<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">From: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">"Global Network" <<a href="mailto:globalnet@mindspring.com" class="">globalnet@mindspring.com</a>></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">
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<h2 class="story-title"><a title="http://www.timesrecord.com/news/2015-06-23/Commentary/A_HollowedOut_Economy_and_a_Drowning_Democracy.html" href="http://www.timesrecord.com/news/2015-06-23/Commentary/A_HollowedOut_Economy_and_a_Drowning_Democracy.html" class=""><font size="3" class="">http://www.timesrecord.com/news/2015-06-23/Commentary/A_HollowedOut_Economy_and_a_Drowning_Democracy.html</font></a></h2>
<h2 class="story-title">A Hollowed-Out Economy and a Drowning Democracy
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<div class="odd field-item">BY BRUCE K. GAGNON </div></div></div>
<div class="meter-message"></div><div class=""><span class="inline inline-left"><a class="lightbox-processed" style="href: "http://www.timesrecord.com/sites/www.timesrecord.com/files/images/2015-06-23/21p1.jpg"" rel="lightbox[][]"><img title="" class="image image-_original " alt="" src="http://www.timesrecord.com/sites/www.timesrecord.com/files/images/2015-06-23/21p1.jpg" width="215" height="52"></a></span></div><div class=""><span class="inline inline-left"></span>Gov. Paul LePage carries water for
America’s corporate oligarchy. (Webster’s Dictionary defines oligarchy as
“government in which power is in the hands of the few.”)</div><div class="">A quick review of LePage’s time in office makes clear that he serves the
interests of the rich and the mega-corporations. America is being hollowed out
as jobs move overseas and democracy is drowned by corporate power.</div>
<div id="pt_preview_map" class="www_timesrecord_com">The governor does not care
about the rule of law, thus his efforts to ignore <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Maine</span>rs’ votes on bonds. The governor
vetoes bills from the opposition party no matter the content. His primary goal
is to divide the people of Maine against one another — to make the state
ungovernable. This is the basic corporate agenda that is being played out across
the nation and literally around the world.</div><div class="">The U.S. corporate-run government spent $5 billion taxpayer dollars to help
direct the coup d’état in <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Kiev,
Ukraine</span> just over a year ago. Now a civil war is underway on <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Russia</span>’s border. U.S. Army troops are
currently in western Ukraine training the “National Guard.” Neo-Nazi brigades
have been put into military uniforms (likely also provided by U.S. taxpayers),
and are being drilled and sent to the front to fight against Ukrainian citizens
in the eastern part of their nation. The citizens in the east are called
“separatists” because they want to speak their native language, Russian, and
continue trading with Russia as they have for thousands of years. (It would be
like the people of western <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Maine</span>
wanting to have trade and cultural relations with their relatives just over the
<span class="pt_term pt_location_term">New Hampshire</span> border.)</div><div class="">I call the people in eastern Ukraine “self-defense forces” as they defend
themselves from constant missile shelling by the U.S.- NATO-supplied puppet
regime in Kiev. Kiev’s forces bomb civilian apartment buildings, schools, day
care centers, hospitals, airports and railroad stations. Thousands of innocent
people have been killed. Why?</div><div class="">The U.S.-NATO strategy in Ukraine has been clearly spelled out by George
Friedman, founder and CEO of the private intelligence corporation STRATFOR.
Friedman says that the U.S. wants “regime change” in <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Moscow</span>.</div><div class=""><span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Russia</span> has the world’s largest
supply of natural gas and significant supplies of oil. In addition, due to
climate change, the Arctic Sea ice is melting. Western oil corporations are
itching to drill there. Russia has the largest land border with the Arctic Sea.
Don’t we know by now that the #1 job of the Pentagon is to serve as the primary
resource extraction service for corporate globalization?</div><div class="">The corporations run the show in <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Washington</span>. Just as democracy is being
drowned in <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Maine</span>, it has been
drowned at the national level, and the U.S. economy has been hollowed out. We’ve
been turned into a militarized culture where we do endless war on behalf of
corporate globalization.</div>
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<div id="group-id-tids-153" class="advertisement group-tids-153"></div></div></div><div class="">If we were truly a democratic nation we’d be having a raging national debate
about whether or not the U.S. should be in the middle of waging a war on <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Russia</span>’s border. Usually, the U.S. likes
to invade small nations that can’t really fight back like <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Grenada</span>, <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Panama</span>, <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Nicaragua</span>, <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Afghanistan</span>, <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Iraq</span> or Libya. But now, the U.S. is
surrounding Russia (and <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">China</span>)
with an expanding NATO and deploying so-called “missile defense” systems that
are key elements in the Pentagon’s first-strike attack program, along their
borders. Russia and China could actually fight back and WW III would likely turn
into a nuclear exchange real quick.</div><div class="">To pay for all of this Congress wants further cuts in programs like Social
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and what little is left of the welfare program.
So, at the state and national levels we see politicians like Gov. LePage running
divisive campaigns to demonize welfare recipients in order to create the
political climate to justify these cuts. (When do we ever hear any politicians
screaming about the hundreds of billions of dollars of welfare given to
corporations each year?)</div><div class="">Don’t hold your breath waiting for the corporate-dominated media to bring
this crucial story to our TV sets. Their job is “infotainment” and promoting
mass consumerism. The American people have been abandoned by the corporate
agenda. We’ve got to figure this one out ourselves if we hope to provide any
real future for the coming generations.</div><div class="">———</div><div class=""><span class=""><em class="">Bruce K. Gagnon lives in <span class="pt_term pt_location_term">Bath</span> and is a member of
PeaceWorks.</em></span> </div></div>
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