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Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University
One of the greatest problems that the American people seem to have at times lies with their apparent inability to select the best of all possible presidential candidates. This does not stem from the fact that they are incapable of making a good judgment. On the contrary, the American people as a whole do know very well what they want in their nation’s president. However, as the time for elections approaches, the American people tend to become heavily influenced by the news media, which are mostly controlled by big corporations.
Manipulation by US Big Corporations
Slowly but surely, US big corporations have increasingly become experts in their ability to manipulate and deceive the American people as to make them elect not the people’s but eventually the corporations’ president. This explains why one president after another tends so support always corporate interests over the people’s interests. This constitutes a real problem for the American people. However, since there is not one single problem in the world that cannot be solved in one way or another, this problem could also be solved.
To this end, the American people need to do their homework as to realize what presidential candidates may be eliminated from consideration, regardless of their so called popularity, charisma and expertise. Americans should no longer rely on what the prospective presidential candidates say. They need to analyze carefully their past public service performance but, above all, they need to explore to what extent each of such presidential candidates has become a rubber stamp of big corporations.
There are several vital steps that could be taken, the sooner the better. Among the most important would be the exposition of the US big corporations that are financing the political campaign of such presidential candidates. The American people must be convinced that the one who would eventually be elected president would never take a single step that would be displeasing to the big corporations that contributed millions to his/her campaign.
Why is it that so many US senators and congressmen do not seem to take the problem of the environmental pollution quite seriously? It is because they would not dare to make restrictions on the big corporations that financed their political campaign. What is it that the American people want from their government and their president? They want them to solve political problems through constructive diplomatic means and not through the military and the waging of wars. The American people are fully aware nowadays that when their government officials, including the US President, speak of defending American interests overseas, they merely mean interests of US big corporations, and they do so even when proven to be detrimental to the lives of the American people!
Corporate Exploitation of People
Of all US big corporations, the weapons industry has emerged to become the most lucrative business. Through the manufacture and sales of weapons and the waging of wars, quite a few in the US government have become multi-millionaires. The legitimate question that needs to be raised here is this: Are these US foreign belligerent policies being implemented to save America from the enemy, whoever that may be, or are they primarily waged to boost the business of the weapons industry? Are we aware that such belligerent policies are creating more enemies and more surmountable problems to Americans?
Those US senators and congressmen that vote for continuous increase in military budget need to be carefully examined as to explore from where they got the millions they have accumulated. Surely, they did not make their millions from their governmental salary. The American people should never vote for any presidential candidate who received money from the military industrial complex. The people have a right to ask every presidential candidate: “Did you ever receive money from the weapons industry, from the military industrial complex? Which are the big corporations that are financing your present political campaign and that financed your past political campaigns?”
Any presidential candidate that speaks for the need of a strong defense and for the manufacturing of new weaponry systems that are more devastating should be suspect. The American people need desperately a president that would put top priority on the nation’s people knowing for sure that the nation’s strength and weakness are measured not by its military but by the kind of health and education the people enjoy. The presidential candidates need to be asked straight questions such as: “Where do you stand on the Iraqi war? Do you believe it was a big mistake? Do you think you have learned that in a war every one is a loser and no one is a winner? Do you feel capable of solving all political problems on a global scale through healthy dialogues and diplomatic means?”
“Did you learn that you should never proceed to repeat the mistake of both the Vietnam and the Iraqi war? Are you capable of initiating an international program of disarmament and arms control? Are you convinced that the world is safer with fewer weapons and with fewer wars? Do have any plans not to let lobbyists of big corporations bring under their full control any of our senators and congressmen? If you did receive money from the weapons industry, are you willing to return it immediately and refuse to accept it?” These are all legitimate questions that all the American people have a sacrosanct right to raise.
Qualities of Good Presidential Candidates
The presidential candidates who should be taken more seriously should be those that put top priority on people’s vital needs. Such needs would include a good health care system where all medication and hospitalization as well as the homes for the elderly would be free. They would also include a free educational system at all levels of education, like we do have in quite a few countries. When it comes to discipline, particularly in public school, children with systematic behavior problems should be put in a special class and not let them be mixed in ordinary classes where they disrupt constantly of the teachers’ lectures.
Good presidential candidates need to promise to stop offering other nations that so called military aid and weapons which are often used by governmental officials to kill their own people each time they try to protest against injustices. Instead, they should vouch to offer other nations food for the hungry, homes for the homeless as well as adequate schools and hospitals. They need to promise to stop policing the whole world through the establishment of more military bases, whose purpose is most assuredly to wage more wars each time an opportunity offers. This way there would be no justification whatsoever to continue to pour more billions of dollars into this lucrative but vicious business of weapons and wars.
The good presidential candidates that the American people should take into serious consideration are those who advocate genuine peace among nations around the world. The United States needs an American President who would be capable of bringing honesty and a high code of ethics into the US government. We need a president who realizes that it would be illegal, and even criminal, for US government officials to make money out of weapons and wars, directly or indirectly. Last but not least, the American people as a whole do not want to see ever again the cowboy diplomacy adopted as a foreign policy in dealing with other nations. Americans deserve to have a US President who would respect the democratic principles of the nation and the freedom of the American people to move around freely anywhere in the nation and around the world.
President, International Association of Educators for World Peace
Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education,
Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament
Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University
One of the greatest problems that the American people seem to have at times lies with their apparent inability to select the best of all possible presidential candidates. This does not stem from the fact that they are incapable of making a good judgment. On the contrary, the American people as a whole do know very well what they want in their nation’s president. However, as the time for elections approaches, the American people tend to become heavily influenced by the news media, which are mostly controlled by big corporations.
Manipulation by US Big Corporations
Slowly but surely, US big corporations have increasingly become experts in their ability to manipulate and deceive the American people as to make them elect not the people’s but eventually the corporations’ president. This explains why one president after another tends so support always corporate interests over the people’s interests. This constitutes a real problem for the American people. However, since there is not one single problem in the world that cannot be solved in one way or another, this problem could also be solved.
To this end, the American people need to do their homework as to realize what presidential candidates may be eliminated from consideration, regardless of their so called popularity, charisma and expertise. Americans should no longer rely on what the prospective presidential candidates say. They need to analyze carefully their past public service performance but, above all, they need to explore to what extent each of such presidential candidates has become a rubber stamp of big corporations.
There are several vital steps that could be taken, the sooner the better. Among the most important would be the exposition of the US big corporations that are financing the political campaign of such presidential candidates. The American people must be convinced that the one who would eventually be elected president would never take a single step that would be displeasing to the big corporations that contributed millions to his/her campaign.
Why is it that so many US senators and congressmen do not seem to take the problem of the environmental pollution quite seriously? It is because they would not dare to make restrictions on the big corporations that financed their political campaign. What is it that the American people want from their government and their president? They want them to solve political problems through constructive diplomatic means and not through the military and the waging of wars. The American people are fully aware nowadays that when their government officials, including the US President, speak of defending American interests overseas, they merely mean interests of US big corporations, and they do so even when proven to be detrimental to the lives of the American people!
Corporate Exploitation of People
Of all US big corporations, the weapons industry has emerged to become the most lucrative business. Through the manufacture and sales of weapons and the waging of wars, quite a few in the US government have become multi-millionaires. The legitimate question that needs to be raised here is this: Are these US foreign belligerent policies being implemented to save America from the enemy, whoever that may be, or are they primarily waged to boost the business of the weapons industry? Are we aware that such belligerent policies are creating more enemies and more surmountable problems to Americans?
Those US senators and congressmen that vote for continuous increase in military budget need to be carefully examined as to explore from where they got the millions they have accumulated. Surely, they did not make their millions from their governmental salary. The American people should never vote for any presidential candidate who received money from the military industrial complex. The people have a right to ask every presidential candidate: “Did you ever receive money from the weapons industry, from the military industrial complex? Which are the big corporations that are financing your present political campaign and that financed your past political campaigns?”
Any presidential candidate that speaks for the need of a strong defense and for the manufacturing of new weaponry systems that are more devastating should be suspect. The American people need desperately a president that would put top priority on the nation’s people knowing for sure that the nation’s strength and weakness are measured not by its military but by the kind of health and education the people enjoy. The presidential candidates need to be asked straight questions such as: “Where do you stand on the Iraqi war? Do you believe it was a big mistake? Do you think you have learned that in a war every one is a loser and no one is a winner? Do you feel capable of solving all political problems on a global scale through healthy dialogues and diplomatic means?”
“Did you learn that you should never proceed to repeat the mistake of both the Vietnam and the Iraqi war? Are you capable of initiating an international program of disarmament and arms control? Are you convinced that the world is safer with fewer weapons and with fewer wars? Do have any plans not to let lobbyists of big corporations bring under their full control any of our senators and congressmen? If you did receive money from the weapons industry, are you willing to return it immediately and refuse to accept it?” These are all legitimate questions that all the American people have a sacrosanct right to raise.
Qualities of Good Presidential Candidates
The presidential candidates who should be taken more seriously should be those that put top priority on people’s vital needs. Such needs would include a good health care system where all medication and hospitalization as well as the homes for the elderly would be free. They would also include a free educational system at all levels of education, like we do have in quite a few countries. When it comes to discipline, particularly in public school, children with systematic behavior problems should be put in a special class and not let them be mixed in ordinary classes where they disrupt constantly of the teachers’ lectures.
Good presidential candidates need to promise to stop offering other nations that so called military aid and weapons which are often used by governmental officials to kill their own people each time they try to protest against injustices. Instead, they should vouch to offer other nations food for the hungry, homes for the homeless as well as adequate schools and hospitals. They need to promise to stop policing the whole world through the establishment of more military bases, whose purpose is most assuredly to wage more wars each time an opportunity offers. This way there would be no justification whatsoever to continue to pour more billions of dollars into this lucrative but vicious business of weapons and wars.
The good presidential candidates that the American people should take into serious consideration are those who advocate genuine peace among nations around the world. The United States needs an American President who would be capable of bringing honesty and a high code of ethics into the US government. We need a president who realizes that it would be illegal, and even criminal, for US government officials to make money out of weapons and wars, directly or indirectly. Last but not least, the American people as a whole do not want to see ever again the cowboy diplomacy adopted as a foreign policy in dealing with other nations. Americans deserve to have a US President who would respect the democratic principles of the nation and the freedom of the American people to move around freely anywhere in the nation and around the world.