The American government is more and more being held hostage by business interests, wealthy corporate entities that know no loyalty to the nation that made them rich and powerful and who actively work against the interests of the American people. In many instances these lobbyists actually write the text of the laws introduced to Congress to benefit themselves only, a serious crime and a blatant usurpation of a vital governmental function amounting to treason. They actively seek direct subsidies and tax breaks even though they are successful businesses, siphoning money from our national treasury that must be made up by working people, all the while fighting any social legislation that benefits anyone but themselves. Under successive Republican Administrations, tax breaks to the wealthy have transferred trillions of dollars directly from the pockets of the working classes to the pockets of the extremely rich, resulting in 1% of Americans owning more wealth that 95% of Americans combined.

Uncounted billions of dollars are spent by lobbyists to gain access to, and control of, the United States Government. Legislators are bribed and blackmailed, their campaigns financed and their creature comforts catered to. Many of our elected representatives are equally criminally culpable for this corruption for accepting gifts, trips to luxury resorts and sexual favors. Not only of being bribery recipients, but for violating their oaths of office. The result is that the American people are more and more disenfranchised from our government that is supposed to be, in Lincoln’s immortal words: “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Well, the people this government is of, by and for lately are a tiny group of wealthy elite corporate princes, a group of people it is imperative that we overthrow.

Does overthrowing this rapacious elite mean revolution? Sure does. Not revolution against our government, but revolution by our government to liberate itself from corporate clutches. Revolution to restore the United States Government to the American people. Do we dismantle the corporations? Maybe, if putting the criminals among their executive corps in jail doesn’t work. What criminals? Any who break the law, the same definition for criminal that exists for the rest of humanity. The financial collapse of 2008 was made possible by a great many crimes, from fraud to pyramid schemes to outright theft. Does anyone think that Bernie Madoff and the other handful of scapegoats who went to jail were the only bad guys who contributed to the disappearance of 5 to 7 trillion dollars worth of American wealth? Hardly.

And yet, looking around the corporate landscape, it is still by and large the same cast of shady characters running the financial houses. They didn’t even lose their jobs, never mind having to answer in court for their crimes! Any worker in any job anywhere knows that if even $500 of money you were responsible for goes missing, there will be an aggressive inquiry and perhaps a criminal investigation culminating in a conviction and/or prison sentence for the guilty party. How is that not the case when the figure is 5 trillion dollars? Why isn’t the FBI, the IRS and the Justice and Treasury Departments all over these corporations with search warrants and subpoenas for their records, transactions and e-mails,  both pubic and confidential? Where are the investigations, never mind the indictments, arrests, perp walks, trials and verdicts? Why are any of the people who led these companies into near ruin still employed, still handling other people’s money?

The financial thieves were instead rewarded with trillions of tax dollars to bail out their corrupt institutions, without any rule changes to prevent them from committing the same crimes again. So, who is running the government, men of law and elective office or the corporate princes who bribe and cheat and steal our representative government? And now that the banks are flush with cash from our tax dollars, they are awarding themselves billions of dollars in bonuses once again. The only voice opposing this obscene appropriation of other peoples money is President Obama, who is proposing to slash executive pay for firms that accepted bailout money and to tax bonuses at the rate of 90%.

Of course he is being met with howls of protest from the corporate princes, who say that top talent will go to work elsewhere. Where elsewhere? Who will have their larcenous, failed asses? If a person will take risky gambles with other people’s money, invent illegal scams and criminally misrepresent the worth of their company in pursuit of a bonus, who can trust this person not to rob their new employers? Let them go elsewhere! Would you trust this person to be even a supermarket cashier? Who would miss the kind of “talent” that made 5 trillion dollars go poof?

But the president does not go far enough, and he must avoid going through Congress to fight these people since the Congress has been severely compromised by corporate bribery. In his capacity as the boss of the Justice Department, President Obama needs to declare war on corporate crime the way other presidents have declared war on the Mafia. There are laws already on the books that have been violated and the Justice Department’s only job is to prosecute lawbreakers, no matter who does the breaking. Investigate these corporate crooks and put the whole corporate world on notice that their government access is denied and their adherence to the law is mandatory.

The president must direct the Justice Department to investigate members of Congress in both parties who are suspected of criminal activities, or even the treason of abdicating their role of writing legislation to private interests or themselves writing legislation designed to benefit specific companies or individuals. That will send a clear message to holders of public office that no one is above the law. One way to solve the corruption problem in Congress is to raise their salaries. As strange as that sounds, it is practical, since they are now underpaid considering the unique demands of the their jobs. Theirs is a demanding job that requires them to maintain two homes and two offices, both in their home state and in Washington. Underpaid people are far more prone to dishonesty than well-compensated workers (except for bankers, of course). Pay an excellent salary and attract more qualified legislators, less liable to accepting bribes, gifts and free trips.

The president must also have the Justice Department investigate lobbying organizations and prosecute anyone found to be engaging in criminal acts. There are many laws involving interference in official business or impeding the functions of government and these can be enforced. If lobbyists are found to have been writing laws or even short passages of laws, then treason must be added to the bribery charges. And what is this attempted corporate takeover of the United States Government but high treason? And what nation allows treason to continue unhindered? Certainly not one that intends to continue to thrive.

To continue to tolerate all this corporate crime and treasonous acts would be national suicide. Aggressive action must be taken to dismantle this organized criminal enterprise, using the same RICO statutes that toppled criminal cartels from Chicago to Cartagena. And if the corporations are gutted of their leadership? Who cares? There will be a hundred thousand talented people lining up to take their places, a hundred thousand executives more likely to be content with their fantastic salaries and far more mindful of obeying the law and paying their fair share of taxes. Any lobbyists remaining in their jobs would actually have to come up with logical arguments to present to Congress rather than Rolex watches, sexual favors or incriminating photographs.

So let the Anti-Corporate Treason Revolution begin. Either they are in charge of America or the American people are in charge. Right now they are winning this war, and the gulf between the haves and have-nots widens every day. The corporate lobbyists are close to succeeding in killing the Pubic Option in the Health Care Reform Bill, the only reason for the bill’s existence. Corporate interests succeeded eight years ago in getting America to invade Iraq so they could have access to Iraqi oil and for no other reason (Never forget President Eisenhower’s farewell address where he warned of the rise of “the military-industrial complex.”). Corporate lobbying efforts have already succeeded in stealing the majority of America’s wealth for a tiny minority. This is class warfare and the American people are on the losing side. Our enemies have sold our jobs, stolen our money and are trying to take over our government. Time to fight back. Make your voice heard by President Obama and demand that he overthrow this government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations and return America to the American people.

There are few worse things than being told things could be worse.

In such hard and contentious times, the temptation is to take all those people who are actively contributing to the general stress and misery and either shoot them down like dogs, hang them, beat them about the head and neck with blunt objects or drown them in mud puddles. Or all of the above. However, we like to think we are better than that and are above such behavior in what we would hope are more enlightened times, at least outside of places like Saudi Arabia where whippings, amputations and beheadings are deemed wholesome family entertainment. As for those of us living in the present age and not the Middle Ages, we wish to impose a penalty upon certain individuals who are blatantly guilty of contributing to the widespread misery without tainting ourselves as barbarous butchers in the process.

Towards that end, we at bobcrespo.com propose a revival of The Two Quick Slaps Awards. After a vote on the most deserving recipients, a panel of 10 or 20 slappers (more than that might be too time-consuming, or fatal, whichever is worse) can be drawn by lot to administer two sharp slaps to the the insolent faces of any or all of those mentioned below. Or feel free to include your own write-in candidates along with a brief description of their transgressions. And the 2009 Two Quick Slaps Award goes to…

Richard and Mayumi Heene for The Dumbest News Story Category: The Heenes decided they wanted in on some of that reality show action, those TV programs that celebrate what fine families we have here in the good old U.S. of A. To illustrate why they were so deserving of their own show, they enlisted their 6 year-old son to be a liar when they launched an out-of-control hot air balloon and told the authorities he was aboard. Well, the Heenes got arrested, admitted the hoax and face custody hearings over their 3 children. Sounds like a surefire ratings winner! Thursdays on Fox, 8PM, 7 Central.

Bull O’Really, Crush Limburger and Gland Bucks for The Alarmist Blowhard Category: Past perennial winners O’Really and Limburger are joined by newcomer Gland Bucks in a 3-way tie for the coveted Alarmist Blowhard Award. Bucks has shown himself to be their equal in ignorance, lying and arrogance, and has gone these 2 famous gas bags one better by having having his tears ducts surgically altered to flow at will, ratcheting up his fake sincerity level several notches. Applications for awards presenters are skyrocketing. Line forms to the left.

MIchael Moore and Keith Olberman for The Most Annoying Liberal Award: These two have done more damage to the good causes they champion that any 10 Bull O’Reallys ever could, simply by force of their unappealing personalities. Mr. Moore thinks he is competing for the Nobel Smug Fat Slob Prize, While Olberman loves the sound of his own bleating voice more than the air he breathes (far more than his share). These two condescending clowns are also up for the Ted Kennedy Memorial Largest Head Award, hoping to unseat incumbent Lou Dobbs and potentially making them the first Multiple Two Quick Slaps Award Winners since Shotgun Dick Cheney and Karl “The Animal” Rove swept The Best Puppeteer and Most Malignant American categories as co-winners for 8 straight years.

Laura Harper and Mark Rayder for The Congressional Corruption Award: While neither of these two are members of the House or Senate, they are two of the leading lobbyists for the private health care industry. If you are wondering who is killing the Public Option Benefit of the Health Care Reform Bill (or at least has it on life support), look no further than the legions of wealthy lobbyists hired by wealthy health care corporations, who actively bribe our legislators in order to control the American government by working against the interests of the American people. There are far too many lobbyists to include them all here, so Ms. Harper and Mr. Ryder get the dubious honor of receiving Two Quick Slaps for all of these walking cancers in human form.

President Barack Obama for The Hamlet To Be Or Not To Be Award: When we last elected a president, we opted for the smart guy with a plan as opposed to the dumb guy with the puppet strings. Not only that, we handed the guy an insurmountable majority in both Houses of Congress! Would it be too much to ask that he stops deliberating at snail speed over every policy decision and piece of legislation as if these were brand new choices and not things he came in promising to do? What’s to decide? He said he wanted to end our two wars, close Guantanamo and pass a Public Option Health Care Bill. It’s written down and on video tape, you can look it up. Why the Hamlet act when next year’s mid-term elections can very well close the window of opportunity to pass the agenda that the American people elected you to implement? Two Quick Slaps and A Swift Kick In The Butt for you, Mr. President.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer for The Prison For Profit Award: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s official web site motto is “Building a better Arizona!” Like many of his Republican colleagues, he apparently thinks that building a better state of this union entails the profitizing of municipal services. Towards that end, he is entertaining bids from private corporations to run the entire Arizona Prison System. This malignant trend has led to Private Prison lobbyists petitioning state and federal governments to pass laws mandating longer prison sentences for every crime, thus maximizing their profits. In a country that imprisons more of our citizens than any other nation and persists in calling ourselves “The Land of The Free,” this practice is unconscionable and a blatant attempt to shirk governmental responsibility. You think prisons are horrible criminal academies now? Wait until the profit-driven corporations drop all pretense of reforming and educating inmates so that petty criminals become the lifelong raw material for their sordid industry. Two Very Hard Slaps from inmates jailed for years for misdemeanors for Governor Brewer.

General Stanley McChrysal for The I Hated History Class Award: The commander of Nato (read that: American) forces in Afghanistan is convinced that he can turn Afghanistan into America Lite if only he’s given 40,000 more troops, neatly omitting the fact that armed troops traipsing around our streets and countryside is not necessary for America to be America. What he also apparently forgets is that America won that war years ago, annihilating their armed forces and toppling their government. The only thing is, that he wasn’t in command back then, and desperately needs a victory for his Joint Chiefs of Staff resume, so apparently he wants to re-defeat Afghanistan. Clever, no? Which has happened to Afghanistan any number of times in their 5,000 year history, including by Alexander The Great in 330 BC. Afghanis paid no attention to the many “conquerors” who came and went and continued to be the loose tribal confederation it has always been. Then there is the stated reason why America defeated Afghanistan in the first place, to rid the place of Al Qaeda. Mission accomplished, McChrystal, they all moved across the street to Pakistan. Two Quick Slaps for the ambitious General McChrystal.

Readers may feel free to tell bobcrespo.com of any other deserving nominees in any category they chose. This list has not even touched upon the Most Annoying Celebrity Award or the Dopiest Olympic Sport Award, two perennial favorites. Then there’s the Famous For Being Famous Award, with multiple winner Paris Hilton facing some stiff competition from that clue-free dunce Jon Gosselin of Jon & Kate Plus 8 Lawsuits fame. The Two Quick Slaps Awards are very flexible, so feel free to nominate anyone who gets on your nerves. Your comments will be posted unedited on this website, so feel free to vent your spleen. The Two Quick Slaps Awards may not lift the hard times, but they will make us all feel so much better.

The words “faith” and “belief” cannot replace the words “fact” and “proof,” although many of us think otherwise. Mostly this is a harmless notion, but too often incites animosity, murder and repression in an effort to convince others that our fairy tale is superior to their fairy tale. Go figure humans…

The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO), in our only capacity, that of pointing out the readily apparent, has been following with interest the No-Impact movement. It is an environmental initiative, a Green thing if you will. People are encouraged to turn off their electric lights, stop using their cars, produce as little trash as possible and eat only locally produced foods. In short, to live as one would in a very poor and backward nation. Why insisting that a reverse cultural move helps the planet is anyone’s guess, as even a short glance at history informs us that the greatest benefits to mankind were obtained through the application of technology, and the failure and human misery of today’s poorest nations is due to their severe lack of modern technology.

Low Impact adherents have submitted the argument to DOPOTO that eating only locally produced food is what mankind did for 99% of our history, an obvious fact of the sort this Department can relish. Also obvious is that throughout 99% of mankind’s history, life expectancy was around 40 years, relatively mild diseases were fatal, childbirth was a leading cause of death in women, many children died before reaching maturity and malnutrition was an ever-present hazard. Illiteracy, superstition and tribalism stunted man’s social development and inbreeding harmed his genetic chances of producing successful, vibrant offspring during this 99% of our history. Sanitary conditions were abominable and primitive medical practices caused almost as much death as the pervasive filth. Would these Low-Impact campaigners care for humanity to revisit those aspects of our history as well as living in the dark, walking to every destination and barely subsisting on a meager diet of whatever scrawny specimens are native to the immediate vicinity?

The Department is all for cleaning up our environment and ceasing the waste of valuable resources. We also admire the earnest activism and unbounded energy of Green Movement participants. We would only respectfully suggest that perhaps these keen minds would be best put to better uses, like finding a replacement for the greasy remains of dinosaurs that we set on fire to make our engines go. If one can dream that first-world citizens would willingly give up the amenities so painstakingly won from this hard and unforgiving world because Green activists say it is wrong to be comfortable and well-fed, then could not those same minds dream a more practical dream of creating a fuel that does not pollute our water, earth and sky? That would be the easier task, by far.

The only way they will get people to reduce their carbon footprints is to replace carbon-based fuels like petroleum, natural gas and coal. Long observation of humanity has convinced DOPOTO that once humans have attained a certain level of progress, success and comfort, they will fight tooth and nail to keep it. Human memory is long, and oral and written histories even longer. Hard evidence (one of the Department’s favorite things) also tells us that the way to solve a serious a problem is unstinting study, research, experimentation and application of one’s findings, all very modern notions developed in the past 1% of mankind’s history. Such methods have improved our diets and general health, doubled our life spans, eliminated many deadly diseases, created automobiles and aircraft that eventually led to putting a man on the moon, all things once considered impossible.

None of these exciting breakthroughs were wrought by encouraging humanity to live as our ancestors did, who, by the way, did a great deal of polluting and left very large carbon footprints during their short lives with all their wood burning, forest clearing, destruction of fragile eco-systems, wasteful agricultural methods and species eliminating. While modern humanity is far from perfect and a lot of our technology is unnecessarily dirty and hazardous to our health, it is far less dirty and hazardous than the technology of 50 years ago. Many of the improvements were due to the scientific response to the work of environmental activists, so the Department has a great respect for those who would safeguard the only home humanity has, Planet Earth. Which is not to say that every idea they come up with is astounding. The eat-only-local-food idea, for example, has been just as big a monumental waste as some of the waste the Green Movement rails against. DOPOTO urges them to take human nature into account when formulating human solutions.

Another curious development that has caught the eye of the Department is the current Democratic administration’s inertia when it comes to enacting what was announced to be an ambitious social and political agenda. President Obama was handed an almost unprecedented majority in both Houses of Congress, an obvious advantage when one wishes to pass a law. Yet for some unexplained reason, this Administration and Congress acts as if it has all the time in the world to do their work. DOPOTO’s long experience in observing humans and reporting the obvious tells us otherwise. It is approaching a year since they took power, leaving only another year before the mid-term elections could possibly erase their overwhelming Democratic Congressional majority, making it a precarious enterprise to pass even the most innocuous bill if it has been sponsored by a Democrat.

Recent history is plain (obvious!) when it informs us that few Republicans will consider any idea on its merits, only its source. If the Democrats lose their majority, one of them could introduce a bill simply declaring that every American citizen is allowed to breathe, and a dozen Republicans will denounce the idea as a communist left-wing conspiracy to hire Devil-worshipping transvestite cannibals to teach every kindergarten class. Researchers here at the Department have concluded that if the Republicans held this electoral trifecta, that not a day would pass without another law being enacted designed to bestow the last bit of America’s remaining wealth on the richest 1% of Americans and to rename The Bill of Rights “The Bill of Suggestions.”

So, what are the obvious conclusions to draw from the recent activities (or non-activity) of these two groups of political activists, one set elected and one set self-appointed? That, when dealing with humanity and its most pressing problems, it is always best to take reality into consideration and to heed the obvious always. The most difficult problems to overcome are generally not the physical realities confronting us, but the human realities. After all, man has stood on the surface of moon, but mankind has never embraced the view of Planet Earth as seen from the moon; a beautiful, tranquil blue sphere with no borders visible and no sign of strife or animosity of any sort. Sometimes the obvious is hiding in plain sight. The forest for the trees…

This has been a report from The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious

Blessed are those who prosper on their own merits, at the expense of no other.

William Shakespeare’s advice for straightening out society was “First, hang all the lawyers.” Sorry, Mr. Shakespeare, but hanging all the lawyers is only a secondary concern in our modern age. No doubt in your day lawyers did their best to mangle the law and turn it to their own personal advantage. Well, they’re still at it, but their malignant efforts are not quite as distressing as the actions of today’s bankers, those who handle everybody else’s money. It seems that in recent years they conveniently forgot the “everybody else’s” part of the money that passes through their hands and came to consider the collective wealth of nations as their very own to do with as they pleased. And so they gambled recklessly, engaged in fraudulent business practices and helped themselves to other people’s money in the form of staggering “bonuses.”

The result? In America alone, the destruction of 5 to 7 trillion dollars (no one’s really certain exactly how much these clowns flushed down the toilet) of collective wealth and the near-collapse of the richest economy in history. In turn the whole world was affected and a severe worldwide recession in is progress. Bankers now claim it is at an end since they are making money again thanks to socialist government bailouts, but the fact that a very tiny portion of humanity (bankers) is in the chips again has not lifted the hard times from the backs of average citizens. Their life savings are still depleted, their homes are worth less than they paid for them, if they haven’t already been tossed to the curb, and unemployment is rampant.

So it’s small comfort to anyone but themselves that bankers are once again the living embodiment of the French aristocracy as so colorfully described by Charles Dickens in “A Tale of Two Cities.” There is no joy to be derived from the news that these corporate princes are granting themselves obscene bonuses from someone else’s money once again, formulating more questionable investment schemes and declaring that it is all to the good. Sure, it’s all to the good for champagne-swilling, private jet-riding and treasury-looting greedaholics, but for the rest of us, still pretty grim.

The banks have yet to invest in a single industry that provides actual jobs or produces any tangible products. Far too much of the nation’s wealth is tied up in the financial industry, where the only “products” they produce are pieces of paper in a game of “hot-potato” where a tiny elite makes money off the shuffling of valuable assets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average doesn’t mean a damned thing to the nation’s workers, the people who actually built this place and keep it functioning. To value real property on what anyone’s feelings are about that property borders on the mystical and the weirdly religious. That’s pretty much how stock prices are determined, a baffling approach to business but one that allows speculators to earn endless money on nothing more than guessing (!) how people feel. Dow Jones is merely an indicator of who’s ahead in some colossal poker game where only a few are sitting at the table, with the rest of us providing them the chips with which to gamble.

When they win they don’t share their profits and when they lose they pass their losses off to others, then demand more chips from us to keep on playing the same old game. When they lose big they run to our national treasury for even more chips, this on top of the direct socialist subsidies and tax breaks they have been accepting for many, many years, even in their most profitable times. This they see as their just due, much like the royalty of centuries past figured they were ordained by God to run the world and live in luxury while the vast majority of humanity suffered an impoverished and precarious existence.

That’s why things like the American and French Revolutions occurred. While the lives of average Americans in no way compare to the degradation and starvation of the Age of Monarchies, the broad gulf between the haves and have-nots is rapidly widening. Right now in America, less than 1% of the population owns more wealth than 95% of all Americans. The super-wealthy and the corporations contribute far less of a percentage of taxes than ever before, with some paying none or actually receiving money from the government just for existing. This means that workers have had to make up the difference. Successive Republican administrations have orchestrated the largest peacetime transfer of wealth from the working classes to the rich in the history of mankind with a series of unfair tax laws, making people who were already very wealthy a super-wealthy aristocracy, while the classes below them took another step down the economic ladder.

Which is why America might need a Second American Revolution, not to overthrow our government but to liberate it from the clutches of the wealthy elite and their corporations. These cutthroat quasi-royals who champion free market Capitalism are actually practicing Socialism for the wealthy while opposing social programs for everyone else. Through their extensive lobbying organizations they have corrupted our democratic government, in many cases even writing laws to benefit themselves, an illegal usurpation of the duties of our elected government. Has anyone noticed how few of the perpetrators of the financial collapse of 2008 have been arrested for their crimes, which were many and well-documented? Or how many of the same individuals are still running the major corporations they nearly ran into the ground out of naked greed?

The fact that their self-induced financial disasters so negatively impacted every other segment of society also goes practically unmentioned. Millions of jobs were lost or downgraded in pay and benefits, and now these greedy patricians are chaffing at the government’s demands to limit the pay of corporate executives whose companies accepted federal money. It has finally dawned on the government that the bonus system encouraged reckless gambling with the nation’s collective wealth.

Why it didn’t occur to them to take all these bankers out and hang them is another story, one that may have to be told in the Anti-Corporate Revolution. Unless and until these people are fired for their larceny and the wealthy and the corporations are bought under the rule of law like everyone else and made to pay their taxes, other solutions may have to be sought. Thanks for the suggestion, Mr. Shakespeare, and for the reminder of where all this is going, Mr. Dickens. People can take only so much, and people who have tasted freedom and prosperity are likely to take even less.

No one eats at a soup kitchen for the camaraderie.

How quaint we are here in America and other wealthy nations. We freak out over a relatively mild strain of flu that has so far killed fewer people than bee stings, we wring our hands over our environment as it provides us plentiful food and creature comforts unprecedented in history, and formulate dumb theories to reduce the carbon footprints that sustain our bountiful lifestyles instead of pouring our energies into finding a replacement for petroleum, clean energy. We are not evil for enjoying success in keeping ourselves well-fed, safe and warm. We worked pretty damned hard to get this way. Now trendy Greenies want people to eat only what is produced locally, calling it low-impact feeding or some such crap. Eat only what is produced locally? People who live in New York City or the Mojave desert would be screwed if they followed that advice.

Weren’t ships, railroads and trucks invented like a really long time ago to ship a variety of foods all over the place? Isn’t a varied diet sort of a key component of good health? And isn’t shrimp about the tastiest food anywhere? Not too many people live in the middle of the ocean where shrimp are harvested. Most farming regions specialize in a limited number of products according to climate, rainfall, topsoil and the like. Should people in Florida eat a shitload of oranges and people in Iowa consume only corn and beef? And what on earth would people in northern Alaska eat, only seals? What asshole came up with this hare-brained theory?

It sure wasn’t anybody living in a nation where a lot of people starve to death. Bad enough that hunger is creeping back into America, the wealthiest nation in the history of nations, but every day in many countries across the globe there are people suffering such extremes of hunger that it is called starvation. So extreme is this starvation pandemic that a human being dies every 2.6 seconds. That’s 36,000 people every single day and 13,140,000 every year, except for leap years, when it is 13,176,000. About 85% of starvation victims are young children. The Silent Slaughter is a global emergency of the highest priority, and it is within our power to end it. Fuck all those other polite Greenie causes and cockamamie theories, this is job #1!

This is not something that might happen, or will possibly occur in 50 to 100 years. This is now! This is real and tragic and it is unconscionable that it is not the first priority of environmental activists everywhere. Since you began reading this, seven children have died an agonizingly painful death after deep and  prolonged suffering. Go make a cup of coffee and a snack. By the time you’re done (say, 20 minutes?) 500 more children will be dead. It is not your fault. You did not create the conditions that allow more than 13 million of your brothers and sisters to die unheeded every year. But now you know. Do you think it’s more important to buy mercury-filled incandescent bulbs to assuage your conscience about our environment or to try to help correct the biggest human emergency of them all?

Burn some electricity and Google the facts on your computer. While you’re on the internet, check out the websites that rate charities and find out which ones are working to feed the starving and how effective they are and send them some dough or volunteer some time. Use some more electricity to e-mail your elected representatives and tell them to shut the fuck up about whatever stupid shit they’re talking about and get America busy forming a very large New Peace Corps to deploy in emergency starvation regions and to stop paying our farmers not to grow food. Tell our government that you don’t want the wealthiest nation in the history of nations to stand by and twiddle its thumbs while 13 million people die from starvation every year. Tell them that we don’t want to be 307 million American Neros fiddling while the earth burns. We are America, dammit, and we’re supposed to act better than that!

America alone can produce the required food. America alone can supply the required technical know-how, skilled personnel and dedicated teachers required to not only feed the starving, but teach them to feed themselves. America can do all this alone, but probably won’t have to. If we make the first move and embark on this greatest of all wars, the peaceful War on Starvation, odds are we will collect a lot of allies along the way. Nations that exhibit an iron will and skilled leadership have moved the world community throughout history, for better or worse. Why not lead for the better? And what cause could possibly be greater that to feed every man, woman and child on this earth, and to create a sustainable system for eliminating starvation?

America has eliminated polio, invented a bazillion beneficial things, abolished slavery, fought and won two simultaneous world wars in less that four years to rid the world of fascism, and put a man on the goddamned moon! Anybody out there think we can’t feed another 13 million people if we put our minds to it? And why is this our responsibility, you ask? How can it not be? America is the greatest power in the world right now, with more interests in more places than even the mightiest empires in history. We have soldiers stationed in 150 of the world’s 192 countries and our fleets circle the earth, as do our business interests. We owe the world for this exalted position. For better or worse, America is The Man right now, and we need to act like The Man or stand aside and let someone else take over, someone who won’t fiddle while Rome burns.

All that aside, we should feed the starving only because it is the right thing to do. There should be no strings attached, no political or monetary rewards demanded. America has always been as much an idea and a set of ideals as it is a nation. Our entire history has been a quest to finally live up to those ideals. We have failed often but never denied that we could do better or swept our failures under the rug, instead laying them open for ourselves and the world to see, then correcting our shortcomings. Time to fix another one. The world is faced with an ancient emergency that has never sounded any alarms for mankind when other great powers dominated the globe. No matter what good was done by any world power, mankind was never able to claim its full humanity in all our history of bloody wars, slavery and exploitation, with rarely a thought for the uncounted billions who have perished from starvation over the millennia.

America is supposed to be different. America is supposed to be better, and now we’re Rome, we’re Egypt, we’re The British Empire. Do we allow the Silent Slaughter to continue on our watch? Do we fritter away our power, our activism and our goodness on a bunch of namby-pamby nonsense causes that can wait until we get food in everybody’s belly? Or do we stand up and shout to the world: “Enough!” Help end the Silent Slaughter. Send money to food charities and demand that our American government takes immediate and aggressive action. Children are dying and we can stop it. It is within our power. We need to make a huge carbon footprint right now and produce enough food and technical goods and services to feed the hungry and to build lasting infrastructures to keep them fed. Even failure is preferable to not trying at all. If we don’t try, we should be ashamed, as Americans and as human beings.

Most little-known facts are little-known for good reason. Does it help anybody to know that Tennessee is known as “The Turtle Capital of the World?” So much for The Grand Ole Opry, corn whiskey and the Great Smoky Mountains. Now whenever you think of Tennessee you’ll think of turtles. You’re welcome.