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Rulers and your typical white male 'dominationist' PREACHERS who have always been with us, including all the detritus of Europe's religious wars--the Cromwellians, the Puritans, the inquisitionists, the witchburners, who got dumped on these shores, and whose origins are traceable way back to the 5th Century AD (when Christianity took a bad turn toward "baptism by the sword"). The war profiteering corporate news monopolies have provided these male preachers with a BIG TRUMPET to promote their views, way out of proportion to the number of people they represent or control, in service to the global corporate predators whose main enemy is democracy.
Democracy means, for instance, protection of the environment, regulation of corporate misconduct and monopolistic practices, fairness to workers, and fair taxation for the common good. These are things that majorities of people universally desire, and implement in governments that are ruled by the people. Corporations, on the other hand, are kingdoms with dictatorial rule in service to the profit of a few. Their "democratic" trappings (votes of the shareholders, for instance) are a farce, as everybody knows. The top dogs rule. Everybody else is an expendable peon. But not to the government and to the country, in a democracy. In a democracy, everyone is equal, and "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Democracy and Corporate Rule are very much at odds. In fact, the Corporate Rulers are AT WAR with democracy--and most especially with American democracy since we are the richest, strongest nation on earth. We, the people, of the U.S., are at the vortex of this evil--out-of-control corporate power. The country (in our case, the states) charter these corporations theoretically to perform some common good--products, services, construction, extraction and marketing of resources, invention, etc.--but these consortiums of businesspeople have gotten way, way out of control, have acquired the rights of citizens, and permanent life, which means that they can accumulate vast wealth, property and power, which they are using for the narrow purpose of greatly enriching the few at the expense of everything and everyone else. They have also gone global, and move their operations and assets all over the world, roaming the world for the cheapest labor and the most exploitable resources. They may once have provided us with jobs--the least they can do, for use of our resources and commonly funded infrastructure. But they no longer do even that.
The Founders of our Republic NEVER INTENDED for business corporations to have this inordinate power. It was acquired late in the 19th century--the era of the Robber Barons--and not even the Great Depression (--caused by massive capitalist profiteering and mismanagement) resulted in curtailment of corporate power. WW II addicted these Corporate Rulers to enormous government welfare, and they have grown into monstrous entities, many in the war industries, who need periodic wars in order to suck more blood out of the peoples' government.
How could they do that--after, say, the Vietnam experience? Two million people slaughtered in Southeast Asia, and billions and billions of dollars expended--for what? The answer to that is, for war profiteers. And here they are again, in Iraq. For what? Mainly for war profiteers; also for global corporate predator oil giants.
America learned that lesson in Vietnam--not to feed the corporate monster with the blood of the innocent. So how did the Corporate Rulers get around--stifle, marginalize-- that lesson? (They didn't undo the lesson. 56% of the American people opposed the Iraq war from the beginning--Feb. '03, before the invasion--that is, before all the lies were exposed--and they were no doubt THINKING OF Vietnam, of the president acquiring too much power to make war, and what a disaster that can be.)
Part of how they stifled or marginalized the lesson of Vietnam is this unholy--and diabolically brilliant--alliance of the corporate monsters with MINORITY 'christian' sects and their white male preachers. But that isn't the whole story. And this part of it is something that is VERY IMPORTANT for all of us to understand. This is neither the "rise of the christian right" nor the "rise of fascism in the U.S." Do you see any Nazi youth marching around sieg heiling Bush? Do you see any but the "usual suspects"--the stupid, the gullible, the exploited, the easily manipulable--worshiping at the feet of these pasty white, preacherman slugs, fattened on the donations of the ignorant? And what do the polls tell us? A THIRTY PERCENT approval rating for Bush (and even less--18%--for the Bushite Congress), despite relentless 24/7 corporate propaganda, fearmongering and trumpeting of rightwing views, by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies.
The "rise of christian right" is PHONY. It is an ILLUSION spun by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies. This same MINORITY 'christian' right, that has always been with us, has been given a BIG TRUMPET to promulgate their views WAY OUT OF PROPORTION to their actual numbers. And I believe that the "rise of fascism in the U.S." is similarly phony. Americans don't buy it. And they don't buy it in BIG NUMBERS. And they have NEVER bought it.
I am in fact amazed at how little the American people have bought this crap from Bush and the 'christian' right--given the relentless propaganda. However, the ILLUSION of the ascendancy of the 'christian right' is quite dangerous in this respect: it disempowers and demoralizes the majority. It has succeeded in making too many people think that OTHER Americans have gone nuts, and that a majority of OTHER Americans voted for a second Bush term. The Corporate Rulers and the MINORITY 'christian right' have made a third alliance and that is with the BUSHITE CROOKS--Tom Delay and Bob Ney (abetted by corporate 'Democrats' like Christopher Dodd)--who wrote the "Help America Vote Act," a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle, which resulted, in the space of two years--2002-2004--in the complete conversion of the American voting system to electronic voting machines, run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled mostly by two Bushite corporations, and they are...
DIEBOLD: Until recently, headed by Wally O'Dell, a Bush-Cheney campaign chair and major fundraiser (a Bush "Pioneer," right up there with Ken Lay), who promised in writing to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush-Cheney in 2004"; and
ES&S: A spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which touts the death penalty for homosexuals, among other things). Diebold and ES&S have an incestuous relationship; they are run by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich.
These are the people who "counted" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004, under a veil of corporate secrecy.
Also, SEQUOIA: The third major election theft industry player, which hired Republican Bill Jones, former Calif Secretary of State, and his chief aide, Alfie Charles, to peddle their machines--in an outstanding example of one of the highly corrupt practices that HAVA fosters-- "revolving door" employment--in addition to lavish lobbying, corporate secrecy, corporate lawyers writing our election laws, and the heady power of multi-million dollar electronics contracts in government.
Please do notice the rightwing political and RELIGIOUS connections of these corporations that are now "counting" all our votes.
So what we have here is the enforcement of an ILLUSION: the illusion of Bush's power, which is actually illegitimate power--based on completely non-transparent vote counting, with secretly programmed, high speed machines, that are not only controlled by rightwing-headed corporations, but that have proven to be extremely insecure and insider hackable. And other ILLUSIONS: the illusion of the legitimacy of Congress--most of whose members are also (s)elected by Diebold/ES&S)-- which has passed bills, such as the recent torture and suspension of habeas corpus bill, that are anathema to democracy; and the illusion of "the rise of the 'christian' right, which, in fact, is still a small minority and has been a small minority ALL ALONG.
Oil corporations.
War profiteers.
Other global corporate predators.
The war profiteering corporate news monopolies (mega-corporations all with ties to the war industry).
Right-wing run electronic voting corporations.
'Christian' right preacher men, and the more dimwitted members of their followings.
How many actual people do you think the above list represents? Give the 'christian right' say 20% of the population. Add 10%, all the CEOs and other super-rich fascists, and a few of their lesser rich peons. Bush's current, rock-bottom support.
If the Corporate Rulers are manipulating the voting results--which they are now, as of 2004, fully capable of doing undetectably--why aren't they manipulating the public opinion poll numbers? How is it that we know that about 70% of the American people oppose Bush (AND every major Bush policy)?
Because Bush isn't the point. Bush is just a marker, a place-holder, a puppet of the Corporate Rulers. And what this is all about is NOT the Nazification of America. That is a bugaboo. It is NOT the 'christian' right and fascism that are the danger. It is CORPORATIZATION. Our Corporate Rulers don't give a crap about Christian values. They have merely sold a weird off-shoot of Christianity--the ever-with-us Puritan witchburners--as the REASON the vote totals come out so WEIRDLY, seemingly in favor of massive looting of our federal treasury, mass murder in Iraq, torture, the bankruptcy bill, skyrocketing medical costs, gas gouging, multiple tax cuts for the super-rich, impoverishment of the middle class, and all the rest.
It is an ILLUSION.
Now, I am the last person on earth to downplay the menace of repressive, dominationist, rightwing religion. Please know this. It is, and always will be, a danger to democracy, and to the freedom and the progress of the human race. And I don't minimize the horror of brainwashing. Nor am I blind to the ways that Bushite/Reaganite Republicans and their white 'christian' preacherman allies have insinuated themselves into public venues, such as our school system and our election boards, in a quite methodical--not to mention well-funded--manner. It's just that I think their NUMBERS are very exaggerated--by the BIG TRUMPET that the corporate news monopolies have given them, and by the huge funding behind them.
The torture and suspension of habeas corpus bill is not a laughing matter. It is real. And Bush's--or some other tyrant's--ability to enforce it is a real power. I would never minimize the danger, or the horror, of this bill. But I think that maybe even that bill is either, 1) a short of shadowplay--part of a deal to immunize Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for past crimes, in order to convince them to step aside; or, 2) possibly a worse game of investing our FUTURE Corporate Ruler president--likely a Democrat--with sufficient executive power to forestall huge protests, such as the one in Seattle in 1999, against the global corporate predators who are really running things. (--that protest was against unfair, undemocratic globalization, trade deals that permit the proliferation of sweatshops worldwide, the destruction of the environment (and end of the planet?), and other evils; it was 50,000 strong, and it was against CLINTON, not Bush. Clinton!)
Or both may be true--removal of the Bush Junta (and immunization for their worst crimes), AND an enhancement of executive powers for the purposes of continued Corporate Rule.
I do think the snapback to Corporate Rule may be--or, in any case, may SEEM--more benign than Bushite rule. They've hit us with the worst possible president ever, and the worst regime--a fascist junta, really. Now maybe we'll be grateful for MERE Corporate Rule.
You see, I think this 'christian' right thing is very cynical. Its hypocrisy is off the charts. We have never seen anything more hypocritical in the history of humankind. And, once its usefulness to the Corporate Rulers is over, it will go away. Mark my words. The corporate news monopolies--as long as it suits them--will be talking about the "new secularism" or some other nonsense. (Don't believe ANYTHING they say. This Bushite pedophile scandal? All manipulation, in my opinion. When did the corporate news monopolies EVER focus on Bushite wrong-doing in this way? Outing CIA agents. Treason. Massive theft in Iraq. Genocide in Iraq. Torture of innocents. Unbelievable lack of accountability on every front. And they choose an OLD child molestation scandal to throw at the Bushites four weeks before the midterms? I mean, come on.)
And if this is the scenario that is being played out--the return of Corporate Rule, to a grateful nation--what we need to look out for are the mechanisms of power by which the Corporate Rulers are STILL manipulating us. And primary among them is SECRET CORPORATE CONTROL OF THE VOTE COUNT. You wonder what accounts for the Democratic Party leadership's MIND-BOGGLING silence about Bushite corporations 'counting' all our votes with TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code? This is why. It was not so much a Bushite coup as it was a CORPORATE coup.
Why would the Corporate Rulers dump Bush and the Bushites? They've become bad for business. Grave problems of the Chinese and the Saudis owning the paper on our massive debt. Full scale revolt against US Corporate Rule in South America. (The Bushites have "lost" South America, as they say. Much too much democracy happening there.) We're going to have to negotiate for, rather than steal, oil--due to the Bushites' ineptness. (China holding our paper means that we CANNOT invade Iran--which supplies much of China's oil. The Chinese could send the dollar into a nosedive tomorrow.) Etc. Etc. And I think maybe some truly loyal folks in the military/intelligence communities are also involved in ousting Bush & Co. (They likely know where "the bodies are buried"--I mean, besides the 600,000 or so that we know about in Iraq.)
In summary: It's not the 'christians' but rather the CORPORATIONS that the REAL menace to democracy. We need to bust these corporations, and bust them good--something we cannot do until we restore our right to vote.
As to that, ordinary Americans are taking the matter into their own hands, and are voting by ABSENTEE BALLOT in massive numbers this fall. Because they DON'T TRUST the machines. We should get behind this widespread, but diffuse, protest of millions of voters--and provide it with some leadership and focus. The massive Absentee Ballot voting (--up to 50% to 60% of the vote in some places) can give election reformers CLOUT in demanding a return to transparent, verifiable vote counting, in local/state venues--the most hopeful venues for reform. The Diebold II Congress--even if it's full of apparent Democrats--is not going to reform it. Why should they? They owe their power to Diebold/ES&S, and the Corporate Cabal behind them, and not to us.
Pressure on local/state election officials. That's the path back to democracy. Step one, anyway.
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