High Plains Drifter They seem

High Plains Drifter

They seem to agree with Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Taxpayer Reform, who said I don t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. Shrinking government means cutting corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. It means cutting back the benevolent role of government to protect the common good, but expanding the authoritarian role of government to enforce contracts and provide police, prison, and military power. It also means disempowering labor, which often votes Democratic, and which provides the primary countervailing power to absolute corporate rule. This coming Saturday and in future days, we can resist the shock therapy of cutbacks and demand that banks pay their fair share. Cut CEO bonuses, not Social Security. Bail out the schools, not the banks. Corporate tax dodgers, pay your fair share. If we join together nonviolently, as workers and unemployed, students and pensioners, immigrants and citizens, homeowners and homeless, rich and poor together, without scapegoats or enemies, we have power, not the power of domination but of cooperation and moral persuasion. As we rouse ourselves from apathy and take action together, for the children s sake and for the sake of the future, we are upheld and uphold each other through the power of community people power. Another world is possible! The time is now. Sharon Delgado is an ordained United Methodist minister, founder of Earth Justice Ministries, and author of Shaking the Gates of Hell: Faith-Led Resistance to Corporate Globalization Fortress Press, 200 She will be in participating on Saturday, February 26, in the Uncut day of protest. You can reach her at Americas Betrayal From Within The Demise of American UNION Jobs Its Cause Cure! Very Informative Clip on the demise of Manufacturing Jobs, Outsourcing, Unfair Trade Practices and the selling of American Jobs by American Multi-Nationalists Paid by China to Lobby the Governement, basically selling out America for profit and What we need to do as a people to reverse that trend and bring back good jobs to the United States. Hitler also hated Unions and abolished them in 1 These tactics by the GOP, ending collective bargaining and the Silencing of the American voice, is how Democracy ends and a Tolitarian Society is born. And for the record, Rove on Fox had a chart in which he clearly showed how the GOP were going to get rid of unions, which the Ed Show re-aired on MSNBC! Hitler would be green with envy if he could see how successfully Karl Rove and Rahm Emmanual have refined the Nazi playbook and sold so many Americans on transferring their wealth and the nations wealth into the hands of the corporations. A great article, however I take issue with Sharon calling the forces of evil libertarians. Fascists, not libertarians advocate and enable the reverse Robin Hood model take from the workers and give to the wealthy that we are witnessing. I am sure I will get attacked for saying this but I think protest are as effective as when a child holds their breath until their blue in the face. Yeah, I know someone will bring up Egypt, however the protest did nothing really, it was the general strike which forced the military to depose Murbark. I am not necessarily advocating a general strike, which is consider a act a economic terrorism under a law passed during the administration of Bill Clinton. Just saying that standing around doesnt accomplish anything, just ask the people in France and the students in the UK, which turned out far more people than than protest in the could ever muster, and accomplished nothing. You want to get their attention you have to hit them in the wallet, which means you must inflict serve harm on yourself and others, which would be the mass economic equivalent of the guy from Tunisia who set himself on fire. And I dont see the people of the having the guts. I think work stoppages can have an effect on the misbehavior of politicians. Refusal to pay taxes, too. A protest is only the first step-it must be followed by others that have teeth-as you indicated in your post. Refusal to obey unfair laws-as Gandhi and MLK advocated-can also have an effect. You are right-petitions and demonstrations dont do much. But disrupting the daily workings of capitalism will cause change. Id say our greatest obstacle to the general strike phase is that the top 20% has the lower 80% split, just about, right down the middle PROGS v BAGGERS. That way if theres an uprising from the lower 80, they will duke it out amongst themselves while top 20 sits back and waits it out. Until it affects their bottom line, of course. That way the lower 80, basically, polices itself. Gotta get rid of that red team verses blue team mentality or robber baron Jay Goulds dream of half the working class killing the other half will come true. So because we didnt win our latest struggle yet and i would emphasize that yet its of no use. What about all the prostests over the decades that were successfull, do you mean we should do nothing because we dont win everytime? For me its a question of dignity as much as i see it in the protests all over north africa and the middle east and then some in Madison. Dont give up or at least try it, youll see how liberating it can be even if you do not win. I dont know what economic terrorism is but even if such a law is on the books, general strikes along with boycotts, work slow-downs and any other means of non-violent resistance is necessary to counter the fascist regime that is intent on crushing workers rights back to the Gilded Age.