My attempt to connect our so-called respect for Law & Order to corporate crime and the American Empire.
The Law & Order Façade
The routine pronouncements by politicians and assorted other crooks that America is a land of law & order and we are a nation of democratic principles, and that the bedrock of our nation is our respect for the law, is a façade (an outward appearance that is maintained to conceal a less pleasant or creditable reality). Moreover, this façade is a criminal conspiracy against the citizens of America. Before your eyes glaze over & your ears go deaf, bear with me for a few moments as I make my case. As Michael Parenti & others have pointed out, "not all conspiracy theories are theories." In other words, some conspiracy theories have proven to be factual, not the wild imaginings of some delusional or paranoid person. Unfortunately for us, the right-wing extremists have so co-opted the progressives or liberals on the left that very few people dare to make the charge of a conspiracy because we fear being written-off as just another nut-case. And at the risk of being overly simplistic, I’d say this sad state of affairs is largely due to the fact that the right-wing crazies have far more money than the left wingers i.e. they are funded by corrupt & greedy wealthy individuals who simply want to protect their fortunes and continue to expand their power & riches.
Furthermore, the right wingers posing as conservatives aren’t compelled to provide evidence (or very rarely are) for their outlandish accusations. The reactionary right simply attack with absurd claims and vote no on everything the genuinely concerned leftists put on the table in terms of social, economic, and political justice or fairness. And because the handful of major & cable television networks are owned by wealthy people who simply strive to protect & expand their interests i.e. wealth & power, truly progressive intellectuals are very seldom given a chance to speak their minds on cable or network news. For example, Noam Chomsky is recognized the world over as one of the most brilliant & gifted minds on the planet in the fields of linguistics & political science but has only been allowed a handful of very brief appearances even on the so-called PBS (Public Broadcasting System) which loves to tout itself as being so liberal, enlightening, & progressive, especially during their regular fund drives. Why is Chomsky so effectively marginalized you might wonder? Again at the risk of being overly simplistic, it’s because the depth of his analysis isn’t conducive to 30 second sound bites i.e. an interviewer will ask him a question on why the U.S. shouldn’t be in Iraq and then expect Chomsky to sum up his answer in a nutshell. Chomsky is a scholar’s scholar and being a man of principle, he refuses to be limited in such a fashion in the rigged media game. Of course the pundits for the plutocracy (government by the wealthy), claim his refusal to play their scam game, an inability on Chomsky’s part to answer their "straightforward question," and therefore, Chomsky is a fake, a liar, etc. etc. etc. Don’t just rely on what I’m saying, do a simple Google search on Chomsky and you’ll soon see just how much he is feared & hated by the nut jobs on the extreme right.
Further evidence of the true conspiracy by the power elite, robber barons, status quo, whatever you care to refer to them as, is the accusation they have ingrained in the psyche of probably the majority of Americans that there is a "liberal bias in the media." If it weren’t such a serious matter, it’d be humorous that they have gotten away with this obvious lie for so long. Remember, us on the left are suppose to be communists, socialists, anti-American, etc., then how could a major television, radio, newspaper, etc. be left wing and stay in business because if they, the owners, truly had a liberal bias, they’d be criticizing their very own media, as well as their corporate sponsors. This defies common sense on even the most superficial level. How many wealthy people do you know of who have sabotaged their own corporations and didn’t care about losing money? No, my friend, the reactionary, repulsive reptilians know just as Hitler’s minister of propaganda knew, the more you repeat a lie, the more it becomes accepted as truth. And the greatest weapon in the arsenal of the callous, cowardly, & craven moguls is "Fox News." It should more aptly be called the Pravda channel because it is completely in the pockets of those who are driving America down the road to ruin. If you feel this is too harsh a criticism, I’ll leave it to you to do a little research on your own. I don’t want to bore my readers by veering too far afield of the central argument of this essay so I don’t have the time to elaborate on this charge.
To return to the subject of this essay i.e. that "law & order" in America is a sham, consider this. If you will, I just did a search on the Internet for a list of corporate crimes and came across this site; www.corporatepredators.org/top100.html For the sake of brevity, I just jotted down the names of corporations I’ve heard of reasoning that maybe readers of this essay may also have heard of these corporations? And let me preface this sampling of corporate criminals with a few remarks. The author(s) of this research point out that for every corporation that is prosecuted, hundreds of other corporations go unpunished & some of the corporations on this list have been convicted several times for the same crimes but simply pay their fines and go back to business as usual. I’m paraphrasing a bit here but stand by my accusations with firm conviction. The thing that really blows my mind is that some of these corporations don’t even pay the fines the various courts have levied against them and continue doing business and committing crimes. Moreover, the corporate lawyers have gotten it passed into law that even when a corporation is convicted, they don’t have to admit guilt, and they don’t even bother to express remorse for their actions & the court records don’t reflect or record the conviction, no, it’s simply recorded that they were fined and these corporate crocodiles smirk because they know the paltry sums they are fined are a drop in the bucket compared to the profits they made from their illegal activities. The fines are considered simply a part of the cost of doing business and as long as our "legal system," allows them to hide their guilt from the public and to continue to do business as usual, you can bet your last dollar they will continue breaking any law they please.
To put it another way, you are probably familiar with the iconic statue of Lady Justice which is blindfolded and with a scale that is supposed to represent that justice in America is blind i.e. fair or the same for all. I argue that it’s long become a matter of common knowledge that there are at least two different forms of "justice" in America i.e. if you’re rich and have powerful connections, you can and many do, get away with every crime on the books. But if you’re poor, a working class stiff, or a middle class citizen striving to be part of the wealthy elite, justice is swift and harsh. We are all familiar with stories of innocent people charged with a crime but because they can’t afford a high-priced, corrupt lawyer who is adept at manipulating the law & the legal system, you rot in prison & often for minor, non-violent crimes. I was convicted of possession of two ounces of marijuana in 1972 and it has haunted me ever since. For over 38 years I have had to explain & defend myself for this heinous crime. I even worked for a school district in 1986 and got a glowing letter of reference from a woman who is now in the top rungs of the administrators for this district but when I applied to work for this district again in 2006, I was turned down for this past transgression. How come I can’t have my record sealed like these corporations can? Why do I have to continue being punished all my life for a mistake when I was 19 years old? I have collected a notebook full of references testifying to my character and to what an excellent worker I am but I still must wear this conviction around my neck like I’m some sort of undesirable that shouldn’t be allowed to work around kids. Okay, just a personal anecdote, let’s return to the bigger picture.
For the sake of brevity, I’m going to list the name of the corporation, followed by their crime, and then the fine they were supposed to pay.
- BASF---Antitrust---$225 million
- Exxon---environmental---$125m
- Archer Daniels Midland---Antitrust---$100m
- Banker’s Trust---financial---$60m
- Sears---fraud---$60m
- Louisiana-Pacific---environmental---$37m
- Genetech---food & drug---$30m
- Nippon Gohsei---antitrust---$21m
- Pfizer---antitrust---$20m
- Rockwell---envirnomental---$18.5m
- Royal Caribbean Cruises---envirnomental---$18m
- Teledyne---fraud---$17.5
- Northrup---false statements---$17m
- Litton Applied Technology---fraud---$16.5m
- Kimberly Home Health Care---fraud---$10.08m
- Bank of Credit & Commerce (BCCI)---financial---$10m
- General Electric---fraud---$9.5m
- IBM---illegal exports---$8.5m
- Chevron---envirnomental---$6.5m
- Rockwell---environmental---$6.5m
- Ortho Pharmaceutical---obstruction of justice---$5m
- Unisys---bribery---$5m
- Georgia Pacific---tax evasion---$5m
- Con Agra---fraud---$4.4m
- Blue Cross Blue Shield---fraud---$4m
- Southland---antitrust---$4m
- Teledyne---illegal exports---$4m
- Tyson Foods---public corruption---$4m
- ALCOA (aluminum)---environmental---$3.75m
- Bristol-Myers Squibb---environmental---$3m
- Chemical Waste Management---environmental---$3m
- International Paper---environmental---$2.2m
- Consolidated Edison---environmental---$2m
The website these figures comes from gives detailed info regarding each corporate crime should you care to do a little fact-checking on your own?
As I said, this is just a sampling and these are crimes committed in the 1990s. It’s also obvious that corporate America doesn’t give a damn about our environment. You see, it’s always about profit and they don’t care that they are polluting our world to such a point that it is rapidly becoming an unfit planet to live on. You’d think that after the colossal environmental damage they did to Alaska with the Exxon Valdeez, we’d have learned a lesson but obviously they/we, didn’t e.g. the BP environmental catastrophe that even BP insiders warned their top executives of and our government knew of the risks and never enforced the regulations to keep such an event from becoming a reality. And BP has the balls to request a tax write-off for the costs they must pay for their gross negligence & willful law breaking. I learned many years ago while taking a few courses in oceanography that 80% of the air we breathe, comes from the oceans. We’re a real smart species aren’t we? We’re destroying the environment we need for survival and we allow the rich to continue on with their crimes with a mere slap on the wrist.
But never mind me; I’m just another one of those ranting & raving nut cases on the left who believe that not all conspiracy theories are theories but matters of fact. How have we allowed these corporate cockroaches to get away with so much? Part of the problem is that we have been drugged with the opium of the 20th & 21st century i.e. television & movies. TV is the primary tool used by the power elite to manipulate public opinion. Is it simply coincidence that we are inundated with cops & robbers television programs? And that the series "Law & Order" has several offshoots? Or could it be that the wealthy crooks in charge want to keep on deluding us into believing that there is justice in America, that the bad guys get caught and punished appropriately? Whether it’s an overt conspiracy, covert conspiracy, or simply that people need to see portrayals of good vs. evil and feel in their hearts that good triumphs, I don’t know but I’m suspicious. I do know that our legal system is a rigged game and that we have more people incarcerated per capita, than any other nation on earth. Many poor schmucks are serving absurd prison terms because of asinine laws like the three strikes and you’re out. And I know that corporate criminals like those mentioned above have done far more harm to America and its people, than any of those low level street thugs. The greedy are rewarded with tax breaks for closing down their factories here and going overseas to exploit the truly suffering that work for $2 a day or less and then have the nerve to admonish us to "buy American."
Furthermore, television and movies are very effective tools used to distract us from what the elite are doing behind our backs. If we weren’t so asleep at the wheel and addicted to the TV teat, we’d perhaps read more, especially non-fiction books on politics, history, philosophy, etc. and would be better prepared to do battle with these pirates who are robbing us blind and driving us over the cliff to oblivion. Moreover, I’ve long wrestled with the thought that our public education system is a conspiracy to keep us ignorant and docile workers who will pay our taxes, go to war for the greedy empire pirates, & buying their crap products no matter how worthless & useless they may be. Just think a minute about what passes for entertainment on television today. Soap operas, ‘reality shows,’ sit-coms, etc. Our kids are raised on this shit and they’re brainwashed into believing that it’s their patriotic duty & a glorious thing to die fighting to defend America. Whose America are they fighting & dying for? Television is a very pernicious monster that swallows up our children, our lives, our dreams. It and public school dumbs us down to the point that we’re the laughing stock of the world because we are so notoriously ignorant about global affairs, politics, culture, literature, geography, etc. We have second rate actors as governors and presidents. But the media corporations have become very skilled at whipping up the public’s patriotism with such blatant propaganda as shown 24/7 on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, etc.
Because the far right extremists and reactionaries rant & rave and have the media and the democratic party in the palm of their hands with the help of the fear & hate mongers like Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck, Coulter, etc., and they have the Fox "News" channel completely in their control, they are able to repeat ad nauseam total propaganda & ludicrous accusations with no evidence whatsoever. And the left is silenced and if we dare to use the word conspiracy, we’re instantly written off as nut cases who believe in UFOs and other nonsense. Of course when the right wingers charge us with conspiracies, it’s another matter and they don’t have to substantiate anything they accuse us of but we have to prove our statements against them. For example, the right wing nut jobs have long claimed that liberals control our schools and are undermining America with socialist and communist propaganda & values. In fact, the Alfred E. Newman lookalike, George ‘Dubya’ Bush is guilty of sabotaging our already failing school system with his ‘No Child Left Behind’ law which forces teachers to focus almost exclusively on test taking and neglect the meat & potatoes of education i.e. content and critical & analytical thinking skills.
And speaking of education let me share a bit more with you in the hopes that it might help enlighten you? Hope I don’t sound too pompous? I know that I don’t have the corner on truth and have only scratched the surface in my research over the years. I’d love to see a nationwide poll taken that asked the question, How many left wing, liberal, or progressive newspapers, magazines, television stations/programs, radio stations, etc. can you name? Why? Because so many Americans believe that we are given an equal or fairly balanced view on the critical issues. The dissemblers on the right point to MSNBC for example and I counter with, oh yeah, they’re so open-minded they fired Phil Donahue for having an equal number of liberals & progressives on his show just before we invaded Iraq. Or CNN? I call them the Christian News Network because of their bias. And of course, The New York Times, the "paper of record" long called the bastion of the bleeding heart liberals by the know-nothings on the right. Give me a break! They and their star reporter, Judith Miller, took everything that bank robber, Chalabi said, at face value with no fact checking, etc. and they helped beat the drums for war louder than any other media outlet save Fox News.
Continuing on with my list of factors and guilty parties responsible for the decay of the democratic principles & values America is suppose to stand for is the Democratic Party itself. I am constantly saddened, no depressed, as I witness the democratic leadership cave-in to the republicans and continually try to placate them. Yeah, the argument is always, this is how the system works and we must give in on this issue to gain ground on what we want to pass, etc. I say bullshit! It’s far past time that the democrats stop pandering to the right and stand up on their hind legs and call them what they are. Stop worrying about your political career and your wealth & connections. If the dems truly cared about America, they’d risk their careers and speak straight to the public and to the republicans and let the chips fall where they may. All this gamesmanship has done is shift the power more and more to the right, even when the dems have the power, they’re too timid to use it. Why doesn’t Obama do as that school yard bully, Bush, and shove it down their throats? Yeah, I know, too naïve of me. No, I’ve simply had enough and so have many, if not most other Americans. We want to see someone with balls take on the status quo and let them have it with both barrels. Remember the old adage, ‘if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.’ Well, I am completely disillusioned with the democrats who we were taught in school, represent the working class and champion the poor and the oppressed. When you’re up against a bully like the far right, you don’t play nice, no, you kick them in the balls, gouge their eyes out, you do whatever it takes to defeat them. By the way, I’m going to post this on The Daily Kos and I can hear the nut cases on that site already, you’re a troll, you’re ignorant of how the system works, etc. I’ve been attacked by those blind faith democrats before and ignore them & their smug assuredness that they know what’s really happening and how to win the game.
Unlike those youngsters who are so cocksure of themselves, I don’t see it as a game. Its life and death and the more they and those of their ilk continue to placate the greedy and corrupt and ignore the dems who are also corrupt, the more things will remain the same and deteriorate even further. For those of you who may read this and who aren’t so indoctrinated with the party line, I suggest you consider the lessons of ancient Rome and the ‘mighty Roman Empire.’ Their status quo distracted & amused the citizens of Rome with what has become known as ‘bread & circuses.’ Aren’t television and our national obsession with sports and the glorification of war, fighting, and etc. parallel to ancient Rome? I argue that this agenda is what destroyed Rome and is destroying America. But what is much more frightening is the fact that we, the world’s superpower, with more weapons than the rest of the world combined, can push it to the point that a nuclear war can erupt and the planet will be obliterated. We therefore, as American citizens, literally are responsible for the rest of the world and have a duty to stop the maniacs holding the reins of power. Remember also the lessons of the French Revolution, the poor & oppressed masses will only take that jackboot on their throats for so long and then will rise up like the French. The guillotine was invented by the poor French people and they cut the heads off half the rich pigs of France. And I’m not arguing for violent revolution but rather, a revolution of the mind & the spirit and this is how we will defeat this belly-dragging scum who feel so superior to us, the peasants.
Before I forget, I want to add my bitter disappointment with Air America radio who loves to tout itself as "America’s only progressive talk show." When it first came on the air, I was elated and thought, at last, we can begin to fight back against the Limbaughs & O’Reillys but it didn’t take long for me to see that Al Franken seemed more concerned about getting laughs than about serious debate/discussion. And now he’s a senator? Maybe I’m being a bit too harsh on Franken but the skeptic in me fears that he may just be in it for the glory & connections as well? And what the hell is Air America doing airing commercials for Wal Mart, the antithesis of every principle and value that true progressives stand for? Randi Rhodes fawns over Bill Clinton, you know, that other candidate like Obama who ran for office as a progressive but as soon as he became president, sold us out and played the neo-liberal game of the rich and rapacious i.e. NAFTA. And when Ralph Nader, did a phone interview with Rhodes on Air America, she was positively vicious, more vicious than any Limbaugh, Coulter, etc. in her ranting & raving, Nader showed far more class and didn’t stoop to Rhodes’ level. This is progressive? This is liberal? I know, you Daily Kos zombies are frothing at the mouth with these words of mine. Ha! Ha! Ha! Or, choke on it you self righteous hypocrites! In short, we need to emulate people like Chomsky i.e. do our homework & relentlessly debate the Neanderthals with calm & poise and not be afraid to criticize democrats, liberals, progressives, anyone with no exceptions. Compromising your principles & values to gain a little political ground is a pyrrhic victory and will defeat us in the long run. I may have strayed a bit from the core of this essay so let me return to my central thesis i.e. law & order is a façade, by giving you a sampling of news headlines from one of the handful of truly progressive media sources in America that is also being heard around the world, Democracy Now! I’d also like to strongly recommend the Pacifica Radio Network, which is where Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now, got her start. They have had their own in-fighting and have compromised on their principles as well but if Ian Masters is still doing his Sunday program "Background Briefing," you’d be amazed at the transcripts and audio broadcasts of his program (amazed is not strong enough, no, you’ll be enlightened).
To return to the subject of the façade of law & order in America or rather, the hypocrisy of the plutocrats who rule America, I’m going to give another sampling I culled from the headlines of Democracy Now! Which I believe substantiate my thesis that law & order is a grand sham deceiving us & leading us, like lemmings, off the cliff & into the abyss.
- 8/12/10---Story: "Gaming the System" Study details how big banks are avoiding lending obligations under ‘Community Reinvestments Act’
- 8/2/10---Prudential & Met Life are being probed for defrauding families of dead soldiers
- 7/30/10---House rejects bill to help sick Ground Zero workers
- 7/29/10---Pentagon can’t account for $9 billion from Iraq Oil Revenues for reconstruction
- 7/28/10---BP seeks $10b tax break to cover spill expenses
- 7/28/10---Republicans block campaign finance law
- 7/23/10---Report: Bailed-Out Banks paid out $1.6b in excessive bonuses
- 7/16/10---U.S. has delivered none of pledged aid money to Haiti
- 7/16/10---Goldman Sachs settles civil fraud case for $550m with no admission of criminal wrongdoing
- 7/06/10---Environmentalist facing three year prison sentence for unfurling banners in Senate office building
- 7/01/10---GOP continues Senate filibuster of unemployment benefits
- 6/30/10---Democrats remove $17.9 b Bank Tax from financial reform overhaul
- 6/25/10---Supreme Court rules in favor of Enron CEO Jeffrey Spilling and will make it harder for prosecutors to file charges in corruption cases
- 6/23/10---Supreme Court overturns a ban on Monsanto’s genetically-modified alfalfa
- 6/22/10---Congressional probe confirms U.S. indirectly funding Afghan insurgents with protection payoffs
- 6/21/10---Report: Administration intervenes to oppose curbing CEO pay
- 6/17/10---Obama administration crackdown on Whistleblowers
- 6/14/10---Report: U.S. discovers $1 trillion in Afghan mineral deposits (copper, gold, cobalt, & lithium)
- 6/11/10---BP hires firm specializing in reducing cost of claim payments
- 6/08/10---A federal commission probing the roots of the financial crisis reported Goldman Sachs refused to cooperate and had to be subpoenaed
- 6/02/10---Supreme Court limits Miranda Rights
I could go on and on but I feel that my point is obvious? And I am only going to comment on one of the headlines above i.e. Goldman Sachs refusal to cooperate. It’s absolutely mindboggling that some of the former Goldman Sachs’ executives are now in such high offices in the "change" president, Obama’s, cabinet & positions of such importance? In case, you haven’t connected some of the dots, Goldman Sachs played a major role in the economic meltdown and instead of being punished like us peasants, Goldman Sachs & the other corporate crustaceans is appointed to the inner, halls of power? Am I sleepwalking or delusional?
Don’t even try to tell me that this is "Law & Order?" Not buying it and I don’t care if (most likely) I’m written-off as another looney-tune. The U.S. government differs very little from the "mafia," in terms of their clandestine or covert activities & their protection of anyone deemed "useful" for the goals/immediate mission. No, there are tens of thousands of examples of how our government & our corporate captains of industry have lied to us, betrayed us, and are making a mockery of this "democracy" and its principles. And we are supposed to continue to believe this bullshit? We’re supposed to continue to send our loved ones to foreign lands and in harm’s way, for these snakes in the grass? I have worked in special education for over fifteen years and feel a bit challenged myself but I’m not that retarded that I don’t see through this veneer of vice, venality, & vicious indifference of the suffering masses. A question that never leaves my mind is ‘just what is it going to take for the American public to wake up and get pissed-off enough to take action?
In conclusion, I could back over the headlines for the past 30 years and the evidence would be a tsunami of graft, greed, & corruption. I strongly urge you to read the book The Corporation by Joel Bakan or watch the film with the same title, because it summarizes very nicely just how powerful & pernicious corporations have become. As the author points out, apologists for corporate wrong doings continually try to tell the public, "Oh, it’s just a few rotten apples," but corporations share several of the same characteristics as a psychopath:
1.Irresponsible-in an attempt to satisfy the corporate goal, everybody else is put at risk.
2.Manipulate-corporations try to manipulate everything, including public opinion.
3.Grandiose-they are always insisting "that we’re number one, we’re the best"
4.A Lack of Empathy & Asocial tendencies-are key characteristics of corporations, their behavior indicates they don’t really concern themselves with their victims
5.Refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions & are unable to feel remorse-if corporations get caught breaking the law, they pay big fines and they continue doing what they did before anyway
6.Relate to others superficially-their whole goal is to present themselves to the public in a way that is appealing to the public but in fact may not be representative of what the organization is really like. Human psychopaths are notorious for their ability to use charm as a mask to hide their dangerously self-obsessed personalities.
Again at the risk of being overly simplistic, let me connect a few dots. As one of the headlines I gave pointed out, the Republicans blocked the bill to stop campaign finance (again with democratic collusion). And they will continue to block this key bill or law with all their power because the corporations’ lobbyists through their ‘legal’ ability to donate to politicians’ campaigns control the politicians and get laws & regulations passed that are beneficial to them. Forget the harm the corporations do to us & our environment, like the psychopath, they just plain don’t give a damn. It’s no coincidence that the overwhelming majority of politicians are lawyers. They want to get into politics because they know that those who have the power to create the laws & to enforce or not enforce the laws are in position to become fabulously wealthy. The senators, congressmen, even the president, aren’t really the ones who run America, no, it’s the behemoth corporations through their enormous wealth which they mostly gain by committing crimes and getting away with it because the politicians are in their pockets, who run this country and run the world. Until and unless we stop these corporations, we are all doomed to permanent unemployment or underemployment, the poisoning of our water, our food, our air, the loss of health care, the loss of our pensions, our retirement, the loss of social security, the loss of our homes, etc.
Too negative? Too pessimistic? Perhaps you need to read more of the headlines than the few I mentioned? Perhaps you prefer to go through life with your head in the sand, hoping the bad guys will go away or that you too, can become obscenely wealthy & hide away in some gated "community" where people of color & people with less money are not allowed and you never have to see all the suffering people of this world but this too is an illusion or delusion. We can only solve our problems by taking off our blinders and organizing with others. If enough of us become well informed enough, I believe we can take back the power that is rightfully ours, not this artificial entity, the Supreme Court has given human rights to i.e. the corporation.
It’s all connected and I do truly care about this country that I criticize so vehemently. I see pain and suffering all around me and I have paid a high price myself. I spent five weeks in a homeless shelter in Boulder, Colorado a few years ago and have been screwed over dozens of times by this corrupt system of ours. We’ve been experiencing a 30 year crime wave initiated by Ronnie "Bonzo" Reagan enabled by the Democratic party and of course, the Republicans who are for every bill or law that puts more money in their pockets but who veto every law or bill meant to help the overwhelming majority of us who pay our taxes, go to war, & see our lives crumbling around us. Reagan was the spokesman for G.E., the corporation that "brings good things to light," like nuclear power plants that radiate our rivers, weapons of mass destruction, etc. and he gave ‘the speech" i.e. the commies are coming, the commies are coming, for 20 years and this made him the darling of the reptile party who in turn, made him president. And in return for this great honor, Reagan started deregulating every industry he could get his grubby paws on and there’s a direct link to the recent Wall St. corruption that brought the world near to an economic meltdown. Do you recall the "Savings & Loan Scandal" that stole tens of thousands of Americans life savings thanks to Ronnie’s deregulation of the industry? And Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich with his "trickle down" economic theory which has continued unabated and also accounts for our sorry state of affairs today. And don’t forget Georgie the second who single-handedly, did more damage to the American economy & image around the world than Reagan, Bush Sr., & Clinton combined. The fear mongers strive to focus our anger on ‘terrorists,’ ‘illegal immigrants,’ gays, & women who get abortions & naturally leave out the history which would explain why so many people around the world hate not us, but the corporations & the politicians . We have become the new Rome, despised & feared the world over because of the crimes of our secret intelligence agencies, the corporate crimes committed around the globe, our military invasions in support of dictators and for the profit of corporations, & the deceit of our politicians. We are sowing the seeds of our own destruction and I hope and pray that we wake up in time. If you know our history, you may recall that the British considered us terrorists of a sort, during the American Revolution.
In other words, our founding fathers and the Americans who fought in the American Revolution fought against colonial rule by the British Empire & were considered outlaws, traitors, terrorists, etc. i.e. the British thought it cowardly of us to hide behind trees and pick them off, one by one, as they marched in formation in their bright red uniforms. Yes indeed, we most certainly disrupted the ‘order’ of British rule in America but now we seem to have a collective amnesia & can’t understand why other nations want their independence. We have become as infatuated with our mythic image of ourselves as the "leaders of the free world," and we’ve become so blind as to the actions of our "representatives," that we’ve turned into what we once fought so bravely against, a greedy & cruel foreign power bent on ruling the world. This is why "Law & Order" rings so hollow in my ears. Today, "law & order" means whatever those pulling the strings in Washington D.C. say it means & it’s constantly changing to suit the PR agencies working for the government & the corporate cabals’ political machinations as part of their propaganda war designed to keep us in the dark, paying taxes, & dying in their wars of aggression. We have been betrayed and we owe no duty, no respect, no loyalty to such a corrupt empire & system. I’m going to leave you with some reminders from Thomas Jefferson.
What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
I have the consolation to reflect that during the period of my administration not a drop of the blood of a single fellow citizen was shed by the sword of war or of the law.
Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: (1) Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. (2) Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist; and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.
---Rob DeLoss, August 21, 2010 (Aurora, Oregon)