Sunday, May 1, 2011

To the Editor:

Most Americans want millionaires and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. We want universal health care, affordable education and housing, Social Security, and Medicare. Americans want clean renewable energy and safe, healthy food. We want freedom and liberty. We donít want endless wars, hydro-fracking, bailouts of big banks, or fat cat lobbyists dictating government policy. Reliable surveys support all of the above statements.

What do we get? Tax cuts for the rich and gaping tax loopholes for corporations. Skyrocketing health costs and 40 million without health insurance. Foreclosures galore and attacks on Social Security and Medicare. We get endless wars bankrupting us fiscally and morally. We get oil spills, nuclear leaks, GMO frankenstein foods, fracking, drilling and extreme weather from climate change. We are spied upon, lied to, frisked at airports, and subject to assassination by Presidential decree because of the so called ìwar on terror.î

We canít have what we want because the USA is an occupied territory. It is occupied by a military/industrial/corporate ìpower eliteî which is driven by radical greed and an insatiable appetite for profits and power. An occupied people never get what they want. Just ask the Palestinians.

The Palestinian people have been occupied militarily by Israel for decades. There are lots of things the Palestinians want; like enough food, water, electricity, and fuel to survive from day to day. They would like their stolen land and homes back, and to be free from attacks, abuse and daily humiliation by the Israeli Defense Forces and violent Jewish settlers. Palestinians want their freedom and many Israelis support this. Nearly the entire world wants this (look at the UN votes critical of Israel). So why canít they get what they want?

For the same reason we canít! The same powerful interests that stifle the true aspirations of the American people are working to maintain the status quo in Palestine/Israel. The $3 Billion dollars of US taxpayer money that goes to Israel each year is one way our military/ industrial complex exerts influence over the Middle East. The tentacles of occupation are crushing all of us in a death grip from which we must all struggle to break free.

Eli Kassirer New Paltz, NY

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