Tuesday, April 22, 2008

FORWARD

This post is written in response to the post M-R made
yesterday. Buckle-Up, M-R...We cannot be consummed by
discouragement and disillusionment. I was momentarily
taken back with one word you used, "vent". Over the past
24 hours your statement has been continually with me and
caused much reflection on many of your posts and on many
of your comments to my comments. I have been frustrated
mentally about your apparent unwillingness to deeply
discuss and help define a positive way forward.Your use
of the word "vent" though helps me to understand what your
position is today and what it has been yesterday. I want
to suggest we become futurists. That means to me that to
some degree "venting" has to be given the heave-ho.
"venting" conjures up an escape mechanism. It describes a
way to let steam out of a compressed chamber before it explodes;
it was the westward movement of the US which let the malcontents,
"strike for the tall timber". There is a vent above the kitchen
stove. It seems to me "venting" when applied to humans is more
emotional. It's a way of expressing our anger and then continuing
on as before. I know mentally that is not you. I have even
expressed it as striking out for Costa Rica, Canada, and lately
leaving for Austria. I think, however, we both realize that we
are bound by tradition and family to cast our bucket down where
we are.

You wrote, "the revolution won't happen here in America." Lets
remember that the Founding Fathers were told the same. They were
opposed by 66% of British Colonial America and the most powerful
military establishment the world had seen to that time and even
beyond. "Revolutions" occur when the middle-class joins and supports
the intelligentsia(I see that sentiment in M-D's remarks on the
situation in France.) We need to keep in mind that the shortest nerve
in the human body is that nerve which runs from the hip pocket or the
purse to the brain! Do you not think that Washington and the Founding
Fathers were not "underwhelmed by the lack of outrage"? Yet, they
went on. Washington didn't even know at times if any one would show
up to fight that it was so dire.

I want to encourage you and others to stop wringing our hands, saying
woe is us, there is no way to turn this around. "Venting", while
important, needs to be coupled with a way out, a plan of action. We
need to define the real issue(s) and a strategy to create the
"revolution at the ballot box". We need to organize and find other
like people. I think that I have the theoretical framework of such a
program. However, I am a voice crying in the wilderness. We need to
get off our pallet, pick it up, and try to make a difference. We're
not ready to cash our chips in yet. A thesis of a return to true
Constituional government is a necessity. I hear your discouragement in
the word "vent". I understand it. We need to understand, however,
that discouragement is encouraged by the ruling authorities, the establishment,
the elites. The encouragement of discouragement defeats those who
want to change the system. It is to dissuade those who want to create a
'more perfect union.' For the religious among us, it is said that
discouragement is the primary weapon of the devil. On the otherhand, we
should think of that famous portrait of Washington Crossing the Delaware
with his rag-tag, barefoot soldiers to take on the professional Hessian
army. Who won? Another remainder is that early protest song in the late
50s or early 60s where a ram needed water to live, but there was a dam in
the way...to paraphrase the lyrics, "that silly ole ram butting a dam, oops
they goes another million kilowatt dam." Just might be our time to rise and
shine.....

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