THINGS NOT WELL IN THE MARKET PLACE

I don't have any stocks and bonds. But I still keep an eye on what is happening with the stock market because it is an indicator that things are not well in the "market place."

I heard a right-wing commentator on the radio this morning going on about the "magic" of the market place. The market creates winners and losers he said. The market takes care of everything. We don't need social programs......if you can't "make it" on your own then you are just a loser.

It's the wonders of capitalism.

There is no way you can wage endless war and still have a sound economy. The capitalists in America like to brag that they bled the former Soviet Union to death by forcing them to spend their national treasure on the military rather than on building a sound economic future.

As my mother always said, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

We are spending $12 billion a month on the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The House of Representatives voted last week to approve $649 billion in 2008 for the Pentagon. This is more than the entire world combined spends on the military.

According to former CIA analyst Chalmers Johnson, "By 1990, the value of the weapons, equipment, and factories devoted to the Department of Defense was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in American manufacturing."

When you spend more than 50% of the national budget on militarism then someone and something gets left behind.

When you disinvest in a nation's physical infrastructure (roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, school buildings, etc) and in a nation's human infrastructure (health care, mental health programs, education programs, etc) you are creating a Third World nation. This is what is being done to the U.S. today by the corporations that now dominate our government.

Citizens around the world are now boycotting U.S. made products or corporate businesses in their community. They want some way to express their enormous outrage over U.S. foreign and military policy.

The purveyors of greed, militarism, and environmental devastation represent the death culture. They call themselves the winners.

Those of us who hold a vision of a cooperative society, a sharing culture, an environmentally sustainable way of life, are considered the losers by the capitalists.

There is a war going on for sure. It is a war between those who are blind about what their rape and pillage mentality is doing to our Mother Earth and those of us who understand that the only hope for the future generations is to live in harmony with our planet in a way the Native Americans have long taught us.

The marketplace is killing the future. The time has come for the losers to take over. It's our only hope.