Facing our Fathers

They are going to do it. Never you mind that 90% of the people of the US do not want a bailout package. Speaking figuratively, Americans are running through the town square with torches and pitchforks. Our government has effectively given us the finger, looked down their noses at us, and said, "Go back to work, peon! We know what is best for the country and we will do as we please." What's worst of all is that they have done this for YEARS! Yet, whenever election time rolls around we listen to the talking heads on television, radio, and the newspaper and let them form our opinions *for* us. Election after election, we wonder why we get the same scum-sucking losers time and time again!

I am stunned. I shouldn't be, because I've seen this coming for awhile. I sit here and wonder how we could have fallen this far. We sit on our butts and shake our heads at the latest coc aine-addled Hollywood celebrity and what atrocity she's committed towards her children while our own children are parked out behind the closed-down Mega-mart doing their best to test out the springs of the latest pinnacle of Detroit engineering that makes a shoddy attempt at innovation by squeezing one more mile per gallon out of gasoline.

The first internal combustion engine was designed by Francois Issac de Rivaz of Switzerland in 1807. It is now 2008. How can any moderately sane person believe that in two hundred and one years of technological innovation we cannot design something better?

By the way...that same car that is parked behind the abandoned store was given to a spoiled rotten kid on his/her sixteenth birthday. They can't even be bothered to get even a part time job to pay for his or her own car insurance! We let our children run rampant because we want them to like us, rather than acting as parents should and do what is best for them.

What has changed? Growing up, I did stupid things. I did things for which I should have done time. If I was caught, I was punished. I won't lie to you. My parents beat the hell out of me growing up. It wasn't until recently that I came to a realization. I deserved every single one. Now, I thank them for it. I am a better person for it.

Meanwhile, we sit at our kitchen table mulling over the latest stack of "0% APR! Low monthly payment!" offers wondering how we can afford to pay for the next toy that will sit parked out in the yard like a gleaming albatross 'round our necks so that the Joneses' will envy us and say, "We wish we could be like *them!* We are too shallow to realize that Mr. and Mrs. Jones are sitting down and doing the same thing that we are doing; they wonder how *they* are going to pay for their next toy!

Let's not mention that the banks that financed that new jet ski, swimming pool, or bass boat are making poor financial gambles in the name of earning more worthless fiat currency so that they can buy their own shiny toys so that *their* peers can envy *them.* If those gambles fail, no worries. They'll just get the American taxpayer to bail them out, forcing the "cartel" known as the Federal Reserve to borrow *more* money to keep the economy afloat. Not only will they get more money, but when they step down they get a nice bonus for the "hardship" of having to quit their multi-millon dollar per year job!

Every April 15th, hard-working Americans are robbed at gunpoint of up to half or more of their salaries, only to pay the interest on the money the Cartel has had to borrow to keep the farce going just a little while longer. HALF! One of the overwhelming reasons for the American Revolution was "no taxation without representation." Well, guess what, America? We are no longer being represented! When such an overwhelming percentage of the population informs our government of our opinion and they ignore us, we are no longer being represented.

What is happening, and why is it happening? In case you have not yet realized, I will inform you. The answer to the $64,000 question is “power.” What do men and women that have more money than they could possibly ever spend desire? Power. They want more control. Lord Acton said in 1887 that, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." The powers that be in the upper echelons of American society are so utterly terrified that the possibility that they no longer will be able to assert their will upon those below them that they are willing to do anything to retain that power, including destroying the economy of an entire country.

Like all tyrants, the harder they clench their fists the more grains will slip through their fingers.

Forty-one men are spinning in their graves right now. They are: George Washington, John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King, William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamilton, William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, George Read, Gunning Bedford Jr., John Dickinson, John Hancock, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom, James McHenry, Dan of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll, John Blair, James Madison Jr., William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh WIlliamson, John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler, William Few, Abraham Baldwin, and William Jackson.

Do any of those names sound familiar? They should. They are the men who risked asset confiscation, prison, and execution to give you what you have thrown away! They are the men that added their signature of approval to the Constitution of the United States of America. My faith tells me that there is an afterlife, a Heaven and a Hell. I tremble in fear at the prospect that I have to face the disapproving gaze of those forty-one men and hang my head in shame for allowing their creation to become. They created a more perfect Union, and we have allowed it to fail. Through apathy, greed, and sloth, we have taken what was given to us on a silver platter and allowed to be corrupted so badly that it is no longer recognizable from the form that it once was.

It is time to do what they did. Throw the tea overboard! I am not advocating armed revolution. Such actions rarely end for the better; Coup de etat usually ends up having the inverse effect that the revolutionaries intend. Our own Revolution was the exception to the rule. It has been said that there are three “boxes” of society, the soap box, the ballot box, and the ammo box. It is not yet time to reach for the third box, America. I pray that it will never be. Americans, for all our pretend civility, are a brutal people. Such consequences would be so terrible that words cannot even begin to describe the horror that would result from that action. There is still time. Work from within.

Our own Declaration of Independence states: “…that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

We have a choice, America. Our government has become destructive of those Ends. We can go back to sleep like good little subjects or we can take a cue from the 1976 film Network. We can open our windows and scream to the heavens, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” We will *not* be ignored any longer. We will no longer have our intelligence insulted by doublespeak and false claims of reform.

I just hope that we, as Americans, can claw our way out of the chasm that they are digging for us and prove that we can overcome this stronger than ever before.

John C. Gutierrez, Jr.
“Ragin Cajun”
September 28, 2008

if you want a revolution, everyone must vote for Nadar...promise you things will go about heads when democrats and republicans can fix this solution other than being in power...

No one is doing anything because it isn't as serious, yet.

From one "Ragin' Cajun" to another, bravo monsieur! Ca c'est bon!
Star & flag for you!

We've allowed ourselves to be mesmerized by the glitter of vacuous celebrity scandals rather than seeking out truth & wisdom...we push ourselves to the breaking point, living in relentless pursuit of "stuff" & entertainment &, rather than consuming only what's necessary.

It's time to wake up...reexamine our purpose, reexamine our "needs," reexamine our priorities.

Ezzi in St. Martinville

Netwarrior,

I am Canadian, and as such the events happening in USA don't directly affect me, but will have an impact, and I couldn't agree more with your post. In general, people seem to have gone mad, and the important issues, and tough decisions have been ignored. S+F to you Sir. Well Done.