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It has been 2015 for over 24 hours in some parts of the world. Before New Year's Day passes in the US, I want to share a resolution that I hope others will consider.
Like it or not, a global democratic revolution requires a continuous process of education, especially in economically privileged "democratic" nations. In those countries, people have been brainwashed for years into thinking that their prosperity was based on their superior economic and political system, when in fact it was based on the appropriation of the resources of less developed nations.
With the death of manufacturing in the US and the financialization of the global economy, the illusion is coming to an end. Now is the time that we have to insist that our fellow citizens realize the costs of allowing our governments to be corrupted by those who have brought the economy and environment to the point of total destruction.
Given their control over the corporate media, we must use every means at our disposal to bypass the media blockade on the truth. In addition to staging actions that the media cannot ignore, we have to use the editorial pages, where diversity of opinion still exists and average people can have their voices heard.
I therefore resolve to write to the papers in my area often enough to get at least one letter published per month in each. My letters will focus not on what the corporate media is blathering about, but the fundamental truths it ignores.
Here is a letter I got published in The Register Guard yesterday. I hope it will inspire others to begin writing regularly.
"...There is no better way than by speaking up in the corporate media with editorials like this and a constant barrage of letters to the editor like this one I just had published in The Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon:
"...We cannot develop informed opinions without weighing verifiable facts against unsupported nonsense from media "experts" who rarely question what they are told by the government about foreign events.
In the absence of a skeptical media, CIA-vetted press releases substitute for reporting and pundits base their analyses on lies.
We can only hope that enough of the truth gets through the mainstream media through sources like (an article the R-G printed) that Americans eventually realize that the US has become an Empire.
Powerful war profiteers control foreign policy. They are intent on establishing global dominance through any means necessary. Like all empires, this one is corrupt and will eventually fall.
Compared to past empires, the US heads the most powerful military, economic and political alliance in human history. In its death throes, it has the potential to cause unprecedented suffering.
How many Americans even realize that as the Mideast is descending into US-caused chaos, we are openly challenging Russia and China?
In a democracy, the People have a responsibility to provide a check on their government when it becomes an aggressor on the world stage.
Germany failed to do so in 1933 and paid the price a few years later. Will America be remembered any differently?"