Wednesday, October 12, 2011

"We the people" --a worldwide movement


  A global grassroots popular uprising is sweeping the planet like a tsunami wave!
The common theme  of this movement is a demand for fairness and justice
by those who feel abused and exploited by those who wield the reigns of power.
 Since intolerable conditions led one Tunisian man to light himself on fire, revolutions have unseated authoritarian leaders/regimes in Tunisia,Egypt and Libya where people sacrificed their lives to gain freedom from oppression
People everywhere are increasingly intolerant of the abuses of governments and the opportunistic, manipulative, and devious ways of politicians.
Inspired and emboldened by the so-called Arab Spring movement they have taken to the streets to speak out against corruption and deception in government.
This movement has gathered momentum and spread around the world like a tsunami,
as disenfranchised and oppressed people everywhere demand the end of corruption in governments ,and seek to take back their power.
The common people empowered by the Arab Spring have awakened to the realization that they do have the power to make a difference ,to change the political system and the world.
(See Jack Layton's "Letter to Canadians" )
The discontented and the dispossesed are taking to the streets to express their anger with governments who are not protecting and serving their needs and their interests.
Instead of fulfilling their role of serving the public good, governments have been hijacked,
their role has been compromised and corrupted so they serve only a small elite group of society.
Governments and political leaders have forgotten that their power is entrusted to them by the people.
Those in public office who betray and breach this trust have been corrupted ,and deserve to be impeached and removed from office.
In America the "government of the people" has been hijacked by corporations ,and the government now serves the interests of Big Business (who engage in the pursuit of profit without accountability) at the expense of the people.
 see "the betrayal of democracy"
The "banksters " who plundered the economy and precipitated the global economic collapse received bailouts at taxpayer's expense ,and persist in their irresponsible pursuit of profit without any accountability --screaming "socialism" at any attempt to regulate their behaviour or restrain their greed.
(If adequate regulations had been in place and enforced, the global economic collapse would not have ocurred)
see " Predatory capitalism and unrestrained greed: the pursuit of profit at all cost"

 The wealthy and the political elite seek to maintain the status quo and preserve their privileges and entitlements at the expense of  the 99% (the working class) who struggle to make an honest living and endure the hardships of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and joblessness; and in extreme cases are deprived  of the very means to live!
The insurgents express valid grievances that must be addressed and corrected!
Why are the working class people forced to pay the burden of the economic downturn?!
Why are they unfairly excluded from benefiting from the economy?
  The working class people have been made to suffer because of the irresponsible behaviour of the financial institutions ...and  the executives of those corporations continue to receive outrageous salaries and obscene bonuses .
There must be a deterrent to such behavior ,so it cannot happen with impunity.
There must be regulations imposed upon behavior motivated by "the pursuit of profit at all costs"
There must be a more equitable distribution of wealth achieved through reforms in taxation (by raising corporate taxes and taxing the wealthy).
But more than laws ,there must be a new adherence to moral principles so that exploitive capitalism will not be tolerated. Exploitation may not be illegal, but it's wrong!!
Profiteering at the expense of other people's misery is immoral.

 An uplifting of human consciousness sweeps the planet --triggering a global call for greater equality,an end to war and the desecration/defilement  of the biosphere, and a better quality of life for all!
The people seek to reclaim their power, to regain a controlling interest and stake in the role of their government,
in their natural resources,and in the wealth created by the economy --wch in fairness should be for the benefit of all--not just a few!
 Ultimately power rests with the the people!
Those who gain power by force or deception,
and exercise it against the will of the people
will be held accountable!
All those elected to public office are entrusted with power by the people.
Those who betray this trust ,abuse this power and use it for self-aggrandizement will answer to the people
with their lives!

see "the government has no clothes!!

"From Dictatorship to Democracy"
--Gene Sharp

"How to start a Revolution"
-Ruaridch Arrow

45 comments:

  1. Crime investigators have a saying: "follow the money"!
    Following the flow of money invariably leads them to the perpetrators of crimes motivated by greed!
    Economists who believe in the "trickle down effect" are clearly in error!
    Instead the flow is from the bottom to the greedsters on top!

    ReplyDelete
  2. A deeper analysis of the causes of the disparity between the rich and the poor is merited.
    What are the barriers to the working class's economic aspirations?
    To wehat degree are these barriers individual, such as a lack of effort,ambition,intelligence, values, etc.
    And to what degree are they due to insurmountable external (institutional/societal) constraints?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Robbing the poor to feed the rich:

      America is a cuntry where yhe middle class pays more
      so the millionaires can pay less!

      Economists even have a cute phraze for it.
      It's called "the trickle up effect"!

      Delete
    2. Raising money for their campaigns is the all-consuming preoccupation of politicians.

      Hence they are averse to alienating the rich
      or passing laws which obstruct the interests of the rich.

      Therefore the entire political system is slanted in favour of the wealthy elite!

      Delete
  3. What happenened to the egalitarian values America was founded upon.
    Why has "equality of opportunity"
    become a myth?
    Why are some more "equal" than others?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Few people fully appreciate the momentous nature of this movement in mankind's history.
    This global movement spearheads a transformation in human consciousness ...wch will become manifested in widespread political,economic, and social changes!

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-most-important-thing-world-now

    ReplyDelete
  6. http://front.moveon.org/the-most-powerful-occupywallstreet-clip-you-will-see-this-month/#.TpeWpA7P_bK.facebook

    ReplyDelete
  7. The idea that you can effect significant social change by reason and moralistic argument alone is a delusion.
    Power concedes nothing voluntarily and peacefully.
    Social change occurs by force or the threat of force/violence.
    This is why pacifists undermine the movement and are co-opted by state and corporate interests.
    Non-violence is an ineffective strategy for effecting change and is usually espoused by middle class moderates who already occupy a position of privilege(privilege allows one to be a peaceful person) in society and cannot identify with the grievances of the lower classes.
    The state always uses force to suppress uprisings by labeling the insurgents actions as criminal and a threat to the social order or national security.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thankyou for your comment,James.

    It is true that social tension triggers strong emotions and often violent actions on the part of both activists and the state(in Syria the people stake their lives by opposing the state)
    In the privileged West ,grievances are not so strong, and elections can be used to change a government.
    We have the privilege of having a say in who leads us. We can elect to public office the candidates that represent our values.
    "Passive disobedience" was an effective strategy for Gandhi(the father of non-violent struggle) in India,.
    http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0909663.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The greatest liberation movements of our time
      have been non-violent struggles for justice:

      Nelson Mandela defeated apartheid in South Africa
      Martin Luther King Jr. defeated segregation in America
      Mahatma Gandhi freed India from the oppressive rule of the British Empire

      Use your voice and your life to fight injustice !

      Delete
    2. non-violence: "love thy enemy" as thyself

      When we experience the interconnectedness of all things ,we realize violence makes no sense...
      for it would be like being violent against oneself!

      Jesus knew what he was talking about : we are not separate from others.We are all connected.

      The saints having directly experienced the unity and interrelatedness of all ...
      have told us to love our neighbor (and even those who harm us) as ourselves.
      They knew that to harm another is to harm oneself.

      Those who realize the interrelatedness of all,will not injure others--not even in retaliation for injury they themselves have already received.

      Delete
  9. We "the people" are too big to fail!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Trouble with Billionaires: Why Too Much Money at the Top Is Bad for Everyone
    --by Linda McQuaig

    ReplyDelete
  11. If you can't beat them,join them!
    If the gov't is only receptive to lobbyists ,then let's lobby the gov't and force changes in gov't. policy through the lobbying process.
    After all "we the people" are the most powerful lobby and the biggest corporation on the planet!
    Let us fight for our survival and the welfare of our planet!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. People power trumps all lobby groups...if we will be united in our demands for change!

      Delete
  12. Capitalism incentivizes greed,predation,and other immoral behavior (by placing the highest human value on the acquisition of wealth)...and therefore unrestrained capitalism is inhererntly immoral

    ReplyDelete
  13. "George Orwell wrote that all tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but that once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force. We have now entered the era of naked force. The vast million-person bureaucracy of the internal security and surveillance state will not be used to stop terrorism but to try and stop us."

    This is a quote from:
    http://www.truth-out.org/what-revolution-looks/1321384587

    ReplyDelete
  14. regulations already exist but politicians are reluctant to enforce them.
    They have no appetite to investigate and prosecute the "banksters"(the fraudulent bankers),becuz the finance industry is a principle source of their campaign funding!

    see, "The Best way to rob a Bank is to Own One"
    by William K. Black

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Raising money for their campaigns is the all-consuming preoccupation of politicians.

      Hence they are averse to alienating the rich
      or passing laws which obstruct the interests of the rich.

      Therefore the entire political system is slanted in favour of the wealthy elite!

      Delete
  15. Putting "Wall Street" in charge of US economic policy was like leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse!
    The gov't. was too preocupied with making war on terrorism to notice that homegrown terrorists were sabotaging and looting the nation's economy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Our national debt is our greatest national security threat" --Joint Chief of Staff (Mullin)

      Delete
  16. "Working Class Hero"
    Writer: LENNON, JOHN

    As soon as you're born they make you feel small
    By giving you no time instead of it all
    Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
    A working class hero is something to be

    They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
    They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
    Till you're so ****ing crazy you can't follow their rules
    A working class hero is something to be

    When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
    Then they expect you to pick a career
    When you can't really function you're so full of fear
    A working class hero is something to be

    Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
    And you think you're so clever and classless and free
    But you're still ****ing peasants as far as I can see
    A working class hero is something to be

    There's room at the top they're telling you still
    But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
    If you want to be like the folks on the hill

    A working class hero is something to be
    If you want to be a hero well just follow me

    ReplyDelete
  17. "follow the bullion"

    have you considered that those who have amassed vast amounts of bullion would benefit immensely by a global economic collapse,.. and it would therefor be in their interest to do everything in their power to precipitate such
    an event?!

    ReplyDelete
  18. ‘Occupying Fox News’:
    See the Occupy Wall St. Ad that Aired During ‘The O’Reilly Factor’

    http://harlemworldblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/occupy-wall-street-commercial/

    http://mashable.com/2011/11/05/occupy-wall-street-commercial/

    ReplyDelete
  19. Fort Knox is empty!
    The Yellow Brick Road has been looted!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Betrayal of the social contract:

    The smooth functioning of all our institutions is based upon the existence of "trust".
    If this trust is betrayed and demonstrated to be misplaced ,the institutions become dysfunctional and the social order disintegrates
    into chaos and anarchy.
    Without "trust" the fragile veneer of civil order collapses like a destabilized house of cards.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Reforming the Financial System:
    http://thedailyoccupation.org/tag/alternative-banking-group/

    ReplyDelete
  22. The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship material success as a preparation for his future career.
    -- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

    ReplyDelete
  23. The betrayal of democracy:

    The voice of Big Business and the wealthy has grown louder and louder ...and has drowned out the voice of the middle class.

    Watch Bill Moyers' interview (BillMoyers.com)of Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, authors of:

    Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

    ReplyDelete
  24. Whodunit:

    Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner’s
    Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon.

    http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2011/10/24/morgenson-and-rosner-s-reckless-endanger

    ReplyDelete
  25. Bill Moyers and former White House budget director David Stockman on how politics and high finance have turned our economy into a members-only private club.

    http://billmoyers.com/episode/crony-capitalism/

    ReplyDelete
  26. Reforming the Financial System requires a constitutional amendment of how elections are financed.
    Corporate funding of candidates must be prohibited to prevent the wealthy elite from unduely influencing the making of government policy in their own favor.

    http://thedailyoccupation.org/tag/alternative-banking-group/

    ReplyDelete
  27. In a capitalist society
    "the Golden Rule" means that those who have the gold make the rules!

    ReplyDelete
  28. excerpted from Feb 29,2012 issue of freshsheet.ca :

    Capitalism has three tragic flaws: it devours nature, widens inequality, and fails to make us happier in the end. It behaves this way because it's programmed to do so. Neither enlightened managers nor zealous regulators can make it behave otherwise.
    To fix capitalism we need to add a commons sector to balance the corporate sector. It would supply proxies for unrepresented stakeholders: future generations, pollutees, and nonhuman species. And it would offset the corporate sector's negative externalities with positive externalities of comparable magnitude.
    If the corporate sector devours nature, the commons sector would protect it. If the corporate sector widens inequality, the commons sector would reduce it. If the corporate sector turns us into self-obsessed consumers, the commons sector would reconnect us to nature, community, and culture.
    All this would happen automatically once the commons sector is set up. The result would be a balanced economy that gives us the best of both sectors and the worst of neither.
    The commons sector needn't be built from scratch; it has an enormous potential asset base just waiting to be claimed. That asset base is the commons itself, the gifts of nature and society we inherit and create together. These gifts are worth more than all private assets combined. The commons sector can organize and protect these gifts, and by so doing, to save capitalism from itself.
    Common wealth is like the dark matter of the economic universe it's everywhere, but we don't see it. We ignore common wealth because it lacks price tags and property rights. It's time to notice our shared gifts, to name them, protect them, and organize them through common property rights.

    ReplyDelete
  29. "I saw,and,look! a great crowd,which no man was able to number,out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues...came out of tbe great tribulation."
    --Revelation 7:9,14

    ReplyDelete
  30. A good citizen driven to despair will not remain apathetic and passive.
    Non-violent civil disobedience means accepting arrest.
    We have a moral obligation to resist and condemn the forces of death, and to protect and nurture the forces of life.
    If we fail to honour the sanctity of life, we ensure our own
    destruction!

    "Days of Destruction;Days of Revolt"
    --Chris Hedges

    ReplyDelete
  31. This is our planet!
    We are 7 billion strong!
    Together we have the power to create a better,
    more caring world!
    We are the people!!!

    March 23, 2012 5:31:00 PM PDT

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”
      President Obama, January 21, 2013

      Delete
  32. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  33. The environment is a public resource!
    It is our common wealth!
    It belongs to all the people and all the other creatures of the planet.
    It is the responsibility of government to protect the environment and make sure it is not compromised
    . ...and especially not sold out to private corporations!
    Failure to do so is a betrayal of the people!

    ReplyDelete
  34. Not only are fossil fuel companies making record profits,
    they are being subsidized by Canadian taxpayers
    to the tune of 1.4 billion a year!
    Instead of giving them money we should compel them to
    pay higher royalties on this public resource, and force them to put some of their immense profits towards reducing the
    massive greenhouse gas emmisions they cause.

    ReplyDelete
  35. ‘Death of evidence, long life to corporate profiteers’

    By Kelowna Capital NewsPublished: October 18, 2012 03:00 PMUpdated: October 18, 2012 03:583 PM

    To the editor:According to MP Ron Cannan, “a recent assessment” by an 18-member national and international expert panel shows that “Canada is a leader in science and technology innovation” (MP’s Report: Canada is a Leader in Science and Technology Innovation, Oct. 9 Capital News).“Canadian science and technology is healthy and growing in both output and impact,” he tells us. “Over the past five years, real improvements have occurred in the magnitude and quality of Canadian science and technology.”But when you dig up the report, The State of Science and Technology in Canada, 2012, you find out that half the 679 Canadian researchers surveyed considered Canada to have lost ground across the five years that were studied.You find out that two key areas of endeavour, natural resources science and environmental science, experienced decline rather than improvement.Most importantly, you find out that the period of time encompassed by the study was 2005 to 2010—long before the Conservative government took an axe to scientific funding, laying off thousands of scientists, slashing entire programs, and decimating research into environmental protection and stewardship in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and earth and environmental sciences.We’ve heard it all before. This is a government that withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty with legally binding CO2 emission reductions targets. It’s a government that admitted cutting funding for the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy simply because it didn’t like the advice it was getting on climate change and the need for a carbon tax.This is a government whose replacement for the repealed Canadian Environmental Assessment Act guaranteed cancellation of 3,000 planned environmental assessments—678 involving fossil fuel energy and 248 involving a pipeline.This is a government that eliminated funding to the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab, just when we most need data on the polar atmosphere and climate. It reduced funding for response to oil spills, just when we might most need that capability.This is a government that changed the Fisheries Act to eliminate the protection of fish habitats—a pesky obstacle to approval of the Northern Gateway Pipeline. It’s a government that threatens to find similar “efficiencies” in the Species at Risk Act, again to facilitate pipeline approval.This is a government that eliminated funding for the internationally renowned Experimental Lakes Area and put its research facility up for a sale for a dollar, having built three new labs at the cost of $850,000 just three years ago.It’s not that the government is completely anti-science. It has earmarked $1.1 billion for “innovation funding” in 2012—money for pro-industry R&D and venture capital initiatives. What it no longer has one slim dime for is the basic scientific inquiry and monitoring that we need in order to have a sound understanding of our natural environment and our interactions with it, leading to sound policymaking and environmental protection.
    It’s the wrong era for sound policymaking and environmental protection. This is the era of the death of evidence and long life to the corporate profiteers.
    It’s also the era of shameless spin-doctoring.
    Keep it up, Mr. Cannan, and I’ll keep on deconstructing it.Dianne Varga
    ,Kelowna Find this article at: http://www.kelownacapnews.com/opinion/letters/174854891.html 

    ReplyDelete
  36. see "Bailout" An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street

    By Neil Barofsky
    270 pages. Free Press.

    ReplyDelete