[THS] Bill Quigley: Time for a U.S. Revolution - Fifteen Reasons

[Peter Webster]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24935.htm

Time for a U.S. Revolution – Fifteen Reasons

By Bill Quigley

March 08, 2010 "Information Clearing House"- - It is time for a revolution.
Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big
corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the
rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.

The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by
those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a
revolution.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a
radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of
values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and
present policies.” It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.

Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution?

Over 2.8 million people lost their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions
– nearly 8000 each day – higher numbers than the last two years when millions of
others also lost their homes.

At the same time, the government bailed out Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, Bear
Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the auto industry and enacted the troubled asset
(TARP) program with $1.7 trillion of our money.

Wall Street then awarded itself over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009 alone, an average
bonus on top of pay of $123,000.

At the same time, over 17 million people are jobless right now. Millions more are
working part-time when they want and need to be working full-time.

Yet the current system allows one single U.S. Senator to stop unemployment and
Medicare benefits being paid to millions.

There are now 35 registered lobbyists in Washington DC for every single member of
the Senate and House of Representatives, at last count 13,739 in 2009. There are
eight lobbyists for every member of Congress working on the health care fiasco
alone.

At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations now have a
constitutional right to interfere with elections by pouring money into races.

The Department of Justice gave a get out of jail free card to its own lawyers who
authorized illegal torture.

At the same time another department of government, the Pentagon, is prosecuting
Navy SEALS for punching an Iraqi suspect.

The US is not only involved in senseless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the
U.S. now maintains 700 military bases world-wide and another 6000 in the US and
our territories. Young men and women join the military to protect the U.S. and to get
college tuition and healthcare coverage and killed and maimed in elective wars and
being the world’s police. Wonder whose assets they are protecting and serving?

In fact, the U.S. spends $700 billion directly on military per year, half the military
spending of the entire world – much more than Europe, China, Russia, Iran,
Pakistan, North Korea, and Venezuela - combined.

The government and private companies have dramatically increased surveillance of
people through cameras on public streets and private places, airport searches, phone
intercepts, access to personal computers, and compilation of records from credit card
purchases, computer views of sites, and travel.

The number of people in jails and prisons in the U.S. has risen sevenfold since 1970
to over 2.3 million. The US puts a higher percentage of our people in jail than any
other country in the world.

The tea party people are mad at the Republicans, who they accuse of selling them
out to big businesses.

Democrats are working their way past depression to anger because their party,
despite majorities in the House and Senate, has not made significant advances for
immigrants, or women, or unions, or African Americans, or environmentalists, or gays
and lesbians, or civil libertarians, or people dedicated to health care, or human
rights, or jobs or housing or economic justice. Democrats also think their party is
selling out to big business.

Forty three years ago next month, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached in Riverside
Church in New York City that “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” He went on to
condemn the Vietnam War and the system which created it and the other injustices
clearly apparent. “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We
must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing oriented” society to a “person oriented”
society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are
considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and
militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

It is time.

Bill is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at
Loyola University New Orleans. Quigley77 at gmail.com