Megaphonics

 

A lot of people want me to shut up.

They find me annoying, grating, shrill.

Some have even claimed I hate America.

I really have to wonder where these people are coming from.

I'm not claiming any heroics here, certainly not comparing myself to those courageous individuals who spoke out against Nazism or the persecutions in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in Cuba under Batista, in Iran under the Shah, on and on — sadly too many to enumerate here.

But I am saying I share with them a duty, as we all do.  I share with them as do all citizens of any country, to speak out against injustice, to criticize the country to which they belong.  We must all speak out and geography is not pertinent.  Whether one lives inside a country or has by circumstance or choice lives outside, oppression is still oppression.  Tyranny is still tyranny.  Villainy and genocide are still villainy and genocide.

Speaking out to praise or to criticize one's own country is not just an option, it is a duty.  And the volume of that voice is not to be arbitrarily turned down or turned off.

Each of us is identified with a nation.  We both have the rights and privileges that are conferred by citizenship, and likewise have a stake in what that nation does in our name, hence a responsibility not just to be aware of those activities but to be discerning and laudatory or critical when necessary.

So I won't shut up.

On the other hand, there is a difference between caustic damnation and constructive criticism.

I see a lot of the former, little of the latter.

Frankly, it’s getting tedious.

There are a lot of people — apparently some 64% according to the polls — who object to Trump as president and what he represents.

This makes entire sense.  He is objectionable at best, foul and pestilent at worst.

But we have to recognize, it’s not just the man we are at loggerheads with here.  “What he represents” has been in the making for a long time.  Over forty years at least, many would argue much longer.  Maybe it was set in motion from the very beginning of our country, as America was founded by slave-holding elitists who were to one degree or another fearful of mob rule.  'Mob rule' is of course just an ugly euphemism for government by the people — all of the people.

A nation run by an elite few is not a democracy by any stretch.  It is the exact opposite of a democracy.  That those elite few then guilefully brainwash the "mob" into thinking they actually have some say in the decisions which determine the direction of the nation and the future is an insult — a vile and patronizing form of manipulation.

Trump and his crew will attempt to rule by fiat.  As corporate businessmen this is all they know.  They will play the "enlightened patriarch" card the whole way.  Some will go along.  Most — at least 64% — will not and have every right to raise hell.

Recognize that raising hell is but one approach.

How about this?  What if we try raising heaven?

Ha ha ha!  Funny play on words, eh?

Not really. Here’s what it boils down to . . .

2017 and 2018 will present historical opportunities.  We will be presented dramatically and starkly contrasting visions for the future.  People who have never been interested in "politics" will start seriously paying attention, because everything that America allegedly stands for, its most noble and worthy values and dreams for all its citizens, will be under assault.

And it will then come down to this . . .

Certainly we know WHAT WE'RE AGAINST as enlightened progressives.

But more crucially we have to know WHAT WE'RE FOR as enlightened progressives.

It's time to be decisive, clear, engaging, positive, thorough, meticulous, captivating.

And truly visionary!

Because within the next two years, American citizens will be hungry as never before for a truly genuine, positive and sweeping renewal.

With no irony here's my take:  There is enormous opportunity which will spring out of the dark days ahead.  I hope we’re ready.  Alert, informed progressives know what's going on.  The vast majority of the American public does not. They are distracted and misinformed, numb and preoccupied with daily life.  They are not to be vilified for this.  They are victims of a highly organized, well-orchestrated assault on the public consciousness, maybe more accurately, an inducement of a hypnotic public unconsciousness.  Trump is just the most effective recent embodiment of that assault.
Certainly there are some big bumps in the road coming soon.  The crash of the economy is inevitable, accelerated by Trump's extremely inept and uninformed administration.  The neocons will get their war because some diseases are beyond any medical intervention.

When war and bankruptcy destroys any hope for improvement of living and working conditions under the orange autocrat, there will be at least 160 million new very angry Americans — many who voted for Trump — asking the questions we progressives have been asking ad nauseam for many years.

It will all come to a crescendo.  Progressives MUST BE READY with an agenda presented in the language of everyday Americans -- not politico-jargon-speak -- but BIG, CLEAR messaging which presents a POSITIVE PROGRESSIVE VISION for America. 

We can do it.  But we have to start now!

When it all starts to crumble, it'll be too late to be brainstorming and formulating plans.




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

Megaphonics

Dealing With A Shark Attack

 

How do you deal with a shark attack in a swimming pool?

You drain the water and watch the shark suffocate.

The Peace Dividend strategy does exactly that.

It drains the pool of funds which our insane neocon-infested military establishment -- which includes the DOD, NSA, CIA, DHS, Congress, and the White House -- abuses with its never-ending wars and delusional monomaniacal pursuit of world empire.

We take back all of the money they've defrauded us out of for the past 24 years -- we could go back further but two-and-a-half decades is a good start -- then watch them desperately gasp and struggle as they try to persist in their aggressive bullying of the world. 

No money.  No more unnecessary wars. 

No money.  No more boondoggles like the F-35.

No money.  No more senseless waste like the trillion dollar upgrade of our nuclear arsenal.

No money.  America will start waging peace instead of waging war.

Peace is something we can actually afford.

The Peace Dividend, the pool of money totaling $4.82 trillion which was paid in taxes -- by you and I -- under false pretenses, collected on the basis of lies told us by our government  in support of wasteful D.O.D. extravagance and military aggression on no less than eight foreign countries since 1992, is money which will be distributed as a refund to each and every single American citizen.  It is our money, tax dollars paid in good faith by decent hard-working folks who trusted their government to put it to correct and proper use. 

We were fooled.

We were lied to.

We were conned. 

We were defrauded! 

We were callously ripped off!



The Peace Dividend refund comes to $14,952 for each and every living U.S. citizen, paid out over three years.

That comes to almost $60,000 for a family of four.

This is money which should have been ours to spend, and recovering it -- as is completely within our rights in a government of the people, by the people, for the people -- unlike the military madmen, we'll put it to good use.  We can buy some news clothes for the kids, pay down our credit cards, replace that car that's falling apart, take a long overdue vacation.

Am I crazy?

No . . . we are crazy if we don't stick up for ourselves.

We are crazy if we don't stop the abuse of power and hold our government accountable.

We are crazy if we don't reject and reverse this gross misappropriation of our tax dollars.

As victims of the worst crime in history -- the biggest tax rip-off ever -- we deserve full and immediate compensation.

Let's get started.

By the way, if anyone is tempted to ask me how a shark got into the swimming pool, I have a question for you . . .

How did so many homicidal, warmongering sociopaths get into the centers of power in Washington DC?

The Peace Dividend strategy is a direct attack on America’s systemic addiction to war by appealing to the self-interest of its citizens, literally INCENTIVIZING people to redirect their thinking and start WORKING FOR PEACE!

 

The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World is now available both as an ebook and deluxe paperback at all of the usual outlets . . .

Amazon (Kindle) / US . . . amzn.to/2cpIRfQ
Amazon (Print) / US . . . amzn.to/2cEhnCb
Amazon (Kindle) / UK . . . amzn.to/2cKXFsV
Amazon (Kindle) / Canada . . . amzn.to/2ciZKdl
Amazon (Kindle) / Japan . . . amzn.to/2cbf3TO
Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/2cWxvzd
Kobo (Indigo) . . . bit.ly/2cI8cB6
Apple iTunes . . . apple.co/2cqw7an
Smashwords . . . bit.ly/2cb6Cse
Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/2c3mJsl

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


Dealing With A Shark Attack

The Peace Dividend Concept . . . Now A Book

 

We each do what we can do.  That's all we can do.

As anyone who is familiar with my writings knows, for the past four years I've expressed my alarm at the systematic disempowerment of everyday citizens -- the 99% -- and the destruction of our democracy.  I'm never content to merely identify a problem without trying to identify a solution.  Thus my books Candidate Contracts: Taking Back Our Democracy (June 2015) and Fighting for the Democracy We Deserve (September 2015) focused on ways to address these critical challenges, even given the shredding of our personal liberties and the sabotaging of normal mechanisms for implementing reform.

In developing the ideas for these books, at some point I realized that the militarization of our domestic police forces, our communities, our media, our foreign policy, in fact, just about every aspect of our lives and everything America now collectively does, was central to the control the oligarchy now has over the country and its citizens.  This militarization finds its most obvious expression in the constant wars and the insertion of U.S. troops all over the world, the open-ended and ubiquitous War on Terror, and the pursuit of world domination by any means necessary, all of which are steadily driving the country to its own cataclysmic unraveling.

But it also occurred to me that not only was this militarization the main mechanism for reshaping America into an imperial autocracy, it offered at the same time a phenomenal opportunity for its citizens to reclaim their country.  I believe that the war machine is its own Achilles heel -- at least until voting has been outlawed and we're all locked away in work slave camps -- in that its abuse of power is so ham-fisted, at core so contrary to the best social and political traditions of our nation, once the majority of citizens understand what is going on, the whole destructive regime of the warmongers can be taken down and replaced with one that serves the greater interests of all Americans.  Of course, the major challenge is finding a way to communicate it in a way that makes sense and guarantees a significant number of people will pay attention to it. 

This unfolds as my Peace Dividend concept, a historical and political analysis of endemic institutional corruption and abuse in the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the NSA and other national security agencies, Congress and the White House, offering a strategy for challenging and ending the egregious violations of public trust.

The Peace Dividend concept originally appeared and is explored in summary form in both of the two books mentioned above.  With the publication of my new book, it now has its own dedicated volume with full explication, justification, and documentation . . . 

The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World.

Here's the premise:  With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, American citizens were promised a "peace dividend", i.e. less money for war, more for peace and a good life for all. The U.S. military under misguided leadership has attacked eight countries since then. The defense budget has exploded, buying a lot of junk that doesn't work and military hardware we don't need.

American citizens have been grossly deceived about the real purpose and agenda of our military exploits throughout the world.  As I incontrovertibly establish, we have had over $4.82 trillion of our hard-earned tax dollars taken under false pretenses and wasted with cavalier abandon on unnecessary wars and unneeded weapons.  This transparent fraud on the American people has been perpetrated for two-and-a-half decades.

It's time to change all of that.  It's time for a fresh new narrative, and a vibrant national conversation.  It's time to start thinking and talking about peace again.  This book explains why and exactly how we begin.

The Peace Dividend strategy is a direct attack on America’s systemic addiction to war by appealing to the self-interest of its citizens, literally INCENTIVIZING citizens to redirect their thinking and start WORKING FOR PEACE!

The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World is now available both as an ebook and deluxe paperback at many of the usual outlets . . .

Amazon (Kindle) / US . . . amzn.to/2cpIRfQ
Amazon (Print) / US . . . amzn.to/2cEhnCb
Amazon (Kindle) / UK . . . amzn.to/2cKXFsV
Amazon (Kindle) / Canada . . . amzn.to/2ciZKdl
Amazon (Kindle) / Japan . . . amzn.to/2cbf3TO
Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/2cWxvzd
Kobo (Indigo) . . . bit.ly/2cI8cB6
Apple iTunes . . . apple.co/2cqw7an
Smashwords . . . bit.ly/2cb6Cse
Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/2c3mJsl


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



The Peace Dividend Concept . . . Now A Book

Absentee Patriotism

 

It's no secret that I am very critical of the policies of this
administration, and the general direction America has been taking for
the past three decades.

As a result, infrequently but uncomfortably too often, I get this remark from
some rabid, myopic super-patriot who gets their understanding of our
political system from the box that his hot glue gun came in:

"You don't even live here. You have no right to criticize America."

It's one of those battle cries from desperately small minds which on the surface
offers some common sense logic but with bare minimum scrutiny falls
apart like stale Saltines.

Let's imagine . . .

It's 1938 and I am a Jew who has been living in Nazi Germany. I am getting
increasingly uncomfortable with developments both locally in my village
and nationally. So I leave and become an expatriate, a German citizen
living in a foreign country.

While living outside the sphere of the Reich and its pervasive propaganda
machine, I see that my discomfort was more than justified, that there
are horrible things going on in my home country which threaten not only
my fellow Jews, but threaten other individuals and the peace and
stability of the whole European continent. I learn from other
expatriates about the forced labor and concentration camps, and what
appears to be a well-planned program being put in place for the
extermination of millions of people. I learn of a massive build-up of
military machinery which portends provocations of neighboring countries
and promises massive military confrontation.

Are the people who question my now living overseas saying I would have had
no right to warn people about the developments I had learned about? That I
was disqualified by my foreign mailing address from speaking out against the
policies of "my country"? That I would not have had the right to at
least warn other Jews __ my fellow citizens __ and urge them to
escape as soon as possible or face possible extermination?

I would argue that not only would I have the right to be critical of my country, I would have a moral obligation, a duty to do so, openly and aggressively.

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."  -  Edmund Burke

Am I making a comparison between today's U.S. and Nazi Germany?

Yes and no. Of course, anytime anyone wants to provoke a hysterical public
outcry on any matter these days, they just yell 'Nazi' or 'Hitler' or
'holocaust' and the knee jerk response is right there for the having.
That's not what I'm doing here. The U.S. is slowly descending into a
form of autocracy, a totalitarianism quite unlike Nazi Germany in many
respects. But I believe it is potentially as thoroughly and ultimately
menacing.

We can fret and argue about whether that's correct but that's not the point I'm making.

The simple point here is that, regardless of where I live or choose to travel, I share 
with every other American citizen the duty
to keep a watchful eye on what my government is doing in my name, and
to speak out when and where I see objectionable plans, policies,
declarations, or provocative acts towards other countries. It is
especially incumbent on me __ it is my responsibility as a citizen __ to
share from out here what is not available from within
U.S. borders, because of what is clearly massive censorship of the news
there by the government and main stream media, which have become
Siamese Twins joined at the pocketbook.

It is particularly my duty to warn others in America who are not as I am in a 
position to live elsewhere, of developments which portend the worst and pose 
threats to them.

We all see the signs. Often we don't know what to make of them. The incessant
puerile prattle of politicians and pundits creates a constant stream of
obfuscation and confusion.

But it is the duty of every single American citizen to try to make sense
of our increasingly precarious situation, and to share their insights with
their fellow citizens. It is our duty to call out the official
lies, the gross imbalance of power, the horrific inequality of wealth,
the ongoing and systematic efforts by our government to promote and
prosecute in our names policies and initiatives, foreign and domestic,
which if the public had full knowledge of, it would steadfastly reject.

It takes a lot of courage these days to speak out against the government,
especially the current administration, which has done a phenomenal job
of PR and spin, and certainly makes no secret of its intent to squash
dissent in America.

Yet,  despite massive surveillance of citizens by the security agencies, the
watch lists, the no-fly lists, the kill lists, the persecution of
whistle blowers, the beatings and arrests which the most peaceful
demonstrators now endure at the hands of the police, the suspension of
habeas corpus, gross abuses of the FISA Act and the National Defense
Authorization Act, there are still many courageous individuals and
organizations which continue the daunting but necessary battle to expose
the deeply entrenched and dangerous corruption which now poisons our
system of government.

I make no claims to be on the same level as these exemplary patriots, speaking
truth to power under the threat of persecution, an unconstitutional
repression of free speech and basic human rights, the whole of which is
more and more is beginning to exhibit parallels with some of the more
oppressive regimes in history.


 

Right or wrong, I'm just an ordinary citizen merely doing my duty.

Just like you.

I watch. I listen. I speak out. I vote.

I do what little I can.

I wish it were more.



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