| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
07 Mar 2006 06:37:37 AM |
| Object: |
Democracy in America - It's Spelled CORRUPTION |
Democracy in America - It's Spelled CORRUPTION
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/762/
Toward Freedom - Burlington,VT,USA
.... This is a serious blow to the health of democracy by violating the
constitutional principle of separation of church and state. But ...
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Democracy in America - It's Spelled CORRUPTION |
10 Mar 2006 09:07:56 AM |
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On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 07:37:37 -0500, wrote in
alt.atheism
Democracy in America - It's Spelled CORRUPTION
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/762/
Written by Stephen Lendman
Monday, 06 March 2006
The headlines are blaring daily about another big corruption scandal
that has the makings of being the mother of them all - at least for a
generation or so. We won't know how big until one well-connected
influence peddling lobbyist under multiple indictments involving crony
capitalism and corruption begins to sing to the Justice Department after
copping a plea in return for a lighter sentence. It's likely that before
this ends, it may involve many Republican members of Congress and some
Democrats including some high level ones from both parties as well as
their aides, members of the Executive Branch and various other
Republican party figures. It may even go higher than most observers now
expect.
While we're focused on the current political and financial scandal,
we're not hearing or reading that corruption can take different forms.
And they extend to the core principles of how this country is governed,
who wins, who loses and what it means for a nation calling itself a
democracy as well as for all other nations affected by our policies and
actions. I'd like to suggest a broader definition of corruption that
reflects the scope of what's covered below.
CORRUPTION DEFINED FOR THIS ESSAY
For purposes of this essay, corruption includes all policies and actions
by those elected or other officials in or connected to government, the
net result of which improperly, unjustly or illegally distributes the
nation's wealth (and that of other nations we exploit and dominate) to
benefit an elite minority and at the expense of the vast majority of the
people (at home and abroad). It includes and involves those individuals,
organizations and institutions that are the main beneficiaries of these
government policies and actions (business, the military, academia and
even organized religion) or that work cooperatively with them or aid
them. In a word, it's the net result of the incestuous relationship
between government and the powerful and influential "special interests"
that benefit most from it that deprives or takes from the many, the most
defenseless and most in need and gives to the elite and well-off few.
While retaining a facade of fairness, it does it through a sham
democracy for those of privilege by rigging the political process to
work for their benefit. And it functions within or outside the law, and
usually both ways.
CORRUPTION - POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL
What corruption usually refers to is the misuse of power by elected or
appointed officials in return for illegal cash bribes, payoffs of
various sorts or other forms or items of value received for special
favors or preferential treatment such as favorable legislation or voting
the "right way." It can be as crude as wads of cash in paper bags or
smaller amounts in envelopes or as subtle as promises of high paid
future employment, expensive junkets, sky box seats at sporting events
or meals in fancy restaurants. It also assumes those in power can be
bought. The only issue is the price and what's for sale.
It's a fair guess most people believe this stuff goes on all the time,
and they're probably right. Usually the offenders don't get caught, but
using the "roach" theory, when one does it's likely there's a lot more
of them out there we haven't (yet) found. In sum, the way the political
system works is best explained in the title of the Greg Palast book -
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Those who can pay can play, and those
who can't have no say, don't get their way and had better pray for a
better day.
What's it all mean? It means the political game is rigged, the books are
cooked and the notion that voters go to the polls to elect
representatives who'll serve their interests is cockeyed hooey. The real
game is "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours." But you better
have lots of "scratch." As stated above, it's an incestuous relationship
between powerful interests, usually big business and government with
high-powered, well paid lobbyists (aka influencing peddling "bagmen")
"greasing the wheels" to make the system work. All "players" win, and
the dirty game goes on and on and never ends. The public knows the
game's going on but not the sordid details until a "player" stumbles,
gets caught and the latest chicanery comes to light. Then the game plan
is punish the "bad apple" and cleanse an otherwise honest system. Does
anyone really believe that? The real game plan is "cut your losses" and
go back to business as usual but out of the public's eye and daily
headlines. The same thing is true in government and in big business.
Anything goes that's self-serving, as long as you don't get caught.
That's the only crime. And when it comes to exploiting other nations,
there are no rules. It's "snatch and grab" all you can, just like a
street bully does it against an easy mark.
THE NATION'S BUSINESS - THE POWER OF TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS
Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, said "the business of America is
business." If he were alive today, he might rephrase that maxim and say
it's big business, really big. Ralph Nader has updated and corrected
Coolidge by saying the country is run by giant corporations, and both
political parties are just proxies for them. In Nader's colorful
language, it's government for General Motors, by Dupont and for Exxon
Mobil. If the 50 largest corporations were nations, half of the largest
100 of them would be corporations. And along with size goes power and
influence - to decide who governs, serves on our courts and occupies the
White House. The voting public may think they have a say, but that's
just an illusion, or more accurately a delusion. The big business power
brokers make all the rules and decide everything important. Their
cronies and proxies then "grease the wheels" with lots of "grease" to be
sure all goes as planned. Big business also decides what laws are
enacted or changed. They even write them to assure what they want gets
in and what they don't want stays out. It all goes on sub rosa, and the
public has no say or right of appeal when provisions harm their
interests. Most often the public is in the dark and doesn't even know or
understand it's been harmed.
We call this "democracy." In fact, it's a distorted variant of it that's
only a democracy for the few - the privileged class sociologist and
social scientist C. Wright Mills called "The Power Elite" in his notable
1956 book by that title. Mills' elite included those "in command of the
major hierarchies and organizations of modern society"....the ones who
"rule the big corporations......run the machinery of state.... direct
the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of
the social structure...." In Mills' day, large corporations had great
power but would be judged small or medium-sized compared to their
largest behemoth counterparts today. Since 1950 the nation's gross
domestic product has increased in size over 35-fold in constant dollars.
It's well over $10 trillion today. The largest U.S. corporations,
however, have increased even faster because of their many mergers and
acquisitions in addition to their growth. A single division of General
Electric today, with its many divisions, is larger than the entire
company was 50 years ago. With that size has come enormous power and
influence, so much so that if Mills were alive and revised his book
today, corporate America would dominate and virtually own "the strategic
command posts" he wrote about. All other institutions are now
subordinate and function to serve these omnipotent giants. Using part of
the title of David Korten's book, today giant transnational
"corporations rule the world."
THE LAW AND HOW IT AFFECTS CORPORATE BEHAVIOR
All publicly owned corporations are mandated above all else to serve
only the best interests of their shareholders. The courts have deemed
this to mean, and it's now a settled issue in corporate law, that these
businesses must work to maximize shareholder value and do so by
increasing profits. Corporate law prohibits the board of directors or
senior executives from taking any action that may deviate from that
primary responsibility, such as providing services to the community or
safeguarding the environment. If doing so adds expense and reduces
profits, the corporation would be in violation of its mandate and liable
to suit by shareholders for harming profitability and share value. It
would also subject the CEO and other top executives to likely dismissal.
Corporate power and influence grew over many generations and was aided
by favorable legislation and many important Supreme Court decisions.
However, the crucial, defining moment happened in 1886 when the Supreme
Court granted corporations the legal status of personhood in Santa Clara
County v. Southern Pacific Railway - a simple tax dispute case unrelated
to the issue of corporate personhood. The story of that decision, how it
came about and what it means is lucidly explained in Thom Hartmann's
important book - Unequal Protection. Hartmann documents and explains
that it wasn't the Justices who decided corporations are persons, but
the Court's reporter (J.C. Bancroft Davis) who after the decision was
rendered wrote it in his "headnotes". The Court did nothing to refute
them, likely by intent, and the result was what corporations had long
coveted.
That decision, most people never heard of but one of the most crucial in
our history, changed everything. It granted corporations the same
constitutional rights as people, but because of their limited liability
status, protected shareholders from the obligations of their debts,
other obligations, and many of the responsibilities individuals legally
have. For many years prior to Santa Clara, corporations wanted but were
never able to gain this right and all the benefits from it. After they
finally had it, they were able to win many additional favorable court
decisions that continue to the present day. They also gained much
regulatory relief, favorable legislation and, at the same time, were
protected by their limited liability status. All this through the years
allowed corporations to increase their power and helped them grow to the
size and dominance they've now achieved.
Think of it. Corporations aren't human, they can live forever, change
their identity, reside in many places simultaneously in many countries,
can't be imprisoned for wrongdoing and can change themselves into new
persons at will for any reason. They have the same rights and
protections under the Bill of Rights as people but not the
responsibilities. And they got all this because a court reporter gave it
to them in his "headnotes", after the fact, in a Supreme Court decision
involving a lawsuit unrelated to this crucial right wanted and now
granted. From that right, corporations were then unbound, free to grow
and gain immense power and be able to become the dominant institution
that now runs the country, the world and all our lives. Most important,
they got an unwritten license from their government servants in all 3
branches to operate freely for their own benefit and others of their
privileged class and at the expense of the great majority everywhere.
Because of the harm they cause to so many from their behavior, the
damage they do to the environment, and the costly wars fought on their
behalf to enhance their profits, it's fair to say, in military
terminology, the giant transnationals today are truly "weapons of mass
destruction."
It's important to note a little known event in our early history that
might have changed everything had Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
gotten their way. Jefferson and Madison were able to add the first 10
amendments, or Bill of Rights, to our Constitution but lost a battle
with the Federalists led by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton to include
2 others. Jefferson and Madison believed that to protect the liberty of
the people the Bill of Rights should include "freedom from monopolies in
commerce" (what are now giant corporations) and "freedom from a
permanent military", or standing armies. Adams and Hamilton believed
otherwise, and the final compromise included the first 10 amendments
that are now the law but not the other 2. Had Jefferson and Madison
gotten their way, try to imagine how different our subsequent history
might have been and what our country might be like today.
In 2003, The Corporation, the film, was made. It was based on law
professor Joel Bakan's book - The Corporation: the Pathological Pursuit
of Profit and Power. With commentaries from diverse observers ranging
from Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore to Milton Friedman and corporate
CEOs, the film explores the nature of corporations and how they operate.
It portrays a classic conflict between an overriding concern with the
"bottom line" and social good. Overall, the picture painted is not
pretty, especially a dramatic moment drawn from the work of Canadian
psychiatrist Robert Hare who concludes the corporation meets the
clinical definition of a psychopath. It's amoral, deceitful,
manipulative, completely self-interested, it breaches social and legal
standards yet suffers no guilt, it has a callous unconcern for others
and a disregard for their safety and is unable to maintain long-term
relationships. It could also be argued (but not mentioned in the film)
that corporations also fit the definition of a sociopath whose behavior
is extremely antisocial, is lacking in conscience and has no sense of
social or moral responsibility.
THE GROWTH OF SOCIAL SERVICES - UNLIKE TODAY, RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
ONCE ADDED NEW ONES
The golden age of social service benefits and worker protections and
rights emerged during the Great Depression years of the 1930s, but
didn't begin then. As early as our colonial times there was a
recognition of an obligation to help the needy although there was no
organized effort. But as the nation became less agrarian and more
industrial, a number of States began to add services like cash
allowances, mothers' pensions and by the mid-twenties old age assistance
to the blind. Also, at that time and earlier, the States and Federal
government began to recognize the need for a social insurance approach
to public welfare that would be financed through contributions and would
guarantee protection for all rather than just public assistance for the
needy.
Social insurance first began in 1908 with a Federal workers'
compensation law for some government employees. States then followed
with their own, and by 1929 these laws were in effect in all but 4
States. There were other social efforts as well, such as State and local
retirement plans and Federal benefits and services for veterans. Also,
the private sector shared a responsibility by beginning to provide
health care, pensions, life insurance and sickness payments to their
employees.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND "THE NEW DEAL"
By 1932, the hard times of the Great Depression and loose regulation
that preceded it demanded a greater Federal government role to aid the
needy and reform the economy. In his 1933 inaugural address Franklin
Roosevelt said he would not stand by and watch the Depression deepen and
asked the Congress for the power to combat the emergency. He claimed
"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself", but that was little
comfort to the 25% of the working public unemployed that year. In his
1937 inaugural address, FDR agreed with them when he said "I see
one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." From the
beginning of his presidency Roosevelt knew he had to act, but it wasn't
out of compassion for the needy he spoke of. With support from some key
corporate chieftains, he and they knew he had to do it to save
capitalism, to bail out the bankers and the rich, and to prevent a
possible workers' revolution similar to what happened in Russia in 1917.
And act he did with loans and grants to help the States and landmark
measures like the FDIC, insuring bank deposits, the SEC, to regulate the
stock exchanges, and the NLRB, with the passage of the Wagner Act, that
guaranteed labor the right to bargain collectively on equal terms with
management. Most important were a broad array of social programs. They
included Federal emergency relief, public works programs, and other
initiatives, begun under an "alphabet soup" listing of names that tried
to jump-start a moribund economy by providing work and relief for the
unemployed. The seminal moment came in 1935 with the passage of the
Social Security Act that to this day is the single most important piece
of social legislation in our history and the one most responsible for
keeping a vast number of the elderly out of poverty as well as providing
other services and benefits for those in need.
Other important social legislation in the 1930s included Unemployment
Insurance (a State - Federal government partnership with States as
administrators), the Railroad Retirement System, Public Housing and
Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance.
POST - WW II SOCIAL PROGRAMS
After WW II there was the National School Lunch Program, Aid to the
Permanently and Totally Disability (later the SSI program), Social
Security Disability Insurance, Medical Assistance for the Aged (prior to
Medicaid), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the Food
Stamp Program, School Breakfast Program, Black Lung Benefits Program,
Supplemental Security Income Program, the WIC food assistance program,
Earned Income Tax Credit, Low Income Home Energy Assistance and
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) among others. Along with
Social Security, the other most important social program established was
Medicare and along with it Medicaid in 1965. Those 2 programs assured
the elderly and indigent of health care coverage at affordable cost or
at minimal or no cost to the needy. All of the above was the good news,
except for TANF which will be discussed below.
THE EROSION OF SOCIAL SERVICES
Things began to change after 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan.
Since then and over the last 25 years, it's been a long downhill slide
that's included the erosion of worker rights, and continued cuts in
vital social and other needed services directly or in more subtle ways.
The 2 bedrock social programs so far have remained largely in tact, but
even they have been eroded through higher payroll taxes (that affect low
and middle income workers), raising the retirement age, and increases in
Medicare premiums and cuts in Medicaid for the poor.
THE REAGAN YEARS
Ronald Reagan's administration was characterized by large increases in
military spending, big tax cuts mainly benefitting the rich and big
business while at the same time slashing social spending and running up
huge budget deficits. Domestic discretionary spending (which includes
most all social spending other than Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid) was cut by one-third from 1981 to 1988. Programs for those
with low incomes were hardest hit suffering a 54% cut during the Reagan
years, subsidized housing (adjusted for inflation) lost over 80% of its
support, training and employment services over 68%, and housing
assistance for the elderly 47%.
The Reagan administration also showed its contempt for organized labor
and one-sided support for big business beginning with the firing of
11,000 striking air traffic controllers in August, 1981, jailing its
PATCO leaders, fining the union millions of dollars and finally
"busting" the union. It also used federal tax dollars to finance
strike-breaking and worked to reduce worker health and safety
protections and to change federal statutes guaranteeing worker rights to
organize and bargain collectively.
THE GEORGE H.W. BUSH YEARS
The elder George Bush was elected on promises of a "kinder and gentler"
presidency. He sought not to continue the Reagan slash and burn tactics
and instead worked to reverse some of them. Working with a Democrat
controlled Congress, there were increases in federal spending for
education, child care and advanced technology R & D. He also approved
legislation to improve the interstate highway system. Probably his most
important act was his signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990 that was probably the most significant piece of civil rights
legislation in a decade and provided the disabled with important rights
they hadn't had. Bush also reauthorized the Clean Air Act that mandated
higher air quality standards and required cleaner burning fuels.
Clearly, the elder Bush presidency was a respite from the one-sided
business-friendly agenda of the Reagan years. In a budget deal with the
Congress he even raised taxes (anathema for Republicans), going back on
his campaign pledge of "no new taxes." Republicans never forgave him,
and the electorate denied him a second term.
THE CLINTON YEARS
Aside from the few social gains under the elder Bush, the other Reagan
era cuts have never been recouped. In fact, they continued to decline
through the Clinton years. In addition, the Clinton administration made
its own "contribution" to the continued assault on the needy with the
passage a heartless and disgraceful "welfare reform" bill called the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
(PRWORA). Prior to that time, welfare payments to the needy were
distributed through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children or AFDC
program. That program worked well but came under attack after
Republicans gained control of both Houses of Congress in 1994 and
cutting welfare became point 3 (out of 10 points) in the Republicans'
Contract with America (that opponents called the Contract on America).
Under "welfare reform" a time limit was set, and no one could receive
welfare payments for more than 5 years. The 1996 act created a new
program for distributing aid called the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families or TANF that called for the Federal government to provide fixed
block grants to the states (unrelated to the amount of need for help)
and let them administer aid at their discretion. Also, under this plan,
most recipients must participate in some kind of work or training for
work to get help. This created a great hardship for many recipients,
especially single mothers with small children. That hardship got even
worse during and after the 2001-2002 recession, when the economy was
first losing large numbers of jobs, and then even after recovery when
job growth was only modest and still is less than robust. And most new
jobs now created are in lower paying service areas and temporary or
part-time positions, often with few or no benefits like health care
insurance.
The Clinton administration's main social initiative was its failed
attempt to reform how Americans get their health care. It was a
complicated plan based on the notion of "managed competition" and
marketplace medicine rather than a "single-payer", government run
national health insurance program like those in Western Europe and
Canada. It tried to convince the public to accept less choice for more
affordability and coverage for all. But it wanted to do it by allowing
big insurers and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) to run the
show. Because these organizations are committed to maximizing profits,
they need to control costs. That means less care for the sick,
especially the expensive kind they go all out to restrict.
Thankfully Clinton's Health Security plan arrived stillborn but only
because it pitted the interests of competing health care providers
against each other in a zero-sum game. Under the Clinton plan, "big
Pharma" would have been a "big loser" with "big insurers" and "big HMOs"
able to buy drugs at lower prices. But "big Pharma" and other private
interest losers had their own "big guns" and were able defeat another
feeble attempt at so-called health care reform and also prevent any
needed government control over the delivery of health care services.
THE GEORGE W. BUSH YEARS
After the Clinton years, the pace of social spending cuts accelerated
under George Bush and continues unabated with the Bush administration's
stated intent to make annual additional cuts. The Bush years so far have
been characterized by very big increases in military spending including
tens of billions annually since 2003 off-the-books to fund the
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and continued conflicts in both
countries - with no end in sight. (Before it ends, the Iraq conflict is
expected to cost between $1 and $2 trillion according to an estimate
released in January, 2005 by Nobel Laureate and former World Bank chief
economist Joseph Stiglitz). In addition, there have have been several
rounds of tax cuts mostly benefitting the rich and big business. The net
result has been big annual budget deficits and increased hardship for
the most disadvantaged.
EDUCATION UNDER G.W. BUSH
Some of the damage done since Bush took office has included his
disastrous education initiative called The No Child Left Behind Act
which focuses on testing. It's been a boon to corporations involved in
testing but done nothing to enhance learning. Teachers hate it as it
forces them to teach "to the test" rather than educate their students
properly in the course material. The result in recent years is that the
quality of education in urban schools has deteriorated and the level of
racial segregation is now as great as in the 1960s according to Jonathan
Kozol in his new book The Shame of the Nation. The data in big cities is
shocking. In Chicago where I live in 2002-03, 87% of public school
enrollment was black or Hispanic; in Washington, D.C. it's a startling
94%; in St. Louis it's 82%; in Philadelphia and Cleveland 79%; in Los
Angeles 84%; in Detroit startling again at 96%; in Baltimore 89%; in New
York almost 75%. Looking ahead, things seem to be getting worse, not
better.
The Bush education agenda also includes so-called school vouchers that
disguise a broader goal to privatize public education and aid parochial
(religious) schools. The use of them has been upheld by the Supreme
Court in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris city of Cleveland case in a 5 - 4
ruling but under strict conditions that the program be part of multiple
educational options, offer parents real choice between religious and
secular schools and ensure that benefits go to public and private
schools, religious or not. Despite this narrow circumscribing, in many
areas where they're now allowed, 80% of vouchers are for use in schools
where the central mission is religious education or training. This is a
serious blow to the health of democracy by violating the constitutional
principle of separation of church and state. But it's also a blow that
threatens the institution of public education that's been in place
throughout our history and has been the bedrock of primary and secondary
education until choice through vouchers was first proposed in the 1980s
by conservative economist Milton Friedman.
Those supporting vouchers believe choice will improve school performance
through competition in the marketplace. But those opposing them fear,
with justification, that draining already inadequate funding from the
public schools will eventually destroy them. In addition, the monetary
amount of vouchers offered is only a small fraction of the tuition cost
at most private schools, making them unusable for low-income parents.
It's also likely and already proven in some cases that where public
corporations run the schools the quality of education suffers because of
these corporations' legally mandated requirement to maximize profits. To
do so may and usually does require them to cut costs and reduce
services, and that can only result in lower quality education.
Things aren't much better for those needing college aid either as the
Bush administration for 3 straight years cut or froze the maximum
allowable Pell Grant amount. In the face of inexorable tuition and fee
increases (way above the inflation rate) combined with a trend toward
less government aid, this means a growing number of low-income students
are now deprived of a chance for higher education.
HEALTH CARE UNDER G.W. BUSH
The state of health care has also gotten worse under George Bush with
about 46 million having no coverage in 2004 and many millions more being
underinsured. The situation is greatly exacerbated by spiralling health
care costs including rising premiums on Medicare Part B, and cuts in
Medicaid. It's questionable what relief if any will result from the
Medicare Act of 2003 that added prescription drug coverage for Medicare
recipients. The plan is confusing, even Kafkaesque in some ways, and
doesn't at all benefit many on Medicare. This writer, now on Medicare,
won't touch it. It does benefit its main intended beneficiary, the big
pharmaceutical companies that get big subsidies from it and can maintain
and charge high prices - now you see a benefit, and now you don't. And
in the latest disturbing twist, as the new plan takes effect, some of
the largest pharmaceutical companies are ending their programs of
providing free or deeply discounted drugs to needy seniors and the
disabled. As many as 1 million people may be affected who earn too much
to qualify for government aid and who will now have the added burden of
higher out-of-pocket costs for the medications they need, if they can
afford them at all.
OTHER BUSH SOCIAL POLICIES
Ordinary working people have also suffered under Bush's policies. His
administration killed OSHA workplace ergonomic rules that were more than
10 years in the making, revoked grants to study workplace safety and
health, cut funding for job training, cut enforcement positions in OSHA
and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (a key reason for the
recent Sago and Alma mine deaths in W. Virginia and 230 total coal miner
deaths in 206 mine accidents), proposed paying welfare recipients
below-minimum wages, denied Homeland Security employees the right to
collective bargaining and protection for being a whisleblower, blocked
release of funds to monitor the health of rescue workers at Ground Zero
in New York, cut health care benefits for veterans, proposed privatizing
850,000 federal jobs over a number of years, changed overtime work rules
(despite House and Senate majority votes against his proposed changes)
that will deprive millions of overtime pay, made it much harder for
low-income workers to get the Earned Income Tax Credit and much more.
If they get their way, the Bush heartless agenda also intends to cut 30%
of the funding to train doctors at children's hospitals; wants a 15% cut
in winter energy assistance for the needy; another 15% cut in budget to
repair rundown public housing; a 13% cut for the Corps of Engineers for
programs to prevent flooding; a 10% cut for efforts to reduce
job-related deaths, injuries and ailments; and added cuts in funding for
environmental protection programs, transportation improvements and aid
to farm families forced off their land. The U.S. Senate at year end
2005, also passed a budget reconciliation bill (part of a House - Senate
conference committee) that cuts $40 billion over 5 years in entitlement
programs - mainly affecting student loans and Medicaid benefits. Once
the slight differences between the House and Senate bills are reconciled
and the bill is signed into law, it will become the first entitlement
cutback since so-called "welfare reform" in 1996.
The Bush administration's top domestic priority goal has been to
privatize Social Security, beginning with just a small portion of it. So
far mass public opposition combined with multiple Washington scandals
and Bush's plummeting approval rating has stopped it and temporarily
taken it off the agenda. While the administration won't admit it, their
real goal is to end Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by
privatizing all 3 programs. If they ever succeed in doing this, it would
wreak severe harm on the many millions of lower income recipients
especially who rely on these programs to keep them out of poverty and
give them essential health care that might otherwise be unaffordable.
The privatization of Medicare prescription drug benefits (a terrible
bill passed in the middle of the night by a forced vote through
intimidation after the first roll call vote defeated it) is one step
toward the full privatization of all health care, the overall result of
which will likely greatly increase the number of uninsured and force
many others to "buy" lesser quality coverage (and thus less health care)
than they now receive.
THE NET RESULT OF POLICIES SINCE 1980
The net result of the last 25 years has been a steady, disturbing
erosion of the most essential social services people rely on. And it's
come at a time when those services are more needed than ever since the
Great Depression years. Manufacturing and other higher paying jobs have
been exported for years to lower wage countries, and since the 1980s,
union membership and worker bargaining power have greatly declined. The
result is a nation oriented to services and mostly offering lower paying
jobs with fewer or no benefits. One almost unlimited job opportunity is
available. It could be promoted with the slogan "join the navy (or army,
air force or marines) and see the world" - or at least a certain part of
it in the Middle East. Most of those now joining up will never get the
benefits they're promised - another deception. Instead, they'll be
commodified and consumed on the endless battlefields of Iraq,
Afghanistan and other planned conflicts in an insane endless war to "win
hearts and minds", "spread democracy", force all others to think and act
as we do, and rule the world.
Along with a permanent state of war and garrison state, there's also
been a continued transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to
the most well-off through personal and corporate tax cuts (a third of
the 275 largest companies paid no federal income tax in at least one
year from 2001 - 2003 or got a refund). Corporations have also gotten
big corporate welfare subsidies (the public pays for them with our
taxes) including huge increases in military spending, which goes to the
defense contractors and the many thousands of other companies that
receive sub-contracts or sell to the defense related sector. The Center
for Defense Information reported that since 1945 over $21 trillion in
constant dollars has been spent on the military. Its been done largely
to benefit big corporations and fight wars for them, not to defend the
nation against real enemies. And its result has been the denial of a
fair portion of it being used for vitally needed social services. Unless
these policies can be stopped and reversed, essential social benefits
will continue to be lost, oppressive corporate power will get stronger,
and the gap between rich and poor will become even greater, increasing
poverty and destroying the principles this country was founded on of
equal opportunity and freedom and justice for all. As former Supreme
Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis once explained - "We can have democracy
in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands
of a few, but we can't have both." Unless we can reinvigorate the
democracy Brandeis spoke of, America the beautiful will only exist for
the privileged few and no one else.
HOW THEY GET AWAY WITH IT
I've long believed the greatest threat to democracy is an uninformed
electorate. Unfortunately, that disturbing state clearly characterizes
the overall U.S. public that's locked in a prison of its collective mind
created by state controlled programming or brainwashing. To control the
public, especially when the state is ill-serving it, only techniques of
mind control will work. If it's done effectively, the public can be
convinced to go along with some of the most audacious policies that go
against its own self-interest by a combination of state-induced fear,
distraction, consumerism and when the first three fail lockdown.
George Orwell explained that "those who control the present control the
past, and those who control the past control the future." It's called
programming the public mind or thought control. That's how it worked in
Orwell's classic "1984", and it's disturbingly similar today in the U.S.
In "1984" Big Brother was watching (through the omnipresent telescreen)
to be sure people were "good citizens." Today, Big Brother in the U.S.
is "Uncle Sam" watching to keep us in line and using the Orwellian
techniques of "newspeak", "doublethink" and "beat em up and lock em up"
when the propaganda message is misunderstood, ignored or resisted. It
worked in the fictional "1984", and it works well most often for most of
us in the real but often surreal-like world right here, but more subtly
except when things get rough.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE "FREE MARKET" - HOW IT'S PURSUED, PROTECTED AND
PRESERVED
In the west, especially in the U.S., we're taught to believe in the
doctrine of the "free market" uber alles, and that government should
stay out of the way except to protect us from enemies (46 million with
no health insurance and millions of poor single mothers and their
children denied further desperately needed welfare help might disagree).
The result is a society based on consumerism and a shop-till-you-drop
and buy the latest and greatest "gadgets and trinkets" mindset. And a
subset of sorts of consumerism is the element of "distraction." Instead
of focusing on the state of the world or affairs of state, the
government and its corporate media allies want us concentrating on the
alluring array at the mall or who'll win the Super Bowl. We'll take care
of the rest, they tell us. Trust us, we know what's best. As far as we
can throw them, I'd respond. And I'd add the wisdom and admonition of
the great independent American journalist I.F. Stone when he explained
that: "All governments are run by liars. Nothing they say should be
believed." He then shortened it to two words in his advice to aspiring
journalists: "Governments lie."
Stone would have easily recognized and reported fearlessly on the
mendacity of the Bush administration's current behavior. By using an
ill-defined sham threat of terrorism and easy-picking dictators like
Saddam, other "crazed Arabs" (Noam Chomsky's characterization), and
labeling all other leaders who forget "who's boss" threats to our
security, they've created an unjustifiable fear to support a permanent
state of war, national security state, and "lockdown" America. They've
done it to justify a strong military and homeland guardians to protect
us from all those "barbarians at our gates." As Machiavelli said in The
Prince - "It's better to be feared than loved." But when that leads to
the unrestrained and reckless use of power, its outcome is a Hobbesian
"war of all against all." The threat is bogus, a big lie, but it's
repeated endlessly until almost everyone believes it. What's really
intended is a plan to serve the interests of giant, powerful
corporations whose bottom line depends on big government spending to
support them. Those corporations also depend on military muscle when
needed to open and secure new markets abroad so they can grow even
bigger, more powerful and, above all, more profitable. Our military is
used to open those new markets, not protect us from predators. Its
called empire building.
George Washington understood it even in his day when he referred to the
nation as a "rising empire." He helped build it during the Revolutionary
War by his savage treatment of native Indians, all of whom he thought of
as subhumans (American Untermenschen). He compared them to wolves and
"beasts of prey" and called for their total destruction. And he did it
when he sent General John Sullivan and 5,000 troops to attack the
noncombatant Onondaga people in 1779 with orders to destroy all their
villages, homes, fields, food supplies, cattle herds and orchards. He
hoped to kill as many as possible and succeeded. He also stole Indian
land including from the Onieda people who aided Washington when he was
most in need at Valley Forge. The "Father of our country" and all other
leaders who followed him pursued a genocidal assault against our native
people that was one of the inspirations and models for Adolph Hitler in
designing his own plan to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and other
Untermenschen of his day.
Imperialism by its very nature is predatory and brutal. It's a scorched
earth, take-no-prisoners strategy to achieve continued economic and
geopolitical growth and expansion. It's in the DNA of a capitalist
system as the great political economist Harry Magdoff, who died on
January 1 at age 92, explained in his 1969 book The Age of Imperialism
when he wrote: "Imperialism is not a matter of choice for a capitalist
society; it is the way of life of such a society." Historian Henry
Steele Commager said it his way when he once wrote that a national
security state and its bureaucracy lends its great talents (and
resources) "not to devising ways of reducing tensions and avoiding war,
but to ways of exacerbating tensions and preparing for war.......For in
this Alice-in-Wonderland bureaucratic world you achieve peace through
war, order through chaos, security through violence, the reign of law
through lawlessness."
And in his unguarded and candid pithy statement, Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge also explained it in 1895 when he said "commerce follows the
flag." He might have added that the flag also follows commerce. The U.S.
had no real enemies then and none since WW II, but all administrations
had to convince us we did so they could divert a huge amount of the
federal budget to the military and national security. To do it enemies
had to be "invented" - the Russians (they were never coming), Saddam
(never a threat), North Korea (they've been seeking normalization with
us since the late 1980s), and today in Iran (the ayatollahs and elected
government also want normalization) and in Venezuela (President Hugo
Chavez is a peaceful populist democrat loved by the great majority of
his people).
Since WW II, the absence of a real threat has been the greatest threat
all U.S. administrations have feared most and had to overcome to pursue
their real agenda. When the Soviet Union began disintegrating in the
late 80s and finally broke up into 15 independent states at the end of
1991, the first Bush administration was desperate to find a new enemy.
They did first with Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian tyrant and former
close ally, in late 1989 and then with Saddam, another once close ally,
in 1991. Now the war drums are getting louder against Iran and Syria and
are also audible against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. And, of course, an
endless war continues against so-called, mostly unnamed "terrorists" as
well as the real thing in Iraq and Afghanistan. At a budgeted cost (on
and off the books) that likely exceeds $600 billion a year (including
the 2 real wars and the national and homeland security costs), business
is a big winner, but the public loses and must be convinced otherwise,
and future generations have to pay the cost.
The convincing goes on from cradle to grave. From pre-school to the
doctoral level, we're taught acceptable doctrine. And our senses are
bombarded constantly through the dominant corporate media and their
public relations partners as well as the sights and sounds we encounter
all around us at work, in our cities and communities, even in our places
of worship. There's almost no escape except to venture on our own to
discover hidden truths willfully kept from us. But if we're too good at
discovery and even better at spreading the "heretical doctrine" of
truths that refute the party line, communicating effectively with the
greater public, we then risk the power of the state acting to stop us by
any means - just like it tries to overthrow leaders of "outlier" nations
that dare "go their own way" and forget "who's boss."
THE SHAME OF WHAT'S CALLED OUR SYSTEM OF JUSTICE
The U.S. "gulag" prison system is proof enough that they mean business
and will act tough to squelch any serious dissent. (We already know
plenty about what goes on at the Pentagon and CIA authorized
"torture-prisons" at Guantanamo and many Abu Graibs around the world.)
Conditions have grown especially repressive against the poor and
disadvantaged and immigrants of color under the Bush administration's
fear-induced permanent state of war and sham "global war on terrorism."
The notion of due process has been usurped by systemic criminal
injustice for those unable to afford a proper defense, most often the
poor and people of color. As a result, the prison population has grown
each year and more people are behind bars today than in any other
country. In June, 2004 that number reached 2.1 million, and nearly half
of them were blacks and another 15% hispanics. Those imprisoned for
non-violent offenses accounted for about half the total prison
population and half of those (about 500,000) are drug related. And
there's a sizable number of political prisoners, especially post 9/11,
locked up on bogus charges because of their views and ability to spread
them, not any crimes they committed. Some are on death row and at times
murdered by the state despite their innocence.
The death penalty itself is the most contentious part of the
criminal-injustice system and how prisoners are treated once
incarcerated. Only 2 countries in the Global North, the U.S. and Japan,
have so far failed to ban it. In the U.S. at year end 2004, 36 states
and the Federal prison system held 3,315 prisoners on death row. Since
the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, over 1000
executions have taken place. (In Japan, only about 50 have been executed
in the last dozen years and about an equal number are awaiting
execution.) Many opponents of the death penalty call these acts
institutionalized, state-sponsored, ritualistic acts of torture-murder.
They say "torture" because often the prisoner is so hated that their
executioners "deliberately" try to inflict pain during the process of
killing them. And while that alone is inhumane and barbaric enough, all
too often the accused are innocent. But because most often they're a
person of color, poor and unable to afford a proper defense, they become
victims of a system based not on justice but on vengeance, indifference
and the belief by elected officials that being "tough on crime" is a
good vote-getter.
As a result, a huge prison-industrial complex system has arisen, and
spending for it continues to grow exponentially and now exceeds $40
billion annually. (The annual per prisoner cost today almost equals a
year's tuition at Harvard.) In some states the annual budget for prisons
exceeds that for education, and overall the rate of prison spending
growth has greatly exceeded that for education over the past 25 years.
All this is part of an effort to control dissent by a combination of a
state-induced climate of fear and hard line police state tactics to keep
a restive population in line. The population should be even more restive
as the wealth gap grows, wages have stagnated and at times fallen, low
paid service jobs replace higher paying manufacturing ones as more good
jobs are exported and lost, and social services continue to erode.
There's less carrot and more stick as the Bush administration has
cracked down hard at home against dissent and conducted a racist war
against immigrants, muslims and people of color.
THE ULTIMATE CORRUPTION - A HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF WORLD CIVIL SOCIETY BY A
LAWLESS, RAMPAGING ROGUE STATE
The Bush administration has used the pretext of what happened on 9/11 as
justification for all its policies and actions since that fateful day.
In so doing it trashed the Constitution, international law, all treaty
obligations in their way, the Geneva and Hague Conventions, other UN
Conventions and Covenants including the Universal Declaration of Human
rights, the Magna Carta establishing the foundation for our sacred
habeas rights, and whatever else they decide to disregard. Law for them
is only what they say it is. They rampage unchecked and unchallenged in
pursuit of a reckless and insane intent to rule the world even if they
destroy it in the attempt. They continue committing the most egregious
war crimes and crimes against humanity in two ongoing immoral and
illegal wars while claiming (through lies and deceit) to be doing it in
the name of "democracy." In fact, they're committing mass slaughter
using illegal weapons, illegal occupations, exploitation and
unrestrained depravity without end to control the world's resources,
markets and cheap labor.
Now they're planning new wars and coups against "uncooperative" and
"independent" heads of state who've ignored the message of "who's boss"
and "gone their own way." They plan to continue taking (stealing) from
the most disadvantaged and ordinary working people at home and most
desperately in need worldwide to fund their endless imperial wars to
enrich their corporate partners (masters) and further serve the most
privileged and well-off. In sum, they've spat in the face of all
humanity in their scorched earth, take no prisoners policies. They've
created a permanent "darkness at noon", a totalitarian nightmare like
the dystopian "1984" where the US is a real life Oceania. No one
anywhere is safe, we're all being illegally surveilled, unwanted or
unacceptable history and truths go down the "memory hole" of silence,
and anyone, anywhere, for any reason may be forcibly taken away to be
"detained", tortured, even murdered - all in the name of "democracy" and
a government fighting to protect us and keep us "free." Orwell summed it
up well when he wrote: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a
boot stamping on a human face----forever...."
WHERE IT'S LED US AND WHAT'S AHEAD
Things are far more dire than the public now realizes. Using wartime
contingency "national security initiatives" established during the
Reagan years that gave the President the power to suspend the
Constitution and impose martial law, George Bush signed executive orders
post 9/11 giving himself absolute power in times of whatever he alone
decides is a "national emergency." That power would make him a dictator,
accountable to no one, and he's given himself the right to seize it any
time he chooses and for any pretext he claims warrants it. Both Reagan
and Bush may have used Richard Nixon as their criminal role model in
approving their own plans to achieve absolute power. In his reckless
attempt to quell dissent, Nixon in 1970 approved the "Houston plan" that
authorized illegal wiretapping, mail intercepts and home and office
burglarizing to obtain sensitive records - all activities that moved the
nation a long way toward becoming a police state and led to the
Watergate scandal.
Things today appear far worse than under Nixon or Reagan. And an
unambiguous signal of what's now at stake was clear and present at the
January signing ceremony for the FY 06 Defense Authorization Bill. That
bill contained the McCain Amendment (banning the torture of detainees)
and Graham-Levin Amendment (effectively denying detainees their sacred
habeas rights and taking a reckless first step toward denying those
rights to all of us). At the ceremony, George Bush made an unguarded and
extraordinary statement. In it he effectively nullified "McCain"
entirely by claiming the right to govern as a "Unitary Executive" with
the power to abrogate the separation of powers doctrine (implied though
not specifically stated in the Constitution), bypass the Congress and
courts and act as he chooses to protect national security. In effect, he
was saying to protect the nation, he would ignore the law if he chooses
and govern by presidential edict - an unequivocal usurpation of
dictatorial power. In doing this Bush also violated the notion of
"judicial supremacy" articulated by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803
in the famous Marbury v. Madison case, which established the principle
that the Court is the final arbiter of what is and is not the law. Most
disturbing, Bush's declaration met no howls of protest or headline
stories in the corporate media. It's just business as usual as the
nation moves perilously closer to a full-blown totalitarian state - with
delusions of grandeur. What this administration wants is nothing less
than is stated in their language of "full spectrum dominance." It's
their intent to control the whole planet, including the oceans, air
above it and all outer space by any means including using war as a
strategy to achieve it. They actually put this stuff in writing anyone
can look up and read and get scared as hell.
How can this be stopped before it's too late? There may be little time
left, and we must use it and act. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal after WW
II said we're obliged to act to avoid being complicit in war crimes and
related criminal acts. They said: "Anyone with knowledge of illegal
activity and an opportunity to do something is a potential criminal
under international law unless the person takes affirmative measures to
prevent the commission of the crimes." The ultimate and final authority
rests with the people.
The all-powerful rampaging U.S. juggernaut is not invulnerable. It faces
at least 2 serious challenges. One is its own imperial arrogance, hubris
and potentially fatal overreach that may hasten its own demise. The
other is mass world public opinion that by using its "ultimate
authority", becoming aroused and energized, flexing its collective
muscle, can make even superpowers give ground. The great Indian writer,
Arundhati Roy, told us her view how to do it in her 2003 book War Talk
when she wrote:
"We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million
different ways.......we can come up with a million
ways of becoming a collective pain in the *****.
When George Bush says 'you're either with us, or
you are with the terrorists,' we can say 'No thank
you.' We can let him know that the people of the
world do not need to choose between a Malevolent
Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs.
Our strategy should be not only to confront the
Empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of
oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art,
our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our
joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and
our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are
different from the ones we're being brainwashed
to believe.
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse
to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their
version of history, their wars, their weapons, their
notion of inevitability.
Remember this: We be many and they be few.
They need us more than we need them."
The renowned anthropologist, Margaret Mead, author of 44 books and
thousands of articles and who "shone a light of understanding on human
nature" and believed we should "cherish the life of the world" thought
it was even simpler to achieve a better world when she wrote: "Never
underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to
change the world." And Gandhi observed that "even the most powerful
cannot rule without the cooperation of the ruled."
I would just add that with our collective will, in large or smaller
numbers, we can indeed shake the world, remake it in our own just image,
and reclaim it from theirs.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net
© Toward Freedom 2006
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.
.
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