I have been writing for many years about the constant attacks on our rights as Americans that were, at one time, guaranteed by this nation’s Constitution. When I first started to write political commentary, I was sure that people, once they knew the truth, would understand what I was writing. I thought that my back ground as a career military person, and my liberal posture, would combine to render make my writing somehow unique, and because of my liberal views and my military service, I would capture the trust of my readers.
To some extent I have. I have built up a substantial readership base on my blog and on the sites that I submit my work to. However, I have yet to reach an audience that wasn’t already predisposed to believe what I believe, that money and power and this multinational corporate complex, has become the bread and butter staple of the American political landscape. This situation has become so acute, that our fourth estate…our press, now called the media, has also been usurped by this same multi-national corporate complex. The sad thing is that it is just not in the United States that this ever-present entity has become the controlling interest in politics and the media, the same can be said of most industrial G-10 nations. They support, with their unlimited resources, the campaigns of politicians and the bottom line profits of the media. Americans, or for that matter, Canadians, British, French, German or any other so-called 1st World citizens that believe that they are living in a basically democratic country, is an illusion that it fostered and supported by the very same complex that denies us our rights to interfere with their agenda.
Some multi-national companies have become so bold, that no amount of pressure from the public, or reform by government scares them anymore. They operate in too many areas to be intimidated on a local, or even on a national level! This war in Iraq is but one example of how the corporate world has advanced their agenda through control of government. We blame President Bush almost exclusively for this war, and he should be taken into account for his leadership of it. The corporate backers however should also be held accountable for their influence in it. Big Oil, the Defense Industries, the huge government contracting companies are all working in tandem to insure that this war goes on in defiance of public opinion.
The major reason that this situation has become so insidious is that World War II never really ended. The actual fighting decreased, but many nations never actually went back to a “peacetime economy”. The United States and its NATO Allies, and the USSR and the Warsaw Pact Nations were still on a war footing thirty years later. People of these nations became inured to the secret government organizations and to the “skirting” of laws designed to protect individual citizen’s rights for the safety and protection of their nation. It became almost treasonable to not give government what it needed to protect security.
After the Cold War ended, the so-called “peace dividend” never came to fruition. The minute the nuclear stockpiles were starting to be dismantled, the United State started to become involved in the Middle East, where Russia, just a few years earlier, has suffered enormous losses. We had built a network of guerrilla movements (al Qaeda being one) and were involved in Middle Eastern politics much in the same way that we were involved in Vietnam when the French pulled out. Instead of learning from past mistakes, the United States saw a new way to exert it’s new found influence as the world’s only recognized superpower, and the multi-national corporations saw another way to make huge profits courtesy of the American taxpayer. Whether we were attacked by radical Muslims or not, we were already on the road to finding another enemy to keep this nation on a continuous war-footing. The same type of economy we have been on basically since 1938.
How do you confront this “military industrial-complex” that Eisenhower warned us about in his “Farewell Speech”? What kind of message can the people of the industrial nations give these corporate greed types that the only thing that is sacred to them is the “bottom-line”? The answer is alarmingly simple; disrupt their bottom line. The question before us is how do we do that?
The answers are not very difficult, once you realize whom it is that needs to be influenced. The hard part is getting enough people to understand what it is that they are losing by not getting involved. The people will not become involved unless they have a personal stake in the fight. The fact is, that every citizen, in every industrial nation on the face of this planet has a very large stake in whether we can reign in these uncontrollable parasites that are threatening to destroy civilization and democracy, as we know it. Here are just a few things that Americans need to understand. Medical Care could be provided to every American in this nation without a rise in taxes if we were to cut our military budget by 50%. With that same cut in military spending, we could give students free student loans and provide free community college. We could insure that Social Security would continue forever.
This nation already spends $466 Billion dollars a year in military spending. It’s next rival, China, spends $65 Billion. In fact the US spends over half of all the military money on the planet Earth. The world spends $950 Billion. We account for $500 Billion of that. That is NOT taking into account the $3.9 Billion a month we are spending additionally in Iraq. Think this isn’t affecting every man, woman and child in America? For the 301,139,947 people in the United States, this is…well you do the math. I did it four times. I came up with $1,826.39.(rounding it to $500 Billion) That is just the defense budget! If we cut the defense budget in half in the United States, by $250 Billion, we would cut that in half. $913.19. For a family of four, that is $7305.56 a year, not figuring the cost of the Iraq War. If we cut our defense budget by 50% we would save $3,652.78. Meanwhile, we are taxed to the maximum and we accept it. Why? If we were to cut our defense budget in half, we would still be spending $185 Billion more than China.
What this nation needs to understand is that we do have the power to influence not only the government, but also these corporate policy makers that believe that our tax money is for their personal lifestyle. We need to make these corporations understand that they are not untouchable. One sure way to get their attention is to simply participate in a nationwide strike on Tuesday, September 11, 2007. Just refuse to show up for work. Don’t use mass transit. Don’t use the supermarket, in other words, to make it exceedingly simple, refuse to go to work and don’t buy ANYTHING! Don’t go to a ballgame, especially don’t buy gas, do that the day before. This has worked well in other industrialized nations. This is also something that the media cannot refuse to cover.
If you want to do one thing to try to save your rights and your way of life, this is one way to do it. You will get a great benefit also, not only will you be helping the cause of freedom and justice, but you will be getting a day off from work! This is just the start. If we can pull this off, we can boycott selected companies that have been raping the American taxpayer. One way is to start boycotting brands of gasoline that are still receiving government subsidies and have leveraged us to invade Iraq! Exxon-Mobile would be a great place to start. Could you imagine the power of boycotting Exxon/Mobile would bring to their bottom line? It wouldn’t bankrupt them, but they would lose millions. They don’t like to lose money.
Somehow, someway, we have got to work together. Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever, we all can see that things are not right in America and in other countries. Governments don’t seem to care what their people think. The 21st Century, instead of bringing wonderful things and a growth of personal freedom, has wrought nothing but inflexible government policies, and a dramatic shrinkage of the working middle class. Unless people have become nothing but sheep, sooner or later, as history has shown us many times, dissatisfaction will turn to violence. I don’t believe anyone wants that. The way to effect policy is to affect the conspirators bottom line. It’s the only thing they understand.
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
Tim was banned from the site for posting private email from the publisher to him on his blog, and then attacking the publisher and the site in emails and articles. OEN has no responsibility to publish articles from people who attack the site.
Tim's accusations that he was banned for his political positions are untrue. Check his articles. He repetitively wrote about and had published exactly the things he claimed he was banned for doing.
Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.
Clearly, when they say "Take Back America" they are talking to us....all of us...The people I talk to agree conditions facing this nation and the world are more serious than ever before and that small separate efforts for news coverage of protests isn't going to work if we want results in countering this administration. It is time for the nation to unify behind a solid plan to strike and the boycott...
www.pledgetoimpeach.org combines both features. When sufficient millions sign up for the pledge we hope just the threat of a strike will tip the table for impeachment. If not, a call will be made to strike and those who can will take sick leave or vacation, or just stay home from work for three days, after that there will continue a boycott on all but necessities for as long as it takes to get our country back.
pledge to impeach
by
GeoRip (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 46 comments)
on Friday, August 10, 2007 at 8:17:03 PM
Although it is not calling specifically for a national strike, it has the seeds within it for that possibility, as well as for national purchasing boycotts, because it is not calling for a one-time event, but an escalating MONTHLY series of actions on the THIRD FRIDAY of every month. The first national kickoff will be FRIDAY, SEPT. 21 (this is also the UN International Peace Day, thus a lot of local peace events are scheduled for that day).
If this campaign catches on and grows each month, it has the potetial to spread into massive national actions by the time the Iraq war anniversary rolls around in March 2008.
The campaign is simply calling on people to
(1) wear black (or black armbands, or ribbons) on that day to make a visual statement of mourning and to help spread the word about the campaign,
(2) not buy gas on that day (seeds of larger boycott movement),
(3) declare a "moratorium on business as usual on that day" (seeds of student walkouts, work slow downs, national strike) by making a break with their usual activity and taking some individual or group action to demand an end to the war.
It is up to each local individual or group to decide what their moratorium action will be each month, and it can be as simple as calling or writing Congress, so it has an appeal to ordinary Americans who aren't regular antiwar activists but would like to take some simple monthly action to demonstrate their frustration with the war and US foreign policy.
The campaign has many prominent peace activist supporters, and it is being promoted by UFPJ with its huge mailing list.
by
my2cents (0 articles, 5 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 30 comments)
on Friday, August 10, 2007 at 8:31:44 PM
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