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| Voice of the Environment's mission is to educate the public regarding the transfer of public trust assets into private, mostly corporate, hands. | ||
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Ukiah office: 1330 Boonville Rd Ukiah, CA 95482 707-467-0329 |
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Napa office: 391 Crystal Springs Rd St. Helena, CA 94574 707-963-8264 |
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| For two decades, Voice of the Environment has stood up for the people and our communities against the avarice of corporations and the misguided policies of the corporate-dominated state. |
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Print This Article Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 Awaken sheeple: It’s time to stand up for democracy! Lewis Seiler & Dan Hamburg What is a sheeple? It’s a people who keep their heads down, munching mindlessly, then trotting along with the herd. It’s a people who digest the misinformation dished out by government and the corporate-controlled media and lack the gumption to take risks in order to create positive change. But events over the last month in the upper Midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana demonstrate that the sheeple are awakening to their plight. But what will light the fuse? Our government has strayed far from the Constitution into something that can best be described as “corporate fascism” or “corporate feudalism”. Power and money are held by an elite class of millionaires and billionaires; according to Michael Moore, a mere 400 people own 50% of the nation’s assets. With unlimited amounts of capital, the elite and the corporations they control have taken ownership of the government, amassing maximum profits while abusing workers and the environment, hiding their ill doings behind the corporate veil. Real unemployment stands at well over 20%, over a million US homes are in foreclosure, and local governments try desperately to stave off bankruptcy. Vital personnel—from fire fighters and police to teachers and health workers—are being laid off at alarming rates. The very fabric of what we’ve come to consider civilized society is at risk. Does the US government really believe that it can continue to attack the rights that working people have won over decades of struggle? Does it believe that the rampant transfer of manufacturing jobs overseas will continue to be tolerated by a working class stretched to the limit? Does it believe that feeding borrowed hundreds of billions to a corrupt military-industrial complex can be sustained? Does it believe that corporate tax subsidies and tax loopholes—under which corporations’ share of taxes has gone from 30% to less than 7% in three decades-can continue? We Americans are learning that our government is in some ways as onerous and corrupt as those that have been under assault in the Middle East over the past months. We cannot allow the elites to own our government, destroy our environment, terrorize people in countries thousands of miles from our shores and rob us of our civil liberties. We’re at a critical juncture where a choice must be made—establish a true democratic republic or be satisfied with our new role as mere serfs. We the people need to use every constitutional means of resistance available. We must never forget that there are many more of “us” than of “them” and that collectively, we can move mountains. This is the lesson of Madison, Wisconsin where teachers, public safety workers, students and farmers have come out in the tens of thousands to protest in freezing weather. Their movement then spread to challenge the reactionary governments of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. Ultimately, all of the weapons and propaganda in the world cannot defeat an informed, committed, and organized people. This next chapter of US history must be a non-violent civil war of the people against the corporations. We have come full circle back to the period of the American revolution only this time it is the corporate elite that has become onerous and out of balance with society. The time of Jeffersonian revolution is coming. Our protest is based in a pivotal and now viral concept—that corporations are not “real persons”, despite Supreme Court rulings that stretch all the way back to the 19th century, and most recently affirmed by the high court in the Citizens United case. MovetoAmend (movetoamend.org) is a national movement seeking to amend the Constitution in order to “firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.” This organization is deserving of broad support. History teaches that putting corporations in charge leads to the atrophy of democracy in favor of the interests of capital. Citizen control is necessary to achieve the balance between workers and owners without which capitalism devolves into something more akin in fascism. Reasserting greater citizen control of their economy, as is the case in more enlightened and prosperous) European nations, will restore well-paying, middle-class jobs and an appropriate and necessary level of respect for environmental quality. It is necessary to achieve the balance between workers and owners without which capitalism devolves into something more akin in fascism. People from Damascus to Columbus, from Tunis to Indianapolis are asserting the basic human rights of freedom and dignity. The sheeple are looking up from their munching and refusing to follow the herd. The awakening will come not a moment too soon. Lewis Seiler is the founder and president of Voice of the Environment, Inc. Dan Hamburg, a former US representative, is the executive director. Print This Article |
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Voice of the Environment is a 501 (c-3) not-for-profit Montana-based corporation formed in 1991.
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