- "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
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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:
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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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