Homelessness and unemployment have reached levels in the US unseen in a decade. Consumer confidence, having been shattered by corporate malfeasance and the hyper-greed of the Bush regime, recently hit rock bottom. According to the National Governor’s Association, the 50 States that make up the collective known as the United States of America experienced the worst revenue shortfall since World War II. The Economic Policy Institute reports that American families are working longer and harder on the average of “20 more weeks a yearthe equivalent of five months.” It’s not the nation’s central government that is the socioeconomic caregiver for the bulk of these illnesses; rather, it is the American States who are left to cope with the casualties resulting from the ignominious policies and programs of the Bush central government in Washington, DC. Of course, the Jellyfish Party (sometimes referred to as the Democratic Party) in the central government’s rubber-stamping body, the US Congress, shares a hefty helping of the blame for the wretched state of the States and their localities in America.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities the “states have cut services for those most in need of assistance during an economic downturn. Eligibility has been restricted for health insurance, childcare, and income support services that benefit low-income families. Medicaid benefits have been reduced, job training programs for people trying to move from welfare to work have been cut, and the cost of child care for low-and moderate-income families has been significantly increased. Cuts in funding for public universities have resulted in higher college tuition, shifting the cost of balancing state budgets to students and their parents. Reductions in state aid for public schools and local governments have resulted in school program cutbacks and have to some degree shifted a greater share of the burden of funding schools to local property tax payers. Other reductions in funding have been implemented for state parks, museums, libraries, public health, and public safety.”
Rubber Chickens and Chicken Hawks
War propagandists and central government apologists at CNN, FOX, CBS, ABC and NBC–and the genteel opportunists at the New York Times and Washington Post–gloss over the fact that the American States are footing the bill and carrying the load for the bulk of the central government’s programs, to include Homeland Security initiatives, contrary to what Bush and other con-men/women in the central government proclaim over the airwaves and in print. According to the National Governor’s Association, State budget problems are exacerbated by the “billions of dollars in homeland security costs, predominantly borne by state and local governments.” So while the States and their localities approach the black hole of debt and collapsing infrastructures, all that the Bush central government can offer as corrective action, or rather as a temporary distraction, is a trumped up war against a tin-pan dictator in Iraq.
Wealth that otherwise should be targeted to the States and localities, is literally being stolen from the money supply to pay for the many ludicrous schemes of the Bush central government ranging from National Missile Defense to the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (tax cut), a program that is destined to benefit the one percent of Americans who own over 50 percent of the wealth in the United States. The Bush central government, along with the Democratic Rubber-Chickens in Congress–as opposed to the Republican Chicken Hawks–have anted up close to a trillion dollars to play the Great Game in Central Asia–the purpose of which is, first and foremost, to dominate that region’s resources and, secondly, to create markets for the business interests that the Bush central government represents.
And so it has become the business of the central governing body known as the US Congress to take care of corporate business interests and beg for photo opportunities with a non-elected president. Only a handful of “representatives” in that central government apparatus like Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Bernie Sanders of Vermont have the will to consistently challenge the intellectual sewage gushing from the minds of the Bushites and militarists in and out of the central government. The US Congress is now little more than a shopping mall for corporate interests. The “representatives” wait behind the counter to dicker with the lobbyists and the generals.
Perhaps it is better that the veil of democracy has been torn asunder exposing the lurid nature of the entire American central governing process. The vast number of the central government’s politicians and bureaucrats are groveling con-artists of low intellect engaged with corporate interests in an orgy of self interest. The orgasm for these folks comes in the form of profit pocketed and domination over those who are working those extra five months a year to pay for food and shelter. It’s a battle just to raise the minimum wage one US dollar. Conversely, politicians and bureaucrats from the central government never leave office poorer than when they were elected or appointed.
Distant Lands
Far removed from the rich and powerful in the central government, in the jungles of South America and the arid lands of Central Asia, young American soldiers hailing from the States and their localities in the American union, whether Special Forces or regular “GI’s”, find themselves guarding oil company pipelines and, in the case of Afghanistan, serving as little more than bar-room bouncers for the likes of Hameed Karazai, a former oil man for Unocal. These dedicated teen-and twenty-something’s chase the phantasms of the psychotic Bushites and their elderly generals and admirals. Already, a new “Axis of Evil” is being created by the mouthpiece of the Republican Party, that being Reverend Moon’s Washington Times. The Times has warned its readers that Brazil and Venezuela are part of the South American Axis of Evil. Popularly elected officials are not part of the Bush “in” crowd.
And far removed from the lofty heights occupied by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell–and “elites” both Republican and Democrat–in the distant lands of New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Southeast Washington, DC, men, women and children go hungry, homeless, uninsured, unemployed. Nurses, doctors, policemen and women, firemen and women and rescue workers don’t have the funds they need to get the tools to do the most basic public safety functions. Schools are overcrowded. Prisons are overcrowded. Urban sprawl and traffic congestion blights the land. Pollution fills the air on warm summer evenings. Prices are on the rise. Unions are being busted. Illicit drugs are easily obtainable. Corporations pay no taxes.
And the central government’s solution to all this? Use “terror” to create profit-making opportunities for corporations. Then create a central governing department that those corporations can lobby for business. “Terror is nought but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is less a particular principle than a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to the most pressing needs of the fatherland.” So said Rumsfeld’s idol, France’s Robespierre in 1794. Here it is 2002 and his rumination is as relevant now as it was over 200 years ago. And the similarities between the 1789 and 2002 are a wee bit unsettling.
Storm the Bastille?
Interesting how history rewinds throughout time. In 1789, Louis XVI of France was presiding over an impending disaster. Draconian policies and programs by his decree in combination with penalties that stifled dissent, outmoded feudal practices–and the shining example of the American Revolution–converged to ignite the French Revolution of 1789. Universities and the intellectual elite were fed up with censorship. The rich stayed very rich and comfortable while the emerging middle class bourgeois, urban workers and farmers-peasants were being crushed by high taxes, inflating prices and stagnant wages. Protests and demonstrations began. Violence and mayhem ensued.
So it would seem that the central government of Bush II of America, in conjunction with the US Congress, has placed the States and localities–the people–in a mood to contemplate alternatives. Already, massive protests against Globalization, US policy in Israel-Palestine, and the impending War in Iraq have taken place echoing Robert Bryd’s sentiment that only the American people can stop the madness of Bush II and the excite the US Congress to action. And if the Rubber Chicken Democrats take control of the US Congress, will not big business, big defense still rule the roost? Will not the US continue its romp around the world in search of terrorists and oil? Is it worth opting for the status quo with a sprinkle of change?
With the central government clearly out-of-sync with many States and localities, perhaps its time for “the people” that occupy them to think about building a different united States, one that excludes the federal government. Such a transition need not be violent. One of the models to follow is the relatively peaceful process of breakup used by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics–the Soviet Union.
Currently, all the governor’s of the current States travel to foreign countries to lobby for business. For example, Minnesota’s governor Jesse Ventura was in Cuba pushing Minnesota products and know how. In short, the reliance on the US central government for many economic activities is not as great as publicized. New nations forming from the remnants of the USA, like North Korea or Pakistan, could raise defense forces, and, with relative ease, build nuclear arsenals.
Stay out of RUSA
First to secede would be California, Oregon, Washington State and Hawaii to form Pacific Maritime America. This group would engage in mutual defense treaties with Asia and Canada and provide economic goods from Asian countries, as they do now, to the new countries of the East that once made up the USA.
New England, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Northern Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, New Columbia (formerly Washington, DC) and New Hampshire would follow in secession to form Atlantic Maritime America and, ultimately, become a member of the European Union from whence they originally came.
Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Alaska would follow in secession and incorporate with Canada. The transborder economies of these States and Canada are already well established and merging with Canada would be far less painful than the merger of East and West Germany in the 20th Century.
Florida would secede and, in swift fashion, immediately invade Cuba and the Bahamas. It would be known as the Florida Nation.
Texas, New Mexico and Arizona would form New Texas. They would immediately make overtures to the Central and South American countries for expanded trade while enforcing brutal immigration laws.
The remaining States of America, such as Alabama and Mississippi in the East to Utah and Nevada in the West, would secede and create the Reformed United States of America (RUSA). RUSA does not have a Bill of Rights like the other new nations and travel there is risky.
JOHN STANTON is a Virginia-based writer specializing in national security matters. He can be reached at: cioran123@yahoo.com
