Who knows how many attended out of personal conviction for real change in our government? The Tea Party has been co-opted and funded by the likes of the Koch Industries Koch Brothers who really want to undermine the true spirit of their movement. They and their like want to perpetuate the corrupt status quo, in mine and the opinion of many knowledgeable people. This corporatocracy spends billions on propaganda to divide us on emotional social issues to keep us hating and fighting each other to distract us from seeing them as the true enemy exploiting us whenwe need to be collectively organizing against them. Beck and Palin are merely highly paid stooges for this corrupting exploiting corporatocracy, wittingly or unwittingly.
Our only hope for meaningful change is via campaign finance reform which means getting the current crop of prostitute stooges of the corporatocracy from both parties to vote to change a system where big special interest money buys politicians and legislation that enriches them and hurts tax paying working Americans. Only if we boycott their products and even take off from work long enough to deprive the government of payroll taxes which go back to these big multinationals corporations in major contracts for war material, etc will they suffer enough deprivation to lift the yoke of oppression we endure for their benefit. America has become a colonial empire the size of which is unparalleled in history. As all empires go it will crash and this one is gong to be a catastrophic crash when it goes if we don't make the needed changes now! Stop bickering and follow the money to see who is trying to run things their way. We need to get together in a truly grass roots movement to make the needed changes.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Military Industrial Complex- the grand daddy of all special interests
I doubt that Iran has or ever will have the capacity to wage a World War. What they can do is further threaten the stability of their region and threaten world oil supplies. Alternative energy is the key to marginalizing their capacity to s...pend on weaponry.
The US with its many years of intrusive exploitative foreign policy, which includes propping up right wing dictatorships like the Sha of Iran and SH in Iraq and highly arming an Israeli state in their midst, has added immensely to the backlash that is the so called terrorist movements coming from that part of the world. Every day that we remain in the ME as an interfering occupying presence is another day that inspires more so called terrorists to lash out against us.
Read John Perkins' Economic Hit Men books to understand how we operate and why we are hated and feared around the world! The best thing about being an American up to recently is that it prevented a US citizen from being a victim of US foreign policy.
The scariest religious group that exists today is not fanatical Islam, rather the Christian right that ever more dominates the US Military. They are fanatics with unmatched weaponry who are eager for the "end of times".
The military industrial complex basically runs our country and therefore pretty much calls all the shots. I doubt the President, whoever he may be and regardless of his party, cannot stand up against its will at the end of the day. Obama's security could not even prevent a couple of uninvited social climbers from attending one of his state dinners. I think this episode was a not so subtle message delivered very early on in his term! Just my honest opinion!
The US with its many years of intrusive exploitative foreign policy, which includes propping up right wing dictatorships like the Sha of Iran and SH in Iraq and highly arming an Israeli state in their midst, has added immensely to the backlash that is the so called terrorist movements coming from that part of the world. Every day that we remain in the ME as an interfering occupying presence is another day that inspires more so called terrorists to lash out against us.
Read John Perkins' Economic Hit Men books to understand how we operate and why we are hated and feared around the world! The best thing about being an American up to recently is that it prevented a US citizen from being a victim of US foreign policy.
The scariest religious group that exists today is not fanatical Islam, rather the Christian right that ever more dominates the US Military. They are fanatics with unmatched weaponry who are eager for the "end of times".
The military industrial complex basically runs our country and therefore pretty much calls all the shots. I doubt the President, whoever he may be and regardless of his party, cannot stand up against its will at the end of the day. Obama's security could not even prevent a couple of uninvited social climbers from attending one of his state dinners. I think this episode was a not so subtle message delivered very early on in his term! Just my honest opinion!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Emails to My Senators- Please copy and paste then send to yours!
Senator, (Shelby and Sessions-Alabama)
I am sorry that our political process has come to a point which leaves the country hostage to the transnational corporatocracy and their lobbyists which in too many cases are the main funding source needed for any candidate to get elected to public office to the exclusion of any candidate who wishes to honestly represent the best interests of all citizens, human and corporate, in a fair and balanced manner.
We often hear disingenuous talk from our political leaders about campaign finance reform but no meaningful reform ever happens. Both parties sell out the American people at every opportunity to enrich their corporate cronies in an effort to get and keep their hands on the huge corporate treasure that awaits them. They distract the American public from this real enemy of their interests, the greedy corporatists and their Republican and Democrat lackeys throughout government.
Our nations' citizens are finally catching on to the fact that they are not only NOT being represented in government, but that they are being tricked and exploited by the political shell game you all, Democrat and Republican corporate lackeys, play so well for the benefit of your corporate masters and yourselves.
I ask that you and all of your colleagues begin immediately to represent all your constituents fairly by enacting some real campaign finance reforms with sharp long teeth to exclude corporate money and lobbyist over-influence, especially now with the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision that extends corporate rights beyond all sensible comprehension.
I realize that I am asking the foxes to guard the hen house but it is time for the foxes to wake up and realize that the poker game they have been running is over for everyone, including the winner, when one party wins all the money and that is just where we are headed at an increasingly break neck pace.
Alan Brezin, founder of ELCON
End Lobbyocracy Corporatocracy Over-Influence Now
I am sorry that our political process has come to a point which leaves the country hostage to the transnational corporatocracy and their lobbyists which in too many cases are the main funding source needed for any candidate to get elected to public office to the exclusion of any candidate who wishes to honestly represent the best interests of all citizens, human and corporate, in a fair and balanced manner.
We often hear disingenuous talk from our political leaders about campaign finance reform but no meaningful reform ever happens. Both parties sell out the American people at every opportunity to enrich their corporate cronies in an effort to get and keep their hands on the huge corporate treasure that awaits them. They distract the American public from this real enemy of their interests, the greedy corporatists and their Republican and Democrat lackeys throughout government.
Our nations' citizens are finally catching on to the fact that they are not only NOT being represented in government, but that they are being tricked and exploited by the political shell game you all, Democrat and Republican corporate lackeys, play so well for the benefit of your corporate masters and yourselves.
I ask that you and all of your colleagues begin immediately to represent all your constituents fairly by enacting some real campaign finance reforms with sharp long teeth to exclude corporate money and lobbyist over-influence, especially now with the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision that extends corporate rights beyond all sensible comprehension.
I realize that I am asking the foxes to guard the hen house but it is time for the foxes to wake up and realize that the poker game they have been running is over for everyone, including the winner, when one party wins all the money and that is just where we are headed at an increasingly break neck pace.
Alan Brezin, founder of ELCON
End Lobbyocracy Corporatocracy Over-Influence Now
Monday, November 23, 2009
How To Change the Social and Political Status Quo
We have a potent weapon: our dollars in tax money and for purchases of personal products and services. Don't patronize those you don't agree with and tell them why you aren't patronizing them. Tell the ones you do agree with that they are doing a good job and do business with them. Don't support representatives that take money from big corporations and then represent them if you disagree with their agenda and complain to your representatives about them getting tax dollars to trade with our government! Don't buy foreign when the goods are clearly dumped on our market and are produced by "slave labor". This clearly works!
Be consistent, rational, and fair in your activism using logic and common sense and refuse to be manipulated by hate mongering and emotional divisive bogus arguments. Don't blindly support "isms", especially don't accept one because the name sounds like something you identify with. It makes no sense to follow every aspect of an ideology. No ideology is perfect and complete. They are all devised by men and men make mistakes and cannot anticipate every contingency. Be open to any change that has wide moral currency and makes sense socially and economically!
alanib
Be consistent, rational, and fair in your activism using logic and common sense and refuse to be manipulated by hate mongering and emotional divisive bogus arguments. Don't blindly support "isms", especially don't accept one because the name sounds like something you identify with. It makes no sense to follow every aspect of an ideology. No ideology is perfect and complete. They are all devised by men and men make mistakes and cannot anticipate every contingency. Be open to any change that has wide moral currency and makes sense socially and economically!
alanib
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Please read John Perkins, EHM, newest book: Hoodwinked
Here is a synopsis by the author in a newsletter on his website:
http://www.johnperkins.org/?page_id=23
November 10th – Newsletter
Dear friends,
Random House asked me to write HOODWINKED, a book that delves into the deep-seated causes of the current economic meltdown — and also provides workable solutions.
HOODWINKED is available TODAY in bookstores everywhere.
It is by far the most important book I have written.
I am so grateful for your continued support of my work. You can purchase HOODWINKED at your favorite bookstore, online vendor, and we even have a purchase link you can use that benefits DreamChange – http://www.dreamchange.org , the non-profit I founded and continue to work with.
Also: Please forward this e-newsletter out to friends and please join me on Twitter @economic_hitman.
HOODWINKED provides the facts – and many personal stories from economic hit men, jackals, business execs, politicians, and educators – behind the following Eight Key points:
1. The US – in fact the world – has been stolen by the very wealthy and powerful, the corporatocracy.
2. This has created a failed system – unsustainable, unjust, unstable, dangerous.
3. The cause is a mutant, viral form of capitalism – what I call “Predatory Capitalism” that began with President Reagan and the philosophy that a) the only goal of business is to make profits, b) corporations should not be regulated, and c) every major economic sector should be privatized. This virus has spread with each subsequent administration.
4. 9/11 was a shock used by the Bush administration to boost this mutant form of capitalism to unprecedented new levels: privatize the military (and introduce privatized Homeland Security); further deregulate financial institutions; radically increase military budgets; and encourage shopping and excessive materialism.
5. The 9/11 shock distracted us from the crises we really need to fear: climate change, resources diminishing at accelerating rates, increasing prices for fuel, foods, and other essentials, violence that results from exploited people living desperate, starving lives, overpopulation, general environmental and social degradation. For the first time in history, every human being – every life form – is confronted by these same crises.
6. Countries and presidents have lost power. Corporations gained the power. World geopolitics may be represented by huge clouds (the multinational companies) drifting around the planet; they know no borders and obey no specific sets of laws.
7. The good news: we control corporations. The market place is democratic. The way out is for us the people to support companies that are committed to a sustainable, just, peaceful world; to institute regulations that codify this; to recognize as heroes men and women who are dedicated to creating a world our children and their brothers and sisters around the planet will want to inherit — in essence to rid ourselves of the mutant virus and create a new type of capitalism.
8. We are all in this together and we are all communicating with each other. The Internet and cell phones offer opportunities to unite us like never before in the human experience.
I am encouraged by grassroots movements across this planet (described in HOODWINKED) and by the commitment of students on campuses in the US and throughout the world. Please read HOODWINKED, share it with your friends, and let’s together create a sustainable, just, and peaceful world.
I hope too that I will see you at one of the upcoming book signings – please see the link for schedule on this website.
John Perkins
http://www.johnperkins.org/?page_id=23
November 10th – Newsletter
Dear friends,
Random House asked me to write HOODWINKED, a book that delves into the deep-seated causes of the current economic meltdown — and also provides workable solutions.
HOODWINKED is available TODAY in bookstores everywhere.
It is by far the most important book I have written.
I am so grateful for your continued support of my work. You can purchase HOODWINKED at your favorite bookstore, online vendor, and we even have a purchase link you can use that benefits DreamChange – http://www.dreamchange.org , the non-profit I founded and continue to work with.
Also: Please forward this e-newsletter out to friends and please join me on Twitter @economic_hitman.
HOODWINKED provides the facts – and many personal stories from economic hit men, jackals, business execs, politicians, and educators – behind the following Eight Key points:
1. The US – in fact the world – has been stolen by the very wealthy and powerful, the corporatocracy.
2. This has created a failed system – unsustainable, unjust, unstable, dangerous.
3. The cause is a mutant, viral form of capitalism – what I call “Predatory Capitalism” that began with President Reagan and the philosophy that a) the only goal of business is to make profits, b) corporations should not be regulated, and c) every major economic sector should be privatized. This virus has spread with each subsequent administration.
4. 9/11 was a shock used by the Bush administration to boost this mutant form of capitalism to unprecedented new levels: privatize the military (and introduce privatized Homeland Security); further deregulate financial institutions; radically increase military budgets; and encourage shopping and excessive materialism.
5. The 9/11 shock distracted us from the crises we really need to fear: climate change, resources diminishing at accelerating rates, increasing prices for fuel, foods, and other essentials, violence that results from exploited people living desperate, starving lives, overpopulation, general environmental and social degradation. For the first time in history, every human being – every life form – is confronted by these same crises.
6. Countries and presidents have lost power. Corporations gained the power. World geopolitics may be represented by huge clouds (the multinational companies) drifting around the planet; they know no borders and obey no specific sets of laws.
7. The good news: we control corporations. The market place is democratic. The way out is for us the people to support companies that are committed to a sustainable, just, peaceful world; to institute regulations that codify this; to recognize as heroes men and women who are dedicated to creating a world our children and their brothers and sisters around the planet will want to inherit — in essence to rid ourselves of the mutant virus and create a new type of capitalism.
8. We are all in this together and we are all communicating with each other. The Internet and cell phones offer opportunities to unite us like never before in the human experience.
I am encouraged by grassroots movements across this planet (described in HOODWINKED) and by the commitment of students on campuses in the US and throughout the world. Please read HOODWINKED, share it with your friends, and let’s together create a sustainable, just, and peaceful world.
I hope too that I will see you at one of the upcoming book signings – please see the link for schedule on this website.
John Perkins
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Is Simple Cost Benefit Analysis Too Difficult for Our Government?
Does anyone in Washington, DC understand the concept of using cost benefit analysis to determine what the best use of our tax money is?
For example is spending trillions to fight wars supposedly aimed at neutralizing maybe a few hundred fanatical terrorist criminals with no actual country affiliation, who once killed 3,000 Americans in a terrorist attack who might be able to repeat such an attack someday, a higher priority than spending the same money on providing health care and other vital social services to those in true need thereby saving hundreds of thousands of lives and improving the lot of millions more suffering illness as a result of being uninsured or under insured?
Looking at the numbers the answer is rather obvious but Washington doesn't get from point A to point B in a straight line. It zig zags all over the place so many special interested parties with too much influence over politics can make more money and gain more power. They do this by creating a bunch of irrelevant arguments between our emotional citizenry aided by their vociferous pundits playing on our fears and prejudices based on inflexible ideologies to distract the citizenry from the simple solutions.
This country is rich but we piss money away stupidly by the hundreds of billions every year on maintaining troops over seas in places like Japan and Germany etc and on offensive and defensive weaponry that will never escape the warehouse, We continue to do this while our infrastructure rots and social problems right here go unattended! So citizenry, keep arguing over political, religious and social ideological differences like the special interest minions want you to do while they rob us of all our money and say about issues and in about ten years look back and see how much worse the situation has become except for the few corporate giants who have gained more wealth and power over the rest of us poor slobs!
We need serious campaign financing election reforms and restrictions on lobbyocracy influence before this government can reform anything in a rational manner and before it can function in the best interest of our citizenry in any way that resembles what the framers of our unbelievably farsighted and wisely conceived constitution intended.
JMHO
For example is spending trillions to fight wars supposedly aimed at neutralizing maybe a few hundred fanatical terrorist criminals with no actual country affiliation, who once killed 3,000 Americans in a terrorist attack who might be able to repeat such an attack someday, a higher priority than spending the same money on providing health care and other vital social services to those in true need thereby saving hundreds of thousands of lives and improving the lot of millions more suffering illness as a result of being uninsured or under insured?
Looking at the numbers the answer is rather obvious but Washington doesn't get from point A to point B in a straight line. It zig zags all over the place so many special interested parties with too much influence over politics can make more money and gain more power. They do this by creating a bunch of irrelevant arguments between our emotional citizenry aided by their vociferous pundits playing on our fears and prejudices based on inflexible ideologies to distract the citizenry from the simple solutions.
This country is rich but we piss money away stupidly by the hundreds of billions every year on maintaining troops over seas in places like Japan and Germany etc and on offensive and defensive weaponry that will never escape the warehouse, We continue to do this while our infrastructure rots and social problems right here go unattended! So citizenry, keep arguing over political, religious and social ideological differences like the special interest minions want you to do while they rob us of all our money and say about issues and in about ten years look back and see how much worse the situation has become except for the few corporate giants who have gained more wealth and power over the rest of us poor slobs!
We need serious campaign financing election reforms and restrictions on lobbyocracy influence before this government can reform anything in a rational manner and before it can function in the best interest of our citizenry in any way that resembles what the framers of our unbelievably farsighted and wisely conceived constitution intended.
JMHO
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Cancer Industry Lobby
I have an elderly neighbor who is close to dying of metastatic lung cancer. He is still a very bright guy with a desire to live for his large loved and loving family of children and grandchildren.
Robert has been through the traditional cancer treatment route but has now chosen to die in dignity through hospice care. He discontinued chemo and radiation because he knew they would only make him feel sicker while wasting money. He knew they would offer a minute chance of even prolonging his life. Many of us will find ourselves in this predicament and have to make this difficult choice for ourselves or with and for our loved ones.
Despite the high tech expensive approved medical treatments and cooked statictics cancer cure rates have not improved over the years. Some early detection advances will improve the odds if you catch some cancers before they spread but most are not caught in time. Once they spread little can be done to effect a true cure.
The FDA medically approved treatments are surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. They all hinge upon rooting out and killing all cancer cells, billions of them that could be hiding throughout the body, and most therapies require poisoniong the entire body to accomplish this. This leaves the patient with poisoning, secondary illnesses from resulting immunosuppression, disfigurement, other cancers secondary to the cancerous drugs used, but with no reliable cure which is defined as 5 years without evidence of recurrence. Therfore, for statistical purposes, removing a local minor basal skin cancer is considered a cure as is a patient living for 5 years after treatment, even if they die of their cancer at 5 years and one day. This is what props up the multi-billion dollar cancer treatment industry of oncology doctors, pharmaceutical makers of everything from chemo to anti-nausea medicines, high tech equipment makers and suppliers, treatment facilities, etc..
There are currently many alternative, many using natural non-toxic treatments under review and use by respected medical scientists that will never see the US market under the current political-medical paradigm because they are too natural to be patented. Therefore they won't have the big money applied to research them for official FDA approval. Of course they threaten the profitable status quo. Our government through the FDA actively stands in the way of their use in this country to protect the medical industry for whom they invariably carry water. People are suffering and dying and going broke paying for ineffective treatments that have never worked but are accepted by the FDA because of the system and to protect an entrnched medical industry while many promising, more natural, proven less toxic treatments are offically suppressed.
Obviously we need to put and end to this for our own well being. The government which is supposed to be working on ways to save money on healthcare, rather than suppressing these promising therapies, could fund the research on these promising new approaches so that they could approve them. Industry will not invest in anything it can't patent no matter how effective it is! They only gain by suppressing such therapies and the FDA is their accomplice.
If we are successful perhaps my neighbor, Robert, and thousands of neighbors, friends and family across our nation who have cancer or may one day soon face cancer might soon have accessible affordable cancer therapies that are less invasive, less toxic, and more effective while saving individuals and our nation billions on expensive useless therapies that are today's norm.
This is one more reason why we have to organize at the grass roots level to effect a big change in the way our government does business. Please follow this blog, comment, join and support ELON! Just my honest opinion!- alan
Robert has been through the traditional cancer treatment route but has now chosen to die in dignity through hospice care. He discontinued chemo and radiation because he knew they would only make him feel sicker while wasting money. He knew they would offer a minute chance of even prolonging his life. Many of us will find ourselves in this predicament and have to make this difficult choice for ourselves or with and for our loved ones.
Despite the high tech expensive approved medical treatments and cooked statictics cancer cure rates have not improved over the years. Some early detection advances will improve the odds if you catch some cancers before they spread but most are not caught in time. Once they spread little can be done to effect a true cure.
The FDA medically approved treatments are surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. They all hinge upon rooting out and killing all cancer cells, billions of them that could be hiding throughout the body, and most therapies require poisoniong the entire body to accomplish this. This leaves the patient with poisoning, secondary illnesses from resulting immunosuppression, disfigurement, other cancers secondary to the cancerous drugs used, but with no reliable cure which is defined as 5 years without evidence of recurrence. Therfore, for statistical purposes, removing a local minor basal skin cancer is considered a cure as is a patient living for 5 years after treatment, even if they die of their cancer at 5 years and one day. This is what props up the multi-billion dollar cancer treatment industry of oncology doctors, pharmaceutical makers of everything from chemo to anti-nausea medicines, high tech equipment makers and suppliers, treatment facilities, etc..
There are currently many alternative, many using natural non-toxic treatments under review and use by respected medical scientists that will never see the US market under the current political-medical paradigm because they are too natural to be patented. Therefore they won't have the big money applied to research them for official FDA approval. Of course they threaten the profitable status quo. Our government through the FDA actively stands in the way of their use in this country to protect the medical industry for whom they invariably carry water. People are suffering and dying and going broke paying for ineffective treatments that have never worked but are accepted by the FDA because of the system and to protect an entrnched medical industry while many promising, more natural, proven less toxic treatments are offically suppressed.
Obviously we need to put and end to this for our own well being. The government which is supposed to be working on ways to save money on healthcare, rather than suppressing these promising therapies, could fund the research on these promising new approaches so that they could approve them. Industry will not invest in anything it can't patent no matter how effective it is! They only gain by suppressing such therapies and the FDA is their accomplice.
If we are successful perhaps my neighbor, Robert, and thousands of neighbors, friends and family across our nation who have cancer or may one day soon face cancer might soon have accessible affordable cancer therapies that are less invasive, less toxic, and more effective while saving individuals and our nation billions on expensive useless therapies that are today's norm.
This is one more reason why we have to organize at the grass roots level to effect a big change in the way our government does business. Please follow this blog, comment, join and support ELON! Just my honest opinion!- alan
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