, lawyers for several convicted leakers expressed outrage that Petraeus was permitted to avoid incarceration for crimes that were arguably far worse than their clients were incarcerated for. Abbe Lowell, the lawyer for Stephen Kim, a State Department official who received a 13-month sentence for talking to a journalist about a single classified report on North Korea, said at the time, “The issue is not whether General Petraeus was dealt with too leniently … The issue is whether others are dealt with far too severely for conduct that is no different. This underscores the random, disparate and often unfair application of the national security laws where higher-ups are treated better than lower-downs.”

The Petraeus deal was cited in pleadings that Lowell and lawyers for another convicted leaker, Jeffrey Sterling, made to their respective judges, arguing that justice had to be meted out equally, and that their clients had received far harsher treatment (the appeals were unsuccessful, though). The Cartwright case adds another data point for future leak cases. There is not just the Petraeus plea deal that can be cited, but the Cartwright pardon, too.

“The clemency and pardons today underscore the uneven enforcement and completely unequal treatment of people accused of leaking classified information,” Lowell told The Intercept after the Cartwright and Manning decisions were announced.

One of the Obama-era leakers who did not receive the generous treatment showered on Cartwright and Petraeus is John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who pled guilty to sharing the name of a covert operative with a reporter. Even though the operative’s name was never published, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

“Now we’ve seen it twice,” said Kiriakou, who was released from prison in 2015. “It’s not just the pardon, it’s the sweetheart deal Petraeus got as well. How can a prosecutor prosecute a leak case and with a straight face ask a judge to sentence somebody to 24 years [this is what Sterling faced] when Petraeus got 18 months of unsupervised probation and Cartwright just sat at home and waited for his pardon to come through?”

The contrast was noted by national security reporter Michael Isikoff in a dispatch for Yahoo News yesterday.

Still, the pardon is likely to prove controversial in light of the prison terms — in one case as long as three and a half years — given to other, much lower level government officials prosecuted by the Justice Department in leak-related cases. If nothing else, the move appears to undercut a significant argument made by the office of U.S. attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein in a court filing last week, that “when an individual is found to have made unauthorized disclosures, particularly one serving in a senior position, it is critically important” to hold that person accountable.

Of course the Department of Justice under Donald Trump will pursue whatever cases it wants to pursue, and if the latest twists with Cartwright and Manning are politically inconvenient, lawyers for the new administration will try to downplay them. Pardons and commutations do not have the same legal standing as court rulings, and can be portrayed as discretionary and inherently political moves by an outgoing president.

“It’s hard to know the precedental value this will have,” said Jesselyn Raddack, who has represented several prominent leakers and whistleblowers. “Both of these cases were very politicized, for better or worse. We are also moving into a presidency that promises greater secrecy and doesn’t necessarily think secrecy is a bad thing and is reflexively anti-leak when it’s against [Trump], and pro-leak when it serves to smear his enemies.” Referring to the commutation of Manning’s sentence, Raddack added, “I hope it would be encouraging for whistleblowers, but encouraging for what? They could only be put in jail for seven years, and then someone will have mercy on them? It’s hard to read a lot of encouragement in that, because we’re still in such a chilling environment.”

Student loan servicer Navient hit with three government lawsuits in one day

January 18, 2017

by Danielle Douglas-Gabriel

The Washington Post

Navient, one of the largest student loan management companies in the country, misallocated payments, steered people into costly plans, supplied the wrong information and ignored borrowers’ pleas for help, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The case is one of three separate complaints by government authorities that paint Navient as a company more interested in serving its financial interests than the needs of struggling student loan borrowers — a characterization the firm vehemently denies.

“Navient has systematically and illegally failed borrowers at every stage of repayment,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “These unlawful practices have cost student-loan borrowers across the country both heartache and money. And we are working to make sure they do not happen again.”

Among the most serious charges in the CFPB complaint is an allegation that Navient incentivized employees to encourage borrowers to postpone payments through forbearance, an option in which interest continues to accrue, rather than enroll them in an income-driven repayment plan that would avoid fees. As a result, the CFPB says Navient amassed $4 billion in interest charges to the principal balances of borrowers who were enrolled in multiple, consecutive forbearances from January 2010 to March 2015.

Furthermore, the bureau accuses Navient of misleading people about the terms of renewing enrollment in income-driven repayment plans that cap monthly bills to a percentage of earnings, and misreporting the loan discharge of disabled borrowers to the credit bureaus. The complaint also claims Navient’s subsidiary, debt collection agency Pioneer Credit Recovery, made illegal misrepresentations about the federal loan rehabilitation program available to defaulted borrowers.

In a statement, Navient called the bureau’s lawsuit “unfounded” and politically motivated. The company insists the standards the CFPB are using to reach its conclusions are “inconsistent” with the Education Department’s regulations. It alleges that the consumer bureau issued an ultimatum to settle by Inauguration Day or be sued, a threat the company says it rejected and one the CFPB declined to discuss.

“The timing of this lawsuit — midnight action filed on the eve of a new administration — reflects their political motivations,” the company stated. “We cannot and will not accept agenda-driven ultimatums designed to get headlines rather than help for student borrowers. We will vigorously defend against these false allegations and continue to help our customers achieve financial success.”

The CFPB’s accusations are also central to separate lawsuits filed Wednesday by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson against Navient. The state attorneys general teamed with the consumer bureau in a multiyear investigation into the business practices of Navient and its subsidiaries, finding widespread breakdowns in servicing, they said.

In addition to the servicing claims, Illinois and Washington allege that Navient and its former parent company Sallie Mae peddled “risky and expensive” subprime private student loans that carried high interest rates and fees. The loans were mostly provided to students enrolled in for-profit colleges, according to Madigan.

“Navient and Sallie Mae saddle students with subprime loans that Sallie Mae designed to fail,” Madigan said on Wednesday’s call. “Sallie Mae increased its unfair and deceptive subprime lending, while disregarding evidence that these loans would likely default at extraordinarily high rates.”

Sallie Mae said Navient is responsible for “all costs, expenses, losses and remediation” arising from the state lawsuits, as per the terms of the companies’ split more than three years ago. Navient absorbed Sallie Mae’s liabilities and 95 percent of its assets, including servicing rights to $300 billion in student loans.

Since its separation from Sallie Mae, Navient has grown into one of the largest servicers of student loans. The company collects the private and federal student loan payments of more than 12 million people, with more than half of its accounts coming from a contract with the Education Department, according to the CFPB.

Navient has had its share of run-ins with regulators. The Justice Department fined the company millions of dollars for unlawfully charging active-duty service members high interest rates and late fees on student loans, violations that the company called “processing errors.” That case led to a dispute between congressional Democrats and the Education Department, which said it found few instances of Navient charging military personnel more than 6 percent interest permitted by law. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) demanded a review of the probe, which the agency’s inspector general called deeply flawed.

On Wednesday, Warren, a longtime critic of Navient, said the CFPB’s lawsuit “could help put money back in the pockets of thousands of borrowers, including disabled veterans who have been harmed by this company’s repeated lawbreaking.”

The CFPB and the state attorneys general are all seeking financial redress for borrowers they say were harmed by Navient’s actions.

“The lawsuits are full of deeply disturbing allegations,” said Rohit Chopra, senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America and the former student-loan point man at the CFPB. “If this is true, then the company’s actions may be responsible for some of the pileup of defaults that we’ve seen in recent years.”

Compass Point analyst Michael Tarken said, in a financial note, that the “financial exposure” and “protracted court battle may weigh on [Navient’s] ability to win new Department of Education contracts, including the forthcoming single servicer contract.”

Education Undersecretary Ted Mitchell, who did not discuss Navient’s chances in the contract bid, said, in a statement, the agency’s “contracting officials will continue to administer ED’s contracts and conduct ED’s procurement competitions fairly and in accordance with applicable regulations, solicitation provisions, and the terms of its contracts, to ensure the interests of the government and of student borrowers are protected.”

 

The Robert Kennedy Assassination

January 19, 2017

by Gregory Douglas

Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also called RFK, was one of two younger brothers of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and served as United States Attorney General from 1961–1964. He was one of President Kennedy’s most trusted advisors and worked closely with the President during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His contribution to the African-American Civil Rights movement is sometimes considered his greatest legacy.

After his brother’s assassination in late 1963, Kennedy continued as Attorney General under President Johnson for nine months. He resigned in September, 1964 and was elected to the United States Senate from New York that November. He was assassinated shortly after delivering a speech celebrating his victory in the 1968 Democratic Presidential primary of California at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

On June 4, 1968, Kennedy scored a major victory when he won the California primary. He addressed his supporters in the early morning hours of June 5 in a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

He left the ballroom through a service area, not the standard planned exit through the ballroom’s main entrance and at the urgent last minute suggestion of a staff member, to greet supporters working in the hotel’s kitchen.

In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, who was waiting for him, opened fire with a .22 caliber revolver. Kennedy was shot in the head at close range. He was rushed to The Good Samaritan Hospital where he died, at the age of 42.

An autopsy was conducted by Dr. Noguchi, the Los Angeles County Coroner, showed very clearly that Kennedy was shot in the head at very close, almost point-blank,  range.

Powder burns on Kennedy’s wound showed with great clarity that his fatal head wound was from a gun fired from 0 to 1-1/2 inches away from the back of his head. And yet all witnesses have stated that Sirhan was over three feet away when he started shooting at Kennedy with his .22 pistol and was never close enough to fire inches away from his target.

Sirhan’s gun held only eight shells, yet, seven bullets were dug out of bodies, an eighth bullet was traced through two ceilings into an airspace, and two more bullets were identified as lodged in the door frame of the pantry by both LAPD and FBI personnel (the fresh bullet holes were even labeled as such on their photographs).

Inexcusably, or most probably, deliberately, the door frames were quickly removed from the crime scene and immediately burned. Subsequently, and very quickly. the Los Angeles Police Department claimed that no bullets were found lodged in the wood and two expended bullets (inexplicably dug out of the wood) were soon ‘found’ lying on the front seat of Sirhan’s car found in the hotel parking lot!

The LAPD then destroyed all their records of the tests that had been done on the “bullet holes” in the door frame.

• Three bullets were found in Robert F. Kennedy, and a fourth grazed his suit jacket. The upward angle of every shot was so steep as to be much closer to straight up than horizontal (80 degrees). And yet, all witnesses claim Sirhan’s gun was completely horizontal for his first two shots, after which his gun hand was repeatedly slammed against a stem table by the Swiss matire d’ of the hotel kitchen staff
• The four bullets which hit Kennedy all were on his back right side and were traveling forward relative to his body. As Kennedy was walking towards Sirhan, his body was always facing Sirhan during the shots, and afterwards he even fell backwards before saying his last lucid words, (“Is everyone all right?”).
• Obviously Sirhan shot at Kennedy, but it is clear someone else had shot as well. And once a second assassin is established, this clearly postulates a second, and much closer, shooter and coupled with the speed of the official inaccurate exculpating reports, clearly shows collusion and concealment at a very high level.

The presence of a second assassin, in all probability a member of Kennedy’s staff, (probably a security person,) indicates a conspiracy, not an action by a lone assassin.

If Sirhan had been put up to shooting at Kennedy and knew who was behind it, he would have been killed on the spot. As in the case of Martin Luther King, had Ray known who was involved in the killing, he, too, would have been shot before being able to make statements.

It should be noted that when Robert Kennedy was Attorney General, J. Edgar Hoover was his subordinate. It is well known that Kennedy despised Hoover, calling him “an old faggot” to his immediate staff and taking malicious pleasure in barging into Hoover’s office when he was napping on a couch.

Let us now consider one William Cornelius Sullivan who had been head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation intelligence operations.

At one point in time, Sullivan was well-considered by Hoover and became involved in many high level clandestine FBI operations that never would have stood the light of day.

Kennedy had ordered the tapping of King’s telephone.

The telephonic surveillance led to information concerning King’s sexual affairs, and Sullivan stated that he felt that King was “a fraud, demagogue and scoundrel.”

Sullivan’s input led Hoover to publicly call King a “notorious liar.”

Sullivan later had a falling-out with his superior and claimed Hoover’s concerns about domestic communists were overemphasized when compared to violations of Federal civil rights laws in the segregated South and he made his opinions public.

Sullivan was considered to be a logical successor to the ageing Hoover but the latter sacked Sullivan from the FBI, on October 1, 1971.

After Hoover’s death in May 1972. Sullivan had hoped to replace Hoover as the bureau’s director, but was passed over by President Nixon in favor of L. Patrick Gray.

On November 9, 1977, just days before he was to testify to the House Select Committee on Assassinations concerning his personal knowledge of the King and Kennedy assassinations, at twenty minutes before sunrise, sixty-five-year-old William C. Sullivan was walking through the woods near his retirement home in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, on the way to meet hunting companions.

Another hunter, Robert Daniels, Jr., a twenty-two-year-old son of a state policeman, using a telescopic-sighted .30 caliber rifle, said he ‘mistook Sullivan for a deer’, and shot him in the neck, killing him instantly.

The New Hampshire law enforcement authorities immediately termed the shooting as an “unfortunate accident” although the rifle had a telescopic sight and Sullivan was wearing a red vest and cap at the time he was shot.

Perhaps in New Hampshire at that time, deer were forced to wear red vests and caps while in the wild.

Subsequently, young Daniels was fined five hundred dollars and, far more seriously, lost his hunting license for ten years.

And Mr. Sullivan never testified before the House committee.

Web of investigations entangles Israel’s ‘King Bibi’

January 19, 2017

by Luke Baker and Maayan Lubell

Reuters

Jerusalem-Benjamin Netanyahu has spent 30 years in public office, including 11 years as Israel’s prime minister, but this year his political future is being called into question as seldom before.

Police say they have questioned Netanyahu twice since Jan. 2 at his official residence in Jerusalem in two separate criminal cases involving allegations of abuse of office.

Netanyahu, known to supporters and opponents as “Bibi”, has denied any wrongdoing, saying repeatedly: “there will be nothing because there is nothing”. No charges have been brought.

Almost every night on television and every day in newspapers since Jan. 2, purported leaks have appeared describing what the media say are details of the investigation.

Prosecutors have confirmed almost none of what has emerged, only that Netanyahu has been questioned and that one of the cases relates to gifts he received from businessmen. Reuters was unable to independently confirm the specifics of the activities under investigation.

The leaks, though, have fueled opposition calls for him to go, and separate opinion polls conducted on behalf of the Jerusalem Post, the Walla news website, the Globes business newspaper and Channel 2 all show his party’s popularity is slipping. Netanyahu has said the media is out to get him and he has no intention of stepping down.

“This orchestrated campaign includes media people who are acting not just as journalists but also as investigators, judges and executioners,” he told a weekly meeting on Monday of legislators from his right-wing Likud party, who welcomed him with chants of “King Bibi”.

“I intend to keep leading the Likud and the country for many more years.”

In the second investigation, Haaretz newspaper and Channel Two news say police have tapes of Netanyahu speaking to an Israeli newspaper publisher about a mutually beneficial deal. Sections of transcripts, which Reuters has not independently authenticated, have been aired nightly for the past week.

The attorney-general has confirmed recordings exist, but has said he does not intend to release them yet.

GIFTS

The first case Netanyahu has been questioned about, according to a Justice Ministry statement, involves receiving gifts from businessmen. Under Israeli law, public servants and their immediate family are prohibited from taking gifts or receiving benefits, unless they are small gifts that conform to “social norms”.

Police and the Justice Ministry have not provided further information about either case.

According to Haaretz, one of the businessmen was Arnon Milchan, an Israeli-born Hollywood producer, who supplied Netanyahu and his wife with hundreds of thousands of shekels (1 shekel=$0.26) of cigars and champagne.

Netanyahu’s lawyers do not dispute that he received gifts, but say there was nothing wrong in getting presents from personal friends. Milchan’s lawyer in Israel, who is handling the matter, declined to comment.

Channel 10 and Haaretz have said the second businessman who supplied Netanyahu and his family with gifts was Australian casino tycoon James Packer. Channel Ten reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu’s son Yair, 25, whom the Prime Minister’s Office said is a friend of Packer, was questioned by police.

Representatives of Packer, who owns a home in Israel and has high-tech investments in the country, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to Channel 10, the gifts included tickets to a Mariah Carey concert in Israel for Netanyahu’s wife Sara, gourmet meals for the family and Packer hosting Yair Netanyahu at his home in Colorado, aboard his yacht and at a hotel room in New York.

Media reports regarding the second case have startled many in Israel, because they say Netanyahu discussed a possible deal with a man many people believed to be his sworn enemy.

According to Channel Two, Netanyahu is being investigated over discussions with Arnon Mozes, owner and publisher of the widely-read Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, to receive positive coverage in exchange for Netanyahu-backed legislation that would limit the distribution of competing free daily Israel Today.

Reuters found no evidence such an agreement was ever finalised.

Netanyahu, writing on Facebook on Sunday, said extracts of transcripts of his conversations with Mozes carried in the newspapers did not represent the full picture, but he could not elaborate while under investigation.

Israel Today is financed by U.S. casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is a Netanyahu supporter. The paper is staunchly pro-Netanyahu. In 2014, the opposition proposed a bill to restrict its distribution. Netanyahu opposed it, and shortly afterwards called early elections, which he won.

Two media spokespeople for Adelson contacted by Reuters for comment did not respond and Mozes and Yedioth Ahronoth have not responded to requests for comment. Mozes declined to answer reporters’ questions as he walked into the police station where he was quizzed on Monday.

Netanyahu has accused Mozes and his newspaper several times of trying to topple him. During the 2015 election campaign, Yedioth Ahronoth took an editorial line against Netanyahu, frequently running critical reports on him.

Netanyahu’s conversations with Mozes were recorded in the run-up to the March 2015 election at the prime minister’s request by a former staff member, and the tapes were seized by police in a separate investigation, according to Channel Two and Haaretz.

TRANSCRIPTS

The newspaper’s editor, Ron Yaron, published a front-page op-ed on Sunday in which he said that had such a deal between Netanyahu and Mozes been concluded, Yedioth Ahronoth’s entire staff would have resigned.

Netanyahu said Yedioth Ahronoth’s negative attitude towards him and Israel Today’s operations remained unchanged. “Every evening, filtered, carefully chosen transcripts are disseminated,” the prime minister’s Facebook response said.

According to what Channel Two described as excerpts from a transcript of a Netanyahu-Mozes conversation, the prime minister told the newspaper publisher: “We’re talking about moderation, about reasonable reporting, to lower the level of hostility towards me from 9.5 to 7.5.”

It quoted Mozes as replying: “We have to make sure that you’re prime minister.”

Channel Two also aired what it described as excerpts in which the two men discuss limiting Israel Today’s circulation through legislation and Mozes asks Netanyahu to suggest names of journalists he would like to see write in the newspaper.

Yair Tarchitsky, the chairman of Israel’s Journalists’ Union, said the suggestions of a backroom deal were shocking.

“I would never have imagined these two big enemies would be sitting down together and discussing how to shape Israel and the media landscape,” he told Reuters.

“This deal, if it’s really true, is a threat to Israel as a democratic state and to freedom of the press.”

Investors seem unruffled by the investigations – financial markets and the currency remain strong. But while Netayahu’s coalition is stable, some polls show his popularity waning.

A survey of 600 people published by Channel Two News on Tuesday showed 54 percent do not believe Netanyahu when he says he has done no wrong and 44 percent think he should resign now. Twenty-eight percent do believe Netanyahu and 43 percent said he should stay in office.

Four polls in recent weeks have shown the party led by one of Netanyahu’s political rivals, Yair Lapid, a telegenic former TV host, growing stronger. The results indicated Lapid’s party would win two to five seats more than Likud if an election was held immediately.

Netanyahu is not the first Israeli leader to have faced criminal investigation: former prime minister Ehud Olmert was convicted of breach of trust and bribery in 2014 and Ariel Sharon, premier from 2001-2006, was questioned while in office over allegations of bribery and campaign financing illegalities. He was not convicted.

In the past, prime ministers have stayed in office long after being put under investigation and officials who support Netanyahu believe the prospect of charges remains remote. But the weight of supposition could change sentiment and force elections, they said.

Tzachi Hanegbi a Likud minister was quoted in the Jerusalem Post newspaper as saying he has known Netanyahu for three decades and believes nothing will come of the investigation. “I think he is an honest guy,” Hanegbi said.

(Additional reporting by Rami Amichai in Tel Aviv and Byron Kaye in Sydney; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

‘Mein Kampf’: Murphy translation: Part 12

January 18, 2017

There have been a number of translations of Hitler’s seminal book. Most have been heavily editited so as to promulgate disinformation about Hitler’s views and remove passages that might offend the sensitive.

The Murphy translation is considered to be the most accurate and is being reprinted in toto here.

Our next publication of this work will be the unexpurgated original German edition.

German officialy- approved historians have recently released a highly doctored edition of ‘Mein Kampf’ that is selling very well in Germany.

Perhaps a free copy of the unredacted original work would do better in the same marketplace. Ed

 

VOLUME II: THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

 

CHAPTER IV

PERSONALITY AND THE IDEAL OF THE PEOPLE’S STATE

If the principal duty of the National Socialist People’s State be to educate and promote the existence of those who are the material out of which the State is formed, it will not be sufficient to promote those racial elements as such, educate them and finally train them for practical life, but the State must also adapt its own organization to meet the demands of this task.

It would be absurd to appraise a man’s worth by the race to which he belongs and at the same time to make war against the Marxist principle, that all men are equal, without being determined to pursue our own principle to its ultimate consequences. If we admit the significance of blood, that is to say, if we recognize the race as the fundamental element on which all life is based, we shall have to apply to the individual the logical consequences of this principle. In general I must estimate the worth of nations differently, on the basis of the different races from which they spring, and I must also differentiate in estimating the worth of the individual within his own race. The principle, that one people is not the same as another, applies also to the individual members of a national community. No one brain, for instance, is equal to another; because the constituent elements belonging to the same blood vary in a thousand subtle details, though they are fundamentally of the same quality.

The first consequence of this fact is comparatively simple. It demands that those elements within the folk-community which show the best racial qualities ought to be encouraged more than the others and especially they should be encouraged to increase and multiply.

This task is comparatively simple because it can be recognized and carried out almost mechanically. It is much more difficult to select from among a whole multitude of people all those who actually possess the highest intellectual and spiritual characteristics and assign them to that sphere of influence which not only corresponds to their outstanding talents but in which their activities will above all things be of benefit to the nation. This selection according to capacity and efficiency cannot be effected in a mechanical way. It is a work which can be accomplished only through the permanent struggle of everyday life itself.

A WELTANSCHAUUNG which repudiates the democratic principle of the rule of the masses and aims at giving this world to the best people—that is, to the highest quality of mankind–must also apply that same aristocratic postulate to the individuals within the folk-community. It must take care that the positions of leadership and highest influence are given to the best men. Hence it is not based on the idea of the majority, but on that of personality.

Anyone who believes that the People’s National Socialist State should distinguish itself from the other States only mechanically, as it were, through the better construction of its economic life–thanks to a better equilibrium between poverty and riches, or to the extension to broader masses of the power to determine the economic process, or to a fairer wage, or to the elimination of vast differences in the scale of salaries–anyone who thinks this understands only the superficial features of our movement and has not the least idea of what we mean when we speak of our WELTANSCHAUUNG. All these features just mentioned could not in the least guarantee us a lasting existence and certainly would be no warranty of greatness. A nation that could content itself with external reforms would not have the slightest chance of success in the general struggle for life among the nations of the world. A movement that would confine its mission to such adjustments, which are certainly right and equitable, would effect no far-reaching or profound reform in the existing order. The whole effect of such measures would be limited to externals. They would not furnish the nation with that moral armament which alone will enable it effectively to overcome the weaknesses from which we are suffering to-day.

In order to elucidate this point of view it may be worth while to glance once again at the real origins and causes of the cultural evolution of mankind.

The first step which visibly brought mankind away from the animal world was that which led to the first invention. The invention itself owes its origin to the ruses and stratagems which man employed to assist him in the struggle with other creatures for his existence and often to provide him with the only means he could adopt to achieve success in the struggle. Those first very crude inventions cannot be attributed to the individual; for the subsequent observer, that is to say the modern observer, recognizes them only as collective phenomena. Certain tricks and skilful tactics which can be observed in use among the animals strike the eye of the observer as established facts which may be seen everywhere; and man is no longer in a position to discover or explain their primary cause and so he contents himself with calling such phenomena ‘instinctive.’

In our case this term has no meaning. Because everyone who believes in the higher evolution of living organisms must admit that every manifestation of the vital urge and struggle to live must have had a definite beginning in time and that one subject alone must have manifested it for the first time. It was then repeated again and again; and the practice of it spread over a widening area, until finally it passed into the subconscience of every member of the species, where it manifested itself as ‘instinct.’

This is more easily understood and more easy to believe in the case of man. His first skilled tactics in the struggle with the rest of the animals undoubtedly originated in his management of creatures which possessed special capabilities.

There can be no doubt that personality was then the sole factor in all decisions and achievements, which were afterwards taken over by the whole of humanity as a matter of course. An exact exemplification of this may be found in those fundamental military principles which have now become the basis of all strategy in war. Originally they sprang from the brain of a single individual and in the course of many years, maybe even thousands of years, they were accepted all round as a matter of course and this gained universal validity.

Man completed his first discovery by making a second. Among other things he learned how to master other living beings and make them serve him in his struggle for existence. And thus began the real inventive activity of mankind, as it is now visible before our eyes. Those material inventions, beginning with the use of stones as weapons, which led to the domestication of animals, the production of fire by artificial means, down to the marvellous inventions of our own days, show clearly that an individual was the originator in each case. The nearer we come to our own time and the more important and revolutionary the inventions become, the more clearly do we recognize the truth of that statement.

All the material inventions which we see around us have been produced by the creative powers and capabilities of individuals. And all these inventions help man to raise himself higher and higher above the animal world and to separate himself from that world in an absolutely definite way. Hence they serve to elevate the human species and continually to promote its progress. And what the most primitive artifice once did for man in his struggle for existence, as he went hunting through the primeval forest, that same sort of assistance is rendered him to-day in the form of marvellous scientific inventions which help him in thepresent day struggle for life and to forge weapons for future struggles.

In their final consequences all human thought and invention help man in his life-struggle on this planet, even though the so-called practical utility of an invention, a discovery or a profound scientific theory, may not be evident at first sight. Everything contributes to raise man higher and higher above the level of all the other creatures that surround him, thereby strengthening and consolidating his position; so that he develops more and more in every direction as the ruling being on this earth.

Hence all inventions are the result of the creative faculty of the individual. And all such individuals, whether they have willed it or not, are the benefactors of mankind, both great and small. Through theirwork millions and indeed billions of human beings have been provided with means and resources which facilitate their struggle for existence.

Thus at the origin of the material civilization which flourishes to-day we always see individual persons. They supplement one another and one of them bases his work on that of the other. The same is true in regard to the practical application of those inventions and discoveries. For all the various methods of production are in their turn inventions also and consequently dependent on the creative faculty of the individual. Even the purely theoretical work, which cannot be measured by a definite rule and is preliminary to all subsequent technical discoveries, is exclusively the product of the individual brain. The broad masses do not invent, nor does the majority organize or think; but always and in every case the individual man, the person.

Accordingly a human community is well organized only when it facilitates to the highest possible degree individual creative forces and utilizes their work for the benefit of the community. The most valuable factor of an invention, whether it be in the world of material realities or in the world of abstract ideas, is the personality of the inventor himself. The first and supreme duty of an organized folk community is to place the inventor in a position where he can be of the greatest benefit to all.

Indeed the very purpose of the organization is to put this principle into practice. Only by so doing can it ward off the curse of mechanization and remain a living thing. In itself it must personify the effort to place men of brains above the multitude and to make the latter obey the former.

Therefore not only does the organization possess no right to prevent men of brains from rising above the multitude but, on the contrary, it must use its organizing powers to enable and promote that ascension as far as it possibly can. It must start out from the principle that the blessings of mankind never came from the masses but from the creative brains of individuals, who are therefore the real benefactors of humanity. It is in the interest of all to assure men of creative brains a decisive influence and facilitate their work. This common interest is surely not served by allowing the multitude to rule, for they are not capable of thinking nor are they efficient and in no case whatsoever can they be said to be gifted. Only those should rule who have the natural temperament and gifts of leadership.

Such men of brains are selected mainly, as I have already said, through the hard struggle for existence itself. In this struggle there are many who break down and collapse and thereby show that they are not called by Destiny to fill the highest positions; and only very few are left who can be classed among the elect. In the realm of thought and of artistic creation, and even in the economic field, this same process of selection takes place, although–especially in the economic field–its operation is heavily handicapped. This same principle of selection rules in the administration of the State and in that department of power which personifies the organized military defence of the nation. The idea of personality rules everywhere, the authority of the individual over his subordinates and the responsibility of the individual towards the persons who are placed over him. It is only in political life that this very natural principle has been completely excluded. Though all human civilization has resulted exclusively from the creative activity of the individual, the principle that it is the mass which counts–through the decision of the majority–makes its appearance only in the administration of the national community especially in the higher grades; and from there downwards the poison gradually filters into all branches of national life, thus causing a veritable decomposition. The destructive workings of Judaism in different parts of the national body can be ascribed fundamentally to the persistent Jewish efforts at undermining the importance of personality among the nations that are their hosts and, in place of personality, substituting the domination of the masses. The constructive principle of Aryan humanity is thus displaced by the destructive principle of the Jews, They become the ‘ferment of decomposition’ among nations and races and, in a broad sense, the wreckers of human civilization.

Marxism represents the most striking phase of the Jewish endeavour to eliminate the dominant significance of personality in every sphere of human life and replace it by the numerical power of the masses. In politics the parliamentary form of government is the expression of this effort. We can observe the fatal effects of it everywhere, from the smallest parish council upwards to the highest governing circles of the nation. In the field of economics we see the trade union movement, which does not serve the real interests of the employees but the destructive aims of international Jewry. Just to the same degree in which the principle of personality is excluded from the economic life of the nation, and the influence and activities of the masses substituted in its stead, national economy, which should be for the service and benefit of the community as a whole, will gradually deteriorate in its creative capacity. The shop committees which, instead of caring for the interests of the employees, strive to influence the process of production, serve the same destructive purpose. They damage the general productive system and consequently injure the individual engaged in industry. For in the long run it is impossible to satisfy popular demands merely by high-sounding theoretical phrases. These can be satisfied only by supplying goods to meet the individual needs of daily life and by so doing create the conviction that, through the productive collaboration of its members, the folk community serves the interests of the individual.

Even if, on the basis of its mass-theory, Marxism should prove itself capable of taking over and developing the present economic system, that would not signify anything. The question as to whether the Marxist doctrine be right or wrong cannot be decided by any test which would show that it can administer for the future what already exists to-day, but only by asking whether it has the creative power to build up according to its own principles a civilization which would be a counterpart of what already exists. Even if Marxism were a thousandfold capable of taking over the economic life as we now have it and maintaining it in operation under Marxist direction, such an achievement would prove nothing; because, on the basis of its own principles,

Marxism would never be able to create something which could supplant what exists to-day.

And Marxism itself has furnished the proof that it cannot do this. Not only has it been unable anywhere to create a cultural or economic system of its own; but it was not even able to develop, according to its own principles, the civilization and economic system it found ready at hand.

It has had to make compromises, by way of a return to the principle of personality, just as it cannot dispense with that principle in its own organization.

The racial WELTANSCHAUUNG is fundamentally distinguished from the

Marxist by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors of its WELTANSCHAUUNG.

If the National Socialist Movement should fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essential principle, if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground. For that reason it would not have the right to call itself a WELTANSCHAUUNG. If the social programme of the movement consisted in eliminating personality and putting the multitude in its place, then National Socialism would be corrupted with the poison of Marxism, just as our national-bourgeois parties are.

The People’s State must assure the welfare of its citizens by recognizing the importance of personal values under all circumstances and by preparing the way for the maximum of productive efficiency in all the various branches of economic life, thus securing to the individual the highest possible share in the general output.

Hence the People’s State must mercilessly expurgate from all the leading circles in the government of the country the parliamentarian principle, according to which decisive power through the majority vote is invested in the multitude. Personal responsibility must be substituted in its stead.

From this the following conclusion results:

The best constitution and the best form of government is that which makes it quite natural for the best brains to reach a position of dominant importance and influence in the community.

Just as in the field of economics men of outstanding ability cannot be designated from above but must come forward in virtue of their own efforts, and just as there is an unceasing educative process that leads from the smallest shop to the largest undertaking, and just as life itself is the school in which those lessons are taught, so in the political field it is not possible to ‘discover’ political talent all in a moment. Genius of an extraordinary stamp is not to be judged by normal   standards whereby we judge other men.

In its organization the State must be established on the principle of personality, starting from the smallest cell and ascending up to the supreme government of the country.

There are no decisions made by the majority vote, but only by responsible persons. And the word ‘council’ is once more restored to its original meaning. Every man in a position of responsibility will have councillors at his side, but the decision is made by that individual person alone.

The principle which made the former Prussian Army an admirable instrument of the German nation will have to become the basis of our statal constitution, that is to say, full authority over his subordinates must be invested in each leader and he must be responsible to those above him.

Even then we shall not be able to do without those corporations which at present we call parliaments. But they will be real councils, in the sense that they will have to give advice. The responsibility can and must be borne by one individual, who alone will be vested with authority and the right to command.

Parliaments as such are necessary because they alone furnish the opportunity for leaders to rise gradually who will be entrusted subsequently with positions of special responsibility.

The following is an outline of the picture which the organization will present:

From the municipal administration up to the government of the REICH, the

People’s State will not have any body of representatives which makes its decisions through the majority vote. It will have only advisory bodies to assist the chosen leader for the time being and he will distribute among them the various duties they are to perform. In certain fields they may, if necessary, have to assume full responsibility, such as the leader or president of each corporation possesses on a larger scale.

In principle the People’s State must forbid the custom of taking advice on certain political problems–economics, for instance–from persons who are entirely incompetent because they lack special training and practical experience in such matters. Consequently the State must divide its representative bodies into a political chamber and a corporative chamber that represents the respective trades and professions.

To assure an effective co-operation between those two bodies, a selected body will be placed over them. This will be a special senate.

No vote will be taken in the chambers or senate. They are to be organizations for work and not voting machines. The individual members will have consultive votes but no right of decision will be attached thereto. The right of decision belongs exclusively to the president, who must be entirely responsible for the matter under discussion.

This principle of combining absolute authority with absolute responsibility will gradually cause a selected group of leaders to emerge; which is not even thinkable in our present epoch of irresponsible parliamentarianism.

The political construction of the nation will thereby be brought into harmony with those laws to which the nation already owes its greatness in the economic and cultural spheres.

Regarding the possibility of putting these principles into practice, I should like to call attention to the fact that the principle of parliamentarian democracy, whereby decisions are enacted through the majority vote, has not always ruled the world. On the contrary, we find it prevalent only during short periods of history, and those have always been periods of decline in nations and States.

One must not believe, however, that such a radical change could be effected by measures of a purely theoretical character, operating from above downwards; for the change I have been describing could not be limited to transforming the constitution of a State but would have to include the various fields of legislation and civic existence as a whole. Such a revolution can be brought about only by means of a movement which is itself organized under the inspiration of these principles and thus bears the germ of the future State in its own organism.

Therefore it is well for the National Socialist Movement to make itself completely familiar with those principles to-day and actually to put them into practice within its own organization, so that not only will it be in a position to serve as a guide for the future State but will have its own organization such that it can subsequently be placed at the disposal of the State itself.