American Complicity: The Solution

By Timothy Gatto

11/08/08 "ICH" -- -- I am made of flesh and bone. I have a mind and a conscience that tells me what I believe is right or wrong. I was born in America, but that doesn’t mean that the American society, the American way of life meets the criteria of what I believe is moral. My being born American was an accident of birth. The truth of the matter is that through the great celestial scheme of things, I could have been born in China or India or in Iran.

I am a product of my learned experiences. The schools, the institutions I belonged to and my society helped shape my views. If we are all a product of our environment, than we should all basically have the same views, the same morality and the same world outlook. This has basically been the norm in this world for quite a while. The problem with this is that as we are exposed to different societies and the world grows smaller, our worldview changes. Sometimes I can no longer think of myself as an American, sometimes I think of myself as a citizen of the world.

As globalization becomes a way of life, we realize that each and every one of us is part of a larger whole. What happens on one side of the world directly affects our part of the world. There are those that remain oblivious to the fact that everything that happens in this much smaller world has a cause and effect. The American government is operating in a time warp that has not changed since the end of WWII. We feel that we have somehow grabbed the mantle as the leader of this world. This may well have been the case, but in the last decade, there are nations that have surpassed the US in quality of living and per capita income. The truth is that corporations that were once American corporations are now multi national and only do a part of their business in America.

The truth of the matter is that most Americans do not want to be just a part of this global economy. We still see our nation as the dominant player on the world scène. The sad part of this is that there are Americans that will do anything to stay the greatest power on Earth. Why is this so? The reason is not patriotism, but nationalism. We want to be the last word in world decisions. There are two types of Americans. The conservatives that look back on the history of our nation and see only the good, never the bad; “our country right or wrong” is their mantra. Then we have the pragmatists, they call them liberals, progressives and other names, who see things as they are how they want them to be. The past is gone, only a memory, a cancelled check. Liberals are the people that are not so proud of many things in our past and certainly don’t want to make the same mistakes our forefathers and fathers made although we can understand why they made the choices they made. Much of American history is not as grand as some believe it is, and for this I blame Americans who can’t come to terms with reality, or just refuse to be honest.

There are those in government that cannot come to terms with the new world that is developing. We can see that by the war economy we have been on since 1940. When the Soviet Union fell apart, the Military Complex controlled the economy and the only way they could stop it from falling apart was to invent another enemy to justify the production of weapons of war, thereby keeping the economy humming along. The media was infiltrated by these very same corporations and brought you the politics of fear. This is all an illusion to keep you on the front lines of this new war: The Global War on Terror. This provides the contracts to the Military Industrial Complex and feeds the demand for new military adventures even though in these wars we are not really fighting those that would do harm to us militarily, but those that would do harm to us economically by refusing to sell us their natural resources or charge us more than we are willing to pay, or more importantly, refuse to take dollars for payment which would drastically alter our balance of payments and force us into recession or worse. The truth is that had we spend the money we have already spent on weapons and munitions; we could have guaranteed we would have had all the oil we needed.

The American people are coming to this realization, although slowly. They are also coming to the realization that the nation of Israel is no longer a nation besieged on all sides by enemies. We can see by it’s insistence on refusing to negotiate in good faith with its neighbors and it’s reliance on military power and its closeness to America that negotiation is not their prime concern. They are systematically encroaching on Palestinian territories and have the Gaza Strip in a virtual lockdown, a ghetto that is as bad as the Warsaw Ghetto that the Nazi’s had in World War II in Poland. Americans are becoming increasingly aware of what kind of nefarious State our government is supporting by backing Israel.

American citizens are complicit in our all out war on the rest of the world that isn’t exactly like us; it props up the corporate structure that runs America for the last few decades. This doesn’t actually mean that they support this corporacracy, they just don’t know where government misinformation ends, and reality begins. I don’t even claim to have a perfect handle on it, but I do know that I have already seen where revisionist history has replaced what I have learned first-hand. I have through my own research and the research of others how our government has lied time after time. I have researched political campaign contributions to both corporate-owned parties by the same corporations that “claim” to represent the average American citizen. The truth is that the federal government, through this corrupted two-party system is owned by the corporations that have the capitol to influence policy. This policy does not advance the common good, but the corporate players.

We are in a period of American Fascism, where the corporations, the bankers and the government direct and control policy. Benito Mussolini once stated that the definition of fascism could be “corporatism”. It doesn’t matter if you are conservative or liberal or you consider yourself “main-stream”. What has transpired is not in the interests of any of us that are not part of the policy making machine. Our vote means nothing when the candidates are selected for us by the corporacracy. The current Presidential race has illustrated that the influence of corporations who can sway the most “liberal” of candidates, although the liberalness of the Democratic candidate I believe had more to do with media-spin that his actual voting record.

Since 9/11 of which there has NEVER been a criminal investigation (and why is that? Who was responsible? Cui Bono?), we have regarded Afghanistan, a country that has always been a backward backwater that has only recently become important for it’s location for oil pipelines that Unical is building as we speak (BTW, Harmid Karzi was a Unical employee). The Taliban do not belong to al-Queada, they are residents of the villages and towns that they fight in. Yet they are now the “enemy” and both Presidential candidates want to expand the war there, for what, the Unical pipeline?

Materialism is the new religion in America. The government sees a recession coming on and tells you to take your rebate check and go shopping. Where is the old American virtue of saving your money so not as to get in debt? The government wants us in debt, the more in debt we are, the more insecure we will be. Where is the money from Congress to build more mass transit so as to lessen our dependence on foreign oil? These are questions we should all be asking.

I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a solution. The only solution I have besides throwing this corrupt Federal Government out on its ass by force is to turn off your televisions and vote third-party. Turn your back on the government that has turned its back on us. Stop listening to these television pundits that give you the illusion that there is any actual difference between the two political parties. I realize that this is a tall order, but unless you want to see us lose everything by committing our dwindling resources and our children’s blood for the wet dreams of old, rich capitalists that have nothing to lose, it’s not that much to do. Join the revolution and refuse to be their chattel. Don’t you think it’s about time?

We have had a President that has ventured into a pre-emptive war, presupposed on a lie. A lie he blatantly told the American people. We have tortured people in the name of America. We have kidnapped people and held them and tortured them The Executive Branch will not answer summons by a compliant Congress. What does it take? The list goes on and on. Do you believe that this election will change the direction we are heading? From everything I’ve heard from both candidates, nothing will change. Change lies with the people, it always has.

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