Posted by Editors on September 03, 2008 at 05:27:59:
DEMOCRACY or CAPITALISM… WE CAN’T HAVE BOTH!
In OUR society, POLITICAL and ECONOMIC conditions meet, and react one upon the other…, and DEMOCRACY hangs in the balance...
As in all previous societies in human history, FREEDOMS depend on the ownership and use of property which is the basis of our material well being. ...
Capitalism RESTRICTS the control and ownership of our necessary, socially operated industries and services to the wealthiest, most socially and politically powerfully $$ capital$$ investors. This leaves 99% of our population..., working class people who operate all our socially necessary industrial and service activities, without any real, binding decision making say in what we produce and how we produce.
Capitalism leaves us, We the People, without any production control over the factors required for our foods, and other things we need and want. Our consumer’ s history tells us we can never be sure that what we buy from the food and appliance stores will be safe for our usage and consumption. This is NO small matter! OUR disconnect from the ways OUR needs and wants are produced has resulted in all dangers we have experienced in the use defective products.
Not too many years ago…, Ralph Nader's classic "Unsafe At Any Speed" revelation of marketed defected cars resulted in the injuries of unsuspecting drivers … BUT did not produce safer auto production conditions. The intense market competition among and between auto corporations compels short cuts in the production process, short cuts in the testing of finished products, inspired by the profit principle to be first on the market, first in line to grab consumer dollars. . Every year our cars are being “recalled” by GM, Ford, or Chrysler and their ilk, to repair some defects which were born out in “class action” suits brought on by victims of the cars they thought were safe.
We recall the recent experiences we have had with inferior food and toy products imported by private corporations without the needed safety inspections which, by law, is the legislated DUTY, the responsibility of the Federal political system‘ FDA ..., but the FDA, staffed by politically appointed and Congressionally approved directors…, who cater to corporate influences, have blamed their ineffectiveness to keep our needed products safe…, on the Congress because it does not provide the monies required to have the necessary inspectors visiting the food industries to enforce existing safety and health rules.., which are purposely ignored. .in order that the marketing and profit taking processes are not held up by any "health" and safety inspections.. So, The FDA blames Congress…, Congress blames the FDA for not requesting the necessary funds…, and, in the meantime…, nothing happens and the same ol’, same ol’ stuff goes on, and We the People must endure and suffer.
Yesterday's Tomato/Green Peppers salmonella poisoning resulted in the deaths of many unsuspecting Americans due to a LACK of, again..., attention paid by the Federal agencies responsible for OUR Health and Safety to cheaper foods imported from across our Southern borders...., so as not to impede the marketing and profit taking by involved corporations.
Despite all the publicity about diseased foods and unsafe imports..., the FDA today is in no better position to watchdog imports and domestic production than prior to the scandalous events of the ‘08 year.
We are not safer today than we have been in the past simply because We, the People, have no control of our food production. The same profit system remains in place.
We are THE generation which currently lives in the most opportune times of our history to do something about it. Most American citizens KNOW the Congress and the Executive office are DISCONNECTED with We, the People. Congress and the President have the lowest "popularity" ratings in our history. BUT MOST CITIZENS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO CHANGE IT! Most important for PFANS supporters is that WE get this program out to our communities and begin the public dialogue for systemic change!
We know the causes of our problems. We have the solutions. What We don’t have is the force of our majority electorate to place like minded people into the Congress to implement legal and peaceful alternatives. This task falls upon everyone of us, beginning with YOU, the viewer.
To stress the point about our lack of DEMOCRACY BEING A DIRECT OUTCOME of society's necessary production properties being privately owned and NOT operated by ourselves to ensure our protection from unhealthy and dangerous products and services, in 1941, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in 1941 made this prescient observation :
"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."
PFANS opts for DEMOCRACY! Today, that concentration of wealth ,and its political power, has reached stunning proportions and has produced our societal intensities, as has been reported in all the corporate media outlets , NOT to remind us, We the People, that we are being robbed and exploited, BUT to warn capitalism’s advocates that such disparities actually THREATEN the system because of the societal polarities it produces which, historically, has led “The People“ to organize to contest and replace their oppressive systems.
In large companies, people who work in the same enterprise are now earning $1 for every $416 that the CEO takes away. In 1940, it was $1 for every $12. Today the financial wealth of the top 1 percent of households exceeds the combined wealth of the bottom 95 percent of American households. Earlier this year Bill Gates' wealth was equal to the combined wealth of the poorest 120 million Americans. Whatever this enormous imbalance says about the Great software imitator from Redmond, Washington, it means that about tens of millions of Americans, who work year after year, decade after decade, are nearly broke. What democracy worth its salt would have led to this profound inequity? Globally, the combined annual income of the world's poorest 3.5 billion people equals the world's two hundred richest people who more than doubled their net worth between 1996 and 1999.
For most of society’s wage earners, which does not exclude the upper income working class, family and social conditions are always threatened by the perennial downturns and depressions in the economic system…, and, as our history tells us, at such conditions become a reality, sooner or later. We needn’t live in such societal trauma. PFANS strives to alert our citizenry to its dynamic potential. This site is not meant to serve as a reference library. We work to inspire a movement for fundamental changes in our economic, political and social system. YOU are a key to the doors which open to a prerequisite public dialogue and discussion of the present systems, and the democratic alternatives which are available to We, the People, to make the legal and peaceful changes we need and want for ourselves and for our future generations.
Join us. Make known this program to your neighbors, to your community political groups. Write Letters to the Editor to share the PFANS program with readers of your local newspapers. Get involved on the right side of our history. Use this site to share your contributions with like minded others. We’re with YOU! It takes some effort, but the birth of anything is not always easy…, and its life is a lasting reward …, as will be a new political party when We consolidate our efforts to make it happen. Eds.