A One Party Rule
Beginnings
Why have things gone so awfully wrong with America? I believe there are two main problems which all the rest might be considered as sub problems to. The first problem is the Democratic Party and the second is the people who support the Democratic Party. Well what about the Republicans, aren’t they part of the problem? Yes they are part of the problem but they would not be if the Democrats had been acting as an opposition party. We know that the Republicans represent the wealthy, the CEOs, the owners of major corporations, but we have known this for a long, long time and there is nothing new there.
In 1994 Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. The results of the North American Free Trade Agreement have been a disaster in many ways for Mexico, America and Canada. Ranged against NAFTA were labor, religious, consumer as well as environmental groups. Proponents for NAFTA were some of the largest corporations in the world along with Bill Clinton and Al Gore Mr. Global Warming himself.
According to Robert E. Scott:
Traditionally the labor Unions were affiliated with the Democratic Party but when Bill Clinton came to town with his free trade he and the large corporations had the labor Unions in their cross hairs they then pulled the trigger and down went the Unions. By shipping jobs to other countries and in effect destroying manufacturing in America NAFTA destroyed the Unions as well along with their influence for progressive government. Prior to Bill Clinton Reaganomics had set the stage for disaster by increasing defense spending by a record 40 percent. The dangers of this increase in defense spending had already been predicted by another Republican – President Eisenhower -- who in a famous speech warned about the threat of a growing industrial-military complex.
With the reduction of labor Unions and their backing of the Democratic Party something else needed to fill the void left by the Unions for the Democrats. Enter the giant corporations who include energy companies and the weapon manufacturers already bloated to Frankenstein proportions from the Reagan years and who have now executed a takeover of the government.
The One Party System
Today we have an abrasive and obnoxious president and vice president who have trashed the constitution with the destruction of habeas corpus which is central to protecting the rights and freedom of individuals from arbitrary state actions. The assault on habeas corpus began with Bill Clinton who signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the nails in the coffin were provided by our present Murderer in Chief President Bush Jr. with the Presidential Military Order of 2001 which gave our chief chimp the power to detain a non-citizen suspected of being a terrorist without charges being filed, without a court hearing, and without access to a legal consultant. In 2006 habeas corpus was pronounced dead on arrival and buried without a service when the House and Senate approved the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which gave the president the power to declare anyone as an unlawful enemy combatant and as such anyone, you, me, anyone, could be put into prison without charges and held indefinitely with no access to legal counsel. So much for home of the brave and land of the free. Except for a few voices in the wilderness this destruction of our basic rights and freedoms happened with surprisingly little fanfare from the U.S. citizenry, no banging of drums, no trembling of mountains, just an inaudible sigh and whimper.
Along the way president Bush was aided by very compliant Democrats in congress. You can read the whole history in an essay by Robert Parry entitled Democrat’s Year of Living Dangerously where Parry traces the beginnings of our one party system to the Reagan years.
Despite the claims by Democrats to be against the Iraq War they have done everything in their power to ensure that it would continue on track. Despite their claims of fighting Bush they have continued with every piece of legislation to fully fund and back the Iraq War. The reason for this is quite simple they are now exactly like their Republican brethren in almost every respect accept style. The Democrats are much more polite about the murders they commit than Bush. They are in league with the military industrial complex. They have aided Bush in his power grabs because they wish to avail themselves of the inordinate powers wielded by Bush indeed they are salivating at the very prospect of it like so many feral dogs closing in for the big kill and all the vast sums of money they intend to rip from the dead and decaying corpse of our defunct democracy. We truly are now living with a one party system which has been decades in the making and now brought to fruition by a lying indescribably evil and foul federal government.
The Second Problem
This brings us to the second problem or other half of the same problem if you will. That problem is us. What have we done? Other than a few whines and whimpers we have done nothing indeed many Americans don’t even understand the full depth of what has occurred. It is not just an illegal war in Iraq which is now being fanned to spread into Iran it is the destruction of everything we hold to be dear. And what is our answer to this destruction of our country? Why vote for the Democrats of course. It is such a logical thing to do. All we need do is bury our heads in the sand pray to the tooth fairy rub a rabbit’s foot read a fantasy novel and everything will go away just like that. Makes sense does it not?
Let me clarify something. For me the real tragedy is the over one million Iraqi deaths even more than the death of our freedom for we have willingly and cowardly tossed that into the garbage can like yesterday’s newspaper but the people of Iraq had done nothing against us. They were not in league with terrorists. They didn’t make 9/11 happen yet very few Americans seem to care about that. After all it is our honor that is at stake and we need to punish someone so it might as well be Iraq. Let’s keep this in perspective. The only reason the majority of Americans are upset about the Iraq War is because it is a failure for if it were not you can bet your bottom dollar they would be reveling in the bloody murder of so many innocent people.
Living in a very conservative section of this great asinine nation I see flags waving everywhere, military worship is the fad of the day, dime store patriots are a dime a dozen as they paste yellow ribbons, flags and bald eagles on their cars. I see their gargoyle faces frozen in grimaces of fear and hate, mouths open with bile and spew pouring out like a river of incoherent monkey screams. What an ugly and repulsive nation we have become. It sickens me to the core. I feel a great sadness for the sane segment of the population, those few who rail against tyranny and injustice. For those Americans who have an awareness of the true nature of reality it is a living hell though nothing compared to what we have put the nation of Iraq through.
At this point we are left with few options in the face of the powerful forces arrayed against all thinking and caring Americans. What can we do? I would suggest that sometimes not doing is an effective tactic. For example stop supporting the Democrats. Vote in the primary, vote for one of the decent candidates like Dennis Kucinich but when he fails to win the nomination and Hillary Clinton or Obama or whichever “serious” candidate wins the nomination don’t vote. That’s right don’t vote. Why should you vote for a false prophet, one that will continue us down the road we have entered upon? If we all desert the Democrat Party as it exists today what a powerful message that would be. If a large enough portion of the Democrat base refused to vote for these war monger lying thieving criminals who have their eyes on the prize you can bet that they would notice that. They would have to change their tune. They would be forced to actually to stand up to the Bush regime and end the wars as well as the destruction of our constitution and all the other criminal pastimes they have been involved in for though our democracy is a joke by becoming a one party system the Democrats still need our votes to stay in power. So at least consider it, I’m not asking you to go out of your way indeed all you have to do is not do.
Why have things gone so awfully wrong with America? I believe there are two main problems which all the rest might be considered as sub problems to. The first problem is the Democratic Party and the second is the people who support the Democratic Party. Well what about the Republicans, aren’t they part of the problem? Yes they are part of the problem but they would not be if the Democrats had been acting as an opposition party. We know that the Republicans represent the wealthy, the CEOs, the owners of major corporations, but we have known this for a long, long time and there is nothing new there.
In 1994 Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. The results of the North American Free Trade Agreement have been a disaster in many ways for Mexico, America and Canada. Ranged against NAFTA were labor, religious, consumer as well as environmental groups. Proponents for NAFTA were some of the largest corporations in the world along with Bill Clinton and Al Gore Mr. Global Warming himself.
According to Robert E. Scott:
Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993, the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2002 has caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 U.S. jobs. Most of those lost jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries. The loss of these jobs is just the most visible tip of NAFTA's impact on the U.S. economy. In fact, NAFTA has also contributed to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened workers' collective bargaining powers and ability to organize unions, and reduced fringe benefits.
NAFTA is a free trade and investment agreement that provided investors with a unique set of guarantees designed to stimulate foreign direct investment and the movement of factories within the hemisphere, especially from the United States to Canada and Mexico. Furthermore, no protections were contained in the core of the agreement to maintain labor or environmental standards. As a result, NAFTA tilted the economic playing field in favor of investors, and against workers and the environment, resulting in a hemispheric "race to the bottom" in wages and environmental quality.
Traditionally the labor Unions were affiliated with the Democratic Party but when Bill Clinton came to town with his free trade he and the large corporations had the labor Unions in their cross hairs they then pulled the trigger and down went the Unions. By shipping jobs to other countries and in effect destroying manufacturing in America NAFTA destroyed the Unions as well along with their influence for progressive government. Prior to Bill Clinton Reaganomics had set the stage for disaster by increasing defense spending by a record 40 percent. The dangers of this increase in defense spending had already been predicted by another Republican – President Eisenhower -- who in a famous speech warned about the threat of a growing industrial-military complex.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
With the reduction of labor Unions and their backing of the Democratic Party something else needed to fill the void left by the Unions for the Democrats. Enter the giant corporations who include energy companies and the weapon manufacturers already bloated to Frankenstein proportions from the Reagan years and who have now executed a takeover of the government.
The One Party System
Today we have an abrasive and obnoxious president and vice president who have trashed the constitution with the destruction of habeas corpus which is central to protecting the rights and freedom of individuals from arbitrary state actions. The assault on habeas corpus began with Bill Clinton who signed into law the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the nails in the coffin were provided by our present Murderer in Chief President Bush Jr. with the Presidential Military Order of 2001 which gave our chief chimp the power to detain a non-citizen suspected of being a terrorist without charges being filed, without a court hearing, and without access to a legal consultant. In 2006 habeas corpus was pronounced dead on arrival and buried without a service when the House and Senate approved the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which gave the president the power to declare anyone as an unlawful enemy combatant and as such anyone, you, me, anyone, could be put into prison without charges and held indefinitely with no access to legal counsel. So much for home of the brave and land of the free. Except for a few voices in the wilderness this destruction of our basic rights and freedoms happened with surprisingly little fanfare from the U.S. citizenry, no banging of drums, no trembling of mountains, just an inaudible sigh and whimper.
Along the way president Bush was aided by very compliant Democrats in congress. You can read the whole history in an essay by Robert Parry entitled Democrat’s Year of Living Dangerously where Parry traces the beginnings of our one party system to the Reagan years.
This Democratic tendency to de-value information – and a timidity toward real oversight – can be traced back to the 1980s when accommodating Democrats, such as Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, sought to finesse, rather than confront, abuses of power by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush during the Iran-Contra Affair and related scandals.
The pattern deepened in 1993 when Bill Clinton won the presidency and the Democrats still controlled Congress. At that point, they shelved investigations of Reagan-Bush crimes, including clandestine military support for Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, drug-trafficking by the Nicaraguan contra rebels, and still-secret dealings with Iran.
Despite the claims by Democrats to be against the Iraq War they have done everything in their power to ensure that it would continue on track. Despite their claims of fighting Bush they have continued with every piece of legislation to fully fund and back the Iraq War. The reason for this is quite simple they are now exactly like their Republican brethren in almost every respect accept style. The Democrats are much more polite about the murders they commit than Bush. They are in league with the military industrial complex. They have aided Bush in his power grabs because they wish to avail themselves of the inordinate powers wielded by Bush indeed they are salivating at the very prospect of it like so many feral dogs closing in for the big kill and all the vast sums of money they intend to rip from the dead and decaying corpse of our defunct democracy. We truly are now living with a one party system which has been decades in the making and now brought to fruition by a lying indescribably evil and foul federal government.
The Second Problem
This brings us to the second problem or other half of the same problem if you will. That problem is us. What have we done? Other than a few whines and whimpers we have done nothing indeed many Americans don’t even understand the full depth of what has occurred. It is not just an illegal war in Iraq which is now being fanned to spread into Iran it is the destruction of everything we hold to be dear. And what is our answer to this destruction of our country? Why vote for the Democrats of course. It is such a logical thing to do. All we need do is bury our heads in the sand pray to the tooth fairy rub a rabbit’s foot read a fantasy novel and everything will go away just like that. Makes sense does it not?
Let me clarify something. For me the real tragedy is the over one million Iraqi deaths even more than the death of our freedom for we have willingly and cowardly tossed that into the garbage can like yesterday’s newspaper but the people of Iraq had done nothing against us. They were not in league with terrorists. They didn’t make 9/11 happen yet very few Americans seem to care about that. After all it is our honor that is at stake and we need to punish someone so it might as well be Iraq. Let’s keep this in perspective. The only reason the majority of Americans are upset about the Iraq War is because it is a failure for if it were not you can bet your bottom dollar they would be reveling in the bloody murder of so many innocent people.
Living in a very conservative section of this great asinine nation I see flags waving everywhere, military worship is the fad of the day, dime store patriots are a dime a dozen as they paste yellow ribbons, flags and bald eagles on their cars. I see their gargoyle faces frozen in grimaces of fear and hate, mouths open with bile and spew pouring out like a river of incoherent monkey screams. What an ugly and repulsive nation we have become. It sickens me to the core. I feel a great sadness for the sane segment of the population, those few who rail against tyranny and injustice. For those Americans who have an awareness of the true nature of reality it is a living hell though nothing compared to what we have put the nation of Iraq through.
At this point we are left with few options in the face of the powerful forces arrayed against all thinking and caring Americans. What can we do? I would suggest that sometimes not doing is an effective tactic. For example stop supporting the Democrats. Vote in the primary, vote for one of the decent candidates like Dennis Kucinich but when he fails to win the nomination and Hillary Clinton or Obama or whichever “serious” candidate wins the nomination don’t vote. That’s right don’t vote. Why should you vote for a false prophet, one that will continue us down the road we have entered upon? If we all desert the Democrat Party as it exists today what a powerful message that would be. If a large enough portion of the Democrat base refused to vote for these war monger lying thieving criminals who have their eyes on the prize you can bet that they would notice that. They would have to change their tune. They would be forced to actually to stand up to the Bush regime and end the wars as well as the destruction of our constitution and all the other criminal pastimes they have been involved in for though our democracy is a joke by becoming a one party system the Democrats still need our votes to stay in power. So at least consider it, I’m not asking you to go out of your way indeed all you have to do is not do.
posted by Unknown at 9:50 PM
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