DIVISION AND CONQUEST

Ever since the advent of war, those who would force others to submit to their will have used the technique of dividing the enemy in order to conquer them. When a People cannot put aside lesser differences to fight the threat of slavery, they are helpless against a united enemy. When a People are willing to risk all to preserve their freedom by fighting together in common cause, they can wage the type of asymmetric warfare that has proven to be highly effective in wars from the American Revolution to Afghanistan.  

In defending against a common enemy, traditional enemies must unite just as traditional enemies unite to wage war against them. In the American colonies in 1775, there were great divisions between the states, who were competing to pay the Crown its due under the conditions of the corporate charters that created them. Of these divisions, the greatest by far was over the question of slavery. Abolition societies had already been formed and sentiment against slavery in the North ran so high several colonies had banned slave importation prior to the battle of Bunker Hill. By 1777, Vermont had become the first state to abolish slavery. In an interesting twist of history, Vermont is also the first state to declare its intent to end economic enslavement by calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood.

Colonial Americans put aside the basic question of whether an ostensibly free nation would countenance slavery in order to fight against the united power of corporation and state that was Imperial Britain. Though visionaries like Thomas Jefferson realized that the question would fatally divide the United States if not addressed, this fundamental difference was put aside to fight in common cause against the fascist aggressor that had invaded the new nation. The result was the world’s first example of asymmetric warfare where a small and weak but determined opponent succeeded in defeating the power of the Empire of its day. 



In victory, the people of the newly united states of America quickly resumed their struggles against each other. Political parties arose in disregard of Washington’s warning to “beware the rise of factionalism.” Slave owners defended their prerogative in defiance of America’s claim of equality of all men. Bankers began plotting how to control the new nation as Britain was largely controlled by the Rothschilds, principle financiers of the East India Company. Women like Abigail Adams continued to be subjugated to men.
Eventually, each of these divisions led to upheaval as those who were left out of the American dream fought for their rights. 


A bloody Civil War was fought to preserve the Union that tolerated slavery because the ideal of freedom was more important than the fact that it had not yet been realized. In the course of this war that determined the viability of democracy in America, a decision was made to directly address the injustice that led to the proxy war between industrialists of the North and slave holders in the South. The proxies were of course the poor young men of the south who were unwittingly fighting for those who would willingly enslave them against the largely poor young men of the North who would become economic slaves of the rising class of fascists in America. 


Enslavement of African-Americans was ended because Lincoln and most of the nation had realized that it was not just Blacks who were enslaved. All men and women living in a system where slavery is tolerated themselves become slaves to the system. Unfortunately, few but Lincoln understood the danger of the rise of the Robber Barons, who gained power by profiteering during the Civil War, prospering as all corporate terrorists do from the blood, sweat and misery of the generations of youths who fight their wars for them.


When fascism was at its peak at the turn of the 20^th century, the great nations of the world had aligned themselves with traditional enemies in order to fight for control of the world in the global game of Risk that was cynically marketed as the War to End All Wars. In the aftermath, the fascist nations who were victorious collected the spoils of victory from the dazed citizens of the defeated fascist nations. 

Fascism in the world grew stronger than ever as the essential ingredients of racial prejudice, nationalism, poverty and class warfare were stirred into the stewing consciousness of Germany, the US and other nations enduring the fallout of the Great Depression that was the legacy of the first attempt to establish a New World Order. In victory, the US was magnanimous and it seemed that under Franklin Roosevelt fascism had been defeated in the US. Who could have known that a generation later the son of a war profiteering traitor would become first the Chief of the CIA and then be selected President?
 

WWII was the result of the unfinished business of determining who would lead the fascist new World Order. Under existential threat once again, the people of the United States rose up to help defeat fascism in the world, only to ultimately collaborate with the rising tide of fascism in America and set the stage for today’s final assault on freedom in the world. In their satisfaction with material wealth the nation’s citizens became complacent about the actions of their government and accepted prosperity as their due.  For decades most Americans lived in blissful ignorance that their gains were at the cost of the life, liberty and happiness of most of the rest of the world.


In its naïve belief in American exceptionalism, the people of the United States have allowed corporate control of their government, which is the defining characteristic of a fascist nation. As in Nazi Germany, when things are going well most citizens are content not to know what is going on behind the curtain of government. As good Germans learned in 1945, such willful ignorance has a horrible price to pay.


Now is the time to rise and demand payment for the blood of the patriots who died that we might remain free in wars from 1775 to 1945. We must fight a bloodless war against the soulless vampires who are sucking the lifeblood of America to maintain an Empire that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of our youth from Korea to Afghanistan. We have a duty to them and to our children to assure that the last, greatest hope for Mankind does not perish from the Earth. If we are good enough to rule ourselves then we must prove it by putting aside our political differences to Take Back America for the People. 


Americans are very experienced at division but in this generation we must relearn the importance of unity. To finish the American Revolution, we must remember that to be American is to value liberty over life itself. When all the people of the nation are at once at risk of being enslaved by ruthless fascists with utter power over the government, it is time for us to fight together to restore power to the People. No single issue is important enough to divide us in this, our hour of crisis and opportunity.


It is time that we use the principle of division as a means of conquest to our own advantage. The military strategy of dividing forces can be dangerous if the opposition can destroy a large part of a rebel Army, but in asymmetrical warfare the rebel Army must be everywhere at once. Forming Divisions that operate openly on every street corner would not only protect the troops of our virtual Army but increase our visibility and sense of our presence everywhere and at all times. An America Uncut by political divisions is an America that cannot be defeated by the machinations of politicians and their corporate Puppetmasters.


With small bands of guerilla protesters on every corner of every street at random intervals, the reality of the renascent and growing American Revolution will become apparent to even the most sheepish American. If done in a proper spirit of fun and camaraderie, we can even employ this strategy of division to multiply our forces, educating our fellow citizens about the need to join the movement to guarantee the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world. This is how the Revolution began, when men and women spoke to their neighbors about their common problems without fear of offending those who might believe in different solutions. If there is one best answer then we must find it together.


If Americans can unite in the common cause of restoring democracy to the United States by calling for the passage of a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood, they will end economic slavery not only in the US but in the world. A People once truly united can never be divided. I look forward to the coming day when I will stand shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and sisters in a free nation that is part of a globally interconnected free world. Together we can watch the destruction and fall of the Imperial Death Star to the strains of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

THE SOCIOBIOLOGY OF KILLER BEES

In order to study the problem of how psychopaths came to control the United States government and use it to further the expansion of the Anglo-American Empire to create a fascist New World Order, it is instructive to consider the evolution of the Africanized bee, commonly referred to as the killer bee.

Like the rise of fascist power, the problem of killer bees was caused by the carelessness of those working to improve the species who did not appreciate the consequences of their actions. The bee was bred for its superior adaptability to hostile environments and its superior skill at gathering honey. This is a close analogy to the way that the super-rich economic elite were encouraged over time to become ever more aggressive in their pursuit of wealth. The myth that anyone can succeed in America was fostered by the notion that individual rights were supreme, even when they conflict with the rights of society as a whole.

Like these insects, the economic elite have been spreading until they now have invaded every nation in the world to one degree or another. In the US, the control of the government is almost entirely in the hands of the Puppet-masters of the government. This makes these international corporate terrorists particularly dangerous. They have increased in numbers to the point that when they swarm they become a danger to the life of democracy in America. Their invasion and control of the Hive mind that is the collective consciousness of Southerners mirrors the invasion of the killer bees in the same geographic region. Both types of insect are equally dangerous to individuals when in a swarm.

Unlike killer bees, the economic elite in America are not cross-bred but as in other royal lineages are quite inbred. That is the key to exterminating their wealth and power. While greed merely makes them stupid, inbreeding leads to genetic defects that make them developmentally disabled. As a result, they never develop the compassion necessary to become fully human. Having never suffered sufficiently, they lack the capability of understanding the consequences of their actions and are at great risk of the mental illness of greed. This manifests as the delusion that they alone are ordained by God to rule over their fellow Americans, who they regard as economic slaves fit only to serve their whims and gratify their boundless sense of entitlement.

The lack of ability to understand how normal people think is the great advantage of the People over these psychopaths. Our view of the world is one in which compassion is a given and cooperation does not depend solely on immediate reward. Friendship to us means caring about others, while for them it is a means to satisfy their selfish ends and is absent when the “friend” is unable or unwilling to serve their self-centered interests. It is a lonely world for those who like killer bees are driven to outcompete their seemingly weaker relatives with whom they share common genes.

Amateur sociologists like Ayn Rand and professional biologists like E.O. Wilson differ on the relative survival value of cooperation versus competition. While Rand has argued that all species survive by selfish competition, Wilson and others point out that it is only through cooperation but insect species and other animals and even plants have survived environmental stressors that have caused the extinction of more genetically diverse species. It is the willfull ignorance of the selfish that will inevitably result in their removal from the gene pool as the waste of protoplasm that they are.

There have been other invasions of aggressive species throughout the history of humankind, but never one so deadly as the worldwide invasion of the fascists who now control much of the world. Other Empires have risen and collapsed from the accumulated weight of the greed and immorality that is the inevitable result of their unbounded lust for wealth and power. In this global age, the destruction of this latest Empire could come with blinding speed if the People of the Earth come to realize the collective power that a People united can wield in the cause of liberty and justice for all. It is this knowledge of our interdependence that is our greatest weapon in the war against fascism and war.

The only way to protect ourselves from killer bees and other dangerous insects like the corporate elite is to keep them separated so that they cannot swarm. By working one interest group against another, we can use their own tactics of dividing and conquering to eradicate the selfish and destructive mutant species of fascists from the world. As an example, if we focused our organizing efforts to unite the Left and Right to fight the universally unpopular medical insurance companies we would force their Puppets in Congress to abandon them to their fate in the interests of their own political survival. After that we attack the centralized energy interests of coal, oil and nuclear that are leaving a swath of environmental destruction and war in the wake of their advance. Finally, the banksters will be isolated with no one left to defend them against the righteous fury of a People too long denied economic justice because of their wealth and power.

The way to simultaneously attack all of these interests is to attack the Queen bee which is corporate personhood. This is the source of power of the drones that are destroying the planet with their endless search for the honey that is money. This will require a constitutional amendment and that will require a united front against fascism and war that is built on the common interests of all the people of the United States who are artificially divided into Left and Right, Democrat and Republican, religious and irreligious and other self-imposed distinctions.

When the people of the United States end the un-Civil War and unite to finish the Revolution, democracy will be restored. The Left and Right must eventually come together to end fascism in America. Then it will be up to us to determine whether we want to live in a nation that values individual privilege over the collective good. A People who are not virtuous enough to run their own government in the best interests of all is a People that do not value democracy. As long as one of us is not free, none of us is truly free.

I have a deep faith in the essential goodness of all people so have no doubt as to the outcome. Democracy is the most deeply held value of all Americans and all those who understand its true nature. Self-government is the ultimate means of obtaining liberty and justice for all. Until we put this belief into action we risk losing the liberty we cherish. If the dis-United States of America can once more strive to form a more perfect union, the last and greatest hope for Mankind shall not perish from the Earth.

IN THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

Today, people around the world will celebrate Earth Day. Founded in 1970 in the United States by environmental activist Senator Gaylord Nelson in response to the Santa Barbara oil spill disaster in 1969, it went global in 1990. Today, grassroots events in nations around the planet are coordinated by the Earth Day Network. The hope is that by expanding the network of people working to save the planet, we can reach a critical moment when a tectonic paradigm shift will occur and human consciousness will be changed forever, with each of us understanding our role in preserving our legacy to our children.

It is important to realize the significance of the network model for grassroots social change. This is the only means by which we will be able to save the human civilization from the consequences of living in completion rather than taking a note from nature and establishing a cooperative world community. Powerful corporate forces have resisted the establishment of an Earth-friendly globalized community based on locally based green economies. These eco-terrorists are themselves a network dedicated to stopping the rise of any resistance to their plan to control the Earth in a corporate-run New World Order. Against such enemies organizations are vulnerable to attack and will inevitably be overcome without a grassroots movement of activists behind them.

Earth Day is dedicated to educating ourselves about how we are dependent on the environment and the ways in which we are threatening human existence by our failure to exercise good stewardship over it. Common themes at earth day events are organic gardening, self-sustaining food supplies, recycling, alternative energy and working to preserve and protect resources, most notably clean water.  In recent years the idea of a steady state economy has become more widely recognized as central to responsible environmental policy and a sustainable future for all of us.

The population bomb has continued ticking decades after it became apparent that the Doomsday Clock had entered the 11^th hour. A world economy driven by corporate Empire has thoroughly infected the human collective consciousness with the idea that prosperity depends on endless growth. Given the finite resources of the planet, this model is not based in reality but in the fantasies of wealth and power of the corporate elite, the self-styled Masters of the Universe.

This moment has been anticipated by science fiction writers for decades, most recently in the movie Avatar. This popular movie showed the clear choices before us. We can allow the humanity-denying alien life forms that are corporations to subjugate others to feed the voracious appetites of citizens of Earth who currently have access to those resources or we can recognize our collective power and fighting back. It is our job to use educational efforts such as Earth Day to call on our fellow citizens of the industrialized world to join the struggle of the Peoples of emerging nations. All of us have a stake in the outcome of the worldwide battle for control of the resources upon which we all depend.

Social change is dependent on political change. Grassroots social organizing is critical for advancing the evolution of thinking that will give rise to the change in the human collective consciousness necessary for us to save the planet. This in itself is not enough. We must translate this change in consciousness to a change in the political leadership in Washington, Beijing, New Dehli and Moscow. Of these the key is to end corporate control of the government in the United States.

Always a powerful threat to democracy, corporate interests seized control of the US government when a smiling Reagan assured us that government is the problem and not the solution to the problems facing each of us. His paean to corporate rule was misguided and dangerous. The people of the United States, reeling over a world oil crisis calculated for political advantage  more than profit, willingly rejected the long tradition of rule by the People and ceded control of the government to the self-serving corporate agents who had engineered the crisis.

Thirty years after Reagan’s election the Supreme Court ruled that corporations not only have the rights of citizens but that as “persons” they have the right to buy the loyalty of members of Congress. In providing unlimited, untraceable funds to their Puppets to pay for the hideously expensive propaganda campaigns that determine the collective beliefs of otherwise apathetic voters, they have created a system of corporate welfare that is bankrupting the US and destroying life spiritual and physical of the People of the Earth. The result is pandemic disease, starvation, endless war and an unfolding environmental disaster.

There is a way to save the planet. It is for environmentalists, anti-war activists and health care activists and social justice advocates of all causes to join in reaching out to suffering Americans to convince them that they can and must end corporate control of their government to save themselves and all of us from Hell on Earth. The means to so this is by building a movement to demand a Constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood. Every major change in the Constitution that has led to steps in the direction of a more perfect representative democracy has depended on the people of the United States in joining together in the cause of justice for all.

Today, the United States is the only world superpower with the ability to determine whether the world will become a democratic one or one suffering the yoke of slavery in a fascist New World Order. The last world war was a devastating one in which the Peoples of the various nations were pitted against each other in mortal combat.

Today we must wage the war to end all wars. This must be a peaceful, democratic revolution because violence would lead to the death of freedom by giving the corporate masters the excuse they would need to impose permanent world police state. Without the freedom to determine the collective destiny of the People of the Earth against the will of  international corporate terrorists, the battle to save the Earth will fail. If we let that occur, we cannot be forgiven for what we have done to our children and all future generations.

CLEAR AS ICE

Today's blog is a revised version of Chapter Sixty Seven, an essay in the online book Stop the Madness: The Diary of a Soldier For Peace in the War to Take Back America. Updated commentary in light of subsequent events can be viewed at the website. 

As always, if you like it, please share it.

CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX. CLEAR AS ICE

 Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Mar 30, 2010 6:07 AM PDT

This chapter is devoted to Barack Obama, who demonstrated that the people of America care more about a positive, can-do attitude than they do about tough talk and promises from a man who has repeatedly proven himself willing to put his lust for power and fame above his concern for his own integrity.

Unfortunately, in the end history may show that the plutocrats who pay for presidential elections will not be denied by those who they choose to represent them in the world's most powerful position. It is no wonder after Obama made clear, his willingness to advance the corporate agenda, he received George Bush's seal of approval.

His past service for our nation notwithstanding, John McCain did not earn the right to serve as our President. After distinguishing himself briefly as a bipartisan Senator capable of learning from his many past mistakes, McCain betrayed himself and his constituents by compromising his integrity in pursuit of the Presidency. 

Having been ruthlessly savaged in the course of the coup that placed Bush in office in 2000, he chose to abandon every principled decision that he had courageously made in the past in his fruitless pursuit of power. The only revenge he enjoyed for bowing to the corporatocracy  in taking his shot at the golden ring was to keep Bush waiting when he went to accept his endorsement. In response, Bush danced a little jig for waiting reporters on the White House portico, spicing up that day's news  report.

While yet to prove himself willing or capable of fulfilling his promise of transparency and accountability in government, President Obama demonstrated in advance his understanding of the problems that America needs to face if it is ever to regain its standing as a world leader in the struggle to advance democracy in America and the world. His understanding of these issues is clearly spelled out in the Audacity of Hope. and in the subtext of some of his speeches. Now that he has proven that he meant for us to "be the change" in spite of him, it is up to us to understand that  we must become the leaders of that change from the grassroots level.

Among other things, Obama promised us transparency during his campaign . Unfortunately, he has been unable to deliver. The NSA is still as busy as ever prying into our private affairs outside the view of the sleepy eyes in the Senate who are Constitutionally mandated to provide oversight and parental guidance to the bastard child of domestic spying that it created in an Act of mass hysteria following the suspiciously timed 9/11 attack.

The reader who was paying attention during the early days of this latest coup regime will recall that the NSA was given the authority to do so by a reckless cowboy being spurred on by a psychopath with a sick heart. Cheney was of course working with rogue elements of the CIA who in turn were doing the bidding of the Bush, Saud and bin Ladin families and their allies in the corporatocracy. Among others in this elite group of corporate Puppetmasters were the CEOs of Halliburton and unnamed members of Cheney's secret energy committee that met shortly after Bush's inauguration and shortly before 9/11. 

When the senate found out that the Bush administration was in regular violation of the FISA Act that regulated illegal spying on Americans, they dutifully voted to retroactively provide immunity to the telecom giants that provided the means for this domestic spying. Obama voted for the immunity bill in what has become a disturbing pattern of protecting those who have committed treason in the name of "security."

Interestingly, the program was initiated prior to 9/11, even though that "unanticipated" terrorist attack used to justify two wars was the excuse the Bush administration gave for breaking the law. In the name of protecting us from the terrorists whose plan should have been obvious from what was know to the FBI months in advance.  The illegal domestic surveillance program was given a veneer of legitimacy when a cowed Congress passed the Patriot Act.

The question is, who is holding a gun to the President's head? Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, George H.W. Bush and certain others may  know but certainly aren’t talking about what is really going  on. You will recall Ollie North as the traitorous Marine colonel who armed the Iranian militants who captured Americans and kept them hostage until Reagan miraculously “rescued” them. 

North is treated like a hero and was rewarded with a nationally syndicated radio show rather than suffering the just punishment for all traitors to democracy. You may not know that this was financed by illegal drug trafficking hidden under the program of the "war on drugs" that has made Columbia such a useful ally to the Empire builders.

G. Gordon Liddy, the rat-eating cannibal of Watergate fame, is similarly lionized by the moronic right-wing corporate drones on his syndicated radio show. He is notorious among younger lovers of freedom and democracy more for counseling paranoid right-wingers to “shoot for the head” when ATF agents come to take their illegal assault weapons. You may recall that certain among them bought these weapons designed for war to defend their fundamentalist religious compounds where they keep hostage young female sex slaves, in accordance with the tenets of their “religions.”

Liddy is a former CIA agent who symbolizes the rogue elements of the agency who work for the corporatocracy and not for the President or the American people. One wonders whether there is any truth to the rumor that he was present on the grassy knoll in Dallas in late November of 1963 along with George H.W. Bush. He certainly seems to feel that he is protected by higher powers than are in the elected government of the United States. So much to know, so little time to act.

If America had truth in advertising laws, you could check this out on the Right Wing Nut Fascist Radio Network. God only knows what G. H. W. Bush is doing, since most of his actions in servicing the country are still classified. Meanwhile, Cheney is starting to have well-earned chest pains again, which any doctor worthy of the name realizes is most likely related to his anxiety over the distinct possibility of facing punishment for his crimes against humanity.
 

Barack Obama demonstrated once more by his election  that the American people prefer a positive message and attitude to more angry, partisan rhetoric. The myth that the angry white males have always held sway in electoral politics should have been disproven by the election of Ronald Reagan. His “Aw, shucks” positivism convinced Americans to take a chance on Bonzo’s roommate instead of sticking with the cautious optimism of the more realistic Jimmy Carter.

Carter's worst fault may have been having too much faith in the ability of the American people to understand the difficulty of changing the direction of history by the power of faith. Of course, Carter was also a "realist" in abusing America's military power in its sphere of hegemony of Latin America, but who among us is perfect?

He may be the President from whom President Obama could learn the most. He was one of those Presidents who like Truman are likely to be judged much more favorably by historians than by his contemporaries. It is the victors of political struggles who write history, after all.

The final story on the Carter Presidency will likely depend on the decisions of men like Obama than the judgments of Carter’s politically driven critics. Unlike Reagan, who made movies about war heroes, Carter served in the military with distinction. Unlike McCain, he is a man of deep moral conviction who was driven by his passion for doing what is right more than he was by the desire to satisfy the expectations of those around him.

Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention when he realized that it had been taken over by authoritarians so convinced of their own moral superiority that they presumed to speak for Jesus Christ and all of America in saying that God is a Republican.

During his time of service in this organization, the right wing fanatics who abandoned any pretense of a separation between Church and State actually changed the bylaws of the Convention to endorse political activity rather than follow its founding principles that expressly forbade it. As a believer in a democratic Republic, Carter could not in good conscience claim to stand with them. 

A true conservative in matters of these basic principles, Carter typically chose principle over what others would call pragmatism. Baptist leaders represented a huge voting bloc of those from families that had become Democrats out of spite after the Civil War and who had effectively become Republicans out of racism after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. These became the core of the modern Republican Party and one of the reasons it has found it so useful to assault the wall between Church and State.

We are now seeing the effects of the breakdown of the wall between Church and State in the rise of one-issue voters who are willing to overlook the crimes of corporate politicians in their attempt to control the bodies of women, against the overwhelming majority of Americans who consider the decision of whether or not to seek an abortion as a question of personal morality not justifiably subject to governmental decree. 

This proved to be the wedge issue that has driven Americans to fight Americans in a schizophrenic battle.  The issue pits traditional conservative values of personal freedom against the sacredness of life. Unfortunately, many of those who consider themselves conservatives regard life as sacred only until birth, after which they believe the  individual is on his own in a world they have made increasingly hostile by their common belief that it has always been so.  

The mainstream of traditional conservatism has always held that the wall between Church and State is an inviolate protection against the tyranny of the majority who might assault their religion if allowed to impose an alternative one on them. Each generation must relearn the lessons of the past in order to avoid dangers foreseen by their forebears. The battle becomes more difficult when waged against the absolute conviction that one side speak for God on every issue that is tearing America apart.

The loyalty of most of the religious Right has also proved to be a useful tool in building a coalition of the willing in the fight to impose fascist rule in America. It is time that more on the Left acknowledge that there is a growing religious Left whose members consider it their responsibility to work for the betterment of Mankind. They are ready, willing and able to join the fight for justice yet often reluctant to join groups whose members regularly demonize all religious  people under the foolish assumption that the corporate media accurately portrays all Christians as tools of the corporatocracy. 

More members of the religious Left are becoming active in social issues and electoral politics as individuals and not as members of churches. By contrast, many fundamentalist churches routinely violate the conditions of their tax-exempt status by advocating for specific candidates, sometimes with the threat of Hell for those who do not share their convictions. 

It is dangerous when preachers use the power of fear to motivate their members, who are susceptible to authoritarian appeals because they grew up in homes where this was the norm. Every person wants the power to think for themselves, but most do not unless encouraged to by those whom they choose to associate. In general, these are the people who agree with them.

It was not always the case that Americans did not talk to each other about politics and religion. The intolerance of different opinions undermines the essential character of the United States that kept the Union together even in the wake of civil war. Since anger on both sides of the Vietnam War pit brother against brother, the divisions have deepened to the point that we must End the Civil War and Finish the Revolution if we are to end the threat of fascism in America and restore the democracy that all true Americans want to see.

It is into this grave crisis in the history of the United States that President Obama has willingly thrust himself. Let us hope that he finds the faith in the American people that will allow him to honor his Christian principles if he gets a Congress willing to work for the People instead of corporations. He remains a much better alternative to a man who had already proven to put his lust for power and fame above his concern for his own integrity.

While Obama has  failed to restore the government to one that serves the People, he is surrounded by enemies of democracy and cannot do the job by himself. He is also trying to find the center in a nation deliberately torn apart by politicians working for corporations to maintain their power and wealth. 

This strategy of divide and conquer has worked so well that most Americans have forgotten the basic lesson of the American Revolution: When challenging a government that has acquired the power to impose the will of an economic elite on the majority, we must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately. 

The President cannot do this alone. He derives his authority to govern only from the consent of the governed. We can and must show him that the suffering citizenry of the United States can  once again work together to solve the critical problems threatening the viability of the American experiment in democracy. No President can change history without knowing that the American people are behind him or her when  preparing to grab the wheel of the ship of state and change course. 

While President Obama is toeing the corporate line now, the Democratic Party will respond to pressure from the base if we act in unison. Party leaders have bought so deeply into the assumption that they must satisfy the endless greed of those who control the purse that pays for their elections that they have abandoned the principles for which the party has always stood. 

In accepting the self-fulfilling prophecy that the best the so-called leaders of the Democratic Party can do is to follow a path of incremental reform, rank and file Democrats and the party as a whole have allowed themselves to be steadily pushed to acquiescing to fascist control of our government. As a result, the party has lost its moral compass and abandoned the principles by which it used to define itself. 

Now taking ten steps backward to each step forward, it defines success as incremental "progress" in merely slowing the rise of fascism. It has lost not only its identity but its soul, despite the many good men and women who are desperately trying to reform it from within. Any progress in furthering their stated ideals will only come by abandoning the assumption that they can serve two masters. We must demand the selection of real leaders who will take America in a new direction instead of merely following the dictates of their corporate Puppetmasters.

The Republican Party has built a long history of anti-democratic actions that have taken it far from the values and ideals of its founders. The big tent is folding as their base realizes the truth about their agenda. Traditional conservatives who have philosophical differences with liberals must make common cause as American and work to make the Republican Party return to its roots. If they do not, they will never produce candidates willing to put their interests over those of corporations.

McCain abandoned his ideals rather than his career when all moderates were purged from the goose-stepping Republican Party. After being abused by the Bush machine in 2000, a man who had taken an oath to defend the Constitution with his life abandoned all honor. whether he typically chose to exercise the prerogative or not.


The final proof of McCain's sellout to the fascists was his support of torture by the United States, knowing full well the consequences this could have for the members of the military that he had willingly put in harm's way. His past service for our nation notwithstanding, John McCain did not earn the right to serve as our President.
 
Bush was elevated to the Presidency in significant part by Bush family friend James Baker, acting on behalf of the Bush and Saud families and OPEC, through which the two families collude to control oil prices and optimize profits for their friends in this corporate war profiteering industry. 

George III was going to be installed come Hell or high water  an electoral loss or a challenge to the legitimacy of his purported election after the white collar riot halted the vote recount mandated by the state of Florida and therefore the  Constitution.

In the outrageous decision of the Supreme Court that irreparable harm would be done to Bush by following the law, potentially irreparable harm was done to democracy in America. His supporters  dismissed all criticism of the decision as sour grapes and chortled as he plunged us headlong toward fascism, most notably through picking three young believers of the doctrine of original intent for the Supreme Court.


The Five Stooges of the Supreme Court who produced Citizens United were  themselves placed in their lifetime positions  by the same corporate powers that selected Bush as their titular leader. These activist judges have sworn themselves to defend the right of corporations to rape the American people in return for their privileged sinecures, at the cost of their own souls.

Obama may be willing but unable for practical reasons to deliver on his promise of transparency. The NSA is still as busy as ever prying into our private affairs outside the view of the sleepy eyes in the Senate who are Constitutionally mandated to provide oversight of the office of the chief executive.

In passing the  “Patriot” Act in a moment of mass hysteria following the suspiciously timed 9/11 attack, Congress further eroded its own authority. In once again surrendering the authority to declare war , it shed the last vestige of power it had to provide a check on the power of what has become an Imperial Presidency.

Readers with intact memories will recall that it was urged to do so by a reckless cowboy being spurred on by a psychopath with a sick heart working with rogue elements of the CIA. The political hacks in the agency in turn were doing the bidding of the Bush, Saud and bin Ladin families and their allies. Ice must run in their veins. There cold logic has put a chill on democracy and prospects for peace seem to have been put in the deep freeze.

It is crystal clear that democracy is in danger from these insane tools of corporate powers that are mindlessly but systematically destroying the world economy and the middle class. Powerful CEOs are using  the "rights" granted corporations by reactionary fascists on the Supreme Court to undermine the rest of us.  

This feat was accomplished by a deliberate misreading of the due process clause of the Fourteenth amendment that guarantees equal rights to "all persons born or naturalized" in the United States. It is the ultimate in irony that the Court used an amendment designed to free former slaves was used to give corporations the power to make economic slaves of us all.

  
Democracy would surely be lost were it not for the Soldiers of Peace in America, who will defend with their lives and their sacred honor the right for Americans to enjoy the blessings of liberty and democracy. All who have served in the military have taken the pledge to defend our country from all enemies, be they foreign or domestic. Enemies of our freedom have staged a corporate coup bent on imposing fascism in America. 

Being in a state of domestic insurrection aided and abetted by foreign corporate powers, we owe it to ourselves and our posterity to all become Soldiers For Peace. Together, we can Take Back America for the People by implementing the Battle Plan to Take Back America. A united citizenry in the Reunited States of America must have the troops to stage a direct, full frontal assault on corporate personhood with multiple simultaneous flanking attacks. If God exists, it must surely be on the side of liberty, justice and peace in the world.

When in Washington in February of 2010, I notified Eric Holder that I have collected evidence from open sources of a massive international criminal conspiracy involving high government and former government officials in the United States. I have repeatedly requested that he take action on bringing to justice those who are responsible for the political imprisonment of Don Seigelman as a sign of good faith.

Holder must build an airtight case against those who manufactured two wars in the most dangerous part of the globe and are still working to complete the Trifecta by bombing and possibly invading Iran.  The plot described in the Project for a New American Century was developed in detail in the secret meeting of Cheney with the oil executives who stood to benefit the most from the takeover of the Mideast. 

The coup plotters divided the spoils of war in advance, never suspecting that the wars would become deeply unpopular before they could complete the creation of the New World Order we are now fighting to destroy. It is obvious that this former CEO of Halliburton was drive up oil prices still further through yet another disruption of the supply and a tightening of control on its production through conquest. 

The fact that Cheney continued to receive a million dollars a year from the prime war profiteer in Iraq does not seem to shake the confidence of his dwindling supporters. These self-styled Masters of the Universe still think that they will set up an oil pipeline running from Russia’s border to Afghanistan and the sea by propping up an corrupt, illegitimate Puppet regime  by indefinite war that is maintained in part by buying off the corrupt military dictatorship in  Pakistan. This is not realpolitik but a clear case of psychosis. Obama cannot stop this plot alone and those who place all responsibility on him are deluding themselves. 

The fate of a President who publicly challenges the will of the corporate Puppetmasters was made clear when the shots heard round the world rang out on December 22, 1963. Those of us who respect the office of the President must accept that he cannot change the world without the support of a People willing to look beyond the lies of the corporate media and have faith that the President will follow us when we demand that Congress Stop the Madness.

Truth is stronger than lies, however endlessly repeated by the corporate media. The pen is mightier than the sword and the truth will set us free. All that it takes for good men and women to succeed is that they decline to do nothing. If we stand by those who are being persecuted in the name of national insecurity, then there will be others to stand for us when the few, the debased and the shamed come for us. I for one do not intend to see another Jose Padilla tortured in an American prison until he goes insane and cannot stand trial to bear witness to the crimes of our government.

In modern American we are beginning to take our rights seriously.  Out here in the West we have a history of taking care of our own problems. Most of us regard criminals like Cheney as no better than horse thieves. The theft of our Constitutional rights is clearly a more serious crime than theft of property. Everyone knows what happens to horse thieves. What should we do with a horse’s ass who seized the reins of government and used a willing or at least docile corporate media to further his sick agenda of consolidating federal power through fear and hate? What should we do with Rove, mastermind of many criminal conspiracies who openly turned his office into a PR firm promoting permanent rule by a Republican majority who openly stole Presidential elections, imprisoned dissident Governor Don Siegelman and filled the Department of Injustice with political hacks loyal only to meat puppet George Bush?

What we have here is simply a failure to communicate to our elected representatives in Washington that we are mad as Hell and are not going to take them to the dance any more if they cannot follow the beat of our drums. Our Roman style Senate has slept as Bush diddled us and Iraq and the world economy burned.

In 2010, may the best parliamentarians win in open and honest debate. It is clear to me that we the people are hungry for the truth, even those who close their eyes when they see it. Only when they are presented with alternatives to the usual Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber will they be forced to think. Brutal honesty over poll-inspired pablum must become a political asset. Soon, any aspiring politician will have to accept this and know that only the truth can set us free from our own political imprisonment.

In the immortal words of Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson:

Don't think sorry's easily said.

Don't try turning tables instead.

You've taken lots of chances before,

but I'm not gonna give anymore,

don't ask me.

That's how it goes,

‘cause part of me knows what you're thinkin.'

Don't say words you're gonna regret.

Don't let the fire rush to your head.

I've heard the accusation before,

and I ain't gonna take any more.

Believe me,

the sun in your eyes

made some of the lies worth believing.

I am the eye in the sky.

Looking at you,

I can read your mind.

I am the maker of rules,

dealing with fools,

I can cheat you blind.

And I don't need to see any more

to know that

I can read your mind... I can read your mind.

Don't leave false illusions behind.

Don't cry, ‘cause I ain't changing my mind.

So find another fool like before,

‘cause I ain't gonna live anymore, believing

some of the lies, while all of the signs are deceiving.

I am the eye in the sky.

Looking at you,

I can read your mind.

I am the maker of rules,

dealing with fools,

I can cheat you blind.

And I don't need to see any more

to know that

I can read your mind... I can read your mind.

Rick Staggenborg, MD

From the BWI Red Roof Inn overlooking a “secret” NSA training facility outside Baltimore, Maryland on February 22, 2009.