Urgent Need for Comprehensive Change and Reform: A Call to Arms

(Updated October 31, 2011)

Summary

If we continue with the current failed monetary system and capitalism, do not work together and have comprehensive change and reform, we will have:

•    A massive perhaps endless depression and worldwide unemployment

•    Increasing poverty, malnutrition, hunger, preventable and curable diseases, homelessness and illiteracy

•    Endless wars, occupations, militarism and empire building

•    More torture, abuse, extraordinary rendition, false arrests and non judicial murders

•    Chronic water, energy shortages, environment degradation and natural resource depletion

The following statistics provided by John Williams at Shadow Government Statistics (http://www.shadowstats.com) show we are already in a depression that is getting worse:

Actual Unemployment:

July, 22.7%

August, 22.8%

September, 23.1%

Actual Inflation:

July, 11.21%

August, 11.35%

September, 11.35%

Actual U.S. Gross Domestic Product annualized growth rate:

Fourth Quarter, 2010, -2.21%

First Quarter, 2011, -2.60%

Second Quarter, 2011, -2.83%

“Note that unemployment, when measured as it was in the Great Depression, now stands at not even 2% less than it was in 1934 at the height of the Great Depression.” Also note the massive actual inflation rates.

Although we can and should be optimistic about the future, we must realize that our country is experiencing a massive social/humanitarian, ethics/moral, unemployment, diplomatic, political, constitutional, health care/cost and environmental crises. We also must realize that many of our public and private sector officials are not telling us the truth, have no real solutions to these crises and little if any empathy for their fellow human beings.

"We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them." —Tony Judt

“This quote appears on the first page of my dad's book Ill Fares the Land. The book is a call to arms for my generation: if we do not learn to "‘re-think' the state" and break away from the purely money- and market-oriented world we were born into, these questions of right, justice and betterment of society will fade. This, my dad argued, would be catastrophic. My generation must be capable of looking at society through the lens of ethics and morality rather than efficiency and productivity. The question, then, is how to engineer this change before we, too, become engulfed by an obsession with wealth. ” – Daniel Judt

The world is "lurching toward a full-scale depression" according to Barry Grey , and Rob Sewell .

“The conventional view is that nothing much can be done [by the current financial institutions to end the recession and prevent a depression]” according to Martin Wolf, chief economic strategist of the Financial Times, September 2, 2011. Senior executives of the for profit, central bank based economic system caused most of the ongoing recession and most certainly cannot and will not prevent a depression. Financial institutions are carrying over $1,000 trillion of almost worthless derivatives on their books at face not market value. The recent attempts to bail out these institutions with over $23.7 trillion of taxpayers money in grants, very low/no interest loans and guaranties was a horrific mistake. Austerity measures and using more taxpayers money to bail out these institutions will make the current recession much.

Since 2007, the Federal Reserve, FDIC and the U. S. Treasury have provided, loaned or committed over $23.7 trillion of taxpayers money to prop up selective, insolvent banks and financial institutions that lost trillions of dollars trading derivatives. Banks are obtaining funds from the Fed and the government at very low (0 to .35) interest rates and charging exorbitant interest rates on the money that they are willing to lend. These banks and financial institutions are foreclosing on homes, small farms and businesses and paying their executives hundreds of millions in salaries. In the richest country in the world, at least the one with the most millionaires, we have many children being born homeless thanks to these bankers and businessmen and our politicians.

Properly applied, $23.7 trillion could have prevented the recession, paid for single payer health care for all, and eliminated the need for income and sales tax on the poor and middle class for years. Instead it has been used to buy almost worthless derivatives and pay massive bonuses and salaries to the individuals who bought and sold these derivatives.

Homeless shelters are overwhelmed by need, a lot more mothers with daughters are homeless for the first time, states are implementing deep cuts to shelter funding, rising numbers of families are unable to pay funeral costs, food bank are recording double-digit increases in clients year after year, 85 percent of recent graduates cannot find decent jobs and are moving back into their parents’ homes, hundreds of schools are threatened with closure, rent subsidies to homeless families are being eliminated, etc. etc.

The very complicated and poorly organized $787 billion Stimulus Act created than two million new jobs. If done properly, the $787 billion could have been used to employ 10 million people with average annual salaries of $40,000, for two years and the repression would have disappeared.

The below Bureau of Labor Statistics graphs show the number of unemployed from January 2000 through August 2011. 

According to official Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14.0 million Americans were unemployed and no jobs were added in August, 2011. If those who have given up looking for jobs but would work and those working part time because they cannot find full time jobs were counted, total unemployed would be 25 million to perhaps 30 million.

Our democracy is being eroded by some in our own government who have no allegiance to the founding principles of our Republic.

Some executives from large corporations, some extremely rich individuals, neocons, radical religious fundamentalists and others - not, we the people, - are exercising excessive control over many of our federal, state and local governments. They control most of the media, public sector resources, environmental laws, judicial institutions, political parties, etc. They tweak the tax code, manipulate the regulatory agencies, and funnel campaign contributions to their favorite politicians who conduct a shell-game of carefully crafted misinformation and theatrical propaganda.

Senior U.S. government officials used false pretenses to justify the invasion of Iraq. The ensuing occupation paved the way for U.S. oil company executives to illegally take control of Iraq's oil industries and reserves benefitting only themselves.

It is a crime that the people of the United States are paying with their tax dollars and lives for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Gas, oil, munitions makers and defense contractors pay millions in lobbying as their ante to ensure billions flow back to them. In turn, senior corporate executives are rewarded with lavish compensation and bonuses and politicians with lavish campaign contributions and other favors.

The world is facing many tough challenges which are not being adequately addressed. These include global warming, poverty, stagnant wages, lack of affordable housing, chronic worldwide unemployment, malnutrition, poor physical, dental, mental, and emotional health, failing ecological systems, continuing wars, conflicts, nuclear proliferation and many uncaring and unethical government officials. These and other challenges are in Section 2 C Problems of the Vision. .

Our governments, institutions and systems are failing us not because they are basically unsound, but because of the actions or lack of actions of individuals, not organizations, agencies, or corporations. Not enough of us take the time to understand our constitution, our rights and the underlying causes of our problems. The people who do pay attention tend to be misled by corrupt politicians and the “in-bedded” industrial-media complex who willingly publish misinformation because much of the media's revenue comes from these same companies through advertisements.

There are no excuses for the extent of these problems. We the people deserve better.

Happily, what is outlined under the People's Strategy below will end the recession, avoid a depression and accomplish the above purpose and objectives.