Spreading The Love

                "I'm America's CEO."

In the post-election euphoria, we've been led to believe that President Obama's trip to Asia is about spreading goodwill, creating new friendships, renewing old alliances, and making the world safe for democracy.
It's a charm offensive that's much longer on "offensive" than "charm".

What this trip is actually about is selling TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership" __ "selling" here being the equivalent of jamming a building the size of the New York Federal Reserve between the spread cheeks of the leaders of the countries in this part of the world.

TPP is not exactly popular even in the U.S. In fact, the more people learn about it, the more they realize that it's a Trojan Horse, another so-called trade agreement, which in point of fact mitigates the effectiveness of many environmental and worker-protection laws, compromises the sovereignty of nations, and puts in place yet another powerful mechanism for the already bloated and rich transnational corporations to amass more socially unproductive profits. Encouragingly, more and more people are outraged and speaking out against it. This is predictably being countered by a public relations campaign using our public officials as spokespersons for the transnational corporate elite who are promoting this onerous, ill-conceived weapon of economic destruction.

Don't be fooled by this self-serving and bogus propaganda.

Yesterday, for example, I read an article called Canada Sued under NAFTA for Banning Fracking which tells about an American corporation initiating a lawsuit for damages of $250,000,000. You see, if a business entity feels that the laws of a participating country interfere with their now inalienable rights to exploit that country, NAFTA sanctions "investor-to-state" litigation. In this case, Lone Pine Resources Inc. spent large sums of money securing mining permits, but Quebec Province, where the mining was to take place, later determined that exercising those rights would cause grave environmental damage. NAFTA allows U.S. and Mexican companies to sue the Canadian government if they feel they have been wronged by a government policy or action. This is saying that Lone Pine Resources had no responsibility in determining in advance the environmental impacts of its plans. It can throw money down, then if local authorities discover that their proposed mining will pollute the water, dump toxins in the soil, subject people to carcinogens and other life-threatening chemicals, Lone Pine Resources has to be compensated for their own shortsightedness and stupidity.

As the article goes on to say: "Amazingly, instead of looking for ways to scale back and eliminate the rules in our trade agreements that threaten public interest policies in favor of corporate profits, eleven countries, including the United States and Canada, are currently in the middle of negotiations to expand the NAFTA investment rules in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact."

This is madness!!

TPP is NAFTA on steroids. Yes. Anyone who has looked at this "trade agreement", as its being misrepresented, can see it's nothing but another monstrous assault weapon being handed to transnational corporations to bulk up their bottom line at the expense of just about everything having to do with quality of life __ safety, human rights, worker rights, sustainability, environmental protection. Please! Just read this and this and this, then do your own research. This is not a shades of gray issue. It's black and white, folks.

Let me give a brief example from my own experience.

Japan Post is the postal service here. It is truly amazing in every respect. It's essentially a privatized, public service institution that with scrupulous government oversight, conjoins several organizations to provide a variety of services. At Japan Post, not only can you mail letters, cards, and packages locally and internationally, but you can pay your bills with a fully-functioning cash transfer system, do banking with an ATM machine, secure an entire range of insurance (home, life, auto, accident), purchase gifts, make travel plans and purchase tickets. When I look at the shell of an institution the U.S. Postal Service has become under the relentless assault of private corporations there, it's no contest. It's like comparing a scrub game of neighborhood football to the Superbowl.

The Japanese are furious about TPP. Under TPP, corporations in the U.S. through legal challenges would tear Japan Post apart. They'd claim the panoply of services and the incredibly competent and efficient delivery of those services are "unfair competition".

It's competition alright. It actually works! It provides useful services making the lives of Japanese citizens better and more hassle-free.

This is just one small example. I'm not going to do all of the work for you. Just extrapolate from this, read the recommended articles and imagine what will happen if these countries are "persuaded" __ read that as "coerced" or "bullied" __ into this agreement. America's military and economic power often makes such negotiations a sham. America is good at making less powerful nations an offer they can't refuse.

For those of you who might not have heard, America is a very unpopular country in most of the world. Despite the whitewashed image which is promoted by corporate media in the U.S., anti-Americanism is exponentially on the rise. I have experienced this first hand.

People defensively suggest that I don't love my country. This is both silly and ignorant.

I've always loved and always will love what America represents. I love the energy, the optimism, the whole idea of government of the people, by the people, for the people.

But TPP is not America. Corporation X and Corporation Y just because their registered in Delaware isn't America. The tiny powerful coterie of wealthy elite investors and Wall Street bankers who are turning our government into a puppet show isn't America.

You and I are America __ the people referred to in "of the people, by the people, for the people." We are America.

And no proud, sane, decent American would get behind TPP and the expanding corporate juggernaut that's being done in the name of proud, sane, decent Americans. Proud, sane, decent Americans believe in opportunity, justice, fairness, the "general welfare". Proud, sane, decent Americans truly love their country, and would never put corporate profits ahead of how America is supposed to serve its citizens. Proud, sane, decent Americans don't compromise the integrity of communities and schools to improve the bottom line. Proud, sane, decent Americans understand the hope America represents to the world. Proud, sane, decent American respect human rights and human life.

No, I don't hate America. But a lot of people in the world do. And if TPP and similar such agreements are put in place, the worst is yet to come.

We won't have time to spread the love.

We'll be too busy defending ourselves from all the hate.



[ This originated at the author's personal web page . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

The Day That Changed The World

When I was a music producer and audio engineer in Los Angeles, I worked at a small studio in North Hollywood. The owner was an interesting man, into UFOs and other oddities. And he had a great sense of humor.

Those were the days when the walls of a studio were lined with racks of audio processing devices __ reverbs, delays, compressors, flangers, EQs __ and the inside of the control room looked like the Starship Enterprise.

One of our modules, however, was very unique. It consisted of a single multi-space panel, maybe 11" wide and 4" high. In the center of the gray panel was a single huge knob. Below it read one word . . . Quality. As a joke, when we were in the final stages of completing the mix of a song, one of us would go over to that knob and say, 'I think we need to up the quality here just a bit.' Then we'd make a big show of adding some "quality".

Of course, it was just a big laugh. There was nothing attached to the knob. Behind the panel was empty space. But our clients joined in the fun and got a kick out it.

That knob makes me think of this election.

Sure, we'll go in and pull our levers, push a button, hit enter on a computer-based voting machine, or in the really archaic voting districts, punch holes in a card.

Make no mistake about it. There's nothing attached to the lever. There's nothing behind the panel. 

We'll all join in the fun and get a big kick out of it, eh?

But nothing will change.

The wars will go on. The plundering of our national wealth will continue. The waste of our valuable talents and energies through unemployment and underemployment will march forward. Social Security and Medicare will be chipped away until sometime in the future they are hollowed out and meaningless. The rich will get richer and most of us will be grateful for the few scraps we get.

The media is full of dramatic proclamations and everyone is talking about what a historic election this will be, how we are at a fundamental crossroad.

But given the choice __ or more accurately the lack of it __ represented by the two major parties, beholden as they both are to the tiny few who own them and command the real reins of power in our sham democracy, there's nothing profound or historic about this coming election day. It will not be a day that changes anything!

It could be. It could be a day that changed the world. But this would have nothing to do with our voting for a Democrat or Republican.


The day that changes the world will be . . .

• The day we by the millions pull our money out of the big banks and put them in small community banks or credit unions, where the people who own the facility and work there live down the street, know your name, and care about you and the quality of life in your area of the town or city you live in.

• The day we cut up our credit cards and start living on cash __ which might be the day we tell the banks to go screw themselves because if nobody made their credit card payments, there is nothing the banks could do about it.
  

• The day we stop buying any products that are made in sweatshops or under any unsavory conditions for less than a fair wage __ which is also the day we commit ourselves to careful buying, putting quality above quantity in what we purchase.
  

• The day we stop shopping from multinational corporations and at major corporate outlets, who treat their workers poorly, who have no loyalty to America or to its people, who don't "pay back" __ that is, who don't pay a fair and reasonable portion of their earnings back into our communities, our country.

• The day we stop eating and giving our children food that poisons and fattens all of us, refusing to buy the unwholesome and unhealthy garbage being offered by big food conglomerates and fast food chains __ which is the day we start buying our food from local producers and stepping back into the kitchen and learning again how to cook. 

• The day __ April 15th seems like an obvious choice __ when en masse, instead of filing tax returns, we send a letter which in a nutshell says, "I am no longer paying taxes to fund wars I oppose, and for constructing unnecessary military bases across the planet which are only creating animosity and hatred of my country; I refuse to underwrite the intrusive spying on me and my neighbors by countless national security agencies, and no longer will function as an ATM machine for the fraudulent War on Terror."

• The day we turn off our televisions and say, "Enough of this garbage, I no longer am a dumping ground for this kind of insulting, mind-numbing crap."

• The day we go out and meet our neighbors, find out who they are, what they're interested in, maybe even suggest doing some things together, like cleaning up the neighborhood or helping that family down the street that's struggling.

• The day we go to our local schools, meet the teachers and administrators, talk to the board of education about what really can be done to improve how and what our children are learning, maybe volunteering to tutor or coach or just organize some interesting activities where the whole community participates.
  

• The day we just stop. Stop buying unnecessary junk, stop wasting precious time, stop living as we're told to live, valuing what we are told to value. Just stop and look around. Look at what's really important. Look at our kids, our loved ones, our friends, our parents, our neighbors. Stop and spend time with them. Look and see how much we have within easy reach that is so special, so beautiful, so amazing __ all the things we don't have to go to the mall to buy. Things that don't require a credit card and won't need replacing during the next round of frenetic holiday shopping.

That will be the day that changed the world.

You can't turn up the quality of life by turning a knob.

You can't change the country by voting in a rigged election.

You can't make a difference by choosing where there is no choice.

But the good news is . . .

YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!


[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]