December 15, 2008
by Philip A Farruggio
Since it is approaching year end, and so much has been happening in all our lives, this column will be a bit more comprehensive than my others. Indulge yourselves with the sweet trip I will take you on. Follow my lead, if you will, and the proverbial ' dots ' will connect for you. As a prelude, I establish now the fact , to this writer, that this 3rd dimension we think is so real is only as real as any other dream we have at night. To many ascetics, our souls live on forever and use these bodies to better experience the trials, temptations and lessons of the material world. Why? To learn how to draw closer to our Creator, or the God that many of us worship in so many different ways and under so many different names. What then does it mean to have this belief in the reality of our souls and , at the same time , the understanding in the delusion of this 3rd dimensional existence? It is what we do and how we act that counts most. This grand drama, or play we all take part in, is CO written by our own free will and that of our Creator. Thus, it is not so vitally important to one's spiritual ( or soul's ) growth as to our position in life. Rather, it is paramount in what we do with that position or situation that counts most. Consider that as you read on.
Well, the storm is really beginning to hit our shores. Yes, those who have been under foreclosure notices and pink slip layoffs, they felt the winds of change already. Now, the rest of us are gonna be slammed. The mayor of Philadelphia, an Afro American Democrat, by the way, just issued his stark warning. He declared that 11 libraries will have to be closed, along with city pools, and other cuts in services. In my own town, a close friend of mine high up in our local government reflected that the city is " Broke !". My past prediction of the privatization of all city services seems to be just a matter of time. I might even suggest that our county library system will be under the privatization gun as well . Folks, we ' is broke ' as a nation! Our newly elected President, who many progressives hoped would ' do the right thing ', is acting like just another centrist ' Clinton Democrat '. Mr. Obama seems to be tipping more and more each day towards the right wing Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us all about. Obama seems committed to either continuing or perhaps raising our already bloated and unnecessary defense budget. His recent statements seem to state a preference to maintaining our military imprint throughout the world. He talks of increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, while never really totally leaving Iraq . I mean , come on, do you think the Pentagon would have built those permanent bases in Iraq, if we planned to ever leave them for the ..... Iraqis?
General Smedley D. Butler, the most decorated Marine of his generation, wrote in 1935: " I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street... I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912..... I helped make Honduras ' right ' for the American fruit companies in 1903. Looking back on it , I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts of Chicago. We Marines operated on three continents! " Who , one might ponder, made it all possible for private business interests to use our military as their junkyard dogs?
Remember the fine film " The Sting " ? The well devised plan used in that film was called ' The Long Con ' , whereupon the sucker is set up in a lengthy and elaborate sting. Take a bow, my fellow Americans who continually vote for either the Republican or Democratic parties. You are the ' sucker ' like Robert Shaw was in the film. You buy into this ' Long Con ' for as long as you and your parents and grandparents and on and on have voted. Consider the piece in the December New York Review of Books by Michael Massing: ' Obama: In the Divided Heartland ' . Massing went to Ohio before the election and visited blue collar industrial towns that have been hit hard by the economic downturn. Many, in fact, were hit hard even before this current recession. In the blue collar town of Rossford, Massing visited folks at a bowling alley one night. His interview with three folks there really troubled me. One man, a retired truck driver , said he was a Democrat who voted for Geoge Bush twice. He is a diabetic paying for his own insurance. What would make him vote for George Bush?
Was it the continuing ' Republican vs. Democrat only game in town ' hustle? Another bowler, recently retired from GM after 38 years, bemoaned the fact that cheap Chinese labor was driving down wages. He stated that the exodus of plants offshore had killed the local tax base, which then killed infrastructure repairs etc. Then the clincher: He supported Hillary Clinton ( NAFTA lover all the way ) and when she dropped out..... He supported McCain! Finally, he stated that he had plenty of doubts about Obama, related to Obama being raised in Indonesia and " going to a Muslim school " . A third man interviewed at the bowling alley told Massing that he, a monitor at sewage facilities, did not like Obama's message or his character. Guess who this man said he was a devoted listener of? Rush Limbaugh! Limbaugh taught him about Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright and how the ' left wing ' media would not probe it more fully. Finally, this white collar working stiff told Masssing that it was " Tax policy where this country has really gone wrong". He said he favored a flat tax and was upset over Obama's comment about ' redistributing the wealth ' . The Long Con !!
Read my lips , dear friends: There is no real major difference between these two parties. They both represent, when push comes to shove, the super rich that General Butler referred to in his essay. I do not mean some guy who worked hard and diligently and now has a successful small business. Someone who earns a couple hundred grand a year.... Or even one million bucks a year. No, I refer to the 1 % , that is correct, the 1 % of our 300 million populace who earn over one million per annum. Even those earning around one million are not what this problem is all about. No, it is the tiniest percentage of our populace , perhaps even ½ of 1 % , who earn tens and hundreds of millions of dollars a year.... Many who do not even have to work, they are so wealthy. They are the ones who control the major industries, and shovel out the large donations to candidates from both parties.These are the Fat Cats who create and subsidize those so called ' Think Tanks ' and ' Institutes ' . You know, the ones that have no concrete buildings with janitors and cleaning ladies. Rather, they have offices and movie sets with cameras ready to record their handpicked forums. In essence, these are the real folks who both choose and elect our Congress and our Presidents. Get it?
Barack Obama is a nice guy, a seemingly decent man who is quite bright. So bright that he knows where his ' bread is buttered ' . He knows that his role is to save the current capitalist system from...... Itself! Along the way, he'll lobby the system to throw a few crumbs to the 99.5 % of us. No, not with universal health care. No , not with taxing the super rich the way he should ( In 1960, the top rate for the highest bracket for our federal income tax was over 70 %. Today, it is 35% ) . No, not with closing the over 700 military bases worldwide ( in over 100 countries ) and bringing home our personnel, our equipment and saving us hundreds of billions of dollars each year.... And lots of resentment throughout the world. He won't get us out of WTO and NAFTA and GATT , all pacts that allow multinational corporations to exploit workers worldwide. He voted to bail out the sharks on Wall Street, rather than insist that we nationalize their assets and run the failed companies ourselves ( without Fat Cat CEOs and top execs making obscene compensation ) . Yet, to come down hard on Mr. Obama is not fair. The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars..... But in our Congress! Republicans and Democrats alike have been allowing the less than 1% to dictate policies that hurt we the 99%..... For too long!
American public, you've been conned, bamboozled and taken. Now it is your turn to tell President Obama and the rest of Congress what you want. Get out and protest. Write letters to the editor. Peacefully practice your constitutional right of free speech. And most important...... Join one of the many 3 rd parties out there that reflect your own core principles. To sit back and allow politicians to continue to represent first of foremost the elite handful who give them so much is not what our democratic republic should be about. Just think that if we here in America had but one major change in our system and how it operates, perhaps all the other aspects of it would have to readjust. That change could and should be to have total public funding of all elections in America, from the local school board to the presidency. Think if there were truly a level playing field in politics, how much more the voice of the 99 % would be heard? So, reject these two parties and send a message to our new president. He'll listen..... After all, he is first and foremost a politician. We all know what that means, now don't we?
If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active:
Click Here for the Free Populist Party Newsletter
Philip A Farruggio [send him email] is a free lance columnist, small businessman and activist. Since the 2000 elections, he has had over 90 columns posted on various websites and in many newspaper op-ed sections. To review some which have been shown, just google his name.
More Articles from Phil Faruggio
