CHAPTER FORTY. END GAME: TAKE BACK AMERICA FOR THE PEOPLE NOW

Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Oct 17, 2009 6:59 AM PDT

This chapter is dedicated to Thom Hartmann, who has been warning us that the American government has been a plaything of US and international corporations for decades.

The best part of the game of chess comes when it is clear that victory is at hand, whatever your opponent tries to do. In the game of power politics being played by the pseudo-conservative counter-Revolutionaries against lovers of democracy, the end game is at hand. If we continue to make all the right moves, we cannot fail to put the dark Kingmakers in a position where they cannot escape capture by the white knights fighting for democracy in America. While our counter-Revolutionary opponents believe that they have played brilliantly, their arrogance will in the end make them blind to the fact that they are moving inevitably into checkmate.

The Senate is struggling to determine exactly how to temporarily resuscitate a medical insurance industry now in its death throes. This is merely prolonging the suffering of the American taxpayer and risking utter economic ruin. China and the oil producing countries may carry out their threat to convert from the dollar as the international unit of currency to more stable currencies.  This would trigger the collapse of the dollar and  the US and possibly the world economy with it.  Already, players of the international betting pool are hedging the enormous gamble they have made in betting on America by buying gold, as the value of the dollar drops. They are betting against America’s success in the game.


China’s confidence in our ability to change our economic strategy is so low that it appears willing to lose untold billions to cut its losses and stabilize the global economy. Being players with no tells and a good record of winning their bets, the Chinese may be bluffing. However, in this global game of economic warfare, the only thing standing behind the dollar is the most powerful military the world has ever known. The US military has come to be the only thing standing between democratic forces in the world and the international corporate terrorists Hell-bent on establishing a fascist New World Order.

How much smarter it would be if for the Puppetmasters of Congress end the suffering of the American worker now and allow the medical insurance industry to die a natural death. This would indicate to the international players that our government can be responsible and that it remains a bad idea to bet against what remains the largest economy in the world. Unfortunately, many of our senators in their arrogance seem to be counting on the historically recent loss of short term memory the American people have been experiencing.


Members of Congress seem to hope that we will forget that they are once more betraying us by putting the corporate interests before our own. They do not seem to realize the significance of their actions. This is the natural result of allowing self interest to rule decision making in Washington. Only by adopting a less conventional strategy could they hope to win the dangerous game they are playing. This means that we must accept our responsibility as citizens to educate ourselves about who is really moving these pawns in Congress. Partisan Democrats and Republicans must accept that we have to sacrifice these pawns to their fate as part of our larger strategy to win.

Not being doctors, our senators are ignorant of the differential diagnosis of memory loss and do not seem to be concerned about this dangerous symptom of what may be a life-threatening illness. They must not know that this is often a symptom of Depression, a much more likely explanation for the loss of memory of important events in a democracy so young. America cannot be suffering from senility when it has the prospect of a long and healthy life ahead of it, given proper care.


Perhaps something as simple as changing the doctors caring for our ailing nation is all it will take to restore us to economic, social and moral vitality. The treatment of depression is not easy but success is much more likely when the patient understands that it is often brought on by the consequences of thinking errors. Depression this caused be cured by a simple change in how we view the world and our place in it. This is the basis of cognitive therapy, which has consistently been shown to improve the chance of responding to medication. This is critical, because the medicine America needs may not go down easy.

The prescription for treating our malaise is simple: Eliminate corporate personhood and allow the body politic to heal itself. We were designed by our creators to live forever with proper care. The problem is how to administer this medicine. The Constitution, our guide to the care and nourishment of our democracy, gives us three methods of delivering it. The first and most direct means is for Congress to use its authority to enact a simple declaration in the form of a Constitutional amendment stating that henceforth, corporations shall not be considered persons as referred to in the 14th Amendment. Senators choosing to oppose this amendment would be exposed as the corporate quacks they are. It would then be up to us to educate the public about its duty to replace these leaders of the counter-Revolution.

If Congress miraculously decided to pass such a restriction on corporate power in the form of legislation it is  certain that it would be subsequently struck down by the Roberts Court. Sonja Sotomayor has already argued that “Perhaps the Court erred” in creating the fictitious “rights” of corporations to lie to the public, resist public inspection of the records of their crimes and buy our politicians. A series of decisions by the Supreme Court since 1893 has established the principle that corporations have rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth amendment only to citizens born or naturalized in the United States. Thus, an amendment designed to assure the rights of former slaves has been used to make economic slaves of us all.

In these acts of Supreme judicial activism, decisions were made that overturned a century of precedent. These were the result of conscious decisions by an unelected elite of jurists appointed for life n order to preserve the corporate power and precedent that led to these criminals being appointed  to the highest court in the US. We can only pray that the propensity of the Roberts Court to reinterpret the Constitution will work in our favor . As the fascist plan to dominate average Americans becomes more obvious it may help us educate the public to the clear and present danger to democracy posed by corporate personhood.


In the meanwhile we must begin initiating petition drives throughout the country directing our state legislators to call for a Constitutional amendment. We the People must demand that Congress clarify that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies only to all HUMAN persons. Our Imperial Senate can no longer hide the fact that it has allowed itself to be perverted into a tool of the corporations in the effort to subvert the American experiment in democracy and replace it with fascism. Those in whom we have entrusted the fate of the nation and the free world must act now to end the threat of fascism and war or suffer the consequences of an awakened and angry American people united in the common cause of liberty and justice for all.

So, who will start the ball rolling? Call your Senators today and ask where they stand and whether they will introduce this bill. Feel free to forward this and to tell them I sent you.

Come gather 'round people
wherever you roam
and admit that the waters
around you have grown
and accept it that soon
you'll be drenched to the bone.


If your time to you
is worth savin'
then you better start swimmin'
or you'll sink like a stone
for the times they are a-changin'.


Come writers and critics
who prophesize with your pen
and keep your eyes wide,
the chance won't come again.


And don't speak too soon
for the wheel's still in spin
and there's no tellin' who
that it's namin'
for the loser now
will be later to win,
for the times they are a-changin'.


Come senators, congressmen
please heed the call.
Don't stand in the doorway.
Don't block up the hall,
for he that gets hurt
will be he who has stalled.


There's a battle outside
and it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
and rattle your walls,
for the times they are a-changin'.


Come mothers and fathers
throughout the land,
and don't criticize
what you can't understand.
Your sons and your daughters
are beyond your command.
Your old road is
rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
if you can't lend your hand,
for the times they are a-changin'.


The line it is drawn,
the curse it is cast.
The slow one now
will later be fast.
As the present now
will later be past
the order is
rapidly fadin'
and the first one now
will later be last,
for the times they are a-changin'.






Rick Staggenborg, MD


Physicians for a National Health Program


Founder, Soldiers For Peace International


Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA