Tina Staik Commentary

This powerful commentary is from Tina Staik. Tina is one of the most astute commentators on the Internet. The title of this communication is- Psychological warfare, secrecy, oil, drugs, smoke screens and the war on democracy in our country--and world
~~~ PASS THIS ON IF YOU WISH ~~~ Radical conservatives have tried for decades to maintain a stratified society in which an entitled few hoard the wealth and privileges, while the majority are "silenced" via spending diversions--the primary ones being war, war games and tax cuts for the rich. Since WWII, the U.S. has involved itself nonstop in wars throughout the world. In addition to boosting economy and war profiteering, war is also a great means to justify ignoring urgent health, education and environment needs, fulfilling one the main aims of conservatives: maintain status quo hierarchical social order. Meanwhile, deregulation has permitted corporations to literally takeover our three branches of government and major media, while Christian religious fundamentalists have used their power to build support for conservatism by characterizing liberals/democrats as "immoral" and "godless." If given opportunity, radical conservatives intend to end to public education, social security and social welfare programs, thereby, creating the kind of environment in which moral dictates by the church further "free" corporations to increase profits without being "hassled" by liberals (as they have in theocracies in ME).
SPEAK OUT against the so-called GOP stimulus bill, DEMAND repeal of outrageous tax cuts that wiped out the surplus, CALL FOR an end to war mongering and staged attacks to justify more war, covert operations and drug profiteering, URGE expansion of peace keeping forces promoting rule of law, de-arming of Afghanistan war lords, and EDUCATION as primary means of ending terrorism. Make your voices be known to STOP justifying war and suppression of democracy and civil rights throughout the world with propaganda lies, hoaxes, lies, schemes, staged attacks! END dependence on oil! Call or send email today - http://www.mailblasterdot.com - Contact United Nations at - inquiries@un.org -
CALL Senator Daschle at (202) 224-2321 to urge him not to expand deregulation (has he been bought?) and instead pass bills to regulate corporate practices! SEE REPORT announcing Daschle's plans to introduce a bill next week to further expand deregulation--ending the New Deal protections passed by Roosevelt that led to raising the standards of life for so many Americans! Haven't we discovered that deregulation is a LIE, a scheme, an abismal failure of government to protect its citizens? - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41829-2001Nov30.html -
COMMENTS: Do Americans really support tribunals, wire tapping, torture, McCarthyistic attacks on leaders and academics, or are we merely being bombarded with strategic media reporting aimed at "persuading" us to join a hypothetical "majority"? It's called use of social behavioral research findings to shape human behavior.
Let's face it. Psychological warfare has been used on us for decades in the war against democratization of our country--and world.
As a result of years of brainwashing, Americans have come to accept an array of self- and other-harming attitudes and behaviors, including capital punishment, legal drugs as panacea, protests as "anti-American," destruction of the environment, all-you-can-eat gluttony, all-you-can-get credit card indebtedness, "free trade" profits at the expense of people and/or environment, "free speech" profits of pro-violence/sex entertainment and hate groups at the expense of "targeted" groups' civil rights to live free from fear" and harm. The list goes on.
Consider the recent shift in attitudes toward gun control, for example. Prior to "the election" campaign, there was overwhelming support for gun control measures. Since "the election," after NRA invested millions (billions?) of dollars "associating" guns with "freedom," school shootings barely get media coverage, and even Democrats have dropped this issue (bought?).
The events since "the election" have opened our eyes to things "done" to U.S. citizens that have put us so far behind citizens in any other industrial democracy. More specifically, the billions of dollars invested in research-based campaigns aimed at "shaping" our beliefs and behaviors...brainwashing American citizens in the name of corporate interests.
Isn't it time psychological warfare was considered a crime? What about our rights to be informed about the issues we deeply care about, ones deeply affecting vital, life changing decision making? Shouldn't there be ethical standards against propaganda campaigns and "research" aimed at misleading and confusing the public in the interest of corporations?
To our detriment, American citizens have been and are being brainwashed to "accept" a People-and-Environment-Sacrificing-in-the-Name-of-Big-Profits philosophy. To top it off, we've also been brainwashed to be "proud" of this as the "American way"! Wrong!
This "philosophy" is one perspective, but has little to do with Americans and democratic ideals. Quite the contrary--one may argue that it attacks American ideals for self-determinism because it is aimed at turning the majority into sheep for the wolves.
This right wing conservative philosophy--because it has been backed by well endowed supporters-- has turned us into the most wasteful, polluting, debt-owing, and addicted (work, legal and illegal drugs, sex, TV) people in the world--by far--there's no comparison. On the bright side, Americans are among the finest, most sensitive, creative, tolerant and intelligent people, thanks in large part to heroic people who have risked their lives against all odds to promote opportunity and progress and education for ALL. We've been far too trusting. We have not done our part to demand our government protect us from this harm! Our forefathers warned us against unchecked power. We deserve better treatment than this! Citizen participation and oversight of government and its agencies is a must! - http://www.thebushsyndrome.com/article.php?sid=4&mode=nested&order=0 -
The philosophy of the radical conservatives is best summarized by Scrooge in "The Christmas Carol," when in response to requests for money for the perishing poor he stated, "If they are going to die, let them do it, and decrease the surplus population."
The attacks on democracy are attacks on our intelligence, and they must stop. Haven't we recently learned? These attacks are WHAT created terrorism in one Middle Eastern country after another to begin with (and in one South American country after another), and WHAT has trained and professionalized and armed and funded most of the terrorists themselves.
These attacks on democracy in the United States are what have caused millions of American citizens, particularly Blacks, Jews and Native Americans, to live with terrorism for more than a century, while the rest of us have been "protected" in our media-created "bubbles," thinking we live in the "greatest democracy on earth"! (Our "child" experiment? Israel, and its people, may be suffering from a similar fate.) These attacks on democracy in our country are likely what explain the fact that our violent crime rates are more comparable to those countries fighting bloody civil wars, and four to twenty times higher than those of any other industrial democracy. Is the civil war being fought behind the scenes?
These attacks on democracy have caused our most precious national resource, children, to suffer and live in poverty, despair, without education, high incidence of abuse and neglect. We have the least child-friendly laws. These attacks on democracy in our country have perpetrated character attacks of a countless number of leaders, like Clinton, who openly dared embrace equality, diversity, democracy.
Furthermore, these attacks on democracy are increasingly professional, seeking to stratify society into wolves, on the one side, who aim to prove their supremacy by warring to dominate identified "inferiors," and sheep, on the other, who rightly refuse to be subjugated, thus, come to be known as "enemies." These attacks on democracy have "created" religious extremists in the Middle East who shamelessly distort the Islamic faith for political power, greed and gain, while also creating religious extremists in the U.S. who despicably distort the teachings of Jesus in the Christian faith to achieve the same.
Last, but not least, these attacks are WHAT have caused the loss of some of our finest--Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders who were killed for their beliefs in peace, democracy and progress for all, including John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Sadat and Rabin, just to name a few.
STOP the assassinations of leaders! NO country can call itself a "democracy" governed by "rule of law" and continue to justify such barbaric actions. War criminals and human rights abusers should be brought to justice under United Nations International World Court. Besides, these assassinations have abominably failed to end the violence, and instead create either obedient zombies or suicidal terrorists.
Covert operations and connections between government officials, federal agencies and Wall Street millionaire club must be questioned. How can we trust our government, when its officials are locked into a system with compromising conflicts of interest? Isn't this just a new form of plain ol' corruption? Is it true that millions have perished in the so-called "Cold War" to permit agents and military leaders to remain "functional"? Has "communism deterrence" been a smoke screen, and, instead, has "deterring democracy" been the real function of the CIA? Are attacks "staged" or "allowed" to happen in the Middle East, South America--or our country--in order to JUSTIFY wars and war profiteering activities, such as proliferation of guns and weapons of mass destruction, terrorist training, coup d'etat, etc.?
Is it a coincidence that war, recession, deficits, drugs, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, impoverished educational institutions, war profiteering and wire tapping are hallmarks of conservative ideologue administrations since the 60s liberation movements?
Is the current administration trying to achieve what the Nixon administration failed to do, that is, destroy the organizing efforts of the opposition, democrats and liberals, by LEGALIZING tactics, such as wire tapping, monitoring, secrecy, withholding presidential papers from public, etc.? - http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/30/opinion/30LEWI.html -
Are attacks on civilians "staged" or "allowed" to happen to silence citizens who would otherwise oppose war and wasteful spending on war/war games, destruction of environment? Is finding ways to silence citizens who demand reform of fraudulent election system and health and education needs a greater priority of this administration, than civil rights and issues of public interest? - http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html -
Why have drugs increased since the "war on drugs"? Is this merely a smoke screen for war and drug profiteering? If so, is the "war on terrorism" another lucrative smoke screen for war and drug profiteering?
In short, is "war" a means of diverting money from education and social programs to war, war games and tax cuts for the rich to prevent people from rising out of poverty and ignorance? Are "divide and conquer" tactics at play to guarantee profits from war profiteering and drugs?
The role of religion in the attacks on democracy must also be questioned. Given that we KNOW from history the power of fear-based religious beliefs in controlling the "masses," is religion being used to create human beings into rage-filled robots who are willing to murder, kill, lie, and with blind loyalty sacrifice their lives to achieve the political agendas of their "leaders"? What was the real lesson son Bush learned from father Bush's experience with the religious right? Perhaps that father Bush failed to recognize the power of the religious fundamentalism as a tool to gain voters, especially women, by destroying the reputation of liberals as godless and immoral?
After two decades of campaigns aimed at destroying the reputation of feminists and liberals, the religious right have formed a new lobby group, http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=5870 Christian Reconstructionists' "Operation Potomac" with connections to DeLay and Bush ready to propose a Bible-based government and the dismantling of social security (already happening with endless tax cuts?), public education (already happening by setting up schools to fail and close on the basis of "tests," then sending children who can "afford" it to private and religious schools?), and social welfare (already happening with endless justifications for war, and war games?). - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35397-2001Nov29.html?referer=email -
The role of Hollywood in the attacks on democracy must also be questioned.Even though the religious right have been the ones to typically denounce Hollywood, consider the following. First, Hollywood has had a close relationship with government for decades. Hollywood has been used to influence public by glorifying war when "necessary," and, when working women did not want to return to merely homemakers after WWII, Hollywood bombarded them with "happy homemaker" images to effectively "persuade" to accept their "roles" as beasts of burden?
What about the current administration's recent meetings with Hollywood? Should we expect to see movies that bombard us new attitude- and behavior-shaping images, such as images glorifying war and war heroes, perhaps favorable images of corporations and the CIA? Perhaps inviting young men and women to think of themselves as "patriots" who blindly trust leaders, aspire to become "war heroes," or be thankful for covert military and CIA operations in the name of "protecting" us and "national security"?
Think back to the drastic increase in TV/movie violence and violence associated with sex since the 1960s? Is it a coincidence that this was preceded by an era of war protests when many young men chose peace and said, "No!" to war, perhaps for the first time in history? The Vietnam era is so repugnant to the powers that be that it barely gets mention, if at all, in secondary school history books. Have our young men (and women) been bombarded with images associating violence and sex to ensure they never again say no? It's called "classical conditioning" and involves desensitizing human response to something repulsive (war) by associating it with something pleasurable (sex).
In the last decade, the sex/violence in TV programming, movies, music, etc., has increased exponentially. Are we being brainwashed into accepting this "let it all hang out" mentality as evidence that we are a "free" society"? Have we been trained to protect harmful desensitization of human response to violence/vulgarity as "freedoms"?
Is there a "purpose" behind this? To show, for example, that people Is society really spinning out of control, or is this JUST WHAT radical conservatives want us to believe in order to persuade the majority of Americans to join the conservative Party and support tight controls of over our civil liberties?
Is the gore and decadence a picture of how things are or an attempt to slowly and purposefully increase the levels of decadence? Research shows the images themselves shape new behaviors, and these behaviors are harmful to women, children, young adults, couple relationships--society overall.
Is it just coincidence that violent crimes by children and women have grown exponentially in the last decade?
Is this just Hollywood, or are these scripts funded by millionaire right wing conservatives who want to "teach" women and minories who "dared" step out of their "place" in society a "lesson," more specifically, that this decadence is a "result" of the liberation of women and minorities to enjoy the benefits and opportunities afforded in a democratic society?
Are women and children "inherently" wicked and violent, or do right wing supremacists want to enforce their beliefs that hierarchical family, social and sexual relations are "God-ordained" or "biologically determined, that women and men should be separated into their "natural" public and private spheres for men and women, and that war, violence are "norms"?
Regardless of Party affiliation, Americans must passionately seek to "understand" what has happened in our country, what has been done to us, how it happened, and why.
While the truth will likely be painful, we need to understand WHY we are the only industrial democracy that uses capital punishment, does not have universal health care, paid maternal leave and child care, and many other working family-, women- and child-friendly laws, all of which have been available for decades in other democracies.
Hopefully, financially established individuals and groups with hearts in the right places will come forth to finance investigations, research and public information campaigns. It will take money to rally people, in turn, rally Congress to break the practices of corporate corruption in government and media to restore democracy and government of, by and for the people. We must stop playing with creative loop holes and demand TOTAL public campaign finance reform and free media to protect our government officials from the current levels of corruption. We must have citizen participation in oversight of government agencies and military. We must have quality education for every child, one that prepares them to be informed and involved citizens and leaders with emphasis on character building, critical thinking skills and citizenship (Dr. Benjamin Barber, "Jihad vs McWorld").
And what about civil rights organizations, like the ACLU, once a champion for civil rights, which use the credibility they have to fight zealously for the "free speech" of entertainers, yet have taken almost no stance in protecting the civil rights of voting citizens, citizens' rights to protest and rights to live safe from violence and harm, shown to result from legalizing hate propaganda.
Not only has the ACLU been relatively silent about "free speech" rights of Americans to protest and participate in government decisions, but they have also been involved passionately in campaigns, such as attacks of even ecumenical prayer in schools, which have been extremely "helpful" to right wing religious groups. How? Most Americans, regardless of party, believe in God, are not religious extremists, and support ecumenical prayer in schools. ACLU's attacks on ecumenical prayer assists the efforts of religious right wing to portray liberals, democrats, feminists, etc., as "immoral" and "godless." It seems that the ACLU's campaigns, particularly in the last year, have been politically well timed in "persuading" voters, especially women, to vote for conservatives and Republicans, or support conservative policy. Few want to support a party of the "godless"!
There are many other civil rights organizations who have been surprisingly quiet considering the circumstances--even before September 11th. Have the actions and agenda of civil rights or environmental organizations been "influenced" by big donors? If so, what steps can be taken to protect them from corporate corruption?
More conspiracy theories? Without a plan, is it possible to achieve a coup d'etat of our country in last elections, and solidification of the coup d'etat since, with "support" for an administration that wants to dismantle democracy to make it easier for corporations to have free reign? A record of their actions clearly indicates they want to create a more demoralized, poor, sick, unemployed, uneducated citizenry by dismantling public education, social security and social welfare? After all, isn't this how corporations have been allowed to flourish in ME and SA? How could this happen in American of all places without a "plan"?
The greatest threat to America is not "terrorists" or "bin Laden," but the consolidation of radical right wing secular and religious groups, which comprise only a small minority of the population. Brainwashed to disdain protests and activism, riddled with addictions, drugged, lethargic from drinking water dosed with arsenic and fluoride, could it be that we have lived in a media-created bubble of pseudo-democracy? Is it true that the nation that has stood for democracy has used their credibility as a smokescreen to war against democracy and democratic rule in countries throughout the world?
Greed and avarice-riddled plans for world dominance and control of people's minds and behaviors led civilization to the Dark Ages, and more recently, the Taliban rule of the beautiful people of Afghanistan. If violence and war and police state controls were a solution, Israel (our experiment?) would be the safest country in the world. We all know that the opposite is true. If the experiment was intended to prove the success of a military/police-state "democracy," it has proven to be an explosive failure (pun intended).
According to the Golden Rule, what is wrong for one group of people is wrong for all. If oppression is wrong for whites, it is wrong for blacks. If it is wrong for men, it is wrong for women. If it is wrong for Jews, it is wrong for Muslims. If it is wrong for Protestants, it is wrong for Catholics.
It is time to publicly believe in, uphold, and expect government protection of citizens from corporations and agencies that work against public interest.
It is time to condemn extremist government actions, schemes and domestic terrorism that have, perhaps unwittingly, functioned together to subdue domestic reform and justice and opportunity for ALL groups of American citizens.
It is time to believe in citizens' rights to be informed and involved in all government decisions and activities. In recent words of an Afghan tribal leader, "We want peace. After 23 years, we learned war does not end war. It brings more war. Now, we want peace."
Best wishes for peace, Tina Staik

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