Untitled Document
To all but the most critically astute American minds, a precious few it must be
said, the USA is the most dynamic country to appear in recorded history.
In the American mind, all problems, foreign or domestic, are, the faithful
say, solvable with another election cycle, a court decision, a high profile
resignation or, perhaps, another war on something (drugs), someone, some country
(North Korea), or some mythical army of millions (terrorists). America's bounty
is endless, they say, the US Constitution unchangeable, and the US military,
led by archangels and their legions of fighting angels, undefeatable. There
are infinite sums of money and limitless ingenuity to throw at whatever difficulty
may come the American way and, besides, Americans trust in an omnipresent God,
so how in God's name could God abandon those who trust so blindly? All of this
propaganda is peddled to Americans, beginning in utero and ending on a slab
in the morgue, by America's myth-making machinery in religious institutions
and the media. The engine for that machinery is the individual and collective
ideological and monetary wealth of Wall Street.
The powerful of the country run a minimum security, open air labor camp called
the Unites States of America in which the wardens are the Republicans and Democrats
located in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the US government,
along with their governments-in-waiting at think tanks around the country. The
hideous and anticompetitive one-party system with two faces is an abomination,
a monster disguised as an American politician, or maybe even a general or CEO,
who claims to be the leader of the free world.
The fact is that 21st Century Americans are little more than laborers, captives
and, like all prisoners throughout recorded history, are fearful, afraid to
challenge the system in any serious way, anxiously waiting on the next meal
and a decent night's sleep before the alarm signals another wretched day in
the hive. The routine is safe and predictable but results in a form of imprisonment
for the vast majority of Americans.
Oh, the bloggers and other journalists get excited about a Karl Rove, or a
Supreme Court nomination, or the actions of so-called insurgents justified by
stupid American policy, or even a ham-handed spy operation. But these are busy-body
issues that keep the faithful followers occupied while the foundation of the
country rots away beneath them.
The American masters have created a system based on the necessity to accumulate
material goods, the necessity to believe in lies and myths, and the necessity
of believing fantastical hyper-threats to justify internal security and repression,
and world domination To date, the American people have bought the goods since
they believe no alternative exists. Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote about such a society,
prior to George Orwell, in his classic work We.
In the American system of life, the dollar value of an individual, of a group
of people is what matters. It's easily calculated. "People are fungible,"
said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It's all about the return on investment,
the metrics and the data whether you are a military or civilian American. You're
just another number. In this system, platitudes like "freedom is not free,"
"military service is the highest calling," "freedom to buy and
sell," are little more than the equivalent of a cosmetic makeup base designed
to disguise the hard face of reality that Americans are taught and encouraged
to ignore. For example, it costs roughly $30,000 to train a regular US soldier
and, perhaps, $40,000 to train a special operations soldier or military academy
graduate. Multiply those figures by approximately 2,000 US killed in action
and 16,000 US maimed in action and are non-operative and returned stateside.
Do the math. Using the $30,000 figure and 2,000 US dead equals $60,000,000.
Taking the 16,000 maimed and multiplying by $30,000 equals $480,000,000.
So those American lives—men and women—mostly youngsters, were worth
$540 million dollars (have the so-called insurgents spent this much?). What
kind of people can tolerate being fungible, can live with the lies of their
"leaders," and be happy being a number in a balance sheet? These calculations
take place every day in every organization large and small. It all makes a mockery
of the mythical American way of life. Of course, it's not a way of life, it's
a cold, calculating system.
Will people ever confront the silent horror that is the American system of
life?
Can one seriously argue that the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work cycle (more likely 7am
to 7pm including commute, shower, dress) is dissimilar to the daily life in
a labor camp? Ridiculous, you say. I'm free! Are you really? For at least five
days a week you are owned by your company/organization. The boss/master says,
"Oh, Mr/Ms ABC, you are 10 minutes late. I expect you not to be tardy."
"I'm sorry, it will not happen again," you say. What can you do? Nothing
because you are afraid. These days, your job slot is imperiled by the availability
of overseas labor that is as good as you are, maybe even better at satisfying
the job requirements. Fear drives your performance. Fear of losing your food,
shelter and clothing, your reputation, or the gadgets that define you.
Who or what really owns your home or condo and the other 95 percent of residences
in the USA? Mortgage companies and banks. In reality, there is no difference
between renter and owner. As an owner, you have the right to sell your home
and take interest deductions, but that's it. How about the automobile you drive?
More than likely it's owned by a bank or finance company. Have credit cards?
The bank owns them and you. Even the water you drink is most likely owned by
a company whose stock is traded on Wall Street. On that note, your 401K is not
yours until you retire and is dependent on the whims of Wall Street investors.
The corporate pension plan and government social security—that social
compact between corporation-government and the people—have disappeared.
Americans simply do not take care of each other any longer.
And so at the end of the day, you bury yourself in "intellectual"
pursuits. Read The New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune
or Houston Chronicle? You are reading day old news from home and abroad reviewed
and approved by corporate legal counsel. Of course, your favorite news sources
are produced by organizations traded on Wall Street. Five days a week, you are
given powerpoint-type news in print and electronic format and it is conveniently
designed just like fast food: limited choices and doesn't take a lot of time
or thought to digest. On the weekends—usually Sunday—your newspaper
of choice provides you with a supplemental "magazine" of essays and
longer op-ed pieces that just happen to coincide with the issues appearing on
the Sunday propaganda talkies aired by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX. The networks,
maybe even CSPAN, carry "news making" press conferences/speeches from
the Pentagon, the US Congress, the White House—sometimes in prime time—or
a corporate boardroom. You think these might be spontaneous, maybe even improvised?
But, of course, it's all rehearsed and staged and hardly convincing. The questions
are as empty as the answers given. It's pathetic.
As Herbert Marcuse once said, the system is administered and managed. Your
freedom, your thoughts, your actions are not your own. You are the property
of organizations and institutions far beyond your control. You "do the
time" as the convicts say. After all, you owe the system a lot of money.
The psyche of America is created by and belongs to the ideological and monetary
powerhouses of Wall Street. It is easy not to think, to accept the way the system
works. But that is not in concert with the spirit of the American Revolution
of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and the many others for whom
the break away from the United Kingdom was as much an intellectual and spiritual
exercise as anything else. Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence
lost everything for their cause. Jefferson would ultimately die penniless.
Change must come. The spirit and intellectual caliber of the American Revolution
must be rekindled.
So what to do? A few suggestions.
1. Creation of the New Party Development Organization. The NPDO would initiate
development of The New Party, one alternative to the status quo. The NPDO would
encourage peaceful street revolt and ballot box action throughout the country.
The goal would be to purge the White House and US Congress of Democrats and
Republicans—the One Party with Two Faces—starting with the most
banal and corrupt. New Party members would act aggressively throughout the country
using the Net, home-based newsletters and word of mouth to create alternatives
to Democrats and Republicans control. "Watcher" groups would be established
to monitor those who attempt to infiltrate the NPDO.
2. Nationwide boycotts must be initiated and sustained against corporations
who destroy pension plans and defend mining companies that pollute communities
in the US and abroad.
3. Red-White-Blue mini-Revolutions must be initiated against an American electoral
system that ensures the safety of the status quo. NPDO members would study CIA
tactics used in Georgia and the Ukraine and apply them during election cycles.
4. Cities and townships are currently rebelling against the mandates of the
federal government in matters of the environment and security. NPDO members
must ally themselves with these groups and encourage them to change party affiliation.
5. The NPDO Manifesto must address the need for nationalization of US defense
contractors and US airlines. Taxpayers pay for the former and have bailed out
the latter. Corporations must be forced to shed the status of individual.
6. The NPDO Manifesto must address the need for national, one-payer health
insurance.
7. The NPDO Manifesto must address the need to eliminate child poverty, hunger
and homelessness.
8. The NPDO Manifesto must address the need to establish national work projects
to repair infrastructure. Tax cut repeals, including the "death tax,"
will pay for the programs.
9. The compact between government and its people must be reestablished. Outsourcing
of military functions, government agency functions and the corporate sale of
American jobs overseas must cease.
10. The US must engage the world. Resources must be shared with emerging nations.
Grievances of peoples long harmed by US government action must be addressed.
The bogus War on Terror would be terminated and civilian control would be restored
to capture any real terrorists.
11. The Homeland Security Department would be dissolved along with the National
Director for Intelligence organization.