tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34846623263967781062024-03-13T22:07:36.511-07:00STOP THE MADNESSStop the Madness is a collection of essays recording my thoughts during a transformative period in my life. It is about how the world became what it is and what we must do for human civilization to survive.
The central task is to abandon the illusion of separation.
Our children only can have freedom and security if we do. War will become unthinkable when we abandon the self-fulfilling prophecy that it is inevitable.Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.comBlogger116125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-52257697612699308832009-11-26T18:02:00.000-08:002019-01-29T10:29:23.860-08:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">STOP THE MADNESS: </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">THE DIARY OF A</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> SOLDIER FOR PEACE </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">IN THE WAR TO</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"> TAKE BACK AMERICA</span></div>
Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-68491756966285549362009-11-26T11:15:00.000-08:002011-10-29T11:37:07.495-07:00PREFACE<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">This book is a series of essays laying out the case that there is a way to end war by ending the domination of the American government by corporations through a process of passing a constitutional amendment through Congress and ratifying it by the states. <br />
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I argue that it is the international corporations with the money to pay for the obscenely expensive elections of our members of Congress that ultimately create the conditions in which war appears to be inevitable. The goal I have in writing this is to convince others that together we can and must restore democracy to America and bring about the change in the human collective consciousness such that war comes to be seen not as inevitable but as unthinkable.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Stop the Madness: The Diary of a Soldier For Peace in the War to Take Back America is my effort to explain my thoughts on the real meaning of America through a look at critical moments in its history. I offer an explanation of that history through a lens of basic psychological and scientific principles. I then use this to describe how I believe America fell from its position of a leader in the advancement of mankind to a place where it is now the chief threat to human existence. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Throughout the book I emphasize that this is part of a natural process of maturation of a democratic society that I fully expect to grow up and take responsibility for its behavior toward each other and other nations. One of the goals in writing this book is to present ideas that may help the process accelerate, before the problems the people of the United States and the world desperately need to address become intractable.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">For foreign readers who have not lived through the nightmare that has transformed the United States government from a maturing democracy into a plutocracy, please be patient when reading the earliest essays. They focus on day to day US political events when the essays were originally written. It was necessary to start at this point to clarify the process by which I arrived at my the conclusion that democracy in the United States and therefor the world is at imminent risk. This is after all a diary of sorts. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">To all readers: Even if reading about the details of politics makes your head spin, please read the somewhat lengthy introduction. I draw in part on my personal experiences to illustrate some of the general points I make in trying to make a coherent summary of the state of American democracy and politics. It is my hope that this summary will be of interest to every reader and useful as a compass by which to see the direction sometimes seemingly disconnected essays are leading.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">This book of essays is deliberately written in a nonlinear style that is intended to provide an overview of the thinking that went into my deciding that it was possible to end war in our lifetime and how we might do it. It includes concepts from a wide variety of disciplines that may be tough going to some readers despite my attempts to explain them as simply as I can. <br />
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I have added clarifying comments after the mostly short essays that I hope will help explain the more obscure concepts and how they fit into the larger themes of this book. If anyone who begins to read this has difficulty understanding some parts, I hope that they will keep reading, because the main themes are repeatedly woven throughout the book in different contexts and hyperlinks present more background reading.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">After describing Soldiers For Peace International and its origins, the essays begin by arguing that the health care “reform” debate of 2009 was a cynical bait-and-switch engineered from the beginning to bail out a failing medical insurance industry while preserving the privileged position of the pharmaceutical and corporate health care industries. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The dramatically escalating costs of the medical insurance industry's product are threatening the continued viability of this inefficient and unnecessary system of profiteering from the suffering of others. This obliged these industries to approach the federal government with a request for "reform." What they really had in mind was a demand for tax money to prop up their teetering system for a few more years before it inevitably falls under its own dead weight. The cost in human suffering and economic burden is unconscionable.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"> I would argue that the apparent opposition of the insurance and other industries of the medical-industrial complex were more directed at deceiving the public and jockeying for control of the process than a failure to see that government subsidies and mandated insurance through private insurers were necessary to keep their ineffective and inefficient non-system of health care delivery intact. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Most Americans on both sides of the issue seem to have been fooled until they saw the final product. Many still do not recognize it for what it is, focusing on apparent benefits of the plan or details of its many failings without getting the overall picture. I have appended my analyses of the true costs of the Democratic bill and the economic benefits of a single payer, Medicare-for-All system at the end of the book.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">After reading the following introduction, the reader will understand my position that either major Party dominating our politics in what has been called the two-Party duopoly would have initiated this debate if called upon to so by the power elite that makes these decisions in our name. Either would have responded to the wealthy medical insurance corporations looking for a government bailout for its industry. The marketing of the bailout would have looked entirely different in the hands of the Republicans, but the outcome would have been substantially the same.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Social responsibility has not been a concern of corporations since the Supreme Court declared them citizens with Constitutional rights and thus beyond the regulations that prevented them from collectively seizing power over the US government. Now that the coup has been accomplished, the question becomes one of whether it is possible to Take Back America for the People. I argue that we can. I believe that the opposition of nearly 80% of self-described conservatives and liberals means that it is inevitable if we promote all Americans coming together in common cause to end this obvious threat to democracy.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Each essay in this book advances the argument, though it is not always obvious how it does so. It may be therefore better to think of it as a nonlinear approach to solving a problem that linear thinkers regard as unsolvable. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">This book was originally written as I was fleshing out my thoughts on what problems we would have to face to unify Americans behind a single proposition that is the core of what I call The Battle Plan to Take Back America in the book. The specifics of this plan have changed with events, but the general outline is the same. The plan depends on the validity of the idea that we can abolish the Supreme Court doctrine of corporate personhood and thereby regain control of the US government. Once a representative democracy is restored (some would say created for the first time), we can assure that it places the interests of the People over corporate profit, power and control.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The steps involved in solving the problem of war involve coming to a common understanding about our personal responsibility as individuals to each other and society as a whole. I believe that this could lead naturally to a rational public debate that would result in a more coherent and shared concept of the proper role of government, one that has a proper balance between protecting the rights of individuals and meeting other needs of a society. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">I make no apology for the series of assumptions implicit in my arguments. Readers are welcome to disagree with the thoughts I have expressed in each of these essays by posting in the comments section following each essay. I only hope that the reader will be open-minded enough to consider my argument as a whole, because only by having a dialogue about the central issues that divide citizens of the US from each other and the rest of the world can we take back control of the American government and establish justice both for ourselves and other nations that its actions affect.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">In exploring what is tearing apart the fabric of American society, I attempt to address in the following essays the major issues that perpetuate injustice of all kinds. I argue that just as we are dependent on one another, the solutions to our common problems are dependent on prioritizing and working together to get at the root of the problem, which I regard as corporate personhood. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">We must have a rational dialogue about how to solve the problems threatening the viability of democracy in America. I argue that these problems stem from the idea that corporations are people, with the Constitutional right to buy our Senate. The Supreme Court justifies this in the name of exercising "free" speech, which they essentially equate to money. If we can put aside the artificial distinctions which divide us, we might conclude as a People that the key to restoring democracy to America is the abolition of corporate personhood. </span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The most important of the problems caused by the wholesale corruption of government by corporate money are international. Global climate change threatens to produce mass famine, pandemic and the deaths of billions without a coordinated effort to find a way to end war and environmental devastation and to assure that health care is a human right of every citizen of the planet.<br />
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We have to look beyond the interests of individual nations and factions within nations to find a solution that benefits all of us. Because of the universal nature of these issues, I hope that they will be of interest to English-speaking readers around the world, who are encouraged to translate any essays that they find interesting into other languages to distribute as they see fit.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">We are all in this world together and our fates interdependent. I hope that this book will enable the reader to challenge his or her assumptions about the reality of human nature, society and the Universe that we share. If enough of us understand our responsibility to consciously act in full knowledge of the interdependence of all humanity and the natural world, I am convinced that we can yet save ourselves from self-destruction.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The following introduction is my attempt to summarize what I see as the most fundamental problems we must solve to restore democracy in America. It is written in a straightforward style, unlike many of the essays that follow. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">I hope I have written these essays in an entertaining and emotionally engaging way that will be of interest to most readers. I have written them in an allegorical style in an effort to appeal to the widest possible audience. This necessarily means that some concepts will seem trivial to some readers and some may be difficult to understand to readers new to the issues. I hope that all will find something useful in their own efforts to become part of the change we must create to save the ourselves from the threats facing human civilization.</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The introduction is largely political, in contrast to most of the essays, which are focused on my view of the central problems of individuals, groups and nations that we must consider in building a movement to end war. If the introduction seems pedantic, the casual reader may want to skip it and proceed to the essays at the risk of missing the general scheme of the presentation of concepts in the book. Reading the introduction may help understanding the book more fully. </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-2667777855707927532009-11-26T11:13:00.000-08:002011-07-17T18:33:55.867-07:00INTRODUCTION <br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">This book is the record of the thoughts that have led me to devote my life to the restoration of genuine democracy in America. I believe that if Americans reclaim their government that the United States may again become a force for peace in the world. This book traces the evolution in the thinking behind Soldiers For Peace International and its potential role in furthering these goals.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
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</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">My work in trying to help build the single payer movement in America led me to confront head-on the wall in Congress spanning both sides of the aisle that blocks real reform. I became acutely aware of the problem when with a group of representatives of Physicians for a National Health Program we encountered a shockingly dismissive attitude from the office of our Congressional Representative, who is generally a true voice of the People in Congress. </span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">After the 2010 elections, Congressman Peter DeFazio found himself recovering from a bruising battle with corporate forces who had thrown millions into the race to support Art Robinson, a wealthy Republican who presented himself as a representative of the Tea Party. During the election Robinson dutifully railed against the "socialism" he claimed that his Democratic opponent represents. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Interestingly, when I asked Robinson why he refers to the giving of our tax revenue to private corporations as "socialism," he had a momentary lapse of into reason when he responded "You're right. It's fascism!" He went on to expand on this for several minutes to the several hundred people present. Of course, he went back to the script for the rest of his well-funded "town hall" series. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Robinson challenged DeFazio with some success not only because he had received enough out-of-state corporate money to present himself as a credible challenger, but because the Democratic Party has itself become increasingly incredible as it has become ever more dependent on the same sources of campaign financing as its Republican counterparts.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It was clear from the beginning of the debate on health care reform that the Democratic leadership had decided to follow its usual failed strategy of reaching for the brass ring instead of going for the gold. Even though many in Congress claimed to really want a single payer solution to the crisis in health care access and affordability that kills 45.000 Americans per year, they almost unanimously bought the conventional “wisdom” that one does not bite the corporate hand that feeds the leaders of both Parties. As has become a pattern, the Democratic leadership opened negotiations by asking for half a loaf fully expecting to end settling for moldy crumbs.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">When President Obama declined to invite any single payer supporter to the first summit on health care reform, the extent of the collusion to stifle discussion of single payer in the debate became clear. I was among the thousands who protested this exclusion and got Congressman Conyers and Ollie Fein, the President of Physicians for a National Health Program invited at the eleventh hour. They were able to observe but not to influence the discussion. Neither was invited back to the second summit in February.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Supporters of a single payer health care system were not invited to join the dozens of corporate representatives asked to participate in the Senate Finance Committee health care “reform” hearings chaired by Max Baucus. This corporate tool instead had thirteen single payer advocates arrested in the first two days of hearings for having the temerity to speak on camera about the logical answer to the question before the committee. Among them were doctors, nurses and lawyers who were there to represent the People when the government was doing the business of its corporate patrons in the medical-industrial complex.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">I was angered by the fact that the leadership of Democracy for America, MoveOn, Health Care for America Now and other groups told their members and the public from the outset of the debate that they supported a public option plan. They never held a vote, as would be expected of democratic institutions. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">As a member of DFA, I was forced to ask the question "Does Democracy for America support Democracy <i>in</i> America?" The strategy of the Democratic leadership seemed to be working, as some of the brightest and most energetic progressives got behind this phony "reform" effort, accepting the self-fulfilling prophecy that "It's the best that we can get." </span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The circular logic of this argument eerily echoed the words of Senator Ron Wyden in 2003 when he "explained" why he crossed party lines to cast the deciding vote for the financially ruinous Republican Medicare Modernization Act. This was the "reform" that brought us Part D, with its endorsement of the privilege of the pharmaceutical industry to extort the American taxpayer by banning price negotiations for drugs purchased by the government. It was widely regarded as an indirect assault on the popular program and as part of a strategy to dismantle Roosevelt’s New Deal.</span></b><br />
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</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Medicare Modernization Act also gifted the medical insurance industry with a largely privatized Medicare through the "Advantage" plans that Bush later advertised with public money. Part D is the reason so many single payer advocates have been reluctant to use the term "Medicare For All" to describe the type of a single payer system that is favored by most Americans because it opens us up to charges that such a system is unaffordable. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Peter DeFazio was one who argued that it was implausible to extend Medicare to everyone because it was economically troubled. He neglected to mention that it was his fellow Oregonian Senator Ron Wyden who created the mess that he and DeFazio declined to address in a responsible manner, along with the Democratic Party as a whole.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It takes more than a sound bite to explain to citizens with short attention spans and shorter memories why we can have "Improved Medicare For All" if we understand why we must have a single payer system and how we can if we demand it. The details of the argument are presented in the Appendix along with a critique of the CBO report by which the Democrats claim their "reform" bill will save billions. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The task of explaining why America must adopt a single payer system like every other industrialized nation with universal health care is difficult. The principle reason is that the interests of the corporate media coincide with those dishonest politicians who either leave out the downside of their “accomplishments” or lie outright. When honest politicians are fooled by their Party leadership into working for cynical political goals that are bankrupting the country, the problem is truly concerning. </span></b><br />
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</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The truth is that the Medicare system was deliberately broken by those who have been fighting the New Deal just as their fathers and grandfathers fought the Square Deal of Theodore Roosevelt, as I explain in the following essays. They could not have succeeded without the complicity of corporate Democrats like Wyden, who like most of our “leaders” assumes that a sick non-system of for-profit healthcare that claims the lives of tens of thousands of Americans each year is “the best we can do.” The truth is, it is only the best that a bunch of pampered career politicians can do. America can do better if those who understand this can work together to educate the rest to demand more.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">If current trends continue and both Parties continue to move the US to an economically unsustainable system of corporate welfare, the American economy may never recover. As it is, the devastation has been going on for years, masked by GDP growth based on bubble after bubble which produced the jobless “recovery” of the Bush years, where the stock market rallied while joblessness rose. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The wealthy prospered by trading on the false hope that housing prices would always go up. Managers of pension funds felt obligated to invest in the derivatives market, putting the retirement funds of millions into a Goldmann Sachs-built casino that was rigged by the financial house. Working people were largely fooled until they fell into the ranks of the unemployed and often homeless during the ongoing financial crisis that began in late 2008 when the first Wall Street bailout took place. In their anger, they blame whoever the corporate media tells them to. In their minds, they have met the enemy and it is us.</span></b><br />
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</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The doctrine of free trade played a major role in the tanking of the US economy by taking jobs away from Americans. As I write this our President is negotiating yet another free trade agreement with Korea while some in Congress continue to push for such an agreement with Columbia, a nation that allows Coca-Cola and other corporations to pay right wing hit squads to assassinate union leaders for a relatively small consideration.</span></b><br />
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</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">When the cost to private interests of buying dictators is too high, the US government sends its errand boys in the CIA to up the ante with our tax dollars. This is done through a thriving industry of private corporations with exclusive government contracts. This arrangement has the advantage of providing a cover of plausible deniability to those in government responsible for aiding the anti-democratic efforts at Empire of the international corporate interests who act not in the interest of the US but of their only God, profit. </span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, if a nation’s leader doesn’t play along with the plans of the Puppetmasters of our government, the CIA takes matters more directly into hand, toppling governments when possible and assassinating charismatic leaders when not. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">When the target proves too elusive, arrangements are made to demonize leaders in countries that won’t submit to the Empire. This is the first step to wars planned years before, as the Iraq fiasco has been proven to have been. War is no longer the failure of diplomacy. It is the success of international corporate terrorists in marketing war as a means to fight whatever enemies they convince us threaten our common interests. In reality, the only interest threatened in modern times is corporate profit.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The corporate media does its best to cover up these crimes and when they are revealed, they are met with the complacency of a public raised to believe it has always been this way and nothing they can do can change it. In these essays I argue that we can and must seize control of our government by a massive, coordinated educational effort and grassroots actions in the streets of America. With the mutual support of other Peoples of the world our ultimate goal should be the passage of a constitutional amendment that will strip all "rights" granted to corporations by a series of fascist Supreme Court decisions. </span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">When a government of, by and for the People and not corporations is restored in the United States, we can end war and all of its attendant injustices. These include growing efforts to shred the social safety net that has protected Americans from the worst of the consequences of the drive to Empire. Until now, this safety net has enabled Americans to continue to accept as given the conceit of American exceptionalism. </span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The selfish and self-centered belief that Americans have the natural right to control the world’s natural resources has allowed those who subscribe to it to accept an increasingly sociopathic view of humanity. The average citizen who believes that the United States has a Manifest Destiny to rule the world willingly suspends reason and joins Big Oil in denying the reality of global climate change even after Bush admitted that it was real. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">This is only one of the myths that suspend the Empire, of course. Our task is to show the Peoples of the world that increasingly, the Empire has no clothes. As the People of the United States become more aware of their complicity in fostering terrorism as an excuse for endless war, they will demand that the effort to impose a fascist New World Order be brought to an end.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Now that the true costs of war are becoming apparent to Americans, the opportunity to educate them about a different model of social, economic and political reality has never been more promising. The average citizen of the United States is frightened, angry and looking for answers in all the wrong places. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Citizens of the US who understand that life is not a zero-sum game must reach out to them as fellow Americans and show others how it is possible to Take Back America for the People. Only by breaking down the artificial barriers between one People from whom their government derives all of its just powers can democracy succeed and the threat of eternal war averted. </span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Establishing a society unified in the belief that what is best for the individual is what is best for all requires abandoning a conflict model of the struggle for social justice. We must replace it with one that presupposes that most of us are good enough to govern ourselves. Ours must become a message of enlightened self-interest so compelling that even those who have been hypnotized into believing that selfishness is a virtue can understand that such thinking has no place in a nation in which more than 80 percent of its citizens claim belief in a God that most assume Christ understood best.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">If we are to teach the people of the United States how to assume control of their own destiny from the authoritarians who have usurped that power, we must build on natural alliances between those who would describe themselves as on the right or on the left, as conservatives or liberals. Our message must be that we can only solve our problems by putting the needs of the people over ideologies manufactured by the corporate media or other special interest groups.</span></b><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">As an example, everyone knows that American jobs are being shipped overseas, though most forget that this is due to President Clinton’s pushing the ratification of the global agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT). This was done with widespread Republican support and over the protests of labor, which in general continues to reflexively support Democrats over Republicans in elections. </span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Our message should be that both Parties have sold out to the corporate interests who own them, putting their interests over those of us who actually elect them. Both progressives and the rank and file Tea party supporters reject top-down authority over their lives. We must use this to unify our efforts. <br />
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Only through such a unified effort can we hope to challenge the corporatocracy that has seized control of the American government. There are many more of us than there are corporate war profiteers. If we unite to fight for our common interests, we can change the politics of division that have paralyzed Congress and imperil the survival of the United States itself the sovereign of its citizens.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Ours is not a right-left divide but a divide between those who understand and respect that democracy is a means to provide equal opportunity for individual success versus those who think of it as a means to cynically claim support for their dreams of corporate Empire. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Corporatists dangle this dream in front of a citizenry raised to believe that democracy automatically guarantees the right to advance ones station in life but who often don’t realize how far from democracy our government has strayed. Those who do and accept it as a fact of life do not understand the nature of a true democracy. It is our job to teach them that an egalitarian society does not have to be socialist. Conversely, if a “socialist” society is egalitarian, it cannot be the type of authoritarian communist society most Americans imagine when they hear the term.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The effects of free trade are to ship jobs overseas where products can be produced by slave laborers working under unimaginable conditions in countries that are actually punished by the World Trade Organization if they try to impose environmental regulations on these corporations. The WTO is a non-governmental agency that dictates trade policies to nations. How can this message not be of concern to both conservatives and progressives if it is understood? </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, people can always get goods cheaper at Walmart as a result, but it is often the only place they can shop after it drives small businesses out of communities. Besides, who can afford to pay prices of smaller shops or even corporate stores when wages are steadily falling? <br />
<br />
Thus do the interests of those who believe that supporting small business is the key to a healthy economy converge with those who believe the key is to assure that workers have a living wage. We need to work together to advance both causes and build a locally based, environmentally sustainable economy that will deliver us from the consequences of globalization. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Jefferson is cited as an expert at governmental theory by both those who consider themselves conservatives and those who consider themselves liberal. He wrote of the virtues such an economy, pointing out that the size of government can be much more easily controlled in a locally based economy of farmers, artisans and shopkeepers than in an industrialized economy where bankers would have inordinate power to influence government policy. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The idea of limiting government's role may seem frightening to progressives worried about the power of individuals to oppress the less powerful. However, if we succeed in building such a society it will be seen as in the interests of all to provide such protection without excessive government intrusion on our personal lives or our businesses.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">If a One World government is established, the WTO and the International Monetary Fund will run it. It is ridiculous to argue that the UN will lead the way when it is controlled by the Security Council, the nations of whose self-perceived interests rarely coincide. Only if Russia and China stop triangulating against each other and the Anglo-American Empire and its allies in “democratic” nations will a One World order based on nations rather than corporations emerge. That seems unlikely without a radical shift in human consciousness since the history of nations is the history of war, both military and now economic.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">To return to my original example of corruption of government by corporate money, I have to ask why Wyden felt the act that created Medicare Part D was "the best we can do." All I know is that it was heavily pushed by AARP, the "advocacy" group for seniors who along with unions put Wyden into Congress 30 years earlier. AARP in fact exists primarily to sell health insurance supplements to the very seniors they claim to represent. Since they don't actually offer coverage but only serve as a middleman adding cost without value to these plans, their motives are suspect at best, as are those of Senator Wyden. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">I ran for the US Senate to get a forum to educate Oregon voters that it is corporate personhood that is preventing Congress from addressing the problems that are threatening the middle class, the economy as a whole and democracy itself. Only a Constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood will address the problem of corporations buying Congress and using it for their selfish ends at the expense of the American people. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">If we had a reasonably professional press or had those organizing the dog-and-pony show "debates" between Wyden and his even more corporatist Republican opponent, I would have been happy to ask him to explain why the Part D plan for Medicare was "the best we can do," since they did not. I was also surprised at the disinterest of many local newspapers in my campaign. They are a key source of news and opinion in most communities in Oregon, yet they showed little interest in letting their readers know that there were alternatives to choosing between the lesser of two evils yet again.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In follow up to my first question in a hypothetical debate where I had the opportunity to speak directly to my opponent, I would have asked Wyden why he tried to shift the costs of medical insurance even further onto the backs of workers and when unions protested, why he used corporate money to finance a campaign vilifying them as un-American for being unwilling to give in to their corporate masters once again, even while average wages fell. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">I would also have wanted to ask Wyden why he takes money from AIPAC in exchange for supporting the Israeli government in its illegal ongoing war on Palestine, its apartheid policies in Israel itself and its suppression of the rights of the minority of Israelis who are courageously fighting for justice for Palestinians Although this is not a matter of corporations buying Congress, it is another example of how easily special interests can buy the loyalty of craven senators like Wyden, men and women more interested in power for its own sake than as a means to serve the People who elected them.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, I would have asked Wyden what he has against the unions that put him in office. He continues to support failed free trade policies that have sold out the American worker and contributed to repeated economic meltdowns across the world. The current economic crisis that almost brought the United States to its knees is just the most recent global financial catastrophe that has set nation against nation and American against American as they search for an explanation that the corporate media does not want us to find.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Those who have benefited most from the currently-failing American experiment in democracy seem to consider themselves to be an elite ordained by God to reign over the less fortunate. This includes the millionaires' club in the Senate and their friends who chose to put them there. Perhaps if more of them believed in God as most Christians understand it, they would pause in their self-centered efforts to preserve their seats at any cost to their constituents. A majority of Americans disagree that their primary job is to get themselves re-elected but feel helpless to do anything to change this cozy arrangement. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Americans see the self-appointed corporate Puppetmasters and their Puppets in our Congress as too powerful to fight, as if money could buy votes directly. The result is that they drop out of the political process or hold their nose and vote for whoever they feel is lying the least, since "everyone knows" that voting for a third-Party candidate is wasting your vote. It will be interesting to see how many people challenge this self-fulfilling prophecy in 2012. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A third party movement may be building, as voters increasingly rejected both Parties in 2010. Many Democrats stayed home while independents voted for Republicans and independent Tea Party nut jobs with no new answers but who promoted a declaration of independence from both mainstream Americans and the government they claimed to loathe. Some like Rand Paul immediately revealed themselves to be Republicans as soon as their victories were announced. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The result is that Democratic power decreased as a result of their sacrifice of their own stated principles. The damage to Democrats was almost indiscriminate in that some of the most effective progressive voices were removed from office along with some who deserved to be handed walking papers. <br />
<br />
I would argue that their fall is a direct result of party leadership believing that they could fool all of their base all of the time in pretending to champion progressive causes while catering to the same corporations that had bought their Republican counterparts. The medical insurance reform bill was neither the first nor the last of these betrayals.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A third Party movement will only succeed if three things happen: Voters have to abandon the self-fulfilling prophecy that voting third Party is wasting their votes, they will have to admit that both major parties are as crippled by corporate corruption of too many of their politicians and third Parties that share the same goals have to quit competing for votes. <br />
<br />
As none of these things seem likely in the short run, the solution for now may be to push for reform within the major parties at the local and state levels by nominating and supporting members who will take the pledge to amend. If the choice is between a corporate Democrat or Republican who refuses to take the pledge, voting for a third Party candidate who agrees to do so will take on a new appeal.</span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Anything less than a grassroots revolt within the major parties will be unlikely to lead to reform of a party whose candidates are dependent less on the will of its members than on corporate money to win elections. The only other way it could occur is if Democratic leadership were to realize that the number of their supporters who stayed home in 2010 will only increase if they continue betraying the stated core values of the party. Only time will tell which occurs, but it is clear that we cannot allow the present corporate control of government to continue and we must challenge both parties if we are to Take Back America for the People.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A multi-Party system would be great, but first we must prove that a third-Party candidate can win or at least push the debate back to the middle, which is consistently being misleadingly defined as the goal posts representing progress are continuously moved further back. We cannot afford continuing incremental political progress when it has slowed to a virtual halt while the corporate agenda scores major gains in virtually every Senate vote. We must demand accountability now.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The truth is that there are many thousands of good Americans to every corporate war profiteer who is willing to systematically undermine our government for personal profit. If we put aside the self-imposed distinctions between ourselves and fight together as Americans for the survival of democracy in these United States ,we cannot lose. The alternative of simply accepting that we cannot prevent corporations from economically enslaving us is a betrayal of those who gave their lives so that may be free. More importantly, it is a betrayal of the debt we owe our children for having brought them into this world.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The uncomfortable fact of which most Americans are becoming dimly aware but have not confronted is that we have allowed corporations to seize control of our government, our media and our national destiny. Corporate money pays for the propaganda blitzes that get our Senators elected in obscenely expensive races, particularly in large states. Corporate lobbyists dictate legislation to Congress and domestic and international policy to the White House. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">An arrangement such as this is more typical of fascist governments than democratic ones. The difference is that instead of being ruled by a dictator, we have allowed this to happen ourselves. We came dangerously close to this form of government when Congress ceded its war powers to a President who was all too happy to serve corporate interests over those of the People. <br />
<br />
At the same time, a partisan Congress blindly followed the lead of President Bush in attacking the social safety net while lowering taxes for the rich, refusing to challenge his most outrageous ideas for purely partisan reasons. No one in the Bush-Cheney regime has taken responsibility for the resulting crises that our paralyzed Congress refuses to deal with. <br />
<br />
Many Americans have been dismayed at how little their hope for change has been rewarded by the Obama administration. The wars have escalated and expanded, Guantanamo remains open, the banksters are back at their old gains with trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to play in the Wall Street casinos, health care reform is proving to be an illusion, the numbers of jobless Americans remains unacceptable and home foreclosures are growing. Meanwhile, the tax breaks for the rich take precedence over the needs of ordinary Americans.<br />
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The government continues to abridge civil liberties in the name of fighting what is largely a US-manufactured war on terror while other manufacturing is shipped overseas for the profits of CEOs who stash their corporate earnings in offshore accounts, safe from the government Treasury where it might help shore up the social safety net and begin to reign in a deficit that threatens its solvency. President Obama has done little but pay lip service to the need to address these and many other problems.<br />
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While I am not going to apologize for the many failures of the President to show leadership in this onslaught against the American worker and traditional American values, I argue that the focus on the President's failings is a useful distraction from the real problem: The failure of ordinary citizens to carry out the basic duties of being well-educated voters and demanding the change that he warned us we must create for him to have any chance of moving America forward. <br />
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The real power of government is vested in Congress by the constitution. It is the Senate that is the chief roadblock to democracy in America. This privileged millionaires club is so deeply in the pockets of corporate interests that even Teddy Roosevelt would have trouble getting any useful legislation out of it. Congress handed over its war powers to George Bush and seems disinterested in taking them back from Obama, who is pressured on all sides by the corporate interests who could just as easily fund the propaganda campaigns of a Republican in 2012 if he were to challenge them. Worse, if he were to challenge certain interests of the military-industrial complex and the international corporate terrorists who profit from war, he might find himself in a situation very similar to JFK in 1963.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It is hard to place all the blame on the American people for the gradual decline of democracy in the United States. The takeover of the government by the corporatocracy has been so gradual as to have been imperceptible to the average American trying to make a living and raise a family under increasingly difficult conditions. Younger Americans do not know a different style of government. It is critical that they come to this understanding because many of their elders are willing to rob them of a decent future. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Clinging to an outmoded view of economic reality, elderly Americans are desperately attempting to hold on to what they have earned during an era of responsible government while the corporate vultures that they helped seize power systematically tear at the carcass of what once was a thriving American economy. The American system of corporate welfare and crony capitalism is inherently unsustainable and their assets will be lost with the crash of the American economy but they are too busy protesting "socialism" in government and the media to recognize that both serve fascists.</span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Many seniors were comfortable enough in their retirement due to having had the advantages of spending their working years in more secure economic circumstances that they were aroused only when the global economic meltdown touched them directly. The majority of these retirees do not realize the profound changes that have occurred in our society that make it difficult for ordinary Americans to succeed despite their best efforts. The wage earner has been hardest hit, but the collapse of the economy is felt by anyone who has to work for a living and increasingly, those who live off the labor of others. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Unions have been demonized since President Reagan took office, even though all advantages in the class war started by the rich and selfish belong to the corporations that are only too eager to increase profits by outsourcing jobs. This not coincidentally has the additional benefit to them of minimizing taxes by placing profits out of the reach of our government. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Unions are not perfect, since anyone given power over others is subject to confusing their interests with those who they represent. It is fortunate that this is not universally true of union leadership. However, there is an unfortunate trend for union leaders to value access to the corporate Democrats over the increasingly ignored needs of the workers themselves. The big lie is that unions are self-interested groups that would destroy their own industries for short term gain, a description far more fitting to CEOs. Unions represent a balancing force between corporate power and the power of the worker. We must advocate for democratizing unions, not work to destroy them. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The average anti-union worker is fighting against his or her own interest in cheering the decline of the labor movement because he or she does not know the proud history of the labor movement in America. It was unions who fought for the advantages the now retired enjoyed and would deny their grandchildren. It reached its greatest success to date during another period of sustained assault on basic democratic values, before and during the Great Depression. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In the period leading to the first Great Depression, it was said that what is good for business is good for America. What has been missed or ignored by most Americans is the fact that the corporations that control our government are owned by foreign interests and citizens of the US with no loyalty to the nation or its people. What they see as being good for them is entirely inconsistent with the interests of the people of, by and for whom our government was created. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The backbone of America is the small business owner who finds it increasingly difficult to compete against corporate behemoths who can afford to buy the Senators who tilt the playing field to their advantage in return. As a result, small business owners suffer and the average worker grows poorer as the wealthy accumulate an ever larger piece of the American pie.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">We have a new opportunity to regain the power the People once held before the majority of voters bought Reagan’s argument that government should be run like a corporation. Those opposed to big government need to realize that it came from allowing our tax money to go to for-profit institutions in an expensive system of privatized government that amounts to corporate welfare. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The supposed benefits of privatization were lower costs, smaller government and improved services to the taxpayer, none of which have occurred. We are in a jobs crisis, government has grown under Republican and Democratic majorities and the quality of services has worsened as corporations seek to maximize profit from government contracts for services such as Medicare, which used to be fully funded for all services and still runs with a three percent overhead. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Extending Medicare benefits to all would have economic benefits to the worker, small business owner and corporate employer alike. What is really bankrupting Medicare and decreasing its quality and value is not bureaucratic inefficiency but its increasing reliance on for-profit insurance and giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry. Large corporations depend on letting such economic insanity continue rather than risk a feeding frenzy among the sometimes competing special interests they represent. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Democratic medical insurance “reform” bill only makes matters worse by mandating increased for-profit insurance to truly ill patients who were previously denied it, often even when insured. This new mandate is of course paid for by you and me. The rich are crying about paying for health care for others and are backed by many middle class voters who don’t understand the economics of the issues.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Anyone who wants to argue that government is inherently less efficient than private industry needs have an answer to the question of why a single payer or “socialist” system has been adopted in every other industrialized country. It is not because these countries are all “socialist,” as the corporate media and right-wing politicians might lead you to believe but because their People demand fiscal and social responsibility from their leaders. They have learned the lesson the United States taught the world about how to maintain a democracy while Americans seem to have forgotten it.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Single payer systems of health care are government regulated systems funded from general federal tax revenues. They are by their nature universal health care systems. Single payer systems come in a variety of forms but collectively comprise the only model of health care systems that are both affordable now and sustainable in the future. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">These well-functioning systems would not have been created in many of these countries if the only benefit was to provide care to all of their citizens at increased cost to the taxpayers. To the people of these countries, for-profit health care is another form of corporate welfare in which the well-connected profit while the rest of us receive only empty promises. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The only reasons to oppose a single payer system in some form are blind ideology, ignorance or greed. No one but the very rich will be able to afford insurance in a few years unless all medical insurance is paid for with money borrowed from China, Saudi Arabia and other financiers of American extravagance. That is fine with the insurance industry, as long as profits made from other people’s misery continue to roll in. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, when the bill comes due the American taxpayer will be unable to pay it due to the devastation of our economy by the system of corporate welfare. We can limp along as a nation by continuing to sell our assets to other governments and international corporations but just as with the strapped and desperate worker is discovering, when that is gone we will be dependent on the charity of others. After the way we have allowed our government to treat other nations, we will have to hope that they are more charitable than we have been.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">At eighteen percent of GDP even before the boondoggle that is the Democratic health care reform bill, health care costs alone could destroy any chance of a real recovery from our near-Depression. With the costs of endless war and all of the other problems addressed in this book, the American economy will decline to a state where armed revolution seems sensible unless we can get past our differences and stage a peaceful, democratic Revolution. If violence becomes endemic, the government will certainly respond with increasing curtailment of personal liberties. A fascist police state would be the logical result.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The mass media are controlled by corporations that exploit divisions in US society deliberately created to further the ambitions of corporatists in the Senate and the corporatocracy as a whole. Controlled by the same corporate powers that run the government, it is to the advantage of their CEOs and stockholders to perpetuate myths such as that the imaginary burden of taxes costs jobs. The truth is an increasing number of these international corporations pay no tax at all, including 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies in a recent year. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The press promiscuously uses the language of "conservatives" who have radically changed the nature of government and society through their Orwellian manipulation of emotionally laden words that they have redefined to suit their own purposes. Incredibly, the so-called progressives in government register little protest and meekly adopt much of this perverted political language themselves. We must take back our language and speak plainly about the corruption in government if we are to make it work for us again.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">A good example of political doublespeak is the practice of referring to the estate tax as the "death tax." Jefferson, ostensibly the hero of the Right for his advocacy of limited government, warned that we need a "confiscatory" estate tax to prevent the rise of the very aristocracy that now sets the terms of all debate in the media and in Congress. This has resulted in the rank and file conservatives increasingly voting against their own interests in the faith that hard work will be rewarded, despite the evidence of our recent history.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The media have largely become stenographers for whoever is in power, in part to maintain access to them. They dutifully report whatever they are told and ignore the truth that civic minded groups and individuals vainly try to get out through this media blockade. It goes without saying that we have seen the prediction of Robert F. Murrow that corporate control of mass media is a threat to democracy itself. Thank God that younger Americans increasingly rely on alternative media of the Internet, progressive magazines and other more objective sources of information. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The problem with relying on Internet-based media is that higher education is increasingly inaccessible to the young due to a decreased investment in education, rising costs of college and the dumbing down of the curriculum in our schools. Thus, it is a larger challenge for our young to sort information from misinformation available on the internet than it is for us who have watched the decay of democracy for decades and listened to the lies of our leaders long enough to recognize the truth when we see it.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">More ominously, even educated young Americans are increasingly following their parents in cynically rejecting hope for restoration of democracy through the electoral process. Having seen the promise of change in 2008 to be an illusion, they are again dropping out of the process instead of joining efforts to reject the two-Party corporate duopoly and to elect men and women willing to fight for the rights of all Americans. This leaves the power of the vote in the hands of more financially invested Americans who do not see the self-destructive nature of continuing to follow emotionally appealing ideologies that have been proven to fail. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It is somewhat understandable that President Obama listens to the corporate interests that put the Presidency within his grasp, given the price that men like the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. paid for standing up to the corporate powers who direct America's shadow government. Obama would not be President without corporate money and it is clear we would have been worse off with the only alternative presented to us in 2008. This will likely be true in 2012 as well, given the degradation of the Republican Party with the rise of neoconservatism and the purging of moderates over the last three decades. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Given the likelihood that Obama will retain the presidency, his lack of progress in fostering a more transparent government is extremely concerning. The danger of this failure is most apparent when he insists on carrying the Bush policies on the “war” on terror forward without major revisions.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">We can and should insist that President Obama display more courage than he has to date, but only he can decide among the various interests that he has to balance in order to accomplish the greatest good that he can for the greatest number of people. In my opinion he underestimates what he could do if he used all of his considerable powers of persuasion. As a traditionalist, I have tried to assume that the President was doing his best given how he sees his situation, but the failure of his administration to address the major threats to democracy posed by Bush and his predecessors is of serious concern to any objective observer.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Senator Obama was able to convince a substantial number of conservative-leaning voters to take a chance on him in the 2008 election. He was right to try to reach out to rank and file conservatives who have become disillusioned and disgusted by the constant deception and emotional manipulation that has become the hallmark of the modern Republican Party. However, he has made his point and must now spend some of his political capital to fight for fundamental change in government, as he promised. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">President Obama needs to stop talking as if the Democratic Party is working only in the interests of the People. Like the Republican Party, its primary purpose has become the preservation of the tenuous grip on power of the Party and its members. His oratorical skills might be more useful making this point than in trying to gloss over the failings of his Party. In attributing all of its problems in accomplishing the change necessary for America to recover from the effects of unrestrained greed, he risks losing all credibility. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It is always easier to convince the People of the truth than it is to convince them of obvious half-truths. His statement that he would rather be a great one-term President than a poor two-term President rings hollow in the face of the administration’s continual capitulation to the other side of the duopoly that puts the interests of the corporatocracy over that of the People. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">What America needs to restore democracy, end wars of choice and recover economically from the devastation of predatory capitalism is honesty from politicians and the willingness of partisan voters to accept the hard truth that leaders of both major parties have failed to work in their interests. We cannot continue to accept as inevitable that we almost always have to choose between the lesser of two evils presented by the corporate parties.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">This being said, the continuing effort to hold Obama solely responsible for the failure of Democratic leadership is profoundly misinformed. Congress, and particularly the Senate, cannot be excused so easily. The time has not come when a President can challenge the corporate influences that dictate our choices for President, but it is possible for true representatives of the People to win Senate races as Bernie Sanders, Paul Wellstone and Bob LaFollette have proven. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">It is time that the Democratic Party lived up to its stated ideals and supported candidates willing to challenge corporate interests. The Republican Party must live up to the true ideals of conservatism by rejecting the neoconservative redefinition of what it means to be conservative. If party leaders do not understand this message we have little to lose by voting for third party candidates, if only to force both parties to understand that we will not support either of them blindly as they continue to betray the American people.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Democratic Party leaders including Presidents Obama and Clinton have opposed progressive challengers to pseudo-Democrats like Blanche Lincoln. Using the assumed power of the corporations and the rich to determine whether she will continue to be the Democratic Senator from Arkansas, she justifies being a blatant tool of the wealthy individuals and corporations that have historically run the state. <br />
<br />
People like Lincoln are the reason Democrats did not produce any real change in the 2010 Congress, yet Obama stumped for her and Clinton chastised unions that dared support her primary opponent over their handpicked choice. In explicitly favoring Lincoln over Bill Halter in the 2010 primary the Democratic Party leadership has proven that it is more interested in power itself than in using it to heal America. No Party has the right to dictate who its members should vote for in a primary. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">It is understandable for candidates to seek endorsements from within a Party but when two Presidents appear to help save a failing campaign of a Senator who worked to abolish the estate tax, something is seriously wrong. Undermining the estate tax ignores Jefferson's warning that a “confiscatory” estate tax is necessary to prevent the rise of an economic aristocracy. That aristocracy already exists and is waging a winning battle in the class war that it denies claims it deplores.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Democrats cannot pose as the Party of the People when its leadership puts the interests of corporations and the rich over those of the people who actually elected them. Our taxes go to corporate welfare and increasing the wealth of the already wealthy regardless of which party of the duopoly is in charge. The rich cry that they pay a larger proportion of total taxes than the middle class, but it is an investment for them. This gives them the power to accumulate ever greater amounts of the total wealth produced by the workers of the United States. The investment produces hundreds to thousands of dollars for every dollar spent on lobbying.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">At the time of this writing the media had recently reported that Democrats reluctantly gave in to Republicans in extending the Bush tax cuts to the rich just to preserve for a short time the jobless benefits for millions put out of work by the unchecked greed of wealthy benefactors of the Party. These contributors make no secret that they are in the business of working for powerful corporations and individuals at great cost to the rest of us in dollars and human misery.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Democratic Party leadership does not seem to care to run the government any more responsibly today than did the Republicans when they ran the show that American politics has become. They have been complicit in tightening bankruptcy laws that were a safety net for entrepreneurs and victims of economic forces beyond their control. They have been as willing to cut the marginal tax rate on the wealthy as Republicans. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">As noted above, Democrats also made the difference in the passage of Medicare Part D, banking deregulation and the unprecedented series of bailouts of private corporations. This was argued to be necessary but it is little noted the crash resulted from unleashing the greed of the bankers by the repeal of Glass-Steagall approved by Clinton and a bipartisan majority in Congress. The consequences were magnified by failing to regulate the derivative market even after the creator of derivatives warned the government that they must be regulated to avoid the very abuses that have now devastated the American and world economies. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">This repeal of Glass-Steagall broke down the wall between banks and investment houses, allowing them to use increasingly worthless mortgages as collateral to bet 30 dollars in the Wall Street casino for every dollar of value they claimed to hold. The investments were said to be backed up by AIG with what amounted to default insurance that proved woefully inadequate to cover the losses in the housing market collapse. <br />
<br />
The shock waves of the collapse of this massive Ponzi scheme are still resonating throughout the economy. The failure to regulate derivatives gave Goldman-Sachs and Citicorp the means to destroy competitors and consolidate their market position at tremendous cost to the taxpayers of American who footed the bill in the banking bailouts. The list of the failures of Congress goes on ad nauseum. In the process, Goldmann Sachs and Citicorp made record profits and distributed record bonuses to the engineers of this economic destruction.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Of course there are Democrats who fight this trend but once they are in power, most timidly go along with a leadership that does not. They are afraid of being even more marginalized and forgotten by leadership when re-election time rolls around and they become the targets of corporations who prefer more compliant representatives in the Congress to whom they dictate legislation and policy. This problem is even more entrenched in the Republican Party and was the means by which it was purged of moderate voices willing to negotiate to solve problems.</span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">This trend is of the Democratic Party to devolve into the evil twin of the Republicans is reinforced by so-called progressives prominent in the blogosphere. They are in reality Party hacks like Markos Moulitsas, who earns his access to Democratic Party leaders by ridiculing Democrats like Dennis Kucinich when they speak up for the People in opposition to the Party line as formulated by the Democratic "Leadership" Committee. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The politics of the possible has become what corporations dictate is possible thanks to the brainwashing of too many people by those who speak for the echo chamber of the Left and think only within the two-Party box. Until enough Democratic voters recognize this harsh reality and either fight for reform within the party or join independents in building a third Party movement, the task of reforming our government would likely remain insurmountable if there were not a single that has the potential to not only unite the Left but the Left and Right. That issue is the abolition of corporate personhood<br />
<br />
Most people think that it is too hard to amend the constitution. With with all the other problems we are organizing to fight and no help from the corporate media, they argue that the will and spare energy to build a movement sufficient to achieve this goal is not there. What the naysayers miss is that this is not simply another issue to be fought over but the single issue that is central to ending the influence of corporate money in elections.<br />
</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">As importantly, the abolition of corporate personhood is an issue that will determine the outcome of elections even before it passes. By making support for such and amendment a litmus test in all congressional races, we would have the tool we need to remove the corporate Puppets in Congress when they run for re-election against candidates who have taken the pledge to amend. Within two to three election cycles it would be possible to pass the amendment in Congress, by which time state legislators will surely see the writing on the wall and ratify the amendment at the state level.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It is the responsibility of each of us not just to vote, but to educate ourselves about the candidates from among whom we are choosing. If we are unwilling to do so, it is our duty to not vote. If both Democratic and Republican candidates seem willing to put the interests of their corporate sponsors above the interests of the American people, we cannot simply shrug our shoulders and vote for the "home team." If there is a third party or independent candidate who will represent us, we must give that candidate our support. Given that the others are usually the corporate choices, there is little to lose and much to be gained.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The work I have done to try and help organizations advocating single payer health care and other progressive causes has been rewarding but at times frustrating. All the people I have work with are passionately committed to whatever cause they seek to advance and many are working on many causes at once, as I have come to do. The problem is that they suffer from the same ideological barriers of any group of voters. They must learn that with representative democracy itself at stake, ego and narrow ideological differences must be put aside until the Republic is restored.</span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Extremists on the Left are as divisive as extremists on the Right. We must find a way to get past mutual animosity and begin to work together for the good of all. Thinking in absolute terms of black and white is inherently destructive to any effort to build a democratic movement. We must begin with open minds to engage in productive discussion with our self-chosen enemies about how to unite and demand a government that puts the interests of the People over those of corporations. Only if we put ideology and ego aside can we find the common ground on which to take a stand against the corporate plutocracy that our government has come to serve to the virtual exclusion of the </span><span style="font-size: large;">rights and needs of the </span><span style="font-size: large;">American people. </span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Building a real coalition of a plurality of Americans is a Herculean task. We no longer have a common language with which to approach the discussion of politics, society and the relative role of government. Emotional language obscures the reality that personal responsibility is not enough to survive economically in our increasingly complex and endangered world. The solution may lie in using language that stirs positive emotions and a sense of pride in accepting social responsibility. It is critical that language be used to tell the truth rather than to mislead. Fortunately, the truth is inherently more compelling than self-serving fictions.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Libertarians fall into the trap of thinking that any of us can succeed if we work hard enough, not recognizing that the current dearth of living wage jobs was predictable long before the current crisis and is unlikely to disappear soon, if ever. The only way to level the playing field is to admit this truth and work together to fight for every American, not just those lucky enough to be in a position to succeed. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The media openly conspire with the power elite to unquestioningly use the Libertarian language that corporate politicians choose to justify their betrayal of the average American. They have spun a carefully constructed web of lies that has caused the average unsuspecting American to betray our tradition of socially responsible government answerable to the needs of all the People.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Politicians since Nixon have increasingly used anger and fear to divide us by means of perverting everyday words to signify the opposite of their true meaning. If being liberal is bad, why did the Father of our Country state that he hoped that “America will become the most liberal of nations”? If being conservative is bad, why do liberals want to restore the democracy they feel we have lost? </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">If self-described conservatives and liberals want to follow the ideas of our Founders, they cannot pick and choose what quotes they like and interpret then in a way that fits their prejudices. The same is true of increasingly political Christian and other fundamentalists who choose passages from their holy texts to justify antisocial, anti-human acts against individuals and society as a whole. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, but our freedom do not belong to the government and can only be taken away if we persist in fighting each other rather than the corporatocracy our government now seems to exist to serve.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Whether we consider ourselves liberal, conservative or independent, we must not allow the corporatists of the media and the two-Party duopoly to define our language for us. If we are going to Take Back America for the People we must take back our language. We need to say what we mean and use our common language to communicate, not to argue about semantic differences that obscure the truth in our respective positions. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">By our example we can teach others to talk to each other. Eventually, I hope to see a consensus reality merge that is held even by those who have been brainwashed into accepting the Orwellian redefinitions of commonly understood terms. Until we help these angry, deluded souls to come out of their hypnotic state, they will continue to forget that we are all Americans who share many common values.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has spent years navigating the Byzantine structure of the VA in an effort to better serve our veterans, I have seen the problems in government programs firsthand that have been part of the reason Americans are willing to reject government as a whole. As a result, I believe that I understand all too well how easy it is to deliberately convince the public of the inherent flaws in government and make more difficult the task of restoring democracy in America. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Most of us understand that government is necessary to restrain those who would strip from us our rights and our liberty. We must come to a common understanding of what the proper role of government is in guaranteeing these rights if the nation is to get through this time of crisis and show by its example that freedom is possible only in a democracy. Only then will we have regained the moral authority to join the effort to lead the world to a rational, sustainable and just future where the threat of war is but a distant memory.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">It is my hope that we can learn to talk about the issues dividing Americans in a spirit of common purpose and mutual respect. This may be the only way that we will see a peaceful Revolution rather than a violent one. The most extremely corporatist politicians seem to be willing to promote violence as the only way to maintain undemocratic privilege for themselves and their corporate benefactors. <br />
<br />
Progressive conservatives and liberals will begin to make progress in using government to serve the interests of the People only when they talk to each other. We can end the corporate dominance of the American government if we join in a new abolition movement, one that will end our economic enslavement by abolishing corporate personhood.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The key to effective communication is to understand how emotions affect reasoning and to capitalize on this to communicate the truth to the average citizen. This will have a greater impact than the lies of the corporate owned media and politicians who have become willing Puppets in a thoroughly corrupt political system. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Fortunately, Americans showed when they elected Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama that they prefer to hear a pleasant view of an imaginary America. We must talk to each other to develop a shared vision of what that America can and should be. If we calmly discuss with each other about the America we can create by working together, we can become the shining city on the hill that Reagan saw before starting the process of giving away our government to corporate interests.</span></b><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">I hope that through this book I can in some small way contribute to the opening of a more meaningful dialogue between the American people, so that we can clearly communicate our expectations to our ostensible leaders and more importantly, to the amoral corporatists who would sacrifice us all on the altar of the cult of greed. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">I see the job of the Soldier For Peace as being to promote social justice and the highest ideals of the Founders of the American experiment in democracy. In an army, we depend on each other for our survival. When everyone is a Soldier For Peace, we cannot lose because the battle will be over and all will have won.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Notes: </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Most of these essays were first published on the Democracy for America website and some have appeared on the Progressive Democrats of America website and elsewhere. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">I release all rights to reproduction of all or part of this work, except if any renumeration is asked for said reproductions.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The essays in this book have been edited from the original postings for clarity and in some instances to reflect events subsequent to the original posting that make the significance of certain points clearer. </span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Dates of publication listed </span><span style="font-size: large;">in the body of the essays </span><span style="font-size: large;">are the dates they were published on the DFA blog or on the date they were first posted in this book. They were posted here </span><span style="font-size: large;">in reverse order</span><span style="font-size: large;"> (often much later) to follow a standard book format. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">I welcome constructive criticism from readers, and especially correction of any factual errors, particularly in the attribution of the writers of songs whose lyrics are found in these pages. </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD </span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Founder, Soldiers For Peace International</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Captain, U.S. Army (retired)</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, Oregon</span></b></div>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-2179311311677811982009-11-25T06:51:00.003-08:002021-06-24T20:34:49.045-07:00SOLDIERS FOR PEACE-WHO WE ARE<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">To answer the
question "What is Soldiers For Peace?" you must understand who <i>a </i>Soldier
For Peace is. <span color="windowtext">A Soldier For Peace is</span> any one of the millions of people around the world who
struggle nonviolently for social justice in <span color="windowtext">thei</span>r community, nation, and the
world at large. <br />
<br />
Soldiers For Peace International is an all-volunteer virtual "Army"
of a radical new kind. Rather than being an organization, it is a network of
individuals working each in their own way to help build a united international
front against fascism and war. Most of us have never met each other and the
vast majority of Soldiers For Peace have never heard the term we use to
describe our network. Nonetheless, it is our collective efforts that give
humanity its last hope for peace, freedom and a future for our children worth
passing on.<br />
<br />
We are anarchical in that we have no command structure. There is no decision
making body. There are no orders issued. Each of us is effectively an “Army
of one,” acting individually and as members of organizations to wage a
nonviolent "war" against injustice that we believe will lead to the
end of war between nations. No one speaks for all Soldiers For Peace.
We follow our consciences and use our own initiative to further our common
objectives in the field of battle. What follows is thus not a definition
of Soldiers For Peace but my vision of what we can collectively become.<br />
<br />
Our goal must be to convince a critical mass of humanity that we can end war.
Only if we believe it is possible and absolutely necessary for the survival of
human civilization will enough people engage in the work necessary to succeed.
War is the ultimate example of injustice. All efforts to fight injustice
peacefully further our ultimate goal. <br />
<br />
Failure is not an option, because war is the ultimate tool of oppression and
leaves no winners in its wake. At a time when war has become an accepted means
of expanding and consolidating the power of a small group of international elite
with no allegiance to nations or their peoples, none of us will escape the
consequences if we fail to act now.<br />
<br />
Given that the every decent human wants to see the end of war, the problem is
one of overcoming the self-fulfilling prophecy that war is inevitable.
This is a struggle each of us must ultimately wage alone. As founder of
Soldiers For Peace International I only ask that you consider whether choosing
to accept the idea of war is still necessary is in itself a betrayal of
humanity and most especially, the children who will reap what we have sown.<br /><br /> </span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OnaGniPqZws?list=PLC34966EAD7BEC645&hl=en_US" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Soldiers For Peace began in the US in 1990 in response to the threat of the
first Persian Gulf war, now largely forgotten except by those who fought it and
by others who saw it as a great American victory rather than the wholesale
slaughter it was. Few Americans realize that after the defeat of the vicious
Republican Guard that terrorized Kuwaiti civilians, the war degenerated
into a massacre of mostly Iraqi draftees who had been coerced into serving as cannon
fodder in Hussein’s insane dream of restoring Iraqi greatness through another
disastrous war. <br />
<br />
Those of us who responded with alarm in 1990 to yet another war for corporate
Empire so soon after Vietnam had already concluded what most people have yet to
consider: War is not inevitable, it is always a choice. It is a choice made by
people who are unaccountable to We the People and who act through the
systematic manipulation of elected government officials and the media. When the war was
seemingly over, most of us went back to our day jobs. Only a few sensed that
this was a harbinger of worse things to come.<br />
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The first Bush went on to punish the Iraqi populace for the sins of their
dictator, who he apparently still found to be useful. The corrupt oil-for-food
program caused the suffering of millions of poor Iraqis while doing little to
curb income to Hussein. He was therefore not only able to continue his lavish
spending on himself and his supporters but to conceivably acquire weapons of mass
destruction, as claimed by the second Bush administration. This was just the first of many lies offered to justify the second invasion.
<br />
<br />
Bin Laden and Hussein were in turn useful covers for the role of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy">corporatocracy</a>'s agents
within and outside of the US government whose actions and inaction allowed the massacre of 3,000
Americans in a plot that multiple lines of evidence indicated they had been apprised of well in time to have stopped it.
Unfortunately, the plot was much too convenient for those who profit from war as a pretext to invade Iraq, as called for in a <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3249.htm">report</a> by the
Project for a New American Century released one year prior to 9/11. Thus, it was allowed to proceed.<br />
<br />The initial conspirator presented to the American people as terrorism
personified, accused Saudi mastermind <a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/05/01/president-obama-announces-bin-laden-still-dead/">bin Ladin</a> proved useful
only until the game plan called for the invasion of Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saddam Hussein was then deliberately and cynically
substituted as the face of terror. The threat he was said to represent was the
only justification given for continuing on the path to a New World Order that
promised a false security at the cost of individual freedoms and loss of national
sovereignty around the world.<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Hussein was used
as a target toward which to direct the hatred of the American citizenry when it
served the government’s purposes after America launched its War of Terror
following the 9/11 attacks. US interests having long been assumed by most
Americans to be synonymous with corporate interests, too few questioned the
push to war by an oilman who was the son of former a CIA director turned
President and the grandson of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar">Nazi collaborator</a> Senator Prescott Bush.<br />
<br />
The campaign of "Shock and Awe" made for spectacular television, with
nighttime shots of smart bombs raining down on Baghdad. The citizens who were
thus murdered could not be seen from the vantage point of cameras in the
bombers and on the bombs so did not detract from the thrill patriotic Americans
felt at this aggressive "defense of freedom." These attacks were
often staged for prime time and put CNN front and center of the media
cheerleading the Iraq war. </span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><br />
That President Obama has continued to follow the game plan of PNAC clearly
indicates the extent to which the corporatocracy's reach has extended
throughout the US government. It seems clear to me that he was warning us when
he said repeatedly throughout the 2008 campaign “I can’t be the change, YOU
have to be the change that we need.” Regardless of the meaning behind that
sound bite, it is up to the people of the United States and the world to
respond to that call.</span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">1990 was another
time and events proved that Americans were not yet ready to face reality.
Without the aid of the internet, Soldiers For Peace never really caught on.
After the Persian Gulf War ended the American dream at first slowly and then
with precipitous speed transformed into the long national nightmare from which
the nation and the western world are just beginning to awaken. <br />
<br />
In 2009, the time had come to consider anew whether it was possible to launch a
movement based on a simple idea: War is not inevitable. If enough people can be
made to recognize that we have the collective power to end it if they
understand why failing to do so will spell the end of civilization as we know
it, we can together create<span color="windowtext"> a <a href="http://takebackamericaforthepeople.blogspot.com/2009/09/chapter-seventy-seven-tectonic-paradigm.html">tectonic paradigm shift</a> </span>in human consciousness in
which war will become unthinkable.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><br />
Soldiers for Peace started, as many things do, as just a good idea. What it
lacked was the means to build the virtual Army <span color="windowtext">that</span> was needed to wrest control of the
US government from corporate rule on behalf of the American people and
ultimately, all the Peoples of a world civilization poised on the brink of
self-destruction. The internet provided that potential. <br />
<br />
Soldiers For Peace would have remained nothing but a good idea but for the fact
that it is an idea whose time has now come. If you understand how the extension
of the corporate power over the US government has made critical the state of
America and the world and if you have pledged yourself to the nonviolent
struggle for the survival of civilization as we understand it, then you already
a member of our virtual Army, wherever you are. <br />
<br />
We no longer have the luxury of waiting. America and the world stand poised on
a precipice, reeling from the disorienting effects of 30 years of misuse of the
power of the US government. With the support of citizens around the world, the
American people must seize the reins of their own government to keep it from
driving all of us relentlessly toward certain destruction through endless war
and its effects on the environment, economy and collective psyche of Mankind.</span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Soldiers For Peace
are compassionate realists. We are not “passionate idealists,” because passion
blinds reason and idealism does not recognize the limits of reality. Compassion
compels us to accept our duty despite the cynic within who tells us that
victory is not possible against the power of the psychopaths who are the
world’s economic elite. They are at war with us. We have no choice but to
resist if we wish our children to live free. <br />
<br />
True warriors will understand the importance of the mission know that surrender
is not possible in this war. Though the odds against victory may seem
insurmountable, every empire has fallen to implacable foes who seized opportunities resulting from the inevitable rotting of all empires. <br /><br />Our goal is
realistic if we realize and can convince enough of our fellow citizens that by
acting according to our common ideals, we can demand and secure the right of
self-determination of our nations and their peoples. The realist is after all
in the end the one whose vision is realized. The cynic will be right only if
his view prevails and we fail to try. It is our duty to those who have died in
the belief that they were fighting for freedom to assure that the last, best
hope for Mankind does not perish from the Earth and with it, our hopes for our
children. <br />
<br />
Freedom of thought is the one liberty that cannot be taken away. In freeing our
minds from the trap of unquestioned assumptions we free ourselves. In sharing
information and mutually supporting ideas for action, we can <a href="http://www.soldiersforpeaceinternational.org/2011/05/escaping-matrix.html"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 8.5pt;">free each other from the Matrix </span></a>of
lies within which most of humanity is bound. This is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Against-Fascism-War-George-Dimitrov/dp/071780643X"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 8.5pt;">how we build a united international front
against fascism and war</span></a> that will assure that our children thrive in
a world free from want and war. </span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><br />
There is a place in our Army for anyone dedicated to the ideal that free
Peoples can and should rule themselves. We must learn to think of ourselves
first as citizens of the planet, abandoning the idea that we can identify
ourselves first as citizens of a nation, members of a political faction, of a religion or any group smaller than humanity itself. Such ultimately artificial distinctions obscure the fact that it
is what we share in common that makes us human. At a time when civilization faces the very real prospect of self-destruction, we
must fight together for the survival of human civilization.<br />
<br />
If you find yourself subject to doubt and cynicism, know that you are not alone
but do not submit to these demons. It is often said there are no atheists in
foxholes. Desperation is sometimes the only way to inspire faith in the
frightened and hopeless. We must find that faith in ourselves that allows us to
believe that together, we can accomplish what faith alone cannot. We must pledge
our lives and sacred honor to this cause. Together we will advance to victory,
leaving no man, woman or child behind.</span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;"><br />
<br />
Soldiers For Peace International was first established by veterans of the US
military. However, our intent was never to reject any supporter of our efforts
who did not choose to serve in the military. We honor those who have made that
choice. All who agree with our mission and understand the importance of working
for unity among those striving for peace, freedom and democracy in the
world are by definition Soldiers For Peace and are invited to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/sfpiradio/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 8.5pt;">join our group on Facebook</span></a>. The more we achieve a
common identity, the louder our collective voice will become.</span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Although military
service is not a prerequisite to service in our virtual Army, we remain
interested in recruiting within the ranks of current and former active
duty service members. Their knowledge, skill sets and contacts within the
military community will prove indispensable in the Revolution that is surely
coming, whether or not we realize our goal of keeping it nonviolent. <br />
<br />
If you are a veteran or active duty
service member in the military of any nation, find out more
about how you can uniquely contribute to our efforts by emailing me at:
staggenborg4senate@hotmail.com. </span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Rick Staggenborg,
MD</span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Founder, Soldiers
For Peace International</span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Captain, U.S. Army
(retired)</span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 18pt;">Coos Bay, Oregon<br />
<br /> </span></b><span color="windowtext" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<![endif]-->Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-40776229311793585552009-11-25T06:22:00.000-08:002012-07-20T15:38:48.136-07:00CHAPTER ONE. WHY DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA SHOULD NOT SUPPORT OBAMA’S PUBLIC OPTION PLAN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 10, 2009 6:10 AM PDT </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Congress is reportedly considering a variety of universal health plan options that involve using multiple payer sources including a Medicare-like plan and traditional insurance offered by for-profit corporations. These plans are all supposed to offer similar benefits, but there is a huge debate as to whether the public option will have to be handicapped by regulations to decrease its efficiency to match the poor performance of private plans. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We do not know the details of the negotiations because Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has closed the hearings after supporters of a single payer, Medicare for All plan tried to speak from the audience in the opening committee hearing. Instead of being invited to join the negotiations, 13 patriots including doctors, nurses and lawyers were arrested and charged with trespassing for refusing to be silent in the face of this betrayal of the American taxpayer, including most of the millions of workers who were denied access to health care.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Baucus 13 were forced to speak out when Baucus refused to invite any single payer supporter to the hearing, which was dominated by representatives of the for-profit health care, insurance and pharmacy industries. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The ostensible purpose of the hearings is to come up with a plan that will provide health care to the millions of low and middle income wage earners whose taxes would disproportionately fund the resulting plan. Instead, experts in the economics of single payer health care were excluded from the process of coming up with a plan. Predictably, this will ultimately prove to be a bailout of the medical insurance industry that has caused the crisis. Perhaps it is not coincidental that these same industries gave a combined total of over 1.6 million dollars to Baucus during the previous Congress. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The public option will not work because Baucus and these lobbyists are not about to endorse a plan that will let the Medicare option outperform the private plans, as it would if it were operated as efficiently as possible. How could Medicare, with its three percent overhead not outcompete private insurance, which consumes 30 per cent of its revenue in administration, advertising, marketing and profits? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The only reasons Medicare is so expensive is that 1) It covers the at-risk elderly and the much sicker patients who cannot get private insurance and 2) Since the passage of the Medicare Modernization Act, it has been burdened by partial privatization and the unsustainably expensive Part D medication plan that specifically bars the government from negotiating for favorable drug prices using its huge purchasing power. These problems can be corrected by incorporating what amounts to repeal of this law in the reform legislation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As an Oregonian, I cannot fail to note that our own Senator Wyden cast the final and deciding vote for this bill, despite strong Democratic opposition to this blatant gift to the private medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Medicare Modernization Act is a perfect example of what a Senate brought to us by corporate sponsors will produce when it is not watched closely by citizens. This is the reason we must educate ourselves about the options being considered by Congress and more importantly, the one that is being explicitly not considered, the single payer system. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Polls show that this is the option favored by over 60% of the American public and 60% of physicians. These numbers are growing rapidly as universal insurance approaches reality and people are educating themselves about the costs and benefits of various proposals. The percentage of doctors favoring a single payer plan has increased by ten percentage points in just five years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The public option plans are estimated to sacrifice over 80% of the savings achievable through a single payer plan in order to satisfy the corporate medical care industries that dictate policy to many of our Senators. Single payer achieves its efficiencies through a variety of means. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It streamlines paperwork and would dramatically cut administrative costs to providers that currently consume 10 % of the health care dollar. It eliminates excessive insurance industry profits and all of their advertising and marketing expenses. It would lower administrative costs because government employees do not demand excessive salaries to serve the public. A single payer plan can monitor abuses of fee-for-service providers and administrators will have the mission of ensuring prompt payment to providers, rather than to repeatedly review claims to find loopholes to deny payment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Most people do not realize that government is only expensive because we keep re-electing pork-loving politicians who reward their corporate masters with lavish contracts paid for by the taxpayer. If we paid more attention to what our Congressional representatives were doing and routinely got rid of those not serving the public interest, corporate money would be less influential. In other words, most of the blame for the exorbitant cost of government is ours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We are not powerless. President Obama has told us that we must “be the change.” If we let our Congress know that we want single payer now through letters to newspapers, magazines and especially calls, emails and faxes to members of Congress, we can change minds by empowering more responsible members of Congress to resist lobbyist pressure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for those who put corporate interests over those of citizens, we can send them an even stronger message in 2010 and 2012, when 2/3 of the senate will stand for re-election. While there are compelling reasons to oppose single-issue voting, the establishment of a single payer system is the defining civil rights issue that will tell us which members of Congress understand and believe in democracy and which do not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Please learn more about the advantages of a single payer system of universal health care at the website of <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/">Physicians for a National Health Program.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Physicians for a National Health Care Plan</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, OR</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-49854377859669398832009-11-25T06:02:00.000-08:002013-12-06T09:35:36.382-08:00CHAPTER TWO: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Zjyh5GwIKzA" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="480"></iframe> <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 17, 2009 7:55 PM PDT</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to George Washington, whose personal integrity and faith in his cause and his countrymen led us miraculously to defeat a vastly superior British force, then to avoid the usual chaotic power struggles for a time after our revolution. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Had we consistently followed Washington's example of dignified discourse and respect for all men as equals, the nation might have avoided falling into the state we found ourselves during the panic following 9/11 and the eight years of nightmare that ensued. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Washington refused to torture in retaliation for British abuses of American patriots, setting an example that was followed until we came to be ruled by those who never learned the lessons of our proud history. Misplaced pride, indulgence of their perceived self interest and fear kept his successors from following his example. It is time that we remember why we fought a revolution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">THE AMERICAN STORY: PART I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is the first in a series of essays exploring the roots of American ideals through examination of our history. Too often political discourse takes place in a historical vacuum. We forget too easily that a people who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This does not imply that “history repeats itself.” This phrase is used by those who believe, or would like others to believe, that there is nothing that can be done to change the future. History is determined individuals who have a vision of the future. We must not let those motivated solely by their perceived self-interest dictate the fate of the United States and the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is a national disgrace that failure to accurately recall our own history has caused us to lose our way in the advancement along the path of democracy that others nations have blazed, using as a guide the compass built by the Founders of our country. America has a proud heritage of leading the rest of the world in directions never seen before. Perhaps if we can agree on where we came from, we can more clearly see how to proceed together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Most revolutions fail after a short time. The reason seems to be that revolutionaries have a disturbing tendency to attempt to exterminate dissidents in post-revolutionary purges. It is likely that the American Revolution seemed to succeed in large part because of the magnanimity of the colonial patriots after defeating the conservative Tories who had defended the English system of inherited wealth and privilege. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Despite the fact that most of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence had been executed or financially ruined, the American revolutionaries did not follow the more modern practice of attempting to eliminate their former enemies. While most of the wealthy Tories escaped to Canada with the riches they had accumulated as a result of their loyalty to the Crown and there were reprisals against some of the more violent opponents of the Revolution, most of those who chose to stay were invited to join the new democratic Republic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The debate about whether the people of such a large and diverse nation could govern themselves hinged on the question of whether men were good enough to do so responsibly. Conservatives who opposed revolution were largely followers of the doctrine of Hobbes, who described life then as “short, nasty and brutish” because of the essentially evil nature of man. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Those supporting independence were more optimistic, believing not necessarily that mankind was perfectible but that in seeking always to form a more perfect union, America would always lead the world in advancing the cause of liberty. It is important to notice that this was a radical concept and by definition anything but conservative.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">What modern "conservatives" apparently fail to realize is that the Founders did not think that they had designed a perfect government that should never change. This is why they built into the Constitution a means to change it. The doctrine of original intent promoted by the so-called "conservative" Heritage Foundation and some of our less intellectually honest Supreme Court justices is therefore incomprehensible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Jefferson argued in the Declaration of Independence that whenever government fails to represent the interests of the people, “it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” The time has come not to abolish government but to alter it so that it serves the original intent of the Founders to protect the power of government from all usurpers who would exercise the tyranny of the majority or of the minority to advance their own selfish interests. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Constitution itself was written precisely to succeed the original Articles of Confederation, which by establishing a confederation of sovereign states rather than a union had failed to create an effective government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” This early experiment had shown that a weak government cannot perform its essential functions of protecting citizens from abuse by the powerful and advancing the interests of the nation as a whole. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The power of the government is limited by the brilliant system of checks and balances built into the three branches of government. The Founders did not foresee that this nation would stray so far from its roots that its people would cede control of all three branches to a Party which argues that it cannot function effectively. It was clearly not their original intent that such cynics be given the reins of the government. We have witnessed the results of forgetting our history. It is important that we relearn them if we are to move forward as one People.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Revolution has not ended. There have always been conservative elements who would let us give up our hard won freedoms in time of war. From John Adams and his Alien and Sedition Act to the Bush administration that has trashed our First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendment rights, nominally conservative counter-Revolutionaries have battled throughout history to use the power of government itself to undermine the principles on which it was founded. Each time, there has arisen someone who opposed them and put the nation back on course. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">From Thomas Jefferson to Teddy Roosevelt, great leaders have beat back the efforts of these counter-Revolutionaries. Unfortunately, the leaders opposing Revolutionary principles now use the fascist strategy of combining violence with corporate wealth and power to achieve their aims. They have used conservative businessmen like Rupert Murdoch to seize control of the media to propagandize and confuse our people, blinding them to the true nature of our history and allowing self-serving politicians cover to push the counter-Revolutionary agenda. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While some argued early on that President Obama had sold his soul to corporate interests, I tried to believe him when he told us repeatedly that he could not be the change, but that we have to be the change. Despite President Obama's many failures to address critical problems facing our nation, I still believe that when we expect the worst of our politicians, they tend to live down to our expectations in a tiresome self-fulfilling prophesy. If we collectively demand freedom from corporate control of the Senate and President Obama does not stand with us, then and only then will history have the right to judge him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Revolution only began 234 years ago. It continues to this day. Which side are you on?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For those who love democracy, no one says better than Mick Jagger what our relationship to a democratic government should be:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’ll never be your beast of burden.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">My back is broad but it’s a hurting.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">All I want is for you to make love to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’ll never be your beast of burden.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I’ve walked for miles my feet are hurting.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">All I want is for you to make love to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Am I hard enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Am I rough enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Am I rich enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m not too blind to see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’ll never be your beast of burden.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So let’s go home and draw the curtains.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Music on the radio,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">come on baby make sweet love to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Am I hard enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Am I rough enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Am I rich enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I’m not too blind to see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Oh little sister,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, girl.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You’re a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girl.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Pretty, pretty,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">such a pretty, pretty, pretty girl.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Come on baby please, please, please.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’ll tell ya,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">you can put me out</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">on the street;</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Put me out</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">with no shoes on my feet,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">but, put me out, put me out,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">put me out of misery.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yeah, all your sickness</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I can suck it up.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Throw it all at me,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I can shrug it off.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There’s one thing baby</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">that I don’t understand.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You keep on telling me</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I ain’t your kind of man.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ain’t I rough enough, ooh baby?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ain’t I tough enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ain’t I rich enough, in love enough?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ooh! ooh! Please.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ill never be your beast of burden.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ill never be your beast of burden.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Never, never, never, never, never, never, never be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I don’t need no beast of burden.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I need no fussing,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I need no nursing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Never, never, never, never, never, never, never be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To learn more about the single payer model of universal health care or to join Physicians for a National Health Plan or its sister organization Health Care Now, go to the <a href="http://pnhp.org/">PNHP website</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The economic benefits of a single payer system are compared to the 2010 Democratic medical insurance "reform" bill in Appendices I and II.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, Oregon</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-63601279654396328462009-11-25T05:35:00.000-08:002011-01-20T19:40:39.719-08:00CHAPTER THREE. WHY THE PUBLIC OPTION WON’T WORK: HOW SINGLE PAYER WILL SAVE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2xUQHRW4-NQ/TTfnl8TcUCI/AAAAAAAAACc/fEfA2iFdAhg/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2xUQHRW4-NQ/TTfnl8TcUCI/AAAAAAAAACc/fEfA2iFdAhg/s320/002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 21, 2009 7:40 AM PDT</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to James Madison, chief architect of the American Constitution.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Americans need to know that Congress is refusing to consider the single payer approach to universal health care for a reason: Max Baucus and other key committee members writing the legislation refuse to betray the interests of medical insurance industry lobbyists. Go to opensecrets.com and see for yourself how Baucus received 1.65 million from these corporate interests to come up with an expensive taxpayer bailout of the failing private insurance industry.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Democratic senator </span><span style="font-size: large;">Charles Schumer has announced his intention to refuse to vote for any public option plan that does not force the public option to be handicapped in such a way that it will not compete with private insurance plans using its inherent cost advantages. The result is that tens of millions of Americans will continue to suffer from lack of insurance or underinsurance.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The whole point of health care reform is not just to provide universal access to health care, but to do so in a sustainable way. We cannot afford to continue to sacrifice our children's future for the sake of the profits of these soulless corporate entities. It was a group of particularly fallible men on a previous Supreme Court that erroneously or deliberately decided that corporations have all the rights of citizens. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some of us find convincing Jeffrey Toobin's argument that the current court has so little respect for precedent that the rule of law itself is threatened. Fortunately, more recent decisions suggest that they have begun to take their responsibilities more seriously. (Note to reader: This was written prior to the Citizens United decision).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thank God that erroneously decided opinions can be reversed by a more enlightened Court. The legal argument that corporations are persons as referred to in the Fourteenth amendment and thus possess the rights of natural persons was not based on precedent and is incontrovertibly erroneous. The due process clause of the Fourteenth amendment clearly states that "All persons born or naturalized" in the United States are guaranteed all the rights of the Constitution. If corporations are born, then it seems that the government should be able to execute them for crimes against humanity, but this does not seem to be the case in the Incorporated States of America.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Corporate personhood has resulted in formerly illegal lobbying practices corrupting Congress and the Senate in particular. This Court must recognize the danger of discarding stare decisis, or We the People may have to call for a constitutional convention to restore the meaning of "person" under the Fourteenth amendment to its original, intuitively obvious meaning. The only other alternative is for Congress to pass such an amendment itself, which is clearly beyond the realm of the possible with this Congress. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is not that all politicians are working against the public interest. Many understand the problem and want to stand up for single payer but are afraid to make themselves the target of smear campaigns by these ruthless advocates of naked greed. President Obama himself has repeatedly stated that the single payer plan is optimal but that he believes it is politically impossible. This may simply represent a failure of imagination. He is said to be a political chess grandmaster and I do not rule out the possibility that he foresees the results of this blatant antidemocratic process and is waiting for the American people to rise up in righteous anger and "Be the change." </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It makes little sense to me to hold the President responsible for failing to expect more out of this Congress, when he sees passage of some form of reform as critical to his ability to advance the rest of his domestic agenda. Whether or not he is considered sufficiently progressive by Democrats, the consequences of his being replaced by an even more neoconservative President with a veto pen would be disastrous, as recent history has demonstrated. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Failure to recognize the culpability of a bought and paid for plurality in Congress would be a grave tactical error if progressives want to ever advance our cause. The only recourse is to follow the lead of Republicans and organize together to elect those Senators and Representatives who would best represent what we consider to be American principles. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While some believe that the Democratic Party can be reformed just as the Republican Party was transformed into a blatant arm of the corporatocracy, human nature suggests that true change will only come from outside the Party. It is clear that its leadership feels that cooperation with the corporate interests that now control the political process is in their own best interests. I am sure that they believe that this is the only way to represent the People against corporate power, but their actions belie their stated intentions.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe that President Obama will withhold his support of single payer until the public stands up as one and demands it. This is our chance to prove that despite a dysfunctional Congress, we still have the power to take back the American government and demand that it serves the interest of the people it is supposed to represent. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Will we have a government of the people, by the people and for the people or will we simply continue to shrug and drop out of the political process in despair of the prospect of taking back our government from corporate rule? Our task is to build a movement that will take to the streets and demand that the interests of the People be given precedence to those of the corporate sponsors of campaigns for our Congressional representatives. Failure to do this would be to surrender the fight to restore democracy in America.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We need to write, call, fax and email our Congressmen and demand single payer now. If a complicated and expensive substitute is created now, we will eventually have to borrow more money from China to finance it, since there is no constituency willing to bear the burden of paying the ever-increasing cost of a multipayer system accessible to all and there is no way to prevent cost inflation in such a system. China has already indicated its hesitancy to continue financing our profligate ways. Wake up, America! We have no real choice. When the average income is projected to equal the average individual insurance premium by 2025 at current rates of growth, we must have single payer and no other form of health care reform.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is ironic that the birthplace of modern democracy has ceded its leadership role to the former monarchies of Europe who have been able to achieve this obvious means of providing what the UN has declared is a human right. We have to stand up to the fundamentalists of the cult of Ayn Rand and prove to them that they are wrong. The pursuit of individual self interest is ultimately destructive. Just look at what it has done to the world economy if you still need proof.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Get off your knees and join the fight to preserve democracy in America. </span><span style="font-size: large;">There is no use praying that our President expend some of his enormous political capital to give us real health reform or that he would find the Senate receptive if he tried. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">To paraphrase the immortal words of Jack Crabb in the classic movie "Little Big Man" as he simply used the truth to set up his revenge against the arrogant and cocksure General Custer: "You go, General. You go into the streets of America with your army of corrupt and cowardly Congressman armed only with corporate blood money. You are going to be facing millions of angry Americans. These ain’t helpless men, women and children. Them are American warriors, brave and true. They are going to fight to the death to protect their children's future. So you go, general. You go out there and see what happens."</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Physicians for a National Health Plan</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, OR</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-17861862446969050232009-11-24T15:57:00.001-08:002011-02-12T15:59:25.635-08:00CHAPTER FOUR. THE INTERNET IS THE NEXT STAGE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/L_8Al65tky0" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="480"></iframe> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 23, 2009 6:13 AM PDT </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to William Gibson, one of the finest of today's science fiction writers and a visionary of the near future.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I was young, I used to laugh at the notion that we are still evolving. Drawings on the cover of science fiction dime novels showed future men with swollen brain cases making their heads look vaguely like mushrooms. The effect was as comical as the idea itself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I reasoned that if evolution is driven by survival of the fittest, surely our bodies could not be evolving because we had evolved to the point where selective pressures no longer operated. The proof was in longer life expectancy and the defeat of many diseases that had formerly weeded out those with less fortunate genetic endowments.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">As I grew older and found my time occupied with more serious studies, I regretfully put aside these fascinating stories of worlds of the future and prepared myself for my personal future. Now, with my formal education long behind me, I find myself reading more about current threats to human survival that make me question my earlier assumption that human evolution has ceased. I have recently realized that this requires an important paradigm shift.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">There are many threats to human life on this planet that the less reality challenged among us have begun to face. Chief among these is global climate change. We have depended on the energy of the sun for our growth and survival since before life was merely blue-green algae, a scum formed from the primordial ooze. At that time it covered the Earth’s oceans, deriving our sustenance directly from the sun through the miraculous process of photosynthesis. Lacking minds or souls, we could not imagine that God had looked upon the void and said “Let there be light.”</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">As life on Earth gradually evolved into its more familiar forms, we now are beginning to realize that our unchecked growth is becoming like a cancer on our mother, Gaia. The ruthless mathematics of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth">exponential growth</a> is causing us to approach what mathematicians call an asymptote. In more familiar terms, human life threatens to reach the stage where if we were still algae, we would soon form an algal bloom. Most of us are familiar with this phenomenon, which results in an apparently clear body of water turning green (or red, depending on the sunlight converting pigment of the particular species) overnight.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This cannot happen with human life. Humans are not capable of unchecked growth forever leading to a sudden limit on further growth in the population. The smooth graphs illustrating exponential growth are but a model and an asymptotic curve eventually rises to infinity at a nearly instantaneous rate. This is but another example of how models fail to reflect reality. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, this is not simply an intellectually challenging exercise of developing a more complex equation to describe the phenomenon. The failure to grasp the implications of this reality threatens the survival of all advanced forms of life on Earth. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">As the population rises, selective pressures again emerge to slow its growth. This has given us some breathing room to solve the problem. Unfortunately, millions have died and will die from disease, pandemic, environmental change, war and pestilence as a result of our neglect of the problem for the decades since it was first recognized. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I recall reading in my youth that we would by now have developed interstellar travel, which would have allowed us to relieve this pressure by populating other planets, Terraforming them if necessary. Because we have devoted our resources to war and the accumulation of wealth, that time is a long way off. Meanwhile, the population bomb continues to tick.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">You may think, what can we do to prevent this apparently inevitable fate? The answer comes in the realization that we have not yet grown as a species beyond our adolescence. Only when humanity begins to function as a single organism, like the algae that once covered the planet, will we be able to avert catastrophe and save ourselves. Despite the prayers of millions, Jesus will not come down from the skies to save us. If God created us, it endowed us with reason and free will so that we might save ourselves from the disasters of our own making that now threaten our survival.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">You might ask yourself how we can hasten our evolution and become adults who take responsibility for their actions before it is too late to save ourselves from self-destruction. After all, the more mature among us realize that every action has repercussions that affect others immediately but eventually affect ourselves as well. Unfortunately, too many humans never fully mature morally, a prerequisite for understanding the problem and its solution. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Intelligence agencies use the term blowback to refer to the predictable consequences of their actions to innocent bystanders. When the consequences of human actions are unexpected and influenced by seemingly random events, we refer to them as being due to the butterfly effect. This is based on the idea that the beating of a butterfly's wings can have an effect on local weather patterns which can have effects that change weather patterns worldwide. Thus, simple disturbances in the existing order can produce effects that can be as profound as they are unpredictable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The butterfly effect explains many things, from the consistent failure of self-interested U.S. meddling in the affairs of other nations to the repeated collapse of the world economy. However, the regular expansion and bursting of bubbles seems to indicate contrary to popular belief, these are not random events, but blowback that Goldman Sachs and its favored associates consider acceptable collateral damage to the American and world economies and to the Peoples who depend on the ability to earn a living wage in an economic environment increasingly hostile to life as we know it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whether due to blowback or random events, both war and boom-bust cycles result from the short sighted actions of an economic elite that worships <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand">Ayn Rand</a> and regards life’s purpose as the lowly pursuit of personal wealth and pleasure. It seems that the generals in this game of economic warfare do not consider the possibility of a global economic winter if they implode the American economy.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">For those unfamiliar with the malignant teachings of the misguided prophet Ayn Rand, she postulated that it is the nature of every biological organism to pursue naked self -interest in order to further the propagation of its species at the expense of others. She fostered a movement to justify selfishness that assumed almost religious fervor in the last three decades that have brought the United States and world economies to a virtual collapse as a result of blind faith in the God of greed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Among her acolytes was former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, whose faith in the invisible hand of the market caused him to refuse to regulate the derivatives that were at the heart of the global economic meltdown. The Pnzi scheme of mortgaging houses to high risk buyers was brought down by the first shift of the economic winds like the house of cards that it was.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If we are to solve the many problems threatening human civilization we must understand the danger in accepting her assertion that radical individualism is the way of nature. We cannot accept that the treatment of life as a game won by accumulating the most toys by the time we die is a good and natural thing. I will not bother to cite the many counterexamples that refute Rand's silly assertions. Thom Hartmann has already eloquently addressed this in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MCWD5LR2NJV7/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2MCWD5LR2NJV7"><i>The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.</i></a> I refer the interested reader to it for a powerful but frightening explanation of the details of what I am attempting to describe. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We are beginning to grasp the consequences of the actions of the rigid fundamentalists believers in the discredited faith of the free market economy. They have tried to proselytize the tenets of a Satanic religion that worships greed and selfishness. The assumptions Rand made have become part of the collective consciousness of the electronic herd that has driven our economy once more to the brink of its destruction. If we cannot change the perception that it is human nature to think only of ourselves, it seems unlikely that human civilization will survive in a form that we recognize.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The implication of my thesis is that our economy must radically change in order to produce a just world order that will assure the survival of the human race. A fundamentalist Christian fearing Armageddon might be tempted to imagine that Rand is the Antichrist. Prophets have told us that the world will end in fire andiIt is not hard to imagine that global climate change might be metaphorically described in this way. If Rand's thesis is not challenged, unrestrained greed may lead to a literal Hell on Earth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We have to believe that the predicted end of the world is not a promise but a warning. Perhaps if we can come to a new understanding of our relationship to the Earth and to each other, the world will indeed end, only to be replaced by a new and better one. Just as we create our own individual reality in the privacy of our minds, we can consciously create a new reality of the world in the higher mind that is the human collective consciousness, if we so choose.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We have the tool in hand that will assure our survival. It is the Internet. Through this instrument, mankind can rapidly reverse its slide down a slippery slope toward its self-destruction. Like most things, it is not inherently good or evil but a tool that we must individually and collectively decide to use for one or the other. Used for the good of Mankind, it can produce an exponential rate of change in the shared belief system of Mankind for the better, the like of which the world has never seen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The beauty of the internet is that it has caused a connection of human minds and information around the planet such as never existed before. Used as a tool to manipulate investor greed, it can cause convulsions in the stock market and destroy national economies. Used as a tool to work together to drastically change the power structure by allowing people all over the planet to plan together to end corporate domination in a fascist New World Order, it can be our salvation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If the collective consciousness of man is connected through the internet, there is the potential to create a tectonic paradigm shift in human consciousness. If we are approaching asymptotic growth in this process we may see that the End of the World is not a catastrophe but a new beginning for Mankind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One can think of the Internet as a vast, somewhat disordered mind. As it begins to reach its potential it assumes the nature of an intelligence, bringing together the neurons of our individual brains to form a superbrain, from which arises a collective consciousness which can direct itself toward solving the many problems besetting us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">New thoughts can propagate at the speed of light, spreading like a wave </span><span style="font-size: large;">if the right individuals can be reached.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> The idea of six degrees of separation can be used to amplify the message by utilizing the interconnectedness of all of us through nodes in the network that are the most highly connected individuals. Such rapid evolution is our best hope of saving ourselves from the threats that at this point appear obvious to most thinking people and unavoidable to those who have already given up hope in the essential goodness of mankind. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is not too late to change the course of history if we can learn to abandon the conflict model of change and work together in enlightened self interest to create a better world for our children.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Please go to the <a href="http://www.ippf.org/en/">International Planned Parenthood website</a> and give generously.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, Oregon</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-5986461284109964562009-11-24T09:29:00.000-08:002012-03-19T12:48:47.771-07:00CHAPTER FIVE. HOW WE WILL BECOME THE DOCTORS WHO HEAL OURSELVES<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 25, 2009 9:07 AM PDT</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">What motivates people to work for change is the awareness that we have the power to make the world a better place if we put our minds to it and spend our time working for the betterment of everyone. The most effective agents of this change realize our interconnectedness and try to order our efforts to maximize the effectiveness of our labor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Internet has been a powerful tool in this regard. It can serve to isolate those who do not recognize that the only real purpose worth valuing is to work for the benefit of mankind, but overall its effect has been positive. Our attitude is not altruism, but the simple recognition that since we are all connected, our actions ultimately benefit ourselves and those who we love. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If we take the time to care for each other, it is not only satisfying but multiplies our own pleasure as we see the effects of our efforts making the lives of both ourselves and others easier and less painful. Our intent is to do the same for those who do not see the caring for of others as their duty and even if they do not appreciate that it is our intent to make their lives better. It is important that we keep this in mind and respect those who disagree with us as we strive to open their minds to new possibilities. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We must listen to those who see the world differently as well. It is important to emphasize our common goals as we discuss how to move forward together into a more just and secure future for our children. We must respect the ideas and values of others even if we disagree if we want them to be more receptive to our own ideas. It is critical to remember that we are all more alike than otherwise and it is these commonalities that make us human. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By approaching the task of healing America with respect and civility, we accelerate the process. We cannot afford to continue to use a conflict model to resolve what has become a very uncivil war if we want to solve the problems while there is still time to save the United States from economic and moral destruction. While our Congress excuses its every failure to put the interests of the People of the United States over those of their corporate patrons, other problems threaten the survival of human civilization as we know it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Effective doctors have many essential qualities. They must have empathy, analytic ability, willingness to listen, good communication skills and above all, a single minded dedication to the patient. To apply these skills, doctors must be willing to dedicate themselves to the task of becoming familiar with the scientific evidence for the causes and treatments of the ills to which humans are subject. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It takes all of the energy of the effective doctor to help our increasingly ill and undertreated patients. When the problem outstrips our knowledge of proper treatment, the doctor must apply skillful listening and active observation, then apply deductive skills to use their knowledge base to solve the problems of the individual patient.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At some point the question becomes, who is the patient? To be most effective, the doctor must be physically and psychologically healthy to withstand the pressures of the job. Like the familiar warning that adults must put on their own oxygen masks in an airplane decompression before attempting to assist others, we must first attend to our own needs, whatever they may be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fortunately, this is easy when the doctor enjoys the work. When this happens it does not seem like work at all, but becomes pure pleasure. This does not mean that we are indifferent to the pain and suffering of our charges. The doctor must learn early on that at this stage in the history of medicine, we cannot save every individual patient. The heartache of our failures spurs us on to ever greater efforts to improve the effectiveness of our methods.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once we understand how to prepare ourselves for this awesome responsibility, we turn our attention fully to the patient before us. In the case of non-physicians, the patient is mankind. To address the illnesses of contemporary society, we must become lay doctors who can apply the art and science of modern medicine to social ills. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The first step is to develop a problem list. The doctor then attempts to narrow this list to a set of likely diagnoses. This requires deciding which problems are manifestations of the same underlying cause, and formulating a treatment plan to address each of the derangements of the body’s systems. The treatment approach needs to be carefully considered so that its elements complement each other, rather than causing so many side effects that the treatment is worse than the illness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">With all this in mind, we are now prepared to formulate an action plan to maximize the good we can accomplish for our patient, who is all of us. I will now share with you my proposed treatment plan, developed in consultation with hundreds of other doctors, physicians and non-physicians alike. It is based on an understanding that the sequence of treatment interventions is critically important when operating on such a sick patient, all of whose problems are interrelated. Only by utilizing a holistic approach can we hope to be most effective in the daunting task of treating our critically ill patient.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I propose that we use a system based approach. We must treat the most life threatening problems first, while simultaneously supporting the patient by strengthening its defenses against disease. I suggest that we begin by focusing on restoring to health the democratic system that our Revolutionary forefathers gave birth to so long ago. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In those days, birth was a very dangerous experience. The life expectancy of nascent democracies was limited, most previous attempts having died young. While our Republic has survived to adolescence, it is like the cystic fibrosis patient who is not expected to live beyond young adulthood despite our best efforts, due to a genetic defect which we have not learned to cure. <br /><br />Eventually, cystic fibrosis patients must be maintained on oxygen as their lungs succumb to the ravages of the disease. It is tragic, and one of modern medicine's greatest challenges. What a breakthrough it would be if these patients could be made to breathe life-giving fresh air and live healthy, full lives for the allotted fourscore and ten or more that most of us take for granted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I can only outline the basic treatment approach in this brief progress note. I will try to summarize its elements here and expand upon them in future entries. Remember, this is only a preliminary treatment plan, subject to revision after careful consideration of the effects of the initial interventions. The rational physician must always take into account that we are only humans, and sometimes we must trust in forces greater than ourselves to help us save the patient.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If we succeed in restoring the democratic system to health, our patient will be able to withstand the stressful and sometimes dangerous interventions we must make in our attempts at cure. The treatment consists of cutting out the corruption by corporate money of our increasingly partisan Congress. The process will be painful to politicians and their partisan supporters who do not accept this as an inescapable part of the treatment. Like a pregnant patient terrified of the birth process, they will find that the rebirth of democracy will only be made more painful to them if they struggle against the inevitable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once the patient that is America is stabilized by a transfusion of democracy we can turn our attention to the critical problem of maintaining thermoregulatory homeostasis. In layman’s terms, this means that we have to address global climate instability. In doing so, we must intervene on a global level that some fear may require shock treatment to restore the healthy pulse of the global economy. However, more holistic thinkers realize that transforming our energy economy to a more stable system of sustainable, nonpolluting and decentralized production and distribution is the optimal course of treatment for this problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The heart of the economy has been damaged by the viral illness of unrestrained greed, amplified by the inhuman growth factor of globalization and a market that is anything but free. The heart of the global economy has been weakened by this virus and will never return to its former functioning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Like the patient who has survived viral cardiomyopathy, the only cure is transplant. This is futile however, if the virus cannot be held in check. There does not seem to be a cure in sight for viral infections, but we have learned to control them. The senseless suffering and premature deaths of early AIDS patients was not entirely in vain, for we began to address our societal homophobia and developed treatment to address this scourge, which was initially thought to only affect gays. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As we carry out our treatment, we must not neglect to assure that it is available to everyone, through a system of truly universal health care which is the only treatment for our ailing health care system that the weakened heart of the global economy can tolerate. The prescription is single payer health care. This treatment must be made available to all nations. As in the case of the decompressing airplane on which we all travel, the US must assume the role of the adult and put its own oxygen mask on before it can help others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">With the heart of democracy healthy, we will be free to address the underlying cancer that will make all our efforts in vain if not addressed. Humans cannot continue to reproduce exponentially without destroying the source of their sustenance as a cancer eventually outgrows its blood supply. It is clear that this will require radical intervention. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The surgical treatment is brutal, cutting out large parts of the body to save the rest, while leaving a scarred and functionally damaged patient. The scalpel used would be war, famine, pestilence and disease. If this is the only treatment that we have to offer, then the patient should be informed of his right to euthanasia. The only alternative is to find an effective medical treatment. This is a problem whose solution merits intensive research to find an early cure, before millions more succumb to the disease of unrestrained greed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shalom, salaam, peace.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Physicians for a National Health Plan </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Soldiers For Peace International</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-53076663982896981132009-11-24T09:25:00.000-08:002011-01-24T08:49:57.392-08:00CHAPTER SIX. THE MEDICAL APPROACH TO TREATING THE WORLD HAS THE SIDE EFFECT OF ENDING WAR<span style="font-size: large;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/orxEawi9qro" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="480"></iframe></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jun 25, 2009 2:10 PM PDT</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of the more stubborn symptoms of the viral illness of greed is war. It results from parts of the body attempting to fight off perceived threats that it sees as arising from foreign bodies. When all parts of the human body are working as one, such problems do not arise. When it occurs, this “immune” reaction inevitably causes damage to the human body itself. This requires a slower, more organized healing process. As a result of this process, the body remodels itself. Healing often leaves scars, but occasionally it produces better functioning of the body as a whole. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Medicine often finds the means to relieve symptoms of an illness with medications targeted at what appears to be an entirely unrelated condition. These ”side effects” occasionally even treat the underlying condition, through pure serendipity. An example is the way lithium was found to control the overexcitement driving mania, when Jonathan Cade was experimenting with various salts of lithium in an attempt to find a way to treat gout.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In a similar manner, through our attempts to treat the seemingly unrelated problems of environmental degradation, poverty and disease, we will find the solution to the problem of war. Conflict will no longer seem the inevitable result of the animal struggle for individual survival when humanity realizes that the individual good is inevitably served best through ensuring the welfare of all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We must understand why the Bible teaches that Cain slew Abel only after Man submitted to the temptations of the evil influence to take what it did not need, giving in to a momentary impulse toward self indulgence. This resulted in the allegorical banishment of Mankind from the Garden of Eden, where all things had previously dwelt in harmony. The religious impulse is driven by a heartfelt desire to return to a world where all may reside in peace and comfort, free of the fear of want that drives us to fight. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When we accept the simple truth that enlightened self interest will rid us of all the evils plaguing us and free us from our self-imposed Hell, we will once more have peace on Earth. To put it in religious terms, we will have established God’s kingdom on Earth. Once again, let us realize that the terror of Armageddon was not a prophecy of God’s will, but a warning of the inevitable result of choosing evil over good. It is literally true that greed is the root of all evil.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">If we work together, we can develop a plan to escape self destruction. The threats of war, famine, disease and pestilence now threaten the survival of Mankind. It is now or never, folks. Will we choose to follow the impulses of our Ids or choose to act according to the dictates of our superegos, and direct our egos to the task of survival? We have some collective growing up to do. I</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">f there is a Heavenly father, he can only shake his figurative head and pray that his progeny choose to make the right decisions for their selves. That is the nature of free will, and the only way that we can grow up and become strong men and women who take responsibility for their own actions, or accept the consequences of our failure to do so.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Somewhere in the inland passage, Alaska</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-16482532448163000612009-11-24T08:56:00.001-08:002011-01-24T08:39:42.153-08:00CHAPTER SEVEN. THE WAR TO END ALL WAR: SOLDIERS FOR PEACE<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 28, 2009 7:00 AM PDT</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is fair to describe the battle for single payer as the opening clash in the War to Take Back America from the junta of transnational corporations that has seized it. To paraphrase Joseph McCarthy, we are developing a list of subversives within the United States Congress who are aiding and abetting the enemy during this time of war. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the top of the list at this moment is Max Baucus, alleged Democrat from Montana and current chairman of the Senate Finance committee. He is the most luridly visible symbol of the corruption that has seized control of our government. After receiving 1.65 million dollars from insurance, pharmaceutical and corporate medical interests from 2003 until the time of his re-election, he is now leading the forces of counter-Revolutionaries who are trying to stave off our assault on the corporatocracy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This mindless Machine is desperately trying to cling to its death grip on our revered institutions, mindless of the collateral damage that they are inflicting on citizens of America and the world. In drawing a Maginot line around the Finance committee that is crafting health care “reform” legislation, he is making a tactical error. The generals in our gathering Army are preparing a flanking movement which will ultimately ensure his defeat in this skirmish.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wars are won by disciplined forces coordinating to carry out an overall strategy with defined aims and proven tactics. The most effective commanders are students of military history who are capable of learning from the failures as well as the successes of others. In this war, we must carefully study the history of the continuing American Revolution and the mistakes that we have made in recent years in fighting it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is a danger in thinking that our early successes against arrogant, unimaginative British colonialists means that we are ultimately guaranteed success against those counter-Revolutionaries who have spent decades preparing for an all-out assault on our nation. It is our good fortune that like all men of evil intent, they are too confident that others share their fearful world view and will fall in line if they present themselves as benevolent protectors against imagined threats from without.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We must not succumb to the conceit that we can win because we are smarter than the enemy. While this may be true, it will only be so as long as we keep our motivation pure. We must always put the goals of the movement and the interests of those for whom we fight above our own. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Remember that when the great question of whether a people could govern themselves, the issue hinged on whether that people was virtuous enough to esteem the common good over self interest. At that time, the battle lines were clearly drawn. Those who believed that man was inherently selfish became the conservative Tories, while the patriot radicals who believed in the benevolent nature of Man went on to victory, at great cost in lives and personal fortune. George Washington, our first commander in chief, is rightly revered for embodying this principle. We must honor their sacrifice and carry on the battle for the soul of America.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Our grand strategy is thus as simple as it is clear. Armed only with the truth, we must bring the people of America back to the future. We will enlist an educated force who will teach our people about what America truly means and carry the banner of the American flag proudly before us as we lead our growing Army to victory. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We can only lose if we falter in our conviction out of perceived self interest. We must always remember that our interests are only preserved by defending the interests of all. Using the classic British tactic of dividing and conquering, we can use our opponents’ beliefs against them. As we attack the enemies of freedom in a systematic fashion, one by one these alliances of convenience will fall apart, as each tribe seeks to preserve its own privilege and power.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">While every Army needs its commanders, no victory is achieved without the efforts of the disciplined foot soldier. While our Minutemen bravely face the power of the disciplined Army of invaders who hold Washington, others must persuade the common citizen to enlist in our cause. Our immediate task is to go to the cities and the country alike and seek out those people of faith whose belief in the rightness of the American cause of democracy has never wavered. As we proceed, remember that no man can be left behind.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In the words of Johnnie Horton:</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In 1814 we took a little trip,</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We took a little bacon and we took a little beans</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired once more and they began to runnin' on</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We looked down the river and we see'd the British come.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And there must have been a hundred of'em beatin' on the drum.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">They stepped so high and they made the bugles ring.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We stood by our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired once more and they began to runnin' on</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">if we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eye</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We held our fire 'til we see'd their faces well.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave 'em ... well.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired once more and they began to runnin' on</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We filled his head with cannon balls, and powdered his behind</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We fired once more and they began to runnin' on</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, OR</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-29925741313977671462009-11-24T08:47:00.000-08:002011-02-06T11:42:44.059-08:00CHAPTER EIGHT. SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on May 30, 2009 10:23 PM PDT</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Politics in America has become a vast cesspool, with corporate interests taking precedence over those of the people. In a government of the People, by the People and for the People, corporations would not have human rights under the Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I would like to believe that the Supreme Court simply showed human fallibility in granting all the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to corporations, but find the proposition dubious given the facts. The Court for well over a century has agreed to choose to confuse the legal convention of referring to corporations by the term “persons” with the same term as referred to in the Fourteenth amendment. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is ironic that an Act of Congress intended to guarantee that former slaves have all the rights of their former masters has been used in an attempt to enslave us all. Given that the Supremes relied on an erroneous summary of an 1886 decision written by a court clerk in granting Fourteenth amendment rights to corporations in 1889, one would have to be naive indeed not to be suspicious. After all, this was a period of general corruption following the Civil War, when profiteers sought to capitalize on Lincoln’s martyrdom to enlarge the scope of their power. This trend continued in the period in which Teddy Roosevelt sought to use the authority of the Sherman Antitrust Act to challenge monopolistic abuses and save capitalism and democracy itself from the ravages of unrestrained corporate depredations. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The reliance on this summary, which contradicted the actual decision, was doubly suspicious in that the clerk who wrote it was a railroad man. It was the railroad corporations that had fought for years, in one losing Supreme Court case after another, to establish the principle that corporations were entitled to human rights. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">How can any reasonably sentient being not ask the question: "Did he do it on purpose, to further the corporate interests he had spent most of his life representing?" We must also ask ourselves whether the justices in the 1889 case were more motivated by a desire to protect their wealthy political patrons than by their allegiance to their constitutional oaths to apply the law rigorously and with respect for precedent. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Roosevelt only fell into the office by chance after McKinley, a very popular President, was quite unexpectedly slain by a deranged assassin. Thus, Senate kingmaker Mark Hanna’s fears of placing Roosevelt, a known reformer, “a heartbeat away from the Presidency,” were realized. Roosevelt fought valiantly but ultimately futilely to stem the rising tidal wave of corporate power granted by the counter-Revolutionaries of the Supreme Court of that day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Could the decisions of the Supremes, a traditionally “conservative” bunch, have reflected the influences of dark forces loose in America after the assassination of Lincoln? Call me paranoid, but I am the type of guy who can’t stop wondering why Lincoln’s guard, a veteran fresh from a bloody Civil War, left his post at Ford’s theatre the very night in April when the President was martyred. It is worth pondering whether it was coincidence that this occurred immediately before a concerted and decades-long assault on the Constitution by the railroad barons. Weren’t this man and the non-commisioned officer who selected him aware of the constant threats on the President’s life?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have a firm rule about not sinking to partisan politics, which I believe is what has been the monkey wrench thrust into the gears of government that has ground the machine of Congress to a halt. However, we are talking about people long ago, and it was perhaps a more savage time. I do not have hard evidence that one party, dominating the politics of the Federal government after “winning” the Civil War, used a martyred President to ensure that the “last, greatest hope for mankind” would be under the control of a corporate aristocracy. I think that reasonable people can look at the facts and draw their own conclusions. That is how it is supposed to work in a functioning democracy, where these facts are available to anyone who can “use the Google” to bypass corporate media propaganda and the attempt rewriting of our history. God granted us free will to make our own moral decisions, so I am careful what I choose to believe.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So what does this have to do with having “sympathy for the devil?” The point is that all of us are capable of selfishness. If you had the power to benefit yourself and all your friends by pulling the wheels of government a little to the right so as to go down a smoother patch of road, are you sure you wouldn’t do the same? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We invest tremendous power in those we elect to represent us, then typically turn to the comics section the day after the election. I believe it is immoral to mean it when you say, “I only know what I read in the funny papers.” Citizenship is no laughing matter. We have a duty to our children to make democracy work by using the power of our minds and bodies to educate ourselves and join the fight to take back America. I believe this with every sinew of my body and every fiber of my being.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In the immortal words of Mick Jagger: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Please allow me to introduce myself: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm a man of wealth and taste.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been around for a long, long year, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">stole many a man's soul and faith. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And I was 'round when Jesus Christ </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">had his moment of doubt and pain. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Made damn sure that Pilate </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">washed his hands and sealed his fate.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Pleased to meet you,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">hope you guess my name.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But what's puzzling you </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">is the nature of my game. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I stuck around at St. Petersburg </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">when I saw it was a-time for a change. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Killed the czar and his ministers; </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Anastasia screamed in vain. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I rode a tank, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">held a general's rank, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">when the blitzkrieg raged </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and the bodies stank. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Pleased to meet you, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">hope you guess my name, oh yeah. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ah, but what's puzzling you </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">is the nature of my game. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I watched with glee </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">while your kings and queens </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">fought for ten decades </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">for the gods they made. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I shouted out, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Who killed the Kennedys?" </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">when after all, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">it was you and me. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Let me please introduce myself:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm a man of wealth and taste</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and I laid traps for troubadours </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">who get killed before they reached Bombay. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Pleased to meet you, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">hope you guessed my name.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But what's puzzling you </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">is the nature of my game.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Just as every cop is a criminal </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and all the sinners saints,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">as heads is tails, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">just call me Lucifer </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">'cause I'm in need of some restraint.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So if you meet me, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">have some courtesy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Have some sympathy, and some taste.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Use all your well-learned politesse </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">or I'll lay your soul to waste.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Pleased to meet you, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">hope you guessed my name.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But what's puzzling you </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">is the nature of my game, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Tell me baby, what's my name?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I tell you one time, you're to blame.</span><br />
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</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Soldiers For Peace International</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-27164823828962249512009-11-24T08:11:00.000-08:002011-02-25T10:03:01.028-08:00CHAPTER NINE. THE HEART, MIND AND SOUL OF FASCISM: WE MUST ALL BE AMERICANS NOW<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/23vQjYzyx9Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jun 10, 2009 6:43 AM PDT </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This chapter is dedicated to George Washington, the father of our country. He idealistically hoped that we would dignify the sacrifice of the revolutionary patriots by resisting the temptation to forget that we are Americans first, and falling into factionalism. His commitment to democracy and the rule of law was sorely tested in the early days of the Republic when an angry civilian Army challenged being taxed to pay the profits of war profiteers of the American Revolution. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps at that time it was necessary to control this mob in the interests of asserting the authority of a federal government meant to serve the interests of all. Unfortunately, it set a precedent that our children are taught at our peril: To put the interests of the wealthy over those of the people is to invite fascism in America. Now we must fight for the freedoms we have given up for forgetting that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Those on the left angrily decried political partisanship when neoconservatism was in its ascendancy, but many of those same voices cry out for revenge now that Democrats are perceived to hold power. While justice must be served where the previous administration may have committed crimes in its zeal to protect us while furthering what they thought were America’s larger interests, it is not in the interest of progressives to demonize their opponents. The knife of partisan politics is aimed at the heart of democracy and cuts both ways.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">How many know liberals (or conservatives, for that matter) know that conservatism had a long and respectable intellectual basis before neocons decided to adopt a deceitful form of populism to gain support for their Orwellian ideal of America? In the era of the American and French Revolutions, English philosopher Edmund Burke championed the view that man’s nature was such that the restraining hand of government was necessary to keep the radical mob from imposing its will on society. While he reluctantly came to support American independence, he believed in stability and gradual change. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This fear of mob rule was so widely held that John Adams, a tireless worker in the cause of American independence, expressed similar views. Numerous examples of rebel excesses justified his fears, if not his response. Adams is rightly reviled for his Alien and Sedition Act, passed by a compliant Congress under the threat of war with France. This is an early example of a President overtly undermining First Amendment guarantees with the support of a partisan Congress. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to think of modern parallels.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Inconveniently for supporters of Burke’s world view, he also believed that an aristocracy was necessary to maintain stability in any society. This is an aspect of his philosophy that is soft-pedaled by modern conservatives, out of fear that complete understanding of the basis of Burke’s arguments might undermine their popular support. At the time of the framing of the Constitution, this tension was resolved through the creation of the Senate, which was conceived of as being populated by the “natural aristocracy” that was believed would arise in a society based on freedom and equality of opportunity. In this, both liberals and conservatives of the day were too optimistic. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The founders of our Republic were not gods, but men facing a common enemy. When common survival is threatened, it is easier to compromise. The problem started when the immediate threat of annihilation by the British was no longer an imminent threat. There then began a struggle between American liberals and right-wing aristocrats who desired to become the new American aristocracy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Believing that they had created a nearly perfect society, conservatives of the day sought to preserve it in its entirety. Quite naturally, they saw themselves as the rightful new American aristocracy. Liberals, realizing the Devil’s bargain they had made for the sake of survival, gradually became more vocal proponents of change. The inevitable result was the American Civil War, in which the question was raised of whether the rights of all men (the rights of women being only seriously considered much later) were implicitly guaranteed under the Constitution.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The war proved only a brief setback for the antidemocratic movement. The early Republican Party, conceived as a force for preserving democracy by defending the Union against right-wing proponents of slavery from encroaching on the freedom of all quickly lost its moral compass. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With the martyrdom of Lincoln, counter-Revolutionaries took advantage of the imbalance of power to gain ground in its fight to create an American aristocracy of wealth built on corporate power. The South, having been invaded by rapacious northerners, reacted by forming a monolithic power block fueled by anger. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The surviving progressive elements within the Republican Party joined forces with the South in an uneasy alliance paradoxically called the Democratic party. It was held together by a common desire to advance anti-corporate ideals, but at the expense of flagrant disregard for the rights of newly freed Blacks. Both sides had forgotten Lincoln’s final plea to show malice toward none and justice for all.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Civil War continues to this day, seesawing back and forth between conservative and progressive forces. Economic disasters brought on by the counter-Revolutionary efforts to create an aristocracy in America bring opportunity for Americans seeking to restore democratic ideals, while anti-democratic forces cloaked as “conservatives” use war and the threat of war to gain advantage in advancing its anti-American agenda. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Depression revealed American economic progress after the Civil War to be built on a house of sand, leading to a reawakening of the Revolutionary ideals of equality of economic opportunity and eventually, civil rights for Black Americans. A similar opportunity presents itself in our current global economic crisis.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">After progressive Democrats finally realized the dream of equality for all non-native Americans in the 60s, right-wing elements in the South broke ranks and joined the counter-Revolutionaries, ignoring their own history of playing a key role in achieving American independence from British aristocratic and corporate oppression. In the ensuing decades, there has been a backlash against the economic cost of progressive reforms achieved after WWII.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is easy to see what went wrong. Remember that progressive gains of the last century were only achieved through endless compromise in a Senate increasingly tainted by corporate influence. Many Americans have wrongly come to the conclusion that this is an unavoidable consequence of our form of government. They have been encouraged in this belief by a media that has come to be dominated by the same corporate forces that now control the Senate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Our public schools are reluctant to teach civics, having been intimidated by groups on both the left and right. Americans no longer seem to understand that this country was founded by a group of men holding the radical idea that democracy is viable, but only if the public is educated and willing to work for the common good. Each fears that the other side will taint their children with wrong-thinking visions of America. Our proud democratic traditions now find themselves threatened by the ignorance of a bewildered and a demoralized citizenry which is either apathetic or striking out in blind anger. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">A common thread running through our history has been that antidemocratic forces have succeeded only in an environment of fear and anger, while progressives have succeeded when they can convince Americans that there is a better way, one that will benefit us all. The Republican Party again finds itself in crisis, its true agenda having been laid bare for all to see and revile. As the Democratic Party drifts toward the fascist agenda, it risks suffering the same fate. Eventually, the People will realize that as during the time when the spread of slavery threatened the viability of the American experiment in democracy, lovers of freedom can come together and form a new Party dedicated to ending the threat of economic slavery of all Americans.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The people of the United States are waking up to the fact that greed is not good, but ultimately self-destructive. The corporate parties must look closely at where their thinking has gotten them. Conservatives and progressives alike must quell their anger, look to their hearts, and restore the soul of American democracy. In this environment, the prospects to Take Back America have never been better. Our path is clear, if we all become Americans with common ideals once again.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, OR</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-74702584252085876492009-11-24T07:56:00.001-08:002013-11-25T09:10:36.873-08:00CHAPTER TEN. THEOLOGY 101: WHY DESPAIR IS A SIN<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qpcOV3ATVaQ" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jun 26, 2009 7:07 AM PDT </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to Eric Shinseki, a soldier's soldier who stood up to Rumseld in telling Congress that the projected fighting strength Rummy was preparing to deploy to invade Iraq was grossly inadequate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unlike political generals, the men and women who served under him were not mere cannon fodder for the politicians working for the international corporate terrorists who started that war and planned the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. As a military man, he knew better than the chicken hawks in the White House what would have been necessary to give our military a fighting chance of success at carrying their mission out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It has been customary for centuries to <a href="http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/warprayer.html">pray to God when preparing for battle</a>, hoping that God will favor our cause. We inevitably believe that our forces fight for justice, and we pray that God agrees. The battle for a single payer health care system and the larger war against the corporate assault on democracy is one cause whose </span><span style="font-size: large;">righteousness </span><span style="font-size: large;">no one can doubt. Therefore, it is a moral imperative that as we engage in this battle, our confidence must not falter. When the fate of our children depends on our success, we cannot worry about our chances of success, because failure is not an option.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Human progress depends on the vision of those who dream of a better world and have faith in their own ability to create it. To lose hope in the sight of difficulties is to abandon that faith and to risk leaving future generations to the vagaries of fate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">According to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics">second law of thermodynamics</a>, the natural tendency of things is to decay. Humanity must continue to resist entropy in order to survive and to thrive in the Universe. We must learn from our mistakes and constantly devise new strategies to ensure human progress, even as threats to our survival and vitality multiply in number and dangerousness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As we stand at the edge of the opportunity to bring a single payer health care system to America, we also have an opportunity to strike a blow at the heart of one of the most dangerous enemies of freedom. The insurance industry is one of the corporate forces which have thwarted the democratic will in America since 1889, when the Supreme Court granted corporations human rights under the Fourteenth amendment clause assuring that the Bill of Rights applies to all “persons.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In a blatant reactionary response to Teddy Roosevelt’s attempts to rein in the dangerous power of corporate monopolists, these counter-Revolutionary “justices” used this precedent to systematically grant human rights to these legally fictitious “persons.” Ignoring the fact that a corporate “person” cannot be imprisoned or executed for the crimes it commits in the name of free enterprise and the pursuit of profit over human need, the court gave them the same constitutional protections that you and I enjoyed until they began to be stripped from us under the guise of a “war” on terror.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Belief in progress is not naïve. Self styled “realists” will tell you that human nature is such that moral compromise is always necessary and will inevitably lead us to accommodate individual self interest in any personal or governmental decision. This assumes that men and women are not capable of governing themselves either individually or collectively. Thus, those who hold this view essentially reject the core assumption necessary to believe that democracy can work. Why do these people hate America so much?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Religious conservatives take it as an article of faith that we are all “sinners.” While it may be true that we all fall short of the Christian ideal, this should not stop us from making every effort to follow Christ’s example, rather than allowing this to become an excuse for our willful moral failings. Abraham Lincoln pointed out that we must strive to become a "more perfect" union so that the American experiment in democracy would not fail and the hope for freedom in the world would be ended for generations, if not forever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Just as striving for perfection is a moral issue on a personal level, so does the manner in which a nation addresses social justice issues determine the character of its soul. The fight to assure that medical care is available to all when needed is one of the great social justice issues of our time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If the United States is truly a nation whose people believe in the principle that all humans have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness then we must ensure that all citizens have the right to physical and emotional health. We must preserve life in order to use our liberty to pursue the means of happiness. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is a sick society in which the murder of those who regretfully terminate potential lives is condoned and even encouraged by men and women who call themselves "Christians." The majority of the morally twisted individuals who approve of this form of murder in the name of God are typically willing to callously abandon children once born, in the delusional belief that individual responsibility is the defining feature of the American character. Those who reject the idea of social responsibilty ignore the fact thar our collective well being is also the responsibility of each of us. Those who choose to be willfully ignorant of this truth commit the gravest sin of all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As Reverend Martin Luther King observed, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. When we allow injustice to be done to one of us, democracy is endangered. Those who care only about accumulating wealth and power would use our divisions to conquer us all. We have to recognize that the well being of each of us is intimately dependent on assuring the well being of all of us. <br /><br />A society that does not care for the least among it is a dying society. Strong citizens build strong governments and will fight any attempt to undermine the foundations of democracy through the authoritarian rhetoric of self-interested power-mongers. They believe they have a divine right to rule over the rest of us. This is the greatest threat to our democratic Republic, which is founded on the principle that every citizen has the right and duty to help make decisions that affect all of us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ketchikan, Alaska</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-73374261776963712972009-11-24T07:37:00.001-08:002011-03-01T12:21:24.694-08:00CHAPTER ELEVEN. A CALL TO ARMS! ENLIST NOW IN THE ARMY OF THE SOLDIERS FOR PEACE<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6PWI-JUpjp4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="goog_1621243236"></span><span id="goog_1621243237"></span>Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jun 27, 2009 9:02 AM PDT </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This chapter is devoted to Thomas Jefferson, the intellectual father of this country. While he did not always walk the walk, his talk became the basis for a dialogue between conservatives and liberals, whose labels change at various points in our history, but whose song remains the same.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">When in the course of human events, it became necessary to alter or abolish a government exercising tyranny over its people, Thomas Jefferson provides inspiration. He believed that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots. In this latest stage of the American Revolution, the battle to establish a single payer health care system in America, we are fortunate that our country does not ask of us a sacrifice of blood, but only one of sweat.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We are fortunate to once more have the aid of the French in forwarding the cause of liberty on the North American continent, if we are not too proud to accept this time around. We do not need to ask out of shame or weakness, for the French only found democracy through the American example. We need only admit that we became complacent in our early success and with the seemingly endless resources we possessed, having wrested them from the indigenous people. They did not seem to understand the nature of the power was granted by God over his environment, or so the arrogant English invaders believed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is time that America consider the advantages of the French recipe for democracy, one that the French feel serves deliciously. Now that selfish cultists of greed who control the Untied States government have nearly destroyed the world economy, they would deny Americans the social benefits the French enjoy as a result of a different reading of the social contract implicit in democratic societies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Because the French have demanded access to health care, decent wages and working conditions and a social safety net for those whose security is threatened by the wild swings of the globalized economy, they are labeled socialists. To the average American who does not know the differences between socialism and communism and who have been trained to react with horror at the prospect of either, the fact that France came through the global economic meltdown with relative ease is irrelevant.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The time has come to begin the guerrilla warfare that will restore democracy to the people, from whom the powers of government may only be derived justly. We will begin our assault on the bastions of corporate power next month, the anniversary of America’s declaration of independence from British tyranny. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Time grows short to plan our assault, but I hope that we will be ready to stage a major assault by July 14, 2010. This is Bastille Day, the French equivalent of our own national independence day. Let us designate this Interdependence Day, and dedicate it to working together to abolish corporate control of the US Senate in the interest of promoting liberty, justice and the common welfare.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The elements of our forces remain poorly organized, but already brilliant leaders are establishing the internet communication network that will enable our ultimate victory. We must use this to unite the disparate forces that are currently divided and holding rearguard actions against our common enemy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Only by working together can we plan the final assault on the antidemocratic forces that have seized control of the reins of government. There will naturally emerge from our current leaders generals who will coordinate the planning, but we need volunteers to serve as foot soldiers for the cause, carrying out the myriad difficult and seemingly thankless tasks which are necessary to sustain an Army in combat.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We will need the wisdom and experience of those who have already served their country in the armed forces of the United States of America. Senior NCOs are the most valuable of these, as any military man worthy of the title will tell you. They are the ones who will train the junior officers and enlisted men to develop and implement the battle tactics that will ensure our success. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Men who have faced death in the defense of American ideals understand most clearly the difference between what is important and what only seems important to those who do not understand the larger struggle. Having undergone their trial of fire and understanding the consequences of failure, these men and women can be trusted to do what is necessary to win the coming war.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Those of us in the trenches of the current battle are beginning to agree on our aims and tactics. However, this is not enough to achieve victory. Given the cost of failure, we must begin to work together to develop an overall strategy to achieve success. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is fortunate indeed that we conduct this war in a society that remains relatively free, despite the assaults on our freedom conducted under the guise of the “war” on terror. We do not act under the threat of death, for none dare call this treason. We have no need for secrecy or deception, for truth is our weapon. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If we have spies, they are only those currently in positions of power who want to work with us, but who have not had the opportunity to act freely, out of fear of losing what little power they possess to influence events. Let us rise up and free the honest, idealistic politician from his or her shackles by challenging the authority and positions of the bought and paid for political hacks who currently control the political process. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the name of the yet-to-be announced supreme commander, let us join our forces, for our strength lies in the power of our numbers and our shared vision of America and the larger world. Shake the shoulder of your neighbor and wake them from their long slumber! The time has come to fight. To arms, all good Americans!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Juneau, Alaska</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-2253959941323877712009-11-24T07:28:00.000-08:002013-04-03T16:41:31.260-07:00CHAPTER TWELVE. THE EVIL THAT MEN DO<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/70qq_l7U0w4" width="420"></iframe>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to Dick Cheney, whose sick heart and soul revealed the depth of America's social disease, now in the tertiary stages and affecting our brains and minds. The choices he has made have created the perfect storm of war, economic desperation and despair that will inspire this generation to Take Back America for the People so that we might become productive partners in peace, ensuring the survival of the species, in bright contrast to the Dark side of ourselves that he has shown us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As we arm ourselves to begin the battle to Take Back America, let us pause to pray for both ourselves and our enemies. Let us fervently pray that we do not lose our souls in venting our righteous fury at the evil that has been done in the name of our beloved nation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We cannot afford to forget the admonition to “hate the sin, not the sinner.” The risk is greater than that of becoming sinners ourselves. We all carry within in us the seeds of our own potential destruction until we rid ourselves of the anger and fear that blinds us to our highest moral duty. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In my work with combat veterans, I have borne witness to the suffering of those who have been compelled to destroy in anger and fear at the behest of ignorant leaders of our former democracy. Please do not choose the path of anger and fear as we proceed to so our work. Let us go forward calmly but with firm confidence in our ultimate purpose: to restore democracy in America.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We must pray for those who we prepare to vanquish as well, for in this war there must be no losers. Our intent is to bring an end to the world of the zero-sum game. We will work together in the future, for the sake of the survival of our species. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is therefore fitting that the war to restore democracy in America begins with the battle to establish universal health care. In winning the fight for the right to care which promotes individual health and survival, we will prove that a free people can defeat the corrupting power of corporate influence on Congress. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With new confidence, we are then prepared to wage the larger war for the soul of America and the survival of its people. As our sick society still has the ability to infect the world with the disease of radical individualism, it is fair to say that the fate of the world may be in our hands as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Remember that when the concept of democracy in America was only an idea whose merits were being hotly debated, the argument hinged on whether we believe that men are good enough to put individual self-interest aside for the sake of the common good and the interest of liberty for all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Only when a critical mass of citizens was educated about the issues to be considered in making this momentous decision was Revolution possible. Without the advantage of a mass media (or perhaps due to the advantage of its absence), those who understood what was at stake took it upon themselves as their sacred duty to bring the truth to the American people. In partisan newspapers, pamphlets and town hall meetings, they debated these issues until consensus emerged. At this critical time in history, we must learn from our hallowed forefathers and follow their example. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">America has never lived up to its full potential because men and women abandoned selflessness when the first stone was cast by one hominid toward another, in anger and lust for what the other possessed. When societies began, so did tribalism. As long as the world was young and there were new places for the passive or vanquished to find a place of their own, the survival of the species was not threatened. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now that Man occupies every habitable corner of the Earth, our very existence is at risk because of the greed of the individual. We cannot longer afford the luxury of justifying sinful self-indulgence as serving some higher good. Those of us who understand the danger of succumbing to this evil temptation must act now, for the sake of our children and our own souls.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their countries, for these are the times that try men’s souls. Each of us must look into our own hearts and ask whether we are capable of putting the interests of our nation and the welfare of all citizens above our own. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The task does not require perfection, but does call for us to always seek to form a more perfect union by endeavoring to perfect ourselves If we regularly engage in rigorous self-examination and pray to whatever power we understand to be greater than ourselves to help us find our way, then we cannot lose this battle or the war. We can and must ensure that the soldiers who have come before us have not died in vain. Let us move forward together and ensure that government of the People, for the People and by the People does not perish from the Earth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Skagway, Alaska</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-50793350868133989912009-11-24T07:19:00.001-08:002011-03-01T11:29:29.296-08:00CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE AMERICAN STORY, PART II: FROM CONFEDERATION TO UNION<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9GUBghDWWWg" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jun 30, 2009 3:37 PM PDT</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Consensus is necessary not only to form a democratic government, but to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Consensus-Continuity-1776-1787-Benjamin-Fletcher/dp/0393004023/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299007341&sr=1-1">ensure its continuity</a>. Forged in the fire of a war for independence, the American experiment was agreed to under duress. The new Constitution contained a compromise that made conflict inevitable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Civil War became necessary to abolish the arrangement of convenience that ignored the self-evident truth that Blacks were among those endowed by their creator with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. American society can never progress unless it moves forward with the intent to protect the rights of all from the tyranny of the majority or of powerful minorities within it. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This does not mean that individual liberty is the supreme virtue. Such extreme libertarianism, or radical individualism, is precisely where the ship of state took a seriously wrong turn to the right. It is headed straight for an iceberg as a result. The adults among us must now grab the tiller and correct our course, lest we all suffer the consequences of the Titanic arrogance of our erstwhile “leaders.” It is time to rethink and renegotiate the social contract into which we freely entered when we formed these United States of America. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The rewriting of the social contract Americans made with one another is not without precedent. When the loose amalgamation of colonies organized under the Articles of Confederation proved incapable of working together for the common interest during the war, a group of prominent concerned citizens assembled under no constitutional authority to consider a new Constitution to unite the states. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Heeding Jefferson’s argument that the people have a right to alter or abolish a government which does not serve the people, they assembled a constitutional convention that only later sought the imprimatur of the American people. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The new constitution contained a provision to allow for future such conventions as the changing times demanded, for the purpose of preserving the union by further clarification of the rights of citizens in American society. This was only one way to change the Constitution or its interpretation, the others being through the exercise of the powers of Congress or the Supreme Court. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Congress has been too corrupted by the pernicious power of corporations to do the job. It is futile to wait for the Supreme Court to recognize and reverse its error in deciding that corporations possess human rights under the Fourteenth amendment. Lawyers by nature tend to be conservative, being bound by precedent and respecting that this is the means by which we remain a nation of laws and not of men. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is therefore ironic that the most “conservative” of jurists, those on the Supreme Court, rejected decades of precedent in accepting this argument. It T</span><span style="font-size: large;">appears that they did so to counter </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Theodore-Rex-Modern-Library-Paperbacks/product-reviews/0812966007/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt_sr_5?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar">Theodore Roosevelt</a>’s efforts to curb corporate power, and was based on a misinterpretation of a ruling against a railroad corporation two decades earlier. It is therefore left to the people to explicitly state by constitutional amendment that the <a href="http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070311214903AAGjzeo">Fourteenth amendment </a>only applies to humans.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once again, we need to make a conscious decision to choose the nature of our society. While maintaining the American tradition of religious tolerance, let us recognize that the worship of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand">Ayn Rand </a>is not a religion and therefore the acolytes of this faith are undeserving of the tax benefits accorded to them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is past time for them to admit the error of their thinking and seek the forgiveness of those who they have harmed, atoning out of genuine contrition for the sins they committed in the name of our government. If the American people are properly educated, they will show that they are good enough to reject the Faustian bargain of fleeting wealth for more eternal values.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the immortal words of Buffalo Springfield: </span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There's something happening here.<br />
What it is ain't exactly clear.<br />
There's a man with a gun over there <br />
telling me I got to beware.<br />
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I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound?</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Everybody look what's going down.<br />
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There's battle lines being drawn.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.<br />
Young people speaking their minds,<br />
getting so much resistance from behind.<br />
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I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound?</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Everybody look what's going down.<br />
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What a field-day for the heat</span><span style="font-size: large;">.<br />
A thousand people in the street.<br />
Singing songs and carrying signs<br />
mostly say, hooray for our side.<br />
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It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound?</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
<span style="color: #888888;"></span>Everybody look what's going down.<br />
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Paranoia strikes deep</span><span style="font-size: large;">.<br />
Into your life it will creep.<br />
It starts when you're always afraid.<br />
You step out of line, the man come and take you away.<br />
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We better stop, hey, what's that sound?</span><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
Everybody look what's going down.<br />
Stop, hey, what's that sound?<br />
Everybody look what's going down.</span><br />
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Stop, now, what's that sound? <br />
Everybody look what's going down.<br />
Stop, children, what's that sound?<br />
Everybody look what's going down.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sailing toward Sitka, Alaska to unite with my companion, Karen.</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-53814473875713263082009-11-24T07:10:00.000-08:002011-02-02T14:13:28.074-08:00CHAPTER FOURTEEN. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: THE CURIOUS STATE OF ALASKA<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jun 30, 2009 3:40 PM PDT </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to Ayn Rand, who popularized the notion of radical individualism that is the basis of Libertarian philosophy. It postulates that all animals are by nature competitive and is a good and necessary biological imperative to always act in your own self-interest. Alan Greenspan, Sarah Palin and the more ideological Tea Partiers have all swallowed this lie, to the detriment of America and all of its citizens.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With due credit to more enlightened Alaskans, the enduring popularity of Sarah Palin here up north is remarkable. Young and old have told us of their love for “Sarah,” as they refer to the ever overreaching ex-vice presidential candidate. Alaska thus serves as an instructional case to illustrate the extent of the fall of conservatism from its once respectable position in American political thought. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is no other way to understand how self-styled “conservatives” and independent ”mavericks” embrace the special brand of socialism that sustains the state economy. Alaska is indeed a land of contrasts, producing a candidate for the office that is a heartbeat away from the Presidency whose husband belonged to a separatist movement in this quirky state until a few years before her selection to run for the vice presidency.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">As anyone who paid attention to the news during the 2008 campaign will recall, Todd Palin belonged to the Alaska First movement that sought to have Alaska secede from the union. Presumably, the plan was to join OPEC and help manipulate petroleum prices, since they are dependent on taxes from Alaskan oil for the subsidies they give the state’s citizens each year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One young Alaskan who was home from school in Oregon to work for the summer told us that one reason she loved Sarah was that she had made sure they got an extra $1500 dollars (actually, it was $1200, for a total of $3500) “because of the high price of gas.” One has to wonder if this is why Alaskans feel compelled to accept $1.80 from the despised federal government for every dollar that they pay in taxes to keep their own, presumably democratic government in business. We can only hope that they are not forced to experience the cold sting of reality now that Uncle Ted Stevens isn’t around to look out for their interests.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, Alaska continues to value its independence but doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere just yet. It is not clear to me if this because the secession effort fell apart as the result of the murder of the Alaska First founder in an arms deal gone bad, or because cooler heads prevailed. If the drop in the popularity of independence is due to rational thought, presumably it is because some erstwhile supporters had the sense to get their information from somewhere besides the Faux News channel.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The curious state of Alaska is simply the most visible symptom of a nationwide malaise that has gripped most of these once-united states. How many Americans, upon learning of the federal largesse bestowed on Alaskans, feel jealous? I would wager there are more such Americans than there are those who recognize this egregious me-first attitude as a key cause of the decay of American values. I</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">t has become very popular to grouse about having to pay taxes to support the legitimate functions of government, even to the point of denying the legitimacy of providing a basic social safety net for the losers in the game of unrestrained free market capitalism in a global economy. These so-called conservatives argue that government cannot do anything right, then go about electing leaders of like mind who go about busily proving their point. These same miscreants are the first to stick their fingers in the American pie when the opportunity presents itself.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Where are the senators who recognize that they serve all of the American people, not simply those who pay for the slick commercials that get them elected by voters too distracted by 24 hour infotainment to study their records and positions on issues of vital importance to the country as a whole? Once elected, they keep the money flowing home for their constituents, who are mindlessly grateful that they are receiving a fraction of what we are borrowing from our children in order to maintain our sick system of corporate welfare. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For this, senators are almost invariably rewarded, as no state wants to give up their leaders’ positions of power obtained through seniority. This is how the government-military-industrial complex sustains itself, through the careful distribution of the gifts of jobs which produce nothing of value but votes for the senators who perpetuate the system.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">One of the most interesting sights I encountered on this trip was that of a phenomenon known as “bubble netting.” In apparent contradiction of the Ayn Rand dictum that animals invariably seek to further their individual interests in the struggle for survival, a group of humpback whales apparently discovered that by working together, they could increase the bounty available to all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We had the rare pleasure of watching them swim in a synchronized fashion, blowing bubbles to confuse the herring and trapping them in a “net” of bubbles from which they could see no escape. This learned behavior depends on a leader diving below the school of fish and calling when all are poised to spring the trap. It was a moving example of how individuals can work together and follow a leader with a plan. In short, these intelligent animals had discovered that hunting need not be a zero-sum game. Through working together, each can help increase the wealth of the herd and profit more than is possible by individual effort alone. How can Alaskans witness this and not be moved to similar acts of cooperative behavior?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I came to Alaska to view the glaciers, before they slide into the sea from the current global warming trend or become inaccessible when global freezing takes place in response to the shift in temperature and/or salinity that drives the oceans currents and provides a mechanism of regulating global temperatures. I must say, the ice is everything it is cracked up to be. It has been a wonderful trip, and I hope my children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy it one day. Perhaps if America is ready to grow up, recognize the interdependence of all people and all things and accept responsibility for its actions, that day will yet come.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In international waters on the Gulf of Alaska</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As another example of the hypocrisy of libertarians when they find they need more help than their family and friends can or are willing to give, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/">here is a bit of history about Rand abandoning the philosophy when she needed help from the "gummint."</a></span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-10488780495480551452009-11-24T07:02:00.000-08:002011-01-20T08:36:59.160-08:00CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THANK GOD FOR GEORGE BUSH!<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="youtube-player" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hqMhffi8SHM" title="YouTube video player" type="text/html" width="480"></iframe><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to Judas Iscariot, beloved follower of Jesus of Nazareth. His role in the passion play was the most difficult, and one that he ultimately could not bear. Without him, the sacrifice of Jesus might have been wasted, as he became the symbol of the price one pays for loss of faith in the principle that the good will always triumph over evil, if men and women of good will start with and hold fast to this belief.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We owe a deep debt of gratitude to George Bush for revealing the utter insanity of the hypocritical neoconservative approach of bashing government while running it into the ground to prove their point. The corporate media cannot hide the utter failure of neoconservatives in expanding the power of government while railing against it, or the collusion of both Democrats and Republicans with the corporatocracy that is ultimately responsible for the utter corruption of the democratic process in Congress and the expansion of executive power it has allowed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If Bush had not shown America the logical result of the cult of greed enshrined by the conservative icon Ronald Reagan, its current strength would not have been possible. I am sure that like Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, God will forgive Bush his sins because ultimately, all these "traitors" are only players on the world stage who do what needs to be done at critical times in history to save humanity by inspiring people to promote democratic, humanistic ideals when despair is the only alternative.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Let us redouble our efforts to bring sanity and democracy to America and thereby the world. Pressing our advantage, let us move forward into the future confident of our ultimate success. Remember that the plan is to first secure the blessing of life so that we may increase our numbers in order to restore liberty, with the ultimate goal being to increase individual happiness. We want to make next July Fourth a celebration of our interdependence. We can hope that we will rejoice in independence from fear, anger and enslavement by soulless corporations and acolytes of the cult of Ayn Rand. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Viva la Revoluccion! Vive the Revolution! Let us pray for salaam and shalom amidst the Babel of the corporate media. When we have true democracy in America, we may inspire the desire for freedom from fear, anger and the cycle of violence in Israel and the Muslim world alike. This is the mission of Soldiers For Peace.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We will only succeed if we forgive the trespasses of the misguided masses that have been confused by the concerted effort to establish an American aristocracy. These lost souls have actively abetted the effort while seeking only their own safety, wealth and happiness. We must forgive them, for they knew not what they did when they allowed corporations to take the reins of a government designed to be of the people, for the people and by the people. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Let us move forward by educating their supporters as to what has happened to our beloved country and how they can be part of the effort to restore democracy in America. We begin locally in the rural areas as well as with distractable urbanites, converging on a new state of consciousness that recognizing our interdependence is the only way to secure human survival on the planet.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We must all be Soldiers for Peace in this war of humanity against the corporate machine. If we choose to be neutral in this final showdown, the collateral damage will destroy the onlookers along with the combatants, as the problems of environmental degradation, overpopulation, social isolation, war and famine doom civilization to an accelerating cycle of destruction. We need not fear this fate if we trust in the essential goodness of the human spirit. If we do not, then we have succumbed to the demons of fear and anger and must first defeat them in a personal battle for our own individual salvation.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, Oregon</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-55382762357610825432009-11-24T06:43:00.001-08:002013-12-10T20:24:37.674-08:00CHAPTER SIXTEEN. AMERICA’S BORDERLINE SPLIT<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This essay is dedicated to Glenn O. Gabbard, from whom I learned the rudiments of object relations theory, upon which this essay is based. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">To become the <a href="http://takebackamericaforthepeople.blogspot.com/2009/11/chapter-five-how-we-will-become-doctors.html">Doctors Who Will Heal Ourselves</a>, we must begin by studying the phenomenon of Borderline Personality Disorder. This is a psychiatric condition characterized by an unstable sense of self, others and the relationship between the two. This inability to establish a stable sense of ourselves and our relation to others results from an inability to integrate the good and bad aspects of each and leads to several problems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">It becomes impossible to internalize the positive image of others that enables the psychologically healthy individual to tolerate their disappointing behaviors. This in turn leads to difficulty in regulating our emotions, leading to emotional instability, chronic anger and when things get really tough, a preoccupation with death and dying, even to the point of repeated suicide attempts. The knowledge of our inability to form meaningful relationships leads to a chronic sense of emptiness and frantic efforts to avoid abandonment to preserve our sense of safety and the illusion of feeling related to others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Let us examine each of these difficulties in turn, for the incidence of borderline illness is growing at a frightening rate. When enough people suffer from this disorder of psychological development, a critical mass is achieved which leads to a disorder of society. This problem now threatens to go critical and vaporize the social order upon which democracy depends. Our Borderline Split is a major contributor to the alarming rise in the suicide rate as our social and economic crisis widens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">Before proceeding to look at the causes and consequences of this malignant threat to the psychological health of America, let us briefly consider one of its most important implications. When a borderline mentality governs society, psychopathic individuals can use their cunning charm to feign normality in order to gain powerful positions, such as chairmen of corporations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">These psychopaths take advantage of the disordered society for their own short-term advantage, without regard to the fiduciary trust shareholders place in them or the long-term health of the corporations for which they are responsible. The proverbial hardworking American is now unable to depend on income from the corporation to securely plan her future. It is a characteristic of the psychopath to act self-destructively and without regard to the well being of others. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">It is important that psychopathy be distinguished from the much more common condition of antisocial personality disorder. While both have similar effects on society, the antisocial individual acts impulsively out of anger, with little consideration of the effects of his behavior on himself as well as others. This leads to self destruction as well as harm to others. Antisocial personality arises from the same traumas that typically create borderline personalities, while psychopaths seem to lack then neurological mechanism which allows the internal mirroring of the emotional experience of others that normally leads to empathy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The psychopath takes pains not to harm himself, not realizing that his behavior sows the seeds of self-destruction. In a world in which we are all interdependent physically and emotionally, the law of Karma is absolute. At this time in history the actions of a small few are putting the survival of human civilization at risk, and they will not be spared the consequences of their unbridled selfishness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is as if psychopaths were emotionless Vulcans learning to blend in with humans through the study of their behavior. Unlike the Vulcans of Roddenbury’s vision in Star Trek, psychopaths have no consideration of the long term effects of their actions on society or themselves. They are thus, in Spock’s way of thinking, illogical. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">In fact, emotion is an integral part of perception and cognition. Life would not be comprehensible without it because if all experiences were perceived objectively, none would have any importance beyond those which directly cause pain or pleasure. Rational thought about intangible things we call values would not be possible if we could not distinguish between pleasurable and painful emotions evoked by our interactions with each other and the world. Those who lack empathy are thus in a very real sense mentally ill.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Our unstable sense of self can be considered to arise from one or both of two experiences in our early development: lack of adequate nurturing or abuse. With the experience of sufficient caring or (God willing) love, we can develop the emotional resiliency needed to recover if we experience these things in later life, though this is often prevented by our own disordered and self destructive behavior. If we lack this caring altogether and experience only abuse and neglect, our prognosis is much graver and requires more intensive treatment to recover. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">Fostering a sense of security and psychological stability requires extraordinary patience on the part of the doctor or therapist, as well as a deep awareness of her own psychological weaknesses and triggers to anger. That is the challenge we face if we are going to become healers in a world that is critically ill. It seems superhuman to remain compassionate for people who are harming others through their ignorance and greed, yet that is what we must do for the healing to take place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">When the treating clinician succumbs to his own narcissistic need for gratification from the progress of the patient and becomes impatient, frustrated or disapproving of the patient’s continuing self destructive behavior, he fails to put the patient’s needs before his own and guarantees that treatment will fail. He will thus be further frustrated by his inability to heal the patient. Only through developing the objectivity and patience to consistently provide unconditional positive regard for the patient is there hope for her recovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When borderline patients begin to experience this consistent acceptance and unconditional positive regard, they will almost invariably begin to develop the fragile sense of trust necessary to develop a stable sense of self, others and their relationship to each other. They remain exquisitely sensitive to the behavior of the loved object and any perceived inconsistency on the part of the therapist leads to therapeutic setbacks. If this occurs repeatedly trust is lost, along with any hope for psychological healing. The corollary in society is that the breakdown in civility we have witnessed threatens the psychological health of Americans and the mutual positive regard for each other upon which democracy depends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Establishing emotional stability is a more difficult task, but one which is essential to the healing process. All higher organisms are hard-wired to react to severe or physical or even psychological pain as a threat to survival. As both physical and psychological pain are experienced in the mind rather than the body, the result is the formation of mental schemata that ascribe to the external world negative qualities that prompt avoidant responses to the everyday hurts we all experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">Fortunately, we have evolved a frontal lobe which can make sense of our experience, allowing us to correct these cognitive distortions. This remarkable organ also allows us to regulate the intensity of our emotional responses, an essential component of our ability to maintain our reason in the face of psychological threats or real threats tour physical integrity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">The psychologically healthy individual and society itself thus can come to realize that there is always hope and reason to survive and to overcome these threats and the causes of our emotional distress. Herein lies the hope for the cure of social ills and the survival of the species and the elimination of the so-called Thanatos, Freud’s erroneously assumed death impulse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />When we have all helped others to reach this state of psychological health and emotional security of our well-being, we will have achieved the collective consciousness of our interdependence and a rational basis for a consistent sense of safety. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">We can lose our individual and collective sense of emptiness and psychological isolation if we begin to respond to the commonalities that make us human rather than the differences that artificially divide us. This will ease the frenzy to establish unstable loving relationships that are typical for the borderline individual, for such relationships will then be accepted by all as normal and expected. This will enable America and people everywhere to have the sense of purpose and direction that will enable us to find the way to avoid self-destruction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Soldiers For Peace, you now understand the objectives of this war and the importance of your mission. As the war has already begun, you are compelled to go into the world and develop the tactics to win this war for the survival of humanity. If we do not act in anger but with a calm, shared sense of our duty, victory is assured.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the words of Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens):</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tell me what's making you sadly? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">'Cause you know that's how it must be</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">upon her pain getting deeper,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">though my love wants to relieve her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lost in a hall, she can't hear me! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Though I know she likes to be near me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lisa Lisa, sad Lisa Lisa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">She sits in a corner, by the door.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There must be more I can tell her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If she really wants me to help her,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And maybe one day I will free her,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Though I know no one can see her,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, OR</span></div>
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Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-50104160331558878192009-11-24T06:25:00.000-08:002012-05-27T08:11:38.344-07:00CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: OUR BIPOLAR DISORDER<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jul 23, 2009 6:48 AM PDT </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> This essay is dedicated to Robert Putnam, distinguished sociologist and author of Bowling Alone</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Growing up in Portland in the early 60s, I remember careless summer nights playing kick-the-can with all the kids in the neighborhood for half the night on Saturdays, while my parents held pinochle parties with dozens of their friends from all over the Portland area. They would have a few beers and laugh about the foolish bids they made, or the foolish choices they had made as kids together. They didn’t worry about us kids. It was a different day. We and our parents were living in two different worlds at times, but I always knew that I would come home to a loving family. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My family went to church together and I was happy to belong, at least until I was ten years old. I had attended services for as long as I can remember and had listened attentively, marveling at the life of Jesus and all that he accomplished in the short span of his ministry. Eager to understand his teachings in more depth, I remember looking forward to religion training classes when my dad asked me to try them. I was disappointed to learn that in this church, you were not expected to study what people’s recollections of Jesus might have meant in light of the purported statements of the rabbi himself. Instead, religious training in this church consisted of memorizing the questionable interpretations of others. So after a few classes, I began to read the Classics Illustrated comic collection in the classroom we used, instead of listening to the teacher. After all, I was and always have been an ardent believer in democracy, and it seemed to me that any church I would belong to would not have a creed, but would be devoted to helping the flock understand his words for themselves. So when I finished the last comic, I waited for class to be dismissed, and walked out on that church forever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Looking back, it is hard to remember what it felt like to be so free. Few kids today are brought up to go hang out God knows where with just anyone until bedtime. Parents must maintain an illusion of controlling the risk of their children coming to harm by monitoring and restricting their movements, in an attempt to control their exposure to ideas and images that they believe could have harmful influence on them and how they think. Controlling their thoughts is important to these parents because they think that it is their job to turn out adults who believe exactly what they do. The problem is that often those beliefs are often simply reflections of their own pain and fear. This creates children who grow up feeling disconnected from their community, fearful of interactions with their neighbors, and lacking the social consciousness that is the tie that binds each of us to another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is sad to think of how many of our children and their parents have grown up feeling isolated from everyone but their family (if they have one) and a church (if they have one), both of which often insist that everyone ought to think alike on the most important issues of life. Sadder still is the loss of tolerance and sense of belonging to a larger community to which each citizen owes his utter allegiance. This has so weakened our democracy that it was until now on the verge of dying out altogether. The bankruptcy of the social capital of America has led to the loss of our ideals regarding equality, a shared sense of American identity of purpose and the concept that government exists to serve the interests of the citizenry as a whole. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In a culture of individuals who too often accept without question Ayn Rand’s assumption that greed is good, antisocial behavior becomes not only tolerated but encouraged by many citizens. These are the voters who make me want to tear out my last two hairs when others say of them that they have to vote because it is their civic responsibility, These individuals have become so angry that they cannot tolerate listening to opposing viewpoints from those not in their immediate circle of handpicked friends and family members inculcated with the same beliefs. Confused by the propaganda spewed by the corporate media and morally bankrupt politicians who see maintaining their positions as the most important function that they serve, they are easily led to support candidates and politicians who do not serve their interests or those of the American people. This is why democracy is on life support and the reason that it will take the efforts of all of us to become the "doctors" who save democracy and the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">To understand how this problem arose, I have come to think of America as a patient with bipolar disorder. When young, such individuals typically seem quite normal. It is only at a certain developmental stage that the average person with bipolar disorder reaches peak susceptibility to a manic break. When life becomes more complicated as such an individual approaches adulthood, the additional stress is what is thought to typically trigger the first episode. By analogy, when America was young, healthy and terribly optimistic, the illusion of safety prevented this form of madness from threatening the psychological health of society’s collective consciousness. As the world has grown more complex, the illusion of safety was shattered and we have become frantic with fear and its corollary, anger. Instead of easing our fear and calming our anger, too many of our politicians ruthlessly exploit these powerful emotions to crate the politics of division by unfairly maligning their opponents and using emotionally laden language that conceals their true feelings and intentions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A manic episode arises when the excitement of the brain overwhelms the ability of the frontal lobe to control the rate of information processing and sort out the data coming in from our senses, organizing memories and thoughts according to their emotional valence. This system has a counterpart in the reptilian brain, which lacks a cortex and therefore the ability to reason. In this primitive system, common to snakes and reptiles, the memories stored in this way are painful ones. These are created by traumas that are perceived as presenting a threat to the integrity of the organism. In the amygdala, memories are stored which are many times more resistant to extinction than memories tenuously stored in our rational brain, as shown by brilliantly designed electrophysiological studies. The consequence of this is that we react much more strongly and on an unconscious level to situations which remind us of these traumas, such as the 9/11 attacks. These reactions are thus over generalized by the unthinking part of the mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The ironic thing is, it is these overreactions to often ordinary and even expected “threats” which leads to the corollary of mania, bipolar depression. When the manic individual or society has had enough suffering from the consequences of its own irrational behavior, it usually sinks into a deep Depression, which serves the survival function of controlling mania but which only adds to the suffering of the affected individuals. Only through the rational mind can this vicious cycle be broken. Once we understand this, we can truly teach our children well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the immortal words of Graham Nash:</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You who are on the road,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">must have a code that you can live by.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And so become yourself</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">because the past is just a good bye.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Teach your children well,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">their father's hell did slowly go by.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And feed them on your dreams,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the one they picked, the one you'll know by.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Don't you ever ask them why. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If they told you, you would cry.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So just look at them and sigh… and know they love you.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And you, of tender years,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">can't know the fears that your elders grew by.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And so, please help them with your youth,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">they seek the truth before they can die.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Can you hear and do you care and </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">can't you see we must be free to</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">teach your children what you believe in:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Make a world that we can live in.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Teach your parents well,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">their children's hell will slowly go by.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And feed them on your dreams,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the one they picked, the one you'll know by.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Don't you ever ask them why. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If they told you, you would cry.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So just look at them and sigh… and know they love you.</span><br />
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</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, Oregon</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-45843490657727117422009-11-24T06:06:00.000-08:002012-05-27T07:39:34.226-07:00CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE DANCE OF THE MEAT PUPPETS<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Jul 24, 2009 5:21 AM PDT</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">With love, to Anne Feeney and her friends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Have you ever tried to dance to one of those complicated rock tunes where the rhythm and the beat change all the time? You find yourself eventually stopping and standing there, trying to guess what comes next so you can start dancing again. It’s kind of funny to watch the dancers who keep trying to dance to the original rhythm, oblivious to the constant changes of the tune. Eventually, they become dimly aware that they are out of step and slow down, trying to catch up. When you realize this, it is enough to send you into stitches. It begins to look like the funeral march of the marionettes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Congress reminds me a lot of that image, except they all started out dancing to different tunes, depending on what elements of the discord they listened to. If only they had a better DJ, who would play them a simple tune they all could follow. I think it would be cool if someone would call in to hear “The Star Spangled Banner.” The music might subconsciously remind them of the compelling reason they came to the dance. They don’t seem to realize that, like Shiva, the dance they make has effects that reverberate on another plane, creating or destroying life according to the moves they choose to make.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once you get this, it seems funny until you realize that the dancers are not choosing their own steps, and the cosmic events determined by the Ironic Butterfly effect are threatening to destroy the planet. Anyone reading this far knows by now that the puppet masters who pull the strings are themselves unaware of what they are doing, as they were created by men and now control the masses in the name of “security.” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">National security is doublespeak for anything that the corporate puppet masters believe will secure their interests. What they don’t understand is that the artificial intelligence that they have created in the form of corporations is programmed to survive at any costs. They failed to read Asimov and did not program into their soulless creations the Three Laws of Robotics that would protect them from their own selfish designs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wouldn’t it be nice if we could pull the strings for a change, like we did briefly after the American Revolution? It is a damned shame that at the moment of our rebirth we were forced by the need to work together for our survival that we didn’t have time to work out the little problem of slavery. We might have eventually achieved the Christian ideal of creating a Heaven on Earth and avoided God’s wrath in the form of the American Civil War. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If Americans had been good enough and wise enough to renounce the sin of slavery on their own, they might have found the strength of character to avoid the massacre of Native Americans. They could have chosen not to join in the cynical “war to end all wars,” thereby avoiding WWII and the perhaps the spread of communism. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Had our forefathers foreseen how soon we would forget why we chose to fight the evil of a class system inevitably favoring the aristocracy, they would have realized the need to heed Jefferson’s warning about the dangers of unchecked corporate power and of the need for a confiscatory income tax to avoid the rise of an American economic aristocracy that inevitably looks out only for its own perceived interest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wouldn’t it be nice if someone tapped each of the meat puppets on their shoulders and got their attention, then showed them the steps so that they could all join in a more beautiful dance? Imagine the effects if we all danced to the same tune. Surely, Shiva would smile that he had done his work so well that he could now relax and enjoy the ever changing beauty of the dance of his creation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the immortal words of Jackson Browne:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Doctor, my eyes have seen the years</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and the slow parade of fears without crying,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">now I want to understand.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I have done all that I could</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">to see the evil and the good without hiding.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You must help me if you can.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Doctor my eyes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">tell me what is wrong.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">'Cause I have wandered through this world</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and as each moment has unfurled,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I’ve been waiting to awaken from these dreams.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">People go just where there will,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I never noticed them until I got this feeling</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">that its later than it seems.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Doctor my eyes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">tell me what you see</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I hear their cries.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Just say if it’s too late for me.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Doctor my eyes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I cannot see the sky.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Is this the prize for having learned how not to cry?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Soldiers For Peace International</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Coos Bay, OR</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-53317409890743642192009-11-24T05:38:00.000-08:002011-02-14T14:45:37.422-08:00CHAPTER NINETEEN. ALL POLITICS IS INTERNATIONAL<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/c6dlgtH8ZtE" title="YouTube video player" width="480"></iframe> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Aug 1, 2009 9:41 AM PDT</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We are all familiar with the concept “think globally and act locally,” but how often do we stop and think of how are actions actually affect the world at large? Most of us tend to think of ourselves as insignificant in the grand scheme of things. This attitude is so prevalent that increasingly, Americans have given up voting in national elections. Others vote only to choose between the lesser of two “evils,” recognizing that the legislative process has become so corrupted by corporate influence that either party will serve the interest of the corporate Puppetmasters before considering those of the people. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are few among us who are well informed enough to distinguish between those politicians who want to do all they can to make America a stronger and more just nation from those who only seek to use the power of office to benefit themselves, their corporate benefactors and the wealthy aristocracy from which most of them arose. It is important that we embolden them to cast off the chains of the international corporate terrorists who want to treat them as their Puppets so that the United States can become the powerful force for freedom, justice and democracy that it was meant to be.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">At the same time, we must remember that Presidential elections are different. Remembering Lincoln, we have time and again chosen as our Commander in Chief men who have risen from modest backgrounds to a position to grasp at the brass ring, the bully pulpit from which their words inspire action by Congress and the people to better our nation. From Nixon on, we have more often than not elected men of relatively humble origins, always looking for another Lincoln. The latest such man came also from the Illinois, the “Land of Lincoln.” Those of us who chose him over a military man of elitist origins hoped that this was a good omen.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">What has gone wrong with the Obama Presidency? Why has a constitutional scholar been so slow to address the numerous Constitutional violations and crimes against the American people? It is if Lincoln had attempted Reconstruction before the Civil War had begun. It simply defies logic, until you recognize that he has continued to be trapped in the dance of the Meat Puppets. While he may have a keen sense of rhythm, that is not enough when the tempo of the tune is so fast and the dischord changes so complex. Bush too had a fine sense of rhythm, as shown by his impromptu jig on the White House portico while waiting to meet with newly humbled Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain in 2008. Although he can do a mean two-step, he danced to a different tune than a true patriot. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Although Obama has not been in Washington long enough to be mired as deeply as some in its swampy morass, he was forced to make a Faustian bargain with banking and financial interests (largely the same thing in this era of deregulation) in order to achieve the power to do the most good. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Had he ignored their interests and listened to the lonely voice of reason in the person of Representative DeFazio and the few others who argued against making the unqualified financial industry bailout, America would have been well on the way to restoring modern democracy to the place of its birth, and Goldman-Sachs and Citicorp would not have posted record profits, stolen from the American taxpayer to be given to them as a reward for their role in deliberately causing the crisis.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Our President has an opportunity to atone for this and subsequent mistakes. His Attorney General has begun to investigate war crimes of the Bush administration but for some reason seems constrained from taking action. He must begin to aggressively pursue the prosecution and conviction of Karl Rove. the man most responsible for the politicization of the White House and the Justice Department. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In prosecuting those guilty for making a political prisoner of Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama, Holder can begin to assert the power of the People over those of the international corporate terrorists that have effectively bought our government to use as their personal plaything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By setting this example, the American people can begin to challenge the absolute authority of the corporatocracy by taking on the craven Medical insurance industry, which reaps billions by not providing service but denying health care to those who actually need it. We do not need them and they are the only roadblock to real reform, which can only come through the adoption of a single payer health care delivery system. Health care is the most important human right being denied to tens of millions of Americans and billions in the world at large.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Will Obama have the wisdom and courage of Lincoln? If he does not see that the counter-Revolutionaries have already seized control of Washington and declare an all-out Civil War, then the sacrifices of the American Revolutionaries, the victims of the Civil War and all other wars will have died in vain, along with the dream of American democracy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Until the people rise up and demand a restoration of democracy in America, we cannot become leaders in the search for answers to the various threats to human survival, but will remain leaders in their creation. It is time to take to the streets, like the demonstrators risking their lives for freedom in Iran, and cry out for freedom. The larger world outside of America has joined them in solidarity, and will rejoice when Americans rise up and demand liberty and justice for all in the cradle of modern democracy.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">When Americans tear down the barriers which divide us and the country has resumed its destined role as a leader, it can begin to encourage other nations to tear down the barriers between themselves and recognize their interdependence in the struggle for survival. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Together, the nations of the world can and must work together as free and sovereign peoples to end the wars and the savage economic warfare which breeds them. If we forget the lessons of history, we are doomed to continue to sacrifice our freedom and our children to the evil actions of those who would lead us into eternal damnation. If we learn to act always in enlightened self interest, we can march confidently back to the future. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The fate of the world is in our hands. Simply by doing everything in our power to act for the good of all, you will have become Soldiers for Peace. The first battle has begun. It is the fight for justice on behalf of those who are denied the basic right of access to health care, a problem plaguing increasing numbers of working Americans and those unemployed not by choice bur by the actions of the corporate Puppetmasters. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Will we love all those who have suffered at the hands of men we have allowed to assume power in an increasingly fascistic system? Can we overcome our fear and hatred long enough to understand why some would resort to terror to force the world to pay attention to the sufferings of their Peoples that our selfishness has caused? No revolution can succeed unless the aggressors are forgiven once they are bowed and repentant. We must endeavor to find compassion even for those who have committed atrocities because in the end all of us share our measure of responsibility for not fighting hard enough and with as many as possible for the good of all and the survival of human civilization itself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If we can find a way to feel love for all citizens of the planet as we would want to be loved ourselves, we will know that God is on our side in this last battle for freedom. We must try to love or at least try to understand the aggressors even as we fight to defeat them, and their sick dreams of Empire. We must abandon the artificial distinctions between us and come together as at no previous time in history, before there is no one left to carry on the fight on behalf of the defenseless children we are sworn to protect. We must act now or we will all suffer the consequences, and our children will never forgive us.</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In the immortal words of John Lennon:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Imagine there's no heaven.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It's easy if you try.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">No hell below us,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">above us only sky.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Imagine all the people</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">living for today... </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Imagine there's no countries.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It isn't hard to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Nothing to kill or die for</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and religion too.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Imagine all the people</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">living life in peace... </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You may say I'm a dreamer,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">but I'm not the only one.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I hope someday you'll join us</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and the world will be as one.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Imagine no possessions.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I wonder if you can.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">No need for greed or hunger,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">a brotherhood of man.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Imagine all the people</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">sharing all the world... </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You may say I'm a dreamer,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">but I'm not the only one.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I hope someday you'll join us</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and the world will live as one.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Loon Lake, OR</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-44263227927587243152009-11-23T15:35:00.000-08:002011-03-16T21:45:14.531-07:00CHAPTER TWENTY. BROKEN CHINA: THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF THE HIVE MIND<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Aug 15, 2009 8:28 AM PDT </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This chapter is dedicated to Thom Hartmann, who wrote in Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight about the need to change human consciousness in order to save the planet. That is exactly what Soldiers For Peace International is trying to do.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">China provides a wonderful example of good intentions going bad out of fear that people are not capable of acting in their own best interest. The assumption of its government is that given the opportunity and freedom of action to disregard the interests of society in their own selfish pursuits, citizens will do so. China’s leadership thus sees itself as responsible for making decisions based on the interests of the nation as a whole, often regardless of the effects on individuals.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In seeking to free itself from the burden of colonialism, China united against a common foe, as America had done before her. Unlike most revolutions, this resulted in a ruling class that actually considered its own long term interests as being best served by concentrating on domestic concerns and going to war only when it perceived its interests to be directly threatened. Its huge military primarily serves a defensive function, at least in its own view. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">China has gradually built the basis for what could become the heart and nerve center of the economic world, should America continue its precipitous decline from a powerful industrial nation to one dependent on pillaging other nations to fuel its economy. China now fears that it has built its economic house on sand. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">China's dependence on the stability of the dollar to maintain the value of its cash reserves leaves it vulnerable to severe disruption if the dollar declines sharply. The Chinese government is the most deliberative on the planet, incorporating the views of many leaders in a complex system of information exchange akin to that of bees in a hive. The Chinese Hive Mind has realized that if it continues to feed the voracious appetites of financial manipulators in America, it risks sowing the seeds of its own economic destruction. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">When it floated the idea of converting to more stable international currencies than the dollar, China signaled to an apparently blind American government that it is not going to indefinitely pick up the tab for the corporatist orgy that is our “service” economy. This would of course lead to abrupt devaluation of the dollar, at great cost to the Chinese but at even greater cost to America. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The leaders of the rapidly growing Chinese economy understand that the only ones being served in this economy are the American aristocracy, or so the counter-Revolutionaries in this country believe. The Chinese know better, having traditionally taken a longer view than the short-sided hedonists who control the levers of power in the U.S. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Chinese Communist Party understands the principle of enlightened self interest at the national level, if not at the level of the individual. Just as the Chinese government is willing to ignore the rights of Chinese citizens for what they see as the greater “good,” they are willing to take the economic hit they would suffer by abandoning the dollar in order to stabilize the world economy. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Congress is now faced with a dilemma it appears not to recognize. If the Senate fails to deliver true health care reform, there will be the devil to pay come Judgment Day, when they are next up for re-election. Alternatively, if they produce yet another bailout to save a dying scion of the corporatocracy, the people’s wrath will be fearsome. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Congress does not yet seem to comprehend this. How much simpler for all concerned if they simply understood that their own interests would be best served by doing their sworn duty. They must pledge to put the interest of the American people above those of the puppet masters who they now feel control their fate. Let us not seek to punish them like the errant brats they seem to be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In reality, most members of Congress are more like frightened children who act instinctively, without understanding the ultimate consequences of their actions. Like good parents, we need to try and remember that most of them mean well, but need to be corrected when they misbehave. Positive reinforcement produces much more enduring positive changes in behavior than punishment.Of course, when they endanger us, we must punish them as we would the bad behavior of children.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">For recalcitrant children we have to remember that the withholding of toys is the most effective deterrent to misbehavior. These individuals must be made examples of what happens to the servants of the corporatocracy. I have suggested that Max Baucus be the first. Although not up for re-election until 2014, he is a symbol of how the Democratic Party has adopted Bill Clinton's strategy of moving the Party far to the right instead of leading the American People to the natural center of the political spectrum. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I suggested to the Progressive Democrats of America that it should start a campaign to target Baucus during the health care "reform" debate. This seemed to them to be an appropriate response to his role in obeying the wishes of the insurance, pharmaceutical and corporate industries that finance the propaganda campaigns that keep him in office working for them. He has accumulated power through the seniority system in the Senate, a policy that ignores both the Peter principle and the Founders intent that the Senate be composed of the "natural aristocracy." It should be goal of our movement to establish the principle that the Senate, like America itself, should be a meritocracy and not an aristocracy.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Hive Mind is nothing more than the thinking resulting from the consensus reality of a society. It is up to us to “Be the change” in molding the consensus reality of Americans and their government. We must change the meme, to use Thom Hartmann’s phrase. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once conservatives and liberals share a common understanding of the nature of democracy and their responsibility as citizens to work for a fair and functioning economy and society, we will demand together the end of American corporatism or as Mussolini put it, fascism. If a communist society that places no value on individual liberty can occasionally do the right thing for its People, why shouldn’t an ostensibly democratic country be able to do the same consistently? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you do not know the answer to this riddle, look to yourself. The responsible parent understands that the child is the product of the family. Iranians are risking death for freedom. The citizens of the first modern democracy risk only ridicule by the ignorant. Let us accept that we are a family of man and take to the streets for democracy in America. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for our children.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the words of the artists of This Beautiful Mess: </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Come on, come one and all.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">All weary and heavy laden, pack up your sorrows,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">it's time to head back home.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Let's go,</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">let's go for broke.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">No, no one knows which way is home.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Let's move, let's keep on moving.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We will get to where we're going.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">How long will this be going on?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I want to know what's going on.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Come back, come back and haunt me like a true shepherd would.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lead me beside still waters until all time has gone.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I would add, Jesus will not save us himself. We have free will for a reason. It is up to each of us to make the choice to make change happen, restore democracy in America and save the world from the corporate puppet masters.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Live from the NetRoots Nation</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Pittsburg, Pennsylvania</span>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-14120096936497893962009-11-23T15:22:00.000-08:002011-06-05T19:38:14.728-07:00CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. THE BATTLE PLAN TO TAKE BACK AMERICA: STRATEGY AND TACTICS.<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Aug 18, 2009 6:11 PM PDT</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This essay is also dedicated to General Eric Shinseki, who spoke truth to power in the run up to the Iraq debacle and was removed from command by Bush and Rumsfeld. He is now the Secretary of the VA under President Obama.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now that we have established the goals and general strategy for the war against the corporate interests that control Congress and the fate and fortunes of most ordinary Americans, we have to discuss strategy and tactics. For those of us who avoided studying military science out of a natural aversion to the subject of war, let us begin by defining these terms. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Strategy refers to the overall sequence of steps we anticipate taking to achieve our objectives. This is where much of the disagreement arises among the leaders of the single payer movement. I have been arguing since becoming involved in the movement that we must adopt the message of the need to abolish corporate personhood into the message that we must create a single payer system of universal health care for both economic and moral reasons. This is integral to the battle plan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tactics are the specific actions taken to meet short-term objectives identified in the development of the overall strategy. Discussing tactics tends to be less divisive, but even here there is room for honest disagreement, such as the relative role of direct actions which might inflame the opposition and alienate potential allies.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In general, my battle plan depends on fully understanding that in a functioning society, everybody is in and nobody is out, as we say in the single payer movement. This means that we must gain the support of the most diverse group of advocates that we can persuade. Self-imposed distinctions between those on the "Right" and those on the "Left" should be cast aside so that we can all talk to our neighbors as fellow Americans. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We must work even harder to reach the average citizen who is too distracted by fear and economic pain to dig for the truth about what is destroying the economic and moral heart and soul of America. We cannot expect people who have been trained to think of such progressive ideas as "socialism" to come to us, nor can we expect those who want and need such help to join us if they remain in despair that we can prevail in Taking Back America.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Confused and fearful citizens do not know where to look to find the facts that would challenge their often bizarrely inconsistent views of reality. It is up to us to take the message directly to them in town halls, Republican and Democratic central committee meetings, city hall, the local paper's opinion page and talk radio of every persuasion. We must learn to speak in the language of those who consider themselves our opponents if we are ever going to educate them about the citizen's proper role in a functioning democracy. We will not do this by shouting them down, scorning them or otherwise angering them. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">As a psychiatrist, I am fully aware that we are generally good people who simply look at the world through different lenses. The way that we view the world is determined by choices in our beliefs that we make so early that they are generally unconscious us as adult.s More often than not, these beliefs are passed on from generation to generation when we fail to question the belief system we are taught as children. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Many parents are rigid authoritarians who learned to parent this way by the example set for them in their own childhood. They may have been punished for adopting their own beliefs if they conflicted with those of their dictatorial parents who did not understand that they must teach children to think for themselves if they are going to be good citizens. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When such punishment is physical, the result is fearful, angry and mistrustful adults who more often than not raise their children the same way. The treatment for these psychological handicaps is consistent respect and concern for these often unhappy and angry individuals. This is the only way that we can make them understand that there is a better way to live in the world than the one suggested by Ayn Rand in which each of us fends for ourselves in a hostile world all too real to the victim of such abuse.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">How do we learn to talk to each other in the same language? The key is to frame the discussion in terms of common values. Let me give an example from my own experience. Today I talked to antiabortion protesters about the right to life issue inherent in the single payer movement, pointing out also to this audience the economic benefits of such a model of health care reform. Once I made the case that such reform is inevitable, it was easy to make the case to these socially and spiritually active that they have a role to play in helping determine the outcome of the debate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I also encourage reaching out to church leaders and ecumenical association directors to amplify the message that this is the social justice issue of our time. Among others, the national association of United Church of Christ congregations passed a resolution at their 2009 synod in support of a single payer universal health care system. Let us hope that it was not the fear of “guilt” by association that drove Obama from this church and into the Episcopalian church in Washington that is traditionally favored by Presidents.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We cannot afford to leave the spiritually and socially motivated members of more conservative religions to the tender mercies of self-serving megachurch preachers or to the nonsense repeated by their hellfire-snorting pastors quoting more from Rush Limbaugh than the Bible. We need to go where they live and speak to them in their own language. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This means working at least as hard in the rural areas as in the cities. Rural voters are much more likely to be engaged in their communities and are generally more conservative. in outlook than their urban counterparts. They constitute half or more of the population in many states so are critical in building a strong majority to pass a Constitutional amendment. There is ready access to the local media in rural areas, where there is much less competition for the attention of the citizenry. The biggest town halls I have attended were not in Portland but in my home town and even smaller towns in more isolated areas of Oregon. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Remember, we are all in this together and no one gets out of this alive. We can all be friends if we follow the advice my daughter received from her pastor: Every day and everywhere you go, practice feeling empathy and love for everyone you encounter. If you let someone make you angry, realize that that is YOUR problem and not theirs. Anger is the enemy of reason, and accomplishes nothing. It is the worst possible strategy in a peaceful war to take back America for all the people.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rick Staggenborg, MD</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the air between Chicago and Portland, OR</span></div>Rick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com1