Guns, Bribes, Corporate Greed: What Has Happened To Us?

Day after day I sit at this computer reading news headlines, and day after day I wonder what in the hell has gotten into us?

Lately it seems  that we’ve lost our flipping minds!

Missing lately is a sense of common sense.

Our respect for others is gone, any sense of compassion for the citizens of this country by corporate America has vanished. Our voice in government has been obscured by money & influence. It’s like “We The People” don’t matter any longer.

GUNS:

Under the Second Amendment, as least for the moment, citizens can buy guns that are almost identical to military issued weapons.

These weapons have only two purposes:

• To kill as many humans as possible in the shortest time.
• To kill them so effectively that they are literally shredded.

However, these military-type weapons are legal for ordinary citizens to buy because one can use them for target practice or hunting or shooting events.

That’s nice.

That’s also insane.

Why are citizens allowed to have firearms so close to what police or the military have?

This is even more insane!

This is a lack of common sense and responsibility by our highest court and the United States government.

It’s kowtowing to special interest groups (read NRA) and a ridiculous fear that we’ll hurt somebody’s feelings or ~God forbid~ violate Second Amendment rights.

Bullshit!

There are plenty of other firearms to have to hunt and target shoot with.

Grow up, people!

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GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION & INFLUENCE:

Our government has been corrupt for a long, long time.  I am not a political law person, just  an ordinary citizen who has some questions.

Why isn’t it illegal to influence our government officials?

Obviously lobbying isn’t.  Obviously bribery isn’t.

It’s done in the halls of this government and in every state every day!

If it IS illegal then we need to lock up most of our government!

The only losers:  the majority of the American people and the environment.

For instance, companies like Monsanto are using the world as Guinea pigs with GMO food, herbicides, pesticides and the United States government is letting them get away with it.

We are dying of increased rates of cancers. Our pets are dying of cancer, bees are disappearing, our groundwater has high concentrations of Atrazine and Round-Up.

Little children are getting cancer whereas this was once a disease of older people.  The FDA, USDA, EPA have been influenced – or should I say -threatened – by Monsanto and other monolithic companies.  Yet we have our richest of the rich like Bill Gates, under the guise of being a humanitarian, is promoting Monsanto’s agenda to help feed ~and poison~ the world!

We are also being systematically poisoned and sickened by food corporations by the use of additives and chemicals that in some cases, have only the say so of the manufacturer that they are safe.

The FDA has ruled for the food companies, allowing manufacture and sale of these foods, using the test results OF the food company’s biased testing, while omitting review of any independent tests.

This is fraud!

We are held hostage by the corporations and our own government.  Oh, there are a few who are fighting for us in Washington but those who are in it for the greed and money outnumber them.

To me the scales have been tipped so far out of the hands of the American people to favor corporations.

We literally have no say any longer.

What has happened to our elected officials working FOR THE PEOPLE instead of the corporations?

Simple:  money!

This is despicable!

What can we do, though?  If the ones who write and pass the laws are influenced against us – how can we ever hope to change things?

I am sickened at what our government has become:  fighting like a bunch of little children, totally ignoring why they’re in government in the first place ~and~ ignoring the American people…, but still they bicker on, passing watered down legislation to supposedly protect us or help us.  The corporations and special interest groups have more money and thus, more voice than “We The People.”

This is NOT our government any longer – we have been shut out!

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CORPORATE AMERICA:

The American worker is screwed.

Back to corporate America:  GREED reigns and the workers who are out on the floor of the large corporations are treated almost like slaves.

We’ve lost our jobs to third world nations to “save money” in corporate pockets.

Walmart, the nation’s largest employer, buys clothing from factories in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia – yet they still screw their own workers regarding wages and benefits.

Before Obamacare, companies like Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and others adopted the cost saving initiative of only hiring people part-time for just enough hours NOT to qualify for any benefits.

I worked for Lowe’s from 2003-2007. When I was hired people could work full or part-time.  Now, only their top store management and some department people are full time.  Everyone else is hired part time.

The corporations of this country are purposely destroying the lives of most of the workers in this country by denying hours, a living wage and benefits.

We are going to become a service-orientated nation, fighting over jobs at fast food restaurants.

We are going to die premature deaths because ~like me~ millions of people cannot afford healthcare so we do not go for regular checkups.

More of us are going to lose our homes because we cannot get enough work to keep up the mortgage payments or taxes.

WHY?  Because this country is now run by greed by corporate America!

They will NOT invest in this country; they will not spend the money it takes to create the jobs that millions of us need.

They will just continue to take, Take, TAKE and walk on the broken backs, shattered dreams and lives of the average American citizen.

SHAME ON YOU CORPORATE AMERICA!  You can save this country but you won’t.

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Where IS common sense?

Why has it left our government?

Why aren’t WE THE PEOPLE organizing and fighting back to get OUR country back?

Why do we have corporations making decisions and literally, running our lives?

Don’t we matter anymore?

RELATED:

MONSANTO:  Feeding and Killing the World (Food Truth Freedom)

Atrazine & Round-Up: Persistent Chemicals  (Food Truth Freedom)

An Activist Is Something You Are

I guess because I’m an old hippie, part of the 60’s generation which cut our teeth on the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. We tried to raise the red flag on the environment and other causes. Perhaps, too, it’s because I’m a Libra:  the sign of justice and peace.

There is strength in numbers. Speak out, stand up for your rights and the rights of our fellow human beings!

One of the search terms that appears on my site here is the word “activism” and “how to be an activist.”

Activism is not so much something to “be” but more of a sense of what one is. Complacency about social issues does not make for good activism. Self-centered or wearing blinders isn’t conducive either.

Passion and love are also about activism. Compassion, too, is a large part of activism and so is anger! What moves you for the good of all? What enrages your soul about conditions, be they societal,  environmental, political or other?

Activism is many words: love, hate, compassion, sympathy, anger, hope, dreams, vision and direction.

It feels.

It is the fighter, the  Muhammad Ali in us but also the compassion of Mother Teresa. It is the determination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the peace of  Gandhi. It is the rage of every protest and a desire for accomplishment.

It is not for one but for all.

Whether you take on Wal-Mart, the NRA, civil rights, human rights, the environment,  our food system, animal rights, protection of children, the elderly, the greed of corporate America or politics – the list is endless – as are the emotions.

Activism is not a flat-line of spirit.  It is up and down, a heartbeat and alive. It is consciousness and moving forward.  Its direction is always for the good of all; never for the greed of one.

Activism is getting out there, connecting with those of like minds no matter what the cause.

It is writing, reading, researching and getting facts straight for your cause. Information is key to any battle, something that every four star general will tell you.  Know your “enemy,” your subject because for every fact that is hurled from you there will one hundred that are flung back in your face.

Like molasses, activism can be slow going.  One step at a time.  Like a sculptor, pieces fall but they also come together in the final piece.  This is why the minds of many are helpful. Activism is patience and also give and take. It is focus and determination.

So, activism is not something that you can BE – it is something that you are from your soul because it encompasses so much of you.

Are you ready?

Who IS Government For?

I read a very interesting article written by Robert Reich, “The Defining Issue:  Who Is Government For?”

Obviously these days, it’s not for the American people.  BIG rules, small is ignored. Big gets the benefits, small pays through the nose. Goliath struts and swaggers, David runs between the steps and tries not to get stepped on! ‘Big everything’ gets its way because it has the bucks to pay off some of our elected leaders or enough mouths to whisper convincingly that the small should be discounted.

I am not a political expert but just one of millions of frustrated & pissed off Americans saddened by the inequity of what our country has become.

On food:  We’re up against government subsidies for the monolithic farms while small farms get nothing.  Regulations are ‘one size fits all,’ favoring Big Ag while small farmers find they can’t comply because of the cost.  The ghost of Earl Butz, the patron saint of agribusiness, is still whispering to policymakers, “Tell them to ‘get big or get out!’ “

Secret deals of the chemical industry’s corporate-to-government appointees hold any true progress for ‘we the people’ at bay.  Critical data is conveniently lost, destroyed or litigated out of exposure by the powerful such as Monsanto, Dow or Syngenta.

The Feds seem hell-bent on going after Amish dairy farmers and other raw milk purveyors and small buying clubs.   Small farmers remain the convenient focus and easy prey, lacking funds for high-priced legal teams,  and still have to jump through a dizzying array of  hoops. These hoops are far too expensive  & always prohibitive of the little guys to navigate, essentially locking out the small farms.

There are no ’hoops’ for the big guys, however. The loopholes are designed by them to easily slip through. Those who sit in Washington, with the power to close these escape hatches, won’t.  Like the big corporations, they are greedy and guilty of selling out the American people.  WE THE PEOPLE don’t matter:  money does!

The USDA is considering letting “Big Biotech” submit its own impact studies  which, in turn, may allow them sell products which have not  had complete (or any) scrutiny before approval.  More rubber stamped approvals for poison, which in 20 or 50 years will turn out to be the DDT, dioxin or the Agent Orange of the 2000s.

I don’t know what the answer is.  One, is to get the money out of politics, but that’s easier said than done.  Perhaps somehow a citizen’s committee – a go between, to act as a buffer.  Just thinking out loud here….

Well we’ve all heard the saying,  “Money talks…”

Mr. Reich says, and I agree, that we need an amendment to the constitution to get rid of the wrongly named,  Citizen’s United bill.   It is mind-boggling that these supposed wizened justices ever considered passing such a thing which is clearly written by and for corporate America!

Supreme Court:  Money in relation to  government policy making or the  elections is not ‘free speech.’  Simply, it is bribery, collusion, payoffs, graft, hush money, purchase, deal making, coercion and favoritism. It is WRONG!  Money speaks the language of the corporate élite, not the American people and certainly not the small farmers of this country.

Supreme Court: Corporations are not people.  Corporations are  a society of their own with a hierarchy: those at the bottom do the will of those at the top whose only goal is profit.    Individual lives of their employees don’t matter because in this economy, people are dispensable, like slaves.  Lose one and a thousand others will appear, so desperate for an income.

Every decision directly benefits the good of the few, not the many.

Nothing matters but the bottom line or how much one person can amass while in office. Not the health or welfare of sentient beings can dampen greed.

After all, things are going great for government officials who are channeling Boss Tweed.  Why should they stop now?