The Boll Weevil Bluegrass Band Performs “War Is Making Us Poor”

The Boll Weevil Bluegrass Band Performs “War Is Making Us Poor” | John Rachel

‘Meggie’ Taylor Performs “War Is Making Us Poo

Rapper “Meggie” Megaton Taylor recorded my new anti-war song.

He’s a big guy with a big voice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcsmULNyt7E

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

‘Meggie’ Taylor Performs “War Is Making Us Poor” | John Rachel

Looking For Change in All the Wrong Places

I know I write a lot about war and peace. That would be against war and for peace. But apparently I’m swimming upstream from the consensus.

Why would I say that?

A recent Gallup poll would suggest that Americans on the whole think our current military is pretty swell, our level of defense spending peachy, we are militarily top dogs, and that’s the way they like it, uh-huh uh-huh!

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.

Here’s the poll report. Enjoy it. Savor it. Be proud of it. Go Team America!

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.

I’ll save you a lot of tedious reading. As Mandy Smithberger put it in a very recent article in TomDispatch … 

“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! 

See all that money was well spent after all.

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

Looking For Change in All the Wrong Places | John Rachel

Why should the U.S. wage war on Iran?

Why should the U.S. wage war on Iran?

There are so many answers to that question, it's difficult to know where to begin. But here are a few right off the top of my head, based on our current foreign policy and the thinking mapped out by the truly remarkable collection of political leaders currently at the helm.  One of these real geniuses offers insights into the kind of guy he is in the above video.

Anyway, please stand at attention with your hands over your hearts, as I offer twenty-four of the reasons why we should wage war on Iran.

1)  Because we can.

2)  We have all these bombs.

3)  What good is a military if you don't use it?

4)  We love spreading chaos!

5)  Destroy, divide, conquer.

6)  Have you ever seen Hassan Rouhani on Dancing With The Stars?  Obviously he hates our freedom and our television shows.

7)  God told us to.

8)  Israel told us to.

9)  Saudi Arabia told us to.

10)  Lindsey Graham told us to.

11)  We want to start a world war (see #2 above).

12)  We got over the Vietnam Syndrome but now we have to get over both the "Afghanistan Syndrome" and the "Syria Syndrome".

13)  It'll piss off Russia.

14)  It'll piss off China.

15)  It'll piss off Hillary Clinton because she wanted to be the one to start it.

16)  Donald Trump will get re-elected because when we're at war we have to rally behind the president (I think it's somewhere in the Bible: "Don't change horses' asses in the middle of a war." Leviticus? Corinthians?)

17)  Hollywood needs new settings for its upcoming war movies.

18)  War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.

19)  Americans love war as long as it's NIMBY.

20)  Jared Kushner.

21)  War makes lots of money for investors, especially the already ultra-rich.

22)  It'll hasten the Rapture.

23)  Peace is for pussies.

24)  Iranians revealed their diabolical anti-Americanism by putting their country in the middle of all our military bases.

There's more.  But I think this is a damn good start!

You have a problem with this?  Too bad.




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



Why should the U.S. wage war on Iran?

Book Review: “The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert” by Ron Ridenour

Ron Ridenour’s masterfully-written indictment of U.S. militarism and its take-all-prisoners imperial project is of such breathtaking scope and astonishing depth, it would be hard to exaggerate its value and timeliness, as the foreign policy of the Empire of Chaos now as never before in recorded history, steers the world toward apocalyptic confrontation and puts the survival of the entire human race at risk.

Those readers still in the embrace of the most toxic pile of propaganda ever assembled by a world power, that America is a force of good, spreading democracy, defending human rights, standing with the oppressed and marginalized, should have medics in the room with them to apply emergency procedures as the truth pours off the pages of this book.  Ridenour pulls no punches and with meticulous research and documentation, leaves little doubt that his narrative offers nothing less than the explicit and savage truth of over a century of exploits and exploitation.  We see brutal, barbaric, merciless application of military and economic power, with the clear and unambiguous goal of world domination — the U.S. as the ultimate empire blessed by God and history and the Fates, exempt from the rules of international law and judgment by anyone who would challenge it.  While the focus is Russia, this book covers a lot more ground, offering glimpses into many theaters of confrontation and conflict: China, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, of course the Middle East, as well as many countries in its more immediate sphere of influence, Central and South America.  With its 800+ bases currently sprawling across the planet, we’re hard-pressed to find anywhere where the heavy foot of American power does not exercise its self-serving prerogative.

Those readers who already are familiar with the scope of U.S. hypocrisy, who understand that behind the smiley face of official beneficence and goodness lies an agenda that serves a ruling elite at the expense of the vast number of everyday citizens, both inside the U.S. and out, will still benefit enormously from this book.  Much of it might constitute a refresher course, but I suspect many, myself included, will be pleasantly — or unpleasantly — rewarded with both disturbing factual knowledge and Ridenour’s fresh insights and analysis.  It may be for such readers “preaching to the choir” but I’ve never heard a choir that didn’t need to be tuned up from time to time.

Ridenour quotes “The Naked Human”, a poem written by Gustav Munch-Petersen.

I am only a human
but I shall one day
raise earth’s mountains
and let them shake
in the ears of those who sleep

I am only a human
but I shall one day
take the sun down from heaven
and light up all the dark holes
with merciless white light

I am only a human
but I shall one day
steal the gods lightning
and sweep the earth clean of dust

If I may do some metaphorical borrowing, I’d say that with The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert Ron Ridenour has raised some mountains, taken the sun down from heaven, and stolen lightning from the gods.  Let’s hope his exceptional scholarship and writing wakes up some people, lights up the dark holes, and sweeps away the dust.
Our survival as a species depends on it.


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



Book Review: “The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert” by Ron Ridenour

The Peace Dividend: Some Perspective

I'm addressing this article to the "professional left" and to the typically white middle-class point-and-click political activists who are at the insular core of today's peace movement.  They do keep trying -- we give them all the much-deserved credit for that -- yet keep doing the same things over and over -- wash, rinse, repeat -- never pausing to look objectively at how ineffective they're being.

[ Insert Einstein's definition of insanity here. ]

Despite a slight surge of street protests since Trump ascended the throne -- largely not specific to peace -- the peace movement is essentially going backwards.  Missives vital for the survival of the human race are not being heard because the folks currently advocating peace: 1) are drowned out by a militarized war-hungry media; 2) are mumbling worn out messages, rehashing stale slogans, pushing boring clichés, reciting sound bites that should have been retired when disco stopped being the rage; and 3) are lacking necessary focus, mojo and momentum.

It's a veritable cacophonous roar out there these days.  If what's being trumpeted is not pitch perfect and outrageously spectacular, it's just more white noise in the din.

To get people to pay attention, you need to get their attention.  That means fresh, exciting new ideas; galvanizing calls to action; relevant, achievable payoffs.  The peace movement can't survive anymore on high fives, or peace sign t-shirts and bumper stickers.  People just aren't buying the old tropes.

Mind you, when I talk about 'people', I'm talking about tens of millions of people.  I am talking about creating a true 'people's movement' of 'people power', not just a marginal slice of the population which happens to have a lot of time on its hands.  This unified bloc can change everything, especially if it is fashioned into a voting bloc.

 

I'm talking about the 'people power' of the bottom 160 million Americans who are hurting much more than you and I, much more than anyone who has the time and luxury of participating in marches and bake sales for peace, sit-ins, teach-ins, or online petitions.  These folks are struggling and are those whose lives are most devastated by our war economy and pursuit of empire.

THESE FOLKS ARE FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, BEGGING FOR A COHERENT SOLUTION TO THEIR MISERY.  They live paycheck-to-paycheck, day-to-day, just trying to survive.  Am I imagining all of this?  I direct you to the orange imbecile sitting in the Oval Office.  The folks I'm talking about put him there.  You don't think they can make a difference in the political direction of the country?  You don't think they can be mobilized?  You better guess again.

This is the principal reason why my Peace Dividend initiative targets Trump voters, the very same folks who are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the orange demagogue, as he blithely now jettisons the campaign promises he made to get their votes.  With the unfolding Mad Hatter military confrontations in the Middle East and North Korea, the risky intimidation of Russia and China, the increasing likelihood of WWIII, and growing potential for nuclear annihilation, the urgency is obvious: We need EVERYONE on board!

The Trump supporters are, as they say, low hanging fruit.  And there's a lot of fruit.

By design the Peace Dividend strategy is about reaching HUGE NUMBERS of politically marginalized, dispossessed, previously ignored -- until Trump came along -- voters.  The Peace Dividend talks their language, their needs, addresses their immediate concerns and growing rage with the system.  And it does it honestly!  Everything in my proposal is based on available data, most of it directly from government sources and speeches by our elected officials.  I've taken the official data and the promises, just reconfigured it, reinterpreted it, refashioned it, turned it into a weapon to take apart the military machine.  It's completely legal, it's in the best traditions of our alleged democracy, it's completely consistent with the Constitution, in fact, it even reinforces much of what our leadership has stated in the past -- Google 'peace dividend 1992’ -- at a time they found that particular version of reality politically expedient.

Most of the folks in the bottom half of the economy are not going to have PhDs in Political Science.  We will confront some big differences of opinion, demeanor, vocabulary, basic courtesy, open-mindedness, instincts, mutual respect.  It's a rough crowd.  Many will be racist, homophobic, superstitious, ultra-religious, misinformed, and just plain ignorant.

 

Granted, it would be nice to try to work out our differences in world view, our political philosophies, our sense of where the nation should be headed.  But with the crisis we face right now, we don't have that luxury. We must act immediately to stop the military madness, the march to war, the complete takeover of the country and its political and economic institutions by the menacing and deranged neocon/neoliberal junta.  The Peace Dividend is a battle cry, it is a call to action to 200 million Americans to DO SOMETHING, TO ACT NOW, before it's too late -- if it isn't already.  It gives concerned citizens something specific they can do, starting today.

Moreover, as facts on the ground now alarmingly demonstrate, there is no longer much room for conversation.  Effective, unbiased reporting has been abolished, public dissent increasingly is being squashed.  More devastatingly, talk has become so cheapened, most of the people we need to reach, don't want any more talk.  THEY WANT ACTION!

It's easy to blame Trump for the deterioration of the national conversation, relegating it to empty nonsensical utterances and abrupt Tweets.  But let's be honest.  This degradation has been in the works for a long time and had a good head start long before he took office.

That's neither here nor there.  Here's what we need to keep in focus.

 

As Trump's neoliberal/neocon assault troops continue to wreak havoc -- picture coming military conflicts and the inevitable crash of the economy this year or next -- the masses will be singularly outraged, hungry for REAL ACTION.  They will be crying both for heads to roll and for something to be done.  All of the necessary incentives will be there to get them on board with constructive activism.

The Peace Dividend offers a simple, direct, decisive plan of action.  It's as simple as voting.

You've seen how it forces a total transformation of the federal budget.

You've seen how it can engineer a complete changing of the guard.

This is our chance for a non-violent coup d'tat.  We need to be prepared.  We can't squander this opportunity by being safe or boring.  We must be bold and decisive, yet affable and receptive, sensitive and sensible.  We need to listen, then talk to others in their language, on their terms.  We must play down differences, seek understanding, unite in a common purpose.  Most of all, we need to welcome everyone who shows the slightest interest.  We need everyone on board to defeat a determined and ruthless enemy . . .

A bloodthirsty military and their ruling class puppet masters.


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


The Peace Dividend: Some Perspective

The Peace Dividend: Could It Really Happen?

 

I came up with the Peace Dividend strategy over two years ago.  At the time, recognizing that the plan was -- to say the least -- very radical, completely unprecedented, totally outside-the-box, I thought that if it had even the slimmest chance of getting any traction, it was going to be a long and winding road to successfully "sell" and implement it.

To get the plan underway requires that we package peace in an entirely different way, that instead of only appealing to individual conscience, we target individual self-interest.

This is not meant to be cynical.  It's not that people don't care about suffering.  It's that most individuals care first about the suffering of those immediately around them, not that of those in far flung nations they can barely find on a map.

The Peace Dividend strategy is a bottoms-up, grass-roots approach especially targeting those on the bottom of our economy -- the 160+ million who are hovering around or are below the poverty line -- because these folks are most devastated by the economic impact of our war economy.

The Peace Dividend strategy is about letting citizens know what's really going on with the military waste and the endless wars, and making them very angry!  Angry enough to do something about it, certainly for their country, but most of all for themselves and their families -- those whose suffering they see every single day in the struggle for survival.

Such a citizen's "uprising" would be premised on generating a widespread, critical mass understanding that in terms of America's prosecution of wars, aggressive foreign policy, promoting militarism both overseas and here at home, we as citizens are "being lied to", we are victims of a huge scam, that the "system is rigged", that a bunch of "insiders" are running the show who couldn't care less what the general public considered important, what we as regular citizens wanted done.

Do "being lied to", "system is rigged", "insiders are running the show" sound familiar?

Trump's election as president, leaves little doubt that a large segment of the population, viewing our government establishment as a whole, do indeed believe those things.  It's obvious to anyone paying attention that everyday citizens are being taken advantage of, that we have been and continue to be had by a ruling elite, that they will suck every last drop of blood out of the American economy and us individually if we let them.

Therefore, I'm now convinced that if we as peace advocates make the case for the Peace Dividend with boldness and clarity, it is all but inevitable.  Yes!  It could really happen.

As rigorously documented in The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World, the military-industrial-security complex allied with a lunatic inner circle within our foreign policy institutions have perpetrated over the past two-and-a-half decades the most odious fraud in history.  This conservatively amounts to stealing $4.82 trillion of tax payer money.  We have every right to and should demand not only that the deception and theft immediately end, but that as victims of this swindle we as citizens be compensated.  We deserve and demand full reimbursement:  The Peace Dividend Refund.



I consider the beauty of my approach to voicing our outrage and asserting our rights as citizens is that it is entirely legal, based completely on the official facts published by our government, assiduously aligned with the Constitution -- therefore not able to be labeled insurrectionist or illegal -- and consistent with democracy based on government of the people, by the people, for the people.

I'm not going to condense a mercifully short but still 86-page-long book for this article. What I will do is give you the "big picture" so that you don't so casually dismiss the idea.

RECOGNIZE:  No current elected official will go along with the Peace Dividend proposal. They and their ruling class puppeteers will oppose it with every dirty trick in the book.

CONSIDER:  When everyday people understand that they've been ripped off, defrauded, bilked out of at least $4.82 trillion, there might be a little bit of anger out there.

ACKNOWLEDGE:  When everyday people realize they have the power to demand this fraudulently collected tax payer money back in the form of a $14,952 refund to each and every living citizen, they might just get a little excited.  In fact, if the word gets around, I predict they will immediately, forcefully, uncompromisingly demand their money back -- every last dollar!

Let's put this together. The VOTING public demands their Peace Dividend refund.  The incumbents cannot, will not even fake interest in giving in to such an outrageous demand. They will dodge and lie and rail against it.  The VOTING public sees this as more evidence that the "system is rigged", that "they are getting shafted", that they are again being had by the establishment blowhards who never do anything for everyday citizens.  Here we have the seeds, the tinder for a MASSIVE VOTER REVOLT.  We unite these angry, frustrated voters into a VOTING BLOC, rejecting business as usual -- fraud as usual! -- behind the demand of justice and fair compensation in the form of a Peace Dividend Refund.  As a result, the vast majority of corporate lapdog incumbents are defeated and replaced by OUTSIDERS who agree to go to Washington DC and put into law . . .

The Peace Dividend Refund Act of 2019!

Sound at all familiar?  Sort of the way an OUTSIDER got elected to president, via a voter revolt that basically said:  "Fuck you! We're sick of it. The hell with politics as usual."

Is this mere fantasy?  In these outlandish, ridiculous times?  Really?

I think it's pretty clear.  And it will especially true after Trump and the current pack of bloodthirsty, Wall Street/ruling class puppets in Congress totally muck everything up.

People are going to be ripe for revenge!  They'll want their money back, I guarantee you!

By the way, please take a few minutes and look at the way the Peace Dividend is funded.  You will note that it drives a lot of the very things on any sensible progressive reform wish list.  Meaning, the Peace Dividend is a watershed for revamping the way our government does business.  I would think that alone would make it worth the time to carefully study, with an open and alert mind, and some creative engagement.

I know that marching in the streets, getting clubbed, pepper-sprayed, manhandled and arrested, are good times and all.  But a lot of people are working two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and can't join in on the fun.  All the Peace Dividend strategy requires is that people look at it, then stand strong and united -- stick up for themselves and other good decent American citizens who have been getting the shaft -- then go into the voting booth and only vote for candidates who give us a legally-binding guarantee that they will go to Washington DC and do what needs to be done.

And even if a lot of folks have extremely demanding schedules -- thus are too busy to fly to Washington DC to attend a peace rally -- I'm confident most will find the time to deposit $14,952 in their bank account.  

How about you?


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



The Peace Dividend: Could It Really Happen?

What’s wrong with this picture?

As they say . . . don't get me started.

Because I could go on and on about this.

Instead I'm going to make this mercifully short and just cite a few incontrovertible facts.

The UN has reported that we are facing a massive famine of 20,000,000 people across Africa and Yemen, and it would only take $4.4 billion to mitigate this horrible disaster.

The United Nations has also reported that all it would require is $30 billion annually, to permanently end world hunger.

Trump and our warmongering Congress is increasing the already bloated defense budget next year by $54 billion, to prosecute more wars and create more enemies for America.

Let me play Devil's advocate now.  Let me be brutally insensitive and self-serving.

Since apparently we as a people don't truly care if others in the world suffer and starve to death, let's say for argument's sake we shouldn't care.  Hey!  Life has winners and losers.  Some people have it good.  Others starve to death.  It is what it is.

Having said that, having declared our own welfare to be eminently more important than that of anyone else on the planet, let me explain why we're incredibly stupid -- make that completely insane -- if we don't take the money out of the defense budget, halt the famine, and end world hunger immediately.

 

Actually, let Lee Camp -- a truly enlightened activist and my all-time favorite comedian -- tell you why.  As Lee says it so perfectly: 

"We as a country could do that easily and have more national security than ever, because no one's attacking the country that ended world hunger. . . . They attack the country that bombs the shit out of the Middle East and bans refugees, and says stupid crap like: 'We're #1!' . . . . If we ended world hunger we'd be safe again."

Does it really take a stand-up comic to get our national priorities right?

Or maybe we're trying a different approach to getting laughs:  A comedy of errors.



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



What’s wrong with this picture?

A Nation of Relentless Savagery

 

You've been avoiding this for a long time.

You prefer to remember the times he took you to the park, that amazing camping vacation a few summers back, the funny things he often says at the dinner table, that beautiful dog he gave you on your 12th birthday.

But you can't deny it any longer.  The truth is painful.  But . . .

Dad is an alcoholic and he beats mom.

Do you hate him?  Do you reject him as your father?

No . . . but things have to drastically change and very soon.

This is not actually the story I wish to tell.  I'm merely drawing a parallel.  I'm talking about dealing with denial, facing reality, accepting responsibility, taking action.

There are many situations in life for which the above scenario is a metaphor.

The parallel I'm making is the relationship between a citizen and a government gone mad.

We've avoided it for a long time.  We prefer to think of America as a beacon of hope in the world, the fountainhead of truth and justice, a purveyor of democratic values and human rights.

But we can't deny it any longer.  The truth is painful.  But . . .

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his monumental, myth-shattering speech -- the one that probably got him assassinated -- at Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967:

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: My own government, I cannot be silent.”

I won't go into the long history of American aggression.  Whole books have been written which detail our gruesome heritage of merciless wars, the most notable being Howard Zinn's classics, A People's History of the United States and the more recent A People's History of American Empire.  Nor will I indict the U.S. foreign policy apparatus for its gross deceptions and hypocrisies, elucidated with unparalleled clarity and candor in William Blum's excellent work, America's Deadliest Export: Democracy.

I won't talk about the millions of human carcasses piled on top of more carcasses, the result of countless war crimes and merciless military strategies which place no value on human life, whether the victims are in uniform or innocent civilians.  I've realized that the scale of the horror is such that its incomprehensible to most good decent citizens.  I myself when confronted by figures like 3 million Vietnamese killed, 1.5 Iraqis killed, on and on, find my eyes glazing over in the deluge of zeroes.  I literally cannot grasp these numbers and apply them meaningfully to the grief and physical suffering which they are supposed to somehow encapsulate.

Let's instead look at a few simple very recent facts and try to put them in perspective.

Fact 1:  The U.S. is not officially at war with any other country at this time.

Fact 2:  The U.S. has not been attacked in any sense of the word in the last 16 years.

Fact 3:  Last year the U.S. military dropped 26,171 bombs on seven different countries.



Mind you, these are the official figures.  Who knows what the real totals are?

These were not water-filled balloons or July 4th fireworks.  At the end of every explosion, there were body parts strewn all over the surrounding area.  Survivors were being crushed in collapsed buildings, or crawling along the ground with limbs torn off, leaving a trail of blood squirting out of severed arteries.  Innocent people, men, women, and children just going about the everyday business of living, were mangled by a lethal mix of high-velocity shrapnel, and chunks of rubble created by ton after ton of high-yield explosives dropped anonymously from the sky.

Rigorous studies have made it very clear that well over half of the casualties of current warfare are civilians.  In what are called 'internal conflicts' -- like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia -- which now are by far the most prevalent form of military conflict, the percentages can be as high as 90% civilians.  These violent clashes are typically fought by proxies. In all of the countries just listed, the aggressors are mercenaries paid by the U.S. and its allies to enter and destroy a country in what is then deceptively characterized as a civil war or "people's uprising".  There is very disturbing recent evidence, for example, that the U.S. through CIA back channels has been funding ISIS, Al Nusra, as well as other extremely barbarous terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.

By the way, that money they withhold from your paycheck?  Or that quarterly tax payment you regularly make?  Think about it.  This is where a big chunk of your tax dollars is going.  You're paying for this.

Does any of this make my point a little more comprehensible?

26,171 bombs . . . funding terrorism . . . innocent civilians die . . . all in a days work.

America can say with great pride that what it does, it usually does very well.

When we put our minds to something, we pull out all the stops.

Now we can put killing right up there in the Top 10.

We kill efficiently.  We kill without remorse.  We kill without hesitation.

NOTICE TO THE WORLD . . .

Beware!  We are a nation of relentless savagery!

Then again, a lot of countries already know that.

---

I've said this many times before and I'll keep saying it until people get it . . .
Peace will not come from the top.  There are too many incentives and rewards in our corrupt corporate kleptocracy to keep the wars going and the wheels of the defense industry churning out more mechanisms of death and destruction.

It is only when we everyday citizens finally have had enough of the carnage, enough of the military waste, enough of the chest-beating imperialism which makes us less safe, enough of the empty rhetoric which claims to embrace the noble virtues but is just more deception in the name of war and imperial conquest, it is only then that America will turn around.

Maybe there are detailed plans out there somewhere to mobilize the good decent citizens of this country.  I haven't personally seen any.  So here is mine.  Yes, it is outside-the-box, some would say radical, extreme.  But if we are the nation we claim to be in the world and in the eyes of God, isn't cruelly and senselessly dropping 26,171 bombs on mostly innocent people extreme and radical?
My plan demands very little of us individually.  We don't have to march on the capital or mount a revolutionary insurrection.  Despite that, it could make all the difference in the future we leave to our children and our children's children.  All that is really required is that we listen to the voice of reason and stand strong.

At least take a look.  Open your mind up to the possibility of a future without the madness.  Of a future without endless war.  Of a future when our hard-earned tax dollars don't go to fund the relentless savagery of a military gone mad.

 

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 originally appeared at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]


A Nation of Relentless Savagery

What part of “Listen to me!” didn’t you understand?

 

It astounds me how wimpy and servile voters are. Dude, we're Americans! We're supposed to be independent, tough, ruggedly individualistic, exceptional!

No one pushes us around! Unless they want their asses kicked!

Right.

So why is it when the election cycle rolls around and as voters we have to start listening to the professional windbags courting our approval, we let the candidates tell us what they're going to do when they get elected?
Excuse me! Shouldn't we be telling them what they'll be doing if they get elected?

Voters seem to have forgotten how much power they collectively hold in their hands. The simple fact is, if we don't like what we see, we don't have to vote for someone. And if we don't vote for them, they are out of a job.

Let me talk directly to you progressives out there — since the odds that a conservative or even centrist is visiting my web site are pretty nil — and discuss a perfect example of the kind of surrender that has perpetuated the powerlessness we all complain about, i.e. not getting our elected officials to listen to us and begin serving us instead of the 1%.

Understandably, we lefties are encouraged by the rise in popularity of Bernie Sanders.

His campaign is certainly a much-welcome breath of fresh air next to both the belligerent bombast of the certifiably insane Republican presidential candidates, and the slippery shape-shifting rhetoric of Hillary the Terminator, the Democrat's heavy puncher in the neocon-driven cage fight to decide who has the most expedient blue print for incinerating the planet and destroying all living things in the nuclear holocaust of WWIII.

Why is Sanders gaining traction?

Because unlike everyone else, he's addressing bread-and-butter issues, the challenges which affect the daily lives of most Americans. He's talking about better jobs, increasing income, reducing wealth inequality, rebuilding our industrial base, bringing factories and jobs back to America, improving health care, education, making college affordable, etc.

Unfortunately . . . Sanders is NOT TALKING ABOUT ending unnecessary wars, reducing the defense budget, reversing the self-destructive pursuit of American empire, ending the monopoly control of foreign policy and promotion of military adventurism by the military-industrial complex, halting the unconstitutional citizen surveillance by the NSA, CIA, FBI and other security agencies, or ending the fraudulent War on Terror.

The simple truth is, all of his noble aspirations about improving the day-to-day lives of the majority of Americans will come to naught unless the militarization of American society and the imperialist agenda of world domination is reversed. As long as the current military mindset of Washington DC prevails, there will never be any money to address the needs of American citizens, nor will it ever be a priority. There will always be another bogeyman, terrorist group, rogue nation, another war, another "humanitarian intervention" to pursue. You and I, the everyday Americans who fund all of these illegal, immoral misadventures and self-destructive policies, will always be last on the list. Not even in the kitchen, much less on the back burner.

Whether Mr. Sanders is willfully ignorant of this reality, or whether he's just confused, it's up to us to set him straight.
Here's what we say . . .

"Mr. Sanders, your intentions are good. You want to help the majority of American citizens enjoy a decent life. That's very nice. But you're delusional if you think that's going to happen with an out-of-control military and a foreign policy built around confrontation and conquest. You want to be president and we want you to be president. But here's the deal. Unless you change your positions on defense and foreign policy, you are not getting our vote. It's your choice. You come around and stop all of this insanity, we'll back you 100%. If you don't, you can say 'Hi' to Hillary when she walks by you at the Democratic convention on her way to the podium to make her acceptance speech."

Yes, this is playing hardball.

But you know what? If we don't use our right to vote to our advantage, then there's not much point in having it. We're just puppets pretending we live in a democracy.

Now you might ask . . .

Is there a way to get this message to Mr. Sanders?

Glad you asked.

I have a clear, completely bulletproof, step-by-step strategy for doing exactly that.

It's contained in my two books, Candidate Contracts: Taking Back Our Democracy and the abridged version of the same set of plans, Fighting for the Democracy We Deserve.

Am I trying to sell you a book?

Yes . . . but no.

If you are too cheap to buy either, or you simply can't afford it, give me your email address and I'll send you a free PDF copy.

Does it get easier than that?

Take a few minutes here and save your country from the tyranny of the rich and powerful.

Your children will thank you.

---

 

"Candidate Contracts: Taking Back Our Democracy" is available from all the usual suspects . . .
Amazon (Kindle) . . . amzn.to/1QJRiNZ
Apple (iBook) . . . apple.co/1BXnPcy
Amazon (Paperback) . . . amzn.to/1Cuq0du
Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/1GpTTLq
Smashwords . . . bit.ly/1B4DQCp
Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/1MGjDnN




"Fighting for the Democracy We Deserve" was published just a couple weeks ago. But it is available both as a Kindle ebook and in print from Amazon . . .

Amazon US (Kindle) . . . amzn.to/1VMf2Ft
Amazon CA (Kindle) . . . amzn.to/1in513n
Amazon UK (Kindle) . . . amzn.to/1KfjtQO
Amazon JP (Kindle) . . . amzn.to/1OMslBG
Amazon (Paperback) . . . amzn.to/1L9SdIC



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

From the – to the +

 

Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!

Whine! Whine! Whine!

What's the point?

I agree. 

If all we do is bitch and whine and stop there, there isn't much of a
point. It's just more pain and frustration piled on devilry and
dysfunction.

But . . .

It doesn't have to and shouldn't stop there.

From my perspective out here in Expat Land, the biggest obstacle there in
America is that people don't understand the problems. Often they are so
overwhelmed, they just bury their heads in the sand. Americans are
misinformed, disinformed, and in the throes of massive collective
denial.

Understandably, everyone just wants to go on with their lives, do their job 
__ if they have one __ take care of their kids, mow the lawn, watch some TV, 
and try to eke some fun and comfort out of their often miserable and tense lives.

And if things in America were on track, this certainly wouldn't be too much to ask.

But things are not on track. In fact, the country is heading 180º in the wrong direction.

People sense this. Every day there's some new crisis. Prospect of another war.  
Scary stuff everywhere. New terrorist threats. ISIS. Russia. China. Iran. Contagious 
diseases. Ebola. Killer Avian Flu V. 3.0. Violence by the police. Counter-violence
by angry mobs. More arrests and police killings. Ranting and raving in
Congress. More gridlock. Shutdown of the federal government.  Ranting
and raving on TV.  Muslims, beheadings.  Immigrants. Same-sex marriage,
abortion. Climate change. No climate change. Moreguns. Fewer guns. 
Stand your ground. Arm teachers. Arm bus drivers. Bring a gun to church. 
Bomb Syria. Arm Ukraine. Bomb Iran. Sanction Venezuela. Bomb North Korea. 
On and on . . .

Beyond the anxiety and outright fear caused by this ongoing tsunami of chaos and
trauma, there is a growing sense that all this calamity is not just a
string of bad luck __ that there is something fundamentally wrong!

The problem is that with all of the yelling, finger-pointing, and verbal
mayhem, no one can keep any of it straight, and anything resembling a
constructive conversation is impossible. The lunatics have taken over
the asylum.

We no longer have time for this. There are three challenges which if not faced squarely and honestly pose an existential threat to our nation. They ultimately could destroy us.

The three existential threats?

• Collapse of the economy
• Destruction by war
• Climate change
  

Insiders know where we're heading and what's coming if some things don't change very dramatically, very soon. Vast stores of ammunition have been set aside in anticipation of internal unrest. 
We increasingly see the police being militarized, being authoritarian and unaccountable.
Some observers suggest we are already on the threshold of being a
police state. Those responsible for maintaining the status quo __ i.e.
the standing configuration of power __ know where the incipient chaos
and dysfunction is taking the country, and understandably are preparing for the worst.

But they are not heading off the potential catastrophes. In fact, they are largely to blame!  
They are the reason we're in the mess we're in and plunging toward even worse times.

This bleak future is not inevitable. We can turn this around. 

We! 

Not our current crop of myopic leaders. You and I. But it will take some doing.

And doing starts by getting people to pay attention.

Maybe that's where the bitching and whining comes in.

But it can't stop there. Out of the negativity of recognizing how bad off things 
are now, there can and must emerge a positivevision of what should follow. 
That means each and every one of us deciding what's important. We start 
by asking ourselves what makes our country great . . .

Is it having the biggest military?

Is it having the most billionaires?

Is it having the largest economy?

Is it winning the most gold and silver medals at the Olympics?

Is it the freedom to buy all sorts of stuff __ a seemingly infinite selection __
because television ads tell us that will make us happy?

Is it our entertainment industry __ envy of the entire world, cranking out movies,
TV shows, video games, music __ into which we can escape and live rich
fantasy lives?

Is it how easy things are __ meals we can pick up at drive-thru windows, credit
cards we can swipe when we're broke but want something really bad,
social sites where we can find out what our friends are doing every
waking moment of our lives?

Is it all of the instant gratification __ drugs, fast food, smart phones, Instagram, 
Twitter, free porn, online shopping?

Is it the seemingly endless variety of spectator sports __ football, baseball,
boxing, cage fighting, basketball, hockey, pro wrestling, the amazing
spectacle of the Super Bowl?

Is it the American Dream __ though the vast majority of us don't get to live it?

We also must decide how we are going to go about shaping our society and
country, how our democracy will function, how decisions will be made,
how much of the responsibility to ourselves and future generations we're
going to entrust and delegate to our leadership elite, the elected or
de facto pillars of society . . .

Can we just depend on "experts" __ corporate CEOs and our political leaders __
to make the right choices for our communities, our schools, every aspect
of our lives?

Can we let corporations decide everything for us __ what to buy, what is safe,
what is healthy, what products and services are constructive and
sustainable, what makes for a better society and positive future for our
children and our children's children?

Can we let expensive campaign ads during election cycles substitute for meaningful
debate and serious discussion of critical issues that effect us, our
safety, the quality of our lives?

Can we in good conscience permit the privatizing of everything __ schools, roads,
water, sewage, electricity, libraries, the internet __ because some
corporate-owned demagogues say government is bad bad bad and private ownership 
is good good good?

Should we allow our leaders to worship at the altar of "free trade" __ NAFTA, TPP,
TTIP __ if it means surrendering national sovereignty and handing over
the design and control of our entire future to multinational
corporations?

Can we continue letting our schools, towns, roads, bridges fall apart and
become worthless because we have wasted so much money on unnecessary
wars and military bases, that now we supposedly don't have any funding
left for education and crucial infrastructure?

Should we allow capitalism and pure unfettered pursuit of profit trump individual 
and community needs and values?

Can debt-based currency creation __ the privatization of the right to "coin money" 
by ceding that power to private banks __ over the long haul serve the greater good 
of the country and provide equitable distribution of our national wealth?

Can the monopolization of production and services by large multinational
corporations fulfill the long term goals and aspirations of our country?

After our humiliating record of defeat on the battlefield __ Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan, Iraq __ can we trust that our leaders, locked into a
feckless 'war-and-more-war' approach to foreign policy, will do the
right thing on the international stage going forward?

After being lied into the war in Iraq, after having the economy completely
mucked up, after seeing our factories and jobs shipped overseas, after
being conned into bailing out the big banks and watching the wholesale
looting the Treasury and Federal Reserve to stuff the wallets of Wall
Street fat cats and corporate CEOs, can we trust our current politicos
with respect to anything at all?

In theory, nothing in our democracy is written in stone. We __ you and I __
can change the priorities. If our country is headed in the wrong direction,
we can turn it around.

At least . . . in theory.

I'm currently writing a political tome, a concise but powerful, practical
manual for change, which I believe can make a difference. It is my
attempt to help put 'We the people' back in the political
equation, giving the majority of American citizens say in shaping the
future of the country. It's about taking power back from those who
driven by greed and hubris have bankrupted the country and made us the
most feared and hated nation in the world, then assigning that power to
its rightful owners __ you and I.  It is not about tossing
power capriciously into the filthy hands of an unruly mob, but a plan
for thoughtfully and respectfully placing it in the guiding hands of a sane 
and sensible majority.

I hope to have it out late May or early June.

Working title . . . 

Candidate Contracts: A Manifesto (A New Front and Perhaps Last Stand 

in the Battle for True Representative Democracy in America).

Do you see now? At the end of the day __ and it has been a long day for sure __ 
I don't mean to merely be negative.

I actually intend to be quite positive.


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