Since leaving America August 2006, I have traveled to sixteen countries. A great deal has happened. This site is to share my thoughts, photos, music, writings, travel experiences, and developing political/social commentary with you. I hope you find it interesting and informative.
My latest book is a powerful and empowering collection of commentaries and insights by some of today’s most respected political thinkers. The world is a mess and America is in big trouble. Despite the finger-pointing, it is the U.S. itself which is causing its own problems. Perpetual war is destroying our nation. To stop the unfolding disaster, we must honestly look at how our own leadership and policies have led the country astray. This book is the perfect place to start.
Featuring interviews of Noam Chomsky, Larry Wilkerson, Paul Craig Roberts, Mark Skidmore, Coleen Rowley, William J. Astore, Abby Martin, Dan Kovalik, Lee Camp, Finian Cunningham, Michael T. Klare, Cynthia McKinney, Scott Ritter, Joe Lombardo, Bruce Gagnon, Norman Solomon, Peter Kuznick, Ajamu Baraka, Margaret Kimberley, Matthew Hoh, Garland Nixon, and Dennis Kucinich.
As an eBook (75% off … $1.99 USD, May 22nd – 29th) . . .
It’s like reverence for innocence. Well, yes, kids sure are sweet, unsullied, open, positive, vibrant, curious. They wear their innocence well and we all envy their abandon. But we’re protecting them. So we bear all the risks and potential for endangerment. They play. We watch the playground to make sure there are no perverts, rabid dogs, or kidnappers.
As adults, it’s a different story. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ and ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you’ work for a while . . . until the axe falls. Or the bill comes due. Or the door is kicked down in the middle of the night. Being stupidly innocent as an adult can bring heartache and tragedy, in fact, typically does. While embracing wholesome open-mindedness and holistic trust, so as to not preclude learning and discovery, we are also well-advised to maintain a wary eye for the sham, the con, the manipulation, the lie, the entire range of possible mischief humans are capable of.
From what I now see reported on the news, such prudence is no longer at all possible. Evidence would suggest that a dam has been breached. A tsunami of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, deep fakes, propaganda, calculated deceptions, accompanied by a bottomless barrel of salacious scandals and mindless trivia, has flooded the once-habitable terrain of public discourse and understanding. We are drowning in bullshit.
It shows. People are becoming confused, erratic, and increasingly desperate. We’re being constantly bombarded with bad news, rendering us numb, dumb, wary and increasingly frightened. It seems that folks are stressed out to the max. We have the firing squad of 24/7 if-it-bleeds-it-leads news coming at us from every direction. We’re surrounded by crises, personal, political, national, international. It’s beyond overwhelming.
This makes us hunger for both relief and anything that will make sense out of the chaos.
Which renders many, if not most people, vulnerable to brainwashing.
I recently saw a compilation of talking heads relentlessly hammering home completely vaporous, frankly ridiculous but engaging, arresting, highly charged, and clearly effective memes. I presume that a majority of citizens, already reeling and punch drunk from years of propaganda, hearts and minds filled with hatred and fear, stumbling about in the house of mirrors that media has become, react to a frightening degree by buying into what these people are saying. Repetition is like kickboxing. Or like kneading dough. It’s just a matter of time before the target succumbs to persistence and becomes a subdued and unresisting lump, next to be carted off on a stretcher or put in the oven. Or in the case of the TV/smart phone-addicted public, put in a coma-like trance, a hypnotic stupor, an obedient oblivion. Cut to KFC commercial or ad for a miracle age spots remedy. Launch the cruise missiles.
Here’s the video (if you can handle epic levels of tedious repetition).
Seriously? We are fine with media messaging that’s like Chinese water torture? To have our brainwaves flat-lined by nonsensical, hyperventilating, Orwellian vapor. This is not news reporting. To think so is like mistaking a metronome for a symphony orchestra.
But that’s where we’re at.
To suggest for even a moment that somehow this state of mental paralysis came about organically, the result of societal entropy or personal devolution — as if random impulse, modernity, complexity, technology, solar flares, pollen, coronavirus, climate change, over-the-counter drugs, 5G, GMOs, aspartame, and ozone depletion, randomly interacted and the default became wholesale stupidity — is both foolhardy and extremely dangerous. It didn’t just happen. It is part of a plan. That plan is about control and oppression, gross manipulation and enslavement.
Let’s give credit where it’s due. Our manipulators, our oppressors, our autocratic puppet masters, are phenomenal at what they do. They’re organized; they’ve got the bucks; they’ve gained a total monopoly over the seats of power and the social/political levers of control; they are unencumbered by ambivalence, morals, common decency; they are merciless, ruthless, focused.
For just a single but highly representative example, read this article about how the lunatic power elite work to shape the entire narrative about the conflict in Ukraine.
Now, take that level of calculated deceit, cold manipulation, audacity, unscrupulousness, ruthlessness, arrogance, pernicious intent, disdain for we the people, and scornful sense of entitlement, then replicate it over the entire spectrum of social/political ills, crises, and dysfunction — the things we whine about and debate constantly: the economy, wealth inequality, corporate welfare, socialism for corporations and Wall Street, our deteriorating education system, our crumbling infrastructure, our fake democracy, the ruling elite-controlled two-party duopoly, Covid-19 “pandemic”, our entire shameful health care system, the destruction of labor unions, the criminalizing of dissent, the marginalization and disempowerment of minorities, the Fed, the CDC, the FDA, the FCC, censorship, citizen surveillance, our two-tier justice system, and perhaps the worst and most egregious of them all, the expanding militarization of our country and its foolhardy, suicidal pursuit of world conquest.
Yes, just imagine all of this contention as the product of sociopaths and power-drunk bullies, who have no sense of duty to country, or responsibility to you and I normal everyday citizens, smug self-anointed sociopathic despots who are incapable of conceiving of, inaugurating, and promoting anything which doesn’t serve the narrow agenda of an ultra-wealthy ruling aristocratic class — truly sinister malefactors who live and breathe to humiliate and subjugate others, abuse their power and privilege, gain advantage and mount incomprehensible piles of money and affluence, regardless of the harm and suffering it causes everyone else.
Yes, imagine that!
But wait! . . . you don’t have to imagine it after all. You just have to look around you.
Because that is exactly what is going on.
This is what we end up with when WE THE PEOPLE lose control of our country.
This is what we end up with when self-serving oligarchs control the narrative.
This is what we end up with when fed a 24/7 diet of lies and propaganda.
Now the question is: What can we do?
The answer couldn’t be simpler. Or more difficult.
This is where improbable teams up with impossible. Because the only way to stop this is through individual responsibility — everyday citizens taking charge, both of their own lives and our government. The existing private and public institutions which have engineered this juggernaut of blind ignorance and social control surely are not going to change. The puppets of the oligarchy we dutifully “elect” to represent we the people know who butters their bread. They and their ruling elite sponsors reap huge rewards from keeping us dumb and misinformed. So if anything is going to reverse this disastrous course, it will be us as individuals, hopefully working collectively to provide support and reinforcement, wielding the power of ‘NO’.
Obviously, this is a very tall order, as epic in scale as apocalyptic it is to be on the present course. We have to be honest. Perhaps it’s impossible. Old habits die hard. For most of our lives, we everyday folks, busy with their personal lives and trusting by nature, have relied on what we thought were worthy, reliable government spokespersons, TV news anchors, elected representatives, thought leaders, even celebrities, for the honest scoop on the specific events going on across our nation, more generally for our broad understanding of the world out there beyond our immediate reach. But slowly, imperceptibly, they turned on us. They increasingly recited from a intentionally faulty script, designed to hide the truth and substitute a fabricated reality. This was calculated — correctly so — to make us easily manipulable, often voting and behaving against our own interests. They fooled us so many times, we lost count and became completely detached from reality. Evidence? Look at what we put up with as citizens. We are treated abysmally, our government no longer works for us, and somehow we maintain pride in a nation which regards us as some necessary evil it needs to patronize with hollow promises and fairy tales about exceptionalism and greatness.
Most Americans now are totally brainwashed. We everyday citizens have no idea that those who we were certain we could trust are now lying to us with every breath they take. Any resemblance between what we are told and reality is a coincidence, or a convenience because it just happens to fit with the web of lies which surrounds it.
That’s hard for anyone to swallow. It’s depressing, demoralizing, unsettling, infuriating. Worse, “staying informed” has always been and still is so convenient. Just flip on the News at 6, read Time or Newsweek or USA Today. Scroll through Yahoo News on a smartphone. These wonderful trusted sources look and feel as they always have. But now they’re all streams of toxic misinformation and propaganda. And most people have no clue.
So quite honestly, I’m not very optimistic.
But of one thing I’m sure. We can stop this. We know what to do.
The only question is: Will we develop the presence of mind and resolve to . . . ?
I’m still trying to reconcile this and a second report to come up with a meaningful, hopeful picture for the future of our country. One that’s not built around bullets, bombs, stealth fighters, attack drones, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, killer satellites, and the possible shrouding of the planet in a cloud of life-ending radioactive dust.
The problem is me, of course. It seems I’m allergic to chaos, destruction, death, maiming, carnage, genocide, ecocide, macho posturing, chest-beating. I don’t find war drums at all appealing, or even danceable.
Others — according to the report, it comes in at 62% of our fine citizens — find reason to implicitly celebrate all of the above, judging that the $715 billion official 2022 defense budget, proposed by President Biden, is right on the money, so to speak. In fact, 17% of those polled think we need to spend more.
By the way, I specifically chose ‘official defense budget’ because that has never really been the whole story. The second report was done in 2019. It’s by the Congressional Research Service and is titled Overseas Contingency Operations Funding: Background and Status. You can view it here.
“The Congressional Research Service has estimated that such supplemental spending from September 11, 2001, to fiscal year 2019 totaled an astonishing $2 trillion above and beyond the congressionally agreed upon Pentagon budget.”
Even this is not the entire picture. Because buried in the budgets of the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, secretive funding of the CIA, the 17 major agencies of the intelligence community, and other national security related organizations, is unreported black budgeting. We can only offer educated guesses on the sums allocated to these agencies. We do know they run in the tens of billions of dollars.
So as we’re struggling to find the money — we all know it’s there but the fiscal conservatives require us to put on a show of penurious virtue signaling to slap down the MMT folks — to repair our infrastructure, address climate change, convert the U.S. economy into the right stuff for the 21st Century challenges of stability and sustainability, scramble to either put together a viable health care system or find a place to bury the bodies, address massive unemployment and underemployment, achieve solvency for Social Security and other unfunded liabilities, yes, as we scour every square inch of our great country sea-to-shining-sea with metal detectors, looking for every buried nickel and dime for all of these noble and necessary endeavors, the vast majority of citizens have decided the $1+ trillion we spend ANNUALLY to police Planet Earth, spy on our own citizens, put bases and weaponry in any country that will have us, expand NATO and increase the probability of a major war, build “more usable” nuclear weapons, deploy our fighting machinery in outer space, intimidate Russia and China, and create hostility and enemies across the globe, is money well spent.
I will credit the Deep State and MIC with a true victory here. While “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known” (George W. Bush), “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known” (Barack Obama), has been humiliated and/or defeated in every military conflict since World War II, the massive psyops brainwashing of the American public has been a resounding success!
It takes enormous courage to write a book like this, which goes completely against the narrative promoted by America’s foreign policy and military establishments. Courage because now any defense of Putin and Russia as actors on the world stage will not be met with reasonable, polite rebuttal and rational well-supported refutation, but personal vilification, marginalization, attacks on character and integrity, aspersions about disloyalty and lack of patriotic commitment, allegations of treachery and even sedition. Lacking anything — e.g. facts — with which to rebut and refute the message, opponents of a balanced, objective, truthful analysis of Russian-American relations must resort to attacking the messenger.
Early in the book, Mr. Kovalik describes the process which radicalized him, what personal events opened his eyes to the barbarity and hypocrisy which has been centerpieces of America’s history from its earliest days. His transformation occurred during a visit to Nicaragua during his college years. He learned then to question and always be highly skeptical of the “official rationale” inflicted on the general public in the U.S., because it was often driven by the covert intent of obtaining — often manufacturing out of thin air — consent for America’s diplomatic bullying, manipulations, wanton aggressions, destructive interference, regime changes, and outright subjugation of countries across the planet.
History is the best teacher for understanding the present. Our history, as is thoroughly explored and documented in this short but incisive volume, is riddled with false flags, misrepresentations, distortions, propaganda and outright lies, all carefully calculated to serve the real agenda of our government. This is to provide unambiguous support for U.S. corporate interests; ruthlessly undermining any nation which dares to consider even the most diluted iteration of socialism; and punishing — all too frequently destroying — any country, often even murdering its leaders, for independently adopting policies which don’t disproportionately benefit the U.S. and honor the authority of the U.S. as world hegemon.
What has Russia under Putin done? It put Russia’s interests first, it openly criticized the U.S. for its wanton aggression and disregard for international law, called out the U.S. for its consistent meddling in the affairs of other nations, including all too often violently overthrowing governments it doesn’t approve of, and moreover had the audacity to deploy national defense mechanisms which frees it of being blackmailed by U.S. military might. For the U.S., which regards itself as the “exceptional” nation selected by destiny to control the world, these constitute an inexcusable affront which must be answered, a challenge which must be eradicated, even if this requires a world war which might go nuclear.
So it’s Russia bad, Putin badder. Every imaginable and imagined accusation, typically presented as fact, is spewed out and flung at Putin and Russia. And thus what we get as “news” these days is a childish white hats vs. black hats depiction of the momentous battle of Great Good America vs. Scary Evil Russia, a facile scenario now dubbed as the Second Cold War.
The extremes our government spokespersons and the obsequious media has gone to in order to strike fear in all of us about Russia and to incite a personal hatred for Vladimir Putin, should by themselves raise suspicions and reasonable doubts about what’s going on. But when the media is controlled by six major corporations with unshakeable deference to official government propaganda and those who fabricate it, and political leaders from both major parties who are owned by Wall Street, the big banks, the corporations, the ruling elite who obscenely profit from perpetual war, all everyday people get 24/7 is yarns about the Russian threat, Putin’s bloodthirsty desire to return to the glory days of Russia as a great power, Russian aggression, Russian invasions, Russian meddling in our otherwise perfect democracy, Russian targeted assassinations, Russian plots to subvert and destroy freedom-loving countries, Russian blame for everything from STDs to plugged toilets and family squabbles. It’s a premeditated program of brainwashing inflicted on a gullible and generally hapless American public.
The only possible pre-revolutionary antidote is thorough, unbiased investigative journalism, potent research, historical knowledge and perspective, personal insights shared with candor and clarity, all of the foregoing assembled by an author of the high caliber of Dan Kovalik, into an immensely readable and superbly informative book like The Plot To Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin.
A
terrorist not only doesn't share the same goals as you and I, they also
don't play by the same rules. Terrorists are the ultimate bullies.
They will lie, cheat, steal, even murder, in order to get their way.
The ends justify the means. They're right, we're wrong. Terrorists
can't fathom compromise, so what is the point of negotiating?
We
face terrorism on many fronts and at many levels because sociopathy and
barbarism are not subtle or selective. Perhaps they represent bad
wiring in some small but wickedly destructive sub-class of humans, or
maybe we all carry the defect, but it only rises up to preempt the
better instincts among a minority of us.
In
either case, if we don't want to be "terrorized" into submission, we
must decisively stand our ground and entertain no compromise.
"No negotiating with terrorists!"
The United States has become a terrorist nation.
Not you and I as such . . . because regular folks like us are generally peaceful and sane.
Unfortunately, we no longer have any say in the decisions and direction of the country.
But there is a national agenda, driven on many fronts at many different levels, promoted in our names
as citizens of the country, which has transformed the U.S. into the
greatest scourge in the history of the planet. We have unbridled power
coupled with no coherent political philosophy, fueled by unchecked
imperial ambition and delusions of world rule, unimpeded by
considerations of morality or sensitivity to the value of human life.
U.S.
terrorism expresses itself internationally as wars, regime changes,
special operations missions, economic manipulation and interference,
cyber and propaganda warfare, and is implemented with the forward-basing
of troops, NGOs, embedded intelligence agents, foreign mercenaries, and
often outright military occupation of over 140 countries.
All
of this is conceived, planned, and coordinated from within our own
borders. Often it reflects official, if not always publicly-known,
foreign policy. Sometimes it grows out of legacy policies and
practices, the product of a group-think world view which has a life of
its own established over decades, one which embraces the unquestioned
and until recently unchallenged role of the U.S. as the world's
policeman and sole superpower.
While we can find fault in the workings of the loose collective of institutions which make up what is now called the Deep State,
much direct blame for our terrorism can be assigned to the CIA. This
70-year-old agency has become the main engine for projecting U.S power,
providing the foot soldiers, technology and weaponry, for a vast
majority of catastrophes we have precipitated over the past sixty
years. The list
of sovereign nations the U.S. has illegally meddled and decisively
interfered with -- compiled by the brilliant and highly-acclaimed
historian and geopolitical analyst William Blum -- is as formidable as it is disgraceful (please note: *indicates the successful overthrow of a government):
China 1949 to early 1960s
Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *
Haiti 2004 *
Somalia 2007 to present
Honduras 2009
Libya 2011 *
Syria 2012
Ukraine 2014 *
Among these, at the urging and with the active partnering of the CIA, are35 countriesruled by horrifyingly oppressive dictators, fascist regimes, drug lords, and jihadists.
This
has not just dramatically, malignantly, affected the international
order. It has also created enormous resentment, and generated enemies
where there were none before. In that sense, it is a self-perpetuating
reign of mayhem and chaos, keeping the world in flux and disarray,
constantly producing even more threats to our country which then, in the
adversarial and combative mindset of the CIA, requires further meddling
and mayhem.
We
have to be honest with ourselves and judiciously apply the same
standards across the board when judging such anti-democratic, autocratic
abusers of power. If we've been able thus far to rationalize
distressing signs that the CIA was slowly becoming a rogue security
agency -- dismissing sordid leaks and disturbing discoveries as isolated
rare instances of individual acts of overzealousness and
insubordination -- the recent revelations provided by Wikileaks with the
publication of their Vault 7 documents
provides concrete proof that the CIA has been completely out-of-control
for a very long time, and what should truly disturb us is that such
behavior is not the exception but the rule.
With
terrorist organizations like the ISIS, al Nusra, al Qaeda, and now our
own CIA, it is impossible to integrate them with more tempered and
balanced institutions, especially in what is portrayed as the
institutional framework of a democracy. These elements violate national
and international law and treaties, arrogantly scoff at diplomatic
protocol, are adverse to power-sharing, spurn the time-honored
boundaries of common sense and decency, and are ruthlessly callous and
amoral.
It's the way unchecked power evolves, how a parasite will ultimately kill its host.
We
now have little choice. The CIA and all traces of it must be
eradicated, except for an archival installation in the Smithsonian
Institute as a warning to future generations.
This is now a matter of survival for the U.S. and perhaps the human race.
We
have inadvertently created a monster and lost control. The CIA is
incompatible with the survival of a free, open, just, democratic
society.
Understandably, the CIA will plead the case for its own institutional survival.
But the case is closed. There is nothing more to discuss.
"No negotiating with terrorists!"
[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
I
have been consistently and forcefully inveighing against wasting time
and energy on impeaching Donald Trump. The main thrust of my argument
has been that while our Chief Executive -- i.e. the President of the
United States -- is certainly very powerful and we can expect Trump to
do a lot of damage, targeting him directly is the least effective way to
halt his diabolical agenda. Rather, a truly progressive Congress, one
representative of both the needs of everyday citizens and the greater
good of the country, could isolate him and counter one-by-one all of his
fiercest dictatorial efforts to dismantle democracy and further the
self-serving agenda of the ruling class. As an example, if the orange
autocrat signed an executive order permitting fracking on school
playgrounds, Congress would pass a law prohibiting fracking on school
playgrounds. If he signed an executive order banning bicycle lanes,
Congress would pass a law authorizing bike lanes. You get the idea.
Recognize . . .
An
enlightened Congress would be a bulwark against the broader agenda of
the neoliberal juggernaut, the war mongering militarism of the neocons,
and the rule by fiat of the rich and powerful. An enlightened Congress
could legislate what the country wants and needs, in spite of an
antagonistic, uncooperative White House, and could even put an end to
the anti-democratic meddling and chicanery of the Deep State.
Unfortunately,
my appeal for "regime change" in Congress has fallen on deaf ears.
Maybe the piercing din of shrill cries for the Trumpster's ouster have
drown out my call for cooler heads and what is obvious to me is a more
sane and effective approach. Or maybe a lot of folks just never
bothered to pay attention in high school civics class, thus don't
understand the way our government actually works.
But
I haven't given up. The only genuine, permanent fix to our ailing
system is replacing at bare minimum 450 of the corrupt pay-for-play
corporate lapdogs currently seated in the House and Senate. That is a given and nothing anyone can say or do to distract us can change that fact.
However, a very sobering thought just occurred to me. I hope it will wake folks up.
That is, if Trump is impeached, who will replace him?
That would be Mike Pence, the Vice-President. Pretty scary thought!
If Mike Pence is impeached, who replaces him?
None other than Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Ugh! Even scarier! Here's a man whose insensitivity and cruelty to the everyday citizen makes Ayn Rand look like Mother Theresa.
And if Orrin Hatch is impeached, who replaces him?
Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. Yep, the drill-baby-drill former CEO of Exxon-Mobil. We probably will see fracking in school playgrounds if he becomes president.
If we are not suffering from impeachment burnout, and Rex Tillerson is then put on the chopping block, who replaces him?
Former Goldman Sachs CIO and hedge fund manager, now Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin! Perfect. Maybe he'll streamline the monetary system and just have the investment banks print money for themselves instead of the U.S. Treasury.
So . . . are you getting the picture?
Granted,
Trump is an easy target. But impeaching him accomplishes nothing. It
merely sets up month-after-month, year-after-year of more impeachment
hearings. What Trump represents will not go away just because he does.
As they say in sports, their bench is very deep.
What's the solution? Where do we channel our rage? What will truly turn things around and start to fix this unbelievable mess?
Regime change in Congress is the only option and the only viable place to focus our time, energy and creativity. There are33 Senate seatsand 435 House seats
up for grabs in the 2018 election. That's where our power resides.
That's how we achieve genuine change. That's how we turn our nation
around.
I
see little redeeming value in returning any of the incumbents to
office. That's just me. Citizens need to decide for themselves. But
recognize, we need to start this right now. Waiting until next year
will be too late.
How do we decide?
I have proposed -- for over four years now -- a simple solution.
Candidate contracts.
Decide what we want done. Present candidate contracts which specify what we want done.
There's
a lot of critical issues to choose from: Social Security, Medicare;
minimum wage; taxing the rich, eliminating tax loopholes and corporate
welfare; reducing the military, ending pointless wasteful wars;
electoral reform (e.g. Citizens United and term limits); rebuilding
roads, schools, communities; guaranteeing good K-12 education. We can
even probably add student debt relief, truly universal single-payer
health care, home mortgage relief, and a few others to this list.
Most importantly, there is an enormous amount of agreement among the vast majority of citizens
on these key issues. Having said that, the candidate contract is
entirely flexible and can be configured to reflect the unique priorities
and will of the voters in each congressional district and in each state
where there is a senatorial contest.
The underlying principle, however, is the same . . .
If a candidate signs the contract, he or she deservesourvote. Simply because at least on the issues which are covered by the contracts, WE KNOW EXACTLY WHAT WILL GET DONE. The candidate contracts are bulletproof, ironclad guarantees of representation!
No excuses. No compromise. No negotiation.
On the other hand . . .
If
a candidate waffles, slithers, slides, and avoids discussing and
signing the contracts, we then know they are "business as usual" types
-- i.e. full of wonderful-sounding but empty rhetoric, peddling
deceptive campaign promises, so when they arrive in Washington DC they
will forget us, the very people who voted them into their cushy jobs in
our nation's capitol.
If a candidate will not sign on the dotted line, he or she doesnotgetourvote.
This concept is simple, straightforward, powerful.
No contract = no vote!
This is how we take all of the guesswork out of voting.
So . . .
Dumping
Trump is a satisfying thought but it will not get the job done.
Impeachment will take enormous time and energy, monopolize all of the
resources we need to achieve real reform, and just set the stage for the
next autocrat to push the agenda of the ruling class.
There is only one realistic option . . .
A
truly representative Congress is the key -- the only sensible,
effective path -- to restoring some semblance of democracy in this
country.
But
let's make no mistake about it. We have an enormous struggle ahead of
us. But every journey begins with a few single steps. Every action and
all activism begins with ideas.
Described
in detail in two recent books are my ideas for how we conduct a
bottoms-up, community-based, grass roots campaign for restoring
democracy in America.
As
an outsider -- I'm an American expat living in Japan -- I've had to
seek out my own unique set of "insiders", individuals who have special
access to the inner workings of the U.S. My most fruitful source of
insider information has turned out to be an Latvian taxi driver based in
Youngstown, Ohio who has a network of informers deep within the bowels
of our opaque government machinery. His expert psychic talent plus the
natural ability to see through both lead paint and building insulation,
combine with his disarming knack for making light of any situation -- he
has a sideline business as a stand-up comic at local area funerals --
to penetrate the most secure firewalls of secrecy put in place by the
plutocrats and power brokers nestled in the Washington DC bubble. I've
never met him in person but we talk regularly on Citizens Band radio
(channel 7).
What
he told me yesterday was shocking and left me nearly speechless. But
speaking I am right now to share with you what I learned.
It doesn't matter who we vote for in the coming election for president!
This
is not because as is commonly thought the electoral system is
completely rigged. Rather, it's because whoever is elected will
immediately be disappeared by the Deep State
security agencies and replaced with a robot which you and I will not be
able to detect is a fake. Then this deep-state controlled doppelgänger
will do and say what it is programmed to say and do. You and I will
never be the wiser.
The
NSA in conjunction with DARPA have been perfecting the science of
anthro-robotics for this very purpose. The results are astonishing.
The Donald Trump prototype is already being street tested.
On
the other hand, the Hillary Clinton robo-doppelgänger has had some
snags. The finest researchers at the facility are having trouble
capturing some of the tics, outlandish facial expressions and seizures
which have recently become her trademarks. After all, they've spent
millions of dollars trying to emulate normal behavior, not that of a
crazy person. Look at this video and you'll see what they're up against.
They've
still managed to come up with an "early version" of what they are
confident will be a very convincing President Clinton II simulation.
No
one gives Jill Stein a chance in hell of winning the election. But the
ever-cautious deep state robotics experts are taking no chances. This
early mock-up appears to need a little fine tuning but I'm confident
they'll get it right by inauguration day.
DARPA
and the NSA have decided they can replace Gary Johnson with a washing
machine jacked up with some artificial intelligence and nobody will know
the difference. They are, however, having a little trouble keeping the
feisty anthro-bot on message.
There you have it. Voting is a complete waste of time! Don't bother.
The good news is that the 23rd season of Dancing With The Stars
will be showcasing such amazing talents as Amber Rose, Ryan Lochte, and
Laurie Hernandez. It would appear that November 8th will be a good day
to just stay home and watch TV.
[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
In my recent article Peace is as American as . . .?, I argued that while there have been anti-war movements, there has never been a real "peace movement" in America.
What's the difference?
The absence of war is not peace.
More accurately, in our times the absence of war is a truce.
A truce is the abatement of conflict with no guarantee that war will not break out again.
Peace is a state where no conflict is ongoing or possible.
Big difference!
There are over 15,000 nuclear weapons held ready for use by nine countries.
Just because we are not at this point in time using them does not mean we are at peace.
It's
like living among pallets stacked with dynamite, serving breakfast on a
table-size crate of TNT, and claiming that you feel safe and secure
knowing that if you're careful the whole thing won't blow sky high.
Our Nobel Peace Prize president hascommitted $1 trillion dollarsto
"update" America's bulging nuclear arsenal. Capable of destroying the
planet and every living organism on it 25 times over, it needs to be
made more efficient.
Do you feel the peace?
We occasionally see surges of anti-war sentiment. More recent than the game-changing demonstrations against the Vietnam War,
immediately before the Iraq War, impressively large crowds assembled to
object to the announced attack. While the numbers were in the hundreds
of thousands in Europe, across the U.S. demonstrations drew tens of
thousands of "anti-war" activists. CBS reported protests in over 150 cities. I personally marched in Portland, Oregon where it was estimated that 58,000 showed up.
Even
more recently in September 2013, when pressure was mounting on
President Obama to attack Syria around the false flag use of chemical
weapons -- allegedly by Syria's Bashar al-Assad but later demonstrated
to be by rebels who were trying to hoodwink the U.S. into a full-on
bombing assault -- again impressive numbers of people
voiced their opposition. The White House and offices of our
congressional representatives were flooded with calls, emails, letters.
I
still maintain that a fuss over a particular war, or some misguided
military aggression by the U.S. military does not constitute a "peace
movement".
The truth is that America does not embrace peace.
America promotes war.
“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: My own government, I cannot be silent.”
Everything
but our most advanced weapons -- we have to keep them in reserve for
when all the other weapons we sell are turned on us -- is for sale. Fighter planes, bombers, bombs, artillery, guns, killing machines and devices of every shape and size.
I could go on for hours citing examples. But here is one from just last week.
Yes, the Pentagon in its infinite wisdom is selling $683 million worth of smart bombs to a country which is destabilizing the entire Middle East.
Though a member of the NATO alliance, Turkey has latelyproven to be a wild card,
its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pursuing his own highly
nationalistic and treacherous agenda. Selling more weapons to this
renegade, arguably psychopathic ego-maniac, is like giving an armed
grenade-launcher to a 3-year-old child to chase the dog around the yard.
The U.S. continues to supply
Saudi Arabia -- one of the most ideologically-extreme, brutal,
anti-democratic monarchies in the world, responsible for horrifying war
crimes in Yemen, egregious crimes against its own citizens, and a major
player in plans to destroy Syria and eventually Iran, even if this
triggers a major war with Russia and carries the possible risk of starting World
War III -- with some of our most advanced weaponry.
Such
decisions to militarily equip saber-rattling, autocratic, aggressive,
dangerous regimes would be the target of a real peace movement in
America. These are clear, frightening and appalling examples of
America's wanton propagation of lethality and potential for hellish
destruction across the face of the Earth.
Our silent acquiescence represents the opposite of peace. It is nothing less than our tacit approval and championing of war.
I
occasionally hear faint whispering from the enlightened but tiny
minority of Americans who understand this -- more like muted whimpering
than a concerted call to action.
This is not a peace movement. It is an anomaly. At the same time . . .
What
can we expect? Americans are addicted to war. The idea of peace does
not even get enough attention to be scoffed at. It's such a quaint,
silly sort of notion, the simpleminded province of "peaceniks" and
"peace creeps", evidence of weakness and cowardice, clearly an
infliction of modern day Don Quixotes and other delusional brainiacs.
It's appropriate and inspiring to revisit the words of John F. Kennedy:
"What
kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax
Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the
peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about
genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living,
the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a
better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but
peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace
for all time . . .
Peace
need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining
our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less
remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to
move irresistibly toward it . . .
For
in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all
inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish
our children's future. And we are all mortal."
John F. Kennedy spoke these words at American University, June 10, 1963.
He was assassinated five months later.
[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
