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themselves to be greedy, ruthless, lawless, murderous, and anti-democratic beyond belief. Multiple tax cuts, and out of control thievery, for corporations and the super-rich, while they saddle the poor with a $10 TRILLION deficit to pay for their corporate oil war and military-industrial hogpen in Iraq. This, in essence, is what global corporate predators have been doing to third world countries for some time. We, in the U.S., are now just one more of their "banana Republics." Sometimes it's been by World Bank loans--the fascist elite steals the money, and leaves the poor with the onerous debt; the IMF forces the country to slash all social programs, and labor and environmental protections, and open itself to rape and rampage by global corporate resource extractors and slave labor pirates; the economy crashes and the society begins to come apart (example: Argentina). Or this may be combined with dumping U.S. ag products on third world markets at cheap prices to destroy local agriculture and the country's ability to feed itself (example: Jamaica--tragic destruction of Jamaican dairy industry, and banana industry--and well, name your third world country; this combo has crushed the poor worldwide).
Now us. Bush has done us the favor of ripping the scales from many Americans' eyes. Those who have used our resources, our middle-class-paid-for infrastructure, our school system, our legal system, our military, our CIA, our tax breaks, our loyal and productive work force, and our once healthy creative democracy, to turn themselves into global piranhas, have turned round to feed on us in a savage bloody attack on all fronts that is leaving our people destitute in their own once prosperous land. It started with the S&L lootings, the tax code rewrite, the assault on labor unions and deregulation under Reagan; followed by the "free trade" Clinton agenda (more deregulation--including, totally, notably, removal of restraints on news media monopolies; removal of all restraints on global free piracy, slashing welfare, forcing poor mothers to take 3 McJobs, growth of the prison-industrial complex, etc.); and now, under Bush, the completion of the process--corporations (like Enron and Halliburton) outright stealing billions and billions of dollars from the poor and from our federal treasury, total deregulation, super tax cuts for the super rich, usurious credit card rates for the poor, removal of bankruptcy protection for the poor, unfettered pollution and environmental destruction, and on and on. There is more to loot here, so the picture is more complex. It was also more difficult to pull this off in the "land of the free, home of the brave," so the election system was given over to Bushite electronic voting corporations who are "counting" all the votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code.
This complex picture includes such bizarre items as: one of the two Bushite electronic voting companies that now control all vote "counting"--ES&S, brethren to Diebold--was initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things).
The unholy wedding of the super-rich with the 'christian' nutball right. Result: faith-based elections, and such weirdos as Orrin Hatch, Katherine Harris and Jean Schmidt--and George Bush--getting "elected," and, when they royally fuck up our country, getting "re-elected."
The solution to all this is not minor reforms. A bit of re-regulation. An increase in the minimum wage. The solution is deconstruction of the Corporate Welfare State, busting up all the news and other monopolies, pulling the corporate charters of predators like Halliburton and Exxon-Mobile, and seizing their assets for the common good. For starters.
And right there you could just about solve the $10 TRILLION deficit. Take it back from those who stole it.
The Corporate Democrats have already started talking about "balancing the budget." You have to laugh. All horses out of the barn, now stabled in Swiss banks and the Cayman Islands--time to squeeze the poor.
But that it NOT how you prevent the coming "mother of all Great Depressions"--as FDR knew. You can't "balance the budget" with millions suffering chronic poverty, in this case often death by a thousand cuts--skyrocketing energy costs, skyrocketing medical costs, skyrocketing education costs, skyrocketing interest rates for the poor, etc. (And who knows? -we may just end up with millions in bread lines with no jobs at all). You HAVE TO SPEND. The lifeblood of our once prosperous economy has been sucked out. You can't impose MORE austerity measures and bring it back. Hoover tried that. It FAILED.
How do you SPEND--with a TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT? Well, in this case--considering what the Bush Junta has done--you start by seizing the assets of criminal corporations, after you dismantle them, and rescinding all the tax cuts for the super-rich twice over. Make them pay for PAST tax cuts.
It's pretty simple, really. All the money, resources, land and other assets have been vacuumed up by wealthy individuals and corporations. You take some of it back.
And you don't have to be a "communist" to advocate this. It is our RIGHT as a sovereign people to regulate our economy, to allow or disallow certain corporate behaviors, and to allow or disallow the chartering of their activities. Bust 'em up. Create a TRUE free market--made up of innovative, competitive small businesses. And tax everyone at a fair, progressive rate.
This is our right, but the mechanism for exercising our rights as a sovereign people--our right to vote--has been taken away. This is even evident in the recent Democratic midterm election win. The result was a carefully crafted Congress, designed to let a little steam out of the system and to prevent any real reform.
But the elections did show that people can outvote the machines--with a mighty effort of grass roots fundraising and organization. It's just that the system is gamed from the start--from the primaries (in who gets to be the candidate), and by our filthy political campaign contribution/lobbying system--and then can be further tweaked at any point to favor corporatists, fascists and war profiteers.
Priority no. 1: Restoring transparent elections. Then you start to elect officeholders who TRULY represent the interests of the majority of Americans, as well as the desire of most Americans to be peaceful, generous and just toward the rest of the world.
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