[imc-korea] article to publish

[Sudhama Ranganathan]

i have an article of international interest to publish








      The Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial Branches First - All
Others Below (pt. 1)



    The constitution of my country, United States the Constitution, has been
the blueprint for this nation’s government since being written by the
founding fathers.  In the Constitution some of the most important and
fundamental guiding principles regarding how our government should be
carried out and what every citizen’s relationship to it should be has been
written for all to see lest we forget.   The people wrote it and stated
unequivocally that it was to be a government meant to serve the needs of the
people of this nation.  It was not meant to be a form of excessive controls
over people nor a way to exploit the citizens of this land in favor of
lining the pockets of other interests.

    In the Constitution those wise men went about setting up the mechanisms
by which the people of the United States were to be served by a government.
The first three articles of the Constitution set up the system of government
still basically active today.  These begin the framework for setting up the
relationship of the federal government to the citizens of the country, the
individual states and even other nations.  They set forth unequivocally
that, in terms of the federal government, all governmental powers, sectors
of government, agencies, etc. underneath it are just that.  They are
underneath what those sections described which are the Legislative,
Executive and Judicial branches of government, first and foremost, with
respect to the relationships and respective powers of each.

    Today constitutionality and what the founding fathers intended is a very
hotly debated issue.  The last administration really helped kick this into
overdrive on virtually all sides of the political spectrum with their
response to the events of September 11, 2001.  After that the relationship
between the government and the citizenry came under serious scrutiny.

Before that most of us assumed the government was working for the citizens
with the best intentions – at least at that time in this country’s history.
But the overreach was so great in terms of a power grab and the lies, in
conjunction with their ignoring of the place of the government relative to
American citizens, ordinary folks woke up.

There was a massive progressive reaction and independent reaction in the
2008 election and one of slightly less size, but still large in the 2010
election from conservatives and independents.  In both cases Americans were
upset with the two wars and the faltering economy mostly.  In the case of
the latter election it was mostly the economy and the huge taxpayer bailout
of the very financial industry that got us into the problem in the first
place and this was not the first bailout. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management)

People began to look at the size of government and the way our government
had gotten to the point where the rich and powerful had begun to have an
inordinate amount of influence over our government.  The economy really
brought this issue under the heat lamps.  Here was a once vibrant nation
that had obviously not lived up to what its people had expected of the
leadership.

Americans started to take a look at ourselves and our government to see what
went wrong and how things slipped away from the hands of the voters to such
an extent.  Where did it start and what people and more importantly policies
led to our state?  Though still the most powerful nation in the world people
could feel a noticeable slip.  It had been felt for a long time, but things
were beginning to coalesce and make some sense now.  Although Americans
started to look, it went unseen that, though perpetuated by current
circumstances, this started long before Bush or Obama.

Our nation during the Cold War, or rather politicians and those tasked with
this county’s defense (under the Executive Branch) decided on a strategy to
develop allies in various parts of the world to combat the and contain a
similar policy implemented by the USSR (now Russia).  One of the ways we
decided to do this was to build up governments that were to be touted as
models of American style government and the benefits over communism and
socialism of doing so.  In Asia we took Japan and worked out a system that
would be a structural guide that developed into what we told most folks back
home was an American style democracy but was actually a false one where
there was an Emperor and elections were held but the same party kept
winning.

After some time we began a false currency manipulation system with Japan
where products manufactured there would be shipped here for sale on the
cheap to our markets and they would keep their market closed and prices on
our goods high.  Their manufacturing base expanded greatly and this went
from smaller products to larger ones.  They became a wealthy nation as a
result and many others in the area followed suit all with our government’s
tacit or explicit approval to show up the Soviets by letting all in the
region know those sided with us would be better off.

During those times American investment in Asian countries rocketed up and
many of our companies started moving their manufacturing bases to Asia to
have their goods sold more cheaply here with greater profit for them.  Folks
in America were told this was a part of the hands off/ free market American
style system working and in Asian countries they were told the same things.
Americans who questioned what was happening – specifically the loss of good
solid American manufacturing jobs – were called un-patriotic and Commies.
To be called that could mean the loss of work and social isolation whether
the allegations were true or not.  They called it “globalization.”  Almost
sounds too big to do anything about huh?

Yet this was not the free market and middle class America paid a huge price
that continues today.  We just heard the president and other politicians
address different ways to have innovation help spur our recovery and way out
of the recession and debt.  He rightly stressed manufacturing, but perhaps
not as much as he could have.  He said jobs that went overseas cannot come
back.  There has been a lot of talk from economists saying the exact same
things from all sides.  They have told us those jobs won’t come back and
cannot.  Americans should write them off they say.  Yet is that true?

The president and most politicians are just listening to their advisors.
They have so much on their respective plates they have to.  They can’t be
masters of it all.  Yet, advisors said we would be recovering by now with
the bailouts.   Advisors said the warnings of plane attacks on major cities
in August of 2001 could be ignored.  Then they said we could invade Iraq
because it would be over soon.  They said Afghanistan could be ignored in
favor of Iraq.  They said having Egypt’s Mubarak as an ally fit with the
ideals of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Experts and advisors aren’t always right.

 The fact is those jobs are there in Asia still as a part of Cold War
policies which are as outdated as the idea women should still be in the
kitchen rattling the pots and pans.  Period.  We don’t need so many troops
in the Asia Pacific Rim, East Asia or Southeast Asia.  This doesn’t mean
pull all out now, but it’s time to start a process of draw down as this
stuff is costly – too costly.  We don’t need so many in friendly places like
Europe.  40,000 in Germany alone in 2011?  What for?  There are even parts
of the Middle East we could draw down a little and start cutting corners on,
though much less there.

See, taxpayers are footing the bill so certain people under the Department
of Defense can stay very powerful which gives them inordinate influence over
our leaders and the top three branches of government in general.  This is
not talking about the troops of course because they don’t call the shots,
make policy or draw up the plans.  There are sprawling bases and many
expensive private contractors to service them.  The middle class in America
is slipping while still footing these bills.  It is unfair and has to stop.

Some of it is preposterous.  Sure people need soap, laundry, food, etc.  But
some of what we support and pay for is not things most Americans wouldn’t
approve of nor can afford quite frankly.

Let’s look at golf courses a little.  Some folks may be saying, “doesn’t he
mean gulf?” but no the game of golf.  Nick Turse says in a book published by
Metropolitan books in 2008, “According to its officially stated mission, the
DoD engages in war-fighting, humanitarian, peacekeeping, evacuation, and
homeland-security missions and, says the Pentagon, provides ‘the military
forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of the United States.
Everything we do supports that primary mission.’ How, exactly, golf courses
ensure that primary mission is a little murky, especially since the United
States has more than 8,100 public courses and over 3,500 semiprivate courses
(that allow some access to nonmembers). A more apt explanation is the fact
that when it comes to golf, like much else, the Pentagon does what it wants,
no matter who gets tee'd off.

 “They, however, never make mention of the fact that these facilities are
located on public land and pay no taxes; that they require funds for
security; and that in all likelihood the public pays for the roads, water,
and electric lines that service the courses -- sore points raised by former
Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini in the mid-1990s when Andrews Air Force
Base was sinking $5.1 million into its third course. (If the DoD really
wanted to raise revenues, it would sell its courses. For example, the army's
Garmisch, Kornwestheim, and Heidelberg golf courses in Germany are worth,
says the DoD, $6.6 million, $13.3 million, and $16.5 million, respectively,
while the DoD's Sungnam golf course in the Republic of Korea is reportedly
valued at $26 million.)” (http://www.alternet.org/economy/82009/?page=2)

There are such golf courses in Japan, Thailand and elsewhere.  We love our
troops and we want them to have the requisite downtime and r&r they need,
but again this is about the military just overstretching and the huge prices
taxpayers must dole out to foot the bill.  We simply don’t need that many
bases.  That doesn’t not mean close them all it means cuts, cuts and more
cuts.  This is but a tiny aspect of the totally unnecessary costs we have to
shoulder.  These bases are propping up the financial arrangements for
wealthy company owners to have their manufacturing bases in places like
Asia.

Also it protects oil for wealthy Americans in the Middle East to name a
couple of concerns.  They have already shipped our jobs overseas, what more
do they want?  Close down the golf courses and let wealthy Americans donate
them for the troops out of patriotism.

But does that really help our mission of helping to spread democracy and
liberty around the world?  Let’s look at South Korea, and a golf course not
owned by our military, but which speaks volumes about our legacy in that
area and how perverted our views regarding foreign policy have become.  In
1948 our government handed control of South Korea over to a dictator named
Syngman Rhee.  Although the people of South Korea had tried to set up a
democracy we instead gave him the reigns.

His rule was responsible for many atrocities in South Korea and brutal
repression of dissent.  On April 3, 1948 during a demonstration
commemorating the Korean struggle against their former Japanese colonialist
rulers the government of Rhee decided to crack down.  As in Egypt today the
people rebelled.  There were some communists in the crowd as the government
points out, but there were non-communists also.

The government began a massacre brutal and bloody as any.  In the process
there were between thirty thousand and sixty thousand people slaughtered.
As part of the crackdown the government with our government’s approval sent
in untrained civilians that slaughtered men and children then forced the
widows to marry them, thus forcing them to cede their land to them.

They profited as this became a resort beach years later.  The graves of the
victims went unmarked and were landscaped over with a golf course for
tourists.  The people of South Korea never forgot and it always stung them.
Yet American citizens have been oblivious to it and kept in the dark.  An
example of this can be seen from April of 1996.

Then President Bill Clinton went there to that now beach resort and played
golf on the unmarked graves without mentioning anything about the victims
that were buried.  Nor did he make mention of the women still alive forced
to watch him play golf on the bones of between thirty and sixty thousand of
their dead husbands and children while they were forced into matrimonial
bondage as slaves.  They would die as such. (
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=1907872) (Johnson,
Metropolitan Books/ Henry Holt, 2000)

Today we see in Egypt an example of a government we supported because it fit
our aims though not our stated ones. The dictator given the title of
president there Mubarak has been one of our allies that we turned a blind
eye to so we could get what we wanted and hold onto power in the Middle
East.  As a report from Human Rights Watch points out he, “epitomizes the
authoritarian Arab ruler, presiding over a system in which opponents are
muzzled and imprisoned, and where torture is widespread. Yes, Mubarak
greeted Obama's inauguration by releasing Egypt's most famous political
prisoner -- opposition politician Ayman Nour.

“But he has shown no inclination to pursue broader reforms, and seems intent
on installing his son as his successor. And he keeps dubious company, having
flagrantly challenged one of the Obama administration's priorities by
inviting President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan to Cairo after his indictment by
the International Criminal Court. Mubarak reportedly refused to visit
Washington during George W. Bush's second term because of that
administration's occasional criticism of his repressive policies. How the
Obama administration receives him will tell us a great deal about the
importance it attaches to promoting human rights and democracy in the Middle
East.” (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/13/mubarak-test)

That was published in May of 2009.  Our overseas policies have often come
back to bite us in the backside and not been in keeping with our supposed
ultimate foreign policy goals of spreading democracy and freedom for all.
Often this is because the top three branches of our government have found
themselves being manipulated by special interests including the interests of
those in the now too large Department of Defense overseeing the vast
military infrastructure we have built up first to combat the tyranny during
World War II then to keep the Soviets in check.

Yet when you say Soviets or USSR to a young person today you are likely to
get a quizzical look as it is no longer on the radar.  Perhaps one reason is
the USSR no longer exists.  There are those that believe we still need to
bolster dictators, tyrants and financial arrangements that make Americans
poor while enriching other nations.  But, that is something that benefits
not America, whether those profiting want to see it or not.  It’s time to
rethink those policies and put the power back into the hands of the Three
Branches of power as laid out in the first three articles of the
constitution.

Whether they like it or not that is American.  Americans are becoming poor
to keep generals playing golf on lush million dollar resort level courses
and much much more.  It’s time to end those policies.  We the people are
subservient to no one –like it or not.  Don’t believe that?  Read the
Constitution.

  To read about my inspiration for this article go to
www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.
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