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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 10/24/13

Falling Faster and Further Into the Abyss

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While the American government fiddles, the world burns, but over on the side, and gathering strength is the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). They have been working for the past few years to create a new reserve currency, and the recent and ongoing debacle in Washington, DC, the International Monetary Fund ( IMF) warnings for the past few years, and Fitch's downgrading of American debt, has spurred  not only them but others to look away from the U.S dollar for stability.

Clearly, the U.S. Congress and Senate are living in 1945-48, when America controlled everything and the dollar was the ONLY currency that was dependable. But today, sadly, our congress, as well as our military have blocked that era from their minds. Our generals -- allied with corporate welfare and ongoing wars that they have helped start and stimulated with drones and other artifices -- have put us, as General MacArthur and others have stated, into a "war frenzy" and a "war only" economy. But the major problem with this is that the corporations are farming out the jobs for the people who pay the taxes to support all these wars, and as the  general population is continually being raped, the corporations have moved more and more offshore so that they become "extra national" (by that I mean that they have no affiliation or obligation to any country, but often to a tiny island that they basically control by force or finance; thus, evade any major nation's tax system, especially the U.S. system from whence they came, i.e., Halliburton, etc.)

So, we now find America falling further into the abyss, because the government is being run by the corporations in the same way the tiny islands are bring run by them. But, no one has thought about what can be done to stem this steep fall we are in, except the government, which is determined to continue the folly and lies. It keeps printing more and more money that has no backing in terms of credit worthiness or value, and the people keep accepting it as though it had value.

In the past,  during the time of Walter Cronkite and Helen Thomas,  the major media in the U.S. might open these scandals and problems to the people. But that time is past. We have few investigative journalists in the major media. We now have simple minded or plastic blondes or brunettes who simply are what the Brits used to call "news readers" with a smile, but somehow, in America, people actually believe these people know more than the scripts they read and that they are getting "the news." Nonsense!!

Unfortunately, on PBS, and other alleged "independent stations," even RT -- the furthest left of any of our TV channels -- no one is offering any solutions, only telling us of the problems (which the major media continues to evade and dance around with more stories of Kim Kardashian's dashing stupid life). In fact, she's a good symbol for the alleged "news" America gets; a person of no talent, a never has been, a wannabe only known because her father catapulted the name into fame by being one of the attorneys for O.J. Simpson. Thus, the Kardashian daughters have found a way into the spotlight -- as has the alleged "news" about what the fed is doing to save America -- all of it pure fantasy, weak fiction, and artifice of the worst sort.

What can we do? I have some real ideas.

1. Pull our troops back home from all of our bases overseas and stop all our wars. With the savings, we can support these troops once they come back home and give them subsidized housing until we help straighten out our economy.  Do not pay any more mercenaries, anywhere, at any time; they are currently costing us more than our military personnel. We must make clear that Obama's "pulling the troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq" is a shame; he replaced them with more expensive "contractor mercenaries." Thus, our president and our congress must tell the people the truth about our military and our immoral wars and domination of places by force, not because they love us or that we are "spreading democracy." The only thing they are spreading is a democratic free-for-all for our corporations and mercenary firms at the expense of other countries, which gives them money they do not bring home and are not taxed on, but our government foots the bill for our invasion and take-over of other countries. We, as tax payers, get no benefit, only the bills.

2. Start rebuilding America. For every job we create to fix a bridge, clean a river, fix a road, we create at least 150 supporting jobs. Thus, that small amount of money will multiply exponentially to help restart the economy, spread jobs and incomes -- all taxable, all here in the USA -- and supplies and machinery must come from the USA, not from outside. Thus, this will be a closed system that expands, rather than one that lets money flow out of the U.S.

3. Tell corporations if they want tax breaks or any kind of help, they must be headquartered here, or there will be no help for them even if and when they get into a jam. Tell them they must bring jobs back to America or they will no longer be American corporations unless at least 80% of their jobs are here in the U.S. I know that some will complain that this is unfair, but I am interested in saving America, not giving it away to corporations.

4. We must nationalize our oil, gas and natural resource companies so that they are FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, NOT FOR CORPORATE COFFERS. We have allowed our resource companies, especially oil companies like Exxon and others to make excess profits for decades. The same is true of our gas and other companies; it is time to stop this. Other nations have nationalized their assets, and so should we. After all, OUR NATURAL RESOURCES AND WHATEVER PROFITS THEY MAY BRING BELONG TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, NOT TO SOME CORPORATIONS THAT RAPE OUR RESOURCES AND GIVE US BUT A PITTANCE, IF AT ALL, IN RETURN, AND HAVE NO LOYALTY TO US. We must never forget that the oil from Alaska or off the coast of California does not to come to America, it is sold by the oil companies to the highest bidder, American citizens be damned. THIS THEFT MUST BE STOPPED, and the sooner the better.

5. To save most of our people from bankruptcy, we must create national free medical care similar to that in Canada, Scandinavia, etc.; let the insurance companies be damned or nationalized as well as the banks. The banks, through this banks' friend -- the FED -- use our money to make money and for decades have been gambling with our money. It is time we took the money back and the government owns the banks, and makes sure the money is used for the citizenry, not for corporations who continue to rape our citizenry.

6. We must set term limits for our congress and senate so that they must work while they are there and then get out when their terms are up. There must also be a cutback on lobbying; no one should be allowed to be a lobbyist who has ever held a government office, either at the state or federal level. Only in this way can we help to control the over-riding dominance of our congress by lobbyists who are former congresspeople or senators.

I could suggest other things that could and should be done, but this is a good start. It is more than any of these loud mouths on TV and radio have offered, and this includes the repetitious people on CNN, CNBC, Fox, Moyers and friends, and on the once fabled "liberal" station, MSNBC.

Let us not forget about the BRICS nations. Because they have huge populations to take care of and protect, they must do something for their own financial safety. So, if I were them, and I'm sure they have people more brilliant than I am, I would be well on my way to either creating or backing another currency as the world's reserve currency. If, and when, America should lose its reserve currency status, there will be a lot of hand wringing and shouting and blaming in America and anger at the world, but the truth is known to many of us in the world -- it will be America's own fault, not the fault of others. 

There still may be time to correct the American economy and keep the American dollar as the world's reserve currency; but if we continue in the our present manner, then it is only a short time before America falls off whatever is left of its pedestal, and the dollar with it.

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Sam Hamod, Ph.D. is a graduate professor; he has taught courses in creative writing, politics, religion, mass media and intercultural relations. He has one of the very few PhDs awarded by The Writers Workshop of The Univ. of Iowa, has published 12 (more...)
 
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