Tuesday, March 29, 2011

US-Israeli Goals

http://www.aipac.org/index.asp

The upcoming American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in May promises to be the largest, most opulent, well attended (over 60% of congress will attend) political conference in history. At this conference, where congressmen and women meet with the parties who are often their most prominent benefactors, more long-term domestic and foreign policy deals are cemented than on the hill itself.

The following quote from Ilan Pappe in 'Gaza in Crisis' demonstrates the sheer power of this lobbying force, and provides a secondary resource of scholarly opinion - "A thought-provoking article was published by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (stating that) based on extended research .. AIPAC .. directs American (foreign) policy in a way that undermines the US national interest"-'Not since the '60's could one have come across such a harsh criticism of either Zionism or US policy from within the heart of American academia or the media'. Pappe also refers to a Newsweek article dated as far back as 1963, in which it was written that ‘AIPAC (is) one of the most effective networks of foreign influence’. It is quite evident that another forty-seven years has entrenched AIPAC ever more deeply into the pockets of congress, wielding its corrosive influence in foreign and domestic policy.

Regarding the American Israeli Policy Conference – (http://www.aipac.org/pc) Pappe states that ‘each such (conference) expresses unconditional (US) support for Israel's policy toward the Palestinians and anyone opposing this policy is immediately considered by AIPAC to be its enemy.’

‘Gaza in Crisis’ provides phenomenal research and detailed sources of how AIPAC has developed over the years to be the most influential bi-partisan (although I consider this term moot due to my belief that our corporatocracy is only packaged as a democracy) lobbying group in the history of the nation. While many see clearly the validity of this claim, its well chronicled history is invaluable in terms of validating and supporting the indignation one reaches as a result of witnessing the continued generational genocide of the Palestinian people.

Now, as the 2011 AIPAC '(US) Policy Conference' approaches, Obamabush has clearly demonstrated the position of his administration through his veto of the internationally supported UN resolution to stall the Israeli settlement process (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/obamas-veto-on-israeli-se_b_838060.html) (for history on the settlement process, see Lords of the Land - Idith Zertal/Akiva Eldar). This action, which flies in the face of his supporters, defies the wishes of the international community, and goes against the grain of everything on which he campaigned, surely solidified (in his mind and perhaps in the minds of his corporate handlers) the support of the most powerful foreign lobbyists in the world.

It has been widely established that the financial contribution by AIPAC to congressional aides and presidential candidates (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Time-to-Look-at-AIPAC-Cont-by-Ralph-Lopez-100603-774.html and http://www.wrmea.com/html/aipac.htm and http://www.wrmea.com/html/aipac.htm) over the past sixty years is only paled by the vast amount of financial and military support from the US to Israel in the reciprocal process (http://www.wrmea.com/component/content/article/245-2008-november/3845-congress-watch-a-conservative-estimate-of-total-direct-us-aid-to-israel-almost-114-billion.html).

With the aforementioned unconditional US support of Israel embroiling the US in deeper and more severe conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, one wonders what the US/Israeli ‘end game’ might be for the parties in the MENA region. One can only speculate, making as much of an educated and informed assessment as possible based on circumstances as they are, the economic, political, and military maneuvers of the past that can be used to identify patterns, and the self-proclaimed projected goals of the parties involved.

It is my assertion here that the short-term goal for the US and Israel is for Israel to maintain ‘public’ disengagement, dedicating its forces to the continued oppression of the Palestinians, while establishing expansion through ‘facts on the ground’ via the settlement process; meanwhile, in the short term, the US can continue its engagement in the region through its established and new wars and conflicts, developing a more defined regional disposition from which to maneuver in what appears to be a preparation for the mid-term goal, which I believe is to establish absolute US/Israeli and Saudi dominance in the region through an intensified conflict or war with Iran, which will then position all parties to achieve the ultimate long-term goal is nothing less than absolute global dominance – hegemony – which will be established over time through the continued process of neoliberal privatization of the globe, resulting in three classes; the wealthy elite, consumer markets, and those who serve the markets.

In the short-term, it is apparent that Israel will continue the settlement process while continuing to intimidate and harass Lebanon (daily flights over Lebanese airspace, border crossings to provoke confrontation, etc.), proliferate settlement throughout the greater Golan Heights area and continue to militarily threaten Syria and Jordan, while allowing both countries to destabilize, as this will serve Israel well to the end of achieving Israeli resettlement on both sides of the Jordan, as they believe it is their prophecy to reclaim and inhabit the entire region.

The primary phase of the underlying mid-term goal of US/Israeli policy is to undermine Iran's influence in the Middle East. This accomplished, will give way to a secondary phase of this goal, which is to give Israel, by using brute military force against its neighbors, the unchallenged dominating presence in the Middle East. This position is supported by the posturing and positioning of US incumbents, candidates, and alumni from both sides (and even the middle) of the fictitious US political aisle.

These goals are supported by Israel’s own declarations (see the links below) regarding their issues, the policy goals they expect to be achieved by the US, and by what they overtly state that the US must do to earn the wealth that has been spread by corrupt Israeli financial influence throughout the US government. Review the US/Israeli agenda for the upcoming years. Follow policy as it develops and watch how clearly it mirrors the agenda set forth by Israel and followed by the US.

(http://www.aipac.org/Legislation_and_Policy/default.asp)
(http://www.aipac.org/The_Issues/index.asp)

The US and Israel have been for some time engaging in rhetoric concerning Iran’s desire to attain nuclear weapons with literal and metaphorical far reaching accusations; from Senator Joe Lieberman ‘highlighting the (nuclear) threat from Iran’ and US Ambassador and ‘Permanent Representative of the US’ to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Glyn Davies touting the ‘increasingly apparent military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program’ to the former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley threatening international economic sanctions against Zimbabwe for ‘suggesting’ that they might support Iran ‘in ways that violate UN Security Council Resolutions’. Meanwhile, Iran has opened its nuclear facilities to anyone at anytime for any type of inspection. One hears the sabers rattling in the same wind that blows in the cold chills of the hundreds of thousands of dead and dying Iraqi civilians that were murdered after the same saber rattled some years ago. If I were Iran, or any other country in the sites of the US and Israel, I would want to have nuclear weapons as well. Jonathan Schell points out in ‘The Seventh Decade’ that possessing ‘the bomb’ has apparently kept the US from invading anyone who has one for quite some time, while the very notion of an ‘enemy’ obtaining ‘the bomb’ has solidified the foreign policy of preemptive invasion .

These facts - the incredible influence of Israel in the US transnational neoliberal corporate global structure - parallel to the mid-term goal of undermining the regional influence of Iran, identify two things to any clear-minded objective observer:

1) The purpose of US actions in Libya (especially if you consider the tenuous position of US/Israel relations with the yet-to-be-established leadership in Egypt) and in other areas throughout the region serve to solidify the US position in the region to assist with the final thrust of power towards Iran; without going into too much detail, consider these points:

a. In Bahrain the US has scolded publically, while officially allowing US jets, tanks, and troops to ‘intervene’ under the Saudi Arabian flag. Remember that the Fifth Naval Fleet is already sitting in the Persian Gulf, so that small area can be kept fairly quiet while maintaining the capability to strike Iran at a moment’s notice from the gulf. The assertion that the US Fifth Naval Fleet is doing nothing while the world burns around them is nothing less than ludicrous.

b. It is verified that permanent US military bases have been established in Iraq.

c. The crumbling of Pakistan’s resistance in the Raymond Davis fiasco, its inability to effectively stop the US from murdering its citizens with drone attacks, and the fact that there is a military base located in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, adjacent to the Pakistan border, fairly well establishes that there is significant long-term US military strength represented to the south of Iran.

d. Afghanistan has recently been subject to a steady build-up of US troops and bases.

e. The US has almost completed the transfer of a 60bn arms package, the largest in history, with Saudi Arabia. In July the US will begin training Saudi Arabian pilots in US fighter jets at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.

f. The US is only intervening in areas that are strategic for military and/or (neoliberal) economic purposes (i.e., Egypt, which represents a vast market economy; hence, the US backed dictatorship, which could now translate to a neoliberal consumer ‘democracy’ unless the people hold their ground and are able to overcome the corrupt influence that has already worked its way into the revolutionary circle).

2) A US/Israeli armed conflict or war with (invasion of) Iran is imminent and it will need to be justified by some overt act of aggression.

a. While the US population is evidently unable to call its government to account, it is highly unlikely that the same population will consider that the logical cause of the impending conflict will be the immense aggression, the absolute terrorism, the generational genocide, the decimation of the population, the destruction of the infrastructure, that the US and Israel have exerted in the region over the last sixty years.

b. It is not unlikely that the US and Israel, now completing the achievement of surrounding Iran with troops, bases, naval fleets, and aircraft carriers, will engage in ‘military exercises’ in an attempt to draw Iran into a conflict; indeed, that is most likely what is happening behind the scenes in at least one or two of the regional conflicts.

i. If Iran does not react, which it most likely will not (having demonstrated recently by stepping far beyond necessary diplomatic measures that it chooses to remain disengaged from regional crisis), it would not be unlikely that there have already been contingent plans drawn for false flag operations such as the ones that took place in the Gulf of Tonkin and those that were drafted, albeit never carried out, in the Northwoods CIA plans. I know that false flag operations are considered fringe, and I avoid the fringe whenever possible, so please exercise due diligence and research the declassified documents that support both of these references.

Conclusion:

Consider the economic destabilization of the public in the US and the UK over the last few years; the collapse and subsequent bailout of the financial markets, the unwillingness of the corporate market to reinvest in the economy, and now the destructive legislation that is being passed throughout the nation with the underlying ‘emergency’ and ‘crisis’ legislation that will grant state and municipal power to corporations. This process is accomplishing several things:

1) It is disempowering what semblance of democratic powers were left; the state and municipal authorities.

2) It is destroying the social infrastructure on which the poor and rapidly diminishing middle class would rely upon in the case of catastrophic economic collapse.

3) It is stripping the last vestige of powers in the form of unions that were earned through literal blood and sweat over more than one hundred years.

4) It is establishing the framework to remove the thin veil of what people believed was a democracy that has mutated over time into a plutocracy and now is in the final stages of becoming an absolute neoliberal corporatocracy. The finalization of this process, which will occur through the declaration of ‘emergency’ and ‘crisis’, be it economic or military, will complete the privatization of everything - including public education, social programs (which will be all but nonexistent as there is no profit in them), military, and government.

While this process is in place – with the vast majority of the people in the US and the UK embroiled in the fight to hold onto what rights they thought they had, grasping at apparitions of ‘democracy’, attempting to reconcile in their minds the truth of their new reality with the ideology on which they have staked their entire sociopolitical belief system – a ‘final war’ is being arranged; a war that will theoretically ‘end all wars. This war will finalize Zionism, with Israel realizing its prophetic return to its homeland http://www.aipac.org/25937.asp s being devised through the partnership of the global wealthy elite, and will be exercised through the corporate powers that they are putting in place as we speak.
At the end of the ‘war’, there will be a three tiered structure:

1) Wealthy Elite

2) Consumer (slave) markets – and this is where Neoliberalism fails – it establishes the elite, expecting the wealth to trickle down, while it destroys the infrastructure. When the wealth does not trickle down, the middle consumer market collapses and there is no social infrastructure to support it.

3) Economically oppressed servants of the consumer slave markets

The struggle in this plan is ours. The wealthy elite, the corporate oppressors, the bought and packaged politicians, the military industrial complex, the future municipal managers, are able already to slaughter millions across the globe without so much as a second thought. As the young men and women of our country, the vast majority of them from the ever diminishing middle class and the lower economically oppressed urban environments, are lured into war, they are forced to abandon their conscience and commit atrocious acts on behalf of this plan. If and when they return to their moral conscience, they are never the same. You and I are actors on the stage of the consumer slaves, sold into the daily onslaught of financial struggle while hoping to achieve the American dream; all the while, our government is acting in our name and exemplifying to the world that we are a country without a conscience. As we move toward the further destabilization of our economy, while the social infrastructure on which we have relied – which we have taken for granted – deteriorates under the systematic dismantling process that is in place, we move closer to playing out our final role in this plan. You see, this plan is going to take years, generations, to unfold. And as it does, we live and die in the struggle. It is our children and our grandchildren who will be called to die for the fight we did not fight. When the ultimate corporatocracy takes over, we will all be its subjects; and if we are not willing, we will be the insurgents, the terrorists. We will be the hunted, by drones, by the ‘most powerful killing machine in history’ (Dan Rather); and when I say we, I only hope that there is time that it might be us who fight the fight, that there might be time to fight the system from within the system; that we might return to our own morality, to our own conscience, and that we might understand that it is our responsibility to hold our government accountable, that it is our responsibility to stop the murder that takes place in our name, that it is the hope of a decent life for our future generations that rests upon the generations of those whom we do not stand for today.

Ain't That America

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/the-kill-team-photos-20110327/0854086

I disagree with the premise that this 'brigade', let alone this one soldier, is 'a bad egg'. This representation of this circumstance is a prime example of a nation in denial. The people of this country cannot accept the fact that this is very common, that a 'drop weapon' is almost a requirement to conceal and legitimize civilian murder, and that the slogan of 'abandon all hope' is something that is slammed into the brains of our young men and women the moment they enlist.

We cannot have soldiers who are expected to murder indiscriminately impeded by conscience. We must deny these truths and hang on ever precariously to the shredded fallacy that we are 'humanitarians' who are 'spreading democracy' by 'winning the hearts and minds' of the peoples of our victim nations, as we send soldiers into civilian homes with concussion grenades, searching for 'insurgents'.

If a foreign country invaded your city, murdered your children, raped your women, would you be an 'insurgent'; perhaps so. As much as I am a proponent of peace, I know I would. If I saw the body of my beautiful 10-year-old son shot, dragged through the dirt, dismembered, mutilated, I would be an insurgent. I would be vengeful. I would do anything I could to fight against anyone remotely associated with his murderer. The very love that existed in the depth of my soul would fester, rankle, and rot to the point where I would not be able to see past my own destiny to destroy the very spirit that could create such an invertebrate treacherous creature.

In our country we would call insurgents patriots. But to the countries we invade, to the people from whom we strip every moral dignity, every civil right, the patriots are terrorists. We allocate ourselves the right to take their lives, to decimate their population, to destroy their infrastructure, to obliterate their culture. We use weapons of mass destruction. We murder babies. We rape their women. We place them in concentration camps. We starve them. We spray their villages with chemicals and deny medical care to their deformed infants.

And here, in our country, we spread the disease of our lie from one to the next generation, as we pass our murderous arrogance to our children. We salute and pledge allegiance in absolute idolatry to not only the flag, but to the politicians we 'elect' who support our murderous campaigns. We bow down each day to our imperialist masters as we prepare to enter the consumer trough.

It isn't even about conquest anymore, it's simply about death; about continual war; about profiteering; about the money - and this, my dear American friends, we call 'freedom'.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Nicholas Sterner (90)

Nicholas Sterner (90)

I attempt to stay away from the fringe, as most often events that are considered fringe require more attention to and gain more legitimacy from a focus given to the (mis)management of the actual (widely acknowledged) event. I had posted or written something relating to this topic last week, was met with skepticism from several people, so wanted to validate the source. Here is one of many. It was also announced on AirForceTimes.co Dec. 10, 2010.


FB Response

Sure! Let's bring some more Saudi's into our country AND teach them how to fly war planes. After all, look what happened when they learned how to fly commerical jets here~ It changed our country and the world forever.

My Reply

If the purpose of the US in the MENA region was hopeful, helpful, humanitarian, I would say let's train, support, do anything we can to assert ourselves in the region in an effort for all humanitarian purpose - but our goal there is anything but humanitarian - it is hegemonic. Saudi Arabia represents the largest disparity between the (minority) ruling elite and its citizenry - the people are ruled by one of the most oppressive regimes in the region, a regime that, along with Israel, maintains 'stability' in the region with an iron (US) fist.

If you consider that the (alleged) 9/11 boxcutter carrying 'terrorists' came from a family within the ruling Saudi elite, that members of that family were ushered out in the only flights that took place in the three days after 9/11, then you must wonder why the US government would embark on such a plan as training Saudi pilots in America.

I'm not going to go down the path of trying to explain 9/11; there have been plenty of people who have done that. I'll simply get in line with Noam Chomsky and say (paraphrase, of course) 'Fine, let's accept the given story line on 9/11 and focus on how it was managed.' A crime of global proportions and no investigation. A crime of global proportions in which the 'investigators' fly out the most probable witnesses within 72 hours of the crime, not questioning or interrogating, etc. A crime of global proportions to which we responded by murdering (by now) hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, thus creating (perhaps rightfully, but most certainly understandably) more terrorists than there ever were.

Regardless of who committed the crime of 9/11, the US government has proven in innumerable ways that it can commit more acts of terror than any individual or any government anywhere (or everywhere) and at any time in history. I think what I find most appalling about the plan to train these pilots in Idaho is that it is the acknowledgement of our government that the story line on 9/11 is a lie; if it weren't, there is no chance we would even consider this plan. No, this is simply a horrific slap in the face of the (willingly ignorant) American public that we are going to maintain the awful oppressive alliance and that what we are doing is solidifying our presence in the region; we are saying that whatever is necessary, the people of Saudi Arabia and those of the surrounding countries will be crushed if necessary by the US and its emissaries, Saudi Arabia and Israel. What we are saying is that the reign of US terror will continue.

Consumer Slaves

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/0324_deficit_baily_schultze.aspx

This article indicates that US budget woes will increase due to 'aging baby boomers' and 'rising health care costs', which will 'take a toll on private investment and 'economic growth’’. There is a very vague and brief mention of 'security', which exemplifies the severe state of denial in which we find our government and our society when it comes to actually facing proven ‘national security’ issues such as continual war, war profiteering, and the inherent strain these issues cause on our fiscal disposition.

The article attempts, but fails, to dodge the fact that there is an underlying theme in congress that supports a mid to long-term plan to decrease government spending through the privatization of the institutional social infrastructure. This privatization will take place by systematically increasing corporate tax benefits to 'encourage greater investment', while stripping states and municipalities of their taxation and administrative authority, opening the door for corporate administration of these programs.

The actual forefront of this state-based attack is the federal attack on Social Security with the underpinning foundation of the attack focusing on a plan that will privatize Social Security. If you listen to the rhetoric coming out of Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states, you’ll hear very similar themes regarding education. What we see here is an attack on segments of the population whose treatment defines the fundamental social values of a compassionate society; the aging and the young. And as the aging face yet another year with no allocation of the Social Security cost of living adjustment, which clearly characterizes the attack on the aging, we see educational cuts across the board, which clearly characterizes the attack on the young.

While there is a severe strain upon Medicare, which causes a significant strain upon Social Security, although the strain is absorbed by Medicare and Social Security recipients, the strain is caused by the privatized function of our healthcare system as pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare related corporations drive for higher profits. This strain is purposeful and is designed to manipulate the consensus amongst the public that Social Security must be privatized and healthcare must not be socialized. More proof of this theme is available by reading the subliminal attack in the referenced article on current healthcare legislation.

And while there is a strain on state budgets, it is the direct result of the states providing corporate tax benefits and exemptions; interestingly, as though to add insult to injury or to fly the blatant banner of this plan in the faces of the population it intends to destabilize, in many cases the corporate benefits and exemptions mirror almost dollar for dollar the amount of cuts related to educational and social cuts.

The first phase of the federal and state agendas is the multi-pronged attack, an initial frontal assault, in the ultimate war that is being waged by the wealthy elite, represented through its corporate politicians, upon the ever deteriorating middle class and the poor. The goal of this initial assault is to strip the power of the institutions that have been developed over the past century, at the cost of nothing less than human lives, for the purpose of representing and defending the public. Without the middle ground of trade unions, for example, there is only the government against its public. Simultaneously, the cost of developing the infrastructure has been paid for by the taxpayers, it has been socialized, while any profits realized, will be privatized.

When the US bailed out the financial market in 2008, putting the strain on the backs of its tax-paying population, it did so under the same premise as this 'commission' of 'public servants' - that corporate America will then reinvest in the economy; this hasn't happened, and now corporate America and its politicians that are anything but public servants are planning ways to secure the oppressive economic stranglehold on America through the reduction and subsequent privatization of the social infrastructure.

The result will be the same as it has been in the countries which have been subject to the neoliberal experiment; there will be no significant development of the social infrastructure because there is no profit in it. This will cause the gap between the wealthy elite and the ever increasingly vast population of the poor to grow at a significantly expansive rate. There will be no sacrifice from our 'servants' and the burden of their elitism will fall squarely upon our shoulders. Those who cannot bear the burden will collapse and the necessary revolution will be left to the people who have come together to create a TRUE culture of change, a TRUE commission for fiscal AND national responsibility.

The referenced article concludes in its patronizing manner that ''we' know the (aforementioned) measures to deal with the long-run deficit are politically difficult' and that the Republicans and Democrats on the commission who voted for the bipartisan proposal faced those difficulties and hopefully 'congress and the president will do the same'.

It is time for the people of the United States to understand that we do not have a representative government. We have a corporatocracy that is feeding on us, bankrupting our economy, raping our social infrastructure to feed its voracious appetite for profit, involving us in the process of continual war, and sinking us further into a position of global alienation.

The US government is so thoroughly saturated with corruption, so completely corroded with greed and avarice, so wholly staffed by corporate politicians and lobbyists, that we have long since bypassed the point at which there is a solution within the system without significant restructuring of the system itself.

Until we are able as a nation to realign the motive of our government, which at this point is only to create and sustain profitable markets, we will continue down the path of economic destruction and the inherent offsetting destructive reaction of all imperialistic, hegemonic conquest, which is war. For on this path, in the creation of these markets, there is nothing other than the continued export of our labor, destruction of our social infrastructure, divestment of our middle class, and the ultimate enslavement of the two camps of humanity, the market itself and the enslaved population that supports it.

We will continue to crush democracy while saying we support it, we will continue to commit generational genocide while the starving and poor of the world cry out for true humanitarianism, and we will continue to grow the institutional machinery that operates on economic oppression, racism, sexism, and slavery. All the while, America, we will continue to be divided, with our public 'servants' telling us how they are acting in our interests, we will believe in our 'democracy', we will exercise our 'choice', and we will continue to live the American lie of consumerism.

There is not hope within the labels and filters through which our consent is managed. There is not truth within a governmental system that we readily acknowledge is bereft of truth. The hope and promise that was America has been used for an ill purpose, it has taken the vast wealth of influence and might and has created a society that is proud of its 'killing capabilities', a society that claims it cannot take on the burden of humanitarianism while it burdens the world with its blood lusting quest for hegemony.

Until we stand for one child, we stand for none; until we grasp our social conscience and adjust our moral compass, we will head down the path of the most wealthy hopeful promising nation ever to have existed that went the way of all empires, down the destructive path of prideful arrogant imperialism, caught in the crossfire of our own polarized political battles, a society of subjects rather than a society of leaders who demand that their public servants serve.

We have been lied to. We have been told that our ‘freedom’ must come at the cost of the lives of millions of citizens from throughout the world; Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Central and South America, Europe, Asia … And while we have believed and lived these lies, we have enjoyed the comfort and luxury of complacent apathy, which lands us square in the center of a concept called complicity. Now, as our government distracts us with its murderous tendencies, it strips us of the veil of comfort and states clearly, “Yes, we protected you with the murder of millions. We have lied to you and you knew it all along. We have represented you throughout the world and allowed you to keep your eyes closed to the suffering of the world. We have given you distraction, we have given you wealth, we have given you consumerism – and you have consumed! Now you must pay the price. Now you must recognize us for what we have always been. Now you must bow down to the corporate power that is beyond humanity; that has no mortal, finite, characteristics. We have a theatre of war for you to appease your anxiety and your apprehension as you wallow at the consumer trough. And you will give us your rights because we’ve come now to the point where we own you. We have taken your votes and cast them aside so that we can serve our corporate masters. We will create crisis and emergency so that you will have no choice but to acquiesce to our power. Your days have ended and the slavery to which you’ve surrendered, the slavery of consumerism, represents the cell, indeed, the very shackles, to which you will now forever be confined.


We are indeed passing through a needle-eyed tunnel in history that represents a moment in time, albeit perhaps years, wherein we have the possibility of righting ourselves, of disengaging our powerful war machines, paying reparations to the countries that we have decimated, shedding a tear for the humanity we’ve wasted, and using every resource we have to bring ourselves into a position of right rather than wrong, of good rather than evil, of hope rather than despair. We cannot undo what we have done, but we can land upon the vast horizon of history as the only nation that was ever able to pull itself upward by its recognition of its faults and make itself right with the world. To achieve this, however, we must be willing to call our government to account. We must be willing to stand beyond our divisions, and we must be willing to pay a price that is equal to that of the countries which we have abused.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Exporting 'Democracy'

When the US has a true democracy, it might try to export it; until then, that's not an issue. And the very notion that the US would do anything for humanitarian concern is simply a thought produced by giving in to the process of managed consent that the corporations use to package the politicians we vote for.

If the US operated within the scope of humanitarianism, it would use its vast power to ensure that food and medicine reach the starving poor of the world. It would then use its enormous international influence to develop a coalition of humanitarian service providers that would have military protection as it serves the international community. If the US had humanitarianism as a purpose, it would not arm the world and then capitalize on its instability.

If the US supported democracy, it would not intervene in countries where true democracy has worked its way from the people upwards and has resulted in a democratically elected government that does not support US intervention in its domestic affairs. If the US supported democracy, it would not economically and militarily support dictatorships. If the US supported democracy, it would not allow the export of its labor, it would not attempt to crush its unions, it would not steal taxpayer dollars from state and federal budgets to fund the wealthy elite who are exporting our jobs to an enslaved third world.

Third World: a term that should be re-introduced, along with the projects that were once in place to empower the countries it defined.

What America has, and what it does export, is Corporatocracy. The very term, along with its inherent neoliberal economic standards, defines its goal, which is profit, and its purpose, which is to create markets. What human beings become in the process is consumer and labor commodities. In both cases, they become slave populations – one that is the market and the other that serves the markets.

If you consider the areas in the world that have achieved successful democracy while shunning the IMF and successfully staving off US invasions, military coups, and 'free trade' policies, you will find that they are areas that have returned to serving and empowering the indigenous population while developing their own infrastructure - both which work towards maintaining independence from the colonialist, imperialist, hegemonic powers of the last few centuries.

The US has done so much damage throughout the world that it is trying desperately to capture what it can for strategic purposes. These strategic purposes can be defined for the most part as military and/or economic. These purposes are achieved through nothing less than terrorism.

The countries that are rising up throughout the MENA region, if they are able to see beyond the dictatorships they oppose - if they can resist the temptation to give in to the ‘support’ of the US or other hegemonic powers, Britain, France, etc., will ultimately stand against the corrosive corruption of US influence. They will recognize that the terror waged throughout the world has been accomplished directly by the US or with incredibly widespread support of the US. They will recognize terror in all its forms, institutional, educational, militaristic, and economic, just to name a few. They will recognize that these forms of terror have been the tools that have been used forever to manage the masses and that they have always been delivered by ‘empires’ through religious, political, economic, and military devices disguised as humanitarianism.

Only by embracing such realizations will they be able to resist ‘superpower’ influence and begin to demand that the US leave them to manage their own world. And only through this door can they enter the realm of possibly achieving true independence. Only then will they be in a position to develop a true democracy. Only then will they be in a position to provide the social structure that comes along with a true democracy.

True democracy will always support the development of the social infrastructure, because it is by the very nature of true democracy that the majority of the people, not the top one percent of wealthy elite, are cared for. There is a social underpinning to true democracy. That is why a true democracy cannot be supported in a totally capitalistic society; the motive of profit cannot be allowed to trump humanitarianism. When it does, when the scales begin to tip the way of the wealth rather than the way of the people, true democracy has been replaced by something else. The greed and avarice of the wealthy elite have unduly influenced the scales and the people have been adequately divided so that their unified voice does not stand.

The US has two goals, profit and strategy. As we move toward the domestic privatization of everything from education to common services such as public utilities, transit systems, etc., we should recognize that the transnational corporate structure has been in place for decades. This structure has been the true thrust behind ‘free trade’ agreements that have created slave labor in other countries while bankrupting poor communities here. And this structure, this transnational neoliberal conglomerate is defended by the most powerful international military complex that has ever existed. While we stand divided by our ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, ‘democrat’, ‘republican’ system, we allow the strength of our unity to be drained. What the US does with weapons throughout the world, arming everyone and capitalizing on the instability, they do domestically with race, politics, religion, economics, and ultimately – fear.

Until we stand united, rather than divided – until we recognize that our democracy is not real – until we recognize that the scales have been unduly tipped by the corruption of corporate influence – until we cast off our labels, our filters, the mechanisms by which our consent is managed – we will be managed by these labels, and between the enmity that is created through the labels and the pride through which our filtered vision is guided, we will be led to the trough of enslaved consumerism and/or enslaved servitude.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Rise

One could easily draw the assumption that the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia have been preparing for the instability in the MENA region for some time. In recent months, the US has completed the sale of $60bn in arms sales to SA and has approved another $20bn to Israel (in addition to the $10bn per year already granted).

If anyone thinks that the US Fifth Naval Fleet in Bahrain - with Iran directly across the Gulf, Yemen to the south, Iraq to the North - is going to sit idle with Saudi using US weaponry to crush the rebellion, they are wrong. The US has boots on the ground in every country mentioned, not to include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and so many others.

The end game is coming. Israel is preparing another major offensive in Gaza, while having deployed troops elsewhere in the region. The US is poised to strike, having ensured that the region is rife with weaponry, thus solidifying regional instability, while Britain and France now prepare to re-engage. We are watching the door open to widespread genocide against the people of the MENA region, all done beneath the premise of humanitarianism and democracy.

Prepare, America, for the declaration of a state of emergency, for new actions that will deliver a fresh dose of fear, and for the expectation that the US public will remain as they have been for so many decades - complacent, apathetic, and complicit.

If American citizens want to truly stand for humanitarianism, then it must be done from grass roots efforts, with feet on the street, from a position of active protest. This cannot be done from the stadium seats that have been filled with the complicit citizens of every imperialist, colonialist, hegemonic society in history. We must empty the stands, take the field, and stand for the brotherhood of humanity that is being taken over in the final throes of inhumanity, given over to the wealthy elite neoliberal neoconservatives.

Do not believe in the democrat/republican lie - if ever there was proof that American democracy is a sham, it is in the form of Barak Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan. Do not sell out humanity, believing you have exercised your 'choice' because you have 'voted'. The next politician, packaged to present just the bells, whistles, ribbons, and bows that you think will appease your appetite for true change, will divide us just as they all have and will cause us to fight amongst ourselves while they continue to murder in our name.

Listen to Ali Rizvi - hear his resounding cry for the mothers of murdered children, of the children of raped mothers and murdered fathers, for the brothers of lost brothers, for the whole of humanity that is being butchered in the name of humanitarianism, for the dictators that are being supported in the name of democracy, for the plutocracy and corporatocracy that is enslaving humanity.

If we are to become anything other than cattle to slaughter, either literally through the savage butchery occuring throughout the MENA region right now, by the generational genocide that has taken place for decades in Central America, South America, and Asia, or by the consumerism that turns the mass world audience of spectators into nothing less than complicit killers, then we must act.

Please donate accordingly, but do not fall victim to the belief that money will fix these problems. Money, for the most part, with its inherent greed and avarice, is the problem. The spiritually deficient motive of profit over the spiritually compassionate empathetic motive of brotherhood is the problem that must be addressed. The voices must rise. The throngs of humanity must be seen. The earth must shake with the steps of the millions. Share this, move forward, rise up. Tahrir.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Who I Am

If I were a lonely boy
would you take me by the hand
Walk a mile with me
until I’m a man
Would you leave me standing all alone
on the road
with a sign in my hand
‘til you decide – who I am

I was just standing in the street
thought everything was planned
Didn’t have a thing to do
imagine me misunderstanding you
In a dream, it’s true
you know it’s time to go
Stick around if you can
‘til you decide who I am

Who I am it falls apart from me
Identity mistaken on a
distant shore of destiny
in a tidal wave of such heartbreaking
lies, disguised in time, as disenchantment
I’ve been a fool for lesser things

What it was and what it is
ain't ever what we think it ought to be
There’s a blinding light
behind our lies and our hypocrisy
It’s true
It only goes to show
that you cannot make a stand
‘til you decide – who I am

Who I am
I’m walking through the alley
just so I can reach the street
Who I am
I’m walking through the valley
just so I can reach the peak
Who I am
I’m walking with the rich
just so I can see how the poor live
Who I am
I’m walking with the poor
just so I can see how the rich don’t
give a damn

Who I am it falls apart from me
Identity mistaken on a
distant shore of destiny
in a tidal wave of such heartbreaking
lies, disguised in time, as disenchantment
I’ve been a fool for lesser things

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Shame On Me

Shame on me.

Indeed, shame on me.

Yet never, ever, cast shame, indeed, not even the light of day, upon the powers that lead the young men and women of our country to their death in a futile effort to quench the craven thirst of our hegemonic government. Never truly adjust the moral compass of the country or move into the direct line of fire of the corporations that deliver politicians who lie, who prey upon our desire for ‘change’ and ‘hope’ and then shove us to the side as too ignorant to participate in our own domestic, let alone foreign, policy. Indeed, they may be right to claim our ignorance; we are kept so easily divided, turning on one another so quickly.

In this discourse I have been insulted, called names, called stupid, associated with ‘Teabaggers’, and have now had shame cast down on me from above. Perhaps the coffin can be nailed shut with nails that carry ‘liberal’ labels or I can be served up for a Thursday breakfast and/or liberal lunch. We are indeed a shameful lot, engaging in debate over who is better than whom – who is right and wrong – which murdering president is better than the other. And so I willingly concede to your claim that I am stupid, that I am shameful, that I have nothing to offer other than the flip side of whichever coin you wish to toss.

Call this emoting or ranting or reflexive – call it what you will to dismiss the conviction that might call us to demand true change – but I will not dismiss myself and will, therefore, join you in casting ‘shame on me’. I am ill with the arrogance and ambivalence and apathy and complacency of our society, as we pretend to know so much while actually knowing so little, as we follow our ‘leaders’ and judge others before judging ourselves, as we literally and microcosmically exercise our ‘compassion’ by handing a drunk a dollar for ‘food’, as we bow to a government that sees us as ignorant, as we turn away from even a bare reflection of a distant thought – one that has never been brought to action – that our ‘public servants’ are called to serve; they are not to be idolized. Indeed, they are to be held to a higher standard and should never be allowed to live ‘above’ us. But most importantly, I feel for a nation that so long ago lost its moral compass and which is now complicit in crimes against humanity throughout the world; a society that has achieved such a disposition of arrogant consumerism that they cast shame on one another while turning blind eyes to the shame that must be cast upon generations of government that have led generations of this same society to a trough of consumerism that causes us to so easily dismiss the cries of a dying child.

I tell you that until there is not a bomb launched for any reason other than absolute self defense, until we hold our government to account for nothing less than transparency and honesty, we are complicit in our government’s murderous actions and we are all wrong. Until we have a government that is stripped of the corruption of corporate influence and cured of the decay and deterioration of morality as a result of that influence, we do not have a democracy.

Until we recognize ourselves in the reflection we see in the eyes of a mother whose child is dying, we will not understand the begging, pleading, cries of humanity that call us to bring our government to account. Whether that mother is watching her child die in Gaza or Sudan or Darfur or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or Bahrain or Nicaragua or Panama or Serbia or Grenada – whether that child’s death is the result of a bomb or a bullet directly delivered by us or purchased from us or given as a gift by us; whether that child is dying of starvation as a result of economic sanctions that we have imposed; whether that child is dying due to the lack of medical care that is a result of either our bombs or our sanctions; whether that child is dying of disease that has been delivered through the chemical weapons that we claim not to use, by this president or the one last week – whether that child is dying of institutional racism that operates through economic oppression – that child is still dying and the mother sees the hand at the other end of the literal or metaphorical or proverbial gun as ours and she is right.

On a momentary basis, throughout the world, we deliver our ambivalent arrogance to the mothers and fathers of the civilians killed on our behalf in overt and covert US military operations across the globe. Yes, even Libya, a ‘conflict’ in which we were not even going to be directly engaged (we were ‘committed to diplomatic support’, in the words of Obama). Ask the mothers and fathers of the hundreds of thousands of dead children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine how well our ambivalence plays out as they bury their (our) dead.

We demand nothing of our government, certainly not what was promised us by Obama – honesty, transparency, accountability. Again, it is not only the military ‘conflicts’ or actual ‘wars’, but the economic oppression delivered through bi-lateral or international sanctions that we impress upon the civilian population of other countries, saying that it is to inflict ‘pain’ so that they will disempower their own government; meanwhile the dictators that manage the mass murder in those countries (on our behalf) live in opulence. Economic sanctions deteriorate the social infrastructure that serves the people that we claim to have a desire to save; those to whom we claim to want to give ‘democracy’, those to whom we wish to serve with our ‘humanitarianism’. Often we arm both (or all) sides of a conflict, apply economic sanctions to various portions of one, the other, or all, and then capitalize on the destabilized environment we’ve created. Consider the people of Gaza or any of the Palestinians who were victimized this morning or yesterday evening or last week by the swift wave of Obama’s hand when he vetoed the UN resolution to discontinue Israeli settlements in the West Bank with one hand, while with the other he handed Israel one of the largest payloads of military support in history.

Actually listen to the voices coming from the Arab League as they recognize the horrific error they made by signing on to the US dictated resolution that caused us to begin the murder of civilians in Libya; they clearly state that they ‘made a grave error’, that they did not realize that they were ‘condoning the multilateral murder of civilians by foreign forces’.

Read Obama’s Cairo speech as he pandered to Muslims throughout the world. The contrast between commitments made in that speech and his actions against Muslims domestically and internationally speaks well to the fact that he either sold out to the influence of corporate neoconservatives or that he was directed by them all along and has been the puppet for what could marginalize and disenfranchise one of the widest segments of the voting population in history.

Obama’s inaction is only overshadowed by his action; and it is a tightrope to determine which will have the most long-term damage. Examples worth consideration: abandonment of unions, which portrays an open hand to the corporate wealth that drives that cause, or overt commitment to the military industrial complex; perhaps the broad scope of his abandonment of children; domestically, by not saying so much as a word as public education is stripped bare across the country due to the 'economic crisis' that has left trillions of dollars in the hands of the wealthy elite; globally, by allowing the continued murder of Palestinians, Afghans, and Pakistanis.

It is our ambivalence that creates the segue through which our consent is managed; as we vacillate from the couch, our government (yes, even Obama, the greatest liar in many years, [at least since Clinton]), with the flick of a pen, signs away the life of our young men and women and willingly sends them to murder innocent men, women, and children across the globe. When they return, perhaps they return also to their social conscience, and we have now the highest suicide rate and mental illness amongst returning veterans in history.

We are at times willing to call our government to account from a historical perspective, when the past becomes distant enough to remove our personal accountability, our complicity. But today, we are not even willing to call it for what it is. On a day-to-day basis – however – in the present , we are only willing to say ‘at least we’re not as bad as such-and-such-a-country’, or at least ‘Obama isn’t as bad as so-and-so’. I will retract all statements about Bush or any other president who is no longer in office; they all have blood on their hands and their hands are ours. What we allow to divide us empowers our government to act in our name to commit generational genocide.

Indeed, shame on me.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Inspiration of Youth

The Inspiration of Youth

I was told once when I was young, by someone I cared about, that 'nobody gives a damn', I was told later in life by someone I love that 'nobody cares', and I was told again when I watched a friend die that 'nobody cared enough'. If I live the rest of my life and gain nothing more than having proven to no one other than myself that these things simply are not true, then I will have lived for a worthy cause.

Today we took the kids from the youth running club to a 5/10k race. The morning was embracingly warm, with no more than a very gentle breeze from the northwest and the race started late enough to allow the sun to rise to just ... over ... ...there - you know, where it feels like it's just right. The kids were apprehensive and excited when we met at the school, running here and there, playing and jumping, and doing their best to be the children that they are.

When we got them to the race, they had two thousand questions each, where are we going to run, how far is it again, where do we turn around, is it o.k. to walk, are you going with us ... they made me smile and it almost made me cry to see their eyes looking for answers, knowing that as long as we were there with them, they'd be o.k.

This is the group we run with three times per week; they're between 8-11 years old. I don't focus on turning them into little elitist runners with a goal of beating someone; we focus on keeping the cardio engaged - and with children this age, that's easy. We run a block or two at a time, letting the slower kids lead and teaching the faster kids about pace, and teaching them all about teamwork. We do short distance relays and 'daisy chain' drills and obstacle courses; and by the time we're finished, it's easily as good a workout as an intense three or four mile run.

Today was another day of proving to them how successful they can be. One young lady told me 'See, Mr. Nick, you didn't think I could do it!'. I found it interesting, because she is a natural runner, and all I ever say is 'can', and I try my best to be consistently encouraging; but it made me think that perhaps this young lady in particular comes from a home where many challenges are in front of her and she wonders in her heart and mind whether she can accomplish goals or overcome the challenges, and perhaps there is something there that says 'no' - and perhaps she gives up before she ever tries. It made me think of all the times I try to get her to participate in the longer runs and she does all she can to avoid it; she's afraid she'll fail.

But today, the first time she showed up for an 'event', was the first time that she put herself to the test of running longer distances. At the beginning she had more questions than all the rest; questions asked quietly and up close, as though she might be afraid of what the other children might think. Her eyes were wide as she looked far off into the distance, all the while searching silently inward.

The race started. She ran. And she ran and she ran and she ran. She didn't stop. She didn't even get tired. When she finished the 5k, she asked if she could run some more. And she did.

"See, Mr. Nick, you didn't think I could do it!" she said.
"No, honey," I replied, "I knew you could do it and you did! I am so proud of you!"

And as all the kids came across the finish line, wondering if they would get a medal, hoping they had done well, we took their pictures and answered all the questions of exhilarating excitement about the next event; and each and every one of them was proud to have completed the race.

Two of them, aged ten and eleven, completed the 10k course, 6.2 miles, in under 48 minutes, which is such a wonderful accomplishment. But all of them, individually and as a group, completed the race as superstars, as winners, as a team, .. as heroes and as the resounding answer to all the people who ever told me that 'nobody gives a damn'. YOU'RE WRONG!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Totalitarian Democracy

Totalitarian Democracy

Interesting how indoctrinated the 'right wing' is, causing them to draw from a piece of work such as this that all 'left wing' 'liberals' believe that absolute socialism is the only answer to confront the concept of the lusting avarice of the neoliberal mindset.

This article doesn't recommend in any way that our society should be absolutely socialistic; it does, however, assert that it is not necessary to take away the collective rights of the people to feed into the hands of the corporate structure that has hijacked our political system.

The very fact that there is such a defensive leap to NAZI'S and socialism makes quite clear how completely radicalized the neoliberals have become. It is their very assertion that the 'communists' or 'socialists' want to take over the world that rationalizes and justifies the continued destruction of our social infrastructure while raping our social trust fund (taxes) to hand it out to the wealthy elite.

They will also justify the quest for hegemony that feeds the hunger for the lives of those of other race, ethnicity, nationality and anyone else who might stand with a different opinion; too easy to label them and justify their murder by saying they are NAZI's.

Think. The closest comparison I can make to NAZI's in our society today is the facist corporate military political complex that spends our tax dollars on invading countries that never posed a threat and murdering civilians throughout the world. I must observe, however, that unlike the NAZI's, the US never invades a country that could actually defend itself. I suppose that's considered protecting our assets.

All in time, all in time. The elite have what they have and piss on everyone in the process, insult anyone who thinks anything outside of their doctrine, and thereby never engage in a process that would result in mutually beneficial solution. These types of people have been here before. And they will go the way of the past. Revolution has a voracious appetite when those consumed turn the tables on the pigs of the world.

From Blog Post Below

... corporations owe no allegiance to the people and are overt in their avarice, which is best served as it always has been, through facism, which is best managed through institutional racism, sexism, economic oppression, and the continual quest for war.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Transparent Governance, True Democracy

This exchange was intiated when I made the following comment on a story related to the 'official' US position on the uprisings in Bahrain. I have corrected a few errors and added some relative thoughts here.

Take any conflict covered in Wikileaks documents, compare the actual US position to the corresponding press releases and subsequent stories, and you will see the cavernous disparity between truth and fiction; the message for Bahrain is restraint, trust that the actual US position is suppress the uprising at all costs.

FB1 Reply:

Exactly! Right now studying Edward Bernays, father of spin. Are you familiar?

Nicholas

Ah yes, the originator of managed consent, as it were; very frightening figure, way more influential than we'd like to believe, and yet one of those people who is so intriguing, well known, and influential that you wonder why people have a problem grasping the fact that they fall beneath the consent management doctrine of each and every administration of the last century! Interesting sideline; Obama's team managed the mobilization of marginalized and disenfranchised voters so well, yet now there is not even an attempt, it seems, to veil his overt pandering to big money, corporations, and the military (all the same people in a very small circle). This, to me, is a very frightening dynamic of this administration. It sits perfectly juxtaposed to the power grab of the republican governors, solidifying in a very public way the one-party system and the empowered corporate/political/military complex.

FB2 Reply

I love America. Really. With all her faults she is still the greatest country in the world.

Nicholas

I too love America; and it is very easy to be labeled as someone who doesn't by being part of the greater voice of dissent. I don't, however, believe that our freedoms, our 'choices', etc., must come at the expense of others - quite literally at the cost of the lives of innocent civilians throughout the world.

I believe that the principles on which we were founded have long ago been abandoned and that we are in a time when we are called to stand against the fear factor that controls our consent; the 'red scare', for example, was and is false, but it has continually caused us to give the consent of our government to do horrific things over the past sixty years. There are many examples, many more current and perhaps better than the red scare, but with the recent hearings on Muslim Radicalization, the wars on Islam, and the use of fear mongering propaganda to manage the consent of the American public, it will suffice as instructive.

Perhaps a better approach would be educating rather than demonizing. There is a well documented belief that is the under pinning of every administration over the past couple hundred years that the public is too ignorant to be given factual information that would cause the manifest empowerment of education to create an environment where we would operate as a true democracy with an actual voice in the domestic and global position of the country.

I believe it is time for the public to come together to raise the expectation of inclusion in a very broad scope, utilizing the tools, currently denied, that are available to us to implement true democracy - public referendum is an example, and Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and many other states are current examples where this should be put into play NOW. To zero in more closely on a current example, Wisconsin: if we take into consideration the very reverberations of the cry of the people, the clear desire for the voice of democracy to be heard, and the government pauses as a result of having heard that voice, a logical reaction would be to implement a referendum. Had the governor done that, he would have exercised logic, common sense, and shown that he had a true desire to be a servant to the public rather than to serve his corporate benefactors. Moreover, he would have acted in the humble manner that caused the people to give him their vote; his actions would have matched the platform from which he was elected.

The truth is that we are not given the opportunity to see - we have no transparency. We are shown time and again that we have a one party system that manages our consent through corporate media. Our voice has been reduced from true representative government to the blatant bowing of our politicians to the corporate powers that control the media. Our government is now overtly setting public opinion aside to directly acquiesce to the demands of their corporate benefactors.

I pray that we will find our voice - we must. Or we will witness the final death throes of democracy in the choke hold of the facist power of corporations, who owe no allegiance to the people and are overt in their avarice, which is best served as it always has been, through racism, sexism, economic oppression, and the continual quest for war.

FB3 Reply

... you are very smart but what do we do to start this in baby steps we just can't change things unless we do an uprising...?

Nicholas

I'm not sure how smart I am, or how well it serves me if it is so. I told myself this was going to be a really quick response, but as usual - not the case - sorry, but your question caused me to search deeper for an answer that I don't have, which is perfectly how we begin to find the collective answers to collective questions. I don't ever want to come across like I think I know more than I do, but for so long I have been so silent and conformed that now I want to simply think aloud and to share my thoughts and beliefs. Through this process I learn more each day.

I believe the first (baby) step is to understand what our beliefs are, and what then are our expectations. If we believe that we are founded on freedom, representative governance, and true democracy, for example, then what do we consider freedom and the cost of it - is freedom something that can be paid for by the lives of innocent people throughout the world so that we can have it? If so, we have received our reward, the killing continues in our name, and we are led as consumers to consume unto our death.

If we find ourselves not satisfied by that answer, perhaps we move forward in the thought process and ask; are our representatives being true to our beliefs and wishes in terms of all things they are representing for us - is our voice actually being heard through the democratic process or are we voting on what we're told and then relegated to the sidelines to watch actions contrary to our wishes levied across the board?

When we have answered these questions, which I believe for myself I have, we must consider whether our vision is skewed or if our eyes are open wide enough and if our vision is clear enough to actually see beyond the corporate media veil. For me, I believe that my eyes are open and my vision is clear. We must educate ourselves; and this does not necessarily mean institutional education, as the very institution of education itself has long been headed toward the path of corporatization. There are voices of scholars, well documented, well studied, that have compiled the data with the resources intact, so that we can move to the second or third level of education by researching the events of history ourselves to ensure that we're not led down a road to fringe extremes; one of my favorite examples is The American Empire Project, including books by Chomsky, Schell, Elbaradei, and others.

Now, with our eyes open, our vision clear, we begin to process what we're learning in context with current events, and the vision is pretty clear, the veil of corporate propaganda is removed, and we are able to fix our minds and our hearts as one with a renewed sense of purpose.

Next, we must allow our individual and cumulative voice be heard. I have, for many years, had a desire to conform, to go with the flow, to be accepted, to believe in the government for which I was told to stand and to which I was ordered to pledge my allegiance. The reality overcame me, I began to educate myself, and now I find that all I can do is to begin to speak out and to listen to others and to watch the magnificent process take place as my own voice combines with the voices of so many others who are in the same place as me.

I have over the past few years been asking myself if I truly believe that our problems are so systemic that they can't be addressed through the governance we currently have in place. With the recent events, I have to say that the answer is absolutely not; our problems are so deeply entrenched in systemic corruption that we must find a way for the people to have a more active hand in our political process or we are going to see our democracy stripped and our choices will significantly diminish.

None of this answers the question, which is 'what do we do'? For myself, I believe we educate ourselves and we engage in the process of communication; that has been the beginning of all things that have ever come to pass - one can even consider that the process of revolution is truly a democratic process.

As we move forward the voices will come together and the cry will grow stronger and the passion will grow deeper and the answers will come. If as a country we do what we have done for the past few decades, however; if we grow apathetic and complacent, we will not have the opportunity to grow the voice that is required to be heard above the din of corporate greed. I notice that as I engage my vision grows clearer, the ideals solidify, and the processes by which we gain empowerment begin to materialize.

The most important piece is that the system by which we could have a very powerful democracy is already in place - it is simply mutated and warped by corruption because it is in the wrong hands - so many of the answers are already in place. Democracy is not a new concept, but a social democracy that creates the forum for the voice of the people to be continually heard and obeyed cannot be ruled by wealth, by greed, by avarice, by bigots and warmongers.

So, let us keep our eyes and minds open wide, let our voices come together in the quest for truth and justice, and most importantly, let us not be swayed in our ideals by the temptation to succumb to the call of consumerism.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

If You Believe

If you believe in anything – including God – and approach the subsequent empowerment of that belief from a position of weakness rather than strength, of scarcity rather than abundance, then your resulting faith will be powerfully weak and abundantly scarce.

Pledge

I pledge no allegiance to the flag
of corporatized america
Yet to the ideal for which it stood,
a nation of true Brotherhood
For the people, for the good
I will pledge my allegiance forever

Racism III Discussion Continued

It's just so much... (78)

Tyrone Miller
Nicholas Sterner, You must write book on this, because you have alot of insight to the way this country should be ran, and I want to think you for making everything so clear, I respect your opinion on this matter, and that is what we need in this country, someone who knows that we must each other out if we want to suceed, we have a long ways to go but if we work together we can get er done.

Nicholas
thanks Tyrone - It seems sometimes as though we're losing more ground than we're gaining, but I believe it's only through dialogue that is honest, transparent, and engaging that we can truly make progress!

Tyrone
I like the way you think, I too am in the prosess of trying to do diffent things with myself, because as I see it, we must do the best that we can to make sure we have a foture in this country, it seems that if we don't stop all this infigh...ting with our neighbors we won't survive, I have seem this country fall apart bit by bit and it seems like nobody cares anymore, I was in the Veitnam war, and when I come back home, things were good for me, I was able to get a job right out of the service, buy a home, raise a family, and take fishing trips when ever I felt like it but now I can't even fill my Tahoe up, because the gas has gotten so high that it makes me sick, I am sadden by what I see this country going through and it seems to me that the rich are getting so money hungry that they are sucking the life right out of this country, some body with some brains need to step up and lead this country back to the days when you could go do what ever you wanted to do.

Nicholas
I often anticipate or try to predict what the opposing view might be, even try to look at it objectively to see if perhaps my vision is skewed - I was doing just that this morning while I was out running and came up with this:

It's the same as it's been for some time. We can find ways to function and operate, perhaps even successfully, within the corporate environment of America, but the one thing we must always be willing to do is to look the other way. We must be willing to sacrifice our social conscience to the degree that we avoid any connection to our responsibility to stand up against injustice, to be the voice of dissent and to hold our government accountable for the genocide that is committed not only upon others, but upon our own people. The process by which we commit genocide upon our own people is through war, economics, education, and inadequate medical care, just to name a few. And we are at a major turning point. Once again it will be the ability to divide that will be utilized to keep us from uniting. If we allow this to take place, we will not achieve developing a consensus, a united voice, that provides for an effective medium through which we can channel our mutual goals. We must turn off the mainstream news and listen to the deeper voice that commands us to stand together, to believe in the power that the people possess if the people will actually commit to possessing the power in a unified effort to wield it effectively. We must avoid the fringe radicalization that empowers fringe radicalization from the other side, because the fringe radical elements on the right are in possession of the money, the mililtary, and the might that is taking over through the corporatization of our political structure. If we are divided and allow the issues over which we are divided to escalate into conflict, the conflict will be the issue raised by the right to mobilize the power, causing us then to be faced with a different choice - between peaceful demonstration or nonpeaceful response to militarized intervention in the conflict. At this point we become splintered rather than divided - and in many ways that is where we find ourselves today - managed through the splintered filters of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and more. If we are able to recognize that all of this division is the device of the propaganda machine, the very same type of device utilized so successfully in Hitler's Germany, we can begin to unify by casting aside the divisive nature and embracing the collective nature. These are just some candid thoughts around the issues of separation and division - propaganda and the need to create valid messaging - identification of cause and development of a process to affect true change.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Racism II, Discussion Continued 03142011

It's just so much... (76)

When we allow ourselves to believe that we view the world as it is, calling ourselves realists, we have too often slipped into the disposition of self righteous cynicism. That's not necessarily a judgment, either; it's more a recognition that most people who make those types of statements believe they know more than others and that there isn't any room for objectivity - more importantly that there isn't any room for growth. They believe and claim that any vision other than their own must be skewed and anything relative to hope is utopian. They also have a tendency to believe that they represent strength and that all others, aside from those who agree with them, represent weakness; particularly those who believe in the concept of peace. While many liberals might lean towards pacifism, it is not exlusive, and it should not be mistaken for weakness - it has often been earned from living a life of war; usually the type of war that conservatives dismiss.

Particularly in regards to myself, a utopian vision is as far from my reality as one could get. That's one of the interesting things about 'conservatives' vs 'liberals'. From what I've seen, most conservatives (right wing) talk about all the life they've seen, but they've never really experienced life through someone else's eyes. They have opinions about things they've never lived and yet don't even maintain the objectivity to open their mind to understand what the world looks like through another's experience. Anyone I've ever known who has had any true experience has the ability to be objective and to open their mind to new ideas with hope and compassion because they are able to understand the world through not only their own experience, but through the focal point of the experience of others. Their vision is wide and real at the same time, not narrow and false, which is the nature and tendency of bigotry.

There is far too much to learn to think we know it all,
and the world is far too big to let our minds grow so small.

Racism - A FB Discussion 03142011

It's just so much... (78)

The current frontal assault on the poeple of our country by the corporate american political machine is institutional racism that is about to go on hyper-drive.

One... component that magnifies and intensifies the tragedy is the one which follows the trend that developed through the annihilation of indigenous peoples for centuries; an instructive example of this is the period wherein there were periodic potential unified uprisings of black slaves, white indentured servants, and native americans. During these times, the government devised and implemented plans to separate them through economics. It worked and most of the whites willingly followed the quest and bought into the racist genocidal process.

As I stated (and as most of us are hopefully aware), this process occurred over centuries and on various continents, becoming ever more refined as it went on, and continued into the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries here. Finally, slavery in its established form (not, however, in the literal form that still pervades institutionally, indivdually, and on a generational level) ended up being abolished only because the people forced the issue; it did not come from the government down - nothing good ever does. Abraham Lincoln said (paraphrased, of course) "If I can keep the union together without freeing one slave, I'll do it." He couldn't.

The government is the institutional tool through which we are to manage the people's consent; when we become complacent and allow our consent to be managed through religious, racial, ethnic, national, social, and economic filters, the process of government is corrupted as we allow the government to manage us, thereby reversing the intended process; doing this, we end up where we are now.

As we move ahead - looking back to consider where we have been - cognizant of that which has been learned and that which has not - we must not allow ourselves to become the arbiters of ignorance.

Wisdom would require that we recognize both the abundance of unity and the tendency toward inherent racism that is veiled by the unified cause; when we are unable to recognize racism within ourselves, we fail to see it in the institutions that placed it there.

The institutional racism I referred to above is about to take hold if we allow our government to move through the finalization of the corporatization of our political structure. If this occurs, the social infrastructure, the economic programs for the poor, public education, public medical services, and more will be taken, as there is simply no profit in it. This process will catapult us into a position of servitude wherefrom the corporation, thinly veiled through our political structure, will implement a form of characteristic racism that has been alive and well in our country for centuries. The economic divide will cross racial lines and will evaporate the social infrastructure while enveloping systematic and continual warfare that swallows generation upon generation, providing for a systemic enslavement of ninety-nine percent of the population to serve the top one percent. This has been practiced for centuries, but the final experiment is being solidified in a political body that is going to reverse any progress we have made as a society. To break this chain will be more difficult than ever before in history, as the militarization of the corporate political structure is in place and will keep us grinding for the bare fabric of survival.

It is for these reasons that we must grasp what progress we have made and embrace the unity that we can muster. As someone here so eloquently stated 'the millionaire on television has no reason to be honest' - and that millionaire wears so many different cloaks, each one representing the filter through which our souls are purchased.

If we remove the object of our faith, and walk in faith alone, the object will find us; it is purpose that must unite us, and it is truth that must hold us together.

Divided We Stand

Facebook (84)

From Tom Byrne, via Facebook
hello Nicholas,
when are the American people ever going to stand up and demand an end to all this posturing and bullying done in their name by their government ?

My Response

The tragic answer, I fear, is 'never'. The US, by virtue of its mega-transnational-world power corporations, is the largest weapons manufacturer, distributor, and nuclear proliferator in the world, all the while constantly telling other co...untries whether they should have nuclear weapons, who should be fighting whom, etc. There have been some very instructive studies done, with supporting polls, and there's extensive commentary (Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Schell, Chris Hedges, and others) about the corresponding subject matter and historical periods in question (for the most part post-world war II), that show that the US is (rightly) the most feared nation in history and that most countries, particularly our allies, see us as the biggest threat not only to them, but to world peace. Now imagine how we are perceived (rightly) by our 'enemies'. In this case the best brief example or reference is Middle Eastern and North African countries that never invaded us and countries that offered to come to our aid after 9/11, etc. We chose instead to invade and, to varying degrees occupy Iraq, Afghanistan, and ultimately Pakistan, positioning ourselves, I believe, for an ultimate confrontation with Iran and whomever else in the region wants to get involved.

There was such an air of hope in 2008, with Obama the peacemaker, the man of the people, for the people, making all the right speeches (e.g., Cairo, 2009), using all the right messaging about disengagement, peace, alternative renewable energy, fiscal accountability, competent and honest international relations; he has proven to be the exact opposite, showing clearly that he is a man of the corporations, paying off (bailing out) all of the financial institutions with no built in accountability factors and thus transferring the wealth from the taxpayers to the elite in unprecedented proportions, while increasing the engagement and occupation in Afghanistan, providing unswaying support for Israel's genocidal occupation of Palestine, and widening the platform more than ever for the US to be viewed as the hegemonic empire that it is.

I believe the result of Obama being the exact opposite of the man who was elected is that the American people are left to swallow the bitter pill of powerlessness. The public has become marginalized and disenfranchised, as the man of the people proved that he was a man of the corporation, packaged just the way we needed him to be to provide the consent needed for the final steps in the corporate siezure of our government. If anyone ever wanted to see 'trickle down' economics, we now have it, as our state governments are taken over by corporate politicians doing the exact opposite of what they were elected to do. Obama was an instructive example, as we now see the corporatized political establishment making a frontal assault on unions, civil rights, and social programs. And because Obama is a Democrat, and the Governors are Republicans, we see the population withdrawing to their corners with the standard cry "We'll vote for the other guy next time!" It's time for us to make some deep changes that wipe the corporate corruption from our society, particularly from our political process. But I fear it may be too late.

We are faced with a dilemma that I'm not sure we're ready to address. The American public has been so complacent and so polarized and divided through such simple filters for so many years that I'm not sure we can ever come together in a unified effort of the magnitude necessary to call the sole world superpower to account.

The state of the union, in my unworthy opinion, is this - Divided, we stand.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Pending Invasion of Libya

Nicholas

If and when the US decides to invade Libya, it will be done under the guise of democracy and humanitarianism. These young boys will, at that point, be labeled terrorists and insurgents. They will be systematically hunted and murdered with... no recourse. I pray the US does not invade Libya.

As we watch the democratic process stripped from mutiple states, setting the stage for overt takeover of US government by appointed corporations in states of 'crisis' and 'emergency', we must consider how all of this will come into play when our invading forces become so strained that our own young boys and men are ordered to 'defend' their country, while the ones actually defending our country are labeled terrorists and insurgents.

We are at a pivotal turning point in history. Over the past couple of days I've been blatantly attacked her on FB and have absorbed an onslaught of verbal insults, names, profanity, etc. The tone of this 'communication', the tendency toward derision, the absolute disregard for objective consideration or the application of logical intelligence, clearly mirrors the arrogant, prideful, hateful, and dangerous position of the corporate media, which echoes the neoconservative political/military/corporate elements in our government.

These are the same elements that support an imperialistic invasion of another country in the MENA region, continued murderous onslaught in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and sending another 20 billion in economic and military support to the murderous government of Israel.

These are also the same elements that are systematically setting the playing field to finalize the corporatization of the American government, strip the democratic rights of the American public, and establish absolute power over our society by solidifying the economic divide between the elite and the working class. Our taxes will be used to develop the infrastructure for the corporate monopolies, while the profits from the market will benefit only the wealthy elite. Social programs will continue to be sacrificed and the marginalized groups that do not contribute to the profit scheme will be disenfranchised and set into a form of servitude that will be nothing less than enslavement.

This corporatization already includes the military, with more than 25,000 private corporate troops already stationed in the MENA region, which means that there is no nationalism, no patriotism, other than that which you are ordered to obey and that to which you are ordered to pledge your undying support.

This is not a partisan issue. This is not a problem that can be solved by 'voting for the other guy'. It's gone beyond that. The corruption is so deeply systemic and the poisonous corporate influence has so thoroughly saturated our government, that the legislation that is being shoved down the throats of the American public is setting the stage for a profit driven, greed lusting facism that has never before been experienced.

As we watch our government prepare to murder more young boys on the battlefields of other countries, prepare yourselves to witness the transition of semantics from 'boys' and 'early teens', to 'terrorists' and 'insurgents', and prepare to see what the US is practicing abroad finally find its way home to the battlefields that are being prepared in the US.

Bianca Says:

Lol! Sometimes, you guys mistake socialism as being a bad thing. Believe it or not, I felt equally related to more than 85% of the people that lived in my town. The only elite was the government. The only RESPECTED population were teachers,... doctors, lawyers, police officers, judges and local government personnel. And honestly, it was not their money we respected. They weren't richer than the rest of us. We respected their callings and their professions. I don't see anything wrong with respecting such callings and professions. Additionally, we din't necessarily venerate this people as being supernatural either. Yes, there was no freedom of speech, there was no democratic presidential election process and there was no freedom of coming and going out of the country. Yes, we got the crappy goods and services, and the better goods and services were dedicated to export, but there wasn't really such a thing as the elite. Yes, towards the end he starved us, left us without heat, electricity and water. That's when it was time for him to go. (I don't think the American people have a reason to revolt, or to ask for the current political system to be changed!!!) I want to go back in time and live under a socialist, or worse...communism, hell no. But if you are asking the government to control Corporate America and the amount of money the elite has, what are you asking for? I would never ask our government to dictate how much money somebody can make. I'm asking only that they invest some money in our low income citizens, which are maaaany! I sure would not want to experience an uprising, a revolt or a war. Call me a pacifist, because I would never advocate forceful action. I don't advocate a shouting match. Why can't we just talk about our issues and differences?

Nicholas

The question of whether US citizens have a 'reason' to revolt is very subjective, and has to be answered in terms relative to the context of the question; for example, what would be 'just cause'? Here are a few considerations:

1. That our government is systemically corrupt.
2. That our government is not transparent in terms of foreign or domestic policy.
3. That our budgets are stripped by exorbitant waste and mismanagement while our social programs are in decay.
4. That our representative government no longer represents the will of the people.
5. That we are not given actual choice in terms of types of governance.
6. That corporate contributions to political parties have turned our two-party system into a 'choice' between one or the other, while they both represent the same corrupt organization(s).
7. That our government is involved in overt and covert military operations that butcher and murder innocent people throughout the world.
8. That our government has so marginalized the majority that there is no such thing as true representative government.

If we measure our value, worth, or expectations on the actions or circumstances of other countries, we can always find something that is or was worse than what we are. If we tell ourselves that to ask for anything better is utopian and we should be satisfied with what we have because we have a Taco Bell in every city, can drive 8 mpg suv's and live in mortgaged houses while paying off the interest on our credit card debt and watching the world burn on corporate news - if we base the value of the government on the consumer mentality by which we are expected to be controlled - If we do all these things, then yes, we should sit back and enjoy our 'freedom', because our very definition of the word is something that requires no true moral disposition of any gravity to hold its place in our lives. And this is the position of the vast majority of Americans; if you can throw a dollar at it and remove it from your conscience, then you have 'made a difference'.

But this is not who we are called to be. We have created a position in the world that has caused us to be highly visible and we have asserted ourselves in ways that cause us to be called to account for our actions. We have done things that are reprehensible in the name of democracy and humanitarianism and we should, as a society, expect ourselves to be held accountable and expect our country to raise its expectations and to act in the best interests of humanity. We must ask ourselves why we allow the our position of great influence to be wasted and to be made a blight in the eyes of countries throughout the world.

These concerns, combined with the theft of our democracy by the corporate structure that we actually bailed out from the crimes they committed that left the country on the verge of financial collapse leaves us in a position where we had best begin to hold our government accountable and demand that we are given true choice - greater than what is represented by our 'representative' government - or the actions that our government takes throughout the world are going to finally cause other countries to ask very logical questions - 'If you had such great choice, then why did you choose to let your country treat others - your Arab, Asian, and Latin American brothers and sisters, for example - with such contempt? Why did you choose to allow mass murder to take place in your name over decades and on every continent? Why did you choose to allow your government to starve millions of Africans and Hatians while you chose to allow your government to spend billions of dollars on war? Why?

Regarding socialism, communism, and capitalism - we are called to a time like no other, and yet a time that is similar to others in that it is a time where we find ourselves on a pivotal axis that should cause us to objectively consider that the ultimate type of governance has not yet been achieved; indeed, it probably has not even yet been conceived. There is a form of social democracy that could serve us far better than what we have. It must derive of a motive that is greater than profit and equal to all of humanity. It is based on the cumulative value of all resources and is not based on financial wealth. It is based on the principle that there are enough resources to support the world and that they do not belong to anyone, yet belong to everyone. It is based on a concept of inclusive governance. It is based on the able and just contribution of all, with the understanding that the overall value of a society is based on how well it serves its poor and its ill, how well it heals rather than kills, how well it grows rather than destroys. It is based on the concept that the military is a tool, not a weapon; that it is there to serve humanity in a protective role and that it should never, no matter what the circumstance, be allowed to attain a position of rule. It is based on a system of justice that considers the fact that there is good and there is evil and that there is a way to know the difference, that there is a baseline morality beyond religious, ethnic, and political persecution. It is based on a judicial system that is global and that is universal, and that serves all of humanity by the same standards; that there is no country or ruler, or government that has the right to veto its collective mandate.

Until we open our minds and expand freedom of choice to a point where it considers these truths, then we have no true choice at all, other than the choice that is cast upon us by the elite who expect the ninety-nine percent of humanity to bend to their will.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Supreme Court: Church Can Protest Military Funerals

Combined tragedy, paradoxical abuse of American 'rights', and an absolutely inappropriate use of right to protest. Rather than considering the fact that the US is the most abusive generationally genocidal government in history, that its conquest for hegemony has been fought with an arm that extends globally through military and economic actions, that it influences other countries to be complicit in it's crimes, this organization, calling itself faith-based, claims that military deaths are the result of homosexuality - now there is one church that the self-proclaimed 'right wing' can definitely count on for votes! Glen Beck will have to really play this down after he comes out of the closet!

Supreme Court: Church Can Protest Military Funerals