By Timothy V. Gatto

The idea of supporting Democrats has come and gone…a long time ago. The two-party government in place in the United States is a travesty. There are no provisions for it in the Constitution. This is something that has evolved over time. In actuality, there really hasn’t been much of a difference between the two parties. The only time that there was a marked difference was when FDR used a variation of socialism to fight the depression.

The Central Banks were replaced by loans at low interest by the government. The WPA and the CCC that put people to work were offshoots of Socialist ideas. The start of World War Two and the return to private industry was the end of Roosevelt’s experiments in socialism.

Since then, the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about has blurred the lines between the two parties. Like the Roman Empire, thousands of years ago, the American Empire has never fought an offensive war. We have always been fighting “threats” to our way of life. While many of our best and brightest were being savagely killed and crippled by our “enemies”, corporations were making ungodly profits on war materials with plenty of funds for research and development for new weapons to kill human beings.

Of course many Americans blame the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China for putting us on this path. That entire premise is a lie. The truth is that anyone in any type of influence in any country, were hunted down and murdered by clandestine agencies of the United States and Britain. This seems to be the case still. Any regime, from Iran to Venezuela to Bolivia that doesn’t follow the United States world view is regarded as an enemy, not only to the United States government, but to the people of the United States. Intellectuals that write about the excesses of the American Empire are relegated to the sidelines. People like John Pilger, Michel Chossudovsky , Ramsey Clark, Michael Moore, The late Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Andrew Gavin Marshall, Richard Cook, John Kozy, Ray McGovern, Ron Paul, Gareth Porter, William Bowles, David Swanson, Paul Craig Roberts, Chris Hedges, Phil Rockstroh, and so many more including Timothy V. Gatto, A former Army sergeant with over twenty years of service (me). Please don’t feel excluded because I left anyone out. I know there are so many more of you out there.

We have no voice that reaches mainstream America. There are a few online: OpEdNews.com (which has undergone a radical change for the better), DandelionSalad, The Real News Network headed by Paul Jay, Information Clearinghouse run by Tom Sweeney, Media with a Conscience (Al Jezeera), The Peoples Voice.com, MediaLeft, and Countercurrents are just a few. The trouble with this is that they are only known but to a few, not the many.

There is Pseudo-left media outlets that don’t stray too much from the dictates of the government- influenced mainstream media such as Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Democratic Underground (which sometimes breaks the mold) and Progressive Democrats of America (Which still can surprise). Overseas we have the Atlantic Free Press and numerous other ex-pat websites. The Rolling Stone which still tries to stay true to the truth is still printing. The Village Voice and others try to keep their independence. There are certain monthlies such as the Nation that try to pass themselves off as anti-establishment, but fail miserably in actually breaking any real truth and sustenance. Their intentions are good, but they just can’t say what needs to be said. Some publications that should know better just succumb to the pressure of the powers that be. It’s a thorny situation.

Time, Newsweek, and other mega-publications take the “middle-ground” on almost everything. The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers have fallen completely under the spell of government censorship. The New York Times will hold a story for over a year until it gets the go-ahead from the government to publish a story. By that time, the story isn’t even news anymore. Does this bother any of you? It sure galls the hell out of me.

What about television? The news on television is just about the worst kind of reporting. The major networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC won’t broadcast anything that hasn’t been vetted by every other type of media and published before airtime. They’ll run fluff and “human interest” stories at the expense of actual news that would embarrass the government and draw criticism to their newsrooms. The last time I saw CBS run an exposé that mattered was the amount of suicides among discharged veterans of the Middle-East wars. Armand Kataian was the reporter. He must have some clout with CBS.

If you believe you will get “real news” from PBS or the BBC, you may glean just a little more information, but not the real truth. They too must dance to the tune of their corporate sponsors. Most are related to the defense industries, and they can be as exacting as the government… if not more so.

People must realize this, in our capitalistic country, money talks… bullshit walks. If you just happen to really piss off you sponsors, your revenue will drop and you will be treated like a leper. There isn’t a defense contractor that will sponsor your program if you badmouth them. When you think of defense contractors, don’t just think of Lockheed-Martin, Or Northrop-Grumman, think of General Electric and Westinghouse and all of their subsidiaries (in fact, they own two major networks, imagine that, the two corporations that make atomic bombs). Look at the Sunday morning news programs like “Face the Nation” and “Meet the Press”. Every other commercial is brought to you by a defense contractor. Their reach is unbelievable. The reason for that is because the United States has become a nation that has very few industries that are as large as the corporations that invent and sell weapons.

This is our undoing. When you watch the current President cave under pressure from the Republicans, just remember that the only truly viable industries in this country are those that make weapons of war. They control the media and with that control, they influence public opinion.

For the last few weeks I have felt completely impotent. Every time I went to write an article on events that have transpired, I was reluctant to submit my work because I had written the same thing over and over again. I am a fan of Rick Rozoff, the only writer that puts the news in the context of military events. It’s been weeks since I really felt that I had anything to say that hadn’t already been written. Rick Rozoff is published primarily by Global Research, just about the only think tank in this planet that I trust. He also footnotes everything he writes, unlike me who only does that when the occasion warrants it.

I’m a writer, not an academic. I write what I see and I try to convince others that what I see is valid. There are other writers that have the benefit of being able to prove what they say. Rick Rozoff is such a writer. David Swanson is another. I operate from a small home in South Carolina. I read what I can and I try to sort the wheat from the chaff by taking what I’ve learned through everything I’ve read and what I know to be true by examining history, motives, and facts. There are others out there that know a hell of a lot more than I know. Throughout my six years of writing about political events, I’ve been able to feel confident that there are a few people that really know what is actually happening behind the scenes because they do the diligent research that unmasks the truth, and that is undoubtedly the most important variable in anything.

We are on a collision course with fascism. We are also on a collision course with a world-wide conflagration. World War III is right around the corner. The United States seems to want this to occur. Like Bush, the current American President believes that only a major war will bring the United States out of economic decline. A limited War against North Korea would bring employment (especially in the defense industry), maybe conscription which would reduce unemployment, and if China intervened, the elimination of the debt that we owe to that nation. It would bring about a common-cause that would reduce friction between the left and the right. We would all have a common purpose. Our industrial capacity would rise and unemployment would drop substantially. A new “Golden Age” would again encompass the nation.

This could be a wonderful scenario…discounting the death and destruction that would envelop Korea, China and the mass causalities that would envelope China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Australian and New Zealand (that we just made defense treaties with). American soldiers would also be added to the dead, but then… we have too many unemployed as it is.

As long as Russia stays on the side-lines, this is the military industrial concept of nirvana. After the war, we will control most of Asia, the Middle-East, and the majority of Europe, and that is quite an accomplishment. Maybe we could be responsible for a Pax-Americana...Unless things don’t go exactly as we plan.

Still, no matter what the outcome., the things that our government is doing are wrong. The cables that were released on Wikileaks have been eye-opening to say the least. I’m an agnostic. I don’t believe in God. I still know the difference between right and wrong. The way we manipulate governments and societies across the globe is wrong. We have become the enemy we fought when we waged war on Nazi Germany. We are no better than they were.

Our government should be concerned with the people it governs. We should protect our nation. That doesn’t mean that we have the right to invade our citizen's personal freedoms and to subject our citizen’s to unwarranted searches and seizures because of their political or religious beliefs. We all have a right to our own opinions, even if it differs from that of our government. Being different does not make one a criminal. That happened in Hitler’s Germany.

The media should be free and unfettered. Now that corporate interests rule the mainstream media, thinking people only have the alternative media. Since the release of classified information by Wikileaks, we find that the government is seeking the authority to shut down the internet, the last bastion of free thought in a corporate ruled world. Americans of every persuasion should fight any attempt to shut down the World Wide Web. To do so would stop the flow of independent thought. It would curtail the give and take of independent ideas.

We are in perilous times. The “terrorist threat” is all-pervasive. The reality is that the United States has been the greatest recruiting tool for any terrorist organization. We want to control the world’s resources. That is the ultimate quest. If there is a nation that has resources the United States needs, they can expect clandestine agents first, and if that fails, the U.S military later.

How long will the American people put up with this? Until they know the truth…it will be when we subjugate the world or the world puts an end to the United States.

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timgatto@hotmail.com Read Tim's Book "Complicity to Contempt" and his Novel "Kimchee Days or Stoned Cold Warriors From Oliver Arts and Open Press and available on Amazon and all other online bookstores.