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Across
Frontiers- September /02
THE
DEATH OF DEMOCRACY AND THE WORLD’S FUTURE
Dr.Glen Martin
President, International Philosophers for Peace,
Member Executive Cabinet WCPA
In a memo not considered enough important to publicize in
the mainstream press, Attorney General John Ashcroft recently
commanded the Justice department to resist all requests under
the Freedom of Information Act, and George Bush has ordered
the records of all recent US Presidents sealed from the public.
Our government must operate beyond the purview of the people
entirely. It is already mostly there. During the last year
of the Clinton Administration, the US government labeled eight
million items “secret”.
Meanwhile, revelations continue to surface about the US pressure
on the Taliban in Afganistan over the past several years to
allow an oil pipeline to be built through their country. The
Taliban refused even under the US threat of bombing. Then
September 11 gave them the perfect excuse to bomb that already
suffering, and poverty stricken even further back into the
Stone Age. Several sources cite 3600 civilian casualties,
and millions starving and, displaced from their homes into
hellhole refugee camps. Now the US is busy installing a new
government friendly to US interest, that is, to building an
oil pipeline through their country.
Of course, the function of the mass media in the US is to
provide a cheering section for US military destruction of
other peoples, and to hide the truth. Just in case, the propaganda
system is not effective enough, government secrecy must be
increased. Under the anti-terrorist act, the millions of non-citizens
in the US can be detected on “ secret evidence”.
The government is not required to operate in public. Whatever
democracy we have had is in shambles. Don’t think that
the “watchdog” press will scream bloody murder at
the destruction of democracy. That is not their job. Their
job is to be cheerleaders for government policy, and the big
corporations who control our government.
In 1933, the press gave great hype to the US Marines landing
in Somalia on a humanitarian mission to a starving country
that was in political chaos. Headlines read “the US government
with a heart”! There was no mention of the fact that
the US government had for the previous two decades supported
a brutal dictator in Somalia named Mohamed Siad Barre who
destroyed his country through brutal repression while at the
same time selling off the rights to nearly two thirds of the
country to four giant US oil corporation: Chevron, Amoco,
and Philips. Then after the people revolted, chaos ensued,
the Marines were sent in as “saviors”.
Similarly, the mainstream press has ignored the revelations
of a whistle blower working for the giant military service
corporation Dyncorp in Bosnia. This corporation provides maintenance
support for US military all over the world. In Bosnia, the
whistle blower claimed to provide evidence of massive fleecing
of military money through fraud (that is, of our tax money).
It is reported that what led him to finally speak out was
a Dyncorp executive buying 12 to 15 year old girls from neighboring
countries as sex slaves, and bragging to one another about
the acts they were forced to perform for their middle aged
owners. Researchers have documented that sex slavery, and
prostitution for executives of US corporations is a worldwide
multi-billion dollar business.
Money is power, and that is why the US military (with half
of our national budget to use in secret ways we will never
know about), and US corporations rule the World, devouring
everything, raping the globe of its precious resources, destroying
the environment for future generations, and paying off the
mass media to be their cheerleaders, and pimps. It is the
same for poor countries around the world – from Somalia
to Afghanistan to Yugoslavia, (destroyed by the US military
in 1988), to Iraq, (destroyed by the US military in 1991),
to East Timor, (the invasion, and destruction of by Indonesia
was approved by the was approved by the US in 1975), to Nicaragua,
(whose revolution against a brutal US installed dictator was
destroyed by a US created terrorist army during the 1980s)
I have some extensive personal experience with Nicaragua,
having been there half a dozen times. After their revolution
in 1979, there was great hope with a new economic order designed
to benefit ordinary people: land reform, and a health care
movement, and literacy campaign for all the people. Any government
that cares about its people, (this is literally true) continue
on page 9 the US propaganda machine calls a “communist
dictatorship”. The US mass media systematically ignored
the UN supervised elections of 1983 that overwhelmingly elected
the government that cared for its people back into power.
We hired, and equipped a terrorist army to destroy their government
by 1990, and instituted a new government that cared for our
multina
tional corporations more that the people. We call this “free
trade”.
Recently, a friend sent me photos of the Managua Municipal
Dump that we visited in 1996. The families, children, men,
and women combing the dump to survive that I saw in 1996 are
today more numerous than ever. Today, sweatshops operate in
“free trade zones” in Managua exploiting a starving
people at misery level wages so that you, and I can buy cheap
clothing in our “superstores”. The wealth, and power
of our military destroy all who resist us worldwide while
the wealth, and power of our corporations buy sex slaves in
Bosnia or wage slaves in Nicaragua.
That is why there is no possibility that the cruel economic
blockade around the Cuban people will ever be lifted unless
the government that cares about its people (The Cuban revolutionary
government), is destroyed. The drive to domination brooks
no opposition, and a flourishing socialism in Cuba would be
abeacon of light to the world’s slaves that there are
alternatives to their nightmare existence. I have visited
Cuba five, sometimes for extended stays during which I have
spoken at length with government officials, and civic leaders.
It is a government that cares about its people – about
ending racism, sexism, inequality, exploitation, and injustice.
For that reason the US government (with the backing of the
big corporations) is absolutely intent on destroying Cuban
socialism. The so called “war on terrorism” is a
perfect excuse for the US military to attack any country that
represents an alternative to its system of domination, and
exploitation. Cuba, a country with the highest integrity in
international affairs, has now been listed as one of its possible
victims.
I recently returned from India where I wad given a tour of
one of the many huge slums of Mumbai. Even I was shocked at
the level of misery of the tens of thousands of people living
there. Jammed into tiny rooms, entire families work day after
day making the products that you, and I buy so inexpensively
in our “superstores”. One family makes gloves, another
shoes, another watchbands, another brooms, another luggage,
another clothing. They get pennies per day for their endless
work. They sleep in the same tiny room, without running water,
bathrooms or sewage. Passage ways between the sheds, are only
wide enough for two people to squeeze past. In Mumbai, they
are not even herded into sweatshops. They sell to middle men
who sell to the big corporations that are taking over India
because of its cheap labor. They exist in a living hell of
hunger, disease, and insecurity – hundreds of thousands
of people.
This is the reason why democracy is being destroyed in the
US, and around the world. The goal of the US ruling class,
and its puppet US government is military, and economic domination,
and exploitation of the entire world. It has nothing to do
with terrorism or standing for justice or any such nonsense.
Democracy could not be destroyed without the help of their
cherrleaders, the US mass media. That’s why it is of
utmost importance that none of the things I have mentioned
here ever get reported. The people must be convinced to voluntarily
give up democracy, and the future of our planet.
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