Is the United States of America the world's largest dealer of illegal drugs? What about the world's largest gun runner? For years our government has used the CIA, NSA & other super-secret 'intelligence' agencies to cultivate drug harvest and distribution in SE Asia and Afghanistan. We offer 'aid' and 'trade' to countries in the forms of weapons and ammunition. The drugs come home to the US to poison and kill our own population. The weapons we sell are used either against us directly by people to kill others, who then seek to kill Americans. Did the founding fathers envision a country that would become the world's largest debtor and blood merchant?
(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)
They are corrupted by the allure of illegal, untraceable, unaccountable money from the drug trade and the billions of tax revenue collected annually. Each year, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars go into the industry of Defense contractors, Pentagon programs, Military spending, and the cultivation / transport / sales of illegal drugs - worldwide. The result is death, poverty, famine, sickness and suffering for millions.
The justification? American interests: code for empire, colonial expansion and stuffing the royal coffers. Here's a tip: when you here the term 'American interests', that means that Exxon or Monsanto or Pfizer or some other large company has conspired with the US Government to use our military to help them steal and pollute in another country. It means that we're fucking over some entire population at gunpoint and they are covering it with red, white & blue to keep us funding it.
We, the taxpaying morons make all of this possible when we ignore it. We get caught up by watching American Idol or iPod shopping on eBay or $5 footlongs at Subway. We burn gas in our Hummers for 20 years when we could have been demanding alternative fuel vehicles.
All the while, we suck down gas like jug wine. We consume drugs both legal and illegal to numb our mind to the horrible truths that we do not want to know and that our government does not want us to know. It's no coincidence that we have seen a rise in fundamentalist religions. Fundies have been after the reins of power since this country was formed. They have sided with intolerance, racism, sexism and xenophobia in an effort to seize upon and foster the monumental stupidity of hatred and fear. A hateful & frightened population is a stupid one and ripe pickings for empires whether they be god's or Washington's. Fundies make money when the population is uneducated. Smart people ask questions and are the natural enemy of hate mongers, fear peddlers and emperors.
The biggest hogs at the trough are the 'defense contractors'. The 50-year gluttony of war profiteer, perpetrated in the halls of the Pentagon, Congress and the White House have stolen America from the ideals of equality, justice and liberty. We are nothing but cash generating cows sucking up fast food, plastic electronics, drugs and alcohol while we shit, quite literally, all over the planet. We act like we live in the 1950's where we can pollute anywhere, have 5-10 kids, buy a new car every 3 years, replace last year's clothes/iPod/radio/whatever with a new one and throw the old one in any old waste can.
We are Generation Dodo: too stupid to stop or even notice our own extinction.
Do you really think that our economy will be fixed by some act of government alone? Not with the war profiteers and oil barons still running unchecked. Do you really think we have a future for our 6 kids and their children? Not without any trees left. Not with garbage incinerators burning up mercury, plastic & television sets. Not with our water being polluted by mining companies when they blow mountains into the streams and fill the atmosphere with mercury and worse.
These parasites, these murderers and thieves and liars have the flaming gall to use words like patriotism, duty, honor and freedom. They are the domestic enemies that our President, Congress and troops are sworn to protect. And I will not listen to that 'holy mantra' of "it creates jobs". Bullshit! Hitler and Stalin created jobs. That argument boils down to robber land barons threatening us with starvation if we don't continue to kill ourselves for their profit. There are plenty of ways to solve problems that don't include pollution, murder, drug dealing and war profiteering.
Ronald Reagan said that 'government is the problem' because he wanted to scare white people by threatening them with the idea of blacks taking their money. Well, our government is a problem because it has declared war on us. They spy on us. They help the growth, transport and sales of illegal drugs into our communities. They foster a worship of guns that slaughters children, mothers, seniors, students, and everyone else. These are the weapons of mass destruction, made possible by our own government and aimed directly at us. The destruction of entire familes and communities for generations is done by robbing them of our health, our freedom, our wealth, our intellect and our lives.
It is genocide. Our government did not stop killing its own people once the Indians were decimated. They take our tax dollars to fund the murder of others and kill us in return. We subsidize slaughter and are in turn, slaughtered.
They fear us. They fear our awakening. They fear accountability for their own heinous deeds. We can hold their feet to the fire. We can call them out onto the carpet and we can shine a light of truth upon them.
But, we can do none of that until we first admit that we are guilty too. We have let it happen. We have made it happen. Ignorance is no excuse. Our government's actions have led to the sickness, mutilation, murder, rape and torture of people all over the world. They are still an elected government and until they steal that right from us, we are the first to blame.
It is not enough that we elected Barack Obama, but we need to hound him to keep the promises he made. We cannot allow Dick Cheney and his front man, Chimpo Bush to escape from prosecution. They broke the law. Period. If our children's children are to have any country worth living in, much less one that resembles a democracy - then, we must see that justice is done.
The law works for everyone or it works for no one.
So, look in the mirror and get used to the fact that you, your family, your neighbors, your parents, your fireman, your baker and everyone else you know - are guilty of peddling drugs, murdering civilians, allowing the rape of women, the sale and use of illegal drugs in every neighborhood in the country and the genocide of people 'foreign and domestic'. Look in the mirror and ask yourself: Is this OK with me? Do I want this done in my name? Do I want this for my children? Is this really what my life is all about? Is this Patriotism? No.
Patriotism is what happens when we stop it. Now, in this generation. In this moment. In this Presidency. We must become an unstoppable force for what is good in people and for our own survival as a species.
Mother Earth has seen mass-extinction before. It makes no difference to her. If we kill ourselves, she will start all over again from scratch. She's got nothing but time. So, it would be foolish to count on things working out if we just stop thinking about them so much or in such stark terms.
This Obama Presidency is a test for us all. I know that it is for me.
- gadfly