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The Dire Straits Diaries -
Part Three: A Fearful Master
By Diane Harvey
merak@sedona.net
11-28-1

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- George Washington
 
 
Memorizing the quotation above is guaranteed to reinvigorate any momentarily lonesome advocate of freedom of expression. A man who knew exactly what he was talking about made this statement, so deftly exposing to view the basically volatile nature of all government. Anyone fully comprehending what Mr. Washington meant, and pointing out that his observation holds as true as ever, and then some, is of course now labeled a traitor to the currently presiding force. This tells us that the meaning of his words must give those in power icy night sweats, lest a significant number of citizens actually desire to understand the principles of our Republic. Original truth, discussed on the level it was meant in the first place, is now forbidden in public, on pain of crude retribution. All speeches from public officials incorporating any potentially disturbing materials from our Founding Fathers are handled with Hazmat protocols these days. Carefully sterilized quotations are removed from a level-4 containment facility to serve as decorative touches for stuffed shirts on suitably controlled occasions.
 
The majority of our fellow citizens are far too anxiously submissive these days to look into the actual meaning of their own political foundations. We are free to publicly worship at the tomb of the mummified remains, but any talk of resurrection is taken for outright insurrection. Only the most naïve would fail to miss the fact that understanding the meaning of our Constitution is now counted as directly subversive activity. At this rate it won't be long before the intellectual history of our country becomes classified information, available only on a need-to-know basis. A few hardened political veterans, who can be presumed to be immune to being infected by strange doubts, will be allowed to handle the original contagious materials. Others will have to believe it all means whatever they are told it means, or face severe legal penalties, social ostracism, penury, and a new life under the nearest underpass.
 
Our national conscience, long ailing and withering away from the exigencies of greed, has surrendered and given up the ghost at the first touch of hot and cold running bombast. We have descended nearly en masse to the realm where sound and fury, signifying emptily flapping lip service to democratic principles, more than suffices. Therefore we must not be too shocked at the spectacle of individual political conscience under attack by an army of threatening and terrified fools. We may even venture so far as to take heart in the very teeth of the spitting, snarling, and barking of our mean-spirited and desperately ignorant fellow citizens. These are, after all, people quite often trying to operate in seriously reduced personal moral and mental circumstances. Some simply are unable to think at all, and to be angry with those so afflicted is unjust. But many have chosen to protect their passionately unthinking attachment to their incomes, at the expense of their conscience- and then had to pretend to themselves that they didn't. The eventual results of this kind of bargain are not pleasant to contemplate.
 
No matter how many people slip and slide away into delusion and mass hysteria, there remains such a thing as deeper truth. Sane men and women have always understood this, and don't bother trying to befuddle themselves with rationalizations and excuses for their own confusion or poor behavior. If we seek truth, we find it, but in this as in all else, self-honesty is everything. We live in a society so congenitally dishonest that it has lost the desire to bother to distinguish deeper truth from the prevailing gusts of gas. Profit is King, Can't is Queen, and the majority stands guard ferociously over these, their very own shiny tin gods. Yet even this sick sad state of affairs cannot prevent individuals from pursuing the thread of reality at any time. And individual threads all lead to a common ground of mutual perception: thus many of us understand one another perfectly well, here in the midst of the droning blather of Orwellian outpourings. There is a basic state of inner sanity in which we still hold these truths to be self-evident, and no amount of caterwauling by the craven can alter it one whit.
 
Viewed in the light of conscience, the present stamping, snorting and angry red-eyed herd of national bullies constitutes a tragic disgrace to our beloved Republic. Yet we may rest assured of at least one mitigating fact. The eagle eye of the history has already accurately recorded each name and shabby deed for posterity's leisurely perusal. For the sake of a temporary cheap thrill in trying to intimidate men and women of conscience, these ignoramuses will reside ever after in ineradicable ignominy. People may make a mockery of themselves if they must, but despite their best efforts, they will never succeed in debasing the nature of freedom itself. The democratic process has been in extreme difficulties for some time, as anyone who really cares knows all too well. And now, suddenly, all effective democracy in action is being directly trampled on by a mob of foaming flunkies, whipped on by the career criminal element at the top of the government-military-corporate dung heap.
 
The very idea of government as the servant of the people, however troublesome, is so quaintly naïve at this point as to raise a grim little smile. The corrosive odor of pure irony arises from entertaining such a thought. It has been a long time since this all-powerful item called our government has been anything so tame, so controllable and so subject to our reforming zeal as a cantankerous servant. The government George Washington was describing was unimaginably far less bloated with sheer weight, and nowhere near as heavily armed with institutionalized secret powers as ours is. Government has metastasized far beyond those original relatively manageable outlines. The most fearful master has come into being here and now. These days the very concept of government crouches in the mind like a vast mythological beast, whose exact nature and composition is almost entirely hidden by mysteriously dense ground fogs. What is this fearsome near-invisible creature, with its demonstrably frightening powers and unquenchable appetite for ruinous decisions? We know very little these days about what our government really is or what it is doing. Behind the thick vaporous tissues of lies and the specious obstructions of weasel-born legalisms, a great intelligence is directed first and foremost toward obscuring its own operations from nosy citizens . In regard to the business of public understanding of the democratic process, it has long been understood by those wielding the power over our heads that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
 
Once upon a time a modest number of unusually brilliant and large-minded visionaries conceived of a wildly seditious and highly improbable idea for a form of government. Under this idealistic and admittedly highly experimental model, ordinary citizens played the central role in the overall decision-making processes, within the context of a legal climate ensuring broad personal freedoms. After a period of excruciatingly intense intellectual and moral struggle, accompanied by the inevitable extremes of physical misery and bloodshed, this miraculously inventive conception of self-government managed to become established. The United States of America came into being, based on the previously nearly unthinkable ideal of a national power structure owned and operated by the people themselves, on behalf of the welfare of the many rather than the few. Without question, this was the most advanced and potentially spiritually fruitful idea of socio-political relationships put into practice so far. Unfortunately, the citizens themselves have not proven to be unfailingly equally advanced and spiritually fruit bearing. There have been, and continue to be, periodic and near-fatal lapses of collective memory in the national conscience. The anticipated flaw in the original optimistic plan for self-rule was the possible failure of the many to actively and unselfishly participate in their own government. This flaw has emerged time and again, and each time it has, public understanding of democracy has dumbed itself down a notch and tottered on from there as if nothing had happened. As a people we are in a severely debilitated state from continually refusing to care just who is wielding what kind of force and calling it our government. We have too frequently succumbed to shivering fits in the face of our responsibilities, and cowered before the specter of our mad servant run amok, and bowed and scraped beneath the big black boots of stolen power.
 
Henry David Thoreau had a few starchy words to say about the lamentable tendency of the American people to assume this awkward and degraded position:
 
Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.
 
Yes, indeed- our collective indifference to truth is the direct result of our infamous streak of rank materialism: that well-known, perennially unexamined and fatal attachment to comfy lifestyle at any and all costs. Our national way is to gorge and glut, craftily peddled to the willfully ignorant as the righteous rewards of free enterprise . Scorning this truth has brought us to the unfettered lunacy of a world where greed is not only ignored but idolized, and infects the entire atmosphere. The idea behind the Constitution is certainly not that in order to exercise self-rule one must first be bought and paid for by Big Bother in his big business outfit. But the two powers of commerce and politics, meant to be as separate as humanly possible, have long ago fused into an unholy alloy. It is the man-made element which now covers the very ground we walk on as well. Our corporate-owned government has made any free individual participation in effective levels of national government practically out of the question. Theoretically, such an outrage to the principles of democracy might be overturned by the common united will of the indignant citizenry. But as it turns out, most citizens do not wish to be sidetracked in their personal pursuit of congenial lifestyles by any such tedious matters as participation in self-government. They leave these boring chores entirely to the ruinously expensive and therefore hopelessly corrupted elected officials, and to the senilely demented scheming of the major political parties. The rigors of self-government have been discovered to provide very little entertainment value, to be quite unprofitable if the spirit of the original intent is followed, and in short: to offer only hard work for no immediate tangible personal gain. The idealistic originators of such a form of government obviously thought touchingly highly of the ethical and intellectual potential of the average human being. At the same time they knew that the necessary sacrifices might not be forthcoming in the long run. They exactly what might go wrong, and they said so, at great length and with perfect clarity. They foresaw a distinct line of probability, and they left unmistakable warnings. The result is that the very meaning of their thoughts is now suffocating to death under the most effectively powerful taboo in our entire history.
 
At this point in time, The United States of America is a once-noble experiment that has at least temporarily sold itself into the slavery of hollow pretence, shored up by infuriated mass denials that it has done any such thing. Retaining the courtesy title of citizens , participating in mock elections, we have in reality become meaningless ciphers in an Empire of Armed Secrecy, entirely ruled from on high downwards. And lo and behold, this fake, illegally secretive, and greed-ridden government military corporation is now what is left standing between physical danger and ourselves. These same ghostly groups, whose driving motive has been the self-protection of all predatory powers-that-be, are suddenly charged with ensuring the material safety of everyone else as well. It is like finding oneself protected by a well-organized and extremely sophisticated Mafia family, from being killed outright by a rampaging murderous street gang. One is grateful but simultaneously wondering at the long-range ramifications, and the distinct likelihood of an endless string of payoffs to come. Further complicating matters in this inexact but heartfelt metaphor, the Mafia family in question employs most of the people in the town, and many of these ordinary citizens are essentially decent people whose main failing is the refusal to observe the oddly bulging suits and illegal activities of the bosses. Worse yet, the Mafia's military arm consists for the most part of large numbers of brave and unquestioningly patriotic youths who have never heard of any such thing as a criminal operation behind the scenes and behind their backs.
 
The enjoyment of those subjective and objective personal liberties that were the main object of this experiment in self-rule have long ago degenerated into subtle and blatant forced obedience to corporate government mercenaries. This basic fact of our debased political existence couldn't be more obvious, yet relative few of us are aware of it. On the contrary, the majority of citizens, whose similar lack of inner values nicely reflect and support this very condition, have found such a state of affairs wonderfully expedient. Thus have we have taken a number of steps toward enslavement, little by little and leaps by bounds, by trading the responsibilities of freedom for the glass beads of superficial comforts. And as a result, for the foreseeable future even worse has come to pass. The shameful consensus in our besieged Republic is that outside threat can only be met by equal and opposite internal force. The challenge to our physical security has been answered by dropping a bomb on the Constitution of the United States of America.
 

 
 
 
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