Colombia: General, Strike

So far, police and army brutality has not gone beyond the usual. That's a plus. But it is a country wide strike of persons in varied sectors of the economy with little communication or considered cooperation yet.

The strikers all have very good reasons and call to strike. Among the various major causes for the strike is the way small set of oligarchic power wielders in Colombia relate to and collude with a set powerful among US power wielder's.

That is US citizens may see the strike as an example of their tax dollars at work.

Mayans and US Tax Dollars

Now that it is becoming unpopular to kill more than a handful of Mayans at a time on what will US taxpayers choose to spend their taxes. My guess is that they will just chose to continue abdicating their responsibility.

I am still foolish enough to be surprised that my fellow taxpaying citizens were willing to pay to promote the killing of Mayans in Guatemala as well as paying for the wherewithal to do so for half a century.

Policy Basics: Introduction to the Federal Budget Process — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Policy Basics: Introduction to the Federal Budget Process — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Good place to begin to find our what they are doing with your money.

Learn the process.

Slaughter in Colombia » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Slaughter in Colombia » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Your tax dollars at work.

Taxes are okay, but lazy citizens can let them be used in very bad ways.

FCNL: Military Spending: Charting the Future

FCNL: Military Spending: Charting the Future

Click on the link above to begin to learn about the cost of our military.

There are some who are trying to slow the rate of increase of military spending.

I know of no real effort to decrease real military spending.

Zorro

I have no memory of having been traumatized in any way in Chile. I do remember spending some interesting and pleasant time in that lovely country in the 1960s.

However, since my time there I have noted in myself a repeating and seemly unwarranted 'anger' related to my notion of Chile. This month, 40 years after my time in Chile, I was at my local library and asked the librarian to recommend an audio book to listen to. She recommended the novel Zorro by Allende. My prompt and unthinking response was that I wasn't interested in anything written by her, that I wasn't interesting in her father, or in any of the rest of her family. I judged that response to be a bit beyond what the situation called for. I librarian's job can be tough. I imagine that serving a neurotic old man is one of her lesser pleasures.

My education in foreign affairs had begun before my arrival in Chile, however it was there that I came to believe that the CIA was real.

What I remember includes is that Eduardo Frei was running for president of the Republic. He was a Conservative running against another Conservative. As I remember the traditional Conservative party's focus of control was with the great land owners. Frei's wing of the Conservative party's focus of control was with the 'young' industrialists of the country. Powerful people in the U.S., as represented by the CIA in Chile, found rightest Frei to be too far to the left for them. So the CIA began acting to destroy him, or perhaps just his chances to be president.

It was my perception that the great bulk of the Chilean people at the time were moderately liberal. Usually they would be attracted to vote for a candidate like Allende. However, many people in large population centers population centers like Santiago, were beginning to note that on the most local level Allende's campaign was using strong-arm and fear tactics. They distrusted and disliked that sort of tactics and so were trending to support Frei.

As I remember it was at about this stage of affairs that I decided that I wanted to return to the U.S. It seems to have been a very quick decision. I told myself that it was prompted by 'homesickness.' I arranged to take a  nitrate ship of the Wilson Line from Antofagasta to Charleston. It was on that ship, just off the coast of Charleston, President Kennedy had just been the subject of a political murder.

It was only later that I learned: that Frei had met Carlos Lleras Restrepo, that we had murdered Frei and so by paved Allende's way into office. It was later yet that I found that activities of the CIA and of Allende lead to the take over of Chile by Pinochet.

My traumatization seems in some way to relate to these happenings, but I have had similar learning experiences over much of the globe without the strong long lasting feelings.

The word 'torture' seems to be somehow to be associated with similar feelings I associate with Chile.

Please use 'comments' to correct history or data errors I may have made here.

Some short years ago I was reminded of some of these things on a flight from Montevideo to Los Angeles. The flight was on LAN via Santiago  Just as I was enjoying a marvelous view of the Andean peaks, the air-conditioning gave a kind of hiccup over my seat and several near-by seats. We all experienced a fit of coughing. Since that time I have experienced constant lung irritation and have been diagnosed as having emphysema. A reinforcing coincident.

So, I experienced a a coincident that seemed to somehow have reminded of , if not reinforced, some long held feelings of unknown origin. I'm not going to pay for psychological help, but I might accept some donated 'talk therapy.'

FCNL: Look, We Found $2 Trillion

FCNL: Look, We Found $2 Trillion

Here is an easy way to take some positive action. Click link above.

Before 1936

Will Rogers wrote:
~ It's a great country but you cant live in it for nothing.
~ You are going to need sales taxes, both Federal and State income tax, and a lot of other kinds. It's a great country, but you can't live in it for nothing.
~ People are wonderful in their generosity if they just know the cause is there.
~ The moment a fellow gets into the Chamber of Commerce, he quits mowing his own lawn.
~ Great artist say that the most beautiful thing in the world is a baby. Well the next is an old lady,every wrinkle is a picture.
~ Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
~ There is nothing so easy as denouncing, it don't tack much to see that something is wrong, but it does take some eyesight to see what will put it right again.
~ A fanatic is always the fellow that is on the opposite side.
~ A man can fool you with his mind, and his soul, and his heart, but if you follow his feet you will pretty near find out where he is going. (My favorite of the day.)

W.R. Quotes

~ Wars will never be a success until you have a referee and until they announce before they start just what they are for.

~Nations will give up their lives (even cheer about it). They will give up their money in order to give up their lives, but to ask one to give up their trade to prevent war, well, that has never been done.

~ When you get into trouble five thousand miles from home you've got to have been looking for it.

~ It takes quite a sense of humor for these people to understand us shaking hands with one hand and shooting with the other.

~Here we go again! America is running true to form, fixing some other country's business for 'em just as we always do. We mean well, but will wind up in wrong as usual.

~ A tax paid on the day you buy is not as tough as asking for it the next year when you are broke.

IMHO, Will Rogers Is An Important Part Of Our History

More W.R. quotes: (I don't believe that they are a precise description of the world, but I do enjoy most of them.)

~ When the big nations quit meddling then the world will have peace.

~ I don't care how little your country is, you got a right to run it like you want to.

~ If Wall Street paid a tax on every "game" they run, we would get enough revenue to run the government on.

~ (if there is) one thing we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage someone else's affairs.

~ Nations are just like individuals, lend them money and you lose their friendship.

~ We would never understand why Mexico wasn't crazy about us, we have always had their goodwill, oil, coffee, and minerals at heart.

~ You can take a sob story and a stick of candy and lead America right off into the dead sea.

~ Headlines in the paper read "Europe Criticizes U.S." If memory serves me right we haven't complimented them lately ourselves.

~ I have a scheme for stopping war, it's this -- No nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

~ Well, they finally stopped us from sending the Marines to every war that we could hear of. They are having on in Afghanistan, the thing will be over before Congress can pronounce it, much less find out where it is located.

FCNL: Our Nation's Checkbook

FCNL: Our Nation's Checkbook

Life and death information about TAXES.


Find out who pays and who benefits.
Decide where you want your money to go, if go it must.

Taxes

I thought that it was good that we, the people, cooperate by pooling our money to improve our chances for well-being and happiness. I did think that we would keep a better eye on it.


I still think that such cooperation can contribute to our health and happiness. However, letting other people use our to pay a few Colombians kill many Colombians does not make me happy. Letting a few people in the U.S. pay a few Pakistanis kill other Pakistanis in their own country does not seem to be contributing to my good health. 

Heads Up!

President Clinton gave you a heads up about NAFTA which you refused to heed.

Are you heeding President Obama's heads up about who you intend to pay and what you intend to give up?
It's about taxes.
If you snooze you lose.
If you don't participate in the dialogue you lose.
If you don't get the facts you lose.
If you don't get the information you lose.
It is easy to lose.

American Blood

One might say that American tax theory is based on American blood: those who 'give' the most blood pay the lowest tax.

Another way to be fair is to say that he who benefits most, pays the most tax. He who benefits least pays the least.

For example doesn't Uncle Ben benefit more than most of use. We subsidize the growing of the rice he uses. We subsidize the railroads he ships on. The people he gets rice from, get irrigation water
at a reduced rate.

What's fair?

Whose Territory Is This?

How can we tell whose territory this is?
Is it his who gets the goodies?
Is it he who has the wealth?
Is it he who has the biggest gun?
Is it he who controls the wealth?
Is it he who is closest to God?
Is it he who collects the taxes?
Is it he who is obligated to pay taxes?
Is it he who disperses the tax money?
Is it the one to whom the most tax money is disbursed?
Is it he who benefits most from the tax money?
Who benefits most from the railroads?
Who benefits most from the highways?
Who benefits most from the airlines system?
Who benefits most from the natural resources?
Who are the fewest who get the mostest?
Where does the money go?
Where does the tax money go
Who benefits most from the Army?
Who benefits most from the government?
Who benefits most from taxes?
Why is that?
What makes this your territory?
Who controls this territory?
Who benefits most?
What's fair?
What is done about it?
Why is that?
Whose territory is this?
Why is that?