Our Tax Dollars
“No, I am done with pretending, I am done with being quiet, aren’t you? Do we not all need to say ENOUGH! and insist we are finished with this path.”
By Suzan Koch November 27. 2012
While Gazans are being murdered by the score and Israeli civilians are being targeted, with five dead, other wars as well, continue unabated everywhere, financed by our tax dollars, and supported by weapons manufacturers of “super powers,” but mostly the US.
At least 9 million have died in the Congo region for minerals for new tech, while women and children are raped and terrorized, and people are tortured, disappeared and murdered daily in the Philippines by a military and police, paid with US taxes, to silence them for speaking out to defend their lands and way of life, against mining corporations. In Syria, the tanks and planes from Russia (which also received over $126,000 US tax dollars for military aid in 2010!), along with weapons from US allies in the Middle East, surely purchased from US manufacturers, are killing tens of thousands so someone can make a buck.
How many must die, in order to fill the coffers of the billionaires and secure the resources and land they wish to be their own, before we the people of the world who pay the price in every way, have had ENOUGH, and refuse to fund one more round of slaughter, bringing anguish and despair beyond all measure?
Our tax dollars pay for the weapons, and we comfort ourselves, thinking, at least they pay for jobs, while our prisoners make the parts for Patriot missiles and clean military equipment, coated with depleted uranium, without protection and pay from $.23 to $1.29 an hour. Depleted Uranium is used to kill soldiers and civilians alike and the women who do not die, give birth to deformed babies with no medical care, if they survive. Iran is next in the crosshairs perhaps, with threats of nuclear weapons, or at the least more bombs containing Depleted Uranium.
Our tax dollars pay for soldiers to be trained and sent to kill and be killed, or maimed and mentally destroyed, by all that they have seen and done, and then to bring the violence home, or turn the gun upon themselves.They wish to end the nightmare of their lives, with more now dying from these self-inflicted wounds than those who die in battle (18 per day they say). And in the final insult, once home, their medical treatment is denied, while Congress leaves them in their wake instead of standing up for them and guaranteeing jobs and a chance to rebuild their lives.
One third of US Military women are raped and denied justice, which also often leads to suicide, while we continue to fund the men who go scot free to rape again and again, almost every time.
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We pay for the bombs, the fighter jets, the weaponized helicopters, the many drones, and the men to operate the drones, so they can target and kill more innocent people, with perhaps a few Al Queda thrown in, who are also human beings. We the people, pay for the well paid private armies/mercenaries, the contractors, and the CIA and JSOC operatives, to detain and torture and assassinate.
We pay for all the oil that fuels this death machine, and the whole world pays with lives, with their health and the health of the environment from the carbon that is added to our atmosphere.
On top of this, our tax dollars are used to pay off dictators around the world, to fill their personal and military coffers, so they may also murder, torture and maim the people of “their” land and we give them extra training to accomplish these deeds, and wage war as US stand-ins. From Mexico to Paraguay our money pays for death and destruction. From Eygpt to Somalia our money pays for more of the same, and on into the Middle East and South East Asia. And now the Presidents of the US, Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Australia and many others, including dictators, and multinational corporations alike, are doing a secret deal that will finally finish our working class off at last, along with the few rights and laws which still protect us.
This deal, which our Congress may not see or read, is called the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership see Nation of Change: Why So Secretive? The Trans-Pacific Partnership as Global Corporate Coup by Andrew Gavin Marshallhttp://www.nationofchange.org/why-so-secretive-trans-pacific-partnership-global-corporate-coup-1353687546) – sounds innocuous enough you say – think again – the leaks about the TPP describe it as the biggest Free Trade Deal of them all, offering everything to the profiteers, and nothing for the rest of us but loss.
The world cries out with unspeakable pain and loss – loss of lands and homes, loss of loved ones, loss of a life worth living. Right now, children are crying and dying in their parents’ arms from war and it’s aftermath, and for what I ask you, for what? Just so a few men can take and take and take again without end?
And when our overlords are done destroying a peoples and their lands and send our broken soldiers home, the people who were consumed by US military madness, are left with the devastation and no help, their economy and infrastructure in ruins, whether it is in a foreign land or here at home.
Families are left broken, violence is on the rise, our children have become immersed in killing via video games and prepared for their future jobs as supposed warriors controlling drones, while they are lied to and told it is all to protect our freedoms, of which we now have precious few. But wait, even these future jobs can be outsourced – soon it will be so, with weaponized robots, which are in the making, programmed to do as the generals say – no fear they might hold their fire or think before they act, and we the tax payers can fund this next profitable expense.
Our nation and most others, are militarized on steroids, in Europe, and beyond – and next we have police using weaponized drones, to track us down, and control or kill us from above, if we dare to say no.This too, our tax dollars pay for – how else could they afford it, and somehow people will come to think it is for the best and will only be used to help lost hikers or lost cows – so no worries there, at least.
In fact, I see a future, that is nearer than we think, where weaponized robots will also guard our borders, and our prisons, the factories, as well as operating on the battlefields of conquest. And naturally, it would be good, if they could also be used to police our towns and cities, why not?
Our tax dollars go to Big Ag, so that they can poison us with pesticides, herbicides and GMOs, all the while the bankers are busy creating starvation in other lands and hungry children here, through speculation on grain, and when the people rise up and riot, demanding food, our tax dollars will be there behind the men with guns, who will shoot them dead or round them up to torture and imprison, just so a few financial titans can pile up their riches through fraud.
Our tax dollars build the nukes, to blow us all sky high – but fear not, they think they have a plan to save their hides – but save them for what I ask?
Our tax dollars go to politicians who take the money, then turn and do the bidding of the war makers and corporations, and tell us all it will be different next go around and wonder why we think they lie.
And through it all, we remain oblivious or pretend to be good sports and go along to get along, to focus on the entertainment they provide to keep us pacified.
You say you feel anxious, and depressed, but do not know why – come on, snap out of it, or take these pills which just may make you want to kill someone or yourself, but never mind, which happens in most mass shootings. We listen to the nightly news in horror and try to understand what happened at our schools and work places, in homes and on the streets, as bodies lay strewn and swat teams and ambulances rush in to mop up. But of course we must have the right to carry assault weapons with 30 rounds, and wouldn’t it be better if we all carry a gun?
We have the very latest tech, made cheap by those who toil from dawn to dusk for next to naught, which are made from precious metals and minerals gained at gun point, so that we can stay connected and be subjected to surveillance the clock round. We are kept busy with on-line games and texting, in between perpetual messages of hate, from the myriad of talk show hosts on radio, TV and the net.
This is done to keep us ignorant of the truth, that blood is on our hands, or to hurry past this horror, so we can maintain a semblance of sanity and a normal life – those of us who have the luxury of a modicum of this.
Never mind the fact, that one-fourth of all our children are living in desperate poverty here in the US, and when it comes to being black or latino children make that four of every ten instead. Never mind the million plus who have lost their homes through no fault of their own, never mind the 600,000 souls who will sleep tonight without a bed, including 200,000 Vets, while millions of homes lie vacant, and the financial institutions rob us, and then ask us to pay them for the theft.
Our politicians tell us that they must cut food stamps, and school lunches too, they also need to cut medicaid, and welfare, privatize the Postal Service and Social Security, as well, then close down Public Schools and fire all the staff.
Behind the scenes the bankers are waiting, waiting for their due, and they will stop at nothing until they get every ounce of every dollar, which might go to me or you. But never mind, at least we can say we made the list of developed nations, for how our children fare, which is a bit higher than Romania, at 40th, while we are 39th. The answer must be, to cut public jobs and unemployment benefits, and put our tax dollars into on-line private education companies and charter schools, to improve the testing scores and education, which only some will get.
Forget about the homeless and the ill, forget about the debt, just think about the next moment and how you will survive. The bankers need our tax dollars and our savings, so they may thrive, while raking in the dough. The economy might revive, but first we must give our social safety net the sack.
And now we are back to the beginning, as we must preserve our way of life, with weapons and military might, while spreading bases, one thousand and counting, along with war, death and hate around the globe, and paying for it all, to make a handful the richest of them all. Shh, do not complain or you may be called a terrorist and indefinitely detained.
And this is just the tip of the icebergs so swiftly melting, while around the world our tax dollars go, to exploit and destroy, to murder and to maim and ultimately to bring many peoples, our climate and the planet to it’s knees.
But why all the whining and complaining and focusing on this bad stuff? It certainly will not help. Come on, cheer up, be brave and don’t bring us down. Close your mind and your heart – stop thinking and talking about all who suffer and what nightmare life may lie ahead, because our tax dollars go to do this hellish harm. Do not dwell upon the widows and their children, who now must live in cold and hunger in a tent, their homes blown up, their husbands dead, just so rulers may have power and prosper at their peoples’ expense.
Do not think of all the people who have been driven from their homes and land by US armies and corporations, to travel far and wide, in hopes they may find some way to feed themselves and have a decent life – all so corporations can make a profit on the land where these people once worked and lived, and when they finally manage to arrive, they are met with a sad fate and are the first to take the brunt of the bankers’ crimes, imprisonment and others’ hate.
No, I am done with pretending, I am done with being quiet, aren’t you? Do we not all need to say ENOUGH! and insist we are finished with this path. Let us look around and see, what is being left – a land, air and water poisoned, with drought and monster storms and big box stores filling up our landscape, as ugly as they get while paying low wages and offering us cheap goods, made somewhere else, by someone who is much worse off than us.
There are more tears to fill the seas and blood to overflow the rivers than ever could be counted, from the first breath of life to the last. Let us start anew, and love each other, and build a life worth living, with a future to look forward to, instead of filled with dread. Surely we can do better – others have shown the way as proof. This must be our hope and give us courage now to work together, as we must.
Suzan Koch is a member of Women Against Military Madness.
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BLACK LIVES MATTER
Thank you so much for formatting this and giving it a good byline quote, and publishing it. I know it may seem a bit over the top (understatement), but there is so much more I could have poured out of my weeping soul – and I am tired of being mostly quiet.
I think you may have encouraged others to speak up as well.
I am tired too of being quiet and a looking for others, like you Suzy, to join with in the conscious turning upside down of values, where money always comes before what is best for all people, International corporations that seek profit at all costs are no longer right, or decent, or ethical and do not deserve our support.
Kathy H.