Reclaim Democracy
Welcome to the February 1, 2006 edition of the Satya Center newsletter. Warm greetings from your Editor, Curtis Lang.
Today’s newsletter focuses on important global news stories and tomorrow’s newsletter will address more spiritual aspects of our shared realities.
Throughout the last month, America has remained in a state resembling national schizophrenia. Opinion polls indicate that the majority of Americans feel the Iraq war was not worth fighting, and President Bush’s approval ratings are the lowest since Richard Nixon’s just prior to his resignation. Paradoxically, recent polls also indicate that a majority of Americans would support a new war against Iran.
Washington insiders are saying that Iranians “can’t be trusted” with either nuclear bombs or their own oil reserves – and the implication is that America will have to destroy Iranian military infrastructure and nuclear capabilities and seize Iranian oil. Think tanks in the US and Canada are reporting US-Israeli plans for nuclear strikes inside Iran.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Bush’s Iraqi war and the subsequent “democratization” debacle have successfully installed an Islamic fundamentalist regime in that country, closely allied with Iran, and simultaneously created a totally unstable Iraqi political structure that now teeters on the verge of civil war between Shi’a, Sunni and Kurdish elements.
Bush’s “Middle East Road Map” and his administration’s adoption of right-wing Israeli policies toward Palestine have resulted in the discrediting of Fatah, and a landslide victory for the militant Islamic fundamentalist Hamas party in recent Palestinian elections.
Although Israeli secret service agents were instrumental in creating Hamas as a counterweight to secular, more socialist political elements in Palestine many years ago, Israel says it will not recognize Hamas or negotiate with Hamas at this time.
Despite these troubling new geo-strategic developments, the world peace movement seems utterly without leadership, direction or energy.
In America, there is no Democratic Presidential peace candidate on the horizon for the 2008 elections and no major Democratic leader is making a firm stand in favor of a timely withdrawal from Iraq or against any expansion of military activities in the Middle East.
On the environmental front, major mainstream newspapers are reporting for the first time that global warming is real and reaching a tipping point in the not too distant future, and that action must be taken. Even Republicans are talking about free-market environmental programs to reduce our energy dependency on Middle Eastern oil by using technological fixes to improve energy efficiency. A majority of Americans would go much further -- those polled support increased environmental regulatory protections even if that would cost them money.
Despite growing bi-partisan awareness of the severity of our global environmental problems, discredited former Presidential candidate Al Gore is the only Democratic standard-bearer attempting to challenge the anti-scientific, reactionary Bush environmental agenda.
Ultra-right wing Judge Samuel Alito has been appointed to the Supreme Court, thanks to the Democratic “lie-down-and-play-dead” strategy, which refused to use the filibuster, or expend much political capital on opposing this appointee, who is much more extreme than the previous Bush candidate, Harriet Mears, who was successfully defeated by right wing pressure groups..
Women’s advocates are counting down the days until the demise of Roe v. Wade and expecting court decisions that will pave the way to outlawing contraception for unmarried women.
Liberal advocacy groups traditionally in the forefront of the struggle for women’s rights, such as NOW, NARAL and People for the American Way have been surprisingly quiescent while Bush and his allies work tirelessly to undo the last fifty years of American female liberation.
American polls indicate massive and growing pessimism, with over 60% reporting they feel America is headed “in the wrong direction”. That seems closely tied to economic concerns, as the economy continues to benefit the largest corporations at the expense of the average white and blue-collar worker and family.
A new Alternet news story, which we link to below, explores America’s failing agricultural market system in great detail. The authors analyze the ability of workers at Wal-Mart and Whole Foods stores to afford even minimal grocery bills at their respective employer’s emporiums. The result? Healthy, organic food delivered through the mainstream retail system is not affordable for most working families. As for making good, locally produced food affordable, Rhonda Janke, associate professor of horticulture and a sustainable cropping systems specialist at Kansas State University, notes that "many CSAs have provisions for 'work shares' and reduced cost shares for low-income families, and that can be part of a 'local safety net'. But that doesn't eliminate the need for the grower to get full price from a minimum number of full-paying customers." Nonprofit organizations around the country are springing up to deliver healthy, affordable food to poor neighborhoods, because the “free-market” system has failed them utterly. Low-income agricultural districts are virtually without access to healthy organic food stores because the per-capita income of those areas is so low that only Wal-Mart food is within their budgets.
But there is no liberal or Democratic Party platform position on agricultural reform that would alleviate the increasing burden of sky-rocketing food costs on the middle class and the working poor. There is no major Democratic party figure supporting agricultural policy initiatives that would provide incentives for local, organic producers, or labor policies that would guarantee a living wage.
Bush’s social security initiative is dead in the water, his prescription drug benefit plan is a certified fiasco, and Americans are increasingly concerned that they cannot afford basic health care for themselves, their parents and their children. No wonder. More than 41 million Americans have no health insurance at all. It costs hundreds of dollars a month for catastrophic health care coverage that provides nothing at all for prescription drugs or routine medical care.
But there is no Democratic initiative for government sponsored universal health care. Instead, various state Governors are promoting free-market based health care plans, like that of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who would make it a crime for healthy young people NOT to buy health insurance.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the 2006 and 2008 elections are historically irrelevant. Even if the elections are not rigged by the Republicans, which some of the stories you’ll find links to below allege, and even if the Democrats win control of the Congress, it is looking extremely unlikely that Democrats with vision, backbone and the courage of their convictions will be elected. Even if strong Democrats are elected, will they be able to wrest control of their party from the Bill and Hillary Clinton policy wonks centered in the Democratic Leadership Council? The Clintonistas have fashioned the current Democratic party strategy, which facilitates an extreme right wing agenda by surrendering on every front without any pretense of serious opposition.
America is now in a state of advanced political paralysis in which the true concerns and aspirations of the majority of Americans have no outlet whatsoever in the political process. This is a very dangerous situation, for American democracy, for world peace and for the global environment.
We all owe it to ourselves to meditate upon what sincere course of action we can undertake to reclaim the levers of democracy from the elite policy makers of both parties, who put short-term gain and political power above the welfare of the American people, the citizens of the world, and the global environment. And we all owe it to our children and our grand-children to take action. If you wait for Moveon.org or Hillary Clinton or Al Gore to do the work for you, you will be waiting until it is far too late to save this Republic from itself.
Top World News Stories at Satya Center
Satya Center is proud to present the second partof author Peter Dale Scott's ground-breaking series of articles on The Global Drug Meta Group, a lengthy investigation of the role of international drug dealers, intelligence services from major powers, Russian bankers and powerful global businessmen in the perpetuation of the global trade in heroin and international terrorism.
Scott reveals that drug dealers enjoy close relations with influential international bankers, weapons merchants, intelligence agents and military officers whose web of interconnecting interests can only be described as a "cartel".
Scott reveals that these drug cartels play a pivotal role in international relations, shaping the geo-strategic landscape in their own best interests while attracting political and military leaders of major countries around the world into partnerships of convenience designed to further the ideological, military and economic interests of the elites in those countries.
This series of articles focuses on the individuals connected to one global drug cartel, dubbed the Global Drug Meta Group by Scott, and describes a meeting at billionaire Saudi Arabian arms merchant Adnan Kashshoggi's villa in 1999 that arguably laid the groundwork for the terrorist bombings in Moscow called "The Russian 9/11", which triggered massive escalation of the war in Chechnya.
Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main source of support for international terrorism today. Did an international drug cartel affiliated with a Saudi billionaire, Russian banks, and US and Russian intelligence services conspire in the Moscow bombings of 1999? Read Part One of this Series for essential background information!
And now, some good news about Haiti’s most famous political prisoner, visionary spiritual leader and advocate for the poor, Fr. Gerry Jean-Juste. Fr. Gerry has been imprisoned in Haiti on trumped up charges of conspiracy to commit murder and disturbing the peace for over a year. Fr. Gerry, recently diagnosed with leukemia, had also contracted pneumonia, but has been released, and is now safe in Florida where he will undergo treatment. His release was conditional upon his return to face charges in Haiti, but we pray for him and will continue to write letters and send faxes on his behalf, in the hopes that sanity and freedom will prevail, and that he will overcome the political obstacles on his path of service. We also ask that you pray for his health, and continuing strength that he may continue his work on behalf of the Haitian people & particularly his beloved children who depend for their weekly rice and beans on the Feed My Lambs Food Program, which he started with Margaret Trost of the “What If?” Foundation