“We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.”
— Louis Brandeis
Supreme Court Justice from 1916-1939
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.”
— Abraham Lincoln
First Inaugural Address
March 4, 1861
What America needs, above all else, is a second Revolution to finish the work of the first one. American Revolution Two must be spiritual as well as political, and it must retain the full Bill of Rights of the current U.S. Constitution.
There is no solution to this country’s problems without the total overthrow of the U.S. military-government and the parasitical plutocracy which pulls its strings. The defeat of these genocidal state terrorists is also an essential step toward solving the entire world’s problems.
The fascist corporate plutocracy and its military-government puppets will never be reformed. Those who think the rotten system can be reformed from within are fooling themselves. The corporate/banking plutocracy has spent well over a century painstakingly creating a system which is absolutely impervious to any fundamental reform. Bourgeois reformers are toyed with and sneered at by the criminals in power. Would-be reformers merely serve to perpetuate the mass-illusion that we have a “democratic” system. People who seriously and fundamentally challenge the evil system are murdered, harassed or financially destroyed — if they can’t be blackmailed or bribed. Your vote counts for nothing and elections are a total fraud.
Therefore, the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government must be completely overthrown by the American people, and this will be done best through a spiritual and political Revolution using the basic strategy of massive, nonviolent non-cooperation.
The problem is that nonviolence requires a profound and very difficult discipline. And nonviolence can seem futile and cowardly in the face of the U.S. military-government murder of innocent children around the world. Retaliatory violence against the satanic U.S. government and its bestial military agents would be pure justice, and it is a great temptation. So the only question is: would it be more effective in the present circumstances? At this point, it clearly would not be. The U.S. military-government has the overwhelming advantage in firepower, so violence is exactly what they want.
Uncle Sham is a corporate mafia thug with a gun pointed to the world’s head. His itchy finger is on the trigger — and he really enjoys murdering people. He exults in it. One move from anyone to physically challenge his imperial dominance, or even merely to be independent, and he blows their heads off with a satisfied smile. And their children’s heads too.
Then while he struts around the bloody world stage beating his chest in self-congratulation, his corporate media whores all scream their approval and sing his praises for “fighting terrorism” and “liberating” the victims. And legions of bully-worshiping, flag-waving, fist-shaking, mental-puppet patriots join the chorus, whipped into a bloodlusting frenzy by the media whores, all eager to do further violence to anyone who dares to speak out with a genuine moral conscience.
This is how the evil establishment survives, through deception and ruthless violence. Such a strategy is foolproof, as long as most Americans remain fools, submitting their corrupted little minds to the corporate mass-media.
So we need a second Revolution to protect the world’s children from Uncle Sham. But the only effective strategy is nonviolence. If people of conscience in America use violence to defend even themselves from the U.S. government, then their own innocent children suffer too. Innocent children and adults have been horribly murdered by U.S. government thugs in Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Philadelphia MOVE house, Pine Ridge Reservation and many other places, from sea to shining sea. Uncle Sham and his thugs have never had any hesitation about murdering anyone’s children.
Basically then, we are all hostages to U.S. government violence. And as long as the U.S. military-government exists, we will remain hostages. Therefore we need to use nonviolent methods of opposition until it becomes possible to physically overpower the babykillers while at the same time protecting all children and innocent adults.
That will become possible only when tens of millions of people in America join the fight to take the satanic U.S. military-government down, once and for all. And tens of millions of people will join the fight for two basic reasons:
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When they become aware of the horrific realities of this world and are driven to do something to relieve the suffering of innocent victims.
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When they realize it is in their self-interest to overthrow the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government.
Most people will be motivated by both reasons, to varying proportional degrees. Those who honestly care about others as much as themselves, however, have always been a minority of people in America. Those who care primarily about their self-interests have always been a majority. That is precisely why we have the evil government we have.
But this doesn’t mean that activists with critically important moral and political messages should degrade their messages to cater to the majority’s degraded self-interest. Mere self-interest is subhuman. Selfishness is the way of animals. Self-transcending empathy is the moral essence of true humanity. And the “human” race will not survive its own brutal bestiality if it doesn’t learn to become genuinely human someday. Time is running out fast.
Therefore the moral, truly human message should always be emphasized, while including the messages that appeal to people’s self-interest.
The most important political/moral message Americans need to get is this: The U.S. government and military habitually mass-murder innocent children around the world. This is satanically evil and it must be stopped.
People who don’t honestly care about it are subhuman. They are accomplices to war-crimes. People who honestly care will prove it by doing something about it. And they will also refrain from doing things which support it. That means not paying any taxes whatsoever to the bestial U.S. government.
Human society must face this if it would survive at all, much less survive in freedom. The American plutocracy, its U.S. government whores and its genocidal babykillers in the U.S. military are in fact utterly ruthless, bestial criminals behind their civil public facades.
When a predatory society is so deeply degraded and subhuman that it doesn’t even care about the fact that it butchers innocent children around the world, it continuously corrodes and poisons itself with its own vicious evil. And inevitably its moral madness ends in self-destruction.
Various fascistic elements within the American plutocracy have long had plans to use covertly-sponsored “false flag” terrorism, if necessary, to coerce the American people into silence and obedience, and to imprison and mass-murder all people of conscience who resist. Such plans have been in existence at least since the 1930s. In 1962 the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff had a top-secret plan called “Operation Northwoods” in which U.S. government agents would commit terrorist attacks on Americans in Miami and Washington D.C. while blaming it on Fidel Castro and Cuba. This would have created the pretext for just the kind of full-scale invasion and occupation that has been inflicted on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. The 9-11 attacks were merely a modern-day “Operation Northwoods”.
So far, the 9-11 deception is serving their purposes very well. But whenever the plutocracy fears their power is slipping they’ll simply order another terrorist attack. Then they’ll have their media pets howl and prattle about it night and day, and again millions of brainwashed morons will wave their flags and call for “revenge” and “justice”. Again the brain-dead idiots will violently attack whatever political or ethnic group is presented in the corporate media as the latest scapegoat, including all honest and decent people who dare to speak out.
And American society will descend into a richly-deserved, total hell — from which it will never emerge again in one piece. Read about the last years of the Roman Empire for a glimpse into America’s ugly future — if there aren’t enough genuine human beings here to prevent it.
Every possible form of nonviolent civil disobedience must be used to fight the satanic rulers of this country. Massive peaceful protest is a helpful and essential tactic, one which is very important both for psychological morale and for bypassing and overwhelming the censored corporate media. The protests have informed all America that a massive, unstoppable nationwide rebellion is steadily growing. It has very deep roots, and now people know how widespread it is too.
At some point the rebellion will become so pervasive that the most essential tactic of all will become possible — the nonviolent physical takeovers of all local media outlets, especially T.V. stations, by masses of local anti-government people. This will mean the majority of people in most locations.
When the majority of people control the media locally they will liberate the mass-mind of society. Every local community will then be able to express itself freely and honestly and publicize issues with which it is actually concerned, and the coming Revolution will have accomplished its most critical initial phase. The revolutionary momentum is still very slow at this point, but the ever growing depth and breadth of people’s grievances makes it absolutely irreversible. When the plutocracy no longer controls the media these corporate/banking parasites and their military-government war criminals will be hiding in their bunkers.
The “Civil Disobedience and Tax Resistance” page continues these simple but essential ideas on revolutionary tactics and strategy. “Taking Action Against American State Terrorism” describes the massive protests that have taken place so far, and links to some important organizing coalitions.
Until nonviolent local media takeovers become possible on a nationwide scale, one of the most essential forms of nonviolent non-cooperation is to stop paying taxes to the Federal government. The U.S. military-government bloodsucks the American people for hundreds of billions of dollars every year to hold the entire world hostage to the Pentagon mass-murder-machine. By not paying taxes we are withdrawing our support from this monumental evil. If we pay taxes we have the blood of innocent people on our hands. We are paying for mass-murder. There is no denying it.
The great irony is that paying income taxes is not even legally required! Most Americans have been kept ignorant of this fact, but it is actually unconstitutional for the Federal government to force people to pay income tax. Federal income tax is technically voluntary. It is not legally mandatory. The criminal U.S. government doesn’t want you to know this, of course, and like the mafia it is, it certainly does harass tax resisters and attempt to punish them. You can legally protect yourself, however. See A Few Facts About Tax Resistance for more information.
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“The federal income tax and social security tax are unconstitutional and illegal; the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the income tax amendment) never even came close to being ratified in 1913; federal income taxes are voluntary, not compulsory, and there is no law that requires citizens to file and pay federal income taxes...”
We The People Organization
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The Need for Spiritual Revolution
The root causes of all the problems which bedevil all nations and individuals are always spiritual and moral in nature. Social, psychological, political and economic problems are all symptoms of the deeper malaise of pathological egocentricity, both individual and collective. There can be no real and lasting solution to the world’s problems, therefore, without a spiritual/moral awakening and healing of large numbers of people.
Fortunately this is happening — excruciatingly slowly, but at least steadily. A steadily growing spiritual awakening really is happening to millions of people in this country and around the world. To a large degree it is manifesting on the surface as a growing political and social awakening, facilitated largely by the Internet. But the underlying motivation of this awakening is the deep moral revulsion which hundreds of millions of people increasingly feel toward the bestial, satanic ruling order.
Nobody needs any particular religion or political party to tell them that the current status quo is thoroughly evil. People can feel it in their souls. Moral awareness is built-in to humanity, no matter what belief system people may have. That is why the predatory, parasitical rulers of America, to retain power, must use their hypnotically seductive mass-media to degrade people’s minds with a materialistic, subhuman worldview. Ignorant, immoral subhumans are very easy for evil rulers to control and exploit. Genuinely moral human beings, on the other hand, cannot be controlled by evil rulers.
Whether people realize it or not, we are all engaged in a fight to the death. We are fighting for our very souls, as well as for the innocent children of the world who are butchered by American war criminals. If we fail to care about these children, about their families and all our victimized fellow human beings, we will lose our souls to evil. It’s as simple as that. Those who don’t care are already the cowardly, craven slaves of the satanic freaks that are desperately scrambling to conquer the world right now. That is a fate infinitely worse than mere death of the physical body.
The Need for a Moral Diet
Evil exists not only outside us, but within us. And it can never be defeated outside if people won’t purify themselves of it on the inside. One of the most basic and essential ways to purify oneself of inner evil is to eat a moral diet. Eating murdered animal flesh is grossly immoral.
Cows, chickens, pigs and other animals are cruelly abused before they are murdered and their body parts packaged and placed on store shelves and in restaurants. When a person eats that cruelly murdered animal flesh they are absorbing all that suffering and evil into their own bodies.
Murdering animals and eating them degrades and poisons not only the physical body, but the mind and soul as well. The fact that the overwhelming majority of the world’s people casually eat murdered animal flesh is one of the major reasons evil rulers have such an easy time of controlling and exploiting them, century after century. People who think it’s “normal” to eat murdered animal flesh have an animalistic worldview, and their corrupt minds are easily enslaved within the collective dreamworld of a corrupt society — which is a nightmare, actually. They poison and dope their souls into an impotent servility to evil by all their own immoral actions, which includes eating an immoral diet.
Only degraded animals murder and eat other animals. One cannot be fully human if one eats animals. Those who purchase murdered animal carcasses and eat them not only degrade themselves, they directly support a violently evil system of industrialized cruelty. Just as they do by paying taxes.
People who eat murdered animal flesh know, at least subconsciously, that they’re doing something morally wrong. That’s why they get so indignant if anyone dares to bring the subject up. Their angry indignance or sneering contempt are a cover for their guilt. A way of keeping it unconscious. But they can sneer to the diseased end of their toxic lives and it will never change the fundamental fact that murdering and eating animals is evil and degraded. It can’t get more basic. If most people keep refusing to face this utterly elementary moral reality, then there is truly no hope at all for the vast majority of the so-called “human” race.
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The Candles in the darkness page has links to a sampling of spiritual wisdom teachings and activist websites with a genuinely moral message. It’s not a comprehensive sampling, just a beginning.
There are as many ways of knowing God as there are people. By “God” I mean whatever you call the Higher Reality. Call it God-Goddess, Jesus, Allah, Buddha nature, the Tao, Great Spirit, Consciousness, Higher Self, Shiva-Shakti or anything you please. Call it Darling. It’s your business.
Respect for the world’s rich variety of spiritual paths is essential. Appreciation of variety counters the egoic tendency we all have to fall into the trap of cultism. Cultism may be defined as “group egocentricity”, and it can be political as well as religious. Politics and religion are cultic when they claim to have exclusive possession of truth. Cultic exclusivity is always very divisive, and thus it is inevitably destructive. In contrast, true spirituality is always unifying, healing and nourishing in its effect.
Structure of the Political Revolution
It’s just a matter of time before the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government is relegated to its proper place in the toxic waste dump of history. But to avoid having it replaced with something equally vile or even worse, it’s essential for American society not only to arrest, try, imprison and execute the satanic plutocracy which now rules it, but to choose very carefully, well ahead of time, what to replace it with.
A successful American Revolution Two will see the American people creating some form of genuine Constitutional democracy. The all-important Bill of Rights will be retained in its entirety, and even strengthened. The first and second amendments in particular are absolutely essential, since they make it possible for all other rights to be maintained by the people. But basic changes must be made to the structure of government itself to avoid the mistakes of the past. Everything must be eliminated which allows the subversion of the Bill of Rights and the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of a predatory, parasitical elite.
Two New Amendments
To accomplish this, at least two utterly essential new amendments must be added to the Constitution, and vigorously enforced by the people:
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The first and most important amendment will forbid both centralized and private ownership of the mass-media.
All the mass-media must be publicly owned and totally decentralized. As long as the mass-media is owned by a few corporations, or any other centralized power, it will always lie about what is happening in this country and in the world. Those people who are foolish enough to trust the corporate mass-media will therefore remain ignorant and grossly misinformed. A real democracy is totally impossible without a well-informed electorate. Corporate control of the mass-media guarantees a thoroughly misinformed and uninformed electorate.
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The second new amendment must prevent a new plutocracy from arising by taking all political power and legal immunity away from corporations, making them fully liable for their criminal actions. As long as huge, ultra-wealthy corporations are effectively above the law they form an impenetrable shield for the plutocracy, and democracy remains a total charade.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.”
— Benito Mussolini
1883-1945
Fascist dictator of Italy
Democratizing the Supreme Court
These Constitutional changes will also make it politically possible to reform the corrupt Supreme Court. All Supreme Court judges should be directly elected by the American people. It should also be possible for the American people to quickly and easily dump these crooked judges when they inevitably make an unconstitutional decision.
The Supremely Corrupted Court stole the Presidential election of 2000, removing even the facade of democracy. Those five inJustices who so blatantly disenfranchised over 50 million voters should have been impeached. It was another crooked Supreme Court decision in 1886 that gave corporations so much power in the first place, effectively ending what little was left of genuine democracy at the national level. Because it’s so very easy for those with money and power to corrupt and control judges, the Supreme Court will always tend to undermine democracy unless the American people, rather than the plutocracy, keep these naughty dogs on a short leash.
Parliamentary U.S. government
It would also help a great deal if America’s backward political system were to join the modern world and become a parliamentary democracy. America’s present draconian system is maintained by the corporate/banking plutocracy because it suits their anti-democratic purposes so well. In a parliamentary democracy there will be real power-sharing by many political parties which actually represent the general population. Imagine! What a concept!
In America the whole political puppet show is performed by one corporate party which pretends to be two — the Democrapublicans. In public we see only “Punch and Judy” endlessly whacking each other back and forth, year after year, while behind the curtain smirks the plutocracy, with a puppet on each hand.
In an honest parliamentary democracy, whenever the current ruling party goes against the will of the people, new elections can be called immediately to replace that ruling party and its President, Premier or Prime Minister. The American people should also be able to quickly and easily oust individual members of Congress whenever they break the law or do anything against the will of the people.
The entire U.S. Senate, for that matter, should be jettisoned permanently. America’s ship of state is steadily sinking, and if the scurvy crew were actually sane they would toss all such worthless garbage overboard. The Senate’s only real purpose from the beginning has been to serve the plutocracy. Taking its name from the ancient Roman Senate, the U.S. Senate is America’s version of the British House of Lords. Worse than useless, it’s an appendix from a primitive evolutionary past, and a political appendectomy is sorely needed for the health and safety of the body politic.
The insidiously anti-democratic nature of the Senate is particularly obvious when one reflects that California and New York have the same number of Senators as Hawaii and Rhode Island. This is absurd. Congress should consist of a House of Representatives only, who actually represent the people.
Democratizing the mass-media and taking power away from corporations is the essential foundation that will make this possible. The American people must create a political system which is actually in their self-interest, rather than the present-day system of deceit and exploitation which serves the interests of the corporate/banking plutocracy.
Having learned the bitter lessons of corporate mafia capitalism, the majority of people are definitely going to want to try some form of honest, moral democracy for a change. But in order to create an honest democracy people need to know the difference between venal capitalism and democratic socialism. When the majority of people know the difference, the new political system they create will be a Constitutional socialist democracy.
What is Democratic Socialism?
Democratic socialism is a moral, humane political system which supports economic well-being and political freedom for the majority of people. In contrast, corporate capitalism supports fascist tyranny and economic exploitation of the majority of people.
Democratic socialism is therefore in the political and economic self-interest of the majority of people. And yet, amazingly, most Americans have a problem understanding this simple, self-evident fact. This is due to over a century of very effective political brainwashing by the corporate-controlled mass-media and the government-controlled school system. (See An Appeal to All Working People for a full description of the ideals and principles of democratic socialism.)
The very word “socialism” triggers a negative response in all brainwashed Americans. Like Pavlov’s dogs, Americans have been trained to mindlessly react to various things, negatively or positively.
Therefore, after generations of corporate/government mind-control, many Americans are deeply confused about even the most simple and obvious economic realities.
Healthy Families are Economically Socialist
That is one of the most obvious realities of all. All healthy, loving families are economically socialist. Throughout the world, most family members share with each other and freely help each other in all kinds of ways. And the healthier and more loving a family is, the more socialist it will be.
Those who mindlessly condemn socialism never stop their hamster wheels long enough to notice that perhaps their own families are economically socialist too. Even die-hard capitalists can understand that this is good for a family, and yet they don’t consider such humanity to be good for the larger society. That is irrational and dishonest.
Socialist humanity is very good indeed for the larger society. The only people who have a rational motive to deny this fact are those people who are profiting from the exploitation of others in the larger society.
Distracting Americans from the realization that socialism is in their economic self-interest, capitalist propaganda has fooled a great many people into rejecting it on religious grounds. Politicians and the corporate media tell people the lie that all socialism is Marxism and “godless Communism”, and therefore anti-religious. But many socialists are not Marxists. Socialism is not necessarily anti-religious at all.
True Christianity is Socialist
In fact there have been Christian-socialist political parties and utopian communities in both Europe and America since the 19th century. That should come as no surprise to those who actually understand Christianity. Like true Buddhism and true Islam, true Christianity is racially inclusive and inherently socialistic. If we define Christianity as the spiritual teaching of Jesus, rather than the cultic religion of churches and worldly authorities, then we can see why Christianity and socialism go very naturally together. When Jesus fed the multitudes, that was a socialist act. When Jesus threw the money-changers out of the temple, that was a condemnation of godless capitalism.
Godless Capitalism is what rules America today. All the flag-waving fools who imagine themselves to be “Christians” have no idea what Christianity is about. They claim to be followers of Jesus, and they have no idea who Jesus is. Patriotic, pro-military “Christians” are precisely the type of people to whom Jesus promised he would say: “I never knew you.” In Matthew 7:15-20, he warns his followers, in very simple, clear terms, about evil people like these flag-waving charlatans:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
“You will know them by their fruits.
“Do men gather grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“Therefore by their fruits you shall know them.”
— Jesus of Nazareth
The fruits of flag-waving “Christians” are hatred, racism, state terrorism and genocide. Patriotic “Christians” are wolves in sheep’s clothing. If Jesus were to incarnate in America today, patriotic “Christians” would be first in line to crucify him. If millions of people listened to him as they did to Martin Luther King Jr., he’d meet the same fate, if he allowed it. As the song lyrics say: “If Jesus Christ were alive today, he’d be gunned down cold by the CIA.” And he’d be denounced from the poisoned pulpits of many a “Christian” church. America is a satanic nation.
All those so-called “Christians” who advocate war and intolerance and capitalist exploitation are satanic people masquerading as Christians. Evil people have always hidden behind religious facades. These deceivers are advocates of cultic Churchianity, not true Christianity.
The Christian tradition of charity and being “our brother’s keeper” is a socialist tradition. Compassion for our fellow human beings is the soul of socialism.
What is Marxism?
Marxism is scientific materialism combined with socialism. Only scientific materialism is indiscriminately hostile to both cultic religion and true spirituality. Socialism itself is actually the socio-political expression of true spirituality.
The Marxist philosophy was created in the mid-nineteenth century when the suffocating dogma of scientific materialism began to dominate Western thinking. Perhaps socialists like Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were well-meaning and compassionate, but intellectually they were a product of their times.
Marxism’s greatest strength is its compassion for suffering humanity. Its second greatest strength is its scientific analysis of capitalism. That’s why Marxism is also called “scientific socialism”. But, as with conventional science, Marxism’s greatest weakness is its materialist worldview.
Because Marxism is socialistic, however, it’s a very unusual thing — a moral materialism. Generally speaking, the term “moral materialism” is an oxymoron. But Marxism manages to be a moral materialism, in theory at least, if not in practice, because all socialism is motivated by compassion for the downtrodden and exploited masses of people in every country.
Marxism’s anti-religious stance is a both a political weakness and a moral strength. It’s a political weakness because so many people are religious, and American capitalists have very successfully exploited that fact in their anti-socialist propaganda, equating all socialism with Marxism. On the other hand, Marxism’s anti-religious stance is a moral strength when religion is a cover for evil. Which it usually is.
Marx was quite right when he said “religion is the opiate of the masses”. Most religious people have always been cultic and used religion as dope, as something which keeps them from thinking clearly, logically and honestly.
Just as with drugs, religion is used to intoxicate people and influence them in violently evil ways. Cultic religious delusions are not only opiates, they are also like government-supplied amphetamines — the drugs given to U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots and U.S. Army helicopter pilots and soldiers before they slaughter women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. And previously in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea and Yugoslavia.
Cultic religions and drugs have always been used to influence all kinds of pious, “God fearing” evil people to do violent, bestial things. The horrifying Catholic Inquisition is a prime example. Bigoted Protestant fundamentalism is another. Obscenely racist Talmudic Judaism is another. All the bloody religious wars all over the world throughout history are testimony to the monstrous evil that lurks behind religious facades. The revolting Zionist Christians and Zionist Talmudic Jews of today are examples of how violently evil religions threaten the survival of the entire human race. These psychopaths make Karl Marx look like a prophet.
So it’s true that religion is used as an opiate of the masses. But it’s not the whole truth. In spite of the fact that evil people use religion for evil purposes, there are kernels of spiritual truth in every religion. In addition to that, spiritual truth is independent of all religions.
Socialist Humanity is the Future
Regardless of whether it is Marxist or religious, however, socialism in itself is inherently moral, charitable and unifying. Socialism is human. Capitalism is inherently selfish, competitive and divisive. Capitalism is subhuman. This will be perfectly obvious to anyone who can think clearly and rationally. Unfortunately, that’s asking too much of conventional Americans. Reality is turned on its head in American political culture.
Capitalism, by its very nature, is always tending toward corporate fascism. Under capitalism the majority of people must endlessly battle the anti-democratic, subversive influence of a corporate/banking plutocracy which effectively owns the government. In a system of socialism the greatest danger is the tyranny of an anti-democratic government bureaucracy, a tyranny which is every bit as evil as a corporate plutocracy.
In both cases there is only one way to achieve and maintain democracy, and that is the vigilant, well-informed determination of the majority of people. This is why the mass-media is the single most important factor. Democracy is impossible without an informed electorate, and there is no way for the electorate to be informed as long as the mass-media is controlled by private owners. Those private owners will look out for private interests, which are very often hostile to the public interest. If people want freedom and democracy, there must be genuine, public ownership of all the mass-media, and it must be a decentralized ownership.
When the majority of people are determined to be free and are well-informed about political and social reality, they will know that democratic socialism is the only system which actually looks out for their own interests. Liberated from corporate-media mind-control, they will have no problem seeing the obvious reality that genuinely democratic socialism is profoundly civilized, moral and humane. They will reject with total contempt the evil and animalistic “Rule of the Jungle” exemplified by corporate capitalism.
The social and political facts of life are exactly the opposite of the smooth-talking capitalist propaganda that is incessantly beamed at you through the corporate mass-media. Their televised, Disneyland version of reality is always trying to sell you the fantasy that America is basically a righteous “democracy” run by honest, God-fearin’ “elected representatives” who have “only your best interests at heart”. Meanwhile, in the hard, cold, real world, America is being run into the ground by a criminal plutocracy which ruthlessly exploits and robs everybody for as much as it can get away with.
To distract you from this gargantuan fact they have their media shills tell you that American society is threatened by parasites like welfare mothers, hungry homeless people who use food stamps and terrorists hiding behind every bush. (Of course, there are legions of state terrorists behind every Bush.) You’re labelled a “Commie” if you call for the government to spend people’s tax dollars on people, rather than on corporate welfare and the U.S. military’s genocidal state terrorism. Minimum-wage slaves are told, with a straight face, to have faith in capitalist “trickle-down economics”. Translation: “Piss On You.”
Meanwhile, it is the corporate/banking plutocracy, the con artists who invariably rule every capitalist society, who are in fact criminal parasites of the overwhelming majority of people.
International socialist democracy is the natural next step in the world’s political evolution. Corporate capitalism is a morally degraded political dinosaur which is retarding the social and political evolution of the entire human race.
See also on this page:
The political differences between Bolshevism/Stalinism, communism, anarchy and democratic socialism
Related pages
Civil Disobedience and Tax Resistance
Thomas Jefferson Calling: The Time for Revolution is NOW
by John Kaminski
A Note to the Reader in America
Only massive, nonviolent civil disobedience and tax resistance have the power to bring down the most violent, predatory empire in the world today.
Socialism, real and fake
by Noam Chomsky
An Appeal to All Working People
This is the September 1996 election statement of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), and it’s every bit as relevant today as it was then. Although the SEP is a Marxist party, and thus hampered by the conceptual limitations of scientific materialism, this election statement is nevertheless the best primer I’ve found so far on the political, economic and moral ideals of international socialism.
Know Your Enemy:
The United States Government Committed the September 11 Attacks
Revealing Quotes 2: Corporate Capitalist Plutocracy
Revealing Quotes 4: Jewish Plutocracy, Jewish Power
The Israeli Connection To 9-11
War At Home:
Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It
by Brian Glick
Neighborhood Bully: American Militarism
interview with Ramsey Clark
The CIA, Insider Trading and the World Trade Center Terror Attack
Fake Terror: the Road to Dictatorship
Operation 911: NO SUICIDE PILOTS
U.S. Government Domestic Oppression
Terrorism Begins At Home: Police Brutality in America
America’s Techno-Fascist Future
Related sites
International A.N.S.W.E.R.
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism!
http://www.internationalanswer.org/
“Build a united and active anti-war movement!”This site has a great deal of information for anti-war activists, including leaflets and flyers you can download.
International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org
“Information, activism and resistance to U.S. militarism, war, and corporate greed, linking with struggles against racism and oppression within the United States.”
National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC)
http://www.nwtrcc.org/
“The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee is a coalition of groups from across the U.S., formed in 1982 to provide information and support to people involved in or considering some form of war tax resistance (WTR).
“Affiliate organizations and individual supporters are joined together in a common struggle for a more just and peaceful society. We oppose militarism and war and refuse to participate in the tax system which supports such violence.
“NWTRCC sees poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, economic exploitation, environmental destruction and militarization of law enforcement as integrally linked with the militarism which we abhor. Through the redirection of our tax dollars NWTRCC members contribute directly to the struggle for peace and justice for all. NWTRCC promotes war tax resistance within the context of a broad range of nonviolent strategies for social change, and is firmly embedded in the peace movement.”
“NWTRCC’s goal is to maintain and build a national movement of conscientious objectors to military taxes by supporting, coordinating and publicizing the WTR actions of groups and individuals. These actions include: war tax resistance, protest, and refusal; the redirection of military taxes to meet human needs; support of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill; and adjustment of lifestyle to avoid tax liability. WTR actions are undertaken in accordance with each individual’s moral, religious or political conscience, and are hoped to contribute toward changing the priorities and policies of the U.S. government.”
NWTRCC makes available the book: War Tax Resistance: A Guide To Withholding Your Support From The Military
“The most comprehensive guide to war tax resistance (WTR), including philosophical and political questions, information on the federal budget, the history of WTR, personal WTR stories, methods, consequences, international WTR, WTR organizing, and more."
We The People Organization: Taxes - Showdown
http://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/showdown.htm
“The federal income tax and social security tax are unconstitutional and illegal; the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the income tax amendment) never even came close to being ratified in 1913; federal income taxes are voluntary, not compulsory, and there is no law that requires citizens to file and pay federal income taxes...”
World Socialist Web Site
http://www.wsws.org/
WSWS: September 11 Aftermath
http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/news/terr-us.shtml
WSWS: News & Analysis: U.S. Militarism
http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/news/na-milit.shtml
The World Socialist Web Site reports routinely on brutal U.S. imperialism and state terrorism, providing information you will never find in the corporate-controlled mass-media.
The homepage is updated six days a week with real news and analysis from around the world. In particular right now, WSWS is one of the best sites for news and analysis of America’s ongoing genocide and state terrorism of the people in Iraq.
Millions of people are waking up to the fact that the corporate-owned, mainstream mass-media are lying to them. People of intelligence and conscience are turning off the boob-tube and turning on to truthful, non-corporate news sources on the Internet.
WSWS also has very informative sections about the American/British state terrorism of the Afghan peoples, and the racist Israeli state terrorism of the Palestinian people.
Restoring Pacifica as a Democratic Forum for Independent Voices
http://www.savepacifica.net/index.htm
“Given the importance of the media in hegemonic processes, and in contesting those processes, what is happening to Pacifica, and now WBAI, should be first order business for the left. This was our only radio network, and it is being destroyed!”
— Edward S. Herman
author of The Real Terror Network
The International Office of the Leonard Peltier Defence Committee
http://www.freepeltier.org
Justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.mumia2000.org
Refuse & Resist!
http://www.refuseandresist.org/altindex.html
“Refuse & Resist is the organization for everyone who refuses to go along with today’s national agenda of repression and cruelty, poverty and punishment.”
CollegeActivist.com
http://www.collegeactivist.com/
“Want to spread the word about animal rights on your campus?
“Whether you’re an individual or working with a group, whether you’re just getting started with animal rights or you’re a veteran activist, PETA’s College Action Campaign can help you speak out for animals on your campus!” (And they don’t mean frat boys.)
TV-Turnoff Network
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
“TV-Turnoff Network encourages children and adults to watch much less television in order to promote healthier lives and communities.
“TV-Turnoff Network has helped millions of Americans to break free of TV through our two primary programs, National TV-Turnoff Week and More Reading, Less TV. Our 3,000 members include teachers, parents, doctors, and others — Americans from every corner of the country and walk of life.”
Capitalism Sucks!
http://www.capitalismsucks.com/
“Experts Agree: Capitalism Sucks.”“How Do You Want to Fight Capitalism Today?”
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
Rage Activism Calendar
http://rage.protest.net/
“The United States of America was founded in revolution, a fact that we citizens choose to remember only once a year. Ever since, our nation has worked to destroy the revolutionary works of people around the globe as they struggle for freedom.
“In 1776, the U.S. was born half-formed, and today the American Revolution is still only half-finished. Soldiers in the late 1700s fought successfully to free all Americans from a British yoke, but neglected to free themselves from their home-grown dictators...”
The “stars ’n’ bars”...
The stars symbolize the Hollywood/news-media propaganda machine which relentlessly and pervasively sells us the fantasy that we live in a “democracy” where our “elected” government leaders have only our best interests at heart.
The fact that this is a fantasy is demonstrated by another thing the stars in the American flag symbolize — what real people see when the criminal pigs smash their police batons down on real people’s heads because they dared to exercise their Constitutional right to freedom of speech and assembly.
The bars in the American flag represent where the pigs then drag real people off to after the pigs have assaulted them for having a moral conscience. Then behind the bloody bars, out of view of the corporate McNews cameras, the uniformed, badge-wearing criminals further entertain themselves by beating and torturing people at their leisure.
$
$
Well, it’s high time for all decent, freedom-loving people in America to liberate ourselves — finish what the first American Revolution merely started. We The People must defend ourselves and each other, and throw the criminal cops behind bars where they belong. In fact it’s long past time to overthrow the entire, crooked corporate capitalist system — and replace it with a democracy.
Revolution 2
is long overdue!
Bibliography
War Tax Resistance:
A Guide To Withholding Your Support From The Military
Available from the
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
“The most comprehensive guide to war tax resistance (WTR), including philosophical and political questions, information on the federal budget, the history of WTR, personal WTR stories, methods, consequences, international WTR, WTR organizing, and more.”
Against Empire
by Michael Parenti
“The history of imperialism is also, however, a history of resistance, struggle, and achievement; Against Empire offers compelling alternatives for progressive change.” .... “Precise, rational ways to transform public policy to build democratic institutions.”
War At Home:
Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It
by Brian Glick
Nonviolent Resistance
(Satyagraha)
by Mohandas K. Gandhi
Dover Publications; ISBN 0-486-41606-2
Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of India’s great movement of independence from the bloodsucking British Empire, a liberation which was accomplished by means of nonviolent revolution in spite of the British massacres of Indian people. Gandhi and his followers thus gained the deep respect and admiration of millions of people around the world for their disciplined adherence to the policy of passive resistance, and his ideas were a driving force behind the American civil-rights movement.
This volume focuses on Gandhi’s vision of Satyagraha, whereby one appeals to reason and conscience and puts an end to evil by converting the evil-doer. The book begins with an explanation of the principles of Satyagraha and proceeds with detailed discussions of the self-training and courage necessary for it. Includes discussion of the use and effectiveness of such techniques as non-payment of fines and taxes, social boycotts, fasting, sympathetic strikes, and other forms of non-cooperation.
Autobiography:
The Story of My Experiments with Truth
by Mohandas K. Gandhi
Dover Publications; ISBN 0-486-24593-4
“Personal account of the life of the man who freed India from colonization through the Satyagraha (nonviolent protest) movement. His early boyhood life, legal studies, purification, and the ultimate salvation of his homeland are carefully recounted in this inspiring and critical work of insurmountable importance.”
Blackshirts and Reds:
Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
by Michael Parenti
The Beast Reawakens
by Martin A. Lee
Rogue State:
A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
by William Blum
Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
by William Blum
The Fire This Time:
U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
by Ramsey Clark
Desert Slaughter:
The Imperialist War Against Iraq
by the Workers League
Pirates and Emperors, Old and New:
International Terrorism in the Real World
by Noam Chomsky
The Real Terror Network:
Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda
by Edward S. Herman
Western State Terrorism
Alexander George, editor; essays by Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, Gerry O’Sullivan and others
Apocalypse 1945:
The Destruction of Dresden
by David Irving
A People’s History of the United States:
1492 — Present
by Howard Zinn
Derailing Democracy:
The America the Media Don’t Want You to See
by David McGowan
101 Things To Do ’Til The Revolution
by Claire Wolf
“America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”
“The ideal citizen of a tyrannical state is the man or woman who bows in silent obedience in exchange for the status of a well-cared-for herd animal. Thinking people become the tyrant’s worst enemies.
“Before their thunder roars, there is a period of anticipation, in which more occurs than the literal-minded tyrant can ever understand. A few overt acts of sedition shatter the heavy peace. But the greater force, unrecognized, rolls forward in near silence, as millions of individuals quietly withdraw their consent from the state. The pundits call it apathy. They could not be more wrong.
“That time is now. And we are those people.
“This book is dedicated to you, the enemy of the state.”
Don’t Shoot the Bastards (Yet):
101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom
by Claire Wolf
“Are you... fed up with the Powers That Be encroaching on your freedom?
“Have you... tried everything — voting, peaceful protest, letter writing, petitions — and found that it just didn’t work?
“Are you... beginning to think violent rebellion might be the ultimate, dreaded answer?
“Stop! Wait! There are a lot more things you can do!”
Further bibliography:
Today’s Fascist America
“When we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without a government, our calamities are heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.
“Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.”
— Thomas Paine
Common Sense
The political differences between Bolshevism/Stalinism, communism, anarchy and democratic socialism
Because of decades of deceitful propaganda by capitalists and Soviet Stalinists alike, most people in the U.S. are likely to make the mistake of thinking that the brutal Bolshevik/Stalinist totalitarianism of the Soviet Union represented “communism” or “socialism”.
However true communism and socialism are actually inherently democratic systems — unlike capitalism, which inherently tends toward fascism. It was therefore quite natural for the vast majority of working-class people in Russia, for decades before the revolutions of 1917, to hold the ideal of democratic socialism and communism in high esteem. While patriotic American workers have always been politically retarded fools for capitalist propaganda, most Russian workers were politically intelligent. They understood the simple, obvious fact that a socialist democracy was in their self-interest.
The Bolsheviks and Josef Stalin therefore exploited the political prestige of democratic socialism by labelling the Soviet Union’s bureaucratic tyranny “socialist” and “communist”. In a similar fashion, genocidal American capitalism claims it stands for “democracy”, when in fact it has always destroyed democracy around the world, creating and supporting brutal fascist dictatorships.
American military pressure and political-economic subversion worked together with Bolshevik/Stalinist tyranny to destroy any hope of democratic socialism in the Soviet Union throughout its 74-year existence. A murderous party dictatorship was falsely labeled “communism” by both capitalists and Stalinists, and to this day most people in America are totally clueless as to the true meaning of socialism and communism.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and its rapid mutation into a capitalist mafia state was a great victory for American capitalism. All the hapless peoples of the former Soviet bloc exchanged the Stalinist tyranny for the far more degraded tyranny of corporate mafia capitalism. Until they overthrow it again, their future is as dark as America’s.
Genuine socialist democracy has no chance of surviving anywhere in the world as long as the United States remains a capitalist military power. Only tyrannical Stalinist police-states can provide sufficient state security even to temporarily fight off CIA subversion. Genuinely democratic, socialist societies have no chance at all. They are too open and free, and therefore too vulnerable.
Salvador Allende’s democratic Marxism in Chile was a prime example. Everywhere in the world socialist democracy has arisen, the fascism-promoting United States military-government has ruthlessly destroyed it.
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Bolshevism and Stalinism are essentially the same thing: the dictatorship of a single political party. As such, Stalin’s monstrous tyranny was indeed the inevitable outcome of Bolshevik tyranny. The Bolshevik Party of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin believed the old deception that “the end justifies the means”. This very deception is preached by corporate capitalists. And American state terrorists.
History and life itself, however, are continuously teaching that the means determine the end.
And yet they all steadfastly refuse to learn the lesson. Decade after decade, they never get it. Generation after generation of suffering, misery, chaos and war. The means determine the end.
Today there are four main competing factions among Marxists: Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists and Trotskyists. The only real difference between them is that Maoists, Leninists and Stalinists are nationalistic, while Trotskyists are internationalistic. This means the Trotskyists would enslave the entire world to a single international super-state — with Scientific Materialism as the official state religion — while Maoists, Leninists and Stalinists are content to enslave individual nations, each independent of the others.
Trotskyists are useful as unrelenting critics of capitalist imperialism and militarism, which are in fact state terrorism. Unfortunately, Trotskyists can’t afford to use the term “state terrorism” in their own writing because they’re Bolsheviks, and the Bolsheviks practiced state terrorism when they held state power.
Stalinists, Leninists and Maoists are also useful as implacable critics of capitalist militarism and imperialism. But they too can’t afford to use the term “state terrorism” because, like the Trotskyists, they’re not against all state terrorism, only the state terrorism of their political enemies. If they seized power they would follow in the bloody footsteps of Stalin, Lenin and Mao. They mask their political power lust behind legitimate concerns like national self-determination for oppressed peoples. Some Leninists, Stalinists and Maoists also use the rhetoric of “self-determination”, “liberation” and “justice” as camouflage for their ethnocentricity and vengeful racist hypocrisy.
All that ego-pathology is falsely labelled “communism” too. In its true and original meaning, however, the word “communism” refers to a healthy society which is honestly free of racism, sexism, classism, nationalism and all other forms of chauvinism, and therefore honestly democratic. True communism would be exactly what the word suggests: communal, with all important decisions of the group made by democratic consensus. With honestly and radically democratic communism there is no central governmental authority. Democratic communism is the final stage in the evolution of democratic socialism.
Democratic socialism is an intermediate step. It is based on the observation that the vast majority of our heterogeneous human race still requires some limited degree of benign hierarchical organization — an honestly democratic government that will support an egalitarian peace and stability. Democratic socialism will not be permanent. It is a socio-political organization that will be evolved by society as society itself evolves, until an ideal condition of social harmony and freedom is reached wherein there is no need for any sort of governmental authority at all.
That’s what anarchy is all about. As with “communism”, the true meaning of “anarchy” is contained within the structure of the word: an-archy, “no rulers” — and therefore no tyranny. And for that reason it does not mean chaos. Chaos is just another form of tyranny. Total freedom from any and all forms of tyranny is the ideal of true anarchists. This is the ideal of democratic communism too — co-operative, non-hierarchical, communal living, with all decisions of the group made by truly democratic consensus.
Harmonious anarchy and democratic communism, therefore, are names given to that ultimate social ideal where there will be no need for any government. But for the present, democratic socialist government is simply realism. At this stage of human evolution, harmonious anarchy is possible only in small groups which are intellectually and emotionally homogenous. And even then it tends to be unstable because of the undisciplined, spiritually immature egocentricity of most or all individuals within the group.
It will be obvious to anyone with a little knowledge of history and current events, and a little experience in life, that if all governments miraculously disappeared overnight, most societies on Earth would degenerate into the tyranny of chaos. American society would do so with a vengeance. People would quickly organize themselves around dominant egos, warlords, for mutual protection. And then these groups would inevitably war on each other. Then within the general chaos the groups would coalesce into progressively larger units of tyrannical social organization until we again had national governments — and again reached the level of international chaos we enjoy today.
This assumption is based not only on the events of history, but on an examination of the fundamental nature of individuals within society. The way in which a society is organized will inevitably be a collective expression of the sum total of qualities of that society’s component individuals. And what is the nature of individual people? Virtually all people in the world are egocentric, to varying degrees. Most people are deeply and primitively egocentric. Because we all suffer from egocentricity, most people do not honestly like or trust most other people. Most people co-operate within the larger society primarily for selfish survival, not because they honestly love and care about their society in general.
Or to put it clinically: whatever outward appearances of conformity there might be, all societies are actually composed of a very heterogenous mix of egocentric personalities. These differing personalities do not naturally resonate with each other, so there is a fundamental tendency toward disharmony within all societies. Therefore in order to cooperate with each other in general, people need a compelling reason, and that reason is physical survival.
The greatest problem, however, is that there are too many people whose egocentricity is severely pathological. Some of these sick people are creatively deceitful, some have an intellectual intelligence, some are neurotically driven to compete and others are compulsive dominators. Some are all of the above, or any combination. Put all these people together and you have a government. Or a corporation. Or a political party. (Or an insane asylum.) Meanwhile, the vast majority of people in the world are easily fooled, easily led and/or easily intimidated by the pathologically dominant individuals within their own cultures. History is proof enough of this. In almost every country, evil leaders have always been able to recruit legions of homicidal psychopaths to fill the ranks of their armies, navies, air forces, intelligence agencies and police forces.
And yet, all these psychopaths are still a small percentage of humanity. It’s amazing, therefore, that they are able to wield as much control as they do over the vast majority of people. In a great many countries today the explanation for this tyranny is that it originates from outside their borders — from the United States government and military. The victim societies are relatively powerless because their fascist governments are given money and weapons by the United States government (using your tax dollars). If the societies resist this imperial tyranny they are slaughtered and tortured by the hundreds of thousands, as in Central America and South America, or even the millions, as during the Korean Genocide and Vietnam Genocide. And no matter what they do, they are impoverished by the tens of millions.
But what is the explanation for American society? There is no tyranny outside the United States which oppresses the American people. Why then do so many Americans submit to, and even applaud, the vicious evil of our sadistic military and government? The explanation for this can only be that such Americans are not just stupid and ignorant, they are evil themselves. They may not be homicidal psychopaths, but they aren’t at all enraged by those who are — as long as the psychopaths wear official uniforms. Such Americans are moral cowards. They are very easily corrupted by evil influences, and they permit themselves to be dominated by a diabolically evil government.
“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one’s self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice.
“Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker, but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all.”
— Michael Rivero
WhatReallyHappened.com
All evil empires crash and burn, sooner or later. And a day will come at last when this suffering world is relieved to a great degree by the thorough destruction of the monstrously predatory empire known as the United States of America.
But that will not end all of humanity’s problems. Even with the inevitable demise of the Great Satan, humanity will not be prepared to create a paradise on Earth, free of all authority structures. At the present primitive stage of our spiritual evolution, the vast majority of humanity are in a sufficiently pathological condition of egocentricity that we are incapable of living harmoniously with each other without at least some degree of benign external pressure.
Without the benevolent authority of an honestly democratic socialist government, most societies would remain totally vulnerable to the degenerate and predatory tendencies of fascist mafia-capitalism and primitive feudalism, which are essentially the same thing.
“There has never been a perfect government, because men have passions; and if they did not have passions, there would be no need for government.”
— Voltaire
Voltaire is quite right about that, so perhaps it’s foolish to hope that humanity will create perfect governments for itself any millennium soon. But with the horrifically evil military technology that exists today, humanity had better at least get control of its own governments, or they will murder the human race and poison the biosphere to death.
Socialist democracy is the beginning of political and social sanity in this world. But only the beginning.
See also:
Socialism, real and fake
by Noam Chomsky
Revealing Quotes 2: Corporate Capitalist Plutocracy
Revealing Quotes 4: Jewish Plutocracy, Jewish Power
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Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!
“If you want free speech you can go down to a street corner and shout.”— Jim Olson
owner of Humboldt Internet
September 26, 2001
On September 14, 2001, three days after the WTC attack, the owner of the humboldt1.com ISP summarily deleted the original American Terrorism website. When informed that he was suppressing online free speech, he offered the helpful advice above.
http://www.humboldt1.com/~016910/Amerikan_Terrorism.html
Launched: May, 2000 — Torpedoed: September 14, 2001 R.I.P.
To spare my vocal chords I offer this remaining mirror site: