On the Issues of Our Time.

I’ve never fancied myself as any type of a writer, but here we go anyway.

UPDATE: My friend Shana, liked the blog so much she told me to start this blogging page.

This is a little story of how I got to be "me", and it may also describe how you got to be "you".

When I was a boy, my first real political memory was the election of 1980. This was Reagan, Carter and an Independent named John Anderson. I got a quick run down of the platform of Reagan and Carter from my father, but he didn’t have much info to offer me on John Anderson. After explaining to me that Carter was a democrat and Reagan a republican and Anderson being and independent, I was a bit confused as to why we only have two real choices. I watched the returns that night rooting for Anderson. I remembered that he won one state, but looking now, I cannot find this proof, but he did get 7.6%.

I was nine years old during that election. When I was finally old enough to vote, I found myself voting for third party or independent candidates (Perot and Nader come to mind). I never really knew why, but I felt that the democrat/republican choice was total bullshit, really.

Then came September 11^th 2001; I was in Georgia and watched with horror the destruction of that day. I spent the next several days glued to the television watching every bit of coverage that came about. After a while I had been convinced that Muslims were evil doers and we need to go over there and kick some ass. Soon thereafter we found ourselves in Afghanistan kicking asses, then Iraq. Then "mission accomplished" was announced by the Bush administration and everyone felt very patriotic. Who didn’t have a US flag sticker on their car back then? "Chinese stickers took the place of ribbons on oak trees in your old town square". That is part of the lyrics to a song I would later write.

At this time, I was a typical American, I watched House, American Idol, 24, ESPN, and even "Wrastlin’". But something was still nagging me. I knew the two party system was bullshit, I knew Clinton spent the 90’s bombing the shit out of Iraq. I knew we always seem to be at war with third world countries, I knew oil must be involved in this case. I just didn’t really know. Then I saw a documentary that would change my life. It is by Aaron Russo (R.I.P.) and it is called "America Freedom to Fascism". You can watch it for free on Google Video.

After watching this, I started reading books on topics covering such things as Monetary Policy, Foreign Policy, Economics, War, and Corporations. I found that none of these books seem to contradict each other. To put it in a nutshell this is what I found. Our monetary system is illegally controlled by private bankers (the federal reserve) who are the same group of bankers that control the monies of the entire "free" world. Our corporations, incessantly abuse third world peoples to produce products as cheap as they can to sell to people in the "free" world who have lost their better paying jobs due to corporations shipping jobs overseas in order to save costs. Everyone seems to now work in the service industry in the USA. War is only for profit, and finally 911 was nothing but a lie.

What? Here’s a quick summary of that last statement. In 1956 we overthrew Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh during Operation Ajax and put in the Shaw (dictator). This was for Great Brittan’s oil company now called BP. See, Iran wanted to get paid for their oil and we didn’t want to pay her. That’s the tip of the iceberg as to our involvement in the middle east and you can surely read much more about it, but suffice to say that we have been over there raping the hell out of those lands and the people that live there get nothing from it. Countries like Saudi Arabia, that seem to like us are dictatorships on such a scale that Chris Matthews actually accused one of their crown princes on live television of being the "Taliban with a good PR program". Yes, we pay the rich Saudis handsomely for their letting us rape their peoples land.

Then there’s the whole cold war situation and our wonderful policy makers found a way to "give the Soviets their own Vietnam". This was Afghanistan. So our CIA trained Osama bin Ladin and we invented the Taliban, Mujahideen and Al Quida. All this is documented, you can look it up. After the soviets decited to quit, we left and Afghanistan remained in cival war. The warloards to the north wanted control and so did all the other factions we created there. All of whom were left with bitterness at our leaving them to such a mess.

During this same time we were funding Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran. We trained Saddam and helped him politically to become the man he was. We supplied him with all the weapons that we went to war with Iraq to find. When I say "we" I mean our wonderful policy makers. Did you know that right before we went to war with Iraq, Saddam made the fateful decision to start accepting Euros along with US dollars for payment of oil? Iraq does not accept Euros any longer for oil. Iran does now!!! As of 2005 Iran trades oil in Euros. Is it a bit ironic that all the war talk about Iran seems to have started about this same time?

It’s also a bit ironic that both of these countries didn’t have a privately owned central bank controlling the issuance of their money. A couple other countries in the same boat are Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea. Of course they are all in the "axis of evil". Have any of them ever actually done anything to us? Hugo Chavez had a freight ship sent to New Orleans loaded with goods to help out after Katrina; this ship was turned back by Bush. That didn’t make headline news.

I seem to be jumping around a bit so let me try to summarize quickly. It is my firm belief that our government had plenty of info about 911 and could have stopped it at any time. They let it occur in order to have a reason to go to war. Bush and Cheney refused to be interviewed separately by the 911 commission. That is almost proof enough for me. Come to think of it, how many lies has this current administration told us? A better question might be, "Have they ever told us the truth about anything?"

So now we have a political system that is controlled by massive global corporations and financial institutions and fueled by war. The same mega corporations that make a killing [sic] off war, are the same ones that lobby the government so hard that the line between the two has been erased. These corporations (banks included) also control the media and I’m talking control. I don’t have an exact number handy but you can look this up. Something like 95% off all media is controlled by less than 10 corporations. I’m talking radio, newspaper, TV, you name it. Kontrolled.

With the media obviously as compromised as our government, does anyone actually think they are going to give us anything but news that benefits their agenda? Anytime someone in the media has a minute of humanity and talks the truth, they are ousted. Ashleigh Banfield is one example of this; Dan Rather, another. The media marginalized Ron Paul to such a degree that even though he set all time fundraising records and then broke them, the dumb down American public didn’t vote for him, because the media said he could not win. Everybody I talked to would say to me "I really like his views but he can’t win". Where the FUCK did this attitude come from? Is this a new American Idealism? This sounds like giving up to me. So I must say that everyone who has this defeatist view of our political system, however warranted, needs to take their own reigns and cut loose from the reigns that the corporations hand down to us.

It is time to stop thinking our country is on auto pilot and that all these problems will go away. It is time to get involved and get learned on these issues. The media is not going to tell the truth to you. They are going to tell you their truth. Our forefathers risked their asses for us and we should not let their work be wasted by watching the television, and getting fat. Each and every one of us has, or should have, a duty to get informed about these issues, and become somewhat of a better citizen than Joe Six Pack. Our country is dumb down to such a degree at this current moment in history, that I fear we will accept anything that is handed to us. History shows that this mindset usually seems to lend itself to despotism, and I don’t want that. Won’t you wake up, and help others do the same?

Thanks

Greg+

Ps,

Despotism: 1. the rule of a despot; the exercise of absolute authority.
2. absolute power or control; tyranny.
3. an absolute or autocratic government.
4. a country ruled by a despot.