WE HAVE LOST OUR VOTING POWER

GOVERNMENT OF, BY AND FOR THE OLIGARCHY: THE DEMISE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED STATES

An Oligarchy Has Permanently Cancelled Our Voting Power

It Serves No Progressive Purpose to vote for the Democrats or Any Other Party

INTRODUCTION

Since the New Deal and the 1932 election, we have been voting for Democratic Congressional and Presidential candidates in the hope that they stood “for the little guy.” Now over 70 years later, most of us are still voting for Democrats on the theory that they are at least “the lesser evil,” that insofar as permitted by re-election realities, they will vote to end the war, and that they will vote in our interest on social issues like abortion, gay rights, and Supreme Court Justices. We have given up hope that they will ever support economic issues like Universal Medical Care.

The Democrats do not vote in our interest on any proposal that affects a powerful economic interest, specifically including the Iraq War and Supreme Court Justices. They lie to us when they promise they will. They lie to us when they promise to control the power of money in politics. They cannot and will not. As Democratic California Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh stated 40 years ago: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

To focus on this, let’s keep our rights in our Constitutional democracy in mind:

Ours is a government “of, by and for the people.” U.S Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall so ruled in 1809 in McCulloch vs. Maryland, and President Abraham Lincoln etched this concept permanently in our minds in the Gettysburg Address. Our Constitution’s Preamble begins, “We the people of the United States…. do hereby establish and ordain...” Our Constitution grants limited powers to the agents that we vote for, and by the 9^th and 10^th Amendments in the Bill of Rights, those powers not granted to our elected agents are reserved to the states and to the people. Under our Constitution, we voting citizens are the sovereign, controlling 4^th branch of government. We are the bosses of our elected agents. Our Constitution compels our agents to do what we tell them.

Our Constitutional voting power and strength as bosses has been vastly enhanced by Amendments and by Supreme Court decisions since 1789.

The voting rights of blacks, women, and 18 year olds have been guaranteed. Poll taxes have been eliminated. We the voters now elect Senators directly, instead of indirectly through the State Legislatures. The Supreme Court under Republican Earl Warren guaranteed each of us voters equal voting power with each other voter so that one voter could not be given more political effectiveness than another. The diversionary Constitutional provisions for an Electoral College for electing the President were based on the provisions of the original Constitution counting non-voting slaves as 3/5 of a person for allocating Electoral College delegates. This provision gave Southern slave owners more political power in the selection of a President than they would otherwise have had. The Electoral College was nullified by the Civil War Amendments granting slaves citizenship and the right to vote, and by the Supreme Court decisions guaranteeing the equal political effectiveness of votes. For a Republican Supreme Court to award the Presidency to Bush who had fewer constitutionally guaranteed votes than Al Gore, and for the Democrats and Al Gore passively to accept the results of this blatantly unconstitutional, undemocratic, partisan judicial ruling is incomprehensible.

It is the purpose of this article to examine what went wrong and to lay out the evidence why we no longer have a democracy although we still have the right to cast votes that carry no governing power. We are in fact governed by an oligarchy created by the dynamics of capitalism, consisting of a few thousand persons. We will show that both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally dominated and controlled by this oligarchy. We invite you to test this assertion by your own analysis of the daily news.

THERE IS A RULING CLASS, AN OLIGARCHY, THAT EXERCISES CONTROLLING POWER OVER THE EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL AND BOTH MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES

Social Democracy has failed everywhere, not just the Democratic Party in the US.

Despite President Bush’s repeated claim that democracy and capitalism are interdependent, they are in deadly conflict. Democracy is based on the equal political effectiveness of each vote and the sovereignty of voters. Capitalism makes the number of dollars given to a candidate much more effective than the number of votes he gets. Under capitalism, the dollar is sovereign, not the voters. It is the purpose of social democracy to try to find a way to allow capitalism to exist under the control of voters, but to regulate its excesses, to control it, and to provide a safety net for its victims. Marquis Childs in 1936 wrote a very influential book, Sweden: The Middle Way that portrayed Sweden’s successes in dealing with this conflict. The Democratic Party in Roosevelt’s New Deal, and its repeated promise to “stand for the little guy,” seemed to be attempting to resolve this deadly conflict here in the US. As we now observe after 70 years actual experience in many countries, the democratic efforts to “control capitalism” always fail. This effort to control capitalism has failed in Sweden, in Israel, in England, in France, in Germany, and in the United States. Right wing market forces are in power everywhere, and their power is increasing. Capitalism is increasingly free of regulation. Safety nets have been weakened or abolished, and taxes on the rich have been cut.

There is an underlying reason for this failure. The core of capitalism is hiring for profit. An employer who has money hires an employee who has little or no money for the lowest possible wage in order to make as much profit as possible for the person who already has money, the employer. This operating dynamic, repeated thousands of times, decade after decade creates a very rich class of employers and those who invest with them, while at the same time, leaves the multitude of employees surviving, but without accumulated wealth or power. When this class of employers engages in “free trade” and the use of very cheap labor overseas, the money and power of the employer class is grossly compounded far beyond the control of domestic democratic voters. This wealthy powerful class then uses its money and power to overpower and annul the will of the voting majority and to get what it wants, whenever it wants.

The Dynamic of Capitalism has crushed democracy and created an Unrecognized Oligarchy with Awesome Political Power

Since 1970, Professor Peter Dale Scott has been writing about the concept of “Deep Politics.” By this he means hidden, undisclosed forces that get the US into Wars, violate stated policy (like Iran-Contra), assassinate our own and foreign leaders, and cause our involvement in irrational conflicts that do not serve the interests of the invaded country or of the American people. Scott’s books examine the role of the intelligence agencies, illegal drug trade, and the role of oil companies. It is these forces that have gotten us irrationally involved in Afghanistan, Columbia and Indo China. When Scott says these forces are “hidden, undisclosed” he means they are hidden from the American voter. They are not hidden from our elected representatives, either Democrat or Republican. “These forces” supply almost all of the funds for the election of our representatives.

Important as Scott’s books are, in my opinion, he leaves the impression that there is a functioning government that is still under voter control. There is not. A business Oligarchy has been an increasing political power in the United States since 1789, and now in 2007 it is in dominant control.

1. 80% of the campaign contributions to elected federal officials now come from the wealthiest 1% of the population. There are 25000 lobbyists in Washington or 48 for each elected official. They visit, wine, dine, and provide vacation trips to elected office holders. The wealth of the very rich is compounding, while the wealth and incomes of the rest of us remain stagnant or in decline. There is in fact a very wealthy class of humans and their corporations that control our federal government, select the candidates who run for office, and thus control who gets elected. They are in fact an Oligarchy. The Oligarchy includes Defense Contractors, Armament manufacturers, the Israel Lobby, the drug manufacturers, and in fact nearly every large business interest. As Peter Dale Scott and Michael Ruppert document, it also includes those who profit from the sale of illegal drugs.

2. This Oligarchy owns or controls all of the sources of our information, the newspapers, movies, magazines, television, radio, advertising and PR agencies. This includes The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and PBS. This Oligarchy is thus the source of the stories, the conventional wisdom, and the myths that constitute the foundation of our very lives. The Oligarchy thus has a “bull horn” by which it creates a virtual reality, and dominates and controls the information and insights that we need to govern ourselves. This Oligarchy presents only information favorable to the Oligarchy. We voters have no comparable bull horn either to present the truth or the facts favoring the interests of voters.

3. This Oligarchy in its media inundates us with the following “stories,” myths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods that dominate the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the intellectual life and citizenship of the entire Western World:

a. The uncontrolled market is the source of all good, and there is no alternative

b. We are a functioning democracy, with some flaws possibly, but they are correctible

c. Those who oppose “us” are “terrorists” who must be killed wherever they are. (From 1917 to 1990 our opponents were “communists.”)

d. A rising tide lifts all boats, so we need not be concerned about the compounding wealth of some at the top.

e. Our business expansion abroad is good for us and benign in its effects on people abroad. It is our Manifest Destiny to project our culture, our businesses, and our democracy over the entire planet.

f. Our military might is maintained and used solely to defend our democracy.

g. Israel is an ongoing victim of terror, and the Palestinians are terrorists. Israel is our democratic ally in the Middle East.

h. Any human who really wants to can become rich too.

4. Every human being in the Western World, who wishes to have a job, a career, and promotions with appropriate pay, must accept these basic “stories” without question. The “liberal” magazines, The Nation, The New Republic, and The Progressive accept them. A professor will get no foundation grant to study the social adequacy of capitalism. A Jewish Professor who tells the facts about Israel’s 40 year military occupation of the West Bank will be denied tenure. A young law school graduate can do nothing further “left” than to become a speech writer for Al Gore if he wishes to advance in the law. NGOs like Common Cause cannot and do not challenge these basic stories. Thomas Friedman could not survive at the New York Times if he did not support these basic myths. A bright career woman who works as a fund raiser for an academic collection must maintain her “contacts and her “network in order to succeed, so she must “believe” in these basic myths. Thus the Oligarchy controls not only our information, but also what we are allowed to think about. The awesome power of the Oligarchy, coupled with our own wish to “succeed,” puts us in a trance.

5. From the beginning the United States, impelled by business forces that have now grown into the dominant Oligarchy, has aggressively used the military for imperialistic expansion to provide profit making opportunities for American businessmen. It first conquered and killed the Native Americans and granted large blocks of land to the railroads. It purchased the Mississippi and Missouri River Drainages in 1803. Then in 1845 it started a war with Mexico and captured all of the land west of the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean. In 1898, in a War with Spain, it captured Cuba and the Philippine Islands and other Spanish Islands in the Pacific. The US made a major military effort in 1916 under the leadership of General Pershing to stop Mexico from nationalizing its oil which was being extracted by Standard Oil. This oligarchic expansion of business abroad has continued to date whether the Democrats are in power or the Republicans.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, BEING CONTROLLED BY THE OLIGARCHY, ALWAYS SERVES ITS INTERESTS AND IGNORES THE WILL OF US VOTERS

· From 1949 through 1999, the U.S. assassinated or attempted to assassinate 36 foreign leaders. Democrats have occupied the Presidency during some of this time and were hence in control of the spy and intelligence agencies. Democrats at all times have been on Congressional oversight committees that authorize such assassinations. President John F. Kennedy authorized attempts or killings of “Papa Doc” Duvalier, leader of Haiti in 1961; Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire) 1961; General Raphael Trujillo, leader of the Dominican Republic, 1961; Many attempts on the lives of Fidel Castro and Raul Castro; Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam 1963. President Lyndon Johnson authorized such hits in 1965 on Francisco Caamano, Dominican Republic Opposition Leader, on President Charles De Gaulle in 1965, and in 1967 on Che Guevara, Cuba leader. President Eisenhower, with Democratic support, assassinated Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran in 1953, and authorized hits on 9 others including Prime Minister Nehru of India in 1955, President Nasser of Egypt in1957, and Chou En–lai, Prime Minister of China. President Carter authorized hits on Prime Minister Manley of Jamaica, and on Mobuto Sese Seko, President of Zaire. President Clinton authorized hits on Osama bin Laden in 1998, and President Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia in 1999.

Does this record implement your wishes as a voter? Have you ever been told about it by any Democrat? Has any Democrat ever criticized or repudiated this record? Is it consistent with the alleged benign foreign policy of the Democrats?

· We voters did not know about it, did not want it, and did not authorize our elected agents to assassinate anyone. Every one of the 36 “hits” was in the service of the Oligarchy, and its interests abroad.

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· Every single head of the CIA, except one, under both Democratic and Republican Administrations has come from Wall Street, the very center of Oligarchic power and at the end of his service, returns to Wall Street.

· From 1798 to 1945 there were 168 invasions of foreign countries by the United States including Mexico in 1845, 1913, 1914-1917, 1918 and 1919, some during the administration of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. There have been many such invasions since 1945, including Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Yugoslavia, the 1991 Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq, and of course the Iran-Contra involvement in Nicaragua.

· It is rare to find a retired General who will talk. Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler, U.S. Marine Corps, told the story in his book War is a Racket. Butler states:

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service....And during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism....Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street....I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested."

· The United States Oligarchy with full Democratic Party support and funding maintains more than 700 bases in 45 countries around the planet, all in support of some vital profit making opportunities for the Oligarchy. The US Oligarchy’s principal ally in the Middle East is fortress Israel and its Oligarchy. It is the function of the Israel fortress to safeguard the flow of drugs and oil from the Middle East, to help support corrupt right wing Arab dictators, and to quell any rebellion among poor Arabs and Muslims. The Democratic Party is under the complete domination of the Israel Lobby, AIPAC that is a part of the Oligarchy. Despite feeble talk of ending the Iraq War, Democrats currently vote for and secretly fund 4 huge permanent bases in Iraq and the largest, most lavish American Embassy in Bagdad of any in the world.

· A statistically improbable number of left or liberal leaning leaders that threatened the Oligarchy have been killed under very strange circumstances. There are no such strange deaths of elected officials in the middle of the road or on the right. In each instance, a “cottage industry” of lay investigators has unearthed alarming, unexplained, and uninvestigated facts surrounding each death. In each instance, the Democrats showed no interest in getting at the true facts and supported the Oligarchy’s white wash cover up investigations in each case.

· The assassination of JFK

· The strange assassination of RFK Jr for which Michael Ruppert and others give compelling evidence that it was a joint effort of the CIA augmented by the rogue elements of the Los Angeles Police Department.

· The strange assassination of MLK Jr, the sudden strange guilty plea by James Earl Black, and his subsequent efforts to exonerate himself.

· The death of Senator Wellstone and his wife in an inexplicable small plane crash, with the FBI on the remote crash scene almost immediately roping off the area and carrying off the evidence. (How did the FBI know where to be so quickly?)

· Then there is the most bizarre cover-up of all, 9-11. Every engineer and architect in the world needs the details so that buildings can be constructed in the future to avoid such disasters, unfortunately, every detail has been classified and every bit of evidence has been destroyed. Lay investigators have obtained much evidence that the event was either caused or aided and abetted by Vice President Cheney and certain top military and intelligence commanders. This event that turned out to be so tremendously beneficial to the Oligarchy, the neocons, and to President Bush, and is the justification for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq has been totally covered up with full connivance of the Democratic Party. Even with a Democratic Congress, the leadership shows no interest in getting a full investigation.[1] Former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton was co-chair of the official “investigation” and the cover-up.

• The strange acquiescence of Democrats to the unconstitutional Judicial selection of President Bush in 2002 can be explained only in terms that the ruling Oligarchy wanted the Democrats to give in, and they obeyed. The Democrats could have filibustered. They could have cut funding to the selected President. They could have lead a nation wide march on Washington. They did nothing.

• The strange and weak behavior of Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004, his being both for the war and against it, and his use of Oligarchic money to run a dirty tricks campaign to eliminate John Dean in Iowa. Kerry is very wealthy, the wealthiest person in the United States Senate.

• The Democrats have acquiesced and supported the unconstitutional Executive Power of the President to get us into wars without a Declaration of War by Congress as required by the Constitution. This serves the Oligarchy. It does not serve the interests of voters.

• The Democrats have supinely allowed the President to violate the constitution with his 1200 signing statements whereby the President signs the Bills into law but states, in violation of his oath, that he will not enforce them. The Oligarchy wants it that way. This does not serve the interests of voters or of democracy.

• With full knowledge that the President lied to Congress and to the American voters to get the US into the current wars, and with the military occupation of Iraq being an unmitigated disaster, the Democrats adopted the war as their very own, and used their Congressional power to fully fund not only the Iraq War, but also such wars against Iran as the President may choose. The Oligarchy wants it that way. Accordingly, Democratic leaders have taken impeachment “off the table.”

• President Clinton gave the Oligarchy the free trade laws without standards for wages and working conditions that it wanted. President Clinton gave the Oligarchy publicly owned air wave frequencies worth billions of dollars free of charge. (The result is the right wing domination of the radio and TV channels.) President Clinton did away with the welfare safety net as the Oligarchy wanted. The Democrats voted overwhelmingly for a harsh Bankruptcy Law because the Oligarchy demanded it. None of these actions implemented the will of the people. President Clinton and the Democrats gave the Oligarchy what it wanted. Meanwhile no economic legislation that the voters wanted has been passed since the 1965 Medicare Act.

• Then there is the little understood phenomenon of the filibuster, Senate Rule XXII which until 1975 required 2/3rds of the Senators to vote to cut off debate before a law could be passed. Under current practice, a Senator simply puts a “hold” on the legislation and his Party leaders enforce his will without requiring him to speak endlessly. This rule has the effect of allowing a single Senator to thwart majority will of the voters unless a supermajority Senators votes to allow a Bill to proceed for a vote on the merits. This gives individual Senators vast power, and it enables a single Senator to be of immense service to the Oligarchy. The rule is grossly undemocratic and unconstitutional. The Constitution provides that both the Senate and House shall conduct their business by vote of a simple majority. The House complies with the Constitution and does its business by majority rule. The Democrats during Civil Rights efforts in 1975 mustered the will and the votes to abolish the Senate filibuster so that debate could be terminated and bills passed with a mere majority of 51 votes. The Democrats then immediately made a “compromise” locking the present 3/5th rule in place and making it impossible for the Senate to ever reconsider the rule. The Oligarchy loves it this way. The Oligarchy can usually stop our legislation by getting to one Senator. To overcome a popular groundswell, it has only to get to 41 Senators.

• Even after the judicial selection of Bush in 2002, Democrats have failed to filibuster and have voted to put 2 more extreme right wingers on the Supreme Court.

• The Democrats in both House and Senate, and the Democratic Presidential candidates have supported the vast expansion of Presidential power, thus weakening popular control through elected representatives. This includes torture, violations of treaties and the Geneva Convention and curbing fundamental rights like habeas corpus, the right to challenge one’s being held in jail, in court. This includes the Presidential classification of anything the President chooses as “classified secret.” One can only conclude that the Oligarchy likes things the way they are.

• One of the most hidden secrets of all is the Oligarchy’s interest and profit from illegal drug sales, and money laundering. We hear nothing about this from the Democrats. The US is in the Middle East for more than its oil. The production of cocaine in Afghanistan has quadrupled since the US invasion. Despite the billions in aid the US has given to Columbia, allegedly to fight illegal drugs in Columbia, there has been absolutely no reduction in the flow of drugs into the US. The President of the New York Stock Exchange made a trip to Columbia to confer with a drug lord there a couple of years ago. Laundered drug money is an excellent source of money for the Oligarchy to leverage its wealth and to finance new business ventures without the expense of borrowing or of issuing stock.

• Democrat Al Gore has become a world leader on global warming, but he is strangely silent about its Oligarchic causes, and the determined opposition of the Oligarchy to any environmental solutions that would impair short term profits.

WHY ARE OUR VOTES TRUMPED? WHY CAN’T WE VOTERS STOP THE WAR?

The straight answer is that the Oligarchy does not want to end the War. The Oligarchy compels our elected agents to vote against our interests and against democracy. The Oligarchy, and in particular its Military Industrial Complex, does business in every state and in every congressional district. The Complex employs voters in every district. Members of Congress are acutely aware of that by reason of lobbying and campaign contributions.

Behind the scenes, lobbyists for the Oligarchy are pressuring Congress. Their pressure comes in the form of implied threats to cut off political contributions unless those they patronize act “responsibly.”

And then there is the Oligarchic media propagandizing us day and night that gives endless newsprint and airtime to debates about whether the war has been managed well enough, and no time to whether we should be there at all. In a media filled with fires, rapes, murders and Paris Hilton, the Oligarchic crimes go uncovered. Instead, CBS fires a General whose politics differ from those of the Oligarchy. The reporting is still mostly one-sided and the anti-war movement is barely heard from or seen. No wonder we voters seem divided by the War. We are being lied to by the Oligarchy’s bull horn.

SO DO WE VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS OR NOT?

It really does not make any difference. The Oligarchy will have its way in any case. We do not yet realize our democracy has been captured by the Oligarchy.

Our prime effort must be to spread public awareness and raise the level of understanding of our impotence as voters on the internet.

As for Presidential candidates, if we have even an inkling that one of the contenders even understands the power of the Oligarchy, and wants to diminish it, we might vote for him or her. Hillary is clearly wedded to the Oligarchy as is Bill and they always have been. So forget them. It may be that Barak Obama understands and is doing what he has to do to get to the Presidency, as Lincoln did. This is a hope based on no evidence, and we can only wait and see. Obama is also getting a tremendous amount of money from the Oligarchy. Obama’s speeches and policy proposals give no reason for hope.

On the Congressional level, in deciding what we should do, let’s consider the typical example of our own newly elected Democratic Congresswoman, Gabriel Giffords:

1. While running for office in 2006, she stated emphatically that she opposed the Iraq War and would do everything in her power to end it. (None of us knew at that time that she was Jewish.) Giffords has a lot of military industries, and military installations in her district, but she still said she opposed the war.
2. Despite this she received massive funding from the Oligarchy through the office of Congressman Rahm Emmanuel. Emmanuel is the Democratic Congressional bag man and is very successful and much appreciated for his raising money from the Oligarchy, including the Israel Lobby, AIPAC. Emmanuel, a Jewish hawk, is very supportive of whatever Israel wants, and Israel wants to stay in the Iraq War and to attack Iran as well. There were 22 winnable seats for the Democrats in 2006 and Emmanuel funded only candidates who were hawks, when he had a choice. In our own district, retired veteran Lt. Col. Jeff Latas, a well qualified peace candidate did not receive a penny from Emmanuel.
3. Taking her at her word in early 2007, many of us lobbied Gifford and deluged her with information about the lies about the War, and the truth of what was really happening there; namely that the war was an unwinnable, unmitigated disaster; that our sons and daughters were dying needlessly to support the political survival of certain elected officials. I personally told her that I would lead a campaign to raise money from peaceniks so that she could vote against further funding.
4. Surprise, surprise: When the critical opportunity arose, Giffords voted for further funding for the war without conditions and even supported the extension of the war to Iran as Israel wishes, as did her financial mentor Congressman Rahm Emmanuel.

She did not even follow the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelousi who voted against this funding. (Let us not be misled. Speaker Nancy may speak against the War, as the leftist San Francisco voters in her district compel, but she supports the Oligarchy and benefits from it, and is not going to do anything startling to end the war or to get us out of Iraq. She knows that the US is building 4 huge permanent bases in Iraq complete with their own utilities, Burger Kings and Kentucky Fried Chicken establishments. She knows that the US is building the most expensive, largest and most lavish of its embassies in Bagdad. Neither Speaker Nancy nor Congresswoman Giffords talk of these permanent investments in their public pronouncements. Speaker Nancy fully supports the use of the military to extend profit making opportunities of the Oligarchy around the planet. Nancy’s talk of getting us out of the war is just that: talk)

I personally do not like a lying employee. Congresswomen Pelousi and Giffords are my employees, my agents, my representatives. They vote exactly like a right wing Republicans who would replace them. It makes no difference. They choose to serve the Oligarchy.

I find this difficult to accept myself as a lifelong active Democrat but the truth is:

ballot box democracy is dead not only in my district but in the whole nation.

Our votes will never change the system, nor will they overcome the controlling power of the Oligarchy. The awesome power of multi-national capitalism has permanently nullified and cancelled our voting power. Our government of, by and for the people, has been destroyed beyond repair via the ballot box. As a parlor computer game, we can continue to vote for the lesser evil if we want to waste our time. Our principal focus and energy must be on other means to resist and defeat Oligarchic dictatorship.

It will be a difficult and profound problem to restore democracy. We have no experience to deal with it. The problem occurs with other coinciding problems such as peak oil, global warming, possible economic collapse and resource depletion.

The Declaration of Independence tells us to revolt if our democracy fails. This may have been an option in the days of flint-lock rifles. With modern armaments, heat sensors, radar, nuclear, chemical, biological available to the Oligarchy, and with the propaganda bull horn of the Oligarchy, I conclude that violent revolt is not only unrealistic and counterproductive, but also immoral. I am persuaded that using violent means will result in perpetual violence, guerrilla raids, and suicide bombings, but it will not and cannot achieve our goal of a stable democratic egalitarian government and political economy. Besides, violence does nothing to solve the other coinciding major problems.

As a strategy for restoring democracy and elevating our consciousness, I propose that we adopt the strategy and tactics of Martin Luther King Jr.: active nonviolent resistance. This strategy requires profound personal change. It gets at root causes of our submission to “power over” and the use of violence, and offers us an entirely new model. Its means are a perfect preparation for the ends we seek. I propose that each of us take a training course in active nonviolent resistance, and urge others to do the same. My personal experience is that this is profoundly enriching on a personal level, teaches us to consider the wishes and needs of others, and to share, care and cooperate. It strengthens democracy and provides an effective means to influence others, to reach consensus, and to change the system. If we are profoundly committed to active nonviolence and the type of love that fuels it, it will be more difficult for Oligarchic agents to infiltrate and disrupt us. This active nonviolent discipline is the only effective, moral means available to us and it will give us time to plan for our ultimate goals.[2]

The only successful radical change in recent times, was the elimination of state sponsored discrimination against Blacks, lead nonviolently by Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must prepare ourselves for active nonviolent leadership immediately. The Oligarchy has caused laws to be enacted and Executive Orders to be issued that authorize the President to suspend normal government, establish martial law, and force us to work as the President may direct, enforcing all of this with the US Military.[3]

Dated: June 16, 2007 Doug Page dougpage2@earthlink.net

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1 It is validating and refreshing indeed to see 500 FAA Controllers, architects, physicists, pilots, mechanical engineers and theologians stating bluntly that the official cover-up is suspicious and unacceptable, and that the disaster could not have happened the way the Oligarchy states through its spokesmen and media. The Oligarchy is guilty of the most monstrous crime in human history. See http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html This is the most graphic recent illustration of the insidious power of the Oligarchy over all of us.

[2] We need something radical, new and adequate to the task of controlling the capitalists and their profit making urge so that the capitalists do not ever again capture our democracy and quell our voting power. There is no easy solution on the shelf, but the discipline of active nonviolence urged at the end of the article empowers us to do whatever is necessary.

[3] The John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006 (PL 109-364), was signed October 17, 2006, by President George W. Bush. The Act has a provision called 'Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies'. Thus the President can declare a national emergency and take over the government, using the Armed Forces to implement his will.

This Act augments the vast authority already taken by Presidential Executive Orders. This was all made possible by President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 War Emergency Powers Act, which authorizes the President to suspend the Constitution by making Executive Orders. It has never been repealed. Thus President Clinton on June 3, 1994 signed into law E. O. 12919 which gathers together into one document the authority of the 11 Executive Orders set forth below. This means that FEMA would take over 28 Executive Departments and Agencies whenever the President of the United States declares a national emergency.

• 10995 - Seizure of all communications media.
• 10997 - Seizure of all electrical power and fossil fuels.
• 10998 - Seizure of all food resources, farms and farm equipment.
• 10999 - Seizure of all transportation and control of all highways and seaports.
• 11000 - Seizure of all civilians for work under Federal supervision.
• 11001 - Federal takeover of all health, education and welfare.
• 11002 - Authorizes FEMA to order Postmaster General to register every man, woman and child in the United States.
• 11003 - Seizure of all aircraft and airports.
• 11004 - Housing and Finance given authority for population relocation.
• 11005 - Seizure of railroads, inland waterways, and storage facilities.

11051 - The Director of the Office of Emergency Planning authorized to put Executive Orders into effect in "times of increased international tension or financial crisis". It is also to perform such additional functions as the President may direct.

President Bush on July 17, 2007 made yet another Executive Order authorizing the seizure of the assets of any person or citizen who impeded the war effort.

Are you convinced by now that the Oligarchy rules both Parties and all Presidents?
Does anyone doubt that the 5 current conservative Justices on the Supreme Court would uphold the Constitutionality of a President making himself a Dictator and declaring such martial law?