Posts Tagged ‘american’

Why Aren’t Americans Ending War?

Sunday, January 20th, 2013

Americans spend trillions of dollars on warfare every single year. This is an absurd amount of money to spend on anything, let alone using it to blow up your fellow humans on an industrialized scale. With that kind of cash, you could end extreme poverty the world over, give every person a home and an education, and dramatically lift the tide which raises all ships.

Ask the average person in America, and they would tell you they want the fighting to stop. The barely-adult people sent overseas to kill or be killed would sure as shit rather be home with their families and friends. And the people in Yemen and Pakistan? I imagine they could stand fewer innocents being killed by drone assassination.

The financial costs are an incredible burden, and the emotional scars would take generations to heal even if war ended this very second. The longer these large scale conflicts get prolonged, the worse off our entire world is.

So why aren’t Americans ending war? If the US people, much like the rest of us, just want to live and prosper in peace, why don’t their politicians listen to them and give them what they want?

The sad truth is that they can’t.

The entire American system has, to the detriment of the world, fallen victim to what can only be described as a parasitic entity, a beast that has been around in one form or another for thousands of years.

Whether through anesthetizing concepts like pride and security, the unfettered power of wealth, or, when all else fails, brute force, the war machine of which I speak has been able to keep countless populations within their grasp – and right now their prey is the American public.

In the United States, mainstream newsanchors all dance around the issue ending war, and ‘radical’ concepts like bringing home the troops rarely arise. Politicians are no better, for they too are in the pockets of the military industry, as made evident by a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who intentionally escalates wars around the world.

So even when the vast majority of Americans want peace, a political system which is mostly theatre combined with a deliberate lack of guidance from the media makes it hard for the anti-war movement to gain the momentum needed to make a significant impact.

But peace-loving Americans won’t stay down for much longer. They simply cannot. Fueled by a crumbling economy, driven by global awareness, and united by social media, a multi-million person strong movement will prove more powerful than the entire military industrial complex. Or so we shall hope.

The world is changing faster than even those who sit atop can control. Unprecedented technology is causing new concepts like transparency and global solidarity to crash down on our world. As the old guard falls away, a newfound democracy is sure to bring to fruition the civilization our species has been cultivating for eons.

American Drone Strikes Found to be Illegal and Ineffectual

Tuesday, September 25th, 2012

A recent Stanford/NYU Law study analyses the United State’s growing reliance on unmanned aircraft as remote executioners, and they’ve found out what many of us already know: the use of drone strikes needs to be halted immediately.

Interviewing 130 people in Pakistan about their personal experiences with U.S.-led drone attacks – 69 of which had either survived or lost family to a strike attack – the report builds on findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which counted ‘474 to 884 civilian deaths since 2004, including 176 children’ while ‘only about 2% of drone casualties are top militant leaders.

The report also shows that American UAV attacks violate international law, making them illegal war crimes. Obama is now complicit in human rights violations and should stand trial alongside the Bush Administration.

Furthermore, the team found drone strikes to be ineffectual  and counter-productive, stating: ‘Evidence suggests that US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the U.S. an enemy.’

So that settles it, right? No more need to prolong the injustice. Tell everyone you know about how wrong drone strikes are, and together we can finally put an end to long distance murder.

Barriers to Peace

Monday, March 19th, 2012

(Warning! Graphic video.)

“Doc, save his life.” chuckled an American soldier, standing over the dead and dying bodies of (reportedly) Iraqi militants, “Got a band-aid?” Disgusting. Not a single trace of honor in their behavior, which, incidentally, is a clear violation of the Geneva convention.

Equally repugnant are the related comments posted on the video’s right-wing site Liveleak: “awesome…die terrorist” “i would rather see a bus full… still nice do.” “Go to your Allah, rat bastards.” Senseless, hate-filled vitriol. (more…)

Another Piece in America’s Proto-Fascist State

Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

Without so much as a gasp from the mainstream media, a terrifying bill has crept into the lives of regular American people. Now, thanks to a shocking 93-7 vote in the US Senate, the US Armed Forces can legally detain, torture and assassinate US citizens on their own soil.

What the explicit?!!

The bulk of Bill S.1867: the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is to authorize a whopping $662 Billion for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – which should be enough for millions of Americans to cry out in horror. But it is a subtle rider in the bill – under the counter-terrorism section – which provides the US Government with what amounts to every aspiring tyrant’s wet dream.

So much of the US political field already caters to big business and wealthy special interests, and this is only worsening. The end result is that Americans are less and less likely to have elected officials who represent the average person’s interests.

Combine a degrading democratic system with Orwellian legislation like the NDAA, and your ripe for a fascist take over. Corrupt governments can just label any opposition – any dissent at all – as terrorism or anti-government, and then armed forces will swoop in and shut them up forever.

Why even draft this new law? If the situation was dire enough, the military would just use lethal force anyway, a la Jack Bower. Why give the war industry written permission that specifically allows it to kill Americans? It’s not like domestic terrorism has been on the rise on US soil.

More likely what we see here is the elite positioning themselves for war. They’ve smelled the winds of change, blowing from Wall Street through Oakland on to the world, and it has them quaking in their gilded Guccis.

‘Baton down the hatches. Give the police and armed forces all the tools they need to crush the rebels. We’ll try to weather the storm in our off-shore bunkers.’

Sorry, old-boys. In the world we are in the process of creating, there will be nowhere left for you and your atrocities to hide.

The Whole World is Watching NY Arrests

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

The NYPD, brutality notwithstanding, might at least be credited for doing the opposite of quieting dissent, as their ham-handed arrest of hundreds of peaceful protesters was caught on video for the whole world to see.

Americans can only take so much abuse. These goings on in New York and Wall St. may very well break the dam holding back the outpouring of American dissent. And that would be awesome!

Wall St. Occupied, Now Boston’s Bank of America

Saturday, October 1st, 2011

Despite pepper spray, police brutality and a hush mainstream media, the activists occupying Wall St. are holding stronger than ever. Check out the live stream – you just might see an abuse of power as it happens!

No doubt inspired by their New Yorker brothers and sisters, and sharing the same growing disdain for corporatism and corruption in government, thousands of Bostonians marched through the streets, taking the Bank of America.

Awesome! Hopefully the American Autumn continues to spread, sooner than later. This is it, people! If you were waiting for the time to get off your butt and do something, it is now!

Exercise your voice, any way that you can.  Organize or join a protest. March through the streets in numbers, chanting about issues that are important to you. The act alone is such an exhilarating, empowering feeling, that you won’t want to stop, and the overall effects will contribute to a more just civilization.

Help make change happen!

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Update – 700 activists were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. If the cops are so eager to arrest someone, why not lock up some bankers or politicians.

Obama’s Broken Promises

Monday, June 27th, 2011

It’s got to be tough being President. Especially when your agenda of perpetuating the status quo strays so far from the platform of change that got you elected.

But it’s not Obama’s fault. He’s just one guy, and no matter how liberal he might be at heart, the game is rigged against him. The Left is consistently losing ground to the Right, because the Right tends to have the money needed to buy political clout.

The result is kind of like this cartoon:

The political system in the US, and to a greater extent the entire world, is structured to give people the illusion of choice, when the most important decisions are made in without consulting, or often in opposition to, the voice of the people.

So what hope is there? Well, if all the leading political parties are corrupted, then the solution lies outside the mainstream democratic channels. And what does this mean, exactly?

It means that the change we need will have to come from us, from the regular people. We can’t wait for elected officials to save us, because they’re already lost. It is up to you and me and everyone who wants a brighter future to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

And right now, it seems the establishment could use a good shaking up. It is time for elected officials to be held accountable, and for governments to maintain a healthy dose of fear-based respect for the general population.

George Carlin – They Own You

Monday, May 18th, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

“They say we need more money for education. That’s the big answer to everything, education. They say we need more money for books, more teachers, more classrooms, more schools, and more testing for the kids, and they’ll say, well we tried all of that, and the kids still can’t pass the tests. Don’t worry about that, because we’re going to lower the passing grades, and that’s what they do in a lot of these schools. They lower the passing grades so more kids can pass – more kids pass, the school looks goods, and the IQ of the country slips another 2 or 3 points. And pretty soon all you’ll need to get into college is a pencil. Got a pencil? Then get in there, it’s physics!

Then people wonder why 17 other countries graduate more scientist than we do. Education – politicians use that word, they use it on you. Politicians have traditionally hidden behind 3 things: the flag, the bible, and children – no child left behind, no child left behind. Oh, really it wasn’t too long ago you were talking about giving children a head start. Head start – left behind, someone’s losing ground here, but there’s a reason. There’s a reason for this. There’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason it’ll never ever be fixed – it’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you got, because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now. The wealthy big business interests that controls things, and makes all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians, they’re irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice – you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and payed for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media, so they control just about all the information you get. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying, to get what they want.

Well we know what they want. They want more for themselves, and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want – they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that – that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people that are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table, and think about how badly they’re getting screwed by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? Obedient workers – Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines, and do that paper work. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and vanishing pension that disappear the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your social security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it – they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this place. It’s a big club, and you aint in it. You, and I are not in The Big Club.

By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think, and what to buy.

The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard working people: white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard working people continue (these are people of modest being) – continue to elect these rich douchebags who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you – they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all – at all – at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.

That’s what the owners counted on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it.” – George Carlin