Are We Impoverishing The US Anti-Poverty Effort?

My concern, now that we have earmarked multiple trillions of the public purse to bailing out banks and building bridges, is that we will have squeezed the money available to meet the goal established by Barack's new Domestic Policy Council Director, Melody Barnes, to cut poverty in the US in half within 10 years.

In my opinion, that goal will require not only new resources, but a totally new way of approaching the task, both of which may now be in jeopardy.

When Barack's economic stimulus package was first touted, my concern was that there would be so much money floating around that it would require a blunderbuss approach to distributing the money, and that blunderbuss approach would upset the delicate and intricate networks of support that are already doing such amazing work at the grassroots with at risk communities.

That was when I began talking about Offices of Direct Venture Development (http://geoffgilson.wordpress.com), to act as a buffer between well-meaning but over-powerful national and state government efforts and those well-balanced community initiatives.

I saw the Offices not only helping to target and distribute sensitively resources downwards, but also acting as focal points for translating upwards the actual needs of the troops on the ground and their successful experiences, so that policy-makers would be as much informed by community experience as by the input received from Washington think tanks.

Now my worry is that there may be too little money available from the Obama Administration to fund anti-poverty programs - new and existing. So it is that my focus has shifted to finding ways to use what little money there may be, whether from private or public sources, to fund both existing and new programs (government and non-profit), all of which suffer from their own paucity of funding. I have posted a couple of articles about this on the same blog.

Whatever may be the eventual outcome with the availability of resources for the anti-poverty effort, there are other issues which I see complicating any successful effort to achieve the Half in Ten goal.

First, the main emphasis of the mainstream anti-poverty movement has generally been about addressing the causes of poverty. I welcome all the initiatives that are proposed, whether it be improving education, affordable housing or the availability of union membership. But my personal emphasis is on addressing the immediate consequences of poverty.

I have a separate blog which deals with this in more detail: http://focusonpoverty.blogspot.com. The bottom line is that I want Barack, along with Half in Ten, to commit his Administration to the proposition that every man, woman and child in the US deserves access to adequate food, clothing, housing and healthcare.

By all means, let's do what we can about cause. It may take ten years, it may take thirty. But all it takes is willpower to commit to allowing everybody below the poverty line to have access to adequate food, clothing housing and healthcare - tomorrow.

And money. My four part radio series calculated about $200 billion a year. And that's why I'm worried that we have mortgaged so much of the public purse to bailing out banks and building bridges.

The next wrinkle is that many of the most at risk communities are located in rabidly conservative (both religious and political) parts of the country. It will require enormous delicacy and respect to go into those communities and negotiate with their pride and independence to help them be empowered to help themselves - under a liberal President, most of them despise.

And make no mistake, we let ourselves down as true progressives if we do not meet that challenge, and allow these neighbors of ours the same opportunity to help themselves - on their terms - as we would rabidly liberal communities.

It's precisely these sorts of challenges I relish having the opportunity to meet. I'll be honest. I am actively looking to find or create a role for myself that allows me to help in this fashion. If any reader has any suggestions, please do not be shy about contacting me or passing the message around your own networks.

But whether it is me or someone else, whether it is supported by Barack, his administration, a set of non-profits or private sources, I hope that we take the opportunity of this truly progressive administration to realize the vision of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and eradicate poverty once and for all in this, the richest country the world has ever known.

And I genuinely pray that I am proven wrong, and that the money we have allocated elsewhere does not impoverish the anti-poverty effort in the US.

Are We Over-Stimulating The US Economy?

I believe that we are where we are because governments around the world have been over-stimulating their economies since the late Eighties. Every time it has come time to pay the piper, we have put off the day of reckoning by literally printing more money.

I’m going to spend a quick moment wondering whether we in the US are about to do the same thing again, with this currently much over-stimulated economic stimulus package.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m tickled beyond pink that Obama is our President. But he’s one man, dealing with some 750 congress people. And no one man is always right – as even he has conceded.

But we have a couple of economic rescue packages (bank bail-out and economic stimulus) that, last year, were pegged at the low hundreds of billions, and are now edging multiple trillions.

It’s a sensible time to pause and double-check we’re doing the right thing. My doubts are both general and specific.

Generally speaking, as an avowed social economic libertarian, I believe that there is always a price to pay for artificially stimulating the economy.

Provided the price does not outweigh the short-term benefit, and provided those who are less able to fend for themselves do not get left behind, I’m not always closed to the concept.

So long as everyone sees it as a short-term bridge to getting back to the natural economy.

What bothers me is when we start talking about economic stimulus as being a long-term tool. For example, when we say that short-term tax-cuts (Bush) should be made permanent, or ‘government is creating jobs’ (Obama).

Government does not create jobs. What it can do is provide a temporary moment when the economy is in transition, when industry is in transition, and use that breathing space to help people re-locate, re-train – whatever it is that needs to be done to empower people to adjust to a new economic reality.

But when government pretends that there is no new economic reality, and simply encourages people to carry on as before, then government does its people a disservice. And governments, of all political persuasions, around the world, have been doing just that since the late Eighties.

Imagine the wealth of a country is a solid wooden table. That table represents all the products that its people create – their actual value. The actual value of property (not the speculative value).

You can’t drag the table around the world as you try to import goods and services. So, you have currency, with which to exchange.

If you don’t have enough money to buy those goods, you can be sensible and wait until you have created enough of your own products, so that you have enough actual wealth to be able to print more money. Or, you can be reckless, and just go ahead and print more money, and buy the bauble today.

We’ve been doing the latter since 1987. Every time there was an event which reduced the value of our property (Stock Market crashes, economic recessions), instead of waiting until the natural wealth of our economy got back on course, we’ve simply printed more money.

But, we’ve done worse that that. We’ve printed the money in a way that hides the fact that we’ve been doing it. We haven’t printed new dollar bills as such. We’ve increased the amount of digital money. By increasing the amount of electronic credit that is available.

We do that primarily by artificially reducing interest rates. And when that option is no longer available (because our interest rates are close to zero), we come up with other measures, which we grandly entitle ‘encouraging banks to lend’ – sound familiar?

What this does is reduce the value of our currency. We have the same amount of actual wealth, but we’re just telling the rest of the world that it is represented by more money.

Naturally, the rest of the world wants more money to sell its goods and services to us, and so the price of their goods and services goes up. That’s called inflation. And that’s what we had, in rampant version, back in the Seventies.

Nowadays we get around inflation by borrowing from the Chinese and the Arabs. We say to foreigners: here, we’ll give you more money for the same goods, but the extra won’t be coming from us, it will be covered by this nice Chinese gentleman instead.

That way, we Americans are not footing our bill with inflation, we’re getting the Chinese to foot the bill for us, instead. A little over-simplified, but it will do.

The problem is, there is still a price to pay. Interest payments. And the size of those payments had become so large that we don’t have enough money to do the things we want to do, like fix roads and build new schools.

So now we come up with that money by introducing an economic stimulus package. Which will be paid for with more borrowing. Which will put us deeper in debt.

And so the cycle continues. And so it is that I’m generally not in favor of artificial economic stimulus.

Instead, it’s time to get off the train as it hurtles towards the precipice, let the economy heal itself, and focus our efforts on empowering our people to meet the new realities properly prepared, and to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to engage in those new realities, and to set in place a genuinely respectful safety net which cares for those in our society, who are unable to care for themselves, in a truly dignified fashion.

It is time to stop acting like children, with a never-ending candy jar. Or better still, it’s time to stop treating our fragile economy like an over-stimulated child.

We wonder why the child will not go to bed, why it engages in behavior which is unhealthy for us, and we don’t realize it’s because we keep on stimulating the child.

Stop feeding Little Joe-Boy caffeine and sugar up the wazoo, and letting him watch action movies at 9.00pm at night, and you’ll find that Little Joe-Boy will simply return to normal child behavior. Same with our economy.

But leaving aside the nauseating metaphors, and my general doubts about economic stimulus, what about the specific packages before us?

Well, cast your mind back to the summer of last year, and the original chatter about bank bail-outs. We were talking then about a measured response in the financial sector, to stop the sector completely collapsing, and a package to help home-owners.

We are now a hiccup away from a slew of nationalized American banks, and the latest piece of candy is a proposal to give a $15,000 tax break to people who buy houses in 2009.

I’m not going to spend much time on banks. There are people out there who know more about banks than me. Besides, it’s no secret that we’re all sick and tired of executives paying themselves huge bonuses out of the bail-out money, and not making that money available to ordinary people. And Obama is doing something about that.

But let’s look at the $15,000 proposal as one which may not be necessary, or not necessary in its current form.

First thing. Why on earth are we encouraging anyone to spend money they do not naturally possess, when that is what caused this problem in the first place?

Ok. I might be persuaded by the argument that we’re in such a stagnant mess, if we don’t do something, it might all become a depression. And that is the only reason I support any kind of economic stimulus/bank bail-out at all.

But I’d be more persuaded by this latest measure if it was qualified by saying, for example, it is only available to buy a primary residence, and the tax break has to be repaid with interest if the house is sold within, say, five years, to prevent speculation.

It’s that same sort of reasonable restraint that I see lacking from the now burgeoning economic stimulus package.

In the early autumn, we were talking about a couple of hundred billion dollars, to put a bit of money in the hands of the hard-pressed middle class, and increasing entitlements to those in poverty, to help them through these particularly difficult times.

Now, we have a trillion dollar pork barrel that makes Sarah Palin and her Bridge to Nowhere look like Scrooge. Whoa. Time to put the brakes on.

The bottom line is that this package should not be, and never should have been, about designing a whole new pseudo-economic paradigm, where the state becomes owner, businessman and capitalist.

Governments do not make good business people. I know. I lived through it in the UK. And Brits have spent the last 30 years trying to wean themselves away from a nanny state, which cuts people off at the knees, rather than empowering or serving them. I do not want to see the same thing happen in the US.

In my opinion, this economic stimulus package will best serve Americans if it limits itself to what it should be – a one-off measure to put some money temporarily in peoples’ hands, to see them through the transition of this horrible recession, and prepare them for taking advantage of what will await us all on the other side.

So yes, let’s give the middle class a break. And I’m delighted we’re doing it by $20 a paycheck. It’s supposed to be a helping hand. Not another opportunity to buy something we don’t need.

I’m delighted that there are measures to increase entitlements to those who are not able currently to fend for themselves.

By all means, let’s create a limited number of temporary jobs, to help those in areas worst hit by the changes underway in our economy – for example, in Detroit.

And yes, let’s invest a measured amount in the future of our country and its economy. In green technology, in schools, in a certain amount of infrastructure.

But beyond that, let’s get back to reality. Let’s reduce this economic stimulus package to something in the order of maybe $600-$700 billion.

Government has no business promising to ‘create’ 3-4 million jobs. That’s the business of business.

This package should not be an excuse for state governments to balance their budgets, for congressmen to offload every pork barrel project they’re been hoarding the last couple of years, and it should stand for more than a dozen more Bridges to Nowhere.

Barack Obama promised us a new way to govern. To do that, he will need eventually to wield a full pen when it comes to executing line-item veto. He can begin with his own economic stimulus package. A package which Congress is merrily turning into next year’s overstuffed Christmas turkey.

I say all of this not to undermine Barack Obama, but to support him. Like him, I want a grassroots administration that listens to its people, and then serves them. I want policies that genuinely reflect the needs of those who are in receipt of the benefits. [see -http://geoffgilson.wordpress.com]

And I want a government that recognizes that there is no such thing as ‘government investment.’

What government invests is taxpayers’ dollars. It’s our money. The peoples’ money. And what I want, and I know that Barack wants it too, is for that tax money to be invested wisely, and on our behalf. Not on behalf of Congressman and their lobbyists. And not on behalf of company executives, financial speculators and foreign bankers.

I’m not sure this economic stimulus package, in its current form, is wise. I hope it will see many changes in the coming weeks. And I care not a fig that those changes may, initially, be proposed by Republicans or Red-Dog Democrats.

One of the most promising features of Barack Obama is that he has shown that he is not afraid to accept advice from any quarter, and he is equally then not afraid to change course if it ensures that the outcome is the one that best serves the American people. It is why I am so encouraged we have him at the helm in these challenging times.

It’s why I supported him last year, and it’s why I will continue to support him. Even when I don’t necessarily agree with every ‘i’ that he dots and ‘t’ that he crosses.

I hope that he will demonstrate that same courage and cool temperament with the bank bail-out and economic stimulus packages, and openly welcome honest debate and bi-partisan amendment. 

I hope he uses this unique opportunity to enable the passage of historic measures that truly break with Washington’s normal ways, and genuinely serve the ordinary people of our country.

The Great American Giveaway [by Paul Aaron]

[Paul Aaron is a well-known poet and progressive activist in Hillsborough, North Carolina. He is also my brother-in-law.

He, like me, believes that the work of resurrecting hope in this country only began with the Election of President Obama.

It will require each one of we citizen activists, through networks like Blogger, to continue to articulate what we want an Obama Presidency actually to do.

And almost more importantly, what sort of a 'feel' we want it to have, and to generate in our country, and around the world.

This is Paul's opening shot on the subject of taxes. I don't necessarily agree with all that he says.

But, he doesn't have a Blogger account with friends. I do. The most important defense of democracy is to be found in the constant dissemination of knowledge. I'm happy to help him disseminate his.]

Who paid for World War I?

“I did,” said John the baker. “I worked hard to feed soldiers and civilians. I didn’t make much money, but I did my part. I was a patriot and saved the world.”

Who paid for World War II?

“I did,” said GI Joe. “I fought to keep the United States of America free. While I was overseas, my wife, Jessica, ran her restaurant and paid her taxes. Kept our country out of debt. That war cost our country lots of money but everyone paid their taxes to keep our country’s economy strong.”

Who paid for the Korean war?

“I did,” said June the factory worker. “I built airplane wings for our fighter pilots. My pay was low but I was a patriot and paid my taxes to support my country.”

Who paid for the Viet Nam war?

“I did,” said GI Jane. “My husband, already disabled in the war, worked from his wheelchair. While I was in Nam he paid taxes to support our country and to make sure our country did not go into debt.”

Who paid for the Iraq war?

“Not me,” said Joe the plumber. “I needed a tax break while our soldiers fought.”

“Not me,” said Jill the stock broker. “I made lots of money here at home while the Armed Services did their work over there. I didn’t have to pay a cent, and now the bailout has covered my company’s losses.”

“And not me,” said Jim the banker. “I bought a second house and then a third. I like it when we fight these wars. I especially like the tax breaks.”

Then who is paying for this war?

“Not me,” said Jewell the political activist. “Our President said that we can be patriots, watching while the soldiers and the security contractors fight this war. Our national debt is huge and someone will have to pay it off.”

I’ve been thinking about the word “tax.” The word “tax” riles us. Yet, President James Madison believed that “taxes are what make a civilized society.” Similarly, the word “king” has a nice image but if we visualize the United States ruled by one, the word is suddenly not so attractive and romantic. Context always changes meaning.

Perhaps “tax” is actually good. We are not taxed to fund a king's dynasty; we are United States citizens and therefore, we the people are the government. By paying taxes, we provide crucial resources for ourselves. How can essential taxes be characterized so negatively?

“Tax cut” sounds so nice in some contexts. We must find a new word to replace “tax” so that we can feel good while we pay for our necessary services. Or we can create a context for Americans that links “tax” to “roads,” “schools,” “safety,” “democracy,” “freedom,” and “liberty.”

How did we get to this desperate economic place? We redistribute wealth by having tax breaks for the upper class—to the billionaire CEOs and corporations—to the hedge fund money managers and the oil magnates, and by increasing every day costs such as gasoline and food. Redistribution of wealth to the super wealthy is still redistribution of wealth.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle-class gets squeezed out. Joe the plumber and Jessica the restaurant owner will do just fine if we stop redistributing the wealth to the wealthy through corporate tax breaks.

So who is paying for the gasoline our military trucks use? Who is paying for the security contractors of Blackwater. Who is paying for the Halliburton meals for our troops?

“I am paying,” smiled the president of China. “America has borrowed all its money from me. For China, it is good that American citizens do not pay their taxes for this war. We make money hand over fist from every dollar borrowed to pay for the Iraq war. Then we can buy land in America. We bought a good piece of IBM, too. We own America.”

“No, I am the financier,” smiled North Korea. “America has borrowed its money from me. For North Korea, it is good that American citizens do not pay their taxes. We own America.”

“And I am,” smiled a European tourist on a shopping spree, buying up a piece of Manhattan. “In the last 18 months we tourists bought one-third of all new Manhattan condos that were for sale, while native New Yorkers remained worried about bonuses and the economic climate,” (paraphrase from Christine Haughney of the New York Times of December 21, 2007).

“And I am,” smiled the United Arab Emirates. “Abu Dhabi Media is flush with oil cash. We reached a $1 billion deal to make movies and video games with Warner Brothers, the big Hollywood studio owned by Time Warner,” (paraphrased from Tim Arango of the September 3, 2008 New York Times). “For the United Arab Emirates, it is very good that American citizens do not pay their taxes for this war. We, too, own America.”

“And I am,” smiled Saudi Arabia. “China pays us for oil from money they make investing in the Iraq war. We, too, own America.”

Wow! So you all get rich because of our tax breaks. Is that right?

“Oh, but we like your corporate tax breaks,” say China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (but not Europe, who is now suffering their own recession). “Your corporate tax breaks make us money.”

OK, so you’re saying corporate tax breaks come from thinking that if the rich get richer, money trickles down all the way to the poor, and we all share the wealth.

“Yup, but the only people who are sharing the wealth are us,” say China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the billionaire American CEOs and hedge fund managers. “And we like it...”

"Cash-from-Arms": Party-time 2007!

It has been a year since I wrote to David Cameron asking him to come clean on my book, Dead Men Don’t Eat Lunch, and its ground-breaking “Cash-from-Arms” allegations that both Conservative and New Labour Governments, in the past 25 years, have received huge kickbacks from UK arms sales.

And what a year it has been!

The mainstream media are, slowly but surely, playing catch up with the main thrust of Dead Men, right down to describing the same money channels through the Bank of England. All they need now are the hidden money trails into the two political parties themselves – the details of which are to be found only in Dead Men.

David Cameron himself acknowledged the veracity of the arms corruption claims in Dead Men by posting my letter to him on his new web-site, WebCameron. Well, that is until the BAe scandal promised to make a bad year even worse, and Cameron’s staff expunged it – oops!

Not to worry, former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine, stepped to the crease, and confirmed the contents of Dead Men, in so far as they related to arms corruption in the Conservative Party.

Norman Baker, the Liberal M.P. who alleged in his book that government bio-scientist David Kelly did not commit suicide, has agreed to undertake his own investigation into the circumstances of Hugh Simmonds’ death. One major TV production company is in talks to create a documentary. And an American screenwriter is working on the movie.

Publication of Dead Men has caused others to come forward with verifiable information of their own – including the fact that Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Liam Fox, signed Simmonds’ death certificate.

Meanwhile, a new source has opened up within MI6 itself. Which is bad news for both Gordon Brown and David Cameron, neither of whom have any immediate plans to stop the flow of illicit arms bribes into their parties’ coffers.

So, stay tuned as the noose tightens this coming year on the “Cash-from-Arms” sales scandal. Have a Happy Conference Season!

A Tale of Two Hills

England has David Cameron and Notting Hill. Here in America, we have John Edwards and Chapel Hill - currently my home town in North Carolina.

Both politicians affect a concern for the less fortunate. David talks of Compassionate Conservatism; John of Two Americas - the one rich, the other poor.

John Edwards will shortly be announcing his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 2008. He will be doing so from the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area worst affected by Hurricane Katrina. He tells all and sundry that this is reflective of his genuine concern for the poor in society.

However, what might be more reflective is where he has situated his new Campaign Headquarters: a suburban village (Southern Village) in Chapel Hill, which I have lovingly christened the Upper Ninth. As in the houses you can buy there reach into the Upper $900K's; or the average income is in the Upper Ninth percentile of all Americans...

The HQ itself occupies the upper floor of what can only be described as a luxurious faux rendition of the sort of Mediterranean villa you might find in the smarter parts of Palm Beach, Florida.

The moral, I guess, is: beware politicians who affect concern for an issue, but then have a lifestyle that belies that affected concern.

We have an abundance of that in Chapel Hill, where the 'progressives' tend to be what we call Merlot Democrats. There used to be an equivalent in England - the Glenda Jackson, Hampstead set of Champagne Socialists. Have they been overtaken by the Cameron, Notting Hill set of Beaujolais Tories?

Arms Corruption, BAe and New Labour

I'm not surprised that Tony Blair halted the investigation of the Serious Fraud Office into BAe bribes associated with Al Yamamah, the $150 billion arms deal between Great Britain and Saudi Arabia.

The only thing that surprises me is that no-one asked if it might have been because the SFO were about to discover that New Labour, like the Tories before them, were benefiting from BAe's largesse.

What do we all think Tony's right-hand man, Peter Mandelson, was doing when he spent those weekends with Saudi arms middleman, Wafic Said, at his country home in Surrey?

Why, the same thing that Jonathan Aitken, on behalf of the Tories, was doing in 1993, when he met with Wafic and Said Ayas, in Mohammed al-Fayed's Ritz Hotel, in Paris - namely, carving up the Al Yamamah bribes.

(l. to r. - Wafic Said, Sir Denis Thatcher, Rosemary Said, Lady Thatcher - Dallas, 1994)

Arms Corruption, and the death of Diana

In December 2006, Lord Stevens published the whitewash...I'm sorry...the Report on his investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

No-one, not even Inspector Knacker, will ever know what happened in that Paris tunnel in August 1997. However, if it was not an accident, why do we all assume Diana was the target?

Barely a month before, Dodi's father, billionaire former arms dealer, Mohammed al-Fayed, had promised to name all of the Arab middlemen who had done dirty arms deals with the Tories in the Eighties - deals which included huge political arms bribes.

We now know, from Saudi reaction to the SFO investigation into Al Yamamah bribery, that Arabs get really sensitive when someone tries to wash their dirty arms laundry in public.

The Saudi Royal Family responded by threatening to break off diplomatic relations with Great Britain. Arms middlemen can't do that. But to what other lengths might they have gone to shut down Mohammed...?

There is an old saying in the Middle East: if you want to hurt someone, hurt the one they love. And if you want to underline the threat, send an exclamation point.

There could have been no more poignant an exclamation point to the threat to Mohammed from those ruthless arms middlemen than that the collateral damage included the death of Diana.

Mohammed will, of course, point the finger at anyone else - I mean, what would the great British public have to say of a man who allowed the "Peoples' Princess" to die because of his sleazy arms past?

Now, do I personally think the crash was a set-up, rather than an accident? All I will say is this: I have a problem believing that a billionaire would hire a drunk to drive his meal-ticket to the British aristocracy...

David Cameron knows...

If you've been to my web-site about arms corruption in Great Britain, you will know that I wrote to David Cameron, leader of the British Conservative Party, before their annual conference in October 2006, challenging him to come clean about arms corruption in the Conservative Party.

My concern is not limited to the actions of past Conservative Governments. I am troubled that David has made important appointments, to sensitive positions in both the Party and his Shadow Cabinet, which suggest that he will allow arms corruption to flourish once again, when he becomes Prime Minister.

Not surprisingly, David did not respond to me directly. But he did acknowledge my concerns - in a roundabout sort of a way. He agreed to post to his new videoblog, Webcameron, the entirety of the open letter that I sent to him. Frankly, I was so gobsmacked, you could knocked me over with an English batsman...

Well. David. Now that you've had a while to think about it some more, want to come onto the blog and answer the challenges? Take responsibility? Step up to the plate? Er...I've run out of batting analogies...

Ian Gilmour knows...

Ian (Lord) Gilmour, a former Secretary of State for Defence under Margaret Thatcher, and a former Member of Parliament for Amersham (the Parliamentary constituency immediately to the north of Beaconsfield), has already admitted on BBC Newsnight that Britain's arms sales to Saudi Arabia were founded on bribery.

Ian told the BBC: "You either got the business and bribed or you didn't bribe and didn't get the business."

Ian knew Simmonds well. Hated him, because they had different views on Europe. But knew him nevertheless. Knew me too. But I don't know what he thought of me. Notwithstanding the fact that I received national press attention when I opposed his appointment as President of the National Young Conservatives.

The important question is, along with knowing about arms corruption in general, did Ian know about Simmonds' role? Another port of call when I return to England. Unless, Ian, you'd like to save us all the trouble...?

Michael Heseltine knows...

A journalistic source confimed to me that Michael Heseltine knows all about arms corruption in the Conservative Party. I pushed the issue in Dead Men Don't Eat Lunch. And then in correspondence with Michael, after Dead Men was self-published.

We played some verbal gymnastics. Suffice it to say, that as of writing, Michael has agreed that what I have said about him may stand, and that the allegations in Dead Men are true. Bless him.

Of course, Michael not only knows all about arms corruption. He also knows all about trees - having one of the best-stocked private arboretums in England. The Tories know a bit about trees too, having just chosen one to be their new logo.

In fact, what is it with Tories and trees at the moment? It's all a bit creepy. Wasn't it one of the late Spike Milligan's comic characters who sang, "I talk to the trees; that's why they locked me away..."?

Worrying...

Does Liam Fox know the truth?

You know Liam. Current Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Defence (the Government Department which oversees the D-Notice program). Came within a whisper of being Cameron's sole opponent in the run-off for the Conservative leadership in 2005.

What you may not know is that Liam spent some time in the Beaconsfield Parliamentary Constituency, playing politics, before he got his own safe Conservative seat in Woodspring. He was on the Beaconsfield Town Conservative Committee, and still lists his membership of the Beaconsfield Conservative Political Discussion Group in his bio details.

Well. He did. Until I brought it to his attention. And then he removed mention of it. So why would Liam be embarrassed about his Beaconsfield Conservative connection?

Unless it was because Hugh Simmonds served on the same Committees as him. Because Liam was Hugh's personal doctor. And perhaps most damning of all - Liam was the doctor who signed Hugh's death certificate in November 1988...

New Labour in denial?

One of my next ports of call was the New Labour government in 1997. I wrote to Tony Blair asking if he had anything he'd like to add about this alleged deal involving GEC (UK) engines.

Among a number of interesting responses, the most amusing was from one 'D. Walters,' in the Foreign Office. You've got to love the remnants of the British Empire. While the rest of us have moved on, and generally refer to each other by our first names, the old public school boys still affect the last name and initial salutation. Bless them!

Anyway, 'D.' responded by saying that as far as the New Labour government was concerned, there never had been any sales of dual-use technology to Iraq.

I creased up. And then got onto the UK Parliament web-site, to start counting the left-wing Labour MPs who would probably have had seven kinds of conniption if they knew what was being claimed as their government's standing policy on the subject. I got as far as 171 before I lost interest...!

Jim Prior's Double-Speak

One of the first high-profile protagonists in this saga from whom I sought comment was Jim (Lord) Prior, back in 1996. He was at that time Chairman of GEC (UK). Jim had been Margaret Thatcher's first Secretary of Employment, and a leading 'wet' - if any of you out there remember that phrase from the grave!

My odyssey through the back-corridors of arms corruption in Westminster and Whitehall brought me, of all places, to a strange Italian bank, with a branch in Atlanta, Georgia - the Banco Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL).

In 1993, the manager of that branch, one Christopher Drogoul, was convicted of running a fraudulent scheme, under which he had illegally loaned some $5 billion to both US and UK companies, allowing them to export dual-use technology to Iraq, for the latter to use for military purposes - in both of the Gulf Wars in which US and UK military personnel lost their lives.

I spoke with Chris in 1996. He confirmed that he knew the name 'Simmonds,' and recalled it in connection with a deal in 1986 to sell GEC (UK) engines to Iraq - which deal BNL had financed with a Letter of Credit, issued to the Central Bank of Iraq, in the sum of $28 million.

My source in Israeli Intelligence confirmed that same deal to me. He stated that the engines were to be used to extend the range of Iraq's Scud-B missiles. And that it was his understanding that, once Simmonds had laundered the proceeds, the ultimate beneficiary of the deal would be the Thatcher family. He would be no more specific than that.

I wrote to Jim Prior asking for his comments. His reply was a model of the dissemble which helped both to build the largest Empire the world had ever known - and then to lose it (along with the Ashes...).

It was a very short letter. The first paragraph stated that Jim thought it highly unlikely that there would be such a deal involving GEC (UK) engines. Mind you, he didn't outright deny it.

But bless him, he then went on to conclude by saying that he could remember meeting Simmonds on a couple of occasions...

I still can not help but wonder if we're talking about meeting at the Henley-on-Thames Annual Ladies Knit 'n Bar-B-Que - or when Jim, Hugh and the boys from dispatch were loading the warheads onto the back of the flatbed...?

The BBC D-Notice

My "rollercoaster" began in March 1989 with a claim by journalist Chris Hutchins, then of The Today newspaper, that he had been told by a producer of BBC Newsnight that 15 minutes of a half-hour slot on Simmonds had been D-Noticed.

I asked Chris to confirm the details of the D-Notice with the producer. Chris came back to me very confused and surprised. He told me that the producer had totally changed his story. He was now saying not only that there was no D-Notice, but that he'd never said there was one.

Years later, I discovered from a source in British Intelligence that the D-Notice was most probably Category A, under which both the material and the D-Notice itself are D-Noticed. Very heavy stuff.

One of the first things I will be doing on my return to England is tracking down the BBC producer in question. Unless he wants to come forward, and put up a post on this blog...? Does this ring bells with any of you out there?

What makes a "rollercoaster ride"?

Let me see...

Try some of the following: getting shot at by British Military Intelligence; warned off by the CIA; having your drink spiked; meeting with Israeli Intelligence in Montreal, Canada; and a car chase in Glasgow, Scotland.

Is that good enough for starters? It's all in Dead Men Don't Eat Lunch...

What can you do?

Make our country a genuine citizens' democracy.

Don't leave it to the professional politicians or the mainstream media and the front-line blogs. There are many good ones. There are also those who have no interest in the truth or in the interests of ordinary people, like you and me.

If something around you doesn't make sense, the chances are...it doesn't make sense. If it stinks, make a stink right back. Something happened around me that didn't make sense. I started making a stink - and I haven't finished yet! You can do the same.

The Internet provides us with all the tools we need to take on entrenched interests and expose the truth. Don't let anyone tell you that your voice or your vote don't matter. Remember Edmund Burke (and I paraphrase): all that is needed for bad things to happen is for good people to sit around and watch TV all night long.

What do I want to do?

My first book, Dead Men Don't Eat Lunch raises all sorts of questions about the mysterious death of my good mate, Hugh Simmonds CBE, who among other things was also Margaret Thatcher's favourite speechwriter.

I believe that those questions paint a trail that leads all the way to arms corruption in both the Conservative and New Labour parties. If you don't want to wade through the book (which would be a pity - you'd be missing a good yarn), go to my web-site (http://www.conservativecampaign.com/) and get a summary of the allegations.

Now, I would be the first to admit that I raise more questions than answers. Heck, I'm a one man band, and it's taken me 18 years to get this far - which is further than all of the mainstream press and front-line political blogs combined.

What I want to do now is to return to England for at least two years, so that I can take all of those questions to the appropriate people, and start to get the answers. How? Same way I did it first time round. Just get in their face.

Thing is, I need support to execute this exercise. I need a commission from a publisher, newspaper or television; a grant from a foundation; a job that augments the investigative work; someone to prove I'm the father of Anna Nicole's baby - something.

So, if you read this, and have a creative solution, don't be shy - drop me a line. Be a part of history. Prove that ordinary citizens, like you and me, can make a difference against entrenched interests.

Who am I...?

Ok. The longer version - and the first thing I should point out is that I'm a serious individual, until I collapse in helpless laughter at the general absurdity of life...and my seriousness. So, excuse the endless mix of serious and satire.

My name is Gilson, Geoff Gilson. I spent 10 years as an eager Conservative foot-soldier with 'Maggie's Revolution' in the UK in the Eighties. Ran the largest Young Conservative organisation in the country - out of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Raised money - in much the same fashion as Tony Blair did for New Labour. Wrote speeches. Assisted Parliamentary Candidates with PR. Was elected a Councillor. Spoke at a couple of Conservative Party Conferences. Women threw underwear at me. Some boys too. You know the drill.

Then, my good mate, and Margaret Thatcher's favorite speech-writer, Hugh Simmonds CBE, turned up dead in 1988. I poked around. Discovered he was MI6. Spent 18 years on a rollercoaster ride through the strange worlds of covert intel and arms corruption. And lived to write the book about it - Dead Men Don't Eat Lunch. My first taste of getting to the heart of the real story.

Now that I've returned to the land of the living (what the crap happened to our cricket team while I was away!!), I write, blog, compose, make bad satirical points, broadcast, and crusade.

Folks, arms corruption in the UK is the worst blight ever to have befallen the land that gave the world democracy (ok, those parts that Dubya didn't save for himself...). You may think it doesn't affect you, but get this - one in five people in the UK are employed in occupations that support the UK arms trade.

I don't give a rat's fig what people do with their lives. It just eats my craw when they can't manage to do it without f*****g up other peoples' lives. Fair? Actually, I think that's the libertarian credo - makes mental note: see what they'll pay for it...

In the meantime, I use whatever media outlet I can find to poke fun at authority on both sides of the Atlantic, and occasionally ask it pertinent questions that mainstream blogs and the media generally avoid like the plague - in other words, getting to the real story: the one behind the polish and the spin.

Since the mainstream boys (and girls) sometimes ignore me (bless them), I'm working on some media outletting of my own. I'm upgrading from non-profit community radio to commercial radio in North Carolina - more of that soon (ish).

And when I can find the time, I will start adding some posts to this site - a mix of chronicle of my ongoing investigations into arms corruption, and commentary on the political silliness that regularly occurs in both the UK and the US.

Final comment of the day: Having returned from the jungle of 'oops, I'm not really here,' where did the Queen's English go? Why does everyone of any profile in the UK now affect this MetroAtlantic, 'I'm really from South London' accent?

So, stay tuned, for the real story...from your very own real tory...