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ugene Debs, the great humanitarian and socialist, made a speech to an audience of factory workers in their Union Hall. It was this speech, (which you will find below,) delivered in Ohio, in the year 1918, the American Midwest, heart of the Land of the Free was interrupted by the marauding police who had no business being there, never-mind arresting a man for making a speech. Never-mind that the speech pointed out the history of the exploitation of the poor working class by the rich. First with the nobles, the aristocracy, and then by the wealthy corporations. And he was imprisoned for it. The Supreme Court sentenced Eugene Debs to 10 years in the state penitentiary, as if he were a criminal; and no parole or time off for good behavior.
So much for the Constitutional guarantees and protections of Free Speech in America.
Do not speak to me of Free Speech in America.
Debs mentioned how, in the Middle Ages, the land owning lords declared war on one another and sent the poor serfs to fight their battles. And to die for their precious land owning lord. Nowadays, in this more enlightened age, the self-anointed Lords of the Universe, in their corner offices on Wall Street, declare war on distant countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, as well as the tax payers of Main Street, and send off the working class to fight their battles for them.
No, the Corporations of 1918 did not want their workers' ears to be abused with speeches which exposed the truth about how they were exploited by the rich industrialists in the never ending class war. As far back as the early 19th Century, as Thomas Jefferson left the White House he wrote that no standing army was as dangerous to American Liberty as the banks and corporations." Precious little has changed since then.
And now we have a Supreme Court which last year defined large amounts of money as Free Speech, to my way of thinking, a corrupt decision if ever there was one. The entire reason for the existence of the Supreme Court of the United States in the first place, was to create a non-partisan system of American justice which would protect the rights and liberties of the little guy. But now the SCOTUS has closed ranks on the little guy and for several decades has ruled in favor of the large corporation. And now, just last week, the highest Court handed down a decision, with, of course, the usual 5 to 4 vote, since the Roberts' Court Gang of Five always votes as a block; the decision is now being called Too Big To Sue and it certainly sets a precedent. Walmart, you see, has been consistent over the years in its' abuse of women in the workplace and finally a class case arrived in the Supreme Court. Needless to say the corrupt Supremes, namely, Thomas, Alito, Scalia, Roberts and Kennedy sided with the giant corporation against the wronged employees.
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Here is the distinguished actor and activist, Mark Ruffalo, reading Eugene Debs' immortal speech.
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And while we're at it, might as well listen to Debs' short but powerful words to the corrupt court as he was being sentenced.
n her book, Naomi Wolf predicted that the next step in the coup d'etat by the oligarchic corporations in their agenda for a Fascist dominated country, with a brutal dictatorship, would be the closing of the borders. The harassment of would-be travelers by way of humiliating body scanners and invasive pat downs is accomplishing just that. Unfortunately the American people seem not the least bit inconvenienced by what would have been unimaginable in the time of JFK.
omebody came up with a really good idea regarding foreign jobs and imports. Why not tax, at the point of purchase, all imported goods and especially from China. That would slow down imports and Wal-Mart shoppers. Which is just fine with me. I do my best to make sure that I don't buy anything made outside of this country. But it is very difficult. Everything seems to be made somewhere else. 
hat has the Republican Party come to? 
overnor Walker, of Wisconsin, is, you guessed it, a Republican. And like a true extremist Republican he believes that the rich are too exalted, too holy, to pay taxes and the poor should work without a voice, or needs, wants, rights, or unions, and be smiling from ear to ear that somebody is willing to pay them a dollar for a day's work AND then pay the lion's share of taxes that pay his and his cronies' in the Legislature their salaries. Appallingly plutocentric as that view may be, it certainly is consonant with the ideologies of the International Bankster pirates, not to mention the Congressional Republican leadership in DC. 
ew evidence and eyewitnesses who were on the plane Christmas Day, 2009, with Umar Farouk Abdul Mutalab, better known as the Underwear Bomber, are beginning to shred the credibility of the US government's case in the so-called War On Terror. 
ohn Perkins is the author of Several books which lay bare the harsh realities of contemporary Global Economics. The first book which hit America hard, was Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Perkins tells how he got into being a an Economic Hit Man, and the appalling damage he helped to create. He walked into the offices of Latin-American presidents and threatened them with death if they refused to play ball with the American "Corporatocracy." Many capitulated. Some did not. And those who refused to play with the corporations were assassinated within months of the office visit, by what Perkins tells us are called the Jackals.