We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Cash Hoarding, Tax Evasion, and the Corporate Coup

Click here to access article by Andrew Gavin Marshall from Occupy.com.

The author provides data to show that the major players, the banks and large corporations, are hoarding cash and pushing austerity measures across the world, and exposes the methods they use to avoid paying taxes. It is clear to me that the cancer of capitalism, which invaded the world-host some 400 years ago, has now overtaken the entire body. It is now feeding on that last resources of public wealth--schools, libraries, worker's benefits, government retirement benefits, government sponsored medical care, public utilities, public lands, public roads, public services. etc.

The major carriers of this deadly virus, banksters and corporate executives, want the wealth from these public assets to continue developing, manufacturing, and using weapons to destabilize countries that still pose barriers to their profit-making operations. Likewise, they want this wealth to spend on the development and application of technology to spy on their own populations in order to suppress any opposition that those populations might pose. Their media continue massive disinformation campaigns to prevent us from knowing what is really happening, and to further divide us from one another.  They have no problem spending huge amounts of money on Superbowl spectacles, other distracting entertainments, and trivia to keep us preoccupied and attention diverted away from them and their tricks.

This cancer is now so advanced that it appears that the public body is in a terminal condition. Only a miraculous, heroic effort can save it.