This Web Blog was haphazardly produced without using Spell Check one danged time. We like it that way.

Smirked because he was making reference to what I have written here and at the old World's Magazine. I was reminded that Thomas Jefferson, a refined and gentle man, quite cosmopolitan, would likely have been called a revolutionary in the halls of the British Parliament during his time. It struck me that part of the reason that appellation might have been applied to Jefferson, Franklin and others was because they could recognize the madness of King George III and it behooved many of the King's subjects to ignore that madness.

When one considers the amount of inbreeding among the European aristocracy of the era, it is not at all surprising that they should produce a few maniacs, let alone a pig with wings.

You see, there is a tendency among many of us to believe that once someone has risen to the position of leader that it is ill-mannered or disloyal to subject them to criticism or objective scrutiny. Some people believe that a leader, by dint of being leader, deserves unthinking support. I do not.

I am reminded by history, especially the history of empires, that mania among leaders and rulers is not an exception. Those who believe that rulers are always rational must be either ignorant of or have forgotten about Caligula and Nero - let alone Hitler. I often think, whimsically, of Caligula returning to the Roman Senate and chastising them for not arranging a triumph for him after he had "conquered" Neptune, the god of the Sea, and showing them the treaure he had wrested from the god, a sack of sea shells. So much for the infallibility of leaders.

Nonetheless, here in the United States, as in other countries, if you take a critical or rational look at the choices and policies of leaders, you are immediately labeled either dissident or revolutionary.

BUT facts will continue to speak for themselves and the truth will out.

Those Presidents prior to the Nixon era, which I mark as the beginning of the imp erial presidency, though they chafed at the bit - were faced with constraints that helped to keep some semblance of a republican form of government intact. After Nixon, the power grab of the executive branch of our government was in full effect and has continued unabated.

Concurrently, two significant consequences have resulted in this country:

1. The legislative branch of our government has become dominated - if not over-run - by millionaires and lawyers or millionaire lawyers who become nearly un-removable street-walkers for corporate lobbyists. The judicial branch of our government has become little more than a political tool of those appointing them in order in enforce ideological perspectives rather than pay any heed to the document all officials swear an oath to protect and defend.

   In short, the very notion of representative (of the people) government has been subordinated to the representation of the plutocracy.




2. Perhaps not so coincidentally, since the Nixon inauguration of the imperial presidency, the middle class in the United States has been on a diminishing trajectory.

   Check the economic indicators yourself. Since the early 1970s, the middle class in the United States has been in a state of decline.

   President after President has preached the gospel of "free trade" and catered more to Wall Street than Main Street - with the full consent of the chambers of the legislative branch of government - and American jobs have dried up and moved overseas, inner cities have been devastated, unions have been busted and reduced to irrelevancy, family farms have been replaced by so-called agribusiness and the national infrastructure has deteriorated to the point of being laughable.

If seeing this clearly is a sign of being a revolutionary then I am happy of the appellation.

You will not, of course, find this kind of analysis in the Mouthpiece Media (MM). Not because it is too complex to grasp - it is not - nor because it is not well-known but because it presents us with an unpleasant truth.

That truth is that we have all been being sold down the river for decades now, sometimes with our own complicity in the process by means of accepting jingoistic or packaged slogans, "expert" advice and fear. Whichever tactic was used was used to suit the moment. The result was, nonetheless, always the same: we abdicated the responsibilities of an involved citizenry in deference to feeling good. In the process, we surrendered liberty for comfort and security: the coward's way out.

Why sacrifice anything when I can stroll through the mall?

Foreign terrorists attack our country and kill thousands of our citizens? How should we respond? According to the President of the United States, we should go shopping. Yeah, that will show them. That's a completely rational response to evil.

These are only a few thoughts on my mind this morning as I think about our country. Another Jeremiad, I suppose, that you were likely not expecting. Sometimes I feel the need to get these thoughts out to you, in the hope of provoking your own critical thinking and analysis. I certainly welcome your comments.

Eyes on Africa

24 January 2008: I'd like to begin by HIGHLY RECOMMENDING you check out the first of our 2-part series on the background and current situation in chatoic and suffering Kenya right now, a Special Report from G21: The World's Magazine alumnae MORAA GITAA. It's well worth your consideration, especially since the Mouthpiece Media here in the States is doing so little in-depth reporting on the situation.