False Democracy

I believe a revolution is necessary. However, I don't

think that it necessarily has to be a violent

uprising. I think that what is needed first of all is

a revolution of the mindset of the general public of

North America (hell, Europe too but I'll stick to our

side of the ocean). Our democracy is not the problem,

the fact that our democracy has sold its soul to

capitalism is the problem; transnational corporations

have extreme amounts of control and their grip on

earth and its people is strengthening (If you get a

chance to watch THE CORPORATION then do so, it

explains this all very well and why it is terrible).

The idea that capitalism has hijacked our democracy is

evident through the actions our governmental leaders

take. Well first, when I say "capitalism" I mean the

train of thought that money/profit has higher

importance then everything else (human/worker/animal

rights, environmental concerns/realities, etc. etc.).

The World Trade Organization (WTO

www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/wto/") is a prime

example of this, along with trade "agreements" like

the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA

http://www.canadians.org/documents/NAFTA_at_Ten.pdf)

and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA

www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/ftaa/topten.html").

With the WTO, NAFTA and FTAA (not to mention CAFTA,

the IMF/World Bank...) we see government

"representatives" from many countries gathering behind

closed doors holding meetings in secret about trade

policies that directly and/or indirectly affect every

human being in the countries represented; millions of

people who have no input into policies that will

decide their future. They'd rather us all just shut

up, or better yet, to not even know of this. When you

hear in the news, IF you hear in the news, of large

protests at say the FTAA ministerial meetings the

articles will focus on protestor/police clashes, which

are usually rather biased, but never seriously address

the question of WHY tens of thousands of people deemed

it of importance to travel from their homes in order

to protest the FTAA. But back to those affected: For

NAFTA it's CAN/US/MEX, for FTAA it's every country in

the Americas (34 I believe, minus Cuba), for the WTO

it's at about 146 countries now. There are so many

facets to what these trade policies involve (good 43

page reading on this is "A Peoples' Guide to the WTO

and the FTAA"

http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/downloads/Making_the_links_int1.pdf)

but the key thing that can be seen over and over again

is that anything that gets in the way of corporate

profit is marginalized or complete

deconstructed/removed. A country's environmental laws

are seen as in the way of trade and dismantled,

workers rights and unions threatened, human rights

ignored, social securities privatized (health care,

water, energy, post-secondary, libraries,

education...), food security, genetically modified

foods is a whole other issue.

Here's where our problem is: If people rally and get

Bush out of office, although Bush has been worse than

alot of presidents, very little will change. If the

Democrats win (Kerry this year, or whoever else in

other