Michael Moore does it again. His message for April 30, 2000, the 25th anniversary of the American defeat in Vietnam is witty, to the point, and I cannot say it much better. So check it out. Because most people get their news and opininons from CNN, Rush Limbaugh, or their local nightly news, it is unlikely that this perspective has had much airtime.

With no disrespect for those who served in Vietnam, nor for those who lost their lives, this was not a war to defend America, it was another shenanigan of lying politicians, the pawns of rich, well placed, white men, who are the real criminals in most scenerios which involve invasions of foreign nations.

Quoting from Michael Moore's letter:

"Communism, for those of you too young to have experienced the scare, was this thing that enslaved billions of people to a system where they had little or no say, where elections contained essentially no choice on the ballot, where competition and choice in the marketplace were eliminated, and where virtually every town had but one newspaper which told them what was going on. In other words, sorta like the U.S. today! "

We really must look at what the US has become or is becoming. Our media has become more and more centralized and less accessible. The airwaves which should be the domain of the people, a means of communication in a free society are co-opted by consumerism. Corporations are becoming more and more centralized, with fewer holding the largest shares of resources, property and wealth. Our political parties are pawns of those with money and power -- the corporate globalization agenda. We are living in a corporate feudal state.

The recent opposition to the WTO, the IMF and corporate globalization is a symptom, a reaction to the undermining of our democracy. And three cheers for those who feel optimistic enough to want to protest. We could be facing the greatest attack on our rights to make our own decisions in the name of convenience, the free market and profit. If instead of free-for-all market capitalism, fairness were the rule of thumb, there would be little complaint. But fairness is not what laissez-faire capitalism is all about. Let the market take care of itself? At whose expense? Without regulation, without the need to be responsible to those who are affected by decisions, when profit is the bottom line, whose interests are going to be served? Certainly not the little person. We may be having an economic boom, but why are there more homeless people on the streets? A fairly sobering idea is this: if everyone in the world were to enjoy the ecological excesses of the middle class American, we would need several more planet sized areas just to sustain the population in the life style to which they would like to be accustomed.

And what does this have to do with Vietnam? Everything and nothing. It's our tax dollars which allow America to be the Corporate Cop of the World, to protect and serve the interests of richest corporations where ever necessary. Exactly what was at stake in Vietnam still seems unclear, but one thing is certain: we were all fed a bunch of lies to maintain it and save face. And it seems unlikely that anything has changed much since then. We've been to Granada, Kosovo, Iraq, Panama . . . and so on. . to make the world safe not for democracy but for corporate control. And corporate control of our lives is the bottom line. Somehow, we've got to reclaim our voice, our democracy. The voices of protest in Vietnam were heard -- finally. The American War became unpopular and therefore unmanageable. We can educate ourselves and let our voices becomes voices for justness, and fairness in the workplace, here and abroad, in communities where pollutants and developments are destroying the balance of nature -- where ever enough of us get together to seek solutions, creatively rather than destructively. The proverbial grass through the cement. It cannot be held down forever. Already, the voices in Seattle and in Washington have forced at least some rhetoric on the side of fairness.

And just why isn't corporate control good? Why wouldn't you want to live in a maximum security society? Where everything is "beautiful: all day long . . . and your 401k keeps expanding, and expanding . . . . and hey The Gap and Costco are great, the all American dream, more is better, consumerist heaven, as long as you're a member of in-crowd...and isn't comsumption part of human nature? But our large appetite for consumer goods is not really natural; it was promoted as a strategy to increase markets for goods. And if all this consumerism is so great, shouldn't our standard of living and quality of life be better? It seems that it takes much more money just to live a subsistance existence, with less quality of life these days. Mom and pop have little chance of success competing against multi-nationals. It takes two salaries to "make it", working as indentured servants with no health care. Yup, we've got it so much better now.....

And now back to War. I wish someone could tell me what war in the last 50 years has actually been fought for our country and not some other agenda . . . . .