The video below was withdrawn by the producer Lucinda McNary to make changes. She has left a link to the changed video on Moviestorm, below the old one here. Just click on"Created in Moviestorm" and you will be able to see it in awesome HD .

I haven't blogged in almost a year because I wasn't getting much traffic on this blog. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Have had several film scripts optioned, major surgery that I have recovered from nicely and joined Face book with everybody else. That's where I do most of my blogging these days. It's more fun than this one because I can bug my friends about their posts. My longest and best friend Jerry Costello died of a heart attack last year while driving on the freeway on the way to an AA meeting. He was able to get the car to the side of the road so that no one else was hurt. He was dead at the wheel. He and I started staying up nights drinking beer and listening to Dixieland Jazz at sixteen. I guess it caught up to him. There are some interesting posts on this blogg and I recommend poking around if you want to find some gems in the rough. Happy landings Ed

Here is episode one of Marshall's Agency, written by Ed Wode, directed and produced by Lucinda McNary.

Created in Moviestorm

PUBLIC ACCESS TV: to survive or not

This is mostly an update of the Dec. 8 post previous to this, which should be read to understand how democracy, represented by Public Access TV, has been thrown under the bus to slake the greed of the phone companies and the state's desire to have a more competitive playing field. Unfortunately the states are getting less than they should for the taxpayers and the phone giants more. The Long Beach Community TV Producers Association has obtained a terrific attorney who has been working for us for last several months. He is Marc Coleman, civil rights super attorney. Under his indespensible leadership, we have been having meetings with city officials trying to negotiate a way for Public Access to survive its first of the year closure. These negotiations with city technical staff were making good progress for several months on a plan to present to the city council when the city manager who apparently opposes such an agreement undemocratically shut down the cooperation with city staff and thus precluded the finished plan going on to the council for a vote. We are now in the process of going over the head of the city manager and negotiating directly with the Long Beach City Council to have us put on the agenda for a vote on the plan we are offering the city for its cooperation to restart Public Access. We are asking that PEG funds that are earmarked for Public Access be used to purchase equipment we need to restart Public Access. As the City Council has the final say over the City Manager, we are hoping this vote of the council we are setting up will result in our having the means to go back into operation on Ch. 65. Please see below 12/08 post for overview details. Aside from this I have been busy editing and uploading video clips I have made from various shows I have produced on to the Internet on many Video upload sites such as youtube and about ten others. I also have a new hard cover 38 page version of my Bolsa Chica Wetlands photo book now for sale at the publisher lulu. com. I also have an animated sitcom pilot I have written, Marshall's Agency, being produced and directed by Lucinda McNary, which has just been finished and the preview can be viewed on Moviestorm.com for free, as well as on here. I have recently been learning to use Facebook to correspond with old friends and new. I have found some extroadinary old friends I haven't talked to in some cases for over 40 years, as well as making new ones. I am going to submit this URL to make my first article on Digg.com, if things work right. Digg.com is an interestingly different new experience I am looking forward to. Keep on trucken, Ed

PUBLIC ACCESS TV: to have or not to have democracy

This post concerns the fight for survival of Public Access TV and my concern and position as a Television producer for Long Beach Community Television. The PUBLIC ACCESS Ch 65 station is being shut down as of the first of the year based on amendments to the state law AB 2987. The station has been in business for 24 years and is the main mass media outlet for the views of the average citizen in Long Beach, Ca that doesn't go through the commercial TV filter. This is real democracy at work like no other. The Long Beach Producers Association is trying to reverse this shutdown process. Currently we are at the stage that we are taking the position that the funding being denied us to continue, although available, is illegally being denied us for some of the below reasons. We also are trying to decide the best course of action for us that is discussed in this below producer update. This is a national problem as the cable companies that formerly had monopoly franchises in the U.S. are having to give up these monopolies in the interest of competition from phone companies and others formerly shut out. In Ca, the state, in order to correct this monopoly situation, passed an amended law that gives the state the right to sell the franchises to all qualifiers at the expense of the local entity monopoly that formally issued franchises. (Counties and municipalities are these entities) Therefore cable companies are taking the position they no longer need, because of the new competition situation, to directly support Public Access and are shutting down this support. This is their legal prerogative under the wording of the new version of the law. However, under the state law, money is still being paid by all the new franchisees to local entities for this support indirectly. It is called "PEG" money (1% of the gross TV revenue of providers), but the city of Long Beach is taking the position it can't be used for Public Access for reasons of state and federal law. We believe this is either a misinterpretation of the law or an attempted grab by the city of our funding or both. The purpose of the below producer's update is to try to rally the producers to a unified effort.

THE MAN WHO KILLED PUBLIC ACCESS TV IN CA

Getting everyone on the same page is a problem the LBCTV Producers Association must soon solve if they are to prevent a shutdown of public access TV.

Confronting the mayor and/or city council with using the PEG money coming in under the new law to purchase another studio should be on the front burner. However rent is out as the money cannot be used for operating expense. I think we should be able to make a statement to the mayor and city council that we are going to sue if the city doesn't allow the use of PEG money to pay Public Access needs including capital and/or operating expense before we lose our channel. I believe the position can be taken that this money is being denied to P.A. illegally, because the phone companies, through their lobbying efforts, had wording put in the law that prohibits the use of this money for operating expense..

It is quoted of Dean Schmidt, LBCD, right in the local Beachcomber newspaper article of 10/10/08, announcing our P.A. demise, that when assembly at the time speaker Fabian Nunez was championing the Verizon/AT&T backed bill AB 2987 that he could have included a means of releasing the PEG funds for access's operating needs, but chose not to do so. This is the same man that when still in office, until recently replaced by Karen Bass, was accused in every newspaper in California of corruption for running around the world spending his campaign contributions like a drunken sailor on inappropriate expenses and lying about it on expense reports. Between the phone companies, he got up to 100 grand for selling us down the drain, half for campaign contributions and half for his so-called non-profit charity. He is the man who has killed public access in California and now ironically his son has been indicted for murder. I guess it's in the genes. I hope his life is still fun, but not at our expense.

This law's abusive sections can be ignored by the city of Long Beach in my opinion, the same as the federal law is being ignored by the state in some ways. The Fed FCC is not enforcing the 1984 Cable Law and 19 states laws are taking advantage of this by ignoring it in various ways, especially as to Public Access TV, as are cable companies, that fall under its mandates. (See blipTV clip) However, if a formal complaint is made to the FCC, they cannot ignore it. This is another avenue we have open to us we haven't used. Neither has anyone else (See video clip blipTV http://alliancecm.blip.tv/file/1278920 .

This is the position I take. I think we need a legal team at the moment to make these claims. The city notoriously is wary of lawsuits. We should let them know, they are not going to get off cheap by letting a scoundrel like Nunez walk over our rights.

ONE WHITE VOTE FOR OBAMA

Well, I voted for the first black president according to polls and most of the experts. Let's hope he really has the knowledge to make the changes we need in this country. My bet is that he will be able or willing to change little. My book Parity Democracy is the only manual for real comprehensive change in the world as far as I can tell. It is distributed world-wide on all major online chain sites as well as many individual book stores. Oh well the world will have to take another millennium to make real change. C'est la vie. That can't be spelled right. Ed 11/4/08.

The presidential campaign reaches its final month. Apparently the American people have figured out that Sarah Palin is a totally unacceptable candidate for v-p of the United States. Looks like McCain's opportunistic choice is putting the final nails in his coffin. He should have picked Hillary and she would probably have taken it; or better yet Bill. Could he have? I don't know and am too lazy to look it up. I just finished reading Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" and found out what a lot of people knew before me, but I strongly suspected. The Clinton's are really Republicans and started many of the bad things Bush is accused of starting like faith based initiatives. I always thought his foreign policy toward Russia was the worst such blunder in our history, currently being proved in spades. Thank God Obama had the courage to pick Joe Biden who is among the best in the business. Here's a chance for the American people to put some intelligent people in charge. Let's hope they don't blow it.

This is the Creative Commons free license for Three Comedies and a Tragedy by Ed Wode, a four play collection of my most recent plays.



Ed Wode interview on Book Beat by producer/director Kija Manhare

It's been a busy time in the last few months. I have produced a half dozen shows for LBCTV, Charter cable. One of them is on So. Cal. Charter VOD (Video On Demand)under the Community Connections listing titled Memorial Day 2008. Many local and national dignitaries give thanks for the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, as well as the retirement of rear Admiral John Higginson. It is a lot more entertaining than it sounds. The following is a show produced on the "Book Beat" hosted by Kija Manhare interviewing me about my collection of four most recently written plays titled "Three Comedies and a Tragedy by Ed Wode".

I just registered for Verve today, a new website for bloggers. To bring things up to date since my last blog, I have two new segments of my television show "Fine Art and Crafts showcase". The shows will be aired on Charter Cable ch.'s 65, 69 and 95 in Long Beach, Lakewood and signal Hill Ca on Tues March 11 at 4 to 5 P.M. This is part one and two of a three part series demonstrating how to publish a photo book for free on lulu.com. For any party looking for plays or film scripts to produce, I have several of each available to interested parties. The book produced on my T.V. show is called Gardens of Gold Star and can be purchased at lulu.com. Key search words are Ed Wode or Gardens of Gold Star. I also have four other books available at lulu.com. The three text oriented books are available at book stores worldwide. The best preview is at lulu.com, the publisher.

A little information on the latest machinations. My new TV show "Fine Art and Crafts Showcase" had its maiden voyage on Nov. 16, 2007 at 7:30 P.M. on LBCT (Charter cable). Famous historical pen and ink artist William R. Johnston talked about his limited edition of Wolf House (Jack London's ill fated house) and other drawings he presented. This is to be a new series showing how to crafts and fine art. I recently published a book of my photographs of the Bolsa Chica Wetlands at Huntington Beach, Ca. This 32 page book can be previewed and/or purchased at www.lulu.com, keywords Ed Wode or Bolsa Chica Wetlands. Three other books are for sale at lulu and/or bookstores worldwide. Go amazon or BN.com. and search Ed Wode. A novel "Unnatural Selection", a collection of my plays "Three Comedies and a Tragedy by Ed Wode" and "Parity Democracy, how to level the world economic playing field", a political tome that discusses how to create real democracy and a fair global economy.

It's been a while since I have brought things up to date. I am now linked from My Space to here, so hopefully I'll have more traffic. Google will be happy if I start getting some hits on my Google ad at the top of the page. I have been doing a lot of blogging/commenting on David Sirota's blog and others making my self heard loud and clear in the blogosphere. He blogs on "working for change.com" a terrific site if you want the straight unvarnished progressive news. I have three books in worldwide distribution now that can be bought online at either lulu.com or 40 other booksellers including amazon and BN.com (Barnes and Nobel) They are "Parity Democracy, how to level the world economic playing field", (Parity Democracy keyword) "Three comedies and a Tragedy by Ed Wode", and "Unnatural Selection" a radioactive novel. Lulu.com allows prospective buyers more information on its site including a ten page preview and view of the front and back covers. I am currently working as a producer, cameraman and actor at LBCTV. I will be doing my own show sometime in the near future when the spirit moves me. I still have many plays and film scripts available. If interested contact me at edwode@gmail.com. for my URL address where you can view the loglines for these scripts. Talking at you soon.

Is the New Spoils System the Beginning of Dictatorship?

America is currently about one step from unfettered dictatorship. It is a dictatorship authored by the overpowering money of global corporatism, a new form of totalitarianism that has swept all before it without causing even a slight ripple of dissent, in America or almost anyplace else. We in America ostensively have a representative form of republican government that is supposed to represent the elected will of the people. In recent years it has become abundantly clear that people have been shunted aside by the power of corporate money. Predominantly, the elected representatives of the people are now representatives of corporate interests. These pseudo representatives of the people are really abscesses on the American democratic formula, who have abdicated their constitutional responsibilities in favor of selling out to lobbyists. Lobbyists who represent corporate interest are now writing many of our most important new laws. And the representatives who are elected by the people to vote on these laws often vote them into the code without in many cases having even read them, because they have sold their vote to a lobbyist for campaign contribution bribes. Now we find that, not only do our elected representatives not write or read our laws, passages are sneaked into the laws that are directly contrary to any known democratic tradition of America. These are sometimes dangerous radical ideas authored by knaves who have been passing themselves off as God fearing conservative representatives of the people. Such a passage is that which has been sneaked into the Homeland Security Act and which gives the president of the United States the right to fire U.S. Attorneys and replace them without any recourse to approval by the senate of the United States. This not only is an ultimate spoils system, it is a precursor of dictatorship. But do not worry my fellow citizens, there has been a hew and cry by the media and our elected representatives that has the heavens itself quivering with fear of retribution. Is this not true? Well maybe and maybe not. It depends on what you call a hew and cry. If crocodile tears are your cup of tea the answer is yes. There is a loud hew and cry about the unfairness of the attorney’s dismissal for political reasons, contrary to our traditions regarding these offices, but so far there has not been one word about the much more important spoils system it represents. I know this sounds melodramatic, but frankly, since this has happened I no longer feel like I am living in America. This must be the same feeling that many Germans had when Germany’s incipient democracy in the 1930’s became a dictatorship under democratically elected Hitler. As a citizen of this great republic, I demand the hew and cry about the 8 attorneys be put aside until this heinous law of intimidation itself is changed, not by hand wringing condemnation of the unfairness of these firings, but by condemnation of this spoils system designed for intimidating US Attorneys to do the political bidding of the president. Call it whatever you want, I call it American Fascism. And the larger spoils system that allows the heads of various government agencies to be filled with incompetents such as the recent FEMA example also needs to be changed. This idea that the president needs a government of yes men backing his every petty political whim is a recipe for catastrophic incompetence such as we have been witnessing in this administration. It is the height of folly. Especially, when these positions are filled with people who represent an ideology that government is the enemy and should be dismantled. Wake up America! Your country is being imploded. It is the Stardust Hotel of the Corporate Republican party. Whatever replaces the Stardust, you can count on one thing, it won’t be democracy. It isn’t real democracy now. The republic has been imploded right in front of your noses and neither party seems to complain on your behalf. The hidden oligarchs who are the real power in America can now come out of the closet and in full light of day wield their hidden levers of power to hound you to your grave if you disagree with them. God save us from this ugly contemptuous state of affairs. By these and other seeming small changes the presidential system has become near legal dictatorship and should be changed. It is a form of temporary monarchy or dictatorship and not worthy of a free people. Without congresses ability to intervene in appointments by giving their consent to appointees, such as is being undermined by this Homeland Security sneak attack on the constitution, there is little hope of avoiding the fate of historic democracy, out and out overthrow. And worst of all, these turd blossom men and woman now inhabiting what has become the national toilet, are by their actions making America the ugliest sewer in the world. I never thought in my wildest dreams it would come to this, but I agree with the Donald Trump when he recently said, “Bush is the worst president in our history”. However it could be worse. Donald might run for president and win and fire us all.

This scenario has changed a little since I wrote this on 3/19/07, because the Senate took corrective action on 3/20/07 to turn things back to the Senate's former prerogatives of before H.S. Of course, the recommendations made here about the spoils system have not been addressed and probably never will. God help American democracy! Pseudo democracy it is and pseudo democracy it shall remain.

Ed Wode

ECONOMIC PRESSURE and the BIRTH RATE

Friends, Americans, fellow citizens, we come to speak to you not about your problems, but about the problems of those fellow Americans who have never been born. Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, let me make perfectly clear that this is not a speech about either the right to life or the right of choice, but about the rights of the unborn. We will therefore address the unborn. (breath) Why are you not born, you unborn Americans? Ask your elected representative why your government puts a higher value on subsidizing big business monopoly than it does on you, its unborn future citizens. I doubt you'll get an answer! They're too busy on the phone extorting money to fill their reelection coffers. (breath) Now that we have the elected representatives well roasted, let us see why it is not a policy of the American government to see that its native culture is protected by you unborn being born. (breath) Instead of creating conditions that mothers and fathers of the unborn need to encourage the formation of families, the American government has been for the last fifty years doing the opposite. The American economy, that was used as a political chess piece during the cold war to keep wobbly countries friendly, continues to be used as a chess piece, but as an economic chess piece to dominate the world economy. The new mantra for this game is called global free trade. It is about as free as the over two million underclass criminals incarcerated in the American prison industry business who were unlucky enough to not be unborn. (breath) The one good thing that could be said about the cold war economic policy is that it didn't discriminate between the powerful and the powerless. Alas for big business, it lost out during the cold war for the same reasons that individuals did. Except for companies engaged in war production, as many of them were. Those, however, that were left out of the military-industrial-complex soon discovered they could be useful to the policy of exporting our economy by doing just that. They just needed a market. As it turned out, there was a terrific market and guess where? You guessed it. Right here! To exploit this market, Americans had to be convinced that free trade was a good thing even if they lost their jobs to it. Not a hard thing to do when you have Madison Avenue at your beck and call and unlimited funds. It proved to be an easy task. Remember all those TV ads about how every job sent overseas brought back two or three or a dozen. How many have gone and how many have come back? Damn few have come back I venture. (breath) Thus and so the mantra for global economy was born instead of you my unborn. Why weren't you born? Unfortunately working people didn't have the same option as corporations and had to wait for all those great jobs to come home before you could get born. They never did come home and never will, so you have never been born. (breath) And thanks to our crooked as the Mississippi, horny as horned toads, dumb as a stone politicians who gave away our economy to save us from the communists, you never will be born. And now the corporate communists have taken over America with their brand of communism for the rich, thanks to their buying our representatives with campaign contributions. Thank God for the Campaign Finance Reform Act passing. Let's hope it isn't as ineffectual as the rest of our pseudo laws full of loopholes enough to water down the state of Texas. But I doubt it! There may yet be hope for American culture. But I doubt that too. It's cheaper to increase market share by allowing a flood of immigrants, even if they represent the antithesis of American values. Market share is what politicians value most, thanks to who they really represent. So forget being born, you unborn Americans. You are not needed. Post script. You will never be needed. Campaign finance Reform has been a failure.

Since I'm am offering mostly free things, I've decided to link to some other free sites. Give them a try and let me know what you think. This one is called College Free Stuff. http://www.collegefreestuff.com/

Ain't the garden grand? (click pics)

Free, Fair and Foul Trade

My fellow citizens, I come to you today to talk to you about free, fair and foul trade. The trade policy of the United States is supposed to be one that promotes free world trade. The definition of free trade is as murky as the definition of democracy which is totally impenetrable. Free trade in the day of Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft would have been considered a radical plot to destroy America. These two presidents at opposite ends of the political spectrum of the time, the former a progressive, the latter a conservative both stood for an America dominated by individualistic small business entrepreneurship. Both the progressive Roosevelt and the arch conservative Taft who succeeded him in the presidency agreed that the economic well being of the nation was fundamentally threatened by the power and marauding avarice of giant monopolistic corporations. It was even considered that these collectivized behemoths be banned altogether as entities too great to be controlled in the interest of the common good. How right they have turned out to be.

The time we are referring to, around the turn of the nineteenth century, was the beginning of the battle for the control of America between the forces of individualism represented by entrepreneurship and the forces of collectivism represented by corporations. Roosevelt and Taft both brought legal action to break up monopoly control by corporations that had gained more than a fifty percent market share in their industries, hoping thus to put a limit on their power. Taft, the conservative, did much more trust busting than Roosevelt who initiated the idea. They thought that by such means the adverse effects of giant corporations could be controlled by government and somehow harnessed for the good of the nation. Government itself, however, would have to be powerful enough to dominate and control these dangerous leviathans. Thus began, as a protection against corporate power, the rational for big and powerful government. Sadly to say, Roosevelt and Tafts worst fears have come about in spite of the growth of government to mammoth size. Corporations have come to dominate governments all over the world to the extent that they have virtually a free hand to conduct business anyway they please. In the process of doing as they please, they are turning the world's workers into virtual wage slaves.

Big American government has been subverted and eclipsed by the bigger and smarter and more powerful corporate sector. Now that the American people, distracted by sixty years of military confrontation, have forgotten that they and not the corporations own America, corporations are attempting to emasculate what remains of such control by downsizing our government to a feeble shell of itself. They are even willing if necessary to give up some valuable corporate welfare they get from the existence of the commerce department cheerleaders and other government programs to accomplish this.

Is this a good thing for America or a bad thing? In principle, corporations colletively socialize the economic process, substituting bureaucratic cooperation for entrepreneurial individualism. This collective socialization allows the corporation to grow uninhibited by the physical constraints of the individual entrepreneur who is only one person and mortal while the corporation is immortal under present, if not original, laws. Without knowing it, we have created a virtual God, with all the godlike trappings, including unwavering faith in free trade and the rest of the jingoistic corporate jargon. If unobstructed by government limitations, a corporation could in theory take over an entire economy and become what in fact the Soviet Union became. One large company store owned corporatist country. (Really Fascist in Mussolini's definition) Corporations then are in reality mini-socialist states that exist like predatory army ants whose economic rapaciousness no government or individual is a match for. It's owners are absentee investors who have surplus capital they want to use productively. Publicly traded corporations are a convenient way for this capital to be invested. Mutual funds that own stocks are an even more convenient way to invest surplus capital. Corporations then are a form of exclusive socialism for those who are rich enough to join the club by purchasing a share. Individualism, the traditional bases of the American form of economic democracy, once protected by liberal and conservative alike, has therefore, largely been replaced by corporatism, a form of exclusive socialism for those who wish to be absentee investor owners. Perhaps then, the reason three out of four Americans are skeptical of government is they realize instinctively their individualistic democracy has been stolen from them by people calling themselves Democrats and Republicans, but who are in reality corrupt free loaders in the employ of socialist entities that do not represent traditional American values.

There is something of a mystery about why American government officials constantly ballyhoo the advantages of free trade when America has the largest trade deficit in the history of the world. To a large degree this is because our slicker trading partners are fleecing us by practicing pseudo-free trade while we practice free trade.. There really is no mystery at all. The only players that count in world class economic terms are the large multinational corporations that for the most part are doing very well. Their executives are reaping obscenely outrageous incomes (In my opinion illegal under fiduciary trust obligations) and their absentee owner investors are gleefully making money by pushing stocks to what would once have been thought insane levels because of their poring their surplus cash into them. And the politicians who are making this possible are reaping huge campaign contributions from them. This group that represents most of the top rung in America are becoming plutocratic oligarchs while the rest of us are impoverished by this system that takes no prisoners while exploiting everyone but themselves. The corporation dominated American government seems totally oblivious to the fact that this so called free trade has resulted in the degradation of the American family and the destruction of American entrepreneurial individualist democracy. This is why we need millions of immigrants, legal and illegal. Instead of a high quality standard of living, as recommended by F.D.R., that would encourage family formation and a normal birthrate, the American family is being squeezed out of existence by extreme economic pressure that is eliminating the American worker. The traditional American culture has been sacrificed to protect the competitiveness and bottom line of large transnational corporations. That is why what America politicians call free trade, I call foul trade. There is no such thing as a free anything. Somebody must always pay the piper. Free trade is the same as a game of musical chairs. Somebody always gets left out. The concept that everything always balances out because every country has some kind of economic advantage is the biggest hoax in the world. The only comparative advantage that poor nations have is to allow corporations to pay slave wages to their citizens at the expense of citizens in more developed countries. In this foul trade that is solely for the benefit of large corporations, most Americans are paying a price that far exceeds the price of the cheap imports they're getting. The lack of economic opportunity in a large part of America is the direct cause of crime and misery on a grand and tyrannical scale unknown is civilized history. America has over two million people incarerated, most of whom are victims of this miserable economic system that denies a decent standard of living to a large segment of its citizens. This tyrannical economic obscenity that ignores the plight of all but its own class is turning America into an elitist two class system of rich and poor much like a banana republic. Is it not a form of bananaism when both public officials and corporate elite of a country work together to enrich themselves with little regard for the welfare of the masses? This foul inhumane free trade that mainly benefits plundering corporations needs to be replaced by fair trade that improves and protects the quality of life and the standard of living of workers all over the world. And this can be done. I show how in my book, Parity Economics. (On sale here. See profile)

Snowy white egrit
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Blue Heron Jesus

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SMOKE and MIRROR DEMOCRACY

My fellow citizens. I come to you to speak not about the most you deserve, but what Franklin D. Roosevelt and others have thought was the least you deserve. I come not to ask what you should be doing for your country, but what is the minimum your country should be doing for you and still honestly call itself a democracy. I come to you not to make you feel greedy because you expect something you deserve from your government. I come to you to show you what you have a right to expect from government, any government calling itself a democracy. There is no reason to feel guilty about asking what your country should be doing for you. That is the reason and the only valid reason for the existence of government, to answer to your needs. It certainly isn't there for the sole purpose of supporting corrupt politicians and their cronies, the reason it seems to be there now. Government is there to serve you. It is not there to give politicians fat jobs. It is not there to be sold to the highest bidder who gives the biggest campaign contributions. It is not there for corporations to maximize profits at the expense of the quality of our lives. It is not there to be what it is today, an ineffectual rubber stamp for corporations to make the rich even richer. It is not there to be a sop or a dole to the powerless or a magic show of smoke and mirrors to convince the impoverished they are getting their fair share of the pie. Government is none of these things, as our present opinion leaders would have you believe. Government is only there for one reason. And that is to equally and fairly serve all its citizens. This present government is a disaster because it only serves the purposes of the rich and powerful.

I do not come to you today to tell you how to get the most you can from government with the least effort. I come to talk to you about what is your inalienable, your God given, your natural and your most basic right under any government that dares call itself a democracy. That most important, most abused, most ignored of all democratic rights is the right to economic justice. What is economic justice? The powers to be, "the princes of greed" to quote FDR, would have us believe there are no rights to economic justice in America. I would tell you that they are not only wrong, but a pack of liars, corrupt tyrants and greedy thieves that have stolen your democratic heritage by buying your representatives and your government and using their wealth and power to promote their own selfish ends.

Economic justice is no more a commodity to be bought and sold than is air. Economic justice is in the words of America's greatest president, F.D.R., the right to a remunerative job that will provide adequate food, clothing, recreation, education, housing, medical care, retirement, protection from the vicissitudes of life and protection from predatory wealth. Yes, F.D.R. believed every American has a right to equality in the pursuit of happiness and that there should be an economic Bill of Rights to ensure that no American should be cheated out of his or her democratic birthright. This great economic program, necessary according to Roosevelt to achieve a lasting high quality democracy, has never been enacted. And we consequently, instead of living in a land of economic democracy and equality for all are living in an economic tyranny that with every passing day becomes more unjust and unequal.

America has become instead of a high quality democracy, a first class pseudo democracy. Instead of economic security for all, we have drastic insecurity. Instead of small businessmen and individuals being protected from predation by both domestic and foreign corporations, a form of monopoly called appropriately chains and multinational corporations run the world with a virtual free hand. And they are turning the whole world into a wage slave hell in the process. Instead of each and everyone of us having a profitable job that will allow us to successfully pursue happiness, our jobs are under constant assault and threat by corporations that only have regard for one thing, maximizing profits. This my fellow Americans is the reason why the American dream is turning into the American nightmare. The American dream is being stolen by the paymasters of your so called representatives who recognize quite correctly that representative government under our laws is not necessarily democracy. Your most basic right in life next to life itself is the right to a remunerative job, the key word being remunerative. When Roosevelt used this word, he knew it meant profitable; the opposite of subsistence slave wages. It is the only right you have that will ensure your just and secure pursuit of happiness. That is why it is the only right that has been totally denied you. There is only one way to make government serve people instead of special interests and that is to add a right to a remunerative job to the bill of rights.

If this is so you may ask, what good is our present Constitution and Bill of Rights that guarantee us a lot of political rights such as the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to our choice of worship and the rest? The answer to that one is they give you the right to be a sucker, because without having the right, in FDR's words, to a remunerative job, the rest of these rights are a hypocritical almost worthless farce. And that is what we have. A hypocritical farce of a government that has overseen the destruction of the American family and allowed the American dream to turn into the American nightmare. Except for the ingenuity of the individual American worker to create his own job, helped by the productivity of the personal computer, there would be massive unemployment in America. The traitorous policies of corporate America, which continue in spite of much criticism, is deindustrializing America by exporting our manufacturing jobs, capital and technology anyplace where it is cheaper to operate. The bottom line for the American worker is not the height of the stock market, but the tens of thousands of high paying jobs being outsourced every month. Don't be fooled by phony employment statistics. Low paying service jobs will never replace high paying professional or manufacturing jobs.

Dear friends, Americans, voters, the one thing they will never give you is the guarantee of a job, because that is the one thing that will upset the corporatism milk pail. Guaranteeing you a remunerative job would blow away the smoke and mirror scam that you live in a democracy. All the non-issues that now pass for a national debate in this country would now go up in a cloud of smoke, because there is only one real issue. Your right to a remunerative job. There would no longer be a reason for an abortion debate, because when Americans know they have a right to a remunerative job, babies would be welcome and in demand. And when Americans know their government stands for love instead of corruption, there will no longer be a necessity to bring in millions of immigrants to do jobs American born and educated sons and daughters should be doing.

Without economic justice based on immutable laws, there will never be real democracy. Economic justice can only come about when laws are permanent and uncompromiseable. Economic justice can only be permanent when it is not placed on an economic shopping list for corrupt politicians to sell at their whim to the highest bidder. Only a constitutional amendment that makes the government directly responsible to see that every American has a remunerative job will change this system of tyrannical economic insecurity that passes for democracy in America, but is really pseudo democracy. A good secure job for all Americans who want one is the way to control corporate greed, which is picking the world clean for the rich. Instead of corporate socialism for the rich, let us have responsible free enterprise that provides the good life for all.

REPEALING THE LAW OF COMPARATIVE DISADVANTAGE

Today, the near totalitarian ascendancy of corporations has left many of us feeling like sleepwalkers helplessly witnessing the alien usurpation of traditional American democratic values. The main purpose of government run by politicians dependent on corporate campaign contributions to get elected seems to be to enable the designs and slogans of big business. The key buzzwords are global free trade and privatization without which you cannot have democracy according to the pundits of privilege. The truth is that free trade is really monopoly trade and privatization is really socialism for the rich, all depending on how you look at it. From the perspective of workers in Asia making .50 cents an hour making goods for America, it is slave wages. From the perspective of those who own and work for the socialist entities known as corporations, the world is their oyster. The question that begs to be asked is whether this is for good or for evil.

Karl Marx was the first to point out that the capitalist economic system is a survival of the fittest jungle. The fittest being the employer who most successfully exploits his workers in order to produce the cheapest product. This law of the jungle has few loopholes. It requires even the most humane employer, who wishes to survive, to fight and win a competitive war. The winner will be he who produces a product of similar quality at the cheapest price. This requires paying labor the least amount possible. Global free trade competition then is a global race to the bottom for labor. Thus, an economic principle that is inherently inhumane is at the heart of the capitalist system. And this is true whether you are a socialist or a capitalist.

Needless to say this law of capitalist economics hasn't been lost on transnational corporations competing on a world scale. They have in fact fine tuned this brutally immutable law of economics and given it new meaning. Instead of exploiting their own fellow citizens who are protected by civilized laws, (Or were) they move their operations to somebody else's' country, where the workers are at the mercy of an authoritarian government. They then milk that situation for all its worth until it becomes possible for the workers to demand higher wages and better working conditions. Then they pick up and move on to a country that is even more hospitable to their need for ever cheaper labor. This economic game of musical chairs is in effect how American and other multi-national corporations have accommodated to competition on a worldwide scale. Criminally dangerous working conditions, pollution, ruin of the environment and inhumane slave wages hosted by totalitarian governments necessary to enforce these conditions, are the price that is being paid for survival of corporations. All this fitness is what unmitigated immoral competition leads to. In a moral world, they would all be judged unfit. But the multies are prospering big time. Unfortunately , the American worker's industrial base that provides him with jobs is disappearing at the same time. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that sooner or later if enough high paid workers lose jobs to low paid outsourced workers, there will be a decrease of demand for goods and services. The moral of this story is that if this degradation of jobs results in overproduction, conventional wisdom suggests this is a recipe for depression. Then it will be our turn on the wheel of misfortune.

Is there any way out of this competition based on inhumane treatment of labor? Logically, under the laws of of economics, the competition between labor for jobs worldwide will continue until worldwide wages for workers will level out at the lowest level. If there is still a surplus of labor, the cost of labor may even drop below subsistence level worldwide as it is in some places now. The whole world will be like Marx described the weavers in England who were reduced to starvation when their earnings were not enough to make ends meet.

There is really only one way to keep this horrible scenario from coming about short of miraculous technological breakthroughs. And that is to change the inhumane law of competition once and for all. In place of free trade based on the idea of competition, there should be fair trade based on the idea of cooperation. The moral justification of free trade is the so called law of comparative advantage. This so called law is the biggest hoax in the history of the world. The idea that every country has some advantage in the world market place great enough to compete with global corporations and provide jobs for its populace is a total fraud. It is an intentional fabrication to justify the dominance of a few countries over the many. The only comparative advantage of poor countries is surplus population willing to work for slave wages. The law of comparative advantage should be expunged from textbooks and the minds of men. Then, there will no longer be a justification for free trade based on an economic game of musical chairs.

There must be a new economic world order based on a moral principle of what is a fair deal for all nations. This will be a foundation for a new temple of man This new economic principle we will call The Law of Parity. Under the aegis of this new economic principle, all exporters to a country with this law in place would be required to compete with domestically produced products of the same kind on a fair and equal bases. Fair and equal in this case defined as being required to charge the same as those products cost if they are produced locally.

A parity price would place a new kind of moral law and order on worldwide economic competition. Instead of competition to see who can produce the cheapest merchandise by exploiting labor the most, there would be competition to produce quality goods and hire skilled well paid workers. Workers around the world could be paid a remunerative amount for their labor that would not be at the expense of labor elsewhere and every country would now have an opportunity to create employment by building a domestic economy without fear of being undersold by established monopoly competition from abroad.

The worldwide effect of parity will be to raise the standard of living of the whole human race to a par with the rest. Transnational operators will no longer have an incentive to employ their capital where workers can be exploited the most. There will now be an upward pressure on human improvement instead of the downdraft there now is.

The alternative to some such enlightened new economic order for America is to watch our standard of living deteriorate until we are on a par with the lowest coolie wages in the world. You think it can't happen here? It is happening The other alternative that is also happening now is to talk our citizens into auto-genociding themselves out of existence by taking more and better birth control devices until our culture disappears and is replaced by willing immigrants.

But what is the cost of a moral world order to Americans? What about all the cheap imports? My answer is , Americans do you want to have jobs with dignity or do you want to have a permanent McDonalds minimum wage slave economy? Do you want to have cheap imports produced at the cost of your jobs or jobs based on fairly priced goods made at home? Parity Economics will allow you to have a wage based on reality and morality instead of one based on knavery and slavery. Wake up Americans! You have nothing to lose but a dismal future living a half life of poverty, ignorance and unemployment. A full digital version of "Parity Economics, How to Level the World Economic Playing Field" is available on ebay or here for $5.00.

The garden of earthly delights. (Click pics)

To Vandana Shiva:

Marvelous article you have written countering "The Bogus Debate About 3rd World Bioethics" article of S. Sahai. I've been wondering this year why even in the summer months no home grown juicy dead ripe type of tomatoes have been in the supers I frequent. There has appeared a seemingly year round universal tomato in the supers that is hard and weak in flavor and color, probably as a result of the things you are saying about genetic tampering for corporate profit. (The mouse tail looking vine is what gets me. Just kidding) I think I read someplace recently that 70% of our vegetables are being thus tampered with here in U.S. I've been doing a lot of reading of your articles etc. on the internet since I saw you interviewed by Bill Moyers on PBS's NOW series recently. All very enlightening and intellectually entertaining. I have been railing and writing about the stupid unfairness of the world economic system for many years and have proposed a new world economy based on what I call "Parity Economics." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make much impact with this idea. Recently, at the request of filmmaker-activist Michael Moore, I sent a protest email concerning economic arrogance to the Minn. GOP and copies to various other parties including the Pres. of the U.S. (Unread except by the S.S. duhs no doubt) I thought these ideas might interest you.

To Michael Moore concerning your request to contact the Minn. GOP about their arrogant "Get a Job" attitude:
You left out farm worker in your tongue in cheek list of suggested available jobs for unemployed Americans to take. If fellow Latino, Ca. Lt.Gov. Cruz Bustamonte wins the recall election Oct. 9 against Gov. Davis, he might hire undocumented Mexican farm workers, who usually do that work, as chauffeurs for the state of Ca. since they can now get drivers licenses. This will open up a few million jobs for laid off auto workers and dot com casualties. What makes me laugh is how the politicians debate tax cut proposals that are supposed to be designed to stimulate the economy and create jobs and never once do they give consideration of what the money will be spent on. I warrant that most of the money will go to buy imports since imports are mostly what we spend our money on. This creates jobs everywhere except in America. America is inexorably headed for being a third world agrarian economy and this has been the inevitability of our economic policies for over thirty years. I just can't understand what's taking so long. When they write the history of this era in fifty or sixty years, America will be looked upon as the dumbest (and/or most corruptly) led country in the history of the world. Completely bought and sold by global corporations that care nothing for the American people or any other people. Now that we've settled into two full blown guerilla wars, any hope of finding money to extract ourselves from this economic mess is going to be pissed away in trying to win the unwinable we invented to beat the British. Why can't we just do the dishonorable thing and leave these miasmas? We should not have to pay for building countries we mostly didn't destroy. Wars are not supposed to be exercises in pro bono. The Iraqi people beat us to the loot so let's get out. We can always go back. It's clear to anyone with two good eyes that the America hater's minds are not going to be changed by the way we are going about it. Sooner or later a WMD bomb is going to go off in one of our cities that will change all equations. Picture two hundred million people rushing for the woods at the same time. If we don't come up with some draconian new ideas to counter all the hatred of us in the world, we won't have to worry about jobs, because we will all be killed in the worst stampede in history. The world has needed a new economic deal for a long time. Until there is one, nothing will change. What is feeding terrorist hatred in the world is caused by economic rules that have been made as immutably unchangeable as the laws of nature except oxymoronically the economic rules can be changed to be fair instead of unfair. Rules put into play by us to stack the economic deck in our favor have been co-opted by others who are now winning this game of economic musical chairs that allows for only a few winners and many losers. Until there are new rules that mandate the inevitability of a system of economic parity for all countries, there will continue to be this system of winners and losers that leaves much of the world left out and impoverished by a lack of decent jobs. We are now getting a taste of our own bitter medicine prescribed by our best friends the global corporations to make us rich and the rest of the world our flea market. (They've also forgotten they told us they would bring home several jobs for every one they send overseas. Our politicians have fallen off the turnip truck again on that big one) Glad you are fighting the good fight, Michael, in this most important arena of jobs, but you can't win. It will take a political revolution to change the present stupid unfair economic rules (Especially the WTO rules written by the corporations themselves) and that can only happen in America when the populous is in desperate straights. That day is coming. Ed Wode

I am a writer, director and filmmaker and would like to do a documentary film on the things that you and I are talking about in regard to fighting the greedy power of corporations. If you have any interest, please let me know. Ed Wode edwode@gmail.com/