December 10, 1999
As our television screens were filled with scenes of protesters on the streets of Seattle, being beaten back with clubs, teargassed and shot with hard rubber bullets, it brought back vivid memories of past protests that the Mexican American-Chicano community went through in the late 60's and 70's. We took to the streets to make the political leadership hear our voices of pain.
We were also met with walls of policemen, sheriff's deputies, and right wing extremists. They were determined to silence our protests, our attempts to deal with the politically entrenched racist that were determined to have their way no matter what we had to say. We were de-enfranchised from American society.
The stage for the Seattle protest was the World Trade Organization (WTO) Conference. The WTO is an international trade cartel. It is an elitist organization determined to harness the world and its resources for their benefit. Its members (Controllers) are the capitalist owners of major Corporations, Businesses, and International Cartels from the various nations. It is a cartel where the `First-world nations seek to exploit third world nations not for their own nation's benefit but to the individual members that wish to control the world's financial resources. They have no loyalty to any nation.
The protesters in the streets were using the streets as their stage to let the world know that they were not about to turn over their rights as citizens of the United States and be ruled by Corporate rulers, International Cartels and the major capitalists of the world who are attempting to assume control over our lives, and make us tools of their greed, who accumulate wealth regardless of the impact that it has on health, freedoms and well being of the citizens. The WTO is attempting to "control all the means of production" and harness us into virtual slavery as they have so many citizens of the Third world.
What happened in Seattle is happening in California. We the citizens of San Diego and this state have been de-enfranchised from our city, county, state and national government. We no longer have control. We may have the votes, but we don't have the financial clout that Corporate Statist have to control elections and those that are elected. The multi-millionaires have made voting irrelevant. Government no longer represents the will of the people of this country.
This newspaper La Prensa San Diego has been sounding the alarm for a while now … Our local government has been working for a long time in the interests of the big business and corporate entities that control our elected officials. Our city and county are suffering the consequences. Health care doesn't matter, nor does the environment. Nor does it matter if our citizens have a living salary, that they have schools, roads, bridges, streets, sewers and water, libraries, clinics, hospitals, lights etc. The only thing that matters is that our tax money goes into their coffers to assure the growing wealth of the Tycoons living amongst us. Money that should go to improve our welfare is squandered and wasted. The deep-pocket boys control everything.
We also are feeling hopeless … It may be demonstrated in the streets of this city as the realization finally comes that we the citizens no longer control our government. Perhaps Mayor Golding and her city council members as well as the Board of Supervisors should take another look at Seattle. It may save them a lot of problems down the road.
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