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Las protestas en internet no se haran esperar, les comparto esto que me llego de un amigo gringo para que tengamso ne cuneta que no todos los gringos son pendejos...las citas de Naomi Klein y la afirmacion de la reichstagisacion de US salieor en un documental que hay que ver se llama the corportation...el resto es de un amigo mio que se llama Kevin Webb..

Folks,

I have been thinking about you all a lot lately - particularly with the
recent reunion. I am sorry to send unhappy news and wish that I could
have joined you all in Budapest last week.

I'm just about to head to bed after a long day (it's about 4am here on
the east coast) and things are not looking good. The election appears
to
have gone Bush for real this time but that isn't the biggest problem.

Even though it may be days or weeks before we have any final numbers,
the fact that this election was not a landslide for John Kerry confirms
something far more unfortunate: any hope for the US to change direction
on its own and repair the unbelievable damage it has done in world is
now gone.

I have been trying my hardest over the past few years to keep up with
the world press and see what is being said of the inner-workings of the
US abroad. But honestly I have no idea what you all are hearing and
thinking right now - not about the election, or the war or any of the
major issues getting discussed day in and day out - but about the
reality of our country and the reasons why all of these frighteningly
poor decisions are being allowed to be made. I thought I would share a
few thoughts and ask for your help and ideas. Forgive me if this is
already plain for the world to see - it is anything but obvious if you
listen to the media here in the US.

The upshot: things are not well.

Corporations and very rich have managed to quietly dismantle the
democratic system in this country - meanwhile racism, hatred, religious
fundamentalism and fear have been allowed, if not encouraged to
dominate
every arena of our public discourse.

I hate to make scary comparisons but the US is looking quite like
Germany in the 1930s. And this is not some silly exaggeration - I will
return to this in a moment.

In the past several years some very odd things have happened over here.
One major part of this has been an unbelievable concentration of wealth
that has shifted economic and political power to fewer and fewer
people.
These people are what Bush calls his "base". Most folks in the US are
not doing well right now. Many many people today have fallen into
poverty and are barely scraping by. Meanwhile both corporations and our
government are giving trillions of dollars to a very small percentage
of
the population. Oddly, no one seems to care.

By global standards this may sound really crass, most of the world is
far less well off than even the poorest US citizens. But it is
important
to understand and think about the impact that this handful of very
wealthy and very powerful people can have.

It is this group of people that are driving the war in Iraq by claiming
that we are fighting terrorism. Our Vice President ran the company
Haliburton, currently responsible for most of the "reconstruction" in
Iraq. He violated federal law to allow the company to participate in
the
war and receive billions of dollars in contracts without any public
scrutiny. No it appears the same company and others are stealing oil
away from the Iraqi people while their country falls apart (Naomi Klein
has written an amazing article on this -


These people are undermining public discourse at home through the
consolidation of our media. A handful of companies now control the
majority of of the television, radio and print media in the US and many
of these companies have overt political affiliations to Bush and have
made moves to silence speech against him and the war in Iraq.

They run companies that imprison the poor and minority members of our
society at in increasing rate - yes our prisons are in many cases run
by
private corporations. Did you know that more than one out of every ten
black American men is in prison today? In all there are over two
million
US citizens in prison - almost 1% of our population. In all of Europe
there are only 1.8 million in prison (and this includes the over
800,000
prisoners in Russia). Many of these people are in jail because of drug
crimes - which happen not because they're "bad" but because they are
poor and have no other options.

They run companies that are undermining our right to vote and
participate in democracy. The company Diebold made the computers and
election systems used in many parts of the US in this election,
meanwhile the company's president assured Bush that he is "committed to
helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president [this] year."
If he was successful in this attempt his company may have just been
responsible for choosing our next president.

In addition to killing, impoverishing, or imprisoning hundreds of
millions of people these changes have made the individuals behind them
very very rich. Perhaps you talk about these things abroad but
according
to our media no one beyond the left fringe seems to know or care about
these issues. And the results of yesterday's election would seem to
confirm this. Instead we talk about terrorism and patriotism.

Back to Germany though. In March of 1933 the Reichstag, the German
House
Parliament, was bombed. This event, blamed on Communist terrorists, set
in motion the chain of events that allowed the Nazi party to come to
power. Using the fear and uncertainty created by this event they swept
elections and quickly dismantled the checks to power, making Hitler a
dictator. While fear was used to open the door, religious
fundamentalism
and racism were at the core of the propaganda and political rhetoric
that ultimately lead rise of the Third Reich and the atrocities of
World
War II.

President Bush won yesterday because of September 11th. I saw a chart
while watching the election results showing that over 80% of those that
voted for Bush in Florida did so because of fear of terrorism. The
World
Trade Center has become the US' Reichstag.

Since 9/11 the Bush government has followed the lead of Hitler by using
this fear combined with fundamentalist Christian ideology to dismantle
our country's justice system, to squelch speech and to change our
foreign policy to allow us to attack other nations without provocation.
He has been supported in doing this by the media, by major defense and
oil companies, and by the continued disenfranchisement of the poor and
minorities - it is these people that are now fighting in Iraq because
they have few other options outside joining the military.

Bush believes that he is righteous, that God has anointed him as our
president and has given him this power. And his propaganda has been
very
effective. This is a racist war we are fighting - when people say they
afraid of terrorism they really mean Islam. I am continually stunned by
the hate speech I hear even in the mainstream news about the need to
protect ourselves by killing people in the Middle East. It is no
mistake
that the majority of people in the US think that Iraq was directly
responsible for September 11th even though no such connection exists.
Amidst the many anti-war protests, when the war began I witnessed
people
celebrating by wearing death masks and waving giant signs in the shape
of bombs - not against the war but for it.

We are now willingly rebuilding the American war machine and attacking
other nations based on the fear and lies told to us by our government.
If this is not a parallel of the events seen in Europe seventy years
ago, I do not know what is.

Needless to say this is quite a depressing turn of events, made worse
by
Bush's now apparent election to office (keep in mind that while close -
he was not elected the first time).

My hope today is that the tremendous effort waged over the last year to
overthrow the Bush government (and it has been a tremendous effort)
will
continue to grow as we find new ways of regaining control of our
nation.
I have many stories to share about events that have taken place over
the
past months as folks have fought to speak the truth and change the way
our country relates to its citizens and the world. However, I do not
believe we can do this alone - a belief made all the more real by the
fact that the majority of the US appears to support Bush.

I wanted to write and share this with you all around the globe and to
ask for your thoughts and ideas and opinions about this situation. To
ask for your help in building a global coalition to help stop the
government and economic machinery of the US from continuing down this
path.

Sadly many smaller nations, like those in Eastern Europe, Latin America
and East Asia have been bullied by US economic and political power into
supporting Bush and his policies. Particularly the war in Iraq.

As many of you may know, Poland figured into this past election as one
of the US' most prominent allies. While the sacrifices of Poland and
dozens of other small nations cannot be discounted, to claim that there
is a global coalition supporting the US is simply untrue. I know that
the citizens of these countries do not support this war or the US'
actions elsewhere and am saddened that so many solders from these
countries have died fighting in Iraq.

It is time for the world turn its back on Bush and tell him and those
that have put him in power that there is no solidarity. It is time to
say that US is wrong and that it must make amends for its actions.

I can't tell you how happy it made me back in the winter of 2003 to see
the photographs from around the world as millions turned out to protest
the potential invasion of Iraq. I was involved in demonstrations here
at
the time and it was energizing and inspiring to know that the world did
not support the injustice and violence of our government. There weren't
many voices at home telling us that we were doing the right thing. We
now know that we were right about everything we said - unfortunately
tens of thousands of people have died as a result of this message being
ignored.

Unfortunately, Bush's continued power and the popular mandate for his
ideology generated by this last election is far more serious than even
the Iraq war. A lot is at stake today in the US and Unfortunately in
turn for the rest of the world. Over the next few days there will be
demonstrations in the US and I hope that you all abroad will find ways
to help us send a message about this election and about the shared
hopes
of the world community.

But I hope this is just the beginning - let me know your thoughts as I
would like to start a conversation with folks everywhere about this
problem. I no longer believe that we have the resources to fix this
alone and I know that far more is at stake than our own wellbeing.


Much love to all of you on this sad day,
Kevin

This entry was posted on miércoles, noviembre 03, 2004 at 6:22 a.m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.