Melissa Melton
One only has to face the images of innocent children murdered in unjust NATO strikes and occupations all over the world to empathize with this weekend's NATO Summit protesters. NATO world leaders have converged upon Chicago under cover of millions of dollars in militarized protection. Images and video abound of unarmed people being violently arrested, others bleeding from baton wounds. Live streams of cop swarms, like piranha in full riot gear, helmets with shields and sticks at the ready are barely recognizable as American streets.
Anyone still desperately clutching to that "it can't happen here" normalcy bias need only look at the proof that it is happening, right here, right now. Freedom of speech? The right to protest, to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a governmental redress of grievances? Maybe if we still lived in a constitutional republic, you could. But you don't. We don't. Not anymore.
This is nothing new. Don't be fooled. We aren't slipping into corporate fascism. We're already there by design. This slithering thing slinking around and donning our government as a face mask has been completely taken over by corporate interests for some time. The elite overlords wear and operate our president like a hand puppet; as long as he can continue centralizing power in the executive and selling us out to his big corporation masters, he doesn't mind. He will keep signing executive orders that diminish the Constitution little by little, until all that's left of the fabric is a useless piece of thread.
Can we really expect our congresspeople to even read the bills they sign? Save for the few that are seemingly (magically) not corruptible, the rest are busy little insiders and those bills that govern our nation are quite long, after all. It's more believable that some clerk passes them a one- or two-page breakdown of what to vote on, based upon whatever the lobbyists paid them to support. Remember when prior-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi infamously told members of congress "We have to pass the [healthcare reform] bill so that you can find out what is in it"? Oh, is that how it works? Better get a name stamp. Hand-signing can be so time-consuming.
When asked about this weekend's summit, our president showed his sad disconnection from reality (or was it empathy?): "I've been asking: Why is everybody making such a big fuss? This isn't as big as Taste of Chicago," Obama joked to a Chicago Sun-Times writer on Saturday. Remind me again: how many millions has Taste of Chicago killed? Obama should know what the big fuss of Occupy is all about; his party and their socialist/communist community organizers have co-opted it in a bid to get the class war of his dreams going. Rise up. Hammer down. Martial law. Dictatorship.
Obama does not seem to know the definition of war (or transparency or promises or republic or...). His administration claims the [imaginary] War on Terror is over, but words don't walk. Afghanistan is officially America's longest war. Our troops still aren't home. Their stay? Extended. Speaking of extended, looking at the proliferation of Yemen drone strikes and our president's most recent executive order, there is more UN-inspired war to come.
At least today at the NATO Summit, Afghanistan's Karzai thanked our president for all of our money: "I'm bringing to you and to the people of the United States the gratitude of the Afghan people for the support that your taxpayers' money has provided Afghanistan over the past decade and for the difference that it has made to the well-being of the Afghan people," Karzai told Obama today. How polite. Too bad he forgot to include soldiers' lives lost on his gratitude list.
Our military is not used to defend our people but to defend interests. Oil. Opium. Resources. It is used to build nations, for empire. Forgetting (or ignoring) the Constitution, our defense secretary told our congress the executive branch answers to the UN now. Don't worry though; they will inform the congress if they make further military plans. Good to know.
There was a time when the people working for our government were considered public servants. They were supposed to work for We the People. Now they work for Goldman Sachs and General Electric and Merck. Corporations are people, you know. Mitt Corporation Romney said so. America-the-Sold is like that line about how Sam Walton would roll over in his grave if he was alive to lay eyes on the monster his creation Walmart mutated into. Would our forefathers weep for the death of the nation and its freedoms they fought and bled for?
One more day of NATO. Pray for the protestors. Pray for peace. Pray for America.
Link:
http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/nato-summit-descends-hello-police-state-goodbye-america?xg_source=activity
No comments:
Post a Comment