Chris Hedges at Truthdig writes:

“The costs of our most basic needs, from food to education to health care, are at the same time being pushed upward with no control or regulation. Tuition and fees at four-year colleges climbed 300 percent between 1990 and 2011, fueling the college loan crisis that has left graduates, most of them underemployed or unemployed, with more than $1 trillion in debt. Health care costs over the same period have risen 150 percent. Food prices have climbed 10 percent since June, according to the World Bank. There are now 46.7 million U.S. citizens, and one in three children, who depend on food stamps. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under Obama has, meanwhile, expelled 1.5 million immigrants, a number that dwarfs deportations carried out by his Republican predecessor. And while we are being fleeced, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank has since 2008 doled out $16 trillion to national and global financial institutions and corporations.”

Comment:

I don’t really see the removal of these support systems as such a calamity for the beneficiaries, except in a minority of cases. I see it mostly as a calamity for the providers and political allies of the support system.

That is cynical, but, here where I am, it’s hard to get anyone to work for less than $15 an hour, which is only ten dollars less than what I’ve worked for lately and much more than I’ve worked for when much younger.

So, not to be heartless, but cry me a river.

If you can’t find cheap or even free food somewhere in the US being given out by private donors/churches, then you are simply not looking hard enough.

You can live on sprouts raised in a one-bedroom apartment. You can grow food on the fringes of an abandoned lot or, with nice neighbors, in someone’s garden.

Health care bothers me more, because, really, if you have a sick child in need of brain surgery, alternative medicine isn’t going to help you.  So yes. That’s a serious issue.

Food costs rising 10%. Wow. Over how long? What sort of food? Where are you shopping? You can still get bread for around a dollar a loaf if you look. And canned veggies can run between 50 cents and a buck a can.

Spinach is up a buck from a few years ago. So stop eating spinach and eat kale which is still around the same price, or just a bit more.

Instant coffee is up a lot, but it’s not good for you anyway. If you look around and buy non-brands, or ground, you can still manage, if you must have your shot of caffein.

But that’s not starvation, by any means.

Having got that caveat out of the way, let’s indulge Mr. Hedges and agree with everything else he says.

So what is he proposing to do about it?

Nothing, except write eloquent tracts and vote for a third party. More politics, in other words.

Here’s my solution.

It doesn’t require voting.

It requires public support and anger.

Can you muster up some anger that’s directed and focused, instead of wasted on “Illuminati,” “lizards,” “German death cults” and so on?

Let’s stick with those we can get our hands on, and then I promise you  the Illuminati will be delivered dead as a door-nail to you.

Instead of attacking Iran, let’s attack the financial institutions and corporations that got public money to the tune of  $16 trillion.

How hard is that? Most of the corporations are HQ’d here on US soil…or on Israeli soil, which is maybe not all that different these days.

All it would take is a bit of will power.

Declare the enemy to be those 100 or so individuals named by the establishment itself as the cause of the financial crisis (check out Vanity Fair).

To be fair and balanced, we can add a few more to bring the total to about 200-300.

They all come with attached corporations. Declare a retaliatory war on all of them. Don’t waste time assigning levels of guilt. Don’t waste time trying to do any of this through the legal system either. It’s been bought off.

Create a military tribunal special to the commission of war crimes. Because we are in an economic war. A war conducted through the stock exchange.

Any legal action taken against the b******* will not affect the body of law or constitutional theory because it will pertain to war-making. America is full of clever lawyers. Someone can spin a good theory that will keep the enemy tied up in court while public opinion builds up against him.

Declare these 300 enemy combatants and round them up.

All bail-out money can be frozen immediately and seized.

All senior managers of bailed out corporations, with no exceptions, can be fined for their dereliction of duty during the financial crisis.

It costs too much and the system is too captured to go after individuals.

For the most culpable individuals, we can toy with the possibility of the electric chair, or, at least, life imprisonment…. but not at tax-payer expense.

Their punishment can be billed to their corporations for life.

Just indict the senior managers of all companies guilty of (economic) war crimes.

That would be a start.

We’ll spare them and us a Nuremberg trial, since we’re not interested in grand-standing prosecutors getting air time.

Quietly, quickly, seize the equivalent of the bail-out funds from their assets and return that money to the public treasury.

Then, divest the criminals of their citizenship, divest their corporations of legal status and protections.  Exile them to any country that will take them, with the proviso that they are permanently disbarred from working as managers, consultants, brokers, advisers, ever again, either directly or indirectly.

They can try manual labor in some place that’s thoroughly un-policed; where it’s each man for himself.

Libertarian nirvana.

Let’s see how they like it, when they’re starving nobodies and the bribers and blackmailers are no longer their friends but their enemies.

Publish photo IDs on the net, with no compunction, so they can be turned in wherever they flee, because one and all of these criminals have supported the spy state and surveillance for the rest of us. One and all of them have made money off of it.

A taste of their own medicine will be salutary.

Co-ordinate with the laws of other countries to ensure that rules aren’t bent for them.

Drive the top three hundred racketeers off the face of the US, confiscate their booty, and voila, problem solved.

So why doesn’t anyone do it?

Because, you, dear reader, are unwilling to do your part.

Which is to actually use your head and stop trusting people who manage to be so very angry..in a general way… but never actually name any names.

Who never ask for major criminals to be prosecuted, but waffle on about the sanctity of property and gun ownership.

They’re all for prosecuting criminals who attack their own own homes and properties. Then, there’s no mercy or compassion.

But if you don’t want the criminals at the top prosecuted, then you shouldn’t want those at the bottom prosecuted either.

If you believe in compassion and mercy for criminals, let it be all for all criminals.

Either punishment for all or punishment for none.

If you won’t jail the financiers, then open the jails and never jail anyone again.

Break open Super Max.

Batter down the doors of Alcatraz.

Let the murderers walk. Let the serial killers go free. Forgive the child rapists and the arsonists.

Weep for the bankers? Then you must weep for the burglars.

Put down your gun when the home invaders come. When your wife is raped, embrace the rapist and talk to him of mercy and compassion.

When Ted Bundy or Jeremy Dahmer stalks the land, talk about mercy and forgiveness to them too.

Then..and only then… will I  believe you.

Either prosecute the top 300 criminals of the financial crisis, the ones named by your own pet institutions and pet journalists, or shut up forever.

And you fools out there.  You suckers who line up to hand your pitiful savings  to charlatan activists.

Stop following clowns and jokers.

They are whited sepulchers. The numbers prove it.

300 or so corporate bosses/financial honchos on one side. Three hundred million non-bosses and non-honchos on the other.

Do the math.

Can’t you see if that if we can’t get the job done, it’s not for lack of man-power but from lack of will?

It’s because we prefer to sit on our backsides, play with slogans, t-shirts, and pretty girls on videos telling us how Google or Microsoft really really loves us, while we high-five our buddies on forums.

Do we really care about changing the system?

Or do we just want to talk about…or pay other people to talk to us about…. how someone else can change the system….if he’s paid enough to do it….

Think about that the next time someone complains about politicians, bankers, elites and the rest.

Take a good look in the mirror.

Let’s ask ourselves what any of us have done to change things. Ask ourselves  if it cost us anything. Ask ourselves why we expect anyone else to do what we ourselves are unwilling to do.