Peak Oil! Who cares? We’ve got solar, wind, bio fuels, geothermal… Energy is not the issue. Peak Water? The World is 70% water… Water is not the issue. Peak Food? 1% of our population can feed the World... Food is not the issue. What concerns me is that it’s our system of greed, corruption and racial indifference that has caused these problems and many others to exist. It’s not these issues themselves; it’s what caused them that needs to change, now!
Terrorism!? That’s a big one right? NO! The chances of dying from a terrorist attack are about the same as getting struck by lightning. Although, since we’ve been occupying, bombing and terrorizing Islamic countries and their people for oil and other resources, they are beginning to retaliate.
Every Dictator, Despot and Tyrant throughout history has used fear to force through their agenda. Since 9-11 it’s been in the name of ‘security’ that we are losing our rights due to fear. Not just Americans, all of us. Notice the cameras around your cities and towns filming your every move, inside and outside? Every time you go to the airport/border crossing your personal rights are violated, yet someone on a watch list can board a plane with a bomb in his boxer shorts! Time and time again media companies, phone companies, internet providers and social networking sites have been found to be giving your personal information to governments and/or corporations, always justified by security reasons. Yet security always seems to be mysteriously lacking in places you'd most expect to find it…
The US government has been implementing dictators and oppressive regimes to force through their agenda around the world for years, and it continues to do so... The ‘School of the Americas’ in Fort Benning, Georgia (the US State, not the Country) now called the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” has had to publicly release its training manuals. They advocate torture, extortion and execution. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia (check out http://soaw.org/). Honduras is its most recent victim. The June 28, 2009 coup was carried out by Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, the head of the of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Honduran military and by Gen. Luis Prince Suazo, the head of the Air Force, both graduates of the SOA (or WHISC).
The Iraq war has just been re-branded “Operation New Dawn.” Of course it has, you don’t build a US base in Iraq the size of the Vatican City (one of 700 foreign bases world wide) for a billion dollars and then leave! Obama’s already added Pakistan and Yemen to his list of countries to wage pre-emptive war on (Yes, Iran is next… Syria maybe... Don't forget North Korea). The ‘War on Terror’ would more aptly be called the ‘War on Islam'. It is a war of terror and it creates Terrorists. Just imagine for a second that Iran came over to help us out of the “terrible oppression” we’re receiving from our government. To do this they send out troops in the middle of the night to kick down our doors, take us to detention centers without cause, and then torture us, indefinitely, without trial. Then one day we get released without explanation, to find out our fathers, mothers, and siblings all died in detention centers and drone attacks while we were incarcerated. What would you do? Not so fun fact: 30% of US relief donation money goes to the US military.
Half of Obama’s administration (like all administrations) once worked in the private sector, and will return to it when they’re done at the White House… How many laws can they pass before they get back to business making money off those laws? (eg. Dick Cheney and Halliburton). Many in the current US administration should be in jail for tax evasion, fraud, corruption, or human rights abuses. But instead of jail time they’re offered powerful government jobs. That is an issue.
For the last 200 years we’ve been destroying our rain forests; extracting and burning oil and other fossil fuels; mining; poisoning our crops, rivers and lakes with pesticides and other toxic chemicals; filling our landfills and Oceans with plastic; and watching billions of species disappear in an instant, relatively. During that same period our scientists have watched in dismay as the CO2 levels have gone off the charts; higher than they’ve been before, ever! Our glaciers are melting away thousands of years before natural global trends predict… Still, 35% of North Americans don’t believe in human-caused Climate Change! Stop taking Big Oil funded news seriously and think for your selves, have a look at your world! Massive flooding, Ice cap melting, devastating tropical, etc storms are now frequent occurrences, they're only getting worse. If we didn't cause this, what did?
Over the last 40 years, as inflation and has skyrocketed (think houses and food prices) and privatization has increased dramatically, real wages have gone down, way down! Ever notice that it used to be (about 40 years ago) that only one parent worked and that was usually enough for a family of up to 4 or 5? Now typically both parents have full time jobs, yet you’re broke? That is an issue.
I live in Canada, one of the richest countries in the world. We have Oil, Water, fish, trees, Gold, immense farm land, Hydro, Geothermal, etc… And our unemployment rates are going up, our houses are unaffordable, are taxes are too high and our middle class is disappearing and our national deficit is once again rising... Something truly isn’t right here! Why is it that our government is so convinced privatizing our natural resources and letting corporations make all the profits from them is a good idea for our country, or why any country would favor privatization for that matter!? (They often don't, but must because because of imposed by IMF loan obligations) Those should be our profits! Every Canadian could have free Dental, Medical, optical, etc. Canada (and many other countries) could be out of debt, instead of sinking farther into it...
The majority of animal farms are now factory style, complete with all the torture, humiliation, and abuses of Guantanamo Bay prison (and countless secret/covert CIA prisons around the world Obama’s not trying to shut down). It doesn’t have to be like this, it’s just cheaper this way. This is what happens when profits trump everything else. Do we really want our food industry run this way? What about health care, education, environmentally damaging natural resource companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc run by a profit-first ideology?
Private contractors (or mercenaries) who seem to have been given some sort of international immunity, now outnumber foreign troops in Iraq. US private contractor Blackwater, now called Xe (say “Zeee”) still has multi million dollar contracts there. This after their license to operate in Iraq was revoked (for the Nisoor Square incident where they killed 17 innocent people (and not one terrorist)). And, their CEO Erik Prince has been revealed to be a white supremacist, who defends and justifies senseless abuses and killings. Still wondering why the Taliban don’t want us interfering in their country!? (Make no mistake, the Taliban are terrible for woman and peasants in Afghanistan, were just no better...). Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill has spent many years documenting US tax payer-sponsored private contractors at War and the injustices they frequently commit to occupied countries and US citizens alike.
Over many years, before the Earthquake, Haiti became the poorest nation in the western hemisphere due to 'Free Trade' agreements, illegal debt and embargoes... and a couple of US sponsored military coups. If you think we’re there to help this time, you’re more optimistic than me... Check out Avi Lewis’s (Steven Lewis’s Son, Naomi Klein’s husband) most recent documentary “The Politics of Rebuilding Haiti”. He’s recently back from Haiti with a profound view of the next Shock Doctrine.
Since capitalism took route, most countries in the world have gone into debt (long before the financial meltdown). Yet corporations and their CEOs keep posting record profits. Again, those should be our profits. I’m not even sure capitalism is the enemy, just unregulated, ‘Free Market’ capitalism. With social programs and local infrastructure, regulated capitalism may actually work. But someone with no possible benefit to themselves must investigate and police it...
Why is it that we haven’t been told the truth by your “Trusted, fair and balanced” news? The fact is you can’t get the complete news if your news is funded by profit-based corporations. Think FOX, CBS, NBC, CTV, CNN, etc. (no adds, no news). Halliburton obviously has its own agenda... You can’t get your news from the Government, think CBC, BBC, etc. (No Government funding, no news) they obviously have their own agenda. (Don’t get me wrong, I like some of the above stations and newscasts, it’s just that they can’t tell you everything they know about certain subjects, and some or them straight up lie... If they did, they’d be out of business…). Notice that as the CBC criticizes and satire’s Canada’s Conservative government more and more, Steven Harper cuts their funding?
Genuine, REAL news can not be corporation or government funded. It must be donation funded, independent, people-sponsored media. Luckily for us, it exists! Watch ‘Democracy Now’ with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales daily @ http://www.democracynow.org/ Doubt some/most of what I've written? Watch DNow! along with your regular news, then decide.
Here’s what you can do now: You can start buying Fair Trade, organic, free range, non-factory farm food (if you can afford it). Better yet, buy from your local farmer or farmer’s market (before they cease to exist). Plant a garden, compost, recycle, avoid plastics, drive less, walk more, get outside…
Have any money in a bailed out bank? Let them know you won’t support that kind of deceit. Take your money out and put it in a credit union!
Still wealthy enough to have some stocks? Wow, the power you have!!! Now’s the time to have a good look at your portfolio. Have any stocks in Big Oil? (Shell, Esso, Exxon, etc). Sorry to break this to you, but those are your oil sands and repressive regimes. Sell those stocks! Any stocks in Big Sugar? Those are your slave wages in the cane fields of Haiti. Get rid of them! Have any stocks in Monsanto, Halliburton, Pfizer, etc? Sell those stocks! Have any stocks in a company that has lied to you? Steals from the weak? Made you rich while others suffered? Sell those stocks! Take that cash and invest in something good for the Earth and its people! The good you can do!
Do those things – it’s one of the only powers we have as consumers. We let them know we want it; eventually they have to create it… Eventually.
But what we really need is CHANGE!!!! Not a couple ‘constitutional amendments’ to US Government policies, but a total change of system, GLOBAL system change. We need to change from a system that cares about the rich, to a system that cares about all of us. Politics, lobbyists and big money control our world superpowers (and thus the rest of us). 1% of the world controls 99% of the wealth. They have the money, but we’ve got the people. We’re all in this together. Secretary and police man, engineer and soldier, trucker and pilot, teacher and lawyer, doctor and social worker, Foreman and laborer, rich and poor. It’s only those at the very top (and their system) that are the enemy. The rest of us are all on the same side!
It’s time for a revolution, a peaceful protest of mass proportions. I know you’re still relatively comfortable, most of you anyways (I obviously don’t know anyone in Haiti, the Congo, Pakistan, Gaza, Sri Lanka…). But when it gets bad enough for us to care, it’s not going to matter. Look at Burma, Iran, Tibet. By the time people are so fed up with injustice and corruption, it’s always too late. They protest, get arrested and jailed or disappeared... or publicly executed. Let's protest before it gets to that point!
Around the world, in every country, if you’re unhappy with the way your country is headed/run, show up at your government offices, and stay! True, peaceful dissent. I mention peaceful because again, we’re all in this together. It’s not the police, shop owners or passersby who are to blame, don’t hurt the innocent! Those who are to blame will be in secure offices far away from the streets and our protests, but if we’re large enough, for enough time, they’ll have to change. Rioting never helps a situation; it only turns the public against the cause. Bring cameras and mobile phones as protection, not shields and weapons! Lets make this LOCAL, everywhere! New York to London, Delhi to Shanghai, Toronto to Johannesburg, Rio to Reykjavík…
We’ll stay until real, transformational, binding agreements are reached (and enforced) concerning Climate Change (think 350ppm). We’ll stay until the huge injustices going on through ‘Free’ Trade agreements, World Bank / IMF loans and sanctions are resolved. We’ll stay until the salary caps are put back to a rate where the CEO of a company is capped at no more than 20 times the wage of their lowest paid employee. We’ll stay until corporations are not given the same rights as people, We’ll stay until every country in the world provides Universal health care to it's citizens. We’ll stay until vaccines and medications are available to all those who want them, free of charge; We’ll stay until companies can not be considered `too big to fail`. We’ll stay until the people running our financial system aren’t rewarded with bonuses and cash incentives for causing world financial meltdowns. We’ll stay until school is free the world over, and going to university doesn’t put you in debt for life; We’ll stay until mass murderers like Dick Cheney, Bush Sr and W, Donald Rumsfeld, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tony Blair, Benjamin Netanyahu, etc are tried in a just and fair global court of law. We’ll stay until farmers and fisherman are paid a fair price for their goods. We’ll stay until teachers and nurses are paid a fair wage. We’ll stay until Police and Politicians are paid fairly enough that accepting bribes isn’t worth their while… and we’ll stay until fraud and corruption are punished in a manner severe enough to suit the crime (jail). We’ll stay until oil companies and other big businesses aren’t given tax cuts and huge incentives to come and steal our resources, while poisoning the Earth and lying to us about it. We’ll stay until the people have a voice, not a buy able figurehead. This may all sound a little crazy... But it's what needs to get done if those ruling our world are ever going to hear us. It's time.
Sincerely,
Craig Cooper
Golden
British Columbia, Canada
P.S. If you haven’t been able to get a hold of me lately it’s because of the above article. You see, through recently passed laws writing something like this (a truthful and honest portrayal of our current situation) is seen as a threat to the State, and makes me a ‘potential terrorist’, thus suspending my rights until proven innocent. (So much for freedom of speech). I have probably been abducted in a joint CIA – CSIS mission and I was more than likely taken to a secret prison in a country known to employ harsh interrogation techniques. This practice is known as Extraordinary Rendition and it has been used over 3000 times since 2003. Canadian Maher Arar is a good example. Although seized at a US airport and tortured for 10 months in Syria he has since been proven to be innocent and the US House of Representatives has had to apologize to him. I imagine it went something like 'Oops, sorry. Wish we could tell you this won’t happen again…'. Obama promised to end this terrible abuse of human rights during his campaign. But then, he also promised to revoke the Patriot Act and he touted single payer health care too. So far he has done the opposite on all accounts (no, not because of the Senate being clogged up in filibuster (which it is)). He’s escalated Extraordinary Rendition and continues to use the Patriot Act to justify citizen rights abuses. Single payer (“Universal”) health care wasn’t even discussed in his health care reform proposals…
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