You’re life isn’t worth much.
That statement doesn’t reflect my personal beliefs, but rather the consensus of government and corporate leaders who have deemed your lack of value a liability.
If you don’t believe me, then read your city’s emergency plan. In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, George W. Bush mandated that all US communities receiving federal assistance – which pretty much includes all US cities and towns – prepare an emergency management report that includes a dollar value assessment of every person living within statistical communities.
After having read the reports, most people are appalled at how little value has been assigned to their lives and the lives of their family members. But that type of corporate indifference is to be expected under the guidelines of the “new normalcy;” primarily because the reality of living in a capitalistic society -- controlled by global financiers -- is pretty frightening. Compared to the size of the global economy, you and I are just mere specs of dust. Everything we treasure, from our children to our homes, has been measured in terms of dollars, and corporations are exploiting that information. And the only winners of that game will be an elite group of billionaires who control the bulk of our nation’s wealth.
The information contained in your city’s emergency plan also dictates who will receive emergency assistance first, and who will receive the most financial aide once recovery and reconstruction efforts are underway. And unless you are very wealthy, your best hope for surviving and recovering from a catastrophic event is to develop your own emergency plan.
While city emergency planners normally make emergency information available for public consumption, those reports are often buried beneath political bureaucracy, and a lot of the details are not openly shared with constituents because a stark evaluation of a community’s risks and vulnerabilities can be very alarming.
For example: In an article published today, Jim Salter of the Associated Press revealed an ongoing threat of nuclear contamination to St. Louis citizens that had been overlooked because city officials had kept it under wraps for five years.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Beneath the surface of a St. Louis-area landfill lurk two things that should never meet: a slow-burning fire and a cache of Cold War-era nuclear waste, separated by no more than 1,200 feet.In typical political fashion, city officials and Republic Services -- a private landfill operator assigned to contain the threat -- assured people the ongoing fire presented no immediate danger to public safety, but Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster disagreed, stating that Republic Services "does not have this site under control."Government officials have quietly adopted an emergency plan in case the smoldering embers ever reach the waste, a potentially "catastrophic event" that could send up a plume of radioactive smoke over a densely populated area near the city's main airport.
Although the fire at Bridgeton Landfill has been burning since at least 2010, the plan for a worst-case scenario was developed only a year ago and never publicized until this week, when St. Louis radio station KMOX first obtained a copy.
The truth is we now live under the control of an oligarchy, and their agenda has been hidden from public view. We no longer function as a democracy, but rather as a proxy for corporations that have no loyalty to US interests; as was made apparent by a 2014 Princeton study.
From the BBC:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised[SIC] groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.That claim was echoed in former President Jimmy Carter’s recent assertion that we live under an oligarchy, not a democracy. And the only presidential candidates who have had the courage to admit the truth about our current form of government have been Senator Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley. And unfortunately for Democrats, the information needed to accurately access what has happened to our government wasn’t disseminated to the party faithful because two of the neo-liberal presidents who made that transformation possible were Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.
Most Democratic voters are simply unaware of how the global economy functions, and they have no real concept of how corporate policies are rapidly reshaping their family’s future. And because most “centrist” Democrats choose to ignore policies, preferring instead to promote personal and agenda driven candidacies, then there is little hope the Democratic Party – as it currently exists – will solve the problem of corporate corruption.
If the party’s faithful do not sober up, then one of the most damaging pieces of legislation in our nation’s history will become law. It will open the door to foreign corporate lawsuits that will circumvent any efforts we might employ to mitigate the effects of global climate change; and innocent taxpayers, who have no voice in how those decisions will be rendered, will be forced to shoulder the burden of the judgments and costs incurred by those lawsuits. It will legitimize cruel efforts to raise drug prices, such as what happened when Doxycycline – a very popular antibiotic -- *went from $20 a bottle in April 2014 to $1,849. It will encourage people like hedge fund manager, Martin Shkreli; to purchase companies and exploit weaknesses in our pharmaceutical chain to price critically needed drugs beyond the financial grasp of most Americans.
For many Democrats, and some Republicans, the TPP represents a symbolic line-in-the-sand; if party members fail to step up efforts to ensure its defeat, then Democratic politicians will pay a heavy price during upcoming elections. The non-vote protest waged during the 2014 midterm-elections will pale in comparison to what happens if the TPP is approved.
Hillary Clinton – no matter how many populist transitions she makes – is not a populist. And her statement today, regarding the TPP, is consistent with every loophole-ridden-statement she has made to avoid admitting her true agenda. She is a neo-liberal, which means she is deeply embedded in the free-trade economy that is devastating the lives of millions of people worldwide. Her candidacy – and Joe Biden’s -- represent past failures of the Democratic Party.
Enraged citizens worldwide are attacking the neo-liberal construct; many UK politicians have been feeling the heat, so much so, they have opted to walk away from supporting the TTIP, rather than risking losing their seats in Parliament.
It is only a matter of time before Bernie Sander’s call for political revolution begins to resonate with the majority of Americans. But, as was demonstrated in the buildup to the 2014 midterm-elections, the centrist Democrats simply cannot see the writing on the wall.
That fact does not bode well for Democratic politicians in 2016.