Learning to sing the chorus...

We attended the March in Washington on Saturday, January 27th. Thousands of people singing from the same hymnal, singing in harmony, singing as part of the chorus, not as soloists. This is important and this is the lesson we need to learn.

Divided we are conquered.

Each of us may make a great soloist but we make the best and most powerful music as part of the full choir, marching band, or orchestra.

Constitutional government...

The organizer of our first anti-war demonstration made the comment that he still "believed in our constitutional government" and hoped that the rest of those present did also.

I can't agree with that sentiment - our constitution is broken and we need to fix it.

The 800 lb. gorilla in every citizen's living room is that we do not have a democracy, we don't have a representative government, and until we the people acknowledge that and take the necessary steps to fix it - history will repeat itself.

Let's go back to the beginning, words from the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,..."

I no longer give my consent to this government.

We need constitutional change favoring a democracy - a government of the people by the people and for the people.

We need a constitution that:

• Allows majority rule and protects us from a tyrannical majority.
• Allows us to be capitalists and protects us from capitalists.
• Allows us to be socialists and protects us from socialists.
• Allows us to be communists and protects us from communists.
• Allows us to be right-wing republicans and protects us from right-wing republicans.
• Allows us to be left handed and protects us from left handers.
• Allows us to be progressives and protects us from progressives.
• Allows us to be prejudiced and protects us from the prejudiced.
• Allows us to be atheists and protects us from atheists.
• Allows us to be religious and protects us from the religious.
• Provides every citizen equal justice, not the justice one can purchase.
• Provides every citizen equal access, not the access one can purchase.
• Provides every citizen equal protection, not the protection one can purchase.

Silence is betrayal...

My wife and I attended our first anti-war demonstration last Saturday.

It doesn't sound like much but it was a big step for us.

We don't like to make a spectacle of ourselves - and frankly, we don't think that most people like people who make public statements about anything. There's something a little bit embarrassing and confrontational about the whole thing - private thoughts made public.

The words of Martin Luther King, Jr. call out to us... once again in American history - the time has come when "silence is betrayal." We the people find ourselves with a great vacancy of leadership having been sold into corporatist slavery.

"I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. "

"The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on."

Like him, we are "pressed by the demands of inner truth..." Reading or listening to the entire speech demonstrates the resolve we'll need to put an end to this madness. It's not too late to sign up for the march on January 27th.

The Activist bone...

One of my web friends described her spouse as "not having an activist bone in his body." Yet he's now wearing a sweat shirt that reads "Bush Lied, Thousands Died". They are also sponsoring an advertisement in their local paper petitioning the local government to pass a resolution to impeach the Bush.

Sounds to me like some bone has morphed into the "activist bone."

A similar thing is happening to my wife and I.

I believe that the activist bone is actually connected to the backbone and now that we've found it we the people should use it to drive the Grover Norquist gang out of power and into prison. With the corporatist takeover of America complete in only 30 years - Grover and his pals were able to plot the economic takeover of Iraq! Only the Iraqis turned out to be less sheeplike than Americans. See "Nose-Twists Hidden Hand" for a complete explanation.

America has been operating under Grover's "economic plan" for way too long! It's time for we the people to make a "more democracy" plan for America.

Draft me...

I know that this is something that the majority of Americans do not want to hear - Congress should re-instate a draft.

Not a lottery, no deferrments, just a plain old draft. Everyone of a certain age should stand the same chance of being chosen.

It is the fastest way I know to end the war.

Right now the "all volunteer" army is used as an excuse for sending our young people off to fight the corporatist battle. They "volunteered" for it, didn't they? This effectively exempts most of the Baby Boomer descendants from serving. We the people would not stand for sending our own children off to this war in order to preserve the profits of the mega-corporations. The spotlight that a draft would shine on the profiteers would cause a national uproar - something that the corporatists want to avoid like a national single payer insurance program.

In my opinion the "all volunteer" Army has always been dangerous - it was only a matter of time before an idiot became the Commander in Chief and a corporatist Congress would aide and abet his actions. A standing army was dreaded by Thomas Jefferson - he knew that having one tempted you to use it.

A nationwide draft would again cause actions like these - cited by Howard Zinn in "A People's History of the United States." Posters in Mississippi reading:

"No Mississippi Negroes should be fighting in Viet Nam for the White man's freedom, until all the Negro People are free in Mississippi.

Negro boys should not honor the draft here in Mississippi. Mothers should encourage their sons not to go...

No one has the right to ask us to risk our lives and kill other Colored People in Santa Domingo and Viet Nam, so White Americans can get richer."

Zinn goes on to describe that:

"Young men began to refuse to register for the draft, refused to be inducted if called. As early as May 1964 the slogan "We Won't Go" was widely publicized."

Unfortunately, I did not join that group back then. Digging through some old paperwork the other day to find my DD214 so I could become a documented member of Veterans for Peace - I came across "Certificates of Appreciation" signed by Richard Nixon and General Westmoreland - the war was wrong then and it's still wrong today.

My sister who protested back in those days told me that she is against re-instating the draft as it existed back then. Instead she suggested that we the people draft men and women 45 years and older! I like it and that way we leave the young people out of it.

How fast do you think that the chant - "HELL NO! WE WON"T GO!" would reverberate around the Nation?

Free at last...

Last Friday, my wife and I sold our business. We both expressed it this way: "Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, Free At Last!"

Now I know that Martin Luther King meant those words in a different way, but I believe that they apply to all of us trying to free ourselves from corporatist domination. Much in the same way that if you are not poor, black or Muslim, you have no idea how the system is stacked against you, the same holds true for small businesses in America today.

Greg Palast probably describes it best and most succinctly - we are in the midst of a class war - the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer - with no end in sight.

"The World Bank reports that the USA has more millionaires than ever - 7.4 million! And over a decade, the number of billionaires has more than tripled, 341 of them!...

If that doesn't make you feel that you're missing out, this should: You, Mr. Median, are earning, after inflation, a little less than you earned when Lyndon Johnson reigned. Median household income - and most of us are 'median' - is down. Way down...

Mr. Bush and friends are offering us an 'ownership' society. But he didn't mention who already owns it. The richest fifth of America owns 83% of all shares in the stock market. But that's a bit misleading because most of that, 53% of all the stock in the market, is owned by just one percent of American households.

And what does the Wealthy One Percent want? Answer: more wealth. Where will they get it? As with a tube of toothpaste, they're squeezing it from the bottom. Median paychecks have gone down by 4% during the current regime, but Americans in the bottom fifth have seen their incomes sliced by 20%...

When Reagan took power in 1980, the One Percent possessed 33% of America's wealth as measured by capital income. By 2006, the One Percent has swallowed over half of all America's assets, from sea to shining sea. One hundred fifty million Americans altogether own less than 3% of all private assets...

Is America getting poorer? No, just its people...

The gap between what we produce and what we get is widening like an alligator's jaw...

The more you work, the less you get. It used to be that as the economic pie got bigger, everyone's slice got bigger too. No more. The One Percent have swallowed your share before you can get your fork in."

The saddest part of all of this is that the great majority of Americans are delusional enough to think that they are part of the One Percent - they believe the Norquist slogan - "less taxes, less government". What's missing here is the more true and complete statement: Less taxes for the rich, less intrusive government for the rich; more taxes for the poor, more intrusive government for the poor.

What's your experience been?

Fantasy democracy

It's New Year's Day and every football addict should be getting their fill of the game today except that the corporatists have decided that there is more money to be made by prolonging the season. Whatever...

My son plays in several fantasy football leagues and this made me think that until we the people get a real democracy - it might be useful to start a fantasy democracy league.

Since this is probably a marketable idea I'm going to start by making some dictatorial corporate rules that provide me many advantages. The first rule is that I make all the rules. The second rule is that my fantasy team gets control of anything that could be construed as a weapon other than pen knives and nail clippers. Rule number three is if you don't like what's happening refer to rule number one.

Magnanimously, I'm going to pick the W's team first - the great "decider" is the captain and cheerleader, and his roster includes Dick Cheney, Rumsfield, Tom Delay, the Christian Reconstructionists, the Heritage Foundation, Newt the Gingrich, Grover Norquist, his daddy, mommy and brother, FOX News, Tony Snow, and the rest of the multinational corporatists, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and other picks to be purchased later.

I'll take Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Henry David Thureau, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Orwell, Stephen Colbert and others to be named later.

I think that I'll start Ghandi as President and Franklin as VP, and it sure is fun to try to figure out which positions to put the others into. Would you start Orwell or Colbert as press secretary?

W is concerned about how we'll keep score - he wants to count the bodies, McDonald's, Mega Malls, shopping days until Christmas, size of the military, days he spends at the ranch, number of standardized tests we can give the poor, and the like.

Since I make the rules - I rejected all of those.

Which team do you think the majority of Americans would root for and how would they like to keep score?