We are headed toward a catastrophic election in 2020 that must be addressed if humankind is to have a chance at survival.
Every presidential election of my lifetime (FDR was president when I was born) has featured front running Democrats and Republicans, two political parties which serve plutocracy while wrapped in the pretense of a republic.
But in a republic, there are representatives of the majority of the people in government, a thing we have never had in the United States of America from its inception. The Founding Fathers were the wealthy owning class, having invented a governing system cloaked in the pretense of democracy.
The first president was the wealthiest person in the 13 colonies that formed the USA, George Washington. The first chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay (sworn in two days after Washington nominated him), said the people who own the country ought to govern it, and the owners have always done that.
Usually, sycophants of the plutocrats are put into the chief governmental positions, people who show over their lifetimes that they obey well, but our current president is one of the plutocrats who inherited wealth. Our laws are made for them, so that their ability to suck up every loose dollar is greatly enhanced at the expense of the masses.
One of the methods of enriching the wealthy of the USA is to engage in wars. We have many wars today, some using mercenaries, some waged secretly. When soldiers died in Niger in 2017, most of us didn’t know we were at war there, or with whom.
With 800 military bases abroad, a thing no other empire has ever financed, and more wars than any of us knows about, the plutocrats are quickly increasing their wealth at the expense of us little people who pay the taxes (billionaire Leona Helmsley famously said that “only the little people pay taxes”).
It would appear at this time that the candidates are already being named. President Trump has started building a campaign war chest. Hillary Clinton supporters are leaking in the corporate media that she will be running again. It would seem we are faced with one more battle to see which of the two corporate friendly political parties can best sell out the American people for the billions of campaign dollars.
Trump and Clinton both support the plutocracy or they wouldn’t have been allowed to run as major party candidates. Clinton differs in that she understands the diplomatic nuances which are necessary for the maintenance of global alliances. Trump is seen by allies as a bull in a china shop.
Both have shown a willingness to butcher as many human beings as necessary to maintain the kind of global system that enables the plutocrats to rule the world to the extent possible (Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea do not avidly participate in this, hence: outlaw status).
Trump has ruffled feathers in the halls of state, but as long as the plutocrats get massive tax breaks for themselves and their corporations, the plutocrats will support him with the financing necessary to run for reelection replete with the requisite TV campaign spots, both paid and gratis.
Clinton has the ear of those who prefer the old diplomacy, and has her own list of plutocrat sponsors. She will say a few nice things in an attempt to fool the liberals, and many of them will line up to vote for her, unaware that she will betray them for her sponsors.
Meanwhile, the Green Party will stand for opposite positions: peace, a clean environment, a living wage, universal health care–the things any decent human being would want, including an economy that would work with less suffering—the world’s largest prison system wouldn’t be necessary, nor the massive homelessness and hunger.
And, unlike the two war parties, the Greens would show how to pay for a better world, one in which everything doesn’t go to the plutocrats. We end the empire, shut down all the wars, close all of the 800 foreign military bases and make a dramatic cut to spending disguised under the false justifying word, “defense.”
Every four years of my life the liberals have told me we must vote for a Democrat, as though there is a difference, and there never is. The wars continue. Wages continue to drop (since 1973). People die because they don’t have health care (Nancy Pelosi and the Dem. leadership are proposing to make single payer health care all but impossible to achieve). We move toward catastrophic climate change.
Liberals like to say “What good would a Green president do, where would such a person get votes in Congress?”
What they fail to see is that the president has the bully pulpit. Imagine a president calling for universal health care, real health care, not health care that benefits insurance CEOs and the plutocrat investors. This is popular with the people.
Imagine a president calling for shutting down the empire and wars, also quite popular with the masses.
The problem as I see it, is that the Greens have their convention too late every four years. By the time they meet to name a candidate, most voters already have their minds made up. Then, with a short time until the election, they have no time to get out their message. Many American voters don’t even know what they stand for.
The Greens need to have their convention now. Choose a candidate. Then we have time, two years, to reach the people with a candidate who actually represents them–over social media groups, the only media open to us.
We need to unite various socialist groups, and labor groups, with the Green Party, and push for an early convention, our only hope, because it takes time to reach the people when you aren’t allowed into the corrupt mainstream press. Big changes take big dreams.
Jack Balkwill has been published from the little read Rectangle, magazine of the English Honor Society, to the (then) millions of readers USA Today and many progressive publications/web sites such as Z Magazine, In These Times, Counterpunch, This Can’t Be Happening, Intrepid Report, and Dissident Voice. He is author of “An Attack on the National Security State,” about peace activists in prison.
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How united progressives can topple the empire and empower the people
Posted on November 23, 2018 by Jack Balkwill
We are headed toward a catastrophic election in 2020 that must be addressed if humankind is to have a chance at survival.
Every presidential election of my lifetime (FDR was president when I was born) has featured front running Democrats and Republicans, two political parties which serve plutocracy while wrapped in the pretense of a republic.
But in a republic, there are representatives of the majority of the people in government, a thing we have never had in the United States of America from its inception. The Founding Fathers were the wealthy owning class, having invented a governing system cloaked in the pretense of democracy.
The first president was the wealthiest person in the 13 colonies that formed the USA, George Washington. The first chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay (sworn in two days after Washington nominated him), said the people who own the country ought to govern it, and the owners have always done that.
Usually, sycophants of the plutocrats are put into the chief governmental positions, people who show over their lifetimes that they obey well, but our current president is one of the plutocrats who inherited wealth. Our laws are made for them, so that their ability to suck up every loose dollar is greatly enhanced at the expense of the masses.
One of the methods of enriching the wealthy of the USA is to engage in wars. We have many wars today, some using mercenaries, some waged secretly. When soldiers died in Niger in 2017, most of us didn’t know we were at war there, or with whom.
With 800 military bases abroad, a thing no other empire has ever financed, and more wars than any of us knows about, the plutocrats are quickly increasing their wealth at the expense of us little people who pay the taxes (billionaire Leona Helmsley famously said that “only the little people pay taxes”).
It would appear at this time that the candidates are already being named. President Trump has started building a campaign war chest. Hillary Clinton supporters are leaking in the corporate media that she will be running again. It would seem we are faced with one more battle to see which of the two corporate friendly political parties can best sell out the American people for the billions of campaign dollars.
Trump and Clinton both support the plutocracy or they wouldn’t have been allowed to run as major party candidates. Clinton differs in that she understands the diplomatic nuances which are necessary for the maintenance of global alliances. Trump is seen by allies as a bull in a china shop.
Both have shown a willingness to butcher as many human beings as necessary to maintain the kind of global system that enables the plutocrats to rule the world to the extent possible (Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea do not avidly participate in this, hence: outlaw status).
Trump has ruffled feathers in the halls of state, but as long as the plutocrats get massive tax breaks for themselves and their corporations, the plutocrats will support him with the financing necessary to run for reelection replete with the requisite TV campaign spots, both paid and gratis.
Clinton has the ear of those who prefer the old diplomacy, and has her own list of plutocrat sponsors. She will say a few nice things in an attempt to fool the liberals, and many of them will line up to vote for her, unaware that she will betray them for her sponsors.
Meanwhile, the Green Party will stand for opposite positions: peace, a clean environment, a living wage, universal health care–the things any decent human being would want, including an economy that would work with less suffering—the world’s largest prison system wouldn’t be necessary, nor the massive homelessness and hunger.
And, unlike the two war parties, the Greens would show how to pay for a better world, one in which everything doesn’t go to the plutocrats. We end the empire, shut down all the wars, close all of the 800 foreign military bases and make a dramatic cut to spending disguised under the false justifying word, “defense.”
Every four years of my life the liberals have told me we must vote for a Democrat, as though there is a difference, and there never is. The wars continue. Wages continue to drop (since 1973). People die because they don’t have health care (Nancy Pelosi and the Dem. leadership are proposing to make single payer health care all but impossible to achieve). We move toward catastrophic climate change.
Liberals like to say “What good would a Green president do, where would such a person get votes in Congress?”
What they fail to see is that the president has the bully pulpit. Imagine a president calling for universal health care, real health care, not health care that benefits insurance CEOs and the plutocrat investors. This is popular with the people.
Imagine a president calling for shutting down the empire and wars, also quite popular with the masses.
The problem as I see it, is that the Greens have their convention too late every four years. By the time they meet to name a candidate, most voters already have their minds made up. Then, with a short time until the election, they have no time to get out their message. Many American voters don’t even know what they stand for.
The Greens need to have their convention now. Choose a candidate. Then we have time, two years, to reach the people with a candidate who actually represents them–over social media groups, the only media open to us.
We need to unite various socialist groups, and labor groups, with the Green Party, and push for an early convention, our only hope, because it takes time to reach the people when you aren’t allowed into the corrupt mainstream press. Big changes take big dreams.
Jack Balkwill has been published from the little read Rectangle, magazine of the English Honor Society, to the (then) millions of readers USA Today and many progressive publications/web sites such as Z Magazine, In These Times, Counterpunch, This Can’t Be Happening, Intrepid Report, and Dissident Voice. He is author of “An Attack on the National Security State,” about peace activists in prison.