Joe Stack had reached the end of his sanity. He was not a hero, he was not a martyr. He was an American who was driven into mental illness by despair.

According to the letter he left behind, he saw the American Dream as a cunning deception that Americans are brainwashed to believe when they’re young, meant to pacify them throughout their lives while the wealthy and powerful plundered the nation’s wealth and power. He felt helpless to combat the inequity and harm that such corruption wreaked upon him.

Joe Stack had lost everything else and he had now lost his mind.

The letter he left behind (you can read it here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html), reflects a familiar and sympathetic story of a man who felt victimized by the corruption of America. What is striking is how he could be so rational in describing what had led him to deciding to commit an irrational act.

There are more than a few Americans that are on the verge of giving up in the face of such intractable and only increasing corruption of this nation, its government and its society. For some, giving up means disengaging, not even trying to make a difference any more because, “What’s it going to change?”. For a very few however, it means venting that frustration and hatred of all that’s wrong on society, its symbols and people who represent a corrupt society to them.

The suicide plane crash into the IRS for ideological reasons is not so different from what happened on 9/11. No matter how upset or frustrated anyone becomes, committing an act that could kill innocent people is not justified. Joe Stack committed an act of domestic terrorism and should be condemned for it.

At the same time, an American flying a plane into an American government building out of desperation is unfortunately symbolic of the futility that many Americans feel about trying to fix and change their government. In an era when our SCOTUS selects the president and hands our democracy to corporations, when the MSM functions as an agenda-driven propaganda machine of major corporations, when one of the only two parties governing our nation blocks progress and helping Americans who are otherwise dying just to help their prospects to regain power…it is not surprising that some feel our democracy has become so diseased and unrecognizable from what it started out to be, it is now their enemy.

Consider the Teabaggers, Anti-Abortion groups, racists, religious extremists, etc. Now consider Activist Progressives,  anti-corporation people, Dem Obama critics, pro-single-payer supporters, etc.  What do ALL of them have in common? From their own perspectives and using different issues, all see government and our democracy as corrupt.

80% of Americans oppose the SCOTUS handing our democracy to the corporations. 80%. Think about that. There’s got to be Republicans, Independents, Democrats, Libertarians, even some Teabaggers to get to that percentage.

Though they may not be protesting in the streets as they should be, if a majority of Americans still feel that more and more each day, our society and government is becoming increasingly corrupted and dominated by the wealthy and powerful…even if they are only privately thinking  that our society and democracy are failing, the decline of this nation and more terrible acts in response likely lay ahead of us.

There is only so far the rubber band can be stretched until it breaks…and those stretching the rubber band are so greedy, their mindset is that when the rubber band is reaching the end, the most profitable thing to do is stretch it faster and harder to get as much as they can before it breaks. They do not fear the outcome of their destruction. They are “too big to fail” and the government MUST always support them or they will drag the whole nation down with them.

Joe Stack may have committed a terrorist act by flying his plane into a building but what about the corporations who kamikazed into our state and local governments, the businesses we work for, our jobs and salaries, our home equity and life savings, our schools and hospitals, our police and fire departments and our life-sustaining health care? Who has truly conducted the most destructive terrorist attacks on the American people?

With all this in mind, any terrorism is wrong. The only way to improve society is to be constructive, not destructive. And as with Joe Stack, things may not improve in time to help us but it may help the next generation. So we can’t give up, we have to step up. We don’t have to give our lives to the cause of rescuing our democracy from the hands that now hold it, we just have to give a bit of time and energy. We have to be willing to write letters and make calls to our representatives, we have to be willing to attend meetings and protest in person, we have to be willing to invest at least a small share of our life to salvage the America we believe in.

Many Americans join the military for the same basic reason, to protect America from its enemies. Thousands of them have died in just the last several years…they have died, they have willingly accepted the loss of their life if necessary to protect this nation.

If we respect the huge sacrifices other Americans make each day in the pursuit of protecting us and our democracy and the many who came before them, the least we can do to honor them is to sacrifice a small amount of time and comfort to be active in fighting for the return of democracy to all Americans, including those overseas risking their lives for our nation.

We have started down the path of forming an activist group here and I hope the enthusiasm to organize and take action to try and right our democracy is profound and enduring. We can do something meaningful and constructive, there are many others out there doing so in their own way. It is not far-fetched to see a convergence somewhere down the line of many of these groups and people, a potential tidal wave of Americans demanding change that would not be held off by corporate propaganda or corrupt politicians.

There was an exchange in the movie Gandhi, I don’t know that it was from an actual quote of his but when it comes to the concerns of futility in taking action to take back our democracy from the wealthy and corporations, I do find it appropriate:

Brigadier: You don’t think we’re just going to walk out of India!
Gandhi: Yes. In the end, you will walk out. Because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.

This is the one and only thing that the wealthy and corporations fear. That we will come together in numbers to oppose their rule. They know that is the only way they can be defeated and that they simply can’t combat that. So, of course, they happily participate in trying to split us up and divide us against each other.

Because if 330 million Americans refused to cooperate with the Fortune 500, they know full well who would win that confrontation.

A New York Times reporter asked a man the following question, What is a fascist?  How many fascists have we?  How dangerous are they?  The man answered,

The really dangerous American fascist….is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way.  The American fascist would prefer not to use violence.  His method is to poison the channels of public information.  With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.  They claim to be superpatriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.  They demand free enterprise but are the spokesman for monolopy and vested interest.  Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjucation.

The man who answered that question?  Vice President Henry Wallace in 1944.   Dr. James Luther Adams, an ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School who passed on in July 1994, had known this for a long time.  During 1935 and 1936 Dr Adams was working in Germany with the underground anti-Nazi church, also known as the Confessing Church.  Because of his work with the dissidents of that group, he was interrograted by the Gestapo who suggested he return to America, which he did, along with rolls of home movie film he took of the German Christian Church.  He saw in our christian right and our corporate dominance exactly what he saw during those early dark days in Nazi Germany.  He was advising his students as early as 1982 that when they were close to 80 they would all be fighting the Christian fascists.  He also warned his students at that time that intellectual snobbery would blind them to the signs when they came.  At that time, the religious right and their demogagues were in the infancy of their eventual corporate reign.  Today, it is not so far-fetched that they are poised, with the SCOTUS ruling, to set their course for complete dominance in the political arena.

The corporations and the right have been setting the stage for several years for dominance over the middle class.   We have stood by and watched as our manufacturing base has been decimated by jobs sent overseas to places where they can pay pennies on the dollar for labor.  We have watched the Wall Street institutions and the Mortgage industry take this country to the brink.  We watch a Federal Reserve, which is not a government entity, work in secret with trillions of our dollars.  And all the time, the right screams “Less regulation, let free market capitalism work, free market capitalism will right itself”  In other words, do nothing, we like what is happening right now and want to see it to its proper conclusion.  What could that conclusion be?

Is there another ”situation” out there that is going to take the American public to the brink, then over?  Many of our fellow countrymen right now are in despair because they cannot find a decent job with fair wages and benefits.  Abandoned by the economy, beleagured by their dissappearing middle class status, their loss of community when forced to leave a foreclosed home, all of these could be the kindling for a mass movement.  In fact these very people are the people who need a friend most and who the religious right is waiting in the wings to lead them to Jesus who may solve all their problems.   Or not, but where will that movement go, will they turn to the people who will say they will make their lives better with Jesus, or will they turn to people who will help them fight their way out of the mess we are in?  We all know that bigotry and resentment are lurking just below the surface, under the right conditions can that be roused to promote a creed that calls for the destruction of democracy?  There are forces out there who are waiting for just the right time and SCOTUS gave them a big shot in the arm with their decision that corporations are people too.

I believe with the right organizational cooperation, this can be flushed and dealt a death blow.

Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world:  Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.  Margaret Mead

With huge kudos to javaz for conceiving of and inspiring this, SueInCA for organizing, Chernynkaya for writing the Mission Statement and all the other members contributing, following is a list of all names suggested for a new populist organization that would truly represent those wanting to promote the rights of the American people over those of corporations and other powerful interests.

Since there are so many great names to chose between, you may vote for up to 10. We will then present the top 10 vote-getters for a final vote. In case a tie would cause more than 10 finalists, we may include one or two more but if it would mean adding more than that, we will just have to flip a coin.  Any names that are slight variations of each other that make it into the top 10 will be narrowed to just one entry, the one with the most votes.

Before presenting the poll, here is the Mission Statement drafted by Chernynkaya:

“We are a group of citizens united to ensure the continuation of democracy, which is imperiled by the corporate takeover of our government.

We stand united against the corrupting power of corporate money – money that mutes our voices.

We insist that the voice of Main Street be heard.

Our mission is to unite our country against the threat to our nation – the rise of corporate influence and the consolidation of the media.

We urge all Americans of any political party to join us in this one goal: “A government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

Below is the list of all names submitted (tongue-in-cheek ones excluded), in alphabetical order. You may select up to 10 favorites.

A few hopefully helpful suggestions that may help you narrow down your choices (there are so many good ones!):

a. Look for names that best describe to you the mission and/or attitude of the group as clearly and concisely as possible.

b. Consider all possible nicknames that could result from a selection, especially the worst ones that detractors could use to demean it.

c. Names with acronyms that have some descriptiveness are a plus but brief names that have no real acronym are just as strong and just as easy to say.

d. Say the name out loud, sometimes a name on paper can come across differently when spoken. Imagine telling a friend the name as a group you belong to or a newscaster announcing the name. Does it sound strong or does it sound quirky? Does it sound like a populist group or a fringe group?There can sometimes be a thin line between noble and silly, as The Teabaggers found out.

And now, the poll:

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Wellpoint, LLC, parent of Anthem/Blue Cross which announced a record single increase of customer’s premiums by up to 39%, just delivered a letter to The White House to explain the necessary marketplace reasons for their outrageous increase. They sent it by email along with the following music video which they claimed should answer everyone’s questions:

Of course they cooked figures and reasons for it but as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in response:

“It remains difficult to understand how a company that made $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone can justify massive increases that will leave consumers with nothing but bad options. “High healthcare costs alone cannot account for a premium increase that is 10 times higher than national health spending growth.”

That’s right. $2.7 billion in revenue in ONE QUARTER! And the respose to that is…raise premiums 39%.

I certainly hope Obama and Dems use this to hammer the GOP who want this rape of Americans to continue unabated. I hope they use it as ammunition with Dems in Congress to pass a public option via reconciliation.

Otherwise, if Americans vote Republican in November and 2012, they’re voluntarily cutting their own throats and getting treatment for that will not be pre-approved.

We need to start a movement, a splinter group from the Democratic Party.

I am not talking about “media” or “profits” but am talking about starting a movement that somehow forms and takes off.

Heck, I think we’ll even get folks that consider themselves Teabaggers, because not all Teabaggers are the racist bigots from the Palin Convention in Nashville.

Even folks who consider themselves Teabaggers were turned off by that convention and are turned off by the racism.

We have to make the time.
We have to learn to take it step by step.
But we have to figure out what the steps are.

There would be plenty of drawbacks, because we would favor labor, meaning unions, and working class Americans.

Why couldn’t we at PPOV figure it out?

Why couldn’t we be the leader in figuring it out?

There has to be a way.

There are so many disillusioned, angry, fearful and disenfranchised Americans, and shouldn’t there be a way to get the message out and bring us all together and then work for change?

Real change, without corporate influence?

Just regular Americans that UNITE and . . . what?
How?
There has to be a way.

Back in the 60’s there were causes that united people enough to protest so many things and change did happen.

I just hate feeling as though there’s nothing we can do.

I can’t think of anything to do – a solution other than organizing a movement, similar to the Teabaggers, but for the Democratic Party.

We’re more open, tolerant, and no offense to the Teabaggers, well – but we could formulate a course of action and outline actual paradigms for change rather than rhetoric.

Oh, maybe I am far too naive and maybe it is impossible, but geeze-o-peete’s, it’s got to start somewhere.

I’m tired of our voices not being heard or taken seriously.

But this site is a GROUP THINK TANK.

It would take time, and we’d have to outline exactly what it is we want.

We know the broad basics, but we would need to work on laying it all out in specifics and then laying out how we get there.

We would have to be rational, because we can’t get everything we want, or our desires for the greater good, but – well, it would be a very complicated thing to do, but would it be impossible?

And once a movement took off, and it would, we would be so powerful of a voice of “Americans United” – maybe that could be our splinter group name instead of Teabaggers, and the MSM, and better yet, the politicians could not ignore us any longer.

We should talk about it at the very least because that would be the start.

The MSM only covers the RWs, including the Teabaggers, and ignores the Democrats and Progressives.

We need a movement similar to the Teabaggers, but on the left, and on the side of the working middle class and poor Americans.

A group that would work to elect representatives that would work for the middle class and not the corporations.

Reps that would fight for health care reform, true reform, and would fight for wages – you know, we’re tired of taking pay-cuts and having to work longer hours with less benefits so the CEOs can make bigger profits and be rewarded bigger bonuses.

We need Reps to STOP corporate welfare and obnoxious bonuses while Americans are losing their homes and health insurance.

The left needs a splinter group that would work to cleanse the Democratic Party of the corporate-bought-and-paid-for Dems and blue-dog Dems, and bring in Reps that actually represent middle America.

I’m so damn tired of working to elect Democrats, only to have them work for the corporations.

I can’t think of any other solution than to form a splinter group and search for candidates and support candidates that will work for “We The People.”

I wonder how a person or group goes about starting a movement.

The teabaggers had FOX and the health insurance companies, but I wonder how regular people can start a movement, a genuine grassroots movement made up of working class and middle class and poor Americans.

I’m so discouraged by everything that’s happening in our country, and PPOV is a think tank, so maybe we could think about actually forming a splinter group of the Democratic Party.

Or is that too naive and impossible?

It has to start somewhere, and I wonder how we could get it started or if it’s even possible.

Corporations should share their profits with their employees.

That’s my first suggestion on a mission statement for starting a movement, a splinter movement of the Democratic Party, which would include everyone – mainly middle class Americans.

I’m suggesting we work on starting a movement to combat the corruption of our elected officials – we have the best bought and paid for Reps and we’ve got them on both sides of aisle.

I’m writing about real change without corporate influence.

We Planeteers, every single one of us, can work on a movement.

But before we even attempt a movement, we have to work out the mission statement and then figure out the way to achieve it.

After a Superbowl that symbolically saw the city of New Orleans make a statement of defiance and resilience against social and economic injustice, CBS (Corporate Broadcasting System) debuted a show that was a disturbing piece of pro corporate propaganda disguised in the sheep’s clothing (borrowed from Carly Fiorina’s media consultant).

So, in addition to promoting the hateful faux-Christian political group, Focus on the Family during the Superbowl, CBS used the valuable slot that followed the Superbowl with a segment from “Undercover Boss”

The superficial description of this reality series is that a corporate CEO goes undercover as a lowly employee to learn about and appreciate the lives of the insects…whoops… employees…under him.

What it represents though is pro-corporatist propaganda wrapped in the manipulative, humiliating, saccharine sweetness of “Queen For a Day”. You see, the corporate “Prince” (CEO) masquerades as a “pauper” (employee) to rub elbows with the unwashed and discovers…they’re actually human beings with real problems (some of which ironically have been caused directly or indirectly by their greedy employers).

The dynamic itself is insulting. In these times when CEOs and hedge fund managers have so devastated and continue to devastate the lives of what was a robust middle class, the concept that a series would present CEOs as warm hearted, compassionate “kings” of our society who may grant their “peasants” a favor out of their holy mercy…is a sobering roadmap for where the corporate “kings” of our society are charting course.

In light of the SCOTUS ruling which openly awards ownership of our democracy to corporations, the corporate plutocracy that has taken over our society needs to have ongoing propaganda to keep the peasants from using their strength in numbers to take back their wealth and country…the only strength the people have that corporations can’t overcome.

So, corporations and CEOs need to shape the perception of themselves as kind and gentle kings who should be loved and respected by their serfs. They need to be Tom De Lay on Dancing With The Stars. Be self-deprecating and humble on tv so they can shield their greed and ruthless acquistion of wealth and power from the American people.

For example, look at the phony “concerned American” T. Boone Pickens (who Dylan Ratigan celebrated last week by using Boone’s ass as a nose warmer) and his “Pickens Plan” .

As the book, Deceiving Americans For Dummies explains on Page 1, if you’re trying to present a plan as selfless, you don’t name it after yourself.

Greedy, egotistical creatures like Pickett just can’t help themselves. Even when they’re trying to cloak themselves in sheep’s clothing, they can’t help but put a huge wolf tattoo on it.

Why is Pickens, the greedy, polluting, destructive oil man who financed the hateful, lying Swift Boat ads against John Kerry, now our savior, only trying to help us to energy independence without any concern for his own benefit?

You guessed it, like all the bullshit that corporations and CEOs shovel about themselves, it’s another Swift Boat-style blatant lie just for public consumption.

The Pickens Plan is about changing our addiction to the limited fossil fuel, oil…to an addiction to the limited fossil fuel, natural gas.

Pickens has cornered a majority of the natural gas market in the U.S., along with using his money and deception to get state governments to grant him wide swaths of public land for “wind farms”…but somehow has ended up with the water rights for all of that land too.

As many nations in the world could tell you now, potable water is the oil of tomorrow, something that is quickly shrinking in supply thanks to global warming and the destruction of rain forests and nature…that has happened due to the use of and exploration of oil and gas and other plundering of the Earth.

Which was and still is Pickens original “plan”.

Pickens used his money to get a ballot measure in CA that would have only allowed natural gas powered cars and natural gas stations to be subsidized by the state, excluding all other vehicles and stations that used any other type of energy. It’s a credit to Californians that they voted the deceptively “altruistic” bill down which would have effectively smothered actual renewable and environmentally positive types of energy including plug-in electric and the potential for hydrogen powered cars.

When you see generic energy organizations or oil companies promoting natural gas in commercials on MSNBC, CNN, etc. with clear blue skies and happy families having picnics at big grassy parks, that’s Pickens rubbing his hands like Mr. Burns and sighing, “Exxx-ce-llent!”, hoping that his dream of a new monopoly on energy has just moved a little closer to reality.

What all of this points to is the ongoing propaganda assault on our nation by the unapologetically, greedy corporations and CEOs who, despite destroying our economy, won’t stop trying to shake the piggy bank until all of our nation’s wealth and democracy are emptied into their hands.

And IMO, the new, post-economic-crash phase of propaganda is in full swing, exemplified by the debut of this new series in a great time slot and cynically presented with a deceptive, populist theme.

Perhaps they should have titled the show, “The People Are Revolting” so that people on each side of the fence could have a definition they found most satisfying.