As a child of the sixties I lived through many things that are just memories to most people now. I watched as a child while our government persecuted and killed many good people that were just trying to help make our country a better place for all.
I am getting fed up with the way things have come back around to the same old way they were then. Sure we don't hear about the atrocities like we did then. That is only because the government has gotten wiser and slicker in how it hides it's actions.
Once in a while we hear of some issue that makes us ask "how can they do that?" but then it is quickly out of the news and we go on living our life as if it did not touch us. People get thrown in jail for doing nothing more that speaking out against some action that was unjust. People mysteriously disappear and we forget about them.
Nothing has really changed since the young people of the sixties demonstrated and marched against the Vietnam War, Racial segregation, and other unjust issues. We still have unjust wars where we meddle in other countries' business and send our own citizens to fight and die for the interests of big business. If anything things have gotten worse.
I live in a country that allows me just enough freedom to be a tool of the corporations and brainwashes the masses to be good consumers in order to make the wealthy more wealthy. What do you think the Gulf War was all about? Do you really think it was to protect the nation of Kuwait? Think about it. Who benefited most from it? Who makes the money when we all fall for the lie that we need a strong defense against the nebulous threats we are programmed to believe exist? It seems we have allowed a situation to develop where our economy is dependent on the big corporations and their greed. We are told that in order to have a strong economy we need to spend our money and keep it in circulation.
We are told to be good consumers. We are programmed to want all the latest products. The Department of Defense is always propagating the Big Lie that if they do not get all the toys they want we will fall to some boogie man that is just waiting to devour us. Who would that be? What other country has the resources to invade or try to take over the United States? We have about 300 million people here that would put up a good fight to maintain our freedom. We don't need to keep letting the government squander our hard earned money just to prop up some false economy like the Department of Defense.
We also don't need to keep letting our government lie to us about the threat of other issue like the drug problem. Or domestic terrorism. There is no real threat except from the government itself. The government is controlled by the big business interests that have only one agenda: GREED. If they can make us believe in a threat then we are more willing to let them alter our laws to make their position stronger. They want to have more control over the citizens of this nation so they can little by little enslave us more and more.
I am getting damn tired of just existing to serve the corporations. I get just enough freedom to make me think I am a free man, but when push comes to shove I am not a free man. I cannot do what I want. I have to pay tribute to my enslavers in the form of income tax and hundreds of other taxes. I cannot go off and enjoy my life. I cannot pursue happiness because I have to work at some job where the corporation does not care about my happiness. They only care about how much production they can get from me while paying as little as possible. Most people get paid just enough to have to live within the scrutiny of the government. They cannot break free of this as they have to keep a good job history in order to be able to find another one in case they get laid off in some cost cutting move or, if they are outspoken, get fired because the pissed someone off.
I believe I am supposed to be a free man. I should be able to do what I want in life while I am able. Not have to wait until I have given the best years of my life to the corporations then take the pittance I get from retirement or social security and try to enjoy what little life I have left, if I am able. I am a hard worker. I believe in doing my best on whatever I do. The corporations take that and try to get me to work harder while offering maybe 25 cents or so an hour raise if I jump through all kinds of hoops. This from corporations that are making hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars from the labor of their workers.
Why should it be that a corporation that is allowed to exist by the permission of the government, which is supposed to be representing the people, be allowed to treat their workers as if they are their property? Why should I have to worry about getting fired just because I need to take time off for some personal issue that they couldn't care less about? Why do I need to endure the company prying into my private life, even down to taking samples of my bodily fluids, just to get a job?
We have allowed our government to lie to us in order to establish a society where we have become just tools to help the rich get richer and, in the process, help destroy our future. We get it from both ends. On one end they make us slaves to our jobs and then on the other end they program us to be the very market for the products they use us to produce.
Many of the things we need to live in this society, (or believe we need), are priced just high enough that we need to establish good credit to get them. In order to establish and maintain that credit we have to follow the rules the corporations themselves set. Rules like staying on the job for a certain length of time. Pay the unfair amounts we have to pay for necessities like utilities, food, and others. The whole system is set up to keep us the slaves of the corporations.
So who's fault is it that these unjust conditions exist?
IT'S YOUR FAULT!!!
You, and me, have allowed this situation to develop because we are lazy. We are too scared of jeopardizing our meager existence by speaking out or acting to change things. We have become too apathetic and the corporations and government have taken advantage of this and used it to enslave us.
We can change things. There are many, many more of us in the lower classes, the working class, than there are in the wealthy, ruling class. We can do things like boycott companies that produce goods that take advantage of people, either their own workers or workers in other countries that have to feed their families on slave wages. We have all heard the reports about shoes made with slave labor, sometimes even very young children, or other goods produced by people that cannot even afford many decencies like proper sanitation and nutrition. We hear these reports and what do we do? We turn a blind eye because these very items are things we are programmed to believe we need. We watch, in our own country, how produce workers are paid practically unlivable wages and have to live in communal housing just so we can have lower cost food, all the while much of the food is wasted because of the inefficiencies of a system that sees it to be more cost effective to not put the money into better ways of producing the food. Systems that are supported by our government by paying these companies to keep things this way with subsidies. Did you know it is illegal for a store to give away milk? Did you know the government pays to throw away millions of gallons of milk a day just to keep the dairy industry making huge profits? This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on about the wheat and grain industry, beef industry, as well as the pharmaceutical industry and many others.
The economy is an illusion. The illusion works because we, as consumers and wage earners, allow it to work. So why not take the potential we have a a large group of people and create a better system? We can do it. We can start using the greed of the big corporations and our own mass to change the system. If enough people took a stand and did not buy shoes that are made by enslaving our fellow human beings then the company that makes those shoes would have to start being more humane in their treatment of their workers.
If enough of us took a stand against any company that treated it's workers like they owned them then Corporate America would have to respond favorably to us or close down. Are you tired of utilities raising their rates unfairly? What if 500,000 people in a big city decided to withhold their payments for a month or two? Do you think the utilities would take notice? How about if the local utility regulators received 500,000 angry letters? It only takes people getting organized to take back the power we have let others steal from us over the years.
Those in power, both in the government and corporations that pay for those to get elected, feel they have it made with a willing, apathetic population that exists to make them rich. I feel it is time to stop the progress of this system and start building one that puts the citizen first. We can do it. I propose to you, the people that we need to start organizing and letting them know we are tired of this. If we don't we will just be letting the system grow more and more restrictive until we truly are saves to the rich.
I don't want my life to be just an existence to help others get rich while I just get by. I don't plan on my life amounting to nothing more than surviving off the crumbs that are thrown from the tables of the rich.
Let's start changing things. If you are willing and ready to start building a better future for yourselves and your children then send e-mail to