Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Revolution? Yes We Can!





This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their Constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.

--Abraham Lincoln


Not a huge fan of using quotes usually. I think it’s kind of hacky. If you are going to write something and can’t illustrate the point effectively yourself; don’t write at all! (Some of you just said…well then stop typing!)

Once in a while however, a good quote can really knock your thinking from one of myopic indoctrination to one of clarity.

Americans have become so influenced by the deluge of information and misinformation thrown down at us like so much offal over the last 150 years, that we have lost sight of who we are and how this country is supposed to work. The bulk of Americans no longer see themselves as We the People, but as Us the Powerless.

Think about it hard. The last time you got screwed by Bank of America, or the DMV or Wal-Mart, etc; what did you do? You probably screamed like hell up to a certain level of management and then gave up regardless of how truly pissed you were; chalking up whatever egregious indignation you suffered to the inability to fight such a behemoth of an organization. Of course, it’s true that for one individual it is virtually impossible to “fight City Hall” as it were.

But with a coalition, Americans can “fight City Hall”, or Bank of America, or Wal-Mart or whomever. That’s how our country was built. We are not powerless unless we make ourselves powerless and that is exactly what we have done.

This is why when I hear someone scoff at the idea of revolution my blood boils over.

Talk of revolution usually elicits two responses:

1. Abject revulsion; as the word Revolution to most liberals has become synonymous to drunken, inbred ramblings of racist redneck hicks propagated by a love of hell raising and hatred for authority in general. Liberals believe that anyone who even thinks of revolution to be clearly devoid of any semblance of intellect whatsoever. Revolutionists are in effect, dangerous ignorant extremists to most Liberals.
2. To conservatives and moderates, the idea seems fantastic, but impossible to achieve given the size and ingrained infrastructure of our current Government. The prospect just seems so damn daunting.

To the first group, my response would be: you are the truly ignorant amongst us.

Are you implying that Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Ben Franklin et al, were extremist dolts? Is it because you have become so fat and happy given the liberties these revolutionists fought for that you couldn’t possibly fathom any other mode of operation? Are we now to be a country that merely opines rather than takes action towards the betterment of their own people’s destinies? Or, shall we allow the Government to do that for us?

Liberals are not patriots. Oh, not by a long shot. They have no problem taking and taking and bitching about how little they receive for doing nothing and how stupid everyone else is. They offer solutions in which they have no intention of helping to achieve. Their raison d’ĂȘtre is perpetuating cradle to grave government reliance.

These are the same people who have labeled the Tea Party folks an ignorant mob of predominantly white-faced miscreants looking to shore up their 2nd Amendment rights. Clear and utter bullshit. Tea Partiers are not the problem, they are doing what they can to showcase a growing viewpoint: American Government as we know it does not work!

To Conservatives and Moderates: I would beg look back to the beginning when Britain’s Goliath-like grip was broken by a rag tag, ill equipped group of patriots who were short on resources but long on belief in the power of regular people and the desire for a good quality of life unencumbered by Government. This should be the very inspiration we need to begin a real change, not the crap Lord Falderal sold the nation last year. The first American Revolution was a seemingly impossible undertaking: fighting the formidable British Empire. But they did it and so can we. Any nay saying on the subject is bilge.

The difference between now and Revolutionary times is there were real leaders then. Now, we have nothing but trained rhetoric specialists and lawyers with aspirations and personal agendas. Any idiot with a team of newly minted college English majors sporting laptops and a teleprompter can get into office regardless of their experience in real life.

There was also a more pure distribution of information; no Internet, or biased media poisoning the minds of voters into thinking things are not what they really are and that the citizenry are in essence controlled by the Government and not vice versa. Sure, there were fewer people to get the word out to, but at least the voting public could be confident that information looked something like the Truth.

Today, the well has been poisoned. I know very intelligent people who take the word of CNN, MSNBC and even FOX as gospel and vote accordingly. Mindless. There is no initiative to seek the real truth since it is just easier to take the word of whoever the flavor of the week media correspondent is and go with that.

Seldom will you find me agreeing with Sarah Palin, but she is right on point with the media. Amazing things can be done through editing and camera angles as well as selective choices of dialog to use in any media package be it audio or video. They have the power to make an idiot look like a genius and a genius look like an idiot. Ask John Stewart, that’s how he makes a living. We have become a sound bite society and we use these clever edits to choose our so-called leaders.

We have let this system run on autopilot for way too long and are paying the piper for it now. The United States Government and Capitalism as a whole is a rudderless ship careening towards the reefs of destruction. The near miss of Lord Falderal’s hapless healthcare reform is the perfect example. Despite an overwhelming amount of people who were against it, it would have passed both Houses because our leaders have no clue what their constituents really want. And, for those of you who see some sort of conspiracy by the right wing that claim Falderal is tinkering with Socialism; here’s a clue, he is and it is no conspiracy.

This collective legislative scum could care less about the people they represent. They care only about their own careers and their places in history.

Thankfully the people of Massachusetts spoke, sending a shot across the bow of rank and file legislators all over the Nation. Now the House healthcare plans will have to be scrapped and retooled. The message is clear; the people are angry and will not be pushed around any longer.

Massachusetts was indeed a game changer, and it should be used as an example of what can be accomplished when people get together, express how they are feeling and turn those feelings into action. If the aforementioned topics in addition to the Massachusetts election don’t get you fired up, how about this: the Supreme Court's latest ruling on Campaign Finance? It not only lets the foxes into the henhouse, it also filets and breads the chickens.

It’s time to find real leaders regardless of what party they come from; strong leaders that can speak directly to the people at their own levels. We haven’t had a real leader since Teddy Roosevelt was President. In short, we need a real revolution. Not the kind where we forcefully take over the government, but the kind with a long-term strategy devised to dump this President and the entire legislature. We the people must take over the government and get back to where we came from.

It is also important to realize that revolution is not about throwing out the party in control and replacing it with the other party. It’s about rethinking the whole structure. It’s about replacing the morons who are running things from the Executive Branch down. They no longer represent real people; they represent party hacks and special interest groups. If Massachusetts didn’t illustrate that point, I don’t know what else would.

Can we do it in the next three years? Yes, we can; only this time for real.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
--Thomas Jefferso
n

9 comments:

  1. You seem to be forgetting the 'REVOLUTION' of the sixties.. maybe you have myopia.

    ReplyDelete
  2. To Anonymous:

    Uh, yeah...that one went real well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The problem is and will always be (until we change it) MONEY. Our current leaders are out of touch because they have been PAID TO BE. I'd love to be the next President (I'm eligible in 2015), or the next Senator (I'd be replacing Isakson; (R) Georgia), but due to the current nature of the beast, not having funding makes it pretty well impossible. It's very difficult for any current politician to get elected without acquiring some "evil" funding along the way. This is what has to change to get some real politicos in place.

    From the information I have, it costs $2500 in Georgia, just to get your name on the ballot, and that was last year, I can't imagine how much it will be this year. I plan on investing my own money to be on the ballot the November, regardless of whether or not I have any other campaign funds. I hope that someone out here in the great internet land would steer me into some proper "non-evil" funding sources as well, but I imagine I'll be referred to as the "mud-porter" because I didn't have enough funds to run a "grass-roots" campaign.

    If nothing else, wish me luck, and vote for me. I can only hope my lack of political experience will work to my advantage in these dark times.

    -Angry Unemployed Mechanic Pat from Georgia
    -William Patrick Angel
    -patrick@goodguysllc.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. The problem is and will always be (until we change it) MONEY. Our current leaders are out of touch because they have been PAID TO BE. I'd love to be the next President (I'm eligible in 2015), or the next Senator (I'd be replacing Isakson; (R) Georgia), but due to the current nature of the beast, not having funding makes it pretty well impossible. It's very difficult for any current politician to get elected without acquiring some "evil" funding along the way. This is what has to change to get some real politicos in place.

    From the information I have, it costs $2500 in Georgia, just to get your name on the ballot, and that was last year, I can't imagine how much it will be this year. I plan on investing my own money to be on the ballot the November, regardless of whether or not I have any other campaign funds. I hope that someone out here in the great internet land would steer me into some proper "non-evil" funding sources as well, but I imagine I'll be referred to as the "mud-porter" because I didn't have enough funds to run a "grass-roots" campaign.

    If nothing else, wish me luck, and vote for me. I can only hope my lack of political experience will work to my advantage in these dark times.

    -Angry Unemployed Mechanic Pat from Georgia
    -William Patrick Angel
    -patrick@goodguysllc.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pat,

    You are SO right! What upsets me is that in the face of an emergency like Haiti, Americans can come up with millions of dollars in private aid money. What about the emergency in our own country. Mainly, that our government is out of control and needs to be reigned in.

    There is so much money out there that could be used to fund a third or even fourth major party. Look at guys like Mike Bloomberg. All it would take is for one of those billionaires to get passionate about something and the money would take care of itself. Sad. It really is.

    Good luck in politics Pat. I got involved at very young age and I loved every minute of it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. US vs Them
    We have met the enemy and he is us....

    Devide & conquer

    or?

    A! arrest the emperor for INDECENT EXPOSURE

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."
    —Howard Zinn

    ReplyDelete
  8. The "revolutionaries of the 60's found that bombing the Pentagon and Police Stations made them hated criminals. Protesting "against the Man" didn't work.

    So what did they do? They licked their wounds and thought up a new strategy. They cut their hair, took a shower, put on a suit, and played the game. They found that the best way to BEAT "the Man" was to BECOME "the Man". Have you seen this administration? The list of names reads like Abbey Hoffman's address book.

    This being the case, conservatives should take a lesson from it and start playing the game BETTER. And WINNING. In the spirit of this post, I'll end with a quote:

    "Those who don't learn from history are damned to repeat it". -Unknown

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your blog begins well. I broke my rule of reading thoroughly before posting. A lot of myopia. Maybe embracing poverty for a empirical period to gain contrite perspective could possibly compell you to switch your game up. Awesome beginning until the misinformed out of genuine touch sewed it up. Single payer, government financial security for the truly powerless, and other 'socialistic' ---- it's a social situation that people who have NO clue about internment living with cause incredible disregard AND disrespect ---- humanitarian essentials need to be understood by the hypocritical. You are intelligent and a gifted writer.

    ReplyDelete

http://blogofirreverence.blogspot.com/2010/01/revolution-yes-we-can.html