SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE

“…know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  -John 8:32

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It is time that we honored his sacrifice by demanding that the truth be told about the circumstances of his death. There are important questions that have not been answered by the Warren Commission or the government. Knowing who killed Kennedy and why he was killed are two of the two most important questions to answer if Americans are ever going to trust their government again. The others are regard the extent of foreknowledge of 9/11 by US government and exactly how it used this inside information to launch its war of terror. This has served to hide from average Americans the fact that it is nothing but a war for corporate Empire. Knowing the answers to questions about Kennedy’s murder will go a long way toward answering questions about how and why 9/11 was used by the corporatocracy to advance the aims of Project for a New American Century’s plan for world domination. Until Americans understand this, they will continue to be ignorant of why it is critical to unite to take back their government.

It is disgraceful that 50 years after the fact, the Obama administration refused to release an estimated 50,000 pages of remaining documents regarding its investigation into what could rightly be called the crime of the century. Unanswered questions about the murder of an American president are still sneeringly dismissed by the corporate media and politicians despite the fact that the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1978 that JFK was likely killed as the result of a conspiracy, one that neither the FBI nor the Warren Commission ever seriously considered. Fortunately, enough documents have been released and witnesses identified that the basic outlines of the conspiracy are clear, including the central role of the CIA.

For those who want to understand how Kennedy was killed, there are any number of books that present the evidence for various theories to explain the many aspects of the murder that were ignored or inadequately addressed by both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. For those who want to know why he was killed, they cannot do better than to read the meticulously documented JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass. He does a good job of highlighting some of the most important evidence. However, it is in his examination of the reasons that Kennedy was killed that he excels. His may prove to be one of the most important books in history, if its lessons are widely noted and heeded.

Thomas Merton defined “the unspeakable” is as “…an evil whose depth and deceit (seem) to go beyond the capacity of words to describe.” In particular, the unspeakable is truth that “too few are willing to see” because most of us are “eager to be reconciled with the world at any price” He argues that the price of turning from the truth of what Kennedy’s assassination means is a loss of the national soul and with it, any prospect for world peace. As persuasively argued in JFK and the Unspeakable and in a speech by Douglass outlining the argument, it was this quest for peace that led to JFK’s murder by those who profited most from a growing military-industrial complex that was already out of control by 1963.

Douglass traces the origins of the unspeakable to a 1948 National Security Council Directive authorizing the CIA to commit illegal actions under the doctrine of “denial plausibility,” or without leaving evidence of American involvement. This is what gives the CIA the ability to operate with little congressional scrutiny and to conceal information from or lie to the President, the press and the American people. He argues that by 1963, the CIA had assets in every branch of government, the military and corporations that formed the industrial part of the military-industrial-government complex. The CIA role in the Kennedy assassination is suggested by Truman’s remarks shortly after: “For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government . . . There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.”

The guiding principle of CIA operation is that what is good for the transnational corporations that profit from military and economic conquests of resource-rich nations is in “American” interests. This has always been the case in American foreign policy, but never before had an agency of government been given so much power with so much autonomy. It was bound to lead to conflicts with any President who dared challenge the conventional wisdom of the Cold war or those who profited from it. After the CIA lied to him in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy spoke of wanting to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind.” This was the opening salvo in what became a covert war between Kennedy and every element of the military industrial complex from the CIA and military to the industrialists, bankers and politicians whose interests they served.

JFK and the Unspeakable counters the myth that as an unrepentant Cold Warrior, Kennedy could not have been the passionate idealist for peace that some have described him. This has been a useful lie, serving to divert attention from the real motivation for JFK’s murder and who carried it out and covered it up. The evidence now available clearly documents Kennedy’s change after the Cuban missile crisis. After facing the prospect of being responsible for a nuclear war that could have ended human civilization as we know it, he was transformed from Cold Warrior to Soldier For Peace, posing a direct threat to an established order that was based on endless expansion of corporate Empire. Douglass documents the profound transformation he underwent 

After staring down generals who had called for a preemptive nuclear strike during the missile crisis, JFK established continuing back door communication with Kruschev, negotiating the first ABM missile treaty and even proposing a joint US-Soviet space project that would have ended the space race that was a cover for the dangerous escalation of nuclear weapons. With Kruschev’s help began setting up a line of communication with Castro seeking normalization of relations that continued until the day of his assassination. He ordered plans for the evacuation of American troops from Vietnam, but military leadership stalled him until his death, after which LBJ cancelled these plans and escalated the war. In addition to these moves toward peace he challenged price fixing in the steel industry, converted the US to a silver standard to reduce the power of the Fed and seriously challenged Mafia power. Since the Mafia was an important source of CIA assets and the international banks controlled the corporations that profit from war, these too can be seen as part of his concerted effort to work for world peace. 

Finally, less than six months before his murder, Kennedy gave a little-remembered speech at American University in which he called for an end to the Cold War. Speaking about the common humanity of Americans, Russians, Cubans, Vietnamese and all people of the Earth, his speech was widely hailed in Russia, where it was front page news and a cause for rejoicing while being virtually ignored in the US media. 

JFK risked all in the pursuit of peace and was silenced as a result. He will not have died in vain if we keep his dream alive. It starts with believing peace is possible, even while acknowledging the tremendous forces that make it seem otherwise. Understanding the real story of his murder is an essential first step in creating a truly transparent government answerable to the People. The next step is to make other Americans understand it as well. We owe as much to Kennedy and the millions who have died in senseless wars in the belief that they were defending liberty. Most of all, we owe it to our children and generations to come to assure that the dream of liberty and justice for all does not perish from the Earth.

WE ARE ALL SYRIANS NOW

Note to reader: This article contains a lot of information put together from multiple sources. If you are unfamiliar with the sources of any of the claims highlighted here, it is highly recommended that you check out the links provided.

With conflicts raging from Libya to Mali in the aftermath of the widely misunderstood “Arab Spring,” it is not surprising that few commentators seem to realize the special significance of the battle for Syria. The outcome may determine the success or failure of the effort to create a global corporate Empire nominally directed by the government of the United States and backed by the power of the US military. It is critical that westerners understand this because once such a New World Order is fully established, resistance in the US and elsewhere can only be violent. That could only serve to provide the perfect excuse to use the powers of the police state that is being constructed all around us.

Those who only follow the news in the mainstream media have enough clues to piece the story together, though the truth is to be found in plain sight through the alternative media. To appreciate the real danger humanity faces, we must look at the available information with open eyes, a justified skepticism of government claims and an understanding of the realities of how the global game of Risk is played today. We won’t get this perspective from the political pundits whose analyses are premised on an uncritical acceptance of the need for a “war on terror.” Anyone who understands the goals of Strategy for Rebuilding America’s Defenses (SAD), the white paper put out by Project for a New American Century in 2000, knows that the America’s war of terror is a smokescreen for the creation of what amounts to a permanent fascist New World Order.

PNAC laid out its plans for world domination in this seminal document, published one year before the attack on the World Trade Center provided the opportunity to put the strategy into action. PNAC was founded on the assumption that the US had the right and duty to assure a Pax Americana would endure for at least a century, established and maintained through American military superiority in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. SAD described a plan to destabilize any nation whose leaders dared challenge “American interests.” In context, the term can only be assumed to mean the interests of international corporations whose executives have dictated foreign policy to the US government at least since the 1954s, when the CIA staged the Guatemalan coup on behalf of the United Fruit Company.

Among nations specifically identified as potential threats in SAD were Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran. It may seem surprising that Afghanistan was not on the list, given that negotiations for an American pipeline had broken down in 1998, but perhaps by 2000 the invasion was already a foregone conclusion. After all, General Wesley Clark has reported being informed of a classified memo on or about September 20, 2001 that laid out plans to take down these governments along with Sudan, Lebanon and Somalia. For those who haven’t been paying attention, oil-rich southern Sudan seceded in July of 2011, Hezbollah has recently been accused of masterminding a terror attack against Israelis in Macedon, leading to the EU considering putting them on its terrorist list, and the CIA is still busy trying to gain control in Somalia through drones, private contractors and covert means.  The claim that Hezbollah was behind the Macedon attack is at best suspicious, pointing to a deliberate effort to implicate a key ally of Syria and Iran.

The timing of the CIA and MI-6 based coup in Libya may have been related to Gaddafi’s renewed threat to create a gold-backed dinar to challenge the supremacy of the petrodollar. There had been threats to take out Gaddafi at least since Reagan was in office. In 1996, two MI-5 whistleblowers  revealed that one was approached by an agent of MI-6 about illegally funneling money to foreign mercenaries to finance a coup. Gaddafi’s socialist government and his efforts to promote Pan-African unity and independence were threats to NATO’s vision of an American-led New World Order. When the time came to take him out, NATO used the same means proposed in 1996. Mercenaries backed by the US and its Gulf partners infiltrated the Benghazi region and gained the support of a few malcontents to give themselves a veneer of legitimacy. NATO then sought UN cover in the form of a no-fly zone authorization, which was used as a pretext to eliminate loyalist civilians and the Libyan military through massive air strikes, allowing the terrorist army to murder Gaddafi and take control of the country.

Many wondered why Russia and China did not veto the UN decision on the no-fly zone. After all, they stand to be the biggest losers in the winner-take-all game of global Monopoly in which average citizens of the planet are merely token players. What they did was abstain. By tradition though not law, this is taken to mean that a measure passes in the Security Council. However, when NATO exceeded the mandate of the resolution and murdered an estimated 10,000 loyal Libyan civilians under the doctrine of “responsibility to Protect,” both nations decided it was in their interests to not allow the same thing to happen in Syria. This is probably the main reason the Assad government remains in power.

Syria is the key line of defense against US/NATO/Gulf Cooperation Council/Israeli domination of the world’s oil supplies exclusive of Latin America and Russia. Its citizens increasingly realize that the survival of sovereignty in Syria may be the last hope of stopping a small band of bankers and their minions from controlling the world. From a larger perspective, the quest to achieve dominance over the rest of the planet in the interest of perpetuating a carbon fuels-based world economy threatens the survival of human civilization as we know it. As long as geopolitics is centered on the conflict over oil and natural gas, the threat of global climate change grows and becomes ever more immediate.

Here is how the dominoes line up: If Syria falls and Hezbollah is named a terrorist organization by the EU, Iran and Russia will stand virtually alone against the powerful alliance of western “democracies,”  Israel, the Gulf monarchies, the Qatar-backed governments dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist groups backed by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. US policy has since 2007 has been to back cooperative “moderate” Sunni monarchies over “radical” Shia governments and groups and their secular allies in Syria and pre-invasion Iraq. This is essential to understanding the US plan to carry out its program of regime destabilization. The Muslim Brotherhood, including Hamas, seems committed to securing its place in what they seem to assume will be a permanent fascist New World Order.  If Iran is destabilized through economic sanctions or eventually attacked by NATO forces with the implicit or explicit blessing of citizens of EU nations, Russia will be essentially isolated and economically devastated by the loss of access for its oil and natural gas to European, Chinese and Indian markets. China in turn will find itself virtually alone in the fight against a worldwide western corporate Empire.

China is heavily dependent on oil from Iran, Myanmar and other regions that have been targeted by NATO, which is seeking to absorb SEATO (the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization). Australia and Japan are going along with the plan to establish NATO economic and military dominance over Asia. Meanwhile, drone bases are being set up in Africa, throughout Asia and in the Americas. Everything is in place to allow the international corporate terrorists who control the US government, military and intelligence agencies to take over the world militarily in areas where it cannot yet dominate economically. In the face of a dollar that is increasingly seen as endangered, the impetus to move rapidly toward a final solution to the problem of democracy is compelling.

With all this happening in front of their eyes, a clueless American public dithers over the economic consequences of having unwittingly allowed corporations to take control of their government, without recognizing that is the problem. Most of those who have not given up on politics altogether engage in endless debate over whether Democrats or Republicans have allowed this to happen when clearly both are responsible. As an example of the lunacy of the state of American politics, supporters of right wing politicians are so fearful of a “socialist” takeover that they have made gun rights a central issue in the political dialogue, joined in support by left wingers who have also concluded that violent revolution is unavoidable.

What would be left in this corporate-controlled New World Order is a China under increasing pressure by the Anglo-American Empire, an economically crippled Russia, a Mideast dominated by overseers of the slave owners of the corporatocracy, a recolonized Africa and Asia and a defenseless and demoralized world citizenry, unable to fight back effectively because any effort to resist would simply increase support for a police state by those remaining in the middle class who are fearful of a mob rule formerly known as “democracy.”

Is there any hope to change the tide of history? In a word, yes. That will be the topic of the next essay in Soldiers For Peace International.

For a more detailed discussion of the outline of the plan for global domination, listen to this podcast from SFPI Radio, the voice of Soldiers For Peace International on the worldwide web.

GUNS AND THE COMING REVOLUTION

I swore I was not going to write about the gun debate that has followed the latest mass murder. It seemed an exercise in futility. Trying to convince people that they are wrong on gun control is like trying to influence their views on abortion. Attitudes and opinions are fixed on the issue. There is little chance that one more opinion will change them. Recently, the conversation took an interesting turn, one that is new to the ongoing debate on gun control. The idea that we have to have personal weapons to fight our own government went from being a fringe idea to a mainstream argument, defended by conservatives and many pro-second amendment liberals.

It has been obvious to every thinking American for some time that something is terribly wrong with our current government. If we could agree in what that was we might be able to fight it without resort to guns. The nation is nearly evenly divided between those who fear a socialist takeover and those who believe that the problem is growing corporate dominance of government to the extent that it is leading to fascism, if it has not already arrived. If we do not come to a common understanding of what has gone wrong with the US system of government, it is likely that the incidence of political violence will continue to increase until we are subject to a violent crackdown by the very police state that so many of us fear.

The argument that America is being taken over by socialists is laughable on its face. With the social safety net under attack and a bailout of the medical insurance industry being passed off as “near-universal health care,” nothing could be further from the truth. Funneling taxpayer dollars to corporations that ship jobs overseas, those that profit from denying needed health care and those that manufacture weapons for insanely expensive wars for corporate Empire is in fact a form of corporate welfare serving the interests of the rich over those of the American taxpayer. That is worth fighting a revolution over, but one that can only succeed if it is done so through nonviolent, democratic action. That is impossible if we cannot come to a consensus on how democracy works and how best to achieve it.

It is easy to define democracy. The word translates literally as “government of the People.” That means government of, by and for the People. Not some people, but all people in the United States. If we cannot achieve consensus on what is best for all the people, we cannot create a government of the People. Instead, those who wield power over the government will continue to divide us until they ultimately conquer us. Those calling for revolution understand that it is our inalienable right and responsibility to resist a government that has become tyrannical. A government that is not for the People but for corporations and the wealthy individuals that control it cannot be said to be democratic.

Who then is the tyrant who dares challenge democracy in the US and the world? Many claim it is President Obama. On one side the radical Right argues that he intends to impose a socialist government that will dictate to the People. On the Left, the claim is made that there is no difference between Obama and George Bush in the arena of foreign policy and that he has been far too willing to sacrifice the interests of the People for the corporate interest that in fact wields control over both parties by virtue of controlling the corporate media and thereby the nature of political discourse. In fact, the blame lies squarely with a Congress that has abdicated its authority to an imperial Presidency, regardless of who is the figurehead in the White House in matters of war and peace. 

If we truly want a democratic revolution, the Left and Right must first agree on goals, lest the US become another failed state, at best degenerating into a power struggle between the leaders of the revolution but far more likely to result in the consolidation of power by those who control the police state. As the response to Occupy has shown, these are the powerful banking and oil industries that colluded with agents of the police state in infiltrating and undermining this popular movement. The only way to overcome the power of those who control the levers of government is to united around the idea that together we can create a government of, by and for the People only by ending the power of corporations and the rich to choose who we have to pick from to represent us in Congress. 

There is evidence that there will be a mass movement to hold candidates for Congress accountable to the People by making them declare whether they will support a constitutional amendment to ban corporate campaign expenditures and limit individual donations to influence the outcome of elections. There is a parallel movement to accomplish the same by legislative changes to address corruption ofgovernment by monied interests, though many doubt that such an effort can succeed. Even if it does succeed in the short run, there is always the risk that a future Congress can be corrupted by the influence of the rich and powerful, while a constitutional amendment will ensure that future Congresses will not be able to hand the US government back to corporate interests.

Those who argue that we cannot reform government by working with politicians are missing the point: If we make support for a constitutional amendment the litmus test for candidates for Congress, we can and will elect a Congress that will put the interests of the People over those of the corporate interests that currently control it. This is the first step to electing a Congress that will work for peace through cutting the strings of those who manipulate US policy to wage endless war for corporate Empire while subjugating a population that is becoming increasingly aware of the threat this poses to its own freedom. 

If we keep in mind that 80% of both self-identified conservatives and liberals are opposed to Citizens United, citizens can unite to take back America for the People. The Pledge to Amend campaign is the way to join the Left and Right in the common cause of finally achieving democracy in America and the world. If we succeed the last, best hope for Mankind shall not perish from the Earth. Recent history has shown that democracy cannot be imposed at the point of a gun. If we come to understand that, there is yet hope that we can create it through the will of the People, using the democratic process that is at the heart of the freedoms for which so many have died.  

IT'S TIME FOR A REAL DEBATE ON HEALTH CARE REFORM

Medical insurers around the country are announcing a new round of double-digit premium increases, belying the promise that Obamacare would reduce costs of health care. Although the “Affordable” Health Care Act is not yet fully implemented, it is reasonable to assume that the further expansion of benefits will dwarf the promised savings as detailed in the error-filled CBO report Democrats use to justify the claim. The fact is that the ACA was never meant to be real health care reform, which can only be achieved through truly universal health care in the form of a single payer, Medicare-for-All model or something similar. What it amounts to is a taxpayer bailout of a failing medical insurance industry.

People who wonder how the tremendously profitable insurance industry can be failing need only consider the basic fact that as medical insurance costs rise, fewer people can afford it and profits drop, forcing further premium increases to maintain profit margins. This is the “death spiral” that single payer proponents have talked about from the beginning of the health care “reform” debate but which was ignored by the corporate media and both major Parties. It is time that taxpayers demand an honest discussion about the one option for addressing the crisis in health care access and affordability. Congress will continue to avoid this debate if we do not force them to. We need to make them fear us more than the anger of their political patrons in the medical-industrial complex of the insurance, pharmaceutical and corporate health care delivery industries.

Democratic politicians used a very clever strategy to avoid talking about true universal health care. At the outset of the debate, they took single payer off the table, arguing the self-fulfilling prophecy that it was “not politically possible.” Knowing that many of their own members were as dependent on campaign contributions from these industries as are the Republicans, they deliberately undermined support for Medicare-for-All by presenting a classic bait-and-switch in the form of a public option that had no chance of leading to single payer. The cat was out of the bag when Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer assured the medical insurance industry that they had no intention of creating a public option that could compete with for-profit insurance. 

It should have been obvious from the beginning, when Senate Finance committee chair Max Baucus was put in charge of the debate. He was the recipient of $6 million from corporations in the medical-insurance complex in the election cycle preceding the debacle. It is no surprise that he had 13 doctors, nurses and lawyers arrested during the first two days of hearings for “disrupting” the discussions with the representatives of industry by calling from the gallery for consideration of a single payer option.

To assure that there would not be mass dissention in the Democratic rank and file, Rahm Emanuel cleverly convinced Democracy for America and MoveOn to make the spurious claim that there millions of members supported the public option, without questioning those members or having any sort of open debate that would have demonstrated the overwhelming support for single payer that was evident at NetRoots Nation in Pittsburgh in 2009. In the end, Democrats gave up even the pretense of universal health care in accepting what was essentially Ron Wyden’s Healthy Americans Act. The insurance exchange, the mandate and other features of Obamacare came straight from that plan, which was put on the back burner while the phony debate about the public option was going on. Democratic leaders declared victory and told their supporters to go home and tell everyone what a good job they did against the big, bad Republicans and the insurance industry that got millions of new customers at the taxpayer’s expense. 

Health care costs are approaching 20% of GDP, with no prospects of improvement in sight. If Democrats and Republicans do not unite to demand their politicians have an honest debate on the merits of single payer they will continue to see personal and taxpayer costs escalate, adding to personal and federal debt in a time when Congress claims the latter is a crisis. What most Thanks to the fact that corporate interests control the terms of political debate, most Americans don’t realize that they are already paying more than the full costs of a universal health care system through taxes, subsidies and personal health care expenditures. 

Taxes for Medicare, Medicaid and the uninsured alone are nearly enough to fit the bill for a system of universal health care that already exists in other countries and costs about half what we pay in the American system that still leaves nearly 50 million uninsured, mostly working Americans and their families. Despite increased coverage of young adults, about 9 million children remain uninsured. This total exceeds the estimated 45 million uninsured before the medical insurance "reform" debate in 2009. Other unaddressed costs include medical bankruptcies, loss of competitiveness by employers who pay the brunt of the cost of insurance, lost productivity by the uninsured, failed businesses for entrepreneurs who lose their businesses when they are sick or injured and on and on. 

Peter DeFazio (D-OR) has a well-deserved reputation as a fighter for the average American, but he gave in far too readily to the fallacy that we cannot afford to give Medicare to everyone because “it has (financial) problems of its own.” Belatedly, he has acknowledged that the worst of these problems is the Wyden-supported Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 that gave us an unfunded Medicare prescription benefit plan under which pharmaceutical manufacturers can name their own price and the government is not allowed to negotiate. Even now, he refuses to discuss single payer with members of Physicians for a National Health Program. I know this because I have repeatedly asked him myself. This explains why he is still ignorant of the fact that the reason universal Medicare coverage will save Medicare is that it covers both the healthy and the sick, creating a universal risk pool so that everyone pays and everyone has access when they need medical care.

A universal health care system is inevitable unless Americans choose to give up their own access to health care. Even Republicans can’t make that seem like a good thing. If Democrats don’t join third parties and independents in calling for an honest debate on single payer health care, they will follow Republicans in the ashcan of history when Americans wake up to their collective power and vote for candidates who will put their interests over corporate profit.

To hear a discussion about health care and democracy, listen to this podcast from SFPI Radio, the voice of Soldiers For Peace International on the worldwide web every Saturday.

THE MUSSOLINI TEST

It is often said of Mussolini's fascist dictatorship that "At least he made the trains run on time." The point is that without freedom, an authoritarian government can create a society that is efficient. What people who have not lived through fascism do not seem to appreciate is the high cost that comes with that efficiency. It is also often pointed out that democracy is a messy business, but too many do not appreciate their own part in creating the disorder that makes fascism appear to be preferable. Is it possible that in a democracy we could in some sense "make trains run on time?" I propose that a test of whether we are capable of governing ourselves is whether or not we can make freeway traffic flow smoothly. 

For a democratic society to be viable, citizens must understand the responsibility that comes with the power to make decisions that affect us all. In the same way, drivers have to understand that their decisions on the road determine whether traffic will flow smoothly, to the benefit of all. The individual determines whether decisions based on short-sided self-interest upset the orderly process of getting from one point to another or whether they will frustrate our common goal of getting to our desired destinations efficiently. Only when the great majority of citizens act in the interest of the common goal of driving the US in the direction of  democracy will democracy become possible.

I was driving to Portland over the Christmas weekend when I experienced an event that showed how difficult it will be to establish democracy in the chaotic society that the United States has become. Anyone who knows Portland knows that it has been a hotbed of resistance to authority at least since the Vietnam War. It witnessed some of the largest demonstrations in the country against the effort to impose corporate Empire upon the citizens of a distant land while trying to shut down resistance by its own citizens. As I was crawling along the freeway for the last 20 miles, I asked myself how in a city that embodies coordinated resistance to government power have citizens become so blind to the effects of their individual actions? How can it be that a city that recently saw one of the highest turnouts in support of the Occupy movement people could fail to see that only by acting according to what was best for all could they achieve their common goal of getting home as quickly as possible so they could spend time enjoying the holidays with family and friends?

I believe the answer is that while Portlanders truly want democracy to achieve what is best for all, they do so out of self-interest. They understand that our government does not represent us, but fail to recognize that in a democracy a government can only be made to serve their interests when voters understand how their decisions affect us all. That is not to say that Portlanders don't consider this when voting but like Americans everywhere, they do not make it a habit to consider the effects on society as a whole in their individual decisions. There are of course many exceptions to this rule, but the fact that there are not enough citizens who think in this way to make traffic flow smoothly proves that this way of thinking is not as pervasive in the Portland area as they would hope.

Of course, the phenomenon of people who want to create a society in which the government operates in the best of all failing to order their personal lives around this commitment is not unique to Portland. The effects of this failure are being felt around the nation as a whole and by extension, the citizens of nations around the world. The actions of a US government unchecked by the collective power of the citizens it is supposed to represent are the greatest threat to the survival of human civilization in history. Only by acting in cooperation can Americans gain control of the government and save themselves and future generations around the world from the scourge of a permanent fascist New World Order.

To return to the comparison of driving on the freeway to directing a government to head a nation in the direction that the majority of people want to go, consider how easy it would be to make traffic flow efficiently if drivers keep in mind that driving conditions depend on the individual decisions each of them make. All it would take is to remember what each of us learned in driving safety class in high school: Keep a safe distance between cars by allowing one car length for every 10 MPH you are travelling. This allows for safe braking in an emergency and for smooth lane changes, both of which act to allow for the mistakes of others. By analogy, keeping in mind that the country can only move forward when citizens allow a respectful distance between competing interests of our fellow travelers in reaching their individual goals is the only way to avoid collisions of these interests that prevent us all from arriving at our selected destinations.

Imagine a freeway having become a parking lot because of stalled traffic, with cars spread out along a 10 mile stretch of freeway. If these cars were travelling 60 MPH they would cover that distance in 10 minutes. If the drivers are stuck in stop-and-go traffic they might be lucky to travel 10 MPH on average, making a 10 minute trip take a full hour. At the risk of stretching the analogy, I would argue that the US government is stuck in gridlock because Americans have become unwilling to allow space for differences, aggressively pursuing what they perceive to be in their self-interest while ignoring the fact that they are collectively responsible for where we find ourselves at a given time. If those who wanted to travel slowly were to stay to the right and allow those on the left to pass them, each of them would get to our destination at their chosen time. 

This is the roadmap to democracy. Every citizen can choose their own destination, but they cannot get there without mutual cooperation. None of us should expect or want to tell others where they must go. When each of us values our personal space over the right of others to share it, some are forced to travel with traffic to a destination others chose. They may miss their chance to go in the direction they choose if others do not give them the space to exit the freeway and go their own way. While each of us would like to believe that we can control the direction we take, most of have been cut off or blocked from the exit of our choosing at one time or another.

If we try to assert the right to choose to exit a road that seems to go in the wrong direction, we may cause a chain of braking that can bring a halt to each of us reaching our chosen destination. On the road, this may even cause a chain of accidents that can make us arrive too late to accomplish our goal in traveling in the first place. In civil society, those who threaten to upset the orderly flow of events by such means as Occupying public spaces are seen as dangerous and are subject to infringements of their civil liberties. In either instance, each of us bears some responsibility if we are not obeying the rules of the road. In the same way that tailgaters endanger others by making lane changes difficult, every one of us who impedes the movement of the nation as a whole toward democracy bears a part of the responsibility for our collective failure to get there.

Democracy is a messy business, but it would not be if we understood that we are so interdependent that we must consider the effects of our individual actions on others and on society as a whole. We can continue to accept the myth that each of us travels the road of life according to our own decisions, or we can accept that we do not control our destinies independent of those of others. Each of us is subject to the effects of decisions made by others. We can choose to be part of the decision making process or we can allow others to make those decisions for us, as Mussolini did for Italians in a fascist society where corporate interests were placed above those of the people. That is what happens when people do not work together to achieve common goals in a democratic way. A complex society can only realize these goals with the help of a government that puts the interests of all above those of the most aggressive among us. Such a government cannot exist unless the people it represents assure that all are represented equally.

I predict that when America passes the Mussolini test, it will have proved that democracy is possible. When the freeways of America move smoothly, Americans will have demonstrated the capacity to determine their collective destinations by allowing each other the freedom and means to choose their own paths. For those who have never driven on a freeway because they live in a part of the country where a tradition of private ownership of roads has persisted or where they have allowed government to make every driver individually pay the cost of using roads that belong to all of us, this will be a particularly meaningful change. 

The United States has a system of government designed to allow the existence of a democracy. The road to democracy has not been smooth, but Americans have always been able to get back on the path when the collective interests of all have been threatened by the economic elite that would choose their destiny for them. Americans have the ability to make any changes the majority collectively wants when individuals choose to accept a few basic principles of democracy: respect for differences of opinions, awareness of our interdependence, a willingness to accept the will of the majority and an expectation that our government does the same.

Is there hope for democracy in America and the world? That depends on us. If enough individuals show to others the value of recognizing our interdependence by less aggressively pursuing our individual goals, we might just teach enough others to consider how the effects of their actions on others influence our individual and collective  destinies. The simple expedient of demonstrating the importance of common courtesy on the road would be a great way to start. 

IT'S THE CORRUPTION, STUPID!

Despite assaults on unions that have galvanized workers for the first time in decades and amid growing concern about the environmental effects of fracking, global climate change and endless war, the left in the United States has failed to make discernible progress in unifying a progressive movement capable of wielding real political power. While publicly criticizing Democrats in Congress, union leaders continue to rely on them to represent their interests, despite overwhelming evidence that they do not. Environmental and peace activists, health care reform proponents and groups working to take down the banksters who crashed the U.S and world economies have for the most part abandoned the political process. A similar decision may have been a potentially fatal mistake for the Occupy movement. What can we do about this?

The first thing is to stop depending on self-appointed leaders to tell us what to do and start telling them what we want to do. The Occupy movement in the U.S. and Europe started with this great idea, but in the U.S we have failed to capitalize on it. Occupy activists rejected working with established organizations out of fear of co-option, so rejected an opportunity for co-operation.  Meanwhile, activists in these groups failed to hold their leaders responsible for listening to them.

In Europe and the Mideast, rank-and-file union members organized with ordinary citizens to demand real political change. When existing justice advocacy groups in Europe saw the opportunity to join forces in fighting austerity with mass strikes and sustained protests, governments fell throughout Europe. From Greece to Egypt, the common denominator was  the fight against government corruption. These techniques of coordinated resistance are being noticed around the world, except apparently by most leaders of such groups in the U.S.

There is nothing to stop those who participated in Occupy and their supporters from organizing a true grassroots movement starting in their own communities and linking up statewide, nationally and internationally to build a united international front against fascism and war the like of which has never been seen in human history. At a time in that history like no other, when the survival of human civilization itself hangs in the balance, that is exactly what must be done to stop the expansion of a global New World Order that will make us all economic slaves at best, and literal slaves of the corporatocracy at worst.

The unifying theme of protests from Cairo to Athens and Madrid is the control of governments by special interests that are ultimately those of international corporate terrorists who presume they have a divine right to rule over the rest of us. Those in the US who are aware of this existential threat to the prospect of democracy   need to emulate the model of the rest of the world. Together, we can create a unified national and international movement to establish democracy, liberty and justice in the world. Citizens can decide how to deal with the international bankers who have destroyed their economies and now want to extract the last pound of flesh through austerity measures. They can hold their governments responsible for acting in an environmentally responsible way and assure that the basic needs of all citizens are guaranteed. A global democratic wakening that unites Peoples around the world in this cause can make the end of war is possible.

Progressives on the left in the U.S. must confront the problem of the complacency of most Americans in the face of these grave threats. They need to understand that they are feeding that apathy by overwhelming potential supporters with a barrage of information about seemingly disparate concerns without tying these issues to the central problem of corporate corruption of the government. With dozens or hundreds of groups all presenting their own message in their own way and competing for funds and attention instead of working together, it is small wonder that most Americans are feeling powerless. It is not as if average people can put all their time and energy into so many causes, especially when leaders on the left do not present realistic solutions. Each group seems to think that if it gets enough media attention and funding it can lead the various movements, not seeing that by competing instead of cooperating they are fracturing their own movements and the progressive movement as a whole.

There are many encouraging signs that a shift may be occurring. Jobs with Justice is leading the way in showing how union locals can come together to promote not only the interests of union workers but all workers and their families. The Working Families Party aspires to become a real voice in electoral politics. Unfortunately, the current realities of third party politics have resulted in state parties tending to endorse only Democratic candidates, which defeats the purpose of having a third party. Of course, if they get enough members they can challenge the Democratic Party by giving voters choices of candidates who do not represent the interests of corporations. However, acquiring that power means stepping out of the shadow of the Democrats and endorsing candidates of other third parties that better represent the interest of working families than corporate Democrats, when they cannot field a candidate of their own.

Partnerships are also forming among groups in some movements and more recently, across movements. Of these, the most important such coalitions are forming between groups working for constitutional and legislative reforms to address government corruption. A conference was held in Washington, DC on December 10 that brought together representatives from dozens of groups in the environmental, civil rights and other social justice movements. A central theme of the conference was how to address the government corruption that is frustrating all their efforts.

There was a recent conference at the UCLA law school that brought together experts on the legal aspects of various legislative and constitutional approaches to ending government corruption. This was to my knowledge the first such attempt to bring together those of us who adamantly believe that only a constitutional amendment can get at the root of the problem of corporate corruption of elections and elected officials and those who believe that a legislative approach is more realistic. The important thing is that both are shining a spotlight on corporate corruption of the US government. It is conversations like this that will eventually lead to the conclusion that the two camps will best advance the cause by working together to keep this issue in the mind of the public until it realizes that it must be dealt with before Congress will address the many other critical issues that affect all Americans.

While many people wrote off Occupy when groups across the country failed to create an American Spring in 2012, its diehard members continue to organize. Some are thinking more strategically, identifying core issues that they hope Occupy as a whole will adopt as its central themes. They do not want to co-opt the movement or dismiss any of the causes Occupy promotes. What they want to do is identify issues that connect the dots for a public that has largely concluded that Occupy is a lost cause because it has failed to identify a focused set of issues and demands that could inspire coordinated actions across the country.

I met with the governmental reform working group of OWS in October and was pleasantly surprised to find that the group had developed a strategy that I have been promoting since 2009: Making support for a constitutional amendment to deal with corporate corruptions of elections a campaign issue in congressional elections around the nation. While the person who developed this plan feels that the issue of corporate personhood detracts from what he considers the main issue of money not being speech, he agrees that individual groups and individuals should promote whatever version of an amendment it favors. While this could potentially cause a problem if legislators support different forms of amendments, in the end it is Congress that will decide the final form of the amendment. It is during the deliberations about the issue are taking place that groups and individuals will be able to lobby for the amendments and legislation they favor.

Contrast these flexible, cooperative attempts at movement building with those of the faux “coalition” of Move to Amend, whose steering committee purports to represent hundreds of groups and over 100,000 individuals who have signed its petition. In reality, all the signers and organization endorsers were agreeing with was the need for a constitutional amendment that would declare that money is not speech and corporations were not people.

It was only after getting dozens of groups to endorse MTA that the steering committee announced that Move to Amend supporters were backing specific amendment language that few of the endorsing organizations had a say in writing, let alone those who had signed their petition. The steering committee assured that there would be no effective opposition within MTA for this usurpation of authority to speak for all by making it a condition that MTA chapters and affiliates had to support without question the decisions of the steering committee. They took upon themselves alone the authority to dictate amendment language and strategy for its passage. Needless to say, they have made it clear that they will not work with any organization or individual who does not swear fealty to this small group of self-appointed leaders.

If people come to understand the manner in which the steering committee of Move to Amend has attempted to co-opt the amendment movement, it is likely that defections from the ranks of their supporters will increase. The self-limiting nature of their top-down attempt at movement building will eventually become apparent even to them. Let’s hope that they will be willing to put the cause over their pride. I welcome them to join those of us who want to build a real movement around the principles of cooperation with and mutual support of those who may not share the exact same vision of the ultimate goal or the path to get there.

One hopeful sign is that MTA spokesman David Cobb has stated publicly that MTA is going to form a 501.c4 to identify and promote candidates who will pledge to support their version of the amendment, which is the essence of the Pledge to Amend campaign aside from the fact that Pledge to Amend does not promote specific language, only the minimum components of an acceptable amendment. If the steering committee of MTA follows through with its own version of Pledge to Amend as described by Cobb, its efforts will be welcome. Let’s hope that they come to see the value of cross-promoting the pledge effort of United Republic, which is gathering signatures in support of their reform legislative agenda as the first step in their RepresentUS campaign. They want to hold candidates for Congress accountable for supporting their agenda once they get 1 million endorsers.

Many of us who believe a constitutional amendment is necessary agree that it is not by itself sufficient to end corporate corruption of government. It would be foolish for us not to work together in the common cause of establishing true democracy in America. No one group can do it alone. Both pledge campaigns are non-partisan and should draw wide support from across the political spectrum. Divisive efforts will ultimately prove self-defeating, but how many will die as a result of an out-of-control government that puts the cause of corporate Empire above the needs of its own people while we argue?

BEYOND AUSTERITY

There is a historic debate taking place in Congress that could determine what kind of America we will have for the foreseeable future. We can choose to reduce government investment in the well-being of average Americans, rebuilding the middle class and protecting it from the ravages of globalization or we can continue to transfer the wealth of the nation to an economic elite that has acquired an ever growing share of the wealth produced by workers and used it to increase their influence over a government designed to be of, by and for the People rather than corporations.

If your opinions are based on what you read in the corporate media, you are likely to believe that there is a debt “crisis” that can only be addressed with a mix of tax increases and entitlement cuts. We have been told there is a deficit “crisis” that will require sacrifice for all of us. The truth is that the fiscal cliff that could occur when expiring Bush tax cuts and across-the-board spending cuts automatically take place at the end of 2012 presents a great opportunity. If we address the real problem of excessive debt by making changes that end the growing inequality between average Americans and the investor class, we can rebuild the American economy while expanding the social safety net that is being threatened by austerity measures designed to protect the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.  

Analysts agree that the combined effect of higher taxes and the slashing of entitlement spending would have the immediate effect of reducing the deficit by about $1.3 trillion. It would also throw an estimated 4 million people out of work, reversing the anemic employment gains since the Great Recession began in 2008. This in turn will reduce tax revenues, making it even harder to pay for remaining entitlements just when they will be needed more than ever. Nonetheless, it is argued that these draconian cuts would eventually lead to the elimination of federal debt, albeit at the cost of Greece-like austerity. 

What proponents of austerity do not seem to realize is that they risk awakening average Americans to the fact that the entire economy operates in the interest of the wealthy investor class at the cost of sacrifice by the rest of us. In Europe, this has sparked riots and an international strike. With 80% of Americans favoring increased taxes on the wealthy, politicians who support austerity may just cause a class war the likes of which they cannot imagine. Fortunately, some members of Congress understand that the only way to build the economy and pay down the debt is to strengthen the middle class and the social safety net for the poor. 

There are many benefits to increasing entitlements. Increasing payments to people on marginal incomes will increase the circulation of money, which has a multiplier effect of about $1.60 for every dollar spent. The poor and middle class spend most of their income, while the wealthy hold on to their wealth, investing in industries that profit them but do not produce American jobs and increasingly do not pay taxes. Offering security to older Americans through guarantees of Social Security payments and Medicare allows more to retire, opening up jobs for young workers who will be expected to pay for these benefits yet are asked to sacrifice them for themselves.

Reducing Social Security is unnecessary and manifestly unfair. Removing caps on FICA payments would ensure Social Security solvency forever and assure that the wealthy pay the same proportion of their income to the system as people who work for a living. Since life expectancy for US workers has fallen for the first time in history, the idea of making them work longer for Social Security and Medicare benefits is reprehensible.

Medicare represents the largest non-military expense to taxpayers. The simple solution is to cut overall costs of health care by creating a truly universal health care system. In other nations, this has cut costs by nearly half. The problem is that both parties are so dependent on campaign contributions from the medical-industrial complex and other corporate interests that neither is willing to work for a real solution to the problem of health care costs that are approaching 80% of GDP.

Ultimately, it is We the People who will determine what kind of future our children have, if we stand together to demand an end to a system that favors the few at the expense of the many. We can hold our elected officials responsible if we put aside partisanship and vote for candidates of any party who support a constitutional amendment to clean up campaign finance by banning corporate campaign expenditures and limiting contributions from the rich. That is how we take back America for the People.