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clothes at Baby Gap, Banana Republic or Old Navy (same empire), or go to purchase so-called Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified lumber (also same empire). (The FSC is a total scam just like Gap's sweatshop 'reforms." The Fisher family--the scions of the Gap empire-- have been clear-cutting redwood forests, using toxic pesticides and driving endangered species to extinction, in a huge real estate/development scheme in northern California, and have furthermore used the FSC--a highly secretive, private entity, funded by the World Bank among others--to destroy the public's right to participate in such decisions.)
This terrible fire ain't the first horror of the Gap/Fisher family empire and it won't be the last. Be aware! Spread the word!
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Solutions:
Well, one solution is boycotting, but that's not enough. These mega-corporations have plenty of billions for propaganda and diversification, to ride it out. I think we need to go for pulling the corporate charters of every one of these multinational monsters, dismantling them and seizing their assets for the common good.
But first we have quite a bit of work to do to restore government "of, by and for" the People, and I recommend starting with the private corporate 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines that have been spread like a plague throughout the land. These machines--which contain programming code that neither we nor our secretaries of state are permitted to review, and that tabulate ALL of our votes, in every state, with virtually no audit/recount controls--are now controlled largely (80%) by one, far rightwing-connected corporation--ES&S, which just bought out Diebold.
I believe that this is the final control mechanism of the coup d'etat that we have suffered. It's not the only thing wrong with our political/government system, but it is the one that prevents us from even having a chance at serious reform.
Transparent vote counting is also so fundamental to democracy that, without it, we really don't have a democracy. We MUST remove private corporations from the position that they have taken between us and the PUBLIC counting of our votes. They have no right to be there--just as they have no other rights whatsoever except those that we, as a sovereign people, GIVE them, when we PERMIT them to do business in our country, through charters that WE grant and other business licenses that they must obtain from US.
'TRADE SECRET' voting machines are a bloody outrage! They are the worst corporate interference with our democracy that we have ever seen. They are an invisible hand producing unverified and unverifiable results that we have lost the right to obtain proof of. We don't KNOW what they are doing. We CAN'T know. We have been barred from knowing. But we can be damn sure--as I am damn sure--that the multinational corporations and war profiteers who are running things have USED that invisible power, not once but several times, and in ways that are not always obvious.
This IS the heart of the problem--corporate control of the most fundamental mechanism of democracy.
It is still feasible to get rid of these machines peacefully. There is NO federal law mandating them (yet). (This coup was accomplished by corruption--a $3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle from the Anthrax Congress.) Control of the choice of voting systems still resides at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have potential influence. It won't be easy. It needs to be a widespread citizen campaign in all local venues. But it CAN be done.
We most certainly need a REAL 'Boston Tea Party' in this country--not this pathetic 'Mad Hatter's Tea Party' mockery. We need to throw these goddamn voting machines 'into the harbor' (so to speak). If we don't, we may well see Sarah Palin as presidential idiot #2.
Just remember this: Latin America has far worse corpo-fascist media than we do. Yet they have managed to elect kick-ass leftist governments in Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay (!), Nicaragua and other countries. How? Honest, transparent elections. The People can win, against great obstacles, IF the votes are honestly counted. Grass roots efforts can be fruitful, IF the votes are counted in the PUBLIC VENUE. Latin Americans have done their homework on their election systems. The payoff is REAL representatives of the people. The most fundamental part of honest elections is counting the votes IN THE PUBLIC VENUE. We must restore this. We must!
And the Latin Americans didn't do all this by thinking small. They thought BIG--such as imagining a world in which U.S. multinational corporate monsters and war profiteers can no longer push them around--and ravage their people and their economies and their resources and democracy itself.
Think big! And think strategically! In what mechanism does our power as a People actually reside? Restore that mechanism and reform will start being possible again.
Until we restore proper public control over the mega-corporations that operate from our shores, there is nothing we can do about horrible events like this fire in Bangladesh. We can raise all the protest we want about it, and it will happen again, there and here. I'm not saying don't protest--God knows I've done so, often. I'm saying we need to think about the fundamental problem of our power vs U.S.-based corporations, and start somewhere to fundamentally alter that power situation--and where better than with our most fundamental right--our right to vote--which has been corporatized and removed from our control?
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