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to economic disaster and attack, and vulnerable to more 9/11's, you couldn't do better than the Bush Junta, which is destroying...
the U.S. army the states' National Guards FEMA state/local emergency services the Justice Dept. the CIA and FBI the concept of public service the concept of professionalism and integrity in public office U.S. financial solvency not to mention the U.S. Constitution the U.S. election system U.S. manufacturing capability U.S. jobs the EPA U.S. scientific integrity and so much else.
If you wanted to destroy a country, you couldn't do better than this.
Our political system is finally responding to this attack, although Congress is still not very representative of the American people, and it remains "touch and go" whether we can save this country and this democracy. (The key, in my opinion, is transparent vote counting--vote counting that everyone can see and understand.) I think we need to consider the possibility that we have been subjected to a concerted attack, by US-based global corporate predators--and global corporate predators that were once US-based--with the Bush Junta players as merely the front men for this fascist coup, and that we can't really solve this problem until we deal with the chartering of corporations, locally, and in foreign countries, that are loyal to no one, and that see the American people as "enemy no. 1" in their effort to create a completely unaccountable, countryless, global fascist profit machine that no one can control.
I have always had faith in the progressive values of the great majority of Americans--throughout this Junta. This is one of the things that has pointed me to election fraud, as to why the corrective mechanisms of democracy have not worked in this case. The Bush regime should have been thrown out in 2004. We had 56% of the American people, way back at the beginning (Feb. '03) in opposition to the war on Iraq. We had other resonant stats, such as 63% of the American people opposing torture "under any circumstances" (May '04). And the more stats you look at--for instance, the Democrats' blowout success at new voter registration in 2004, nearly 60/40--the more puzzling does this second term of massive theft, mass murder, torture and other criminal behavior become. This is not us. This not what we want, as a people. Iraq. Abu Ghraib. Katrina. The "unitary executive." All of us "unified" under this obnoxious, strutting little "Hitler"? The Bush Junta is "unitary" all right--unified in its massive corruption and anti-american principles that serve the super-rich and their global corporate entities.
And does it not strike you as curious that, at a time of maximum NATURAL upheaval--wild climate phenomenon (hurricanes, tornadoes, drought in one place, ice caps melting in another, and vast damage to natural systems, throwing the weather itself out of whack)--brought on by this same Oil Cartel and its CO2 poisoning of the atmosphere--that they would, at the same time, destroy our emergency services, and send our National Guard into combat in their corporate resource war?
I read recently that vast methane reserves being released by the polar ice cap melting, is going to cause more earthquakes! Geological instability, on top of everything else! Whether that particular prediction turns out to be true or not doesn't really matter. The mere threat of such of thing should be causing an upheaval in our political system--to immediately take whatever steps are needed to NOT LET THAT HAPPEN. And the same for other climate change impacts. The consequences are so dire that all of human society needs to be mobilized to address these problems. The very life and future of our own species is at great risk. And the U.S.--which contributes 25% of the pollution--needs to be a leader in this effort, or it will fail. The political upheaval that is needed in the U.S. may well occur. Indeed, I think it is in progress. But one of the things that we NEED TO KNOW is how our political process has been IMPEDED. By what mechanisms? And by whom?
The mechanisms used to prevent the democratic process from working in this country--prime among them, non-transparent vote counting--need to be exposed and eliminated. And the people and entities that are preventing change need to be removed from power. And I am not just talking about Bush and Cheney. I am talking about their puppetmasters--the giant global corporations, war profiteers and others who installed them in office, and who are clearly intent on installing a Global Corporate Predator-lite regime, as a backup plan, if they cannot continue with outright fascism. If we mis-identify the problem--or define it too narrowly--we are not going to get the immediate, emergency action that is needed, to, a) slow climate change down and stop it, if possible, and b) prepare ourselves for impacts that we cannot prevent.
For instance, to address this crisis in a powerful way, we really need to CUT the military budget--drastically, maybe by as much as 90%, down to a true defensive posture. (No more wars of choice!). We not only DON'T NEED a corporate resource war, we need those resources for preparing defenses against CLIMATE CHANGE--to create coastal bulwarks, for instance, and better evacuation plans; to completely re-think building codes and peoples' migration/settlement patterns; to beef up (not gut!) emergency services; to restore and protect essential wildlife populations (ocean fish, bees, birds) and other measures to protect the food chain; to plant trees for atmosphere and soil stability--and many other defensive measures, as well as addressing the main problem; high CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
Who, among the current candidates for president--or among Congress members or potential Congress members--even SEES this obvious need to cut the military budget--let alone is proposing to do so? IF the Global Corporate Predators were not controlling the political discussion, and the candidates and office holders, THIS would be the main topic of discussion right now, rather than how many more billions to waste on the Iraq War and with what conditions. Does it make ANY difference whether it's Democrats or Republicons who are wasting this enormous amount of money? Yeah, it makes SOME difference. A bit more money for vets. A bit more accountability. An overall policy thrust toward ending the war, which may or may not actually end the war, some day, but at least--as to lip service--dramatically changes the direction of things. But, practically? More than a hundred billion dollars to war profiteers that is not going into climate change defense, or into solutions.
And it should be no surprise to learn that most of the people who are making these decisions, and for whom cutting the military budget is unthinkable, have been put in positions of power in non-transparent elections, by voting machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls. And it should sober us to realize that this non-transparent voting system was put into place--very quickly, between 2002 and 2004--without one word of objection from the Democratic Party leadership.
First, we need to restore transparent vote counting. Then, by means of transparent vote counting, we need to start electing more leaders who will act in our interest. Then we need to address the biggest problem of all: the chartering here, or abroad, of Global Corporate Predators who are destroying our democracy, and the planet.
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