by Luke Hiken
I am simply appalled at how numbed and dumbed down the American people have become. For the last many years, mercenaries and frustrated Pentagon hawks, furious over their lack of adequate battlefields upon which to ply their trade have found defenseless populations throughout the Middle East that they can experiment on without even a pretense of cause or limits. This transparently fanatical Christian crusade against Muslims everywhere sickens the rest of the world’s nations.
Coupled with the enormous waste of human and economic resources associated with these meaningless campaigns is the greatest shift in wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of the United States. Greedy, hoarding corporate thieves and gangsters have stolen our money, exported our jobs to foreign countries, and virtually bankrupted the nation for their own profits. They have transformed our government into little more than a rubber stamp for corporate domination. There is no political force or voice in the country that can oppose or control these run-away oligarchs.
Around the world poor and working people are responding to despotism by rising up and replacing dictators with populist leaders. The recent uprisings in the Middle East are merely a harbinger of what lies ahead for the Banana Republics established by the U.S., England and other European states over the last century. U.S. “allies” are shaking in their boots over the fragility of their historical domination over subjected peoples.
Yet in this country, “leaders” from Jerry Brown to Barack Obama, call for the poor to “tighten their belts” and do with less. What kind of subjugated, self-loathing fools would tell poor people to give up more during such a period, rather than demand that the rich give the money back. What kind of weak-kneed cowards would allow these senseless wars to continue, instead of ending them? No, instead our “elected” officials call on the poor to give up education, health care, retirement benefits and social security. We are to rally around the xenophobic hatred of all foreigners, and mindlessly support U.S. atrocities, from torture to drone attacks.
This is supposedly a nation of proud, free citizens, not a nation of cowards, lambs and idiots. Allowing corporate vandals to do to us and the world what they are doing without so much as a fight is shameful and disgusting. Clearly, it will be the brave people outside of this country that bring the U.S. oligarchy to its knees. Our countrymen will undoubtedly defend the rich by sacrificing the last starving child to some corporate billionaire.
Fourscore years ago, another American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, spoke the words that should be said during such a period:
“As I see it, the object of Government is the welfare of the people. The liberty of people to carry on their business should not be abridged unless the larger interests of the many are concerned. When the interests of the many are concerned, the interests of the few must yield. It is the purpose of the Government to see not only that the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved. These are the principles which we must remember in any consideration of this question. This, I take it, is sound Government — not politics. Those are the essential basic conditions under which Government can be of service.” (Franklin Roosevelt’s Portland Speech, http://newdeal.feri.org/speeches/1932a.htm 😉
We’ve fallen so far! Luke Hiken is an attorney who has engaged in the practice of criminal, immigration, and appellate law. Progressive Avenues website, www.progressiveavenues.org, is updated regularly.
