A hundred thousand protesters are at work in Copenhagen to attack a problem that no amount of science will cure. Only a small percentage of the crowd is American. As protesters look for morale support, they see few Americans not only because the COP15 Summit is in Europe. The US is the world’s largest consumer of the earth’s resources. We should be there in large numbers. We aren’t because our nation that so reveres democracy and power of the people has the most severe cases of Corporate Cancer in the world.

This disease has almost destroyed the democratic ideals that are driven into American consciousness since childhood. We elected a president to save us and he can’t because his office and family are located where the sufferers from the disease do their most damaging work. No other physical disease has the diseased as its most ardent supporters. Mental diseases do. Corporate Cancer is a mental disease.

If you decide to join the millions on the Internet who want to combat this disease and send combatants to Washington who have immunity, your email in box will be inundated with a myriad of information and seemingly worthwhile causes that claim to be the answer. Each cause deserves to be supported. However, those of us without the disease or in the early stages are asked to solve symptoms rather than the disease and those diseased are pleased to see this diffused effort. That’s the most insidious aspect of this disease. The more it grows, the less aware one is that you are diseased.

The most diseased trumpet the glories of unregulated capitalism and mask their disease through possessions and power. The more they have the more they want even though there is no proof that creature comforts or power over others brings true happiness. Even though the wealthiest man in the world, Bill Gates, has found a way to work on his disease by giving most of his fortune to the poor and suffering, his example has found only a few extremely wealthy followers. Some may just be trying to lessen their guilt. Others including Gates may have found a cure.

Cruelty, hypocrisy and outright fraud are symptoms that can’t be hidden or ignored. Yet they have not caused any significant mobilization of the masses to directly attack them and save America and the world. There is still time to act. Exactly how much time is hard to gauge.

The principles of problem solving apply. You have to first recognize the true problem, then determine potential solutions and mobilize others to implement an effective solution. You can’t attack the symptoms and expect any useful solution. You also are doomed to fail if you believe people are the main problem. Changing the people and not the system will fail. The solution must attack the system that perpetuates the problem, not the people who are responsible for running the system or it’s victims. Those who created the system or have the power to change the system will be the most resistant to change because they believe they are its biggest beneficiaries and have the most to lose. And because it’s a mental disease.

Once enough people agree that Corporate Cancer is the core of the problem, then, and only then, can sufficient people be mobilized to bring about a solution.

Americans throughout its history have stood up for social change, a mental challenge, and produced meaningful results. We have a chance to remind ourselves of the courage it has taken by watching tonight on the history channel at 8pm CT dramatization of Howard Zinn’s “The People Speak” inspired by his books “A People’s History” and “Voices of a People’s History.” Anthony Arnove, who produced and co-directed the show and co-edited the “Voices” book, says the featured voices “forged a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice” and “remind us never to take liberty for granted.”

Author, historian, teacher, activist, and now television producer Dr. Howard Zinn is a man on a mission. He wants Americans to recognize the power of protest in shaping their country’s history. Those of us who want to attack Corporate Cancer need to be inspired because the fight will be by far the most difficult in American history.

America is far from the leader on climate change. We clearly need to be a significant player. Regardless of how well we lead or follow, we must become the leader in the Corporate Cancer fight.

The diseased are determined to wipe out the middle class and make everyone slaves to everyday survival so they are suckers to propaganda, distortions and lies. David Michael Green in a Common Dreams article yesterday said about the jobless recovery and plight of the middle class that “this will be the latest and greatest click yet of what is the most massive ratcheting project of the last three decades, perhaps the most wholesale redistribution of wealth in human history.”

The masses better wake up before it is too late. Those of us who are awake, better get busy following the example of the American voices we can listen to and be inspired by tonight.

FOOTNOTE: While I recognize that there is no such thing as a mental “disease” and the proper term should be illness, somehow “illness” doesn’t describe the insidious manner this disease spreads. It infects people more rapidly than any illness could so I purposely chose “disease.”