OMNI Mandated Nemesis Investigators International

We Are Not Powerless
By Blase Bonpane, October 28, 2006

My father, Judge Blase Bonpane of the Superior Court, died here in Santa Barbara in 1977. He arrived in the United States in 1898, probably without papers, and that is one reason why some people were called WOPS (without papers). Dad went to law school at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. On January 16, 1914, dad gave the winning oration at the Dr. Albert Edwin Smith Annual Oratorical Contest. The prize money of $50.00 covered his room and board for almost six months.

The title of my father’s oration was, “The Call of Our Age.” World War I had begun in Europe. There was no League of Nations; there was no United Nations, but the second Hague Conference had been held in the spring of 1907, giving the global hope of making war illegal. World War I crushed that hope. Here are some of dad’s words that cold and snowy evening in Ada, Ohio.

Public opinion has enacted a law against murder; so should international public opinion demand a law against war, which is merely organized murder. Shall we execute a man for taking a single life, and glorify nations for slaughtering its thousands? To curb crime, to protect justice, police powers are instituted in all realms. Why not go beyond the transitory interest of a nation and establish an international police power? Let the representatives of the world powers meet in one body! Let a world code be compiled! God made humanity one. But man is now divided against himself...through common interest, through common needs, the world must move towards the unity of all its peoples. Let internationalism be our watchword, our aim, our duty. Let us hear the call of our age! Then the “Golden ‘Cestus of Peace” shall clothe all with celestial beauty; and serene, resplendent, on the summit of human achievement shall stand the miraculous spectacle, the congress of nations, with a common purpose of agreeing, not upon military plans, not to foster cruelty and incite other people to carnage, not to bow before the god of battles, but to announce the simple doctrine of peace and brotherhood—our only hope, our only reliance against which all powers of the earth shall not prevail.

That was January 16, 1914. Dad’s entire oration is found in my book, Common Sense for the Twenty-First Century. On that same date, January 16th, exactly 77 years later, I had just returned from Iraq, my wife Theresa, my son Blase Martin and I were handcuffed and on our bellies on the marble floor of the Los Angeles Federal Building because we blocked the doors of that edifice with scores of other protesters in a massive act of national civil disobedience. Later that day, from holding cells deep in the bowels of the Federal Building, we heard that the bombing of Iraq had begun. Eighty-eight thousand tons of bombs, very dumb bombs, represented the beginning of a war initiated by George Herbert Walker Bush, continued by Bill Clinton and still raging out of control with the current incumbent in the White House. Anyone igniting a one-pound bomb against innocents should be called a terrorist. Just what name do we have for an opening salvo of 88,000 tons of bombs on a civilian population?

So here we are, nearly a century after my dad’s oration, living in a run-away war system. We are living in the midst of the greatest crisis in history. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights have been placed on hold. There is a plan in place to attack Iran. Actually there are many possible futures. The best of those futures depends on our response to the current crisis.

The greatest myth in our culture is that we are powerless. I hear that myth frequently, “we are so powerless!” But we are not powerless; we are powerful and every worthwhile change in our society has come from the base, not from the top down. What makes us feel so powerless? Mass commercial media has a large role in this. Television creates a sense of passivity—life going by as a river over which we have no control. But we can transcend that passivity.

As we hear of wars and rumors of wars we are inclined to ask: what can I do? I certainly will not attempt to tell you what to do, but I can tell you some things that are being done and some things that need to be done. Here in Santa Barbara, as well as in Santa Monica and many other locations, we have the amazing statement of Arlington West on the beach. Markers representing the troops who have died are placed on the beach every Sunday. Respect is shown for the Iraqi dead as well, but the Veterans cannot put up 650,000 markers every Sunday, so they express their respect for the Iraqi dead in a poster (that figure is only the dead from 2003; millions have died since 1991).

The Veterans are a vanguard of the peace movement. A parade of military people are coming forward and following their conscience. They are refusing to serve. Some have exposed the rampant practice of torture, which now, to our shame, has been codified.

Let’s not have any parlor games about saving the whole world by torturing someone into telling us where they hid their nuclear bomb. Torture is nothing else but a classic form of terrorism designed to get people to agree with the torturer and to frighten other members of the society into compliance. But justice does not permit exceptionalism. Our hypocrisy rattles the heavens as we chip away at others doing nuclear research, while we have planet-busting nukes ready to fire in all directions.

No exceptionalism in regard to weapons of mass destruction. No exceptionalism regarding torture. Our dogs and cats are protected. If we should torture one of them the way we torture our “suspected terrorists,” we would be guilty of a felony.

What is to be done? We need you to volunteer with these Veterans of Arlington West on your beach every Sunday. We need you to support them financially as well. I also want to mention a nuclear vanguard. Sister Ardeth Platte, Sister Carol Gilbert and Sister Jackie Hudson symbolically disarmed weapons of mass destruction by pouring their blood on a nuclear silo in Colorado. Forty-one months in prison for Ardeth Platte, 33 months in prison for Carol Gilbert and 30 months in prison for Jackie Marie Hudson. The vast majority of us may not imitate such acts of heroism by the nuns. But we can be in solidarity with them and so many others like them who are standing up in the face of evil. We can tell their story; the commercial media is certainly not telling it. The commercial media has new and meaningless stories to tell us about the rich and the famous.

What can we do? Imagination and creativity are required. We can ask the corporate sector to come out against our wars as many did during Vietnam. We can tell our political servants that they do not have a future in politics unless they demand an immediate end to the rape of Iraq. Surely the Congress must become more than a group of clappers who stand around and applaud the president as he fosters organized murder and mayhem.

Ours is a spiritual quest. The struggle to end nuclearism and war forever is doable. We have the technology and legal structure to outlaw and destroy every nuclear weapon on the planet. We can have a functional peace system, and we have the basis for such a system in the universal declaration of human rights.

We must demand that our media cover the acts of peacemaking rather than attempting to marginalize or demonize them. Let us live each day as if it were our last; let us do now what we want to be said in our eulogy. If we are retired, let’s get back to work for peace and justice.

Please bear in mind that we who believe that an international peace system is possible are the realists of our time. On the contrary, it is the militarists, as the title of Bob Woodward’s new book states, who are in a state of denial. These people are not realists. They are living in a fantasy land of unreality. The military of the world at peace is the biggest threat to the global environment. And should militarism and nuclearism prevail, there is no future for life on this planet. So it really makes no difference how much some may love war. They can’t have war and also have the planet.

We are now in the fifteenth year of the Iraq disaster. We will never be able to count the dead or the myriad of ruined lives of Iraqis and of our young and trusting troops. We have yet to do protests that are proportional to the Holocausts we have created in Korea, Vietnam, Central America, Iraq and Afghanistan. None of our peace actions have been proportional to the evils committed in our name. Actually, war is the most prominent expression of conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is a waste of time.

There is another wisdom which I would call the wisdom of the ages. This is the wisdom that says, happy are you who work for peace, you shall be called the children of god. This is the wisdom of the ages:

Happy are you who hunger and thirst for justice, you shall be satisfied. Indeed this is the answer to what we can do. Junk the conventional wisdom which surrounds us and live with the wisdom of the ages.

We must use new and sacred instruments of change in place of the clubs, guns, bombs and nukes of the past—the general strike, the boycott, mass mobilizations, non-cooperation with the war-making machine. These are non-violent instruments of change. And taxation without representation is still tyranny. There is not one thing to do; there are many things to do. As Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero said, “Everyone can do something.”

Yes, electoral politics is a legitimate place for our peacemaking efforts and so are the plethora of non-governmental organizations such as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the Office of the Americas. We must make use of peacemaking efforts in education and recall the mandate of Einstein that we concentrate on creativity and imagination. I fail to see creativity in standardized tests and I certainly don’t want to see any standardized students.

War is made sacred by the very manner in which young students study our revolution and the endless wars that followed. As we change our way of thinking, we will continue to study the past, but we must make it clear that to repeat the past is to be unfaithful to the past. To be faithful to the past, we must foster change in our static educational practices. The only question to ask after students study a war is, “now tell us how that war could have been avoided.”

We have become isolated by our militaristic nationalism, but at this time the nation state as the terminus of sovereignty is as outdated as the city states of old. We live on a small planet that is in extreme danger. Various religions have developed by way of anthropology and geography. Corrupt politicians have used and continue to use religion as a cloak for malice. But the ideals in religion are known as the fruits and gifts of the spirit. These are the qualities that will unite the planet as one family. Sectarian, dogmatic and fundamentalist approaches are counterproductive.

I am a Roman Catholic and served in Guatemala as a Maryknoll priest, but I would have more in common with an atheist working for peace than I would have with a fellow Catholic who happens to be a war monger. The name of our religion or non-religion is really not very meaningful. We are known by the fruits of our labors. Let us join together with like-minded people to create an international community of justice and peace.

Recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2006 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award

Gary investigates activities of government agencies who infringe on our rights.
Time magazine called him "The New Mr. Natural." My Generation magazine dubbed him one of the top health gurus in the United States. For over three decades, Gary Null has been one of the foremost advocates of alternative medicine and natural healing.

A multi award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Null has written over 70 books on nutrition, self-empowerment and public health issues, including his most recent, Power Aging. His syndicated public radio show, Natural Living with Gary Null, earned 21 Silver Microphone Awards and is the longest-running, continuously aired health program in America (27 years). Currently, The Gary Null Show can be heard on the Internet at www.PRNcomm.net from 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm ET. Null also broadcasts on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays on WPFW (89.3 FM) from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm EST in Washington D.C. In addition, he can be heard in Los Angeles on Something's Happening with Roy of Hollywood on KPFK (90.7 FM) from 12:00 am to 5:30 am PST. Lastly, Dr. Null can be heard on Sunday evenings on the Health Radio Network at 8:00 pm EST, broadcast over a growing national network of radio stations.

The Gary Null Show is not a "chit-chat" show but, rather, an on-air health forum featuring knowledgeable guests and well-researched scientific information that is presented objectively and in layperson's terms. The program's combination of provocative interviews, controversial commentary, and listener call-ins motivate listeners to change their lives for the better.

Gary Null holds a Ph.D. in human nutrition and public health science. He has been a consistent voice on how to live a longer, more vital life through work that embraces the body, mind and spirit. Gary believes that much of what our society accepts as inevitable markers of aging are actually manifestations of a preventable disease process. Gary's philosophy has influenced countless Americans to achieve a healthier, more fulfilling lifestyle. He is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Get Healthy Now! and The Encyclopedia of Natural Healing.

As the senior editor and lead investigator for the "Caveat Emptor" plus host of ABC Radio Network and WABC radio, Gary Null captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of people who saw that he was unafraid to address controversial issues involving public health and alternative health practices in this country. As a reporter, Gary conducted more than 100 major investigations into issues such as AIDS, chronic fatigue, heart disease, cancer, diet and exercise, stress management, arthritis, vaccines, and allergies. Television programs such as 20/20 and 60 Minutes have used his material.

As a documentary filmmaker, Gary has achieved critical acclaim. He's produced over 20 films and videos on health and nutrition topics, including the following award-winning productions: Age Is Only A Number; Overcoming Depression and Anxiety Disorders Naturally (for which he received a coveted Gold CINDY [Cinema In Industry] Award); Deconstructing The Myth of AIDS (winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at both the New York and Los Angeles International Independent Film and Video Festivals); Fatal Fallout (winner of both Best Director and Best Documentary awards at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival) and Drugging of Our Children (Winner of 2005 Best Documentary at World Houston International Film Festival and Key West Indy Fest).

Additionally, Gary Null's special programs, such as Kiss Your Fat Goodbye, Get Fit Now and Seven Steps to Perfect Health, are regularly featured during Public Television fundraising drives, spurring strong viewer contributions whenever broadcast.

Gary Null was a founder and director of health and nutrition certificate programs at Pratt Institute and The School of Visual Arts. He was also the founder of the National Health Resources Council and the Nutrition Institute of America, where he has also served as a Director of Nutrition. As an athlete, Gary has trained thousands of marathon runners and walkers through his Natural Living Walking and Running Club. He is a TAC Master Champion athlete and twice MAC Track and Field Masters Athlete of the Year.

Gary Null has been featured in numerous publications, including The Daily News, Time, People, Fitness, Time Out, and Vegetarian Times. Throughout the years, he has garnered much recognition for his dedication, advocacy and in-depth coverage of vital health issues, receiving the Truth in Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting and The Human Rights Award from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. His scholarly and academic papers have been published in such journals as The Townsend Letter for Doctors, The Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, and The Journal of Applied Nutrition.

Gary Null lives in New York City and Florida.

Mike Malloy came to talk radio by serendipity. Writing for CNN in 1987, a friend at an Atlanta radio station told him there was an opening for a weekend talk show host, if working for no pay was acceptable. Malloy gave it a try and decided it was more fun than actually working for a living at CNN. He was hooked and within a few months was being paid enough to cover basic necessities like rent, food and beer . But, that was a long time ago. His radio experience includes the 50,000 watt blow-torches in both the South and the Midwest, respectively WSB-AM in Atlanta and WLS-AM in Chicago, and as one of the original hosts on Air America - a two-year-long association that ended in a massive train wreck. Mike's nationally-syndicated program can now be heard weeknights on affiliates of the Nova M Network and on XM Satellite and Sirius Satellite Radio as well as on live Internet streaming.

In addition to writing and producing for CNN (1984-87) and CNN-International (2000), his professional experience includes newspaper columnist and editor, writer, rock concert producer and actor. He is the only radio talk show host in America to have received the A.I.R (Achievement in Radio) Award in both Chicago and New York City, the number three and number one radio markets in the country.

It is not difficult to pigeon-hole Malloy politically. Generally speaking, he is a traditional Liberal Democrat doing his part to return the Democratic Party to its Liberal roots.

He is married to Kathy Bay with whom he has a daughter born in July, 2004. He has an additional five children, all grown, and five grandchildren.

Randi Rhodes
Randi Rhodes, is an American talk radio personality featured on Air America Radio where her eponymous program, The Randi Rhodes Show, airs Monday through Friday from 3 pm to 6 pm Eastern Time, with many Air America Radio affiliates recording the show for broadcast later in the evening. Her married name is Randi Robertson; Rhodes is a stage name chosen to honor Ozzy Osbourne's guitar player Randy Rhoads, whom Rhodes describes as "a consummate professional ... who lived to be the best." (born Randi Bueten on January 28, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York).

Ian Masters Ombudsman Deputare Extraordinare

Scott Ritter, Contributor

Scott is this nations only Ombudsman that has been specially trained by our armed forces in the art of espionage, making Scott our most qualified experienced Ombudsman. We can all thank Scott for putting the brakes on the bombing of Iran by our court selected crime family.

As a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, Scott Ritter was labeled a hero by some, a maverick by others, and a spy by the Iraqi government. In charge of searching out weapons of mass destruction within Iraq, Ritter was on the front lines of the ongoing battle against arms proliferation. His experience in Iraq served as the basis for his book Endgame, which explored the shortcomings of American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf region and alternative approaches to handling the Iraqi crisis, and for Iraq Confidential, which detailed his seven year experience as a weapons inspector.

Scott Ritter has had an extensive and distinguished career in government service. He is an intelligence specialist with a 12-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps including assignments in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Rising to the rank of Major, Ritter spent several months of the Gulf War serving under General Norman Schwarzkopf with US Central Command headquarters in Saudi Arabia, where he played an instrumental role in formulating and implementing combat operations targeting Iraqi mobile missile launchers which threatened Israel.

In 1991, Ritter joined the United Nations weapons inspections team, or UNSCOM. He participated in 34 inspection missions, 14 of them as chief inspector. Ritter resigned from UNSCOM in August 1998, citing US interference in the work of the inspections.

He is the author of many books, including “Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein” and most recently “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.” He lives in New York State. Ritter was born in Florida, and raised all over the world in a career military family. He is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, with a B.A. in Soviet History.

Greg Palast Investigates - Thursdays from 11-12 PM
Born in Los Angeles, Palast, an economist who studied with Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, worked for two decades as an investigator of corporate fraud and as an expert on control of industry. His influential book in the field, Democracy and Regulation (2002/3), commissioned by the United Nations, is based on his lectures at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Economics and at the University of Sao Paolo.
Palast is currently on assignment to Vanity Fair with law professor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate the integrity of the 2008 voting process in America. Palast, this year's Nation Institute Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow, was named Patron of the Trinity College Philosophical Society, an honor previously bestowed on Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde. He has returned from residence in London to direct his investigative team from an office on New York's Lower East Side.

" Born: 7 April 1928 It was James Garner who first brought to us the proper role
" Birthplace: Norman, Oklahoma of an Ombudsman in his Rockford Files. Most notably where
" Best Known As: Star of the TV show The Rockford Files he took on a special Prosecutor who was bent on treading all over Rockfords rights. This episode was a call back in the 70's for the ombudsman system Since this episode aired prosecutors such as Ken Starr continued to infringe on our rights as we as a nation never adopted this system. Until we do none of us are safe from the Lucifer Effect. Kudos to you Jim. James was nominated to run for Governor in 1990 but this job did not suit his character. Investigators investigate Governors govern. James at 80 is now summoned to oversee as a Chief Editor our new ombudsmen cadets as a Board Member of our reformed American Assembly. Upon acceptance, James is given senior power over all aspects of this reformation. James has always been embraced as a father figure so this will be nothing new.
Name at birth: James Bumgarner
James Garner has played amiable but crafty good guys in dozens of films and TV shows since the mid-1950s. His greatest fame comes from two popular TV series: The Rockford Files (1974-80), in which he played a plucky, good-humored private eye; and Maverick (1957-60), a sly western with Garner as an adventurous card sharp. The latter was remade as a 1994 movie with Mel Gibson in the title role and Garner and Jodie Foster co-starring. Garner's other films include The Great Escape (1963, with Steve McQueen, The Americanization of Emily (1964, with Juile Andrews), Victor/Victoria (1982, again with Andrews), Murphy's Romance (1985, with Sally Field), Space Cowboys (2000, with Clint Eastwood) and The Notebook (2004, with Ryan Gosling). Garner was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1986.
According to the City of Norman Visitors Bureau, Garner was "the first draftee from the state of Oklahoma during the Korean [War]." He won two Purple Hearts while fighting in Korea... The Norman Visitors Bureau also confirms that Garner's birth name was Bumgarner; some sources list it as Baumgarner, with an extra "a"... Garner is one of many actors to play Raymond Chandler's private eye Philip Marlowe. Garner's turn came in the 1969 film Marlowe, which (improbably) co-starred Bruce Lee. For his role in the 1985 CBS miniseries Space, the character's party affiliation was changed from a Republican (as in the book) to reflect Garner's personal views. Garner said: "my wife would leave me if I played a Republican".[33]
Prior to the entry of ex-San Francisco Mayor (later U.S. Senator) Dianne Feinstein, there was an effort by Democratic party leaders, led by state Senator Herschel Rosenthal, to persuade James Garner to seek the 1990 Democratic nomination for Governor of California.

This Ombudsman is without doubt this nations foremost Patron. He can and has patronized me for hours. Jo Terrence

Linguistics professor George Lakoff at the Free Speech Movement Café.

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics
By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 27 October 2003
BERKELEY - With Republicans controlling the Senate, the House, and the White House and enjoying a large margin of victory for California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's clear that the Democratic Party is in crisis. George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.
The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive.
George Lakoff dissects "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases
Read the August 26, 2004, follow-up interview In 2000 Lakoff and seven other faculty members from Berkeley and UC Davis joined together to found the Rockridge Institute, one of the few progressive think tanks in existence in the U.S. The institute offers its expertise and research on a nonpartisan basis to help progressives understand how best to get their messages across. The Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the College of Letters & Science, Lakoff is the author of "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," first published in 1997 and reissued in 2002, as well as several other books on how language affects our lives. He is taking a sabbatical this year to write three books - none about politics - and to work on several Rockridge Institute research projects.
In a long conversation over coffee at the Free Speech Movement Café, he told the NewsCenter's Bonnie Azab Powell why the Democrats "just don't get it," why Schwarzenegger won the recall election, and why conservatives will continue to define the issues up for debate for the foreseeable future.
Why was the Rockridge Institute created, and how do you define its purpose?
I got tired of cursing the newspaper every morning. I got tired of seeing what was going wrong and not being able to do anything about it.
The background for Rockridge is that conservatives, especially conservative think tanks, have framed virtually every issue from their perspective. They have put a huge amount of money into creating the language for their worldview and getting it out there. Progressives have done virtually nothing. Even the new Center for American Progress, the think tank that John Podesta [former chief of staff for the Clinton administration] is setting up, is not dedicated to this at all. I asked Podesta who was going to do the Center's framing. He got a blank look, thought for a second and then said, "You!" Which meant they haven't thought about it at all. And that's the problem. Liberals don't get it. They don't understand what it is they have to be doing.
Rockridge's job is to reframe public debate, to create balance from a progressive perspective. It's one thing to analyze language and thought, it's another thing to create it. That's what we're about. It's a matter of asking 'What are the central ideas of progressive thought from a moral perspective?'
How does language influence the terms of political debate?
Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like "revolt," that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame.

'Conservatives understand what unites them, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.'
-George Lakoff
If you then add the word "voter" in front of "revolt," you get a metaphorical meaning saying that the voters are the oppressed people, the governor is the oppressive ruler, that they have ousted him and this is a good thing and all things are good now. All of that comes up when you see a headline like "voter revolt" - something that most people read and never notice. But these things can be affected by reporters and very often, by the campaign people themselves.
Here's another example of how powerful framing is. In Arnold Schwarzenegger's acceptance speech, he said, "When the people win, politics as usual loses." What's that about? Well, he knows that he's going to face a Democratic legislature, so what he has done is frame himself and also Republican politicians as the people, while framing Democratic politicians as politics as usual - in advance. The Democratic legislators won't know what hit them. They're automatically framed as enemies of the people.
Why do conservatives appear to be so much better at framing?
Because they've put billions of dollars into it. Over the last 30 years their think tanks have made a heavy investment in ideas and in language. In 1970, [Supreme Court Justice] Lewis Powell wrote a fateful memo to the National Chamber of Commerce saying that all of our best students are becoming anti-business because of the Vietnam War, and that we needed to do something about it. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that. [There are many others, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute at Stanford, which date from the 1940s.]
And now, as the New York Times Magazine quoted Paul Weyrich, who started the Heritage Foundation, they have 1,500 conservative radio talk show hosts. They have a huge, very good operation, and they understand their own moral system. They understand what unites conservatives, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.
Why haven't progressives done the same thing?
There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system, which I analyzed in "Moral Politics," has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well.
Meanwhile, liberals' conceptual system of the "nurturant parent" has as its highest value helping individuals who need help. The progressive foundations and donors give their money to a variety of grassroots organizations. They say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.' So there's actually a structural reason built into the worldviews that explains why conservatives have done better.
Back up for a second and explain what you mean by the strict father and nurturant parent frameworks.
Well, the progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, universal education (to ensure competence, fairness), civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), accountability (derived from trust), public service (from responsibility), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values, which are traditional progressive values in American politics.
The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline - physical punishment that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Those children who remain dependent (who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant) should be forced to undergo further discipline or be cut free with no support to face the discipline of the outside world.

'Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers.'
-George Lakoff
So, project this onto the nation and you see that to the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones - those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant - and those who are on the way. Social programs, meanwhile, "spoil" people by giving them things they haven't earned and keeping them dependent. The government is there only to protect the nation, maintain order, administer justice (punishment), and to provide for the promotion and orderly conduct of business. In this way, disciplined people become self-reliant. Wealth is a measure of discipline. Taxes beyond the minimum needed for such government take away from the good, disciplined people rewards that they have earned and spend it on those who have not earned it.
From that framework, I can see why Schwarzenegger appealed to conservatives.
Exactly. In the strict father model, the big thing is discipline and moral authority, and punishment for those who do something wrong. That comes out very clearly in the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policy. With Schwarzenegger, it's in his movies: most of the characters that he plays exemplify that moral system. He didn't have to say a word! He just had to stand up there, and he represents Mr. Discipline. He knows what's right and wrong, and he's going to take it to the people. He's not going to ask permission, or have a discussion, he's going to do what needs to be done, using force and authority. His very persona represents what conservatives are about.
You've written a lot about "tax relief" as a frame. How does it work?
The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.
"Tax relief" has even been picked up by the Democrats. I was asked by the Democratic Caucus in their tax meetings to talk to them, and I told them about the problems of using tax relief. The candidates were on the road. Soon after, Joe Lieberman still used the phrase tax relief in a press conference. You see the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot.
So what should they be calling it?
It's not just about what you call it, if it's the same "it." There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists - vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues - you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it.
So taxes could be framed as an issue of patriotism.
It is an issue of patriotism! Are you paying your dues, or are you trying to get something for free at the expense of your country? It's about being a member. People pay a membership fee to join a country club, for which they get to use the swimming pool and the golf course. But they didn't pay for them in their membership. They were built and paid for by other people and by this collectivity. It's the same thing with our country - the country as country club, being a member of a remarkable nation. But what would it take to make the discussion about that? Every Democratic senator and all of their aides and every candidate would have to learn how to talk about it that way. There would have to be a manual. Republicans have one. They have a guy named Frank Luntz, who puts out a 500-page manual every year that goes issue by issue on what the logic of the position is from the Republican side, what the other guys' logic is, how to attack it, and what language to use.
What are some other examples of issues that progressives should try to reframe?
There are too many examples, that's the problem. The so-called energy crisis in California should have been called Grand Theft. It was theft, it was the result of deregulation by Pete Wilson, and Davis should have said so from the beginning.
Or take gay marriage, which the right has made a rallying topic. Surveys have been done that say Americans are overwhelmingly against gay marriage. Well, the same surveys show that they also overwhelmingly object to discrimination against gays. These seem to be opposite facts, but they're not. "Marriage" is about sex. When you say "gay marriage," it becomes about gay sex, and approving of gay marriage becomes implicitly about approving of gay sex. And while a lot of Americans don't approve of gay sex, that doesn't mean they want to discriminate against gay people. Perfectly rational position. Framed in that way, the issue of gay marriage will get a lot of negative reaction. But what if you make the issue "freedom to marry," or even better, "the right to marry"? That's a whole different story. Very few people would say they did not support the right to marry who you choose. But the polls don't ask that question, because the right wing has framed that issue.
Do any of the Democratic Presidential candidates grasp the importance of framing?
None. They don't get it at all. But they're in a funny position. The framing changes that have to be made are long-term changes. The conservatives understood this in 1973. By 1980 they had a candidate, Ronald Reagan, who could take all this stuff and run with it. The progressives don't have a candidate now who understands these things and can talk about them. And in order for a candidate to be able to talk about them, the ideas have to be out there. You have to be able to reference them in a sound bite. Other people have to put these ideas into the public domain, not politicians. The question is, How do you get these ideas out there? There are all kinds of ways, and one of the things the Rockridge Institute is looking at is talking to advocacy groups, which could do this very well. They have more of a budget, they're spread all over the place, and they have access to the media.
Right now the Democratic Party is into marketing. They pick a number of issues like prescription drugs and Social Security and ask which ones sell best across the spectrum, and they run on those issues. They have no moral perspective, no general values, no identity. People vote their identity, they don't just vote on the issues, and Democrats don't understand that. Look at Schwarzenegger, who says nothing about the issues. The Democrats ask, How could anyone vote for this guy? They did because he put forth an identity. Voters knew who he is.

Bill Moyers receives the coveted Ombudsman award for his investigations into the FCC where malministry reigns. Bill has always been distinguished in law as an investigative Journalist, along with meeting all the definitions of a Patron.

Bill Moyers was one of the chief inheritors of the Edward R. Murrow tradition of "deep-think" journalism. Working alternately on CBS and PBS in the 1970s and early 1980s, and then almost exclusively on PBS. His achievements were principally in the areas of investigative documentary and long-form conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers. Moyers, who had been a print journalist, ordained Baptist minister, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, and newspaper publisher before coming to television in 1970, gained public and private foundation support for producing some of television's most incisive investigative documentaries. Each was delivered in the elegantly written and deceptively soft-spoken narrations that came, Moyers later said, out of the story-telling traditions of his East Texas upbringing. Where Edward R. Murrow had taken on Joseph McCarthy on See It Now and the agri-business industry in his famous Harvest of Shame documentary, Moyers examined the failings of constitutional democracy in his 1974 Essay on Watergate and exposed governmental illegalities and cover-up during the Iran Contra scandal. He looked at issues of race, class and gender, at the power media images held for a nation of "consumers," not citizens, and explored virtually every aspect of American political, economic and social life in his documentaries.
Equally influential were Moyers' World of Ideas series. Again, Edward R. Murrow had paved the way in his trans-Atlantic conversations with political leaders, thinkers and artist on his Small World program in the late 1950s, but Moyers used his soft, probing style to talk to a remarkable range of articulate intellectuals on his two foundation supported interview series on PBS. In discussions that ranged from an hour to, in the case of mythology scholar Joseph Campbell, six hours on the air, Moyers brought to television what he called the "conversation of democracy." He spoke with social critics like Noam Chomsky and Cornel West, writers like Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, Mexican poet and novelist Carlos Fuentes and American novelist Toni Morrison, and social analysts like philosopher Mortimer Adler and University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson. Moyers engaged voices and ideas that had been seldom if ever heard on television, and transcribed versions of many of his series often became best selling books as well (Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, 1988; The Secret Government, 1988; A World of Ideas, 1989; A World of Ideas II, 1990, Healing the Mind, 1992). The Joseph Campbell book was on the New York Times best seller list for more than a year and sold 750,000 copies within the first four years of its publication.
Moyers' television work was as prolific as his publishing record. In all he produced over six hundred hours of programming (filmed and videotaped conversations and documentaries) between 1971 and 1989, which comes out to 33 hours of programming a year or the equivalent of more than half an hour of programming a week for eighteen years. Moyers broadcast another one hundred and twenty-five programs between 1989 and 1992 working with a series of producers--27 of them on the first two World of Ideas series alone. He formed his own company, Public Affairs Television, in 1986, and distributed many of his own shows.
By the early 1990s Bill Moyers had established himself as a significant figure of television talk, his power and influence providing him access to corridors of power and policy. In January of 1993 he was invited for a rare overnight visit with President elect Bill Clinton to discuss the nation's problems before the Clinton Inaugural. Bill Moyers had by this time become one of the few broadcast journalists who might be said to approach the stature of Edward R. Murrow. If Murrow had founded broadcast journalism, Moyers had significantly extended its traditions.
-Bernard Timberg

Bill Moyers
Photo courtesy of Bill Moyers/ Lawrence Ivy
BILL MOYERS. Born in Hugo, Oklahoma, U.S.A., 5 June 1934. Educated at North Texas State College; the University of Texas at Austin, B.A. in journalism, 1956; University of Edinburgh in Scotland, 1956-57; Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, B.D., 1959. Married: Judith Suzanne Davidson, 1954, children: William Cope, Alice Suzanne, and John Davidson. Personal assistant to Senator Lyndon Johnson, 1960-61; associate director of public affairs, Peace Corps, 1961-62; deputy director, Peace Corps, 1963; special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson, 1963-67; press secretary, 1965-67; publisher of Newsday, 1967-70; producer and editor, Bill Moyers' Journal, PBS, 1971-76, 1978-81; anchor, USA: People and Politics, 1976; chief correspondent, CBS Reports, 1976-78; senior news analyst, CBS News, 1981-86; executive editor, Public Affairs Programming Inc. since 1986. Honorary doctorate, American Film Institute. Recipient: numerous Emmy Awards; Ralph Lowell medal for contribution to public television; George Peabody awards, 1976, 1980, 1985-86, 1988-90; DuPont/Columbia Silver Baton award, 1979, 1986, 1988; Gold Baton award, 1991; George Polk awards, 1981, 1986. Address: Public Affairs Television, Inc., 356 West 58th St., New York, New York 10019, U.S.A.
TELEVISION SERIES (selection)
1971-76; 1978-81 Bill Moyers' Journal
1971-72 This Week
1976-78 CBS Reports
1982 Creativity With Bill Moyers
1983 Our Times With Bill Moyers
1984 American Parade (renamed Crossroads)
1984 A Walk Through the 20th Century With Bill Moyers 1987 Moyers: In Search of the Constitution
1988 Bill Moyers' World of Ideas
1988 The Power of Myth
1990 Amazing Grace
1991 Spirit and Nature With Bill Moyers
1993 Healing and the Mind With Bill Moyers
1995 The Language of Life With Bill Moyers
PUBLICATIONS
Listening to America. New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1971.
Report From Philadelphia. New York: Ballantine, 1987.
The Secret Government. Cabin John, Maryland: Seven Locks Press, 1988.
The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988. A World of Ideas. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

FURTHER READING
Burns, Ken. "'Moyers: A Second Look'--More Than Meets the Eye." The New York Times, 14 May 1989.
Katz, Jon. "Why Bill Moyers Shouldn't Run for President." The New York Times, 8 March 1992.

Martin Sheen has distinguished himself in law by means of multiple police arrests, 67 to be exact. This along with exceeding the definition of a Patron makes Martin eligible for California's first Justitieombudsman.

"You all know what I do for a living -- this is what I do to live!"
~Martin Sheen

With his faith firmly rooted in non-violence, Martin Sheen may be best know for his peace actions, but he supports a myriad of charitable causes and social justice projects, as well as being an outspoken advocate to cure the plight of the homeless.

Coming soon: Pictures and articles about Martin's good works. Please check back as this area is still under development.

Please take this opportunity to familiarize yourself with some of Martin's projects, as outlined below...


A Favorite Poem
Let My Country Awake, by Rabindranath Tagore


His Own Thoughts on War
There Can Be No Victory, by Martin Sheen


Learn More About Special Projects...

Furthering the cause of international justice and peace
Office of the Americas

Working to save abused and exploited children in the Philippines
PREDA

Protecting marine wildlife world wide
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Breaking the cycle of crime, addiction, mental illness and homelessness
Options Recovery

Activism Danny's investigations into george bush discovered he led a prison system that poured on more capitol punishment than all the other states combined. By taking a stand to have our prison rates be equal to that of the rest of the worlds, Danny has elevated himself to that of an Ombudsman Deputare.

Glover speaks at a March for Immigrants Rights in Madison, Wisconsin.
While attending San Francisco State University, Glover was a member of the Black Students Union which,[4] along with the Third World Liberation Front, led a five-month student strike to establish a department of Ethnic Studies. The strike was the longest student walkout in U.S. history [5] and helped create the first school of Ethnic Studies in the U.S. Hari Dillon, current president of the Vanguard Public Foundation was a fellow striker at SFSU. Glover now sits on Vanguard's advisory board. Glover is also a board member of The Algebra Project, The Black AIDS Institute, Walden House, Cheryl Byron's Something Positive Dance Group, among others.
Glover's long history of union activism includes support for the United Farm Workers, UNITE HERE!, numerous service unions and an incidental arrest-conviction for trespassing during a union rally at a Sheraton Hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 2006. [6] Although Canadian Niagara Hotels sought $22,000 to cover the costs of private prosecution, Glover -- along with union representative Alex Dagg and Ontario Federation of Labour president Wayne Samuelson -- were only fined $100 each. The justice of the peace ruled "the prosecution was unnecessary to protect the interests of the hotel's owner, and that the company should have put more effort toward good faith negotiations with the union".[7]
In January 2006, Harry Belafonte led a delegation of activists including actor Danny Glover and activist/professor Cornel West meeting with President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez to support him.
Glover was a supporter of John Edwards in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary until Edwards' withdrawal. Glover has sinced endorsed Barack Obama.[8] Glover has been an outspoken critic of George W. Bush, calling him a known racist. "Yes, he's racist. We all knew that. As Texas's governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died were Afro-Americans or Hispanics."[9]
Glover's support of California Proposition 7 (2008) was made evident on November 2, 2008 when he was featured in an automated phone call to an indeterminate number of California voters.[10]

Jimmy Smits has distinguished himself as a Patron and 'through his acting rolls' in law. He has what it takes to become an Ombudsman.

Smits at the 39th Annual Emmy Awards in 1987
A notable early role played by Smits was that of Eddie Rivera in the series premiere of Miami Vice. In the episode, he was Sonny Crockett's original partner, only to be shortly killed off in a sting gone wrong. He played Victor Sifuentes in the first five seasons of the long-running legal drama L.A. Law.
Smits played a Conky Repairman on Pee-wee's Playhouse as one of the show's memorable characters. He also starred in the multigenerational story of a Chicano family in My Family/Mi Familia in 1995.
A new audience became aware of Smits for his appearance as Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan who appears in the film Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and becomes Princess Leia's adoptive father in the film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. His likeness and voice are also used for the character in the game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
Smits was to have hosted the 2001 Latin Grammy Awards broadcast, but it was called off because of the terrorist attacks that day. He instead hosted a non-televised press conference to announce the winners.
Smits played the role of Congressman Matt Santos of Houston, Texas in the final two seasons of the American television drama The West Wing, joining fellow L.A. Law alumnus John Spencer. Smits's character eventually ran for and won the US Presidency in the series.

This guy has the authority - baiting caliber of an ombudsman down cold. If he had become an ombudsman instead of a movie star he could have made our nation a malministry free zone single-handedly. The man with no name was born an ingenerated Ombudsman.
CLINT EASTWOOD BIOGRAPHY

Born: 31 May 1930
Where: San Francisco, California, USA
Awards: Won 4 Oscars and 5 Golden Globes
Height: 6' 4"
Filmography: The Complete List
He is, of course, best known as The Man With No Name. With that menacing squint, the cigar-stub clenched between his teeth, the Stetson pulled low, ever ready to flip back that dirty poncho and reveal that well-oiled six-shooter. Woe betide you if you ever insulted his mule. Everyone, but everyone knows Clint Eastwood from Sergio Leone's Dollar trilogy. That was how he came to fame, wasn't it? Those were the films that led him to become the cynical deputy sheriff of Coogan's Bluff, the mystic revengers of High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider, the last of the rebel hold-outs in The Outlaw Josey Wales, and the aged gunslinger dragged back to violence in the Oscar-winning Unforgiven.
But, though he achieved his box-office breakthrough with those legendary mid-Sixties spaghetti westerns,and over the next 3 decades produced some of the greatest cowboy movies ever made, Eastwood has also scored major financial and artistic successes far beyond the dusty genre that spawned him. Where, say, Sylvester Stallone found trouble when he stepped away from Rocky or Rambo, Eastwood remained convincing when not portraying his cold frontiersman or his other major character, the perp-hating, authority-baiting "Dirty" Harry Callahan. Think of his manipulative Confederate seducer in The Beguiled: his orang-utan-loving bare-knuckle fighter in Every Which Way But Loose: his drunken cop, doomed by his incompetence in The Gauntlet: his dying singer, battling his way to the Grand Ole Oprey in Honkytonk Man: his haunted agent, desperate to save the President in In The Line Of Fire: his ageing photographer, suffering unrequited love in The Bridges Of Madison County. No sign of the silent killer there, but great films, all of them, along with so many more. It is to the Academy's undying shame that Eastwood was not nominated in any category till he was gone 60.

Donald Sutherland has demonstrated his strong paternal nature in combating malministers. Belonging to the Ombudsman Ratpack Donald has always shown us how to follow the trail of a rat.

Certainly one of the most distinctive looking men ever to be granted the title of movie star, Donald Sutherland is an actor defined as much by his almost caricature-like features as his considerable talent. Tall, lanky and bearing perhaps the most enjoyably sinister face this side of Vincent Price, Sutherland made a name for himself in some of the most influential films of the 1970s and early '80s.

A native of Canada, Sutherland was born in New Brunswick on July 27, 1934. Raised in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, he took an early interest in the entertainment industry, becoming a radio DJ by the time he was fourteen. While an engineering student at the University of Toronto, he discovered his love for acting and duly decided to pursue theatrical training. An attempt to enroll at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art was thwarted, however, because of his size (6'4") and idiosyncratic looks. Not one to give up, Sutherland began doing British repertory theatre and getting acting stints on television series like The Saint.

In 1964 the actor got his first big break, making his screen debut in the Italian horror film Il Castello dei Morti Vivi (The Castle of the Living Dead). His dual role as a young soldier and an old hag was enough to convince various casting directors of a certain kind of versatility, and Sutherland was soon appearing in a number of remarkably schlocky films, including Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and Die! Die! Darling! (both 1965). A move into more respectable fare came in 1967, when Robert Aldrich cast him as a retarded killer in the highly successful The Dirty Dozen. By the early '70s, Sutherland had become something of a bonafide star, thanks to lead roles in films like Start the Revolution without Me and Robert Altman's MASH (both 1970). It was his role as Army surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in the latter film that gave the actor particular respect and credibility, and the following year he enhanced his reputation with a portrayal of the titular private detective in Alan J. Pakula's Klute.

It was during this period that Sutherland became something of an idol for a younger, counter culture audience, due to both the kind of roles he took and his own anti-war stance. Offscreen, he spent a great deal of time protesting the Vietnam War, and, with the participation of fellow protestor and Klute co-star Jane Fonda, made the anti-war documentary F.T.A. in 1972.
Searches related to: donald sutherland
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Tommy Lee Jones is an extraordinary ingenerated ombudsman character and it shows in his movies. He can ask you the most embarrassing question without blinking an eye. His understanding of human nature is phenomenal. He imbues you with a fatherly sense of protection and stands out with the others as having what it takes to quell the feeding frenzy of our malministers who have gorged themselves on our treasure. Tommy Lee selected a movie role where he played the part of an uncommissioned ombudsman in the disappearance of his son. Everyone connected to his investigation were members of our armed forces government agency. In this movie was shown the protective nature of a father toward his prodigy. see In The Vally Of Elah Biography

An eighth-generation Texan, actor Tommy Lee Jones attended Harvard University, where he roomed with future U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Though several of his less-knowledgeable fans have tended to dismiss Jones as a roughhewn redneck, the actor was equally at home on the polo fields (he's a champion player) as the oil fields, where he made his living for many years.

After graduating cum laude from Harvard in 1969, Jones made his stage debut that same year in +A Patriot for Me; in 1970, he appeared in his first film, Love Story (listed way, way down the cast list as one of Ryan O'Neal's fraternity buddies). Interestingly enough, while Jones was at Harvard, he and roommate Gore provided the models for author Erich Segal while he was writing the character of Oliver, the book's (and film's) protagonist. After this supporting role, Jones got his first film lead in the obscure Canadian film Eliza's Horoscope (1975). Following a spell on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live, he gained national attention in 1977 when he was cast in the title role in the TV miniseries The Amazing Howard Hughes, his resemblance to the title character -- both vocally and visually -- positively uncanny. Five years later, Jones won further acclaim and an Emmy for his startling performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song.

Jones spent the rest of the '80s working in both television and film, doing his most notable work on such TV miniseries as Lonesome Dove (1989), for which he earned another Emmy nomination. It was not until the early '90s that the actor became a substantial figure in Hollywood, a position catalyzed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Oliver Stone's JFK. In 1993, Jones won both that award and a Golden Globe for his driven, starkly funny portrayal of U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive. His subsequent work during the decade was prolific and enormously varied. In 1994 alone, he could be seen as an insane prison warden in Natural Born Killers; titular baseball hero Ty Cobb in Cobb; a troubled army captain in Blue Sky; a wily federal attorney in The Client; and a psychotic bomber in Blown Away.

Mike Farrell is another Jo working hard to protect our citizens from our brocken justice administration.. This is the role of an Ombudsman of which mike has made the grade. Before you lock us up longer than seven years at least let us speak with our Ombudsman

Biography
Michael Joseph Farrell was born on February 6, 1939 in St. Paul, Minnesota. At the age of 2 a move to Hollywood, where his father's work as a studio carpenter provided young Mike's first glimpse of the world behind the studio walls, began his fascination with the "movies, one he has never fully lost.
After graduating from Hollywood High and a hitch in the Marines, he worked a number of jobs - including a stint as private investigator - while pursuing a career as an actor, beginning with small parts in films like "The Graduate" and "The Americanization of Emily".
Stage roles and small parts on TV eventually landed him in the soap "Days of Our Lives", where he starred as Scott Banning for two years. "Days" was followed by leading roles in two series, "The Interns" and "The Man and The City," then a four-year contract with Universal Pictures.
Mike is best known for playing Captain B.J. Hunnicutt in the ever popular series M*A*S*H. His eight years with the memorable show allowed the opportunity to both write and direct several episodes, earning him nominations for Director's Guild and Emmy Awards.
His first production experience outside of ""M*A*S*H was the CBS-TV film "Memorial Day", in which he starred opposite Shelley Fabares.
On the documentary front, among many others, Farrell co-hosted "Saving the Wildlife" for PBS, hosted "The Best of the National Geographic Specials" and had a great adventure scuba diving with his children, Michael and Erin, among hundreds of sharks in French Polynesia for "The World of Audubon".
On December 31, 1984 Mike married actress Shelley Fabares (star of ABC-TVs "Coach")
Together with partner Marvin Minoff he formed 'Farrell/Minoff productions'. Farrell/Minoff's first production was "Dominick and Eugene", a film starring Tom Hulce and Ray Liotta. After making a number of TV movies, one of their more recent productions is "Patch Adams", starring Robin Williams.
Beyond the film industry, Mike is a very active and outspoken citizen. Promoting human rights and opposing the death penalty are two of his prime concerns, making him a regular lecturer to interested audiences.
In 1996 Mike was presented the Valentine Davies Award by the Writers Guild of America, given to members: "whose contribution to the entertainment industry and the community-at-large have brought dignity and honor to writers everywhere."
In February 1998 Farrell was appointed to a three-year term on the Commission on Judicial Performance, an 11 member California State Commission that adjudicates complaints against judges in the state.
1998 also brought him NBC-TV"'s "Providence" playing veterinarian Jim Hansen with cast-mates Melina Kanakaredes, Concetta Tomei, Paula Cale and Seth Peterson.
In 2002 Mike was elected First Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles and served three years in that capacity.
In 2004 he received the Donald Wright Award from California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, only the third time in its 28 year history that the award has been presented to a recipient who was neither a lawyer nor a judge.
In his spare time Mike loves to read, spend time with his wife and kids and enjoys cross-country motorcycling. His bike trips have crisscrossed, amongst others, the US, Canada, Australia and Europe.
Mike Farrell is represented by Innovative Artists.

Naomi Klein meets the high standards of an Ombudsman. You bet!

Naomi Klein is an award-winning Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the highly influential, bestselling books: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies and, most recently, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. She writes a regular, internationally syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian. Her reporting from Iraq for Harper's Magazine won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and she co-produced The Take with director Avi Lewis, an award-winning feature documentary about Argentina's occupied factories.

Naomi Klein: Bailout is 'multi-trillion-dollar crime scene'David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday November 18, 2008

The Bush administration has already handed out almost half of the $700 billion in bank bailout money authorized by Congress but has not even filled the mandated oversight positions to review how it is being used.

Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, has described the handling of the bailout as "borderline criminal" because of this and other problems. Klein spoke to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Monday to explain her accusations.

"We were all reassured that there was going to be transparency, accountability, legality," Klein stated. "But now we’re finding out that, in fact, Henry Paulson has achieved his original goal by stealth, because there is no accountability, and lawmakers are very hesitant to challenge this. ... Essentially, what the Bush administration has done is said, 'We dare you to challenge us and be responsible for the Great Depression.'"

Klein sees three areas of borderline illegality. The first is that rather than being used to get banks lending again, the bailout money "is instead going to bonuses, is instead going to dividends, going to salaries, going to mergers."

The second is that, without Congressional authorization, "the Treasury Department pushed through a tax windfall for the banks, a piece of legislation that allows the banks to save a huge amount of money when they merge with each other. And the estimate is that this represents a loss of $140 billion worth of tax revenue for the US government."

The third problem, which dwarfs the $700 billion bailout itself, is that "there’s another $2 trillion that’s been handed out by the Federal Reserve in emergency loans to financial institutions, to banks, that actually we don’t really know who they’re handing the money out to, because, apparently, it’s a secret."

"If the Fed has accepted distressed assets as collateral in exchange for these loans," stated Klein, "there’s a very good chance the taxpayers aren’t going to be getting this money back. ... So that’s why we’re calling this the 'trillion-dollar crime scene' or the 'multi-trillion-dollar crime scene.'"

Klein argued that Congress should be challenging violations of the bailout legislation, but instead "what they’re saying is, we can’t afford to enforce the law ... that somehow, because there’s an economic crisis, legality is a luxury that Congress can’t afford."

"I’m quite concerned," Klein stated, "that what we’re seeing from Obama’s team is an accepting of this logic that they need to give the market what it wants, which is continuity, smooth transition, which is really just code for more of the same. ... I think we should question all of it. Across the board, I think the assumptions are faulty."

Klein is also concerned that rather than using the crisis as a mandate to fix the underlying problems, the world leaders at the recent G20 summit were talking about propping up the old system.

"Think about what these leaders could do if they really wanted to," Klein suggested. "When you have a crisis like this, which so clearly shows the need for those types of regulations, when you have an election like there just was in the United States, where people have said clearly that this is a priority, the leaders have an opportunity to act. ... But they blew that opportunity, and they actually called for less regulation."

"This crisis isn’t over," Klein warned, "and the same people who justified this bailout, who clamored for this bailout, are the very people who are going to turn around and say to Barack Obama, 'We can’t afford for you to make good on your election promises. We can’t afford universal healthcare.'"

"The money has been given to the people who needed it least, and it’s going to be used to justify austerity measures imposed against those who need it most," Klein concluded. "It’s going to be used to justify cuts to food stamps. It’s going to be used to justify cuts to Social Security, to health care, let alone being used to justify why more ambitious plans for a national health care program, for green energy are not affordable. So people have to be ready for this. You know, the next shock is yet to come."

Democracy Now! has a full transcript of Naomi Klein's interview.

Naomi Wolf makes the grade of Ombudsman

Naomi Wolf is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Beauty Myth, The End of America and Give Me Liberty. She has toured the world speaking to audiences of all walks of life about gender equality, social justice, and, most recently, the defense of liberty in America and internationally. She is the cofounder of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, which teaches ethics and empowerment to young women leaders, and is also a cofounder of the American Freedom Campaign, a grass roots democracy movement in the United States whose mission is the defense of the Constitution and the rule of law.

The American Freedom Campaign Agenda

(The American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 (H.R. 3835), which addresses most of the issues outlined below, was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul on October 15, 2007. Click here to read the text of the bill.)

At critical moments in our history, Americans have been called upon to protect our Constitutional guarantees of liberty and justice. We face such a moment today. The American Freedom Campaign is a non-partisan citizens' alliance formed to reverse the abuse of executive power and restore our system of checks and balances with these ten goals:

Fully restore the right to challenge the legality of one's detention, or habeas corpus, and the right of detained suspects to be charged and brought to trial.

Prohibit torture and all cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Prohibit the use of secret evidence.

Prohibit the detention of anyone, including U.S. citizens, as an "enemy combatant" outside the battlefield, and on the President's say-so alone.

Prohibit the government from secretly breaking and entering our homes, tapping our phones or email, or seizing our computers without a court order, on the President's say-so alone.

Prohibit the President from "disappearing" anyone and holding them in secret detention.

Prohibit the executive from claiming "state secrets" to deny justice to victims of government misdeeds, and from claiming "executive privilege" to obstruct Congressional oversight and an open government.

Prohibit the abuse of signing statements, where the President seeks to disregard duly enacted provisions of bills.

Use the federal courts, or courts-martial, to charge and prosecute terrorism suspects, and close Guantanamo down.

Reaffirm that the Espionage Act does not prohibit journalists from reporting on classified national security matters without fear of prosecution.